Her Husband’s Lover (37 page)

Mr Hill tapped his walking stick hard on the floor, signalling her to stop. Emma turned back to him reluctantly. ‘And who do you love? That’s what I should like to know,’ he asked.

Her nose prickled at the question. Memories she fought daily almost overwhelmed her. Emma stiffened her spine and pushed her shoulders back. ‘I should have thought that was perfectly apparent, given that I’ve spent so many weeks nursing him.’ She did love her husband, just not as her father meant.

Luckily, Lyle emerged from the bootroom at that very moment, upon his lips a thank-you to Grafton for his aid. He smiled when he saw her, which warmed her from inside and at least seemed to calm some of her father’s suspicions. She smiled back.

‘Yuletide,’ Mr Hill announced. ‘I’ll expect to see you both then. No excuses, unless it’s for a confinement.’

Maybe they’d come back, maybe they wouldn’t. Too much depended on what happened next. She was fair certain that a baby wouldn’t be it.

Lyle had grown thinner during the summer, so that his clothes fitted a little less well, and Drummond was no longer around to adjust them. His hair was cropped short. It had made it easier to tend while he lay bedridden, although it was just now starting to show a tendency to curl again.

Four times she had nearly lost Lyle during the night; three times she’d prayed that her life be forfeit in place of his; the last she time she’d sold her soul to the devil instead. She’d climbed onto the bed and lain beside Lyle, their bodies stretched out like two matchsticks, and she’d whispered to him about all the reasons he had to live. She’d recounted the paired vision of loveliness he and Darleston had made when their bodies were entwined. She’d told him how it felt to take Darleston’s cock inside her, and speculated how it would be between them if they all made love to one another at once. She’d touched him to show him how brave she’d become and how it would work.

Miraculously, the next morning Lyle woke. She wouldn’t pretend he’d been immediately hale and hearty. It’d been a long fight to get him back on his feet. Now, though his arm was whole and appeared to be healed, apart from a small ruddy gouge at the top, he was still handicapped. He could no longer hold things or form a tight grip. Sensation there was unreliable too. He didn’t always know when she was touching him.

Lyle held his arm stiffly as Grafton fastened up the buttons of his greatcoat. He still wore his injured arm out of the sleeve, though he no longer kept it bound in a sling.

‘Mr Hill, we really, really must be off. Your hospitality has been incomparable, but I can no longer abstain from seeing to my affairs. Things have to be dealt with, and I can no longer use this –’ Lyle lifted his injured arm ‘– as an excuse. Good day, sir.’ He gave a very formal bow, which Emma copied in the form of a curtsy.

‘Father. We’ll see one another soon. I’ll write to you, if I hear anything from Amelia.’ She thought he might cry as they made their way outside to the waiting carriage. She prayed he had Amelia back with him soon. Maybe she and Harry would give him the houseful of offspring he wanted. Mr Hill had always forgiven his youngest daughter in the past, and she knew he had a soft spot for Harry Quernow. As for Harry, he knew he’d made mistakes in his past, and he’d worked ridiculously hard to fix them. He now seemed to be doing very well for himself.

‘Free.’ Lyle pushed down the window and stuck his head outside to breathe in a lungful of air the moment they left Field House and turned into the lane. ‘I didn’t think he’d ever allow us to go. Now, have you managed to locate Darleston’s address?’

Emma delved into her pocket for the note she’d made of it. She’d written several letters of her own over the last few months, only to find their burnt remains in the library fire. Whatever offences her father had decided she’d made, he’d been determined to ensure she didn’t repeat them. This address was new, though, acquired in the last week through a network of servants. ‘Here it is. It’s a small cottage he’s taken in Derbyshire. Drummond is working for him.’

‘Excellent. Tap on the roof and have the driver take us straight there.’

Emma hesitated in carrying out the instruction. ‘I thought you meant to write first.’

Lyle took the card from her and transferred it to his injured hand before he pulled her firmly to his side. ‘I’ve written to Darleston before. He’s abysmally bad at sending any sort of reply. No, I think the best thing would be to face him and ask him straight out what he wants. That way, at least we’ll know.’

‘Yes,’ she said meekly. Lyle was right, of course, but, God help them, what if Darleston said no?

* * *

Tangled thickets of wildflowers bordered Grindley Grange, the riverside cottage Darleston had hired. A climbing rose straddled an archway that led onto the driveway, from which one gained one’s first real sight of the house as the road sloped down towards the river. It was not as grand as Field House, though it dated from a similar era. Nor was it a property one expected to find inhabited by a lord.

‘Why is he here?’ Emma asked, as they waited for the carriage steps to be folded down.

The bulk of the building was formed of thick slabs of grey stone, to which a more recent red-brick façade had been added. The grounds too were modest, bordered all around by steep slopes and farmland. There were no near neighbours save the occasional stray sheep.

‘Why do you think?’ Lyle replied. He descended ahead of her, and then used his good arm to help her down. ‘To hide, of course.’ Whether he meant as a result of the ever circulating rumours or from society mammas eager to introduce him to their daughters, he didn’t explain. Either, she supposed, might induce a man to hide.

She let go of Lyle’s hand once her feet were safely on the track. How quickly she’d come to depend on these little shows of affection between them. Not that she accepted them from everyone, only from Lyle and sometimes Amelia. Occasionally, she wondered how she’d managed to get through life before their comfort. ‘Do you think he’s mourning his wife?’

‘No.’ Lyle loosed a little laugh, which did nothing to ease the tension wrought by their arrival and magnified by the isolation of the property. ‘Emma, he hated her. She did nothing kind the entire length of their marriage. She branded him as her property and cared not at all how he felt about that.’

‘Do we knock?’

There was no need, for Drummond emerged from the cottage. He immediately hurried over to greet them, and to instruct their driver and footman about the disposition of their luggage. ‘You look well, sir,’ he said to Lyle, having ushered them both into Grindley’s modest hallway. He took her pelisse, and then helped Lyle shed his greatcoat. Drummond’s gaze lingered over the fact that Lyle still wore his frockcoat with one arm outside the sleeve. He gave a tut of displeasure, but made no further remark. ‘Milord isn’t expecting you, is he?’

‘Isn’t he?’ Lyle asked.

Drummond sucked in his cheeks and gave a swift shake of his head. ‘No, I don’t think so, sir.’

‘Then perhaps you’d better announce us.’

‘Very good. If you’ll just wait a moment, Mr Langley. Mrs Langley, there’s a chair behind you if you need to rest.’

Emma accepted the chair by the bootrack, which seemed to house as many walking sticks as items of footwear. She had wished so ardently for this moment over the summer months, but now trepidation made her stomach clench. Why had they not addressed him in a letter first? It was so much easier to speak one’s mind on paper, although she understood it was not always wise to do so. Letters could go astray. Folk other than the recipient could read them and make light of the contents. Still, she had to question if they’d done the right thing in coming here without giving him due warning.

He might not want them here. Perhaps he was hiding from them.

The house smelled of linseed oil and dried flowers that had been set there to mask the mustiness of long disuse. The windows in the entrance hall were small and let in hardly any light. They were still mired with cobwebs and grime around the edges. She didn’t think Darleston had been in residence all that long. It wouldn’t surprise her to find several of the rooms still masked with drapes.

Drummond returned within seconds to show them the way. He threw open a door onto a lovely sunny parlour that overlooked the river. Here at least the furnishings were clean. The walls were painted an appealing yellow, giving everything a homely glow. The room reminded her strongly of the Dog Parlour that she’d made her own at Field House, though there was a stag’s head set above the fire instead of a pompous portrait.

Emma’s hands flew to cover her mouth as she set eyes upon Darleston. It had been midsummer when they’d last seen one another. He’d dipped his head and kissed Lyle upon the cheek before her father arrived and the doctors set about probing the hole in Lyle’s arm. He had not said goodbye to her in any way. Nor did he greet her familiarly now.

In appearance, he hadn’t changed from how she remembered him. Red hair, the same burnished shade as the copper kettle that sat upon her kitchen stove, still framed his narrow face. The strands had grown a fraction longer, so that the ends bobbed just short of his shoulders. His clothes, too, still enticed her to reach out and touch.

Darleston’s gaze strayed first to Lyle and then to her. ‘Will you take a seat?’

How different this was from the way he and her husband had greeted one another at the start of the summer. She’d looked on them then as they damn near winded one another, and cursed the closeness that excluded her. Now she longed for such a display of devotion, so that it could unravel all the knots that held their affection in check.

Lyle prodded her into a seat beside him on the sofa facing the unlit fire.

‘How is your –’ Darleston began.

‘We heard about the funeral.’

‘– arm?’

Both men settled back, neither giving a response to the questions asked. Lyle crossed his legs before him, an action Darleston soon duplicated. They gazed at one another, but without truly seeing each other, almost as if their images were warped like a reflection in a pond beset with ripples.

‘There’s a little stiffness.’ Lyle hitched his right shoulder to rub at the wound. ‘The feeling’s returning slowly.’ He bent and stretched his fingers, but Emma knew he didn’t have the same degree of sensation in them that he’d possessed before.

Darleston’s jaw relaxed a fraction. ‘I’m glad you’re healing.’

‘Are you?’

Lyle’s response brought back all the tension that had just been released.

‘Of course,’ Darleston insisted. His grey eyes opened wide, and he leaped out of his chair.

Lyle stood too. ‘No, you misunderstand me. I meant, how are you? Not to imply that you weren’t glad. Have you let go of her memory yet, Robert?’

The look in his eyes – lightning meshed with thunder – suggested ire at the question. ‘I don’t think of her. Other matters have occupied my thoughts.’

Us, Emma hoped, but he in no way implied that.

‘You’ll stay for dinner?’ Darleston insisted. ‘It’s no trouble. And the night too, considering the hour. There are no inns locally that could accommodate you.’ He rang the servants’ bell and passed messages to Drummond for his housekeeper and cook. ‘I insist on it.’

* * *

Darleston splashed his face with water. He prayed he knew why they had come here, but dared not believe in it. He’d waited months without hearing a word, and now they were here without announcement or warning.

He dressed formally for dinner, in a claret-coloured coat and cream breeches. His waistcoat had enough embroidery to be considered a tapestry. Still, it was to good effect. Presenting himself at his best helped him hide his tumultuous feelings. It was impossible not to hope, when they had turned up upon his doorstep, yet he hardly dared to let his thoughts stray in such a fanciful direction.

Emma was in the dining room when he went back downstairs. She’d changed into a lilac satin dress that he’d never seen before. The waistline rode high and tightened just beneath her breasts, which for once were not completely covered by a glorified handkerchief. Instead, their curve was provocatively framed by a spray of lace. Sadly, the sides of her gown were crumpled, as though she’d been twisting the satin. Indeed, when she saw him, her hands flew to those very spots.

She looked well. Delightfully so. Her chestnut hair held a glossy sheen and hadn’t been so severely tied as she’d previously been inclined to wear it, but her expression was one of measured anguish.

‘Are you well?’ he asked.

‘Very.’

‘Why did you come?’

Her fists made further creases in the satin. ‘Don’t you know? Can’t you work it out?’

He knew what he hoped, but didn’t dare speak it.

Emma was braver. ‘We needed to know how things stood. Whether there was space for us still in your heart. We’ve heard nothing from you. You left without a goodbye.’

Darleston squeezed his fists tight to stop himself grabbing hold of her. He longed to shake her and tell her it wasn’t his fault. If only he could show her the depth of his feeling, and how much it had cost him not to make an unholy fuss. He’d kept away out of loyalty to his family, who couldn’t stomach any more disgrace, and because he didn’t want to draw scandal to Lyle and Emma’s doorstep.

‘Not out of choice. Your father –’ he barked.

‘I know what he did.’ Emma cut him off. ‘This isn’t about that, it’s about us, and what we want now. It doesn’t matter what my father thinks.’

He took a step forward, eager to touch her, but restrained himself, thinking that perhaps he had forfeited that right. ‘What do you want, Emma?’

Her eyebrows lifted slightly, and her delicate, kissable lips parted. He watched her tongue flick over her lower lip, leaving a thread of moisture. ‘You. Is that not obvious? I want what we had before.’ Her eyes blazed with inner warmth.

Darleston bowed his head. ‘Things changed when Lucy pulled the trigger.’
Many, many things.

‘Yes,’ she agreed, nodding, yet with a note of enquiry in her voice.

‘Changed so that you no longer want us?’ The question came not from Emma but from Lyle. His soft voice reached them from the adjoining room. Both Darleston and Emma turned in time to see him approach. At first he lingered in the gloom at the end of the sideboard, so that shadows masked his expression. ‘Mayhap you don’t care to associate with a man maimed by your wife.’