Her Only Desire (37 page)

“Why should I be? I talk to myself all the time.”

He cast her a fond smile.

“Poor old thing,” Georgie said in compassion, glancing out the window, though Mother Absalom was no longer in sight. She couldn't help wondering if the cool look in Ian's eyes suggested the possibility that Mother Absalom might have helped deliver Matthew—and failed to save Catherine from the childbirth fever. “Maybe we should stop to say good morrow. She's very old. Perhaps she needs a ride.”

“Don't let her frail look fool you,” he countered. “She's a sly old piece of leather, I assure you, full of vinegar. When your cousins and I were small, we were scared to death of her.”

Georgie chuckled. “Really? You and all my mighty Knight cousins, terrified of an old woman?”

He nodded sagely. “We were sure she was a witch.”

“Maybe she is,” she shot back, but Matthew's wide-eyed blanch at this possibility roused a laugh from her. “Oh, poppet, I'm only jesting.”

“You see?” Ian said in a reasonable tone. “Wherever she's going, she can fly on her broom.”

“You are bad.”

“No,” he murmured, giving her a smoky glance, “I'm merely in a hurry. I'm eager to get to my bed.”

“Are you tired, Papa?”

“Mm,” he answered, staring at Georgie.

Her cheeks heated even as she sent him a pointed smile that chided archly,
Not in front of the boy, my wicked husband.

The carriage slowed as they arrived at the towering wrought-iron gates of Ian's property, monogrammed with an ornate letter G that matched the one embla-zoned on the carriage door. A ruddy-cheeked fellow manning the little gatehouse came forth to admit them, and offered a cheerful tip of his hat as they drove by.

Matthew waved to him excitedly.

“Oh, the grounds are beautiful beyond compare!” Georgie exclaimed, staring out at the picturesque clusters of bushes and shady stands of trees.

“Capability Brown,” Ian said.

“What's that?”

He smiled. “Never mind. Just enjoy them.”

“Look at the huge weeping willow tree, it's magnificent! That is a willow, isn't it?”

“Yes.”

“We don't have them in India, but I've always heard about them. Oh, and what's that? That white thing beyond the trees. A garden folly?”

“No, that is Catherine's monument,” he answered in an even tone.

Georgie looked over at him in surprise.

“Mother's gone to heaven with the angels,” Matthew informed her in a sage tone.

Georgie turned to the boy with a startled glance, then smoothed his hair tenderly out of his eyes. She could feel Ian staring at her, and when she looked at him again, some dark shadow lurking in the depths of his green eyes warned her that this wasn't going to be easy.

But it was too late to turn back now, nor would she.

The carriage progressed down a hill, then up a gentle rise, and as the trotting horses bore them around the graceful stone fountain in a cloud of dust, the house came into view ahead.

Georgie's heart beat faster as she peered out the window at her new home. Large and white and imposing, the house had sharp, clean lines carved with pristine symmetry and neoclassical precision. It was built on a grand scale, the lofty, columned entrance looming at the top of a wide flight of stairs.

She glimpsed the uniformed staff hurrying into their places to greet them. The servants formed a neat row near the porte-cochere, where their chariot presently glided to a halt.

Georgie was used to managing a household. In India, indeed, she had run two for Papa, and had overseen a number of charitable homes, as well. But she could admit to a trace of nervousness at the prospect of meeting all her new domestics. Ian might love her more deeply than he had his first wife, but that didn't mean the staff might not resent her out of loyalty to their dead mistress. No matter, Georgie thought. She was determined to win them over for the sake of creating a harmonious home environment.

Ian handed her out of the coach and soon began the introductions, starting with the tall, gaunt butler, Townsend. Housekeeper, cook, footmen and maids, grooms and groundskeepers, all greeted her with humble courtesy.

When Ian presented her to them, in turn, Georgie gave them a small speech she had prepared for her new household, giving them her thanks for their welcome and expressing her confidence that they would all get on quite happily.

Afterward, she went down the row meeting them individually, smiling at their bows and curtsies as each one stated what posts they kept in the house. While she conversed with this one and that in brief measure, Ian went over to stare with an appalled look at the huge mound of climbing yellow roses that were flourishing so richly by the wall.

“My God!” he said, looking up to survey how their thick blooms and thorny vines had surmounted their trellis, had grown up around the first-floor window, and seemed to be trying to swallow the house.

At his low utterance, Georgie looked over. “Gracious, what are you feeding those roses?” she cheerfully asked the head gardener. “You must give me your secret. They're stunning.”

“They're ghastly,” Ian muttered.

She looked at him in surprise. “Why on earth do you say that? They're roses, my lord. They're beautiful.”

“They're horrid. Eh, the smell is choking, they're covered in thorns, and drawing swarms of bees. They're a damned hazard!”

“Oh, they're not so bad. Come on, you.” Laughing, she slipped her gloved hand through the crook of his arm and tugged him affectionately toward the door, resting her head on his arm.

The way she touched him was not lost on the silent servants, though Georgie did not notice the tacit glances they exchanged.

“Mama! Papa! Wait for me!” Matthew came running after them with Robin scampering at his heels.

Ian followed with his hands politely clasped behind his back as his butler gave her a thorough tour of her new home. Georgie eyed her husband now and then in suspicion as Townsend led them from room to room.

What was wrong with him? she wondered. He really was acting a wee bit strange. She still did not understand his quarrel with the roses. Perhaps he just didn't like being here, plain and simple. Perhaps old memories assailed him here in the home he had shared with Catherine.

Well, it had been his idea to come here, Georgie reminded herself. The remote location would help to keep her and Matthew safe in case any more of Queen Sujana's men tried to hunt them down. Come to think of it, even that broken bridge could help protect them, as it made Aylesworth Park all the more difficult to reach. They had had to come by a roundabout way themselves. Only people familiar with the place would know how to get here. So, in that regard, she felt quite safe.

She wondered if Catherine had felt safe here, too.

Continuing on with their tour, she kept an eye out for a wifely portrait of her predecessor displayed in some prominent place; her curiosity about Catherine was becoming acute, but there was none to be found. If pictures of her had existed, they had been taken down.

Georgie was beginning to find the whole thing very strange.

When she expressed polite admiration for a handsome sideboard in the dining room, Townsend looked pleased and informed her that the previous Lady Griffith had chosen it herself.

“Ah,” Georgie replied, but as their tour moved on, it was difficult to glean much about Catherine's personality from studying the decor of the house. Each room was tastefully appointed with rich fabrics, safe colors, elegant but wholly predictable choices. Everything was in the best taste, but whose taste? she wondered. That was the question, for there was nothing individual or distinctive about one square foot of the Prescott showplace. Perhaps the architect's firm had also designed the furnishings, for it could have been anyone's home—or nobody's.

“Darling, were you and Catherine married long before her death?”

“Less than a year,” Ian answered.

“I see. So, all these lovely rooms were done by—?”

“Mother.”

“Ah, of course.” This was the home Ian had grown up in, after all.

“Now that you mention it, I think we're due for some changes,” he whispered diplomatically in her ear.

She grinned.

But when they went upstairs and approached the lord and lady's adjoining bedchambers, she detected an icy turn in his demeanor. “Ghastly,” he said again under his breath, glancing around at the gold and scarlet bedroom in distaste.

She turned to him, losing patience with his gloomy attitude. “Are you quite all right?”

He blinked, as though drawn back abruptly to the present by her tart tone. “Of course. Forgive me. The long journey seems to have taken a toll on my agreeable nature.”

“I daresay. You're ruining my fun! Maybe you should go and take a nap.”

He snorted.

“Please do, if it'll improve your humor.”

“My dear, I shall leave you to settle in. I have a few matters to attend to, anyway. Damien's fellows will want their instructions.”

“Right.”

He bowed to her. “I will see you at dinner.”

“Ahem!” she said pertly as he started to turn away.

He glanced back and raised a brow at her in question.

She tilted her head, angling her cheek toward him and tapping it with an expectant smile.

Some of the tension eased from his taut countenance. “Ah, how could I ever forget?” Looking very much the besotted husband, he returned to her, bent, and gave her offered cheek a tender kiss.

The butler coughed in astonishment and studied the curtains.

“You must always kiss me, coming or going,” she reminded him with a flirtatious smile.

“Especially coming,” he murmured with a potent gaze into her eyes.

“Wicked man.” She hoped old Townsend didn't hear.

“I will see you at supper, my love,” Ian said softly. He bowed again. She caressed his arm as he pulled away.

“I love you,” she called after him as he went out the door.

He sent her a rueful smile over his shoulder, but he didn't say it back. He didn't have to.

She could see it in his eyes.

         

Over the next three or four days, Georgie observed that Ian's mood grew increasingly distant. He did his best to try to hide it, and when the night came, he still made love to her with all of his usual, passionate vigor. But every now and then, she felt that moody isolation creeping over him, taking him away from her in some vague way she could not quite define.

As the days passed, his brooding aura deepened, and he became ever more withdrawn. She asked him if he wanted to talk, but of course he said no. She saw him on more than one occasion standing by the river, staring down the ravine at its churning flow.

The most bizarre behavior that she witnessed in him, however, was when she stepped outside and found him with a pickax, tearing out the yellow roses that climbed up the side of the house. She stared in astonishment to find the marquess mud-flecked in his shirt-sleeves, covered in sweat.

“What on earth are you doing?”

“Uh—um—they were in need of a trim. Actually, I'm thinking of tearing the house down. Would you like a new one?” His chest heaved as he paused, squinting against the sun. “It's old, you know. Out of fashion. I was thinking, maybe, something neo-Gothic?”

She stared at him in disbelief.

He rested the pickax over his shoulder and paused to gulp a swig of water. “Was there, er, something you wanted?”

“N-no.” Even if her mind had not been rendered blank by his odd behavior, she wasn't sure she would have dared protest, let alone remind the famed peer that he had gardeners for that sort of thing. Instead, she just shook her head and went back inside.

When he had finished tearing down the roses, he discarded the whole pile by throwing it in the river. She stared out the window in alarm as Ian watched the yellow clumps disappearing downstream. He seemed to be in his own world, and clearly, it was not a happy place.

She turned to ask the servants discreetly if they had any notion of what ailed their master, but they fled when they saw her coming, as though they anticipated her bewilderment. Instead of offering answers, they rushed back to their tasks in conspiratorial silence.

Something very strange was going on around here, and Georgie had no idea what it was. She wondered if even Robert, Ian's closest friend, could have explained this to her.

But whatever demon haunted her husband, the destruction of the roses seemed to appease it for a few days. Once more, her amiable mate became his gentlemanly self again.

Eager to reclaim a sense of normalcy, Georgie suggested a picnic the next day. Whatever was bothering Ian seemed to have begun when they had arrived, so, she reasoned, perhaps it would help to get him away from the house for an afternoon.

To that end, she let him and Matthew choose the spot.

They did not go as far as the ruins of Uther Pendragon's castle. Ian did not want her to leave the grounds—for safety's sake, he claimed, though somehow she wondered if there was more to it than that. Grateful merely that he was human again today and not some shadowy beast, Georgie did not care to argue.

Before long, a large blanket was spread out on the grass in the shade of a huge oak tree, along with a low folding table and a few large pillows for them to lounge on.

The servants helped set up their simple luncheon, then withdrew to a respectful distance. Meanwhile, Ian indulged in kicking a ball around with his son. The spotted pup raced around them, yipping gleefully and occasionally disappearing in the tall grass.

Georgie was profoundly relieved to see Ian enjoying himself, carefree for once. Matthew was as delighted as ever by the attention, protesting with gusto when Georgie called to the pair to come and eat. They lingered at their game while she applied a bit of muscle to the corkscrew, struggling to open a bottle of chilled white wine to share with her handsome lord.