Lord Deverill's Heir (27 page)

“Justin, comte,” he said in a clear voice, “before the ladies adjourn to the Velvet Room and leave us to our port, I should like to make an announcement.”

The earl looked up, searched Lady Ann’s face, and smiled. Not a full smile, for there was that coldness about him, but it was a smile and it was a pleased smile. He nodded. Arabella looked up, not caring, just wanting to leave the dining room, to get away from him.

Dr. Branyon cleared his throat. “Lady Ann has done me the honor of accepting my proposal of marriage. We shall wed as soon as possible and, of course, live very quietly until her nominal year of mourning has passed.”

The earl rose quickly and raised his own glass. “My congratulations, Paul, Ann. It is no great surprise, to be sure, but still a welcome occasion. I propose a toast—to Dr. Branyon and Lady Ann. May you have a long lifetime of happiness.”

Arabella sat frozen. No great surprise? Her mother and Dr. Branyon? No, it couldn’t be true, it simply couldn’t. Her father had just died. His body was rotting in some forgotten ruin of a village in Portugal and her mother was calmly planning to marry another man. She couldn’t bear it.

Anger rose like bile in her throat. She gazed across the table at her mother and saw with barely contained fury the delicate pink of her cheeks, the new brilliance of her eyes. She was nothing more than a damned trollop.

“Arabella. The toast, my dear.” She turned her head to stare at the earl.

Her husband. The man who hated her, the man who would punish her the rest of her life for something she hadn’t done. She heard the command in his voice. By God, he approved this travesty of a marriage. She turned her eyes to Elsbeth and Gervaise. With her newly acquired insight, she saw them almost as one being, Elsbeth’s dark eyes and hair blending, as if with the same artist’s brush, into a blurred mold of Gervaise. It was as if one pair of almond-shaped eyes regarded her, their focus as one, their thoughts as one—their bodies as one. No, surely not. Elsbeth and Gervaise? But who else? No, Suzanne was surely right. They were lovers.

She thought they showed mild surprise, nothing more. Was she the only one who had not guessed?

“Arabella, child, are you all right?” Her mother’s gentle voice, so vibrant with concern. Was there a pleading note? Was she seeking approval from her daughter, seeking forgiveness for her betrayal? Her blindness had known no bounds. She realized she’d been so very locked into herself, into her own misery, that she had missed what everyone else had clearly seen. Yes, she been a wooden puppet unseeing, her very thoughts frozen inside herself. How very surprised Dr. Branyon appeared at her silence.

Or was he? Surely he would know how she missed her father, how she loved him beyond life itself. He had betrayed her. Both of them had betrayed her. And her father. Had they been lovers for years? Had they merely waited for her father to leave before they went to his bed?

“Arabella.”

The earl’s voice again, condemning her now. But then he had condemned her since they had wed. How could she expect him to see the truth, to understand that they had done?

Arabella rose unsteadily from her chair, her fingers clutching white on the edges of the table. She felt crushed with the weight of her own unawareness, the weight of their betrayal. So much betrayal, she thought, only she was innocent. They were not.

Her voice sounded out as a fallen autumn leaf, its spine snapped and broken underfoot. “Yes, Mother, I am quite all right. Did you call for a toast, my lord? I’m sorry, but you see, I don’t have one.” She heard a shocked, sharp intake of breath—from whom, she did not know. Only vaguely did she see the earl move angrily from his chair. She whirled about and raced from the dining room.

Justin threw his napkin down upon the tabletop. “Paul, Ann, do not attend to her. Please, all of you, take your coffee in the Velvet Room. If you will excuse me now, I would speak to my wife.” Lady Ann’s face was perfectly white, her lips drawn in a thin line, but she didn’t cry. She saw the wild anger in the earl’s eyes. Oh God, she had to protect Arabella from his anger. She had never seen him so near to the edge. She stumbled from her chair, her hand toward him.

“Justin, wait. There is no reason for you to be upset. It is a surprise to her. Surely you know how much she loved her father. No, please—” But he was gone from the dining room without a backward glance.

Dr. Branyon walked to her side and clasped her hand. He said very quietly, for only her ears, “I was afraid of this. You know that Arabella isn’t happy. I believe that she held to her father’s memory to help her during this time with Justin. Please, Ann, don’t let her hurt you for she doesn’t mean to. There is such rage in her, such pain. Come, let’s go into the Velvet Room and try to act natural, at least around Elsbeth. As for the comte, I could wish him gone right this instant, but it is not to be. Come, love.”

Lady Ann said sadly, “How very stupid of me not to have realized, even foretold Arabella’s reaction. I suppose I didn’t want to delve too deeply. I just wanted to hug my own happiness close.” The comte was so startled by Arabella’s outburst that he acquiesced with a mere nod. He slid Elsbeth’s arm through his. As they followed Lady Ann and Dr. Branyon past the wooden-faced footman who’d heard everything that had happened, Elsbeth suddenly tugged at his arm, holding back.

“Oh, Gervaise, whatever shall we do now?” She was close to tears. He couldn’t allow her to fall apart in front of Lady Ann or Dr. Branyon. He clasped her hands in his, squeezing them nearly to pain. “Listen, Elsbeth, as I told you earlier, it is as nothing. I will think of a plan.

Do not worry. Here, straighten yourself. Don’t cry. Do not enact an ill-bred scene like your half-sister just did. You are above that. You are gentle and kind and you will keep control of yourself.”

“Yes, Gervaise, yes, all right, I will try.” She sniffed, wiping her hand across her eyes, as would a child. He felt something deep and painful move within him. “Yes, I thought Arabella’s behavior was shocking. Why did she do that? Our father wasn’t a loving man, you know that. He hated me. Oh, all right, he loved Arabella, but still, how could she behave so horribly to her own mother?”

Justin strode into the main hall and made directly for the staircase. He took the steps two and three at a time and was midway to the first landing before Crupper realized his destination. He waved his hand at the earl’s back, shook his head when there was no response, and turned back to his post by the front doors. He simply refused to shout after his lordship. Such a thing wasn’t done, certainly not done at Evesham Abbey.

The earl’s anger was evident even to Grace, Arabella’s maid, who scurried from his path the moment she saw his face. His nostrils flared and angry cords stood out taut on his neck. His hands were shaking, he couldn’t help it. Damn her, how dared she serve her mother such a devastating blow? Had she not eyes in her head to see where Lady Ann’s affections were so obviously placed? He would strangle her.

Justin jerked at the handle on the bedchamber door. It was locked, as of course he had expected it to be, but his futile fumbling at his own bedroom door only added to his anger. He flung into the adjoining room and sent his valet, Grubbs, staggering back in surprise.

“My lord, what is wrong? What has happened?” Justin paid him no heed, and but an instant later stood in the middle of the earl’s bedchamber. He wanted to bellow out her name, but saw that the room was quite empty. “Bedamned,” he said quite softly as he turned on his heel and strode back downstairs.

“Crupper, have you seen her ladyship?”

“Why, yes, my lord,” Crupper said, with complete composure.

“Well? Where the devil is she?”

“Her ladyship left the house, my lord. Very quickly, I might add.”

“Damnation, man, why the hell did you not tell me that little bit of news before?”

Crupper drew to his full height. “If you will pardon my liberty, my lord, your lordship was near to the top of the stairs before I was even aware of your presence.”

“This is damned ridiculous,” the earl nearly shouted as he strode past his butler into the warm night.

It did not occur to the earl to simply let her return whenever she wished to. He mentally reviewed her favorite haunts—the old abbey ruins, the fishpond, perhaps even the Deverill graveyard. For some reason he could not define, he knew that she would not be bound for any of her usual places. No, he thought, he knew she was trying to escape—from Evesham Abbey, from her mother, but mainly she would want to escape from him.

Lucifer. He would bet every sou he had that she was riding madly away from here on her stallion.

He ran full tilt to the stables. He was just in time to see Arabella, her skirts billowing out about her, astride Lucifer, galloping away into the dark night.

“James,” he yelled.

His spindly legged head groom emerged in the lighted doorway, his eyes widening at the sight of his master’s furious face. He waited miserably for the earl to sack him. But that didn’t even come to the earl’s mind.

He knew that Arabella’s word was indisputable law with all the servants.

“Fetch my stallion, James, and be quick about it.” As the seconds crept by, the earl was mentally calculating the lead Arabella would have on him. His bay stallion was Marmaluke-trained and of Arab stock. But, Lucifer, damn, the beast was strong as ten horses and fast as the wind. She could be in the next county before he even managed to reach the end of the drive. “James, hurry!” He wanted to strangle her.

He wanted to shout at her until he ground her down, until she finally admitted what she’d done to him. He wanted desperately for her to tell him she’d made a mistake, that she was sorry, that she regretted it, that she would spend her life making it up to him.

He also wanted to see her, just see her, perhaps even tell her that he understood. He shook his head at himself. He was changing. He was easing.

He was ready to forgive her. He wanted to kill the comte, but not her, not Arabella. He didn’t understand himself, but there it was.

Well, damnation.

The moon hung as a slim crescent, barely lighting the vague outlines of the country road. The earl rode, head down, nearly touching his horse’s glossy neck, his body molding into the form of the animal. His intense demanding pace brought back memories of another ride in the night, so long ago in faraway Portugal, the critical dispatch folded carefully in the lining of his boot. He felt the same sense of purpose and urgency. He had been elated with the success of his mission when horse and man had very nearly dropped from fatigue at the end of the eight endless hours.

Rickety turnstiles, unpainted wooden fences, small rutted paths—all flew past in a blur of semidarkness. The earl knew of a certainty that Arabella would stay to the main road. She would want nothing to slow her escape.

As he rode, he remembered again her outburst at Dr. Branyon’s announcement. Yes, he understood, but it didn’t lessen his anger, not really.

At first he couldn’t believe his eyes. Were he not so very angry with her, he would have been sorely tempted to laugh aloud at the very undramatic scene before him. Arabella was walking in the middle of the road in full evening dress, leading a limping Lucifer.

She halted as he reined in beside her. She looked up at him with dull eyes. She said nothing, damn her. “Well, madam, I see that you have ended your own merry escape.” He swung from the saddle and faced her, legs apart, his hands on his hips.

She seemed oblivious of his anger, of the ferocious irony of his words.

“Yes,” she said, still not looking at him, “Lucifer threw a shoe. I shall have to speak to James. It is quite ridiculous that he should throw a shoe. Don’t you think that is ridiculous?”

“Yes, I shall speak to James as well.” The earl stopped and frowned. This was not at all what he had expected. “Of course, such a tame ending to your thoughtless ride must be a letdown. Just look at you. Dressed for dinner and walking beside your damned horse. Didn’t it occur to you that there are bad men out here? That they could have come upon you? You can wager that they would have licked their chops at the sight of you.

Beautiful and rich, yes, they would have believed they’d died and gone to heaven.”

“No,” she said finally, her eyes still on the road directly in front of her next step, “I didn’t think about robbers at all. You say there are bad men out here? I think there are bad men everywhere. What difference where they are? Why don’t you ride back to Evesham Abbey, my lord. There is nothing for you here. Not a single thing.” He made no answer, just walked beside her, the look on his face so forbidding that surely she would be shaking in her evening slippers.

Soldiers had quaked in their boots at that look. But she wasn’t. It baffled him. He admired her greatly in that moment.

Finally, she stopped and looked up at him. “Ah, I see now. You wish to yell at me, to strike me, perhaps? Perhaps even kill me? Well there’s not much I can do about it, is there? Have at it, my lord.” She patted Lucifer’s nose, spoke softly to him, then dropped his reins. She turned to face her husband. Lucifer neighed softly but didn’t move.

He ground his teeth and advanced a measured step toward her. She stood her ground and regarded him with at best casual interest. “Do you plan another rape scene, my lord, or perhaps a beating? If you will allow me a choice, I would far prefer the beating.” He had expected anger on her part, indeed rather looked forward to her termagant’s tongue. But there seemed to be no passion left in her. Her voice and very stance seemed uncaring, remote.

It made him so angry he wanted to spit, he wanted to push her to anger.

He said with contempt, “Despite what you may think, raping you would bring me no pleasure. I did not rape you before, but you will pretend I did, won’t you? Aye, you’ll claim I raped you on our wedding night and hold it in my face for the rest of our lives. Damn you, madam, I did not rape you; stop shaking your head at me. I wasn’t as gentle as I could have been, but you didn’t deserve anything gentle from me. You deserved to be raped, yet as a gentleman, I refrained.