Lord of Secrets (10 page)

David’s feeling of well-being lingered as she changed and came down to say her goodbyes, giving quick kisses to Templeton and the young boy, the aunt, and even her floridly drunken uncle.

But he and Rosalie no sooner stepped out of the house than David’s happy afterglow abruptly vanished as the enormity of what he’d done hit him. Good God. They were
married
. She was coming to Lyningthorp with him, to spend three weeks honeymooning in the country. Now it was her home, too. He handed Rosalie into the waiting coach and stepped in after her, feeling suddenly much older than his thirty-one years.

When the carriage turned the corner into New Bond Street, Rosalie sat back on the squabs and gazed at him with an expectant smile.

David dragged his thoughts away from the territory into which they’d strayed—their approaching wedding night—and produced his best attempt at an answering smile. “Well, something is clearly on your mind. What is it, my dear? Are you missing your uncle Roger already? Wishing we’d eloped to Gretna Green?”

She laughed, her eyes shining. “Not in the least. I was only thinking that just yesterday, it would have been out of the question for me to ride unchaperoned in a closed carriage with you. Now, a scarce few minutes in front of the altar, a few brief words, and it’s not only acceptable, it’s positively expected.”

“Yes.”

Her smile carved dimples in her cheeks. “Isn’t it strange? I woke up plain Rosalie Whitwell, with no real home of my own, and now I’m the Marchioness of Deal, traveling with my husband to our house in the country. It will take some getting used to. We’re married, and so much that was shocking before is perfectly unexceptionable now.”

Again his thoughts strayed to their wedding night, now only hours away in the stillness of Lyningthorp. With an effort he relaxed his shoulders, trying to recover something of the cheerful glow that had warmed him all through the wedding breakfast. “So it is.”

“It didn’t matter after all, did it? Whatever was troubling you two nights ago, I mean. Or is there still something you wish to tell me?”

He swallowed. How could he tell her now, mere hours after the ceremony? She was still radiant with hope and enthusiasm. “No. Not now that we’re married.”

She rewarded him with a happy look.

Married
. He leaned back, staring fixedly out the carriage window.

Chapter Eight

This looks not like a nuptial.

—
William Shakespeare

Though Rosalie had spent most of the past decade traveling, she and her father had returned home to his country seat, Beckford Park, for brief intervals every year. Each time, their appearance in the neighboring hamlet had been an object of enthusiastic interest. Even in the rain and cold, villagers had emerged to watch their carriage rattle through the high street, children trotting after it in anticipation of the coins Rosalie’s father would toss to them.

As she and David made their way through the estate village just east of Lyningthorp, no such interest attended the progress of their coach, though the spring daylight lingered and the Marquess of Deal was bringing home a new bride. Rosalie peered out the carriage window at the deserted streets, taking in the neat half-timbered cottages and the occasional tidy shop front, wondering where the curious locals could be. More than once a window curtain gave a telltale twitch, but no one emerged for a closer look. The only villagers she spotted out of doors, a middle-aged laborer and two young boys, neither smiled nor waved, but simply stood and watched with blank expressions as the carriage passed, their only acknowledgement a sullen tug of the forelock.

The lack of welcome puzzled her, and disappointed her more than she cared to admit. Surely the villagers must have heard that David had just married. Didn’t they want to offer their good wishes? At the very least, weren’t they curious about the Marquess of Deal’s new bride?

But all thought of the estate village vanished as soon as she caught her first glimpse of Lyningthorp. The carriage passed through an elaborate gatehouse with the look of a miniature fortress, and the sprawling Tudor manor came into view—a storybook palace of warm red brick, mullioned windows, gabled wings and crenellated towers.

Her mouth fell open. She looked from the carriage window to where David sat across from her. “Oh! Why did you never tell me? It’s like a castle from a fairy tale!”

He’d been quiet most of the way from London, but at her enthusiastic outburst he produced an uneasy smile. “I’m pleased you like it.”

She didn’t just like it. She’d
dreamed
about such a place. No, that wasn’t true. Her dreams had never been half so beautiful. Lyningthorp’s rambling roofline was a jigsaw puzzle of turrets and chimneystacks, towers and cross gables, the perfect combination of whimsy and warmth. An ornamental lake reflected the house like polished silver. The park’s neat yew hedges and colorful blooms only added to the enchantment.

The coach pulled up before the front entrance, and David handed her down. The air was heavy with the sweet scent of lilac. Had David timed their arrival to coincide with the spring blossoming, or was the house always this magical?

She followed him up a trio of stone steps and through the great double doors. Stepping into the shadowy interior, she discovered a spacious hall with a massive Jacobean staircase of polished oak—and an army of servants massed at the bottom of the stairs to greet them. From the elderly butler down to the youthful scullery maids, a hundred curious eyes fixed on Rosalie as her footfalls made unexpected echoes on the slate floor.

Oh
,
dear
. Rosalie swallowed down her nerves. As disappointed as she’d been with the lack of welcome in the estate village, she hadn’t expected to be faced with such a large and intimidating staff. A virtual wall of David’s dark-green-and-gold livery loomed before her.

David took her by the elbow and drew her forward. “This is Lady Deal, your new mistress.” He nodded to the servant at the head of the line.

It was hardly an effusive introduction, but the butler stepped forward. White-haired and portly, he was called Farrell. Then came the housekeeper, Mrs. Epperson, a gaunt, gray-haired woman who towered over Rosalie by at least six inches. The cook was named Hurst, the coachman Hawthorn, the gamekeeper Franks—and there followed so many footmen, housemaids, kitchen maids, gardeners, groundskeepers and grooms, Rosalie knew she would never remember them all. Each one gave a bow or a bob, murmured a name in an undertone, and slipped back into place. She glanced now and again to David, expecting him to add his own observations to the introductions, but he remained largely quiet.

Afterward, Mrs. Epperson showed her upstairs, where Rosalie had little time to inspect her new rooms as she freshened up. The dust of travel gone, she hurried back downstairs to rejoin David.

He was waiting for her at the bottom of the oaken staircase, his dark eyes following her as she descended the final flight. “I thought you might like a tour of the house before we sit down to dinner,” he said.

“Yes, very much.”

“Where shall we start?”

How strange—he asked the question as if she knew the house better than he did. Uncertain, she clasped her hands together in a nervous gesture. “Which is your favorite room?”

“The library.”

“Then let’s save that for last.”

They started at the opposite end of the house, with the portrait gallery. It was a long, southern-facing room, where generation upon generation of Linneys in ornate gilt frames stared down from the oak-paneled walls. At her prompting, David pointed out various ancestors—the first to be ennobled, the Tudor courtier who had built the house, and the seventeenth-century Linney who had nearly cost the family everything plotting against the Protectorate. Down the generations, the men of the family bore a distinct resemblance to one another—or perhaps it was only that they all wore the same aloof, coolly superior expression.

Rosalie looked at David. “What about your parents?”

“This way.” He led her to the far end of the gallery, stopping before a matched pair of full-length portraits, both nearly life size.

Rosalie stepped back to better admire the likeness of his mother. Here was someone who looked nothing like the chilly Linney specimens around her. The young woman was dressed in the style of the previous century, her hair powdered and curled in an elaborate frizzle beneath a huge feathered hat that quite dwarfed the delicate oval of her face. Despite her sumptuous blue silk gown with its froth of lace at the collar and elbows, she had a sweet, unaffected smile, and a look of mischief lurked in her dark eyes. “She was very pretty, David.”

He gazed up at the painting with her. “Yes. She died when I was ten days old. My father remained devoted to her memory.”

“Only ten days old? Poor David. You must have missed her a great deal, growing up.”

“I?” David said in evident surprise. “But I never even knew her.”

Was it possible to miss someone or something one had never really known? Rosalie felt sure it was. David’s life might have been very different if his mother had lived. Perhaps his father wouldn’t have decided to take his own life, and he wouldn’t have ended up so alone. She counted herself lucky to have known both her mother and her father, and to have so many memories of them to cherish. “Were your parents married long?”

“Ten months.”

Her gaze shifted to the likeness of David’s father. Rosalie searched it for some portent of tragedy. The man in the portrait stood in a pose she’d seen David assume, lounging against the back of a chair with his weight resting on one elbow. He looked like a slighter, paler version of his son—though his pallor might well have been mere illusion, for he wore his thick hair powdered. Father and son possessed the same high forehead, the same imperious brows and dark eyes, the same straight nose and finely molded mouth. It was a little unsettling how much David looked like this man who’d taken his own life.

She swallowed down a sense of foreboding. “Is there a portrait of your guardian, too?”

David stiffened, his eyes roaming the gallery. “For a time there was, but it was taken down some years ago and sent to the estate he was managing for me.”

“He wished to keep it with him?”

David looked away. “Something like that.”

Next on their tour came the family chapel. Though no longer in use, it was still an architectural jewel, from its arched windows to its intricate fan vaulting. From there, they moved on to the Great Hall and the state rooms. Fine oil paintings decorated the walls, and thick carpets muffled their every step. They concluded the tour in the library, where case upon case of leather-bound volumes stretched to the ceiling.

Rosalie had never seen a house so restfully beautiful—or one so empty of life. Lyningthorp was almost eerie in its quietness. The servants whispered. The corridors echoed. And David, too, remained largely quiet as they toured the house, offering so little conversation it was as if every word cost him dearly. She was becoming used to his occasional silences, but this was a different kind of quiet, a brooding withdrawal into himself. He moved through the halls like a walking ghost.

It was a house of ghosts, for on their way from the breakfast room to the library he passed one doorway without comment. “What’s in here?” Rosalie asked, gesturing at the closed door.

David never broke his stride. “My father’s study.”

Again she recalled the suicide. What a world of meaning lay beneath the simple reply—not
my
study or
the
study but
my
father’s
study, as if the closed-off room were lastingly and irreparably haunted by what had happened there.

They dined late, eating in the intimate family dining parlor. David hardly spoke at all except to answer the questions Rosalie asked about the house and the surrounding countryside. In many ways, Lyningthorp was the home she’d always yearned for—peaceful, stately, long-established. Much of its construction dated back to the days of King Henry the Eighth. She was inclined to
ooh
and
ah
, though David seemed almost embarrassed by the praise.

“You must have noticed the abundance of Tudor quirks,” he said. “Oriel windows, checkerboard-patterned chimneystacks, dog-Latin mottoes chiseled over the fireplaces. I sometimes think my ancestors had more imagination than taste.”

“But it’s so lovely! Even the gatehouse looks like a princess belongs there.”

He smiled wanly. “The gatekeeper lives there, and I assure you, no one is likely to mistake him for a princess.”

Rosalie laughed. It was her wedding day, and Lyningthorp was her new home. She was determined to delight in every detail of both.

Despite her eager enjoyment, however, David remained subdued. She tried to keep a conversation alive, but she could tell he was preoccupied. Might he be suffering from wedding-night nerves? She wished she knew him well enough to tell.

Dusk arrived late at the end of May, but at last it was time retire. Upstairs in her new bedchamber, it was once again easy to imagine herself in the pages of a fairy story, once again the lucky princess in some enchantment. Dismissing the abigail Mrs. Epperson had chosen for her, Rosalie surveyed her surroundings with mounting anticipation. Yes, she could easily imagine some Shakespearean heroine, a Juliet or a Rosalind, awaiting a visit from her lover here. Spacious without being cold, the room smelled of beeswax polish and the lilacs just outside its windows. Hangings of deep green silk adorned the carved tester bed, while an intricate crewelwork garden bloomed on the bed coverings.

She drifted into her dressing room, her feet sinking into the thick Axminster carpet. She could find only one flaw in her surroundings—the oppressive silence. The same stillness that permeated the rest of the house extended into her bedchamber. She was happy to be done with the bewildering cacophony of far-off ports and marketplaces, free of the lapping waves and creaking timbers of ocean crossings, but the eerie quiet enveloping her now unsettled her.

A rap on the door made her jump. Shaking her head at her own skittish nerves, she faced the door with determination. “Yes?”

David entered, still fully dressed in his dinner clothes. “I wondered how you were getting on. Are these rooms to your liking?”

Despite her storybook fantasies of moments before, his tone sounded more fatherly than lover-like. “Oh, yes. They’re beautiful, David.” She looked down at her nightgown, wondering if she’d undressed too early. “Was I wrong to change for bed?”

He threw a quick glance at her, at the thin lawn chemise she wore, before looking away. “No. I was planning to undress soon myself, and I’m sure you must be tired.”

She didn’t mind that he hadn’t changed yet, not when his evening clothes were so well tailored to his broad shoulders, narrow hips and long legs, but she looked forward just the same to seeing more of him. “Not too tired.”

A muscle flickered in his jaw. He looked about the room before wandering over to the sitting area beside the fireplace, where two tapestry-upholstered chairs flanked the hearth. “Well. You have everything you need? I wish you to feel at home.”

“I have everything I need. After nine years of damp cabins and temporary lodgings, these rooms feel like heaven.”

“I’m pleased to hear it.” He didn’t sound particularly pleased. He sounded...nervous? He set a hand on the chair nearest him, his gaze shifting to the floor.

An uncomfortable silence settled over the room.