Love Is Blind (29 page)

"Oh." John
Crambray
turned back to the carriage, murmuring an apology as he took his wife's hand to help her out.

Clarissa hesitated as the woman reached the ground and began to brush down her traveling dress. A part of her felt that she should kiss and hug the woman in greeting as she had her father, but Lydia never welcomed such displays, and so Clarissa found herself hesitating. Finally she decided that—whether Lydia liked it or not—she was a part of this family and would be treated as such. Straightening her shoulders, Clarissa stepped up to the woman, kissed her cheek, and hugged her.

Lydia stiffened in her embrace, and Clarissa could feel her surprise. She let her go, then took her father's arm and her stepmother's, and ushered them to the front door.

"Come, you should meet Kibble and everyone else. How long can you stay?"

"I think we can manage almost a week before we have to continue home. If your husband does not mind," Lord
Crambray
added quickly.

"Her husband does not at all."

Clarissa paused and glanced to the side as Adrian approached from the direction of the stables. She smiled
sofdy
as he greeted her father and stepmother and welcomed them to
Mowbray
; then they all went in.

"I hope you do not mind our being here?"

Adrian glanced at the man riding beside him: Lord John
Crambray
. It was the morning after the arrival of the
Crambrays
, and Clarissa's father had ridden out with him to inspect the property. Adrian had thought everything was going well between them before this, but... "No, of course not, my lord. Why would you think otherwise?"

John
Crambray
shrugged, but the smile on his face was wry. After a moment had passed, he admitted, "Well, I do understand that the two of you are newly married and probably wish to spend as much time getting to know each other as possible."

Adrian smiled faintly. While he had originally hoped that Clarissa's father would delay a visit until he'd had his fill of his new wife—or at least until they could be in the same room without his wishing to rip her clothes off—Adrian was beginning to realize that might not be for a very long time. He could hardly hope to keep her to himself for the next two or three decades.

"We have a lifetime ahead of us. I can hardly begrudge you a few days' visit."

John
Crambray
smiled and said, "You love my daughter."

Adrian stiffened in his saddle. He was still coming to grips with what he felt for Clarissa. Every day with her was an adventure. This morning he had awoken to find his sweet young wife kissing and caressing his erect member. She had taken to surprising him with such aggressive actions over the last few days. She seemed as eager to please him as he was to please her, and it warmed his heart every time she showed this tendency. It made him hope that she might be coming to care for him as he wanted.

"I can tell you love her," Lord
Crambray
announced, then added, "which is why I do not understand why she has still not got spectacles."

Adrian stiffened further, then forced himself to relax. He said, "They are on their way. I had to send to London for them. But they are a surprise, so I would appreciate your not telling Clarissa."

Lord
Crambray
looked relieved, and nodded. "As you like."

Adrian grimaced. If it were truly to be as he liked, Clarissa would never have spectacles. However, with his conscience to trouble him, he had finally set out to get her a pair. In the end, Adrian had not told Clarissa of his plan and taken her to the village as he'd originally intended—Clarissa had managed to distract him from that when he'd arrived in her room and she'd stood up naked in her bath. By the time he'd thought of the subject again, he had decided to order them himself. While he hadn't explained why he wished to know, he'd asked Clarissa where she'd gotten her last pair of spectacles, and had sent a messenger with

money to the city to get another pair. All without her knowing.

Adrian told himself it was because he wanted to surprise her. However, he suspected the truth was that, so long as she didn't know they were on the way, he could delay giving them to her for another day or so even after the spectacles arrived.

Sighing, Adrian set his heels to his horse and urged it to a trot as the house came into view ahead. He had no desire to talk anymore.

The house was quiet when Adrian and his father-in-law entered. They found Lydia reading in the salon, but the servants were making themselves scarce. Adrian had no doubt it was in an effort to avoid Lydia. She could be demanding and unpleasant to deal with. Apparently Clarissa was not the only one she liked to make miserable; she seemed to pick on anyone weaker than herself, anyone she saw as being lower. His servants seemed included in that category.

Leaving Lord and Lady
Crambray
, Adrian headed above stairs to change out of his mud-spattered clothes. He stripped and dressed by his wardrobe, his gaze moving repeatedly to the connecting door leading to Clarissa's room, and he wondered where she was and what she was doing. He often found himself wondering that when they were apart.

/
can tell you love her,
John
Crambray
had said, and Adrian was starting to fear it was true. He'd come to care for his wife's pleasure more than his own; hence the reason he'd ordered the spectacles. He suspected that to be a sure sign that he did indeed love her, and Adrian found himself marveling over that.

Clarissa was easy to love, that was certain, but more

than that astounded him. Adrian had expected that finding a wife would be a struggle—a struggle even without the added task of actually caring about and loving her. And yet, everything had been relatively easy with Clarissa right from the start.

In fact, the only real trouble he'd encountered had been Lydia, and she appeared to trouble most people. Clarissa herself had been open to Adrian right from the beginning.

"There you are, my lord,"
Keighley
said as they finished getting Adrian into new clothes. "Will there be anything else?"

"No, thank you,
Keighley
," Adrian replied, but as the man moved to leave the room, he asked, "Do you know where my wife is?"

"I believe she is in her room at the moment, my lord. One of the footmen is in the hall watching her door and that is usually a clear indication that she is on the other side."

"Thank you." Adrian moved to the connecting door as the man left the room. He was eager, as always, to see her, and didn't bother knocking. But when he tried to open the door, he found it blocked.

The door opened a slight bit, then hit something. Frowning, he pulled the door closed and tried again. When the same thing happened, he stared at the door and called, "Clarissa?"

Silence answered him.

"Clarissa?" he called again, this time accompanying it with a knock. "Clarissa? Are you in there? There is something blocking the door."

When he got no answer, Adrian turned and hurried out into the hall. He spotted Frederick lurking there. "Is Lady
Mowbray
in her room?" he asked.

"Aye, my lord." Frederick straightened his shoulders, taking up a military pose.

"Is she alone?" Adrian asked. He moved to her door and turned the knob. The knob turned, but after the door moved inward a bare half inch, it stopped.

"Aye, my lord. I have been watching this door since she entered, and no one has gone in or come out." Frederick frowned and moved closer as he saw that Adrian was struggling. "What is wrong?"

"The door is jammed with something," Adrian muttered, then pounded on the wood. "Clarissa? If you can hear me, call out!"

Both men remained silent as they waited; then Adrian turned impatiently away and hurried back through his bedroom. He was sure that the adjoining door had shown some give—certainly more than the hall door. Trying it again, he found it still blocked, but this time he put his weight behind the effort and grunted. The door opened a bit more.

"No one went in, my lord," Frederick assured him, sounding worried. "I did not take my eyes off the door for a moment."

Adrian didn't comment. All of his concentration was on the door he was slowly but surely forcing open. The screech of wood on wood told him that some heavy piece of furniture had been shoved in its path. Unfortunately, while the perimeter of the room was bare hardwood, a rug covered most of the floor and was making the barricade difficult to push forward. If Adrian could just have slid the item sideways, he would have had no problem. However, that wasn't possible.

"Can I help, my lord?" Frederick asked anxiously. "Perhaps if we both put our weight into it. . ." Adrian glanced toward the man—a boy, really, no

more than sixteen, and skinny as a rail—but he was anxious, and any help was welcome, so he nodded grimly. "Put your shoulder to the door and push when I say."

Frederick moved up beside him, bracing his shoulder against the wooden surface, and when Adrian said "Push," they both put their weight behind the effort. This time the door gave several more inches and Adrian was able to see into the room. Clarissa was lying on the bed and looked asleep, but her face appeared extremely pale.

"Again," Adrian ground out, and they pushed for all they were worth, this time managing to shove the door—and what he could now see was a dresser—far enough inward that he thought he could slip through the opening.

Frederick watched anxiously as Adrian forced himself through. They both released a sigh of relief when he finally made it.

"Is she all right?" Frederick asked, starting through the opening now himself as Adrian rushed to the bed. "Clarissa?" Adrian caught his wife's face in his hand and turned it toward him, his heart stopping in his chest. It hadn't merely been panic making him think she was pale. Clarissa was as white as a sheet, and completely unresponsive.

"Is she all right?" Frederick repeated as he reached the bed.

"Get help," Adrian barked, brushing one shaky hand over Clarissa's face.

'Yes, my lord." Frederick headed for the connecting door again, but Adrian called him back.

"Move the chair from the hall door and go that way," he ordered, seeing what had blocked that entrance. His gaze slid around the rest of the room, but

everything else seemed to be in order. And there was no one else present.

Frederick left the door open as he hurried from the room, and Adrian could hear him shouting for help as he raced down the hall. With the hope that assistance would soon arrive, Adrian turned back to Clarissa.

She looked so small and fragile lying there. He lifted her off the bed, pressing her to his chest, unable to peer at her lifeless face anymore. She hardly seemed to be breathing, and he was terrified that she would die on him. Adrian wouldn't have that;
couldn't
have it. Clarissa was his, and he wouldn't lose her. She was too important. She was everything.

Dear God, he did indeed love her—so much so that he would rather die himself than live out his life with nothing but her memory.

"Stay with me, Clarissa," he murmured, rubbing her back helplessly. "Do not leave me. I need you."

"My lord?"

Adrian glanced to the door as Kibble rushed in. The butler was followed closely by Clarissa's father and
sev-eral
servants.

"Frederick said that her ladyship was ill. What has happened?" Kibble asked, rounding the bed to where his master sat on its edge.

"I do not know. She is pale and will not wake up," Adrian explained, his voice cracking.

"Let me see," Kibble said. And as John
Crambray
started to crawl across the bed on the other side,
A
drian
lay Clarissa gently back, and the three men bent over her pale form.

"Dear God, she is as pale as death," Lord
Crambray
said.

"Almost gray," Mrs.
Longbottom
agreed, appearing

and crowding up next to the bed with the others as Kibble lifted Clarissa's eyelids and peered at her eyes, then bent to sniff her mouth.

Adrian watched his butler's actions with bewilderment until the man suddenly straightened. The alarm on Kibble's face was the most terrifying thing Adrian had ever seen.

"We need to make her purge. She has been poisoned."

"What?" Lord
Crambray
and Adrian cried, but Kibble wasn't listening; he'd turned his attention to the bedside table and a half-eaten bit of pie. As they watched, he bent to sniff. His mouth tightened. "It was in the pie."

"But we all had some of that last night," Adrian protested.

"Not this piece," Kibble muttered.
 
He
 
glanced around. "I need something to stick down her throat." "What?" Adrian asked in alarm. The butler turned a grim look his way. "Mayhap you and Lord
Crambray
should leave."

"No. I am staying," Adrian said with determination. "Then
 
you
  
save
  
her—if you
  
can,"
  
Kibble
  
announced, and turned to head for the door.