Martha Schroeder (24 page)

“You must ask him that yourself. I have no idea what the captain will or will not do.” She smiled a broad, meaningless smile, unwilling to let even a close friend know what a disaster she had made of her marriage. “He is delving into estate work and may not be able to spare the time from the hours he spends talking to Old George. And, of course, Claire is here for an indefinite visit.” She had decided that for the moment Claire’s status in the household would be explained in terms of a visit.

“We would be delighted if Lady Claire would come as well,” Gerald said.

That evening over dinner, the three of them discussed the upcoming nuptials, and Claire indicated that she would like to go.

“Have you written to your brother, Claire, to let him know you have arrived here?” Meg asked. In her heart she was beginning to feel a bit sorry for the Duke of Kettering, who might be overbearing but did not seem to her to be the figure of evil that James saw. A bit of an ass, to be sure, but hardly Lucifer incarnate.

“No, not since I left him the note telling him I was going to James and his wife.” Claire’s eyes grew wide. “You’re not going to write him, are you, Meg? Oh, please do not. I have been so enjoying being free of Kettering and everyone it contains. It will all be spoiled if I have to worry about what Reggie will say.”

James looked up from the peach he was carefully peeling. “I have already written to him, Claire, the day after you arrived.”

“Jamie! You didn’t! Oh, dear, now he’ll write you and you’ll write back, and both of you will think you can decide what’s best for me. You should have left it alone.” Claire sounded annoyed, but Meg sensed no fear in her voice.

“Your note did not tell Reggie where I was to be found. What else could I do but let him know where you were?” James sat back in his chair. “He is your brother, after all. I rather hope he does come after you. Then we could settle things once and for all.”

“Oh, he would never do that,” Claire responded. “Reggie spars with Jackson and shoots at Manton’s and all those sorts of things, but he would never risk an argument with you. He will do everything through lawyers.”

A pleased look passed briefly over James’s face. Meg could understand why he would be delighted to hear that the boy who had held the place of honor in the home where James had lived on sufferance was afraid of him—had always felt so. But James was married now, and his marriage was at an impasse. Surely that ought to matter more than scoring off a childhood rival.

“I am not sure I do not have a certain sympathy with Reggie, having to deal with you, Sissy.” James smiled fondly at Claire. “We will have to talk more of your plans for study and travel. If you are truly set on it, I will see what can be done. I made some friends in Naples and in Florence, too, who might know of a suitably aristocratic family with whom you might stay and who could find tutors for you in drawing and working in oils.”

Again here was something Meg had not known about her husband. Mrs. Grandby had told her that they had talked of the art of Italy, and Meg had known he had spent time there, but she hadn’t realized he had friends in Italy.

Depressed at the revelation, Meg still tried to be helpful.

“Perhaps you should consider taking a companion with you if you go. That way you might be considered eccentric but not beyond the pale.”

James looked over at her as if he had forgotten she was there. “That is a very sound thought, Meg,” he said, his tone surprised.

“Oh, no!” Claire said. “That is not at all necessary. At my age I do not need a watchdog. I am perfectly capable of looking after myself!” She frowned at Meg and flopped back in her chair. A few days with her favorite brother, and Claire had reverted to some of her childhood habits.

Meg got to her feet, suddenly tired of pretending that everything was serene. Her life had been a penance these past few days, and she felt she could not go on trudging through the same round of duties day after day. “I am very tired. I think I will go to bed. Good night.” She left the room without looking back.

She was sitting up in bed, trying to read
The Corsair,
which she found entirely too dramatic for her taste, when a soft knock sounded at her dressing room door.

James. It must be James. “Come in,” she called softly.

He had changed into a dark, brocade dressing gown and soft slippers that made no noise. He came over to the bed and stood looking down at her, his expression sober. Meg felt her heart speed up, as if she had been running.

“I think we need to talk,” he said.

“I know. I have been trying to see you alone for days.”

“Meg, I know that our marriage has not been easy for you,” he began.

She swung her legs over the side of the bed. “I cannot be expected to talk with you looming over me. Allow me to find my dressing gown, and I will meet you in the library.”

James stepped back. “No, I do not want to talk in a room where business is transacted. I have felt all too often that I was an investment you decided to make. This is—personal.”

“Very well. My dressing room.” Her mother had used the room as a private retreat. It contained two small armchairs set in front of a fireplace, “In a few moments.”

She got out of bed, but James did not move. He watched in brooding silence as she shrugged into a soft green wool dressing gown. The nights were still cool, and she had the feeling this night was about to become even colder.

“Come,” James said as he touched her arm. He wanted some contact with her. He was so afraid that this time their disagreement could not be bridged. This time it involved his deepest feelings, and hers.

“James,” she said, her voice low and tight with emotion. “I must tell you something. Something I should have told you before.”

He braced himself. “Yes, my dear, what is it?” His voice sounded old and passionless to his ears, as if he did not really care so very much what she was about to confess.

“I am afraid that I caused all the difficulty with Gerald and Annis. I spoke out of turn, as I have so many times, and Lady Mattingly thought that Annis had sought to ingratiate herself with them so she could marry money.”

James managed a smile. “Yes, I rather thought it was something like that. But all’s well that ends well. They seem very happy. Have you agreed to act as attendant?” He betrayed nothing but polite interest.

Meg had had enough. “Yes, and so are you. We are going to go together, you and I. And Claire. We are not going to disappoint my dearest friends and wash our linen in public.” She got to her feet and went over to stand facing him in front of the fireplace.

“Ah. I see. I did not realize that you valued appearances so highly. Is that why you are so tired of your marriage already?”

“What? What makes you say that? I have done everything I can to show you how I feel. But you persist in giving everything I do or say the worst interpretation possible! Could you not, for once, let me tell you what I believe instead of your always telling me?” She clenched her fists and glared up at him. She was fighting for her marriage, and he was retreating behind that icy, polite mask. Well, not this time!

“Very well. Tell me why you sent for my sister without even telling me, much less asking me, what I felt about the matter. The next thing I know, Reggie will be walking in the door ready to have a jolly house party!” He frowned down at her, and his usually even voice had risen to a bark.

“And that might be the very best thing that I could do!” Meg said, reaching out for him, then pulling her hand back. “You and Claire act as if he were some kind of a monster! He is your brother, and he had reason to dislike you.”

James stared at her, horrified. This was the ultimate betrayal. She was belittling his feelings for the Devereaux family. It was not to be tolerated.

“He is a monster, and the son of a monster!” The words were wrenched out of him before he was aware of what he was going to say. “You know nothing about it! You cannot pretend that Reggie or his mother were misunderstood angels who loved their family. They were not. They did not. And neither did my father. They hated me and they despised Claire. And I never want to hear you make excuses for any of them again.”

Meg stared at him. He had grown quieter and quieter with each word until at the end he was almost whispering. But his anger burned with a white-hot flame, and Meg had never come as close to despairing over him and their marriage as she did at that moment.

“You still hate them, don’t you?” she said, sorrow and pity in her heart.

He grabbed her arms and shook her. “Don’t you dare pity me! Don’t you ever dare!”

It was a child’s taunt, grown out of a child’s pain, and Meg had never felt such sympathetic pain herself. It was as if she were inside his soul, sharing all his fear and loneliness.

“No,” she whispered, “I don’t pity you. I pity Reggie. Did you always hate him this much?”

For some reason he answered her, compelled perhaps by the reality of her concern for him. “Not always. I envied him, too. He got to spend time with the duke. I never saw my father except at a distance after the duchess made him keep me out of sight. Why did he bring me there if he didn’t want to see me?

“Just to taunt me? Just to make me realize what a little bastard I was?”

“I don’t know, James. But I think he loved you. You are a very lovable person.” She smiled and for a moment he thought she was going to say what he longed to hear. “Claire loves you,” she said, and he turned away for a moment, lest she see the pain in his eyes.

“Yes, Claire loves me.” He was tempted to weaken, to thank her for taking Claire into their home—her home. But he could not do it. Years of standing alone, bearing the pain of rejection without letting anyone know, had toughened him.

“I am glad she came to you when Reggie was so difficult”

“Reggie threw her out,” James replied. “And we have taken her in. Permanently.”

Meg stepped back a pace. “I do not think you have the right to decide that without consulting me, James.”

“You refuse to give my sister a home?”

“Of course not, if she really needs one. But I am not sure that Reggie really has cast her off.”

Rage, blessed rage swept through him, numbing the pain. “You know nothing about it! How many times must I tell you that? And if you do not want Claire permanently, then she and I will leave you and your precious Hedgemere and find ourselves another home.”

“James, don’t be absurd. Your home is here. With me.” How could a rational man suddenly turn into an angry child, willfully misunderstanding every word she uttered?

Suddenly it all seemed too much for her to bear. A husband who truly loved her could not speak as he had. He did not understand love or her or make the slightest effort to see things from her viewpoint.

“My home is anywhere I choose to make it.” He walked to the door, then turned. “If you can accept my sister and stand with me against our enemies, then this can be my home. Otherwise, I will have to leave.”

Meg felt fatigue like a leaden cloak fold around her. The weight buckled her knees. She sat and bowed her head.

“No more, James. Please. I cannot think anymore. Let it all rest where it
is until after Gerald and Annis’s wedding.”

He nodded, unable to speak, and left the room, leaving Meg and the ruins of their marriage behind him.

Chapter Twenty-three

The days leading up to Annis and Gerald’s wedding were the strangest of Meg’s life. The outside, the husk of her being, went through the usual everyday motions. She ate, slept, conversed, ordered meals, and saw to me estate. But her soul was a howling desert. The inner Meg was desolate, numb, and mute, mourning her losses with every breath she drew. She hardly saw James, and when she did, it was not the James she knew. It seemed that he, too, was unable to do anything but go through me motions.

Claire served as a buffer between Meg and the stranger who walked about in James’s familiar, beloved form. Claire was happy to talk to Meg about James, and though it increased Meg’s pain to have him constantly brought before her mind, it increased her understanding of the child and the man.

She also grew to value Claire as a friend and a person in her own right. Lady Claire Devereaux was an artist—everything was subordinated to that. Reggie had failed to recognize this and had roused his otherwise quiet sister to rebellion. Meg, who had been a rebel in her own small way, admired anyone who followed an unusual dream.

When Meg asked Claire about Reggie, she found that her view of the son and heir differed from James’s in crucial respects. To his younger sister, Reggie had been overbearing and inconsiderate but not cruel. Claire seemed to realize that Reggie had probably given in to a desire to bluster when he had announced his plans for her marriage. Unfortunately for Reggie, Claire had a place to go and people who welcomed her. Meg rather imagined that Reggie would soon be looking for a way to get Claire to return to Kettering.

But with James he had been different. “He was always jealous of Jamie,” Claire said one afternoon as she and Meg sat under a shade tree on the south lawn, munching peaches. “Jamie was older and stronger. And the duchess hated him, so Reggie did, too. He worshiped her. She was the most beautiful woman in the world. Even Jamie couldn’t take his eyes off her, although she hated the very sight of him.”

Meg hesitated, then said, “Well, you could hardly blame her. After all, James must have been a constant reminder of the fact that the duke had loved someone before her.”

“Oh, it wasn’t that,” Claire replied. “The duke didn’t love anyone but the duchess, as far as women were concerned. Jamie’s mother was just a conquest, like many others. But he did care for Jamie. That’s what she hated, because he wasn’t her child.”

Claire seemed as cool and assessing about her parents as James was. Meg decided it must be the result of the distance the duke and duchess always kept between themselves and their children.

It was a life both similar and disturbingly different from that Meg had known. Although her father had ignored her and clearly had little use for her because she was not a boy, at least he had left her in the hands of people who did care for her. She had never had to face the real animosity that James had met with daily.