Prelude for a Lord (33 page)

The words were what the Trittonstone Park clergyman had preached at the pulpit, a tired intonation of the trite and hackneyed. Yet Mrs. Coon’s expression was far more discerning and kind than any clergyman Alethea had known, and from her lips, the words had a stronger, deeper meaning.

But Alethea’s spirit wrangled with the notion. Where had God been when her brother hurt her? Why had God taken Calandra just when Alethea needed her most? Why had God allowed Wilfred to kick her out of her home? Why would she desire comfort from such a God?

“We most often base our experience with God upon the actions of others. But you must not mistake human frailty for divine relationship,” Mrs. Coon said.

“Divine relationship? I do not comprehend.”

“God’s love for us.”

“Oh.” Yes, the parson had preached of God’s love, but it had always been a vague thing that had to do with words such as
salvation and sanctification and justification
.

“I beg your pardon.” Mrs. Coon rang the bell, and the maid removed the old tea things. “Fresh tea, please, Daisy.”

“There is no need.”

“Of course there is a need. While you remain here, the girls will not dare descend to bickering or, worse, fisticuffs.” Mrs. Coon winked.

“I am mortified by Margaret’s behaviour. She has not responded well to discipline in this matter. Speaking to her, scolding her, punishing her have all come to naught.”

“I have raised many children. Maria and Louisa are my youngest of seven. So you may trust my advice in this matter. If you discipline with love, Margaret will respond to that. We all only want someone to love us.”

Who had ever loved Alethea besides Calandra and Lucy? Would Dommick be able to love her? She shied from that thought.

Yes, Alethea could say she loved Margaret. She, who had never wanted children. She had felt so ashamed of who she was, assuming something was wrong with her for not desiring a family. But her bias had been because she had never found a man whom she would consider for the candidate of father and husband.

Until Dommick.

But in caring for Margaret, she had changed, and she could now see the possibility of having her own family, if she found a man whom she could love. Who would love her.

Her solitary life felt desolate. Her violin and her sister used to comfort her, but that was before she had done the foolish business of falling in love.

Could Dommick love her?

Dare she find out?

He was a cad. A fool.

Bayard stood at his study window looking at the courtyard
garden, grey and brown beneath the heavy clouds. Beyond them lay the square pool and the grassy terraced areas of the Great Garden where Margaret was running, her cloak long discarded, her brown curls flying behind her. Slower but no less exuberant, Alethea gave chase, her dark hair falling loose from its pins and tumbling down her shoulders.

He could not condemn a woman with such a love of life to living with a man in his condition. He could not expose her to his constant fear.

He was a coward. Alethea would not treat him as his former betrothed had done, and yet he feared what her reaction would be if she discovered the truth, the horror, the ugliness, the utter monstrosities in his mind. He could not even face them himself.

All the men in her life had only hurt her. He could not do that to her as well.

He had been happy yesterday by the stream, playing reed pipes. What other woman would delight in something so simple? What other woman would revel in the musical challenge of the duets? What other woman could have stirred him to forget his scruples and kiss her the way he knew he should not? But the music, her voice, her touch had been like awakening from a nightmare, a sunlit day from a stormy night. He wanted that awakening, that sunlight. He wanted Alethea.

He could never have her. He could never have any woman while he was . . . like this.

A tap at the study door, and then his butler, Forrow, appeared. “My lord, Lady Whittlesby has arrived and wishes to speak to you.”

Here? Now? Before he could speak, the lady pushed past Forrow. The butler withdrew and closed the study door.

“Lady Whittlesby, my mother—”

“I have not come to speak to your mother, but to you.” Her
carriage dress brushed the Turkish carpet as she sat in the solid oak chair before the desk.

“May I ring for tea?”

“No, I shan’t be a few minutes. I have stopped while on my way to London.” She thumped her palm against the heavy armrest of the chair. “What is this I hear of Miss Terralton’s kidnapping?”

He stiffened. How had the news been spread abroad? “I am grieved that it has reached so many ears,” he said slowly.

“Oh, don’t get into a bother, it’s a well-kept secret. Everyone is tittering about the maid running off with a footpad, who attacked two footmen, or some such nonsense.”

“How did you hear of it?”

“I did not. I guessed. My groom happened to mention that on the night of the concert, he saw a hired hack pull up before Ravenhurst’s home, and the two women who emerged looked remarkably like Lady Alethea and Miss Terralton, although rather disheveled. I recalled I had been speaking to Lady Alethea at that moment and knew it could not have been her. But later I remembered that when I stopped Miss Terralton on Milsom Street the other day, I had noticed her maid because of her striking resemblance to Lady Alethea. When I heard the wild stories, I pieced the information together. Miss Terralton is well?”

“She is.”

“Why was she taken? Ransom?”

“No.” Bayard did not want to say more, but Lady Whittlesby heaved an exasperated sigh.

“I have puzzled out this much, Dommick, so you may as well tell me the rest.”

He supposed Lady Whittlesby had some right to know since she had involved herself in Alethea’s violin. “The kidnappers were working for a man who wanted Lady Alethea, not Clare. They mistook the maid for Alethea and took Clare since she was with her.”

“But Lady Alethea’s dowry is not . . .” Lady Whittlesby gasped. “Never say it is because of her violin? I never would have suspected the threat to be so violent.”

“I thought it safest to remove them all here, to Terralton Abbey.”

Lady Whittlesby leaned forward. “I assure you, Dommick, I had no idea my request would put your family or Lady Alethea in danger.”

“I am working to discover who is pursuing Lady Alethea’s violin, but I have nothing definitive for you.”

Lady Whittlesby sat back in the chair. “After the concert, had you not left Bath so precipitously, I would have told you that I was sufficiently impressed by Miss Terralton’s performance and the renewed Quartet. I have decided to feature you all in my concert this spring, regardless of your inquiries into Lady Alethea’s violin.” She gave him a pleased smile.

But Bayard could not return it. London now seemed full of dangers and menace. Alethea was safer here, at Terralton. She would probably say he did not have the right to be concerned for her, but he was determined not to be like the other men in her life who’d had no care for her at all.

He spared a pang for Clare and his mother. He had agreed to Lady Whittlesby’s scheme for their sakes, but he would hope they would agree that Alethea’s safety precluded a brilliant social opportunity.

Lady Whittlesby’s smile faded, and she gave him a piercing look. “You do not seem pleased.”

“London is too dangerous for Lady Alethea until I can uncover who is threatening her life.”

“Do you intend to hold her hostage here?”

Alethea would kill him. “If need be, until the danger is dissipated.”

“But think of the opportunity for your sister.”

“If something dreadful happened to Lady Alethea for the sake of a debut season, what would that say about me as a man?”

Lady Whittlesby was silent. She looked disgruntled, but there were also traces of respect.

“I apologize for disappointing you, but it would better serve you to engage Mr. Kinnier.”

“Mr. Kinnier does not have the Quartet’s flare or Miss Terralton’s pretty charm,” Lady Whittlesby groused. “However, I quite see your point. I shall not press you further.” She stood. “Should you change your mind, you have until the beginning of the new year.”

“Thank you, although I could not guarantee the danger would be passed by then.”

He walked her to her travelling coach, which had been kept waiting before the house. As he watched the coach disappear down the gravel drive, Ian appeared at his shoulder. “So, Lady Whittlesby arrived.”

“She stopped by on the way to London. She wanted to know the progress about the violin. Made some noise about her spring concert and Mr. Kinnier.”

“I hope that spurred you to mention some brilliant clue and assurance you’d have the answer for her by next week.”

“Unfortunately, I told her I have nothing as yet.” Bayard turned to him. “Aren’t you supposed to be watching the violin?”

“Raven is there. We were in the hidden gallery playing cards, but I came down for refreshment.”

“I do wish our friend would make some sort of play for it.”

“We have made it quite difficult for him. He must resort to being clever about it.”

Bayard decided not to tell Alethea he had refused Lady Whittlesby’s concert. She would not understand why he so desperately wanted to protect her. He had no wish for her to guess how much he cared for her.

Slowly, against his inclinations, she had grown around his heart like ivy, but he must work harder to undo their closeness, to push her away. For her own sake, and for his.

Bayard awoke with a start, with the echoes of his scream reverberating around him. His heartbeat was the rapid blows of a hammer cracking his breastbone from inside out. He gasped in air, trying to remember how to breathe. He then noticed the hard floor beneath his knees. His hands scrabbled at cold stone, blood streaking from his scraped fingertips.

He was in the family chapel.

His body felt as if he’d been walking coatless in a snowstorm. His arms and legs trembled violently and his stomach cramped. His eyes burned as if his tears had been as bitter as wormwood, as acrid as vinegar.

The images of the nightmare still passed before his eyes in wisps like shades of the dead. There was recrimination, and crushing guilt, and pain. And blood.

A footstep echoed against the bare stone walls of the chamber. Raven, come to help him back to bed, to dose him with a bottle of whiskey so that the shrieks of the dying receded into a pit of oblivion and blinding headaches.

“Dommick?” The whisper was soft, like a cobweb on his ear.

No
. No, it could not be her. Not here, not now.

“Are you unwell? How can I help you?”

Into the line of his vision crept her feet in bed slippers. Then the rounded shape of her knees beneath her green dressing gown as she knelt beside him. A flash of white, then the touch of her hand against his forehead, his cheek.

“Dommick, let me help you—”

“Go away!” He pushed with his hands and scrambled backward away from her until his back hit the edge of a pew.

Her eyes were wide and dark in a ghostly white face. Her hair had been tied back and braided, but locks had come loose to wave around her face. She reached toward him.

He slapped her hand away with a blow that must have stung. She jerked her hand to her chest, and there were drops of blood on her skin from the scrapes on his fingers.

Still she would not go away, still she would not become angry or disgusted or afraid and run away.

And at that moment he realized that Alethea would never run away. She ran from nothing.

“I don’t want you,” he lashed out. “How could anyone ever want you?”

His words repelled her as his blow had not. She shrank within the dressing gown. He knew the pain in her eyes because he felt that pain scored across his soul. He needed her to go away, to forget she saw him like this. Right now, he was only wounded and bleeding. With her here, he would be exposed and raw.

And still she was not afraid. She rose to her feet, trembling, but with anger and not horror. “You truly are a mad baron,” she said in a voice awful and horrible, and then she ran away, the sounds of her slippers soft against the stone floor.