Rebecca (37 page)

“Only with your beauty, dear twice-wed wife. We had a wonderful wedding. Now I want to sample your sweetness once again. Love me, my lady.”

Partly, she retorted, “Is that a command, my Lord Foxbridge?”

“A request only, but one I hope you will satisfy.”

She pulled his mouth down toward hers. “I will try, if you will be my Nicholas and love me as you do so well.” Any answer he would have given her was lost in the rapture spinning sweet webs of desire around them.

Chapter Eighteen

As soon as possible after the harvest was completed, Rebecca put her plans for the school into action. Reaction was much as she had anticipated. The villagers were thrilled with the chance for their children to have some book learning. Lady Margaret was outraged. The older woman threatened all kinds of mayhem until her son told her if she did not like it, it was unfortunate. The school would be held three mornings weekly for two hours each day. If she did not want to be at the Cloister during that time, she should feel free to use the carriage to call upon her friends.

Eliza and Curtis were amused by Rebecca's enthusiasm for her latest project. So wrapped up were they in their own love that very little of what went on around them seemed to enter their own private world. The first morning of school, Eliza peeked in to see fifteen children perched on the hard benches that the monks once had used for their prayers. They watched Lady Foxbridge explain the beginning mysteries of letters and numbers.

Nicholas knew that his wife would not fail. She was urging the children to share what they were learning with their older siblings who could not attend the school. He did not visit the little classroom, for his presence would cow the students and disrupt lessons.

One night, several weeks after the school had opened, he was enjoying the quiet in their sitting room as he read the latest newspapers from London. They were only two weeks old, so he was finding much of interest in them. Rebecca sat on the settee with her feet drawn up under her as she worked out the lesson plans for her class the next day. It was becoming more complicated as the children progressed.

They had all started at the same point of ignorance, but some were leaping ahead of the others. She wanted to press them on as fast as they could go, to cram all they should learn into the short hours and years she would have them in her classes. Once they were old enough to work, they would be lost to her. Greggy was her oldest, and she had gone to his mother directly to ask that he be allowed to attend. As she had guessed, he was her star pupil. Already he was learning to read phrases from the Bible, which was the only book she had for children. She vowed to search the nursery in the attic to see if there were others.

A knock interrupted the tranquil, domestic scene by the fireplace. With the nights turning crisply cool, they enjoyed the warmth of the burning logs.

“Don't get up, my love,” said Nicholas. He called, “Who is it?”

When his sister answered, he told her to join them. Eliza opened the door, and they saw she had her sweetheart with her. As Nicholas motioned for them to sit by the fire, Rebecca automatically tightened the neckline of her dressing gown.

Since the time when Curtis had come into the room after the village fair and found her dressed only in her robe, she had been aware of the appreciation in his eyes when they settled on her. She had grown accustomed to it from other men, but she did not think Eliza's suitor should be looking at her that way. Hoping it was all her imagination, she said nothing of it to anyone. Nicholas's keen eyes had not noticed it, so over and over she tried to tell herself that she was just overreacting to something that had not happened and never would.

“Nicholas, we would like to talk to you about something very important,” began Eliza with uncharacteristic nervousness.

He smiled at his wife. There was no doubt what the twosome wanted. He had been expecting this since the remarriage ceremony. That day he had seen how Curtis and Eliza had looked at each other, as if they were wishing it was their marriage being performed in the family chapel. “Go ahead, sister.” He had joined Rebecca on the settee, and he put his arm around her shoulders. They had never had to endure this situation, for they had asked no one's permission to marry.

Eliza glanced at Curtis, who took her hand in his. The young man said, “I have asked Eliza to marry me. We have known each other for more than two years, and the devotion between us is very strong.” He smiled innocuously. “We have been very impressed by the love we have seen that you share, and we feel that ours is the same. We have come for your blessing and authorization to marry.”

He turned to Rebecca. “What do you think, sweetheart?”

Batting his hand away from her hair, she laughed. “Stop teasing them, Nicholas. Tell them yes or no. Don't be cruel.”

“You have heard how she orders me about, Curtis. I do not doubt that Eliza will be much the same.” He chuckled as Rebecca gave a false groan of misery at his continued jesting. “If you think you can endure being married to a hot-tempered Wythe, welcome to the family.” He rose and held out his hand to his future brother-in-law.

A victorious grin shone on the slighter man's face as he shook Nicholas' hand. Eliza and Rebecca embraced as they chattered about the next wedding to be held at Foxbridge Cloister. Nicholas sent Gilmore for a bottle of wine to toast this betrothal. The rest of the evening was spent in celebrating the engagement which would come as a surprise to nobody. When Eliza asked if they could hold a masquerade ball to make the formal announcement, she did not tell them it had been Curtis's idea. She would have agreed with almost anything her fiance suggested. The idea of a masked ball here at Foxbridge Cloister appealed to everyone.

Eliza had decided already she was going to go to the party dressed in the style of ancient Greece. With her dark hair piled high on her head and a simple gown draped over her slender body, she would be as beautiful as one of their temple priestesses. “I know who you must go as, Rebecca,” she added, enthusiastically. “You must go as Sybill Wythe.”

Rebecca laughed. “Shall Nicholas be the cuckolded Lord Foxbridge or my Spanish lover?”

“We shall rewrite history, my love,” he said, whirling her into his arms. “I shall be your Sybill's beloved husband.”

“There will be no man coming from the sea for this Sybill,” she murmured before his lips on hers made talking impossible.

The others were baffled by their words, but there was no misunderstanding the fervency of the kiss. The love which had bound Rebecca so tightly to distant shores had been replaced by one which would last for as long as she lived. Curtis tugged on Eliza's sleeve and led her from the room. Quietly, he closed the door, but he doubted if the lord and lady would have noticed their leavetaking if they had slammed the door as hard as they were able. As he looked at Eliza, his mind was on the one in Lord Foxbridge's arms.

He had not been able to ignore the fire that burned in those intriguing blue eyes that often turned near-violet with emotion. That the flames were blazing only for her husband he knew. The rumors that she had been Middleton's mistress over the summer was a lie started by vicious busybodies. Rebecca Wythe would never come to any man willingly but her husband.

“What are you thinking of, Curtis?” came the soft whisper as his pretty Eliza put her hand on his arm.

With a smile, he gazed down into her innocent eyes. “Why, you, of course, darling. You and our wedding that is one step closer to reality.”

He pulled her into his arms and kissed her with eager passion. As she pressed close, he was glancing past her at the door that led to the lord's suite. He had nearly reached his goal. Soon Eliza would be his, and they would live in this wonderful house. His arms tightened around her. Yes, things were going perfectly for Curtis Langston.

Lady Margaret was as thrilled with the announcement of her daughter's engagement as she had been appalled by her son's. Wholeheartedly, she began work on the ball which would be held in two weeks. Once the formal proclamation had been made at the ball, preparations could be started for the wedding.

Rebecca once again was the odd one out. She could not shake her feeling that something was not quite right with the man her sister-in-law loved. Finally, she could not stand to do nothing any longer. She wrote a short note to Nicholas' barrister, Mr. Doyle, who worked at Mallory and Sons in London. Letting him think that she needed the answers to plan a surprise party, she asked him to check into the unknown background of Curtis Langston, Esquire. She gave his address in London and asked the solicitor to get any information he could discover in a week to her by speediest messenger.

When she posted the letter, she felt an immediate sense of relief and guilt. Although she had asked Doyle not to mention anything to Nicholas in his regular correspondence, she was afraid her husband would find out what she had done and be furious. If the solicitor told her Curtis was the fine young man everyone else seemed to believe he was, she would be ashamed of her distrust. Yet she could not do nothing about what she felt so strongly.

Following Eliza's suggestion, she arranged with Mademoiselle Pacquette to make her a gown in the Elizabethan style to match the one in the portrait of Sybill Wythe. The dressmaker spent hours making sketches of the dress in the painting and returned to her shop to create the outfit, recalling skills lost a century before. She also had asked for a portrait of Sybill's husband to use as a model for Nicholas' costume. Although they had searched the portrait gallery and the attics, they had been surprised to find nothing. Eliza told them jokingly that as he was no true ancestor of this house, perhaps their family had destroyed his portrait.

Among the preparations for the ball, Rebecca was busy also with her school. The number of students had grown to twenty. She heard recitations and tried to teach them sums using examples from their own lives. Often they would return to school with questions she knew their parents had posed. It pleased her that her efforts were reaching past the twenty children and the small room which was becoming too crowded. She would have to divide the class and teach part in the morning and part in the afternoon.

Such a plan would not please Nicholas, who did not want the school to monopolize her time. Often her afternoons were spent in sweet love with him behind the latched door of their bedroom. He would not be willing to give up those times. Neither would she, so she must devise some other way to manage the growing class.

One day about a week before the ball, she looked up from her table to see Curtis standing in the door. She had dismissed the children, but had stayed to do some work.

“So this is the famous schoolroom at Foxbridge Cloister?” he asked with a smile. He looked at the plain walls and the slates which were piled at the edge of one bench. “Not much like the schools we attended, is it, Rebecca?”

Coolly, she answered, “It's very much like the school I attended. Don't let the dullness of the room make you think the minds here are the same.”

“I wouldn't think that. I'm sure you are inspiring these youngsters to seek a life far above their own level.”

Anger filled her at his calm attack on her school. “What do you mean by that? Are we supposed to be content to be no more than what we were born to be? If that had been the case throughout history, we would be barbarians still.” She stood slowly and closed the book she had been using to garner ideas for her next class. “We must have something to aspire to. Those dreams are what give us the will to continue on through the mundane times of our lives.”

He grinned as he leaned on the single windowsill. “Not only are you beautiful, but philosophical. You certainly have made your advice come true. Could you have conceived a year ago of living in a house like this and being Lady Foxbridge?”

Her frown deepened. “A year ago, my dreams were very different. Still they were dear to me. We are not as class conscious in America as you are here. It's far easier to move from one level to another, both up and down. There are no guarantees of a soft life there, unless one deserves it.”

Curtis had been wandering around the room as she spoke. He examined her teaching tools as if they were odd museum pieces. When he stopped, he stood directly in front of her. He smiled as she stepped away from him. He did not pause as he backed her toward the wall. When she bumped into it, a startled look filled her expressive eyes. He walked closer and leaned forward to put his arms on either side of her shoulders. Carefully, he did not touch her.

“Why do you act so scared of me, Rebecca?” he asked, seemingly nonplussed.

Trying to act normally, she replied, “I'm not scared of you. Should I be?”

“You are a lovely woman all alone in a deserted wing of this huge house.”

“And you are my sister-in-law's fiance!” she retorted, wishing he would stop playing whatever game this was.

He smiled coyly. “That's true. Eliza soon will be my wife, and we will be living together here. Eliza and I and Lord Foxbridge and his distrustful, incredibly beautiful wife and Lady Margaret who hates you so deeply, although I have never understood why. Except for the fact that you are from America, you should be everything she would want in a daughter-in-law.”

Rebecca tried to move away, but his arms kept her imprisoned. When he pulled the book from her hands that she had held between them, she broke away. Before she could go more than a trio of steps, his hand caught her arm and brought her back sharply against the wall. She cried out in pain.

“Do not act so scared of me, Rebecca,” he said in a totally different tone of voice. It had softened as if he wished to court her with sweetened phrases. His fingers reached out to caress her cheek, but she turned her face from him. “We will be family soon. I just came to tell you farewell, for I am leaving for London. I won't be back until next Thursday.”