Tangled (8 page)

"I know," she said. "And he loved the earl and called him father.

And he loved you, David."

"Yes," he said, his heart feeling like a stone in his chest, as it so often did. "We were like brothers. So my father could not see you going into relative poverty, you see."

"And that rules out my taking employment too," she said with a sigh.

"Have you thought of marriage?" he asked.

She closed her eyes. "No." She drew breath. "Had you asked me that question yesterday, David, I would have replied that I am already married. But I am not, of course. I am a widow and have been for almost two years. No, I have not thought of marriage. It is the only way a woman can change the state of her life, though, isn't it? I will have to think of something."

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"I am going to Stedwell at long last," he said. "It has been mine all my life, yet I have never done more than pay it fleeting visits. I intend to make it my home and to make the running of the estate my job. I sent there this morning to warn the housekeeper that I am coming.

She will need to make some preparations and hire more servants. I sent word that I will be coming in a month's time or so."

"I think you are wise," she said. "You would not feel at home here any longer, David. Not now that your father has remarried. They are happy, you know. If you have feared as I did that . . . Well, I don't believe it is true."

"Yes," he said. "I was a little worried, but I can see that I need not have been. She is genuinely fond of him, I believe—and he of her. I am taking on a huge task at Stedwell. The house is rather shabby, I believe, and the gardens have been kept tidy but nothing more. I know nothing about my tenants and laborers or about the efficiency or lack of efficiency with which things have been run. I know none of the neighbors."

"It will be an adventure," she said. "But you need something to keep you busy, David."

"To keep me out of trouble?" he said, looking down at her. She flushed but did not reply. He knew that she had never approved of him. But he could not allow that to stop him.

"I am going to need a wife," he said.

"Yes," she agreed. "She will be able to take charge of the house and gardens while you concentrate on the farms. You will not have any problem finding someone willing, David. You are young, and I am sure you know you are handsome too. Have you had a chance to choose anyone yet?"

"Yes," he said and waited for her to look up. "I want you to marry me, Rebecca."

She looked at him blankly for a while. "Me?" she said at last. "You want me to marry you?"

"We could both solve a problem by marrying each other," he said.

"No." Her voice was incredulous.

"You would have a home of your own," he said. "Not

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only that. You would have a definite purpose in life. You would be very much needed."

"You are proposing a marriage of convenience?" she asked him.

They had stopped walking and she had dropped her arm from his.

"We would marry just because I need a home and you need a helper?"

"Not entirely," he said. "We are not strangers, Rebecca. I am fond of you and I think you are perhaps a little fond of me. It would not be quite as cold-blooded as a marriage of convenience."

"I am not fond of you." Her eyes were wide. She flushed deeply after the words were out, but she would not retract them. "Julian loved you and so I suppose I felt a certain bond with you. But I was never fond of you. I have no wish to marry you, David, either for convenience or fondness. Thank you but no."

He felt rather as if he had been slapped across the face. But she had told him nothing that he had not known already. He could not retreat. He had heard too much of the loneliness of her situation in what she had told him a few minutes ago, although she had spoken without open self-pity.

"Think about it," he said. "Think about a home and position of your own, Rebecca. Think about being able to move away from here and not having to contemplate living with your brother or with your sister-in-law, who would perhaps resent having you. Think about the fact that I need a wife."

Her dark eyes blazed up at him suddenly and her nostrils flared.

He could not remember seeing Rebecca angry. "You need a wife?" she asked him. "You have one, David. It is just that you have neglected to marry her. And you have a son."

"No," he said.

"Go and ask Flora to marry you," she said. "Have you even thought of calling on her today? Have you even thought to see how your son has grown in your absence? He has your dark hair, you know.''

"Flora has dark hair too," he said.

"So you are going to deny your paternity?" she said. "I despise you for that, David. I despise you more than I can say. Everything else you ever did I could put down

¦MM
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to the wildness of youth, but not that. How could you beget a child and desert the mother?''

"I did not desert her," he said, "or the child. They are safe and warm and have all their needs provided for, don't they?"

"By you?" she said. "Or by your father?"

"Both," he said.

She turned from him and gazed across the wide lawn on which they had been strolling toward the distant line of trees.

"She would not have accepted marriage with me," he said quietly.

"I don't believe you," she said. "And by your very words you are admitting that you never asked her. You did not even try to do the decent thing."

"Ask her," he said. "I believe she will tell you that she would not have married me even if I had asked. We had an understanding."

.

"Oh, yes," she said. "Money and a home in exchange for silence and docility. And so your son is a bastard, David. He will have to live his life with that stigma."

"Yes," he said. "But he will be well cared for. Marriage between Flora and me would have been impossible, Rebecca. Ask her."

She began to walk in the direction of the distant house. "Marriage between you and me would be even more impossible," she said. "I cannot think why you had the gall to ask." She stopped again and turned to look full at him. "I am Julian's wife. Julian's widow, if you will. Do you think I could marry you after being his, David? Do you?"

He could think of no answer to give her.

"I have tried," she said, and her eyes were tormented suddenly,

"not to wish it were Julian coming home and not you. It would be a cruel wish, wouldn't it? But I have wished it nevertheless. And I wish it now, God help me. If it had to be one or the other of you, then I wish it were Julian standing there and you in the grave in the Crimea.

And I hate you for forcing me to make that admission out loud.

Don't follow me. Please."

She hurried away across the lawn, holding up her full skirt in front so that she would not trip over it in her haste.

He stood looking after her, feeling as if she had plunged a knife into his stomach and twisted it. But it was natural, of course. How could he expect her to wish anything different?

And he had the same wish as she. He wished it could be Julian there at Crayboume with her, and himself in that grave on the Inkerman Heights. She would be happy—for a time—and he would be at peace.

He wished it profoundly.

The countess was to attend a meeting in the village after luncheon to arrange a prize-giving and fete at the school. Rebecca would normally have gone with her, but she made an excuse of her headache and retired to her room.

Much as she had felt awkward about living at Craybourne after Julian's death, especially during the past year, she had never felt afraid to leave her room. She was afraid now. She did not know where she might safely go. She did not know where David was. At luncheon he had said nothing about his plans for the afternoon.

She had been appallingly rude to him. She could not remember ever treating another human being with such discourtesy. She could not remember speaking deliberately to hurt on any other occasion.

If it had to be one or the other of you, then I wish it were Julian
standing there and you in the grave in the Crimea.

She could hear herself speaking the words, wanting to hurt him.

Feeling quite vicious in her need to wound.

And you in the grave in the Crimea.

Yes, she hated him for forcing her to say those words. She hated him.

How dare he ask her to marry him! And in such a coldblooded manner. Merely so that she could get his house in order for him.

How could he possibly have expected her to say yes when she had been married to Julian? He knew what that marriage had been like.

He knew how close they had been, how deeply they had loved each other. Had he seriously expected that she would be willing to make a marriage of convenience after knowing that? And with him of all people?

/
am fond of you,
he had said. Was he? Yes, he prob-

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ably was. He had been fond of Julian for all his wildness, and she had been Julian's wife. And he had always been tolerant of her as a child even though she was four years younger than he—and a mere girl.

And I think perhaps you are a little fond of me.
He was wrong about that. She was not fond of him at all. And yet Julian had loved him.

And yes, there was something of a bond. She closed her eyes and remembered Southampton and her final wrenching parting from Julian. She had hugged David there and felt a terrible dread for him and begged him to keep himself safe—even though all her mind had been on Julian and the fact that she must next turn to him and take her leave of him.

Forever, as it had turned out.

Yes, she felt a little fondness for David, she supposed, though it had been drowned out by dislike. By that one unforgivable fact about him. He had fathered Flora Ellis's child outside of marriage—the very thought could make Rebecca's cheeks grow hot with shame—and had refused to take responsibility for his actions afterward. He had refused to marry Flora. Though she would not have accepted him anyway, he had said. That was difficult to believe. Any woman in such circumstances would gladly marry even if she did not love the man. And how could Flora have done what she had done if she had not loved David?

Ask her,
he had said.

Did it matter to her? Was it any of her business what had passed between those two former lovers and why they had made the decisions they had made? Was it of any personal concern to her whether David had treated Flora as shabbily as it had always appeared or whether Flora had not wanted marriage? They had an agreement, David had said—whatever that meant. It was really not her concern, Rebecca thought, unless she planned to marry him. She did not plan any such thing. The idea was absurd.

And yet when she sat down to write a letter to her mother, she dipped the pen in the inkwell three separate times but could think of not a word to write. Except "David is home." But she could not begin a letter with those words. It would seem that the fact of his homecom-

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ing was of immense significance to her. It was not. She set the pen down and got to her feet with a sigh after ten minutes when the paper was still blank.

She glanced through the window. Clouds had covered the sky since morning. It looked chilly. It would be more comfortable to stay inside where it was warm. She had nothing to go out for. She had made her visit that morning and had got enough air and exercise for the day. It was too late to go with Louisa. She would stay in.

And yet a scant two minutes later she had hurried into her dressing room and was tying the ribbons of her bonnet resolutely beneath her chin. She wrapped a shawl about her shoulders—she would need it this afternoon.

She was going to have a word with Flora.

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David had not followed Rebecca back to the house. Instead he had turned and walked back the way they had come together and the way she had come alone. He had been to Flora Ellis's cottage only once, with his father. It had been before the birth of her son.

He knocked on the door and then looked down as it was opened almost immediately by a small boy. Yes, the child was dark, like himself—and like his mother. He had Julian's gray eyes.

"My lord?" Flora Ellis came up behind her son and curtsied awkwardly. She looked startled.

"Flora?" he said. "May I come in?"

She drew her son out of the doorway and motioned for David to come inside. She led the way into a small yet cozy parlor, snatching a book off one chair and some sewing ofF another as she went. She asked him to be seated.

"May I offer you some refreshments, my lord?" she asked.

He had forgotten how lovely she was, how voluptuous her figure.

How very much Julian's type, physically speaking. He had loved Rebecca, of course. There could be no doubt about that. But Rebecca was a lady and a refined one at that. Julian had always needed more than beauty and refinement and love.

"No, thank you," he said. "Flora, how are you?" She might be voluptuous to look at, but she was a lady

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too. She had been a happy, high-spirited girl, as often in trouble with her straitlaced father as he ever was with his.

"I am well, my lord," she said, "as you see. And you? I am glad you came back safely from the war. I was happy to hear that you were coming home."

"Thank you," he said. He looked at the little boy, who was standing beside her chair, clinging to her sleeve and staring at him.

"You have a beautiful son."

"Yes." She smiled at the child. "He is my pride and joy."

"You are managing, Flora?" he asked. "You have enough of everything?''

"Yes," she said hastily. "I am very well blessed, thanks to you and his lordship. We have everything we need."

"He will go to the village school?" he said. "We will talk about further education when he is older. And about a suitable career for him."