The Bride's Secret (24 page)

I sigh'd for thee.

Her heartbeat accelerated when she thought of James setting his arms about her—and when she remembered the bliss his lovemaking always brought her. She looked up at him, and her heart drummed even more rapidly. The very sight of his handsome face, of his long, sinewy limbs stretched out along the river bank, the sound of his gentle voice when he spoke to
their
son. All these things combined to sweep her away with a maddening rush of emotion.

And she suddenly realized she had fallen madly, irrevocably in love with her husband.

Chapter 24

Her husband had gone to the mines. Carlotta jerked a weed from the parterre garden. She hated him to go down into the wretched pits. Even more so now that she realized how desperately she loved him, how much she needed him. To lose him was unthinkable, the pain unbearable.

Just knowing he was at the mines put her in a foul temper. She heard the sound of laughter and pushed up the brim of her sun bonnet to see Peggy strolling across the park land with Jeremy, both of them laughing frequently. A smile lifted Carlotta's lips. Young love.

Carlotta returned to her weeding. Her mind—as it so often was now—focused on her own lover. Her memory lingered over their magical blending the night before. Every blending with her husband was magical, even more so because James appealed to her on every level: the physical, the intellectual, and the spiritual. In all three ways, he touched her, making her strong where she had been weak, giving light where there had been only darkness. Every minute in his presence was intoxicating, fulfilling. She had never felt so complete.

Only one thing was lacking to prevent her perfect happiness. James did not love her. She had come so very close to telling him how dearly she loved him last night, but her errant pride would not allow her to. How foolish she would have seemed to blather on about her love for him when she meant no more to him than a compliant body to warm his bed and assuage his manly needs.

She could not allow herself to proclaim her love until he did so. But that day might never come. How could she, of all people, ever hope to earn James's love, especially when he knew her faults only too well? Except the greatest of her faults.

Was there anything more she could do to try to secure his love? There was nothing she
wouldn't
do. But as she thought on it, she came to realize she was already doing everything in her power. She had become a loving mother. She welcomed her husband into her bed every night. She wished to bear James's a son and heir and as many other children as the Lord would bless them with. She meant to be a good mistress to all his employees. She would not undermine any of her husband's pursuits, no matter how vehemently she objected to them. She was eager to learn the games which so excessively pleased her husband. She took pains with her appearance and denied herself extra servings of food to keep from getting fat so he could remain proud of her appearance, even if he was not proud of her.

She could not think of another thing she could do to try to secure her husband's love but vowed to continue working at it and to seek new avenues of earning his affection.

For now she would have to take consolation in the fact she must be doing something right. James had not absented himself from her bed one single night.

It pleased her that he took pleasure in her body. Even though she was alone there in the parterre garden, her mind and body filled with the feel of James, and color rose in her cheeks as she remembered how greedily she hungered after her husband and his body that brought her such pleasure. If only she could be more reserved—and less like the kept woman she once had been. Though even with Gregory—whom she had loved wrecklessly—she had never been so abandoned, so uninhibited as she was with her husband. James's very touch was a potent aphrodisiac to her. Nay, even the sound of his voice sent her heart racing.

Throughout the afternoon, she busied herself in the garden. She removed the spent growth from the rhododendrons. She planted sweet alyssum. She enriched the soil. And she savored the feel of the sun.

As she worked in the garden, four Covington brothers came strolling up toward Yarmouth. Seeing them and recognizing them off in the distance, Carlotta got up and met them in the park.

“Have you come to play with my son?” she asked.

“Aye,” the eldest replied, his glance darting from her to the huge, four-storied manor house.

“Follow me, if you will,” she said. “Should you like to see the house?”

The boy, dressed in clean homespun, shrugged. “We might be too dirty.”

“Nonsense! Come in,” she said, striding to the tall doorway and entering. She instructed the footman to find Master Stevie and inform him he had callers. Then Carlotta gave the boys a quick tour of the rooms which were located directly off the entry hallway.

By the time she was finished, Stevie had come downstairs and happily greeted his new friends, all of whom were bigger than he.

“It's a lovely day to be outdoors,” Carlotta said to the lads. “Stevie, why do you not take your friends to see the mews?”

“We've got eleven horses—and one pony,” Stevie said proudly as he turned to exit the house, the four taller boys following him.

Carlotta looked up to see Miss Kenworth standing behind Stevie.

“Should you like me to go with them?” Miss Kenworth asked.

“I dare say that won't be necessary. The Covington lads seem mature enough.”

“Praise the good Lord Master Stephen's so much more well behaved than my brother was,” Miss Kenworth said, pressing her hands to her hips. “Imagine, if you will, a son coming on the heels of four sisters! To say that my mother—and the rest of us for that matter—spoiled my little brother is an understatement. I dare say David thought there was nothing he could not get away with, and I daresay there was nothing he wouldn't try to get away with! Not at all like Master Stevie, who's sweet through and through.”

Carlotta beamed. Stevie's goodness must have come from his father. “I wish I could take credit for my son's admirable traits, if indeed he does possess them, but alas, I cannot. As you must know, my son spent his formative years with my grandmother, who is the woman who also raised me as a mother would have.”

Carlotta cleared her throat, then told Miss Kenworth something she had never told anyone before, not even James. “You see, my first husband's death left me almost penniless. I thought Stevie would be better off with my grandmother, whose own funds were rather limited. I had decided I would snare a husband in order to regain my son and to be able to raise him as the grandson of an earl ought to be raised.

“What I never imagined was that it would be six long years before I received a proposal of marriage. And, I assure you, I never imagined that proposal would come from an earl—or from a man whom I would come to love so dearly.” Carlotta's face colored. “Oh, dear, I'm blabbering my dreary life to you, telling you far more than you ever wanted to know, I dare say.”

“Not at all, my lady. I love fairy book romances like yours and the earl's.”

Fairy book romance?
It was all Carlotta could do not to burst into laughter.

“I must say, I've never seen a man more in love than the earl appear to be with you.”

Carlotta's stomach fluttered. Perhaps the poor girl needed Mr. Fordyce's spectacles! “I should like to think there's truth in what you say,” Carlotta said, pulling off her gardening gloves. “Tell me, did you and Mr. Fordyce enjoy your walk the other day?”

Now it was Miss Kenworth who blushed. “I can't speak for Mr. Fordyce, but for myself it was most enjoyable. Mr. Fordyce is a decidedly interesting, intelligent man.”

“I certainly appreciated the way he handled Stevie with the sparrow.”

“He made me feel like a raving imbecile,” Miss Kenworth said. “Why I never gave a thought to freeing the bird, I do not know!”

“Sometimes it just takes another person's perspective to see what should be as plain as the noses on our faces.”

“Aye, that it does.”

Carlotta glanced at the window. “'Tis another lovely day. Why do you and Mr. Fordyce not take another walk? I dare say Stevie will be busy with his new friends until dinner.”

“I couldn't impose of Mr. Fordyce. He has very important work to attend.”

Carlotta sighed. “I suppose I'll have to once again order him to take time to smell the roses.” She began to walk toward the library. “Come along. I think it is very good that you have another young person who speaks in the same tongue as you, so to say.”

Miss Kenworth laughed. “To be sure. I've not yet learned to understand this Somerset dialect.”

“I suppose they think their speech is closer to a Devonshire dialect.”

“Coming from Middlesex, I know neither.”

Carlotta pressed open the swirling bookcase and came presently into Mr. Fordyce's office.

He stood to greet the ladies.

“My dear Mr. Fordyce, can you not guess why we're here?” Carlotta asked him.

His eyes flashed for a second, then he was mute, shaking his head.

“'Tis another beautiful spring day, and my son has left Miss Kenworth in order to play with some neighboring lads. I desire that you amuse dear Miss Kenworth.”

He glanced from Carlotta to Miss Kenworth. “I should not wish to disappoint you, my lady.”

* * *

When Carlotta came down to dinner that night, James was not at the table. Her heart sank with disappointment. Since they had started sharing a bed, her husband had only been absent from their dinner table one night. She liked to think he was beginning to enjoy being in her company as much as she enjoyed being in his.

“Has my husband taken a tray in the library tonight?” she asked one of the footmen.

“No, my lady.”

“Do you know what time he came home?”

The second footman shrugged. “To my knowledge, his lordship has not returned.”

Carlotta's eyes rounded.
Not returned?
Why, it had been dark for over an hour! Surely James would not think of riding home over this rough terrain in the dark! Now she was going to be excessively worried about him. As if his insistence on going to the mines had not already caused her enough grief!

She was mad enough to scream like a banshee at him whenever he did return. Besides her worry, Carlotta hated eating alone. It quite made her lose her appetite.

The other footman moved closer and handed her the salver of buttered lobster, and she filled her plate from it and the smaller dishes which were close at hand. With each bite she took, her worry over James mounted.

She looked up at the nearest footman. “Would you instruct Adams to let me know when his lordship arrives home?”

Nodding, he scurried from the room.

Carlotta attempted to empty her plate but found she had lost her appetite. With every tick of the clock, her worry over James increased. Throughout the day her stomach had knotted when she had thought of him being down in those wretched mines, and now that he had not come home . . . Where was he? Had he, perhaps, been injured in a fall from his horse? Why, in heaven's name, had he been foolish enough to try riding these hills at night? Her chest tightened. What if he was not riding home? What if there had been a accident at the mines?

Her fingers gripped her wine glass. Perhaps she should send out a search party. It wasn't at all like James to be gone this late. He was far too intelligent not to know the dangers of Exmoor—and the Bagworthy Woods—at night.

She looked at the clock on the mantel. 'Twas half past six. If he had not returned by seven, she would send out all the servants of Yarmouth to seek their master.

The very thought of James being hurt sent waves of fear rushing over her. She began to tremble and her heart drummed in a deep, frightening rhythm.

She pushed her plate away and rose from the table.

“Her ladyship does not wish the second course served?” the footman asked.

She shook her head. “I'm not hungry.” Then she swept from the room. She went first to the foot of the stairs, which was near the front door, and met the gaze of the footman who stood there.

He shook his head solemnly. “Lord Rutledge has not returned.”

Biting her lip, she nodded and strode down the marble hallway to James's library. She left the library door open so she would hear James when he came home. Then she began to pace from one end of the Turkey carpet to the other. Every few minutes she would stop to read titles on row after row of gold-lettered book spines. Then she would commence pacing again, her heart racing madly, her hands trembling, her fears growing.

She glanced at the clock above the library's fireplace. Twenty more minutes until the hour. Then she would not hesitate to order everyone at Yarmouth to go out searching for their master.

As she paced, her eyes filled with tears, but she would not allow them to slip from her eyes. James wouldn't like that. And, she thought with a gush of emotion, James was, after all, her master.

The hands on the clock moved so slowly, Carlotta began to wonder if the clock were broken. As soon as she would decide to monitor it, the long hand would swing to another minute.
Soon it will be seven of the clock
.

By the time it was two minutes to seven, Carlotta lost all patience. She fled the room and began to gather up the servants. “I'm much concerned about Lord Rutledge,” she told them once all of them were assembled in the central hall. “He should have been home by now, and I'm afraid he's come to harm. It isn't like him to stay from home so late. I desire that you pair up and head in the direction of the mines to seek Lord Rutledge.”

As Carlotta spoke, a heavy knock thundered at the front door. The footman whose task it was to answer the front door started in its direction, but she swept past him and threw open the door.

She thought her heart would explode when she saw the black-faced miner standing before her. He inclined his head, then began to address her. “I'm sorry for bein' so late, but his lordship wouldn't allow us to come through these parts by horse at night. . .”