The Lady Series (47 page)

Catching her hands in his, he stepped out of her embrace. “Nay, we mustn’t,” he breathed in mortification.

She jerked as if his words had struck her, and stumbled back a step or two. There was light enough to show him the misery printed on her features.

God forgive him, but he wanted his employer’s wife as his own with every fiber of his being. And she wanted him. There could be no doubt of that, not after their kiss.

A quiet hiccough left her then her face crumpled. “God save me, what have I done?” she cried softly then whirled to flee him.

Her words were like a knife in Jamie's gullet as he watched her dart back into her apartment. If ever he needed proof of her innocence, here it was. Where her lady mother would have used his lapse to bend him to her will, Lady Purfoy would carry the weight of both their sins.

Her door closed with a quiet thud. Jamie stared at that solid panel, his heart aching. If Nick didn't want her, why shouldn’t he have her?

His conscience coughed back to life. An honorable man didn’t commit adultery with his employer’s wife, no matter what the circumstances. Neither did an honorable man allow another to go bearing the blame for what was his error.

The need to apologize filled him. Striding across the gallery he lifted a hand to knock then caught himself. The last thing they needed was her servants witnessing this.

Or maybe witnesses were exactly what they needed.

With little hope he’d survive this night with a shred of honor left, he opened the door and followed Nick's wife into her chamber.

Belle stumbled blindly into her sitting room, staggering to a stop after a few steps. In the aftereffects of that horrid encounter in her bedchamber, whatever it had been, she'd thrown herself at Master James like some common strumpet. Her eyes closed.

Instantly, her mind supplied the image of herself arching in the steward's arms, offering her body to him. She choked in embarrassment. Lord, how could she have done something so bold?

How could she not when his touch had been more pleasurable than anything she'd ever imagined? Sir William Purfoy’s kiss had never made her blood sing in her veins. Nor had the feel of her previous husband's shaft against her body left her throbbing with need.

She hung her head. There was no doubting it. If Master James hadn’t stopped her, she'd have committed adultery right on the floor of that lovely gallery. Belle’s belief that she was a moral woman dissolved, leaving nothing but tatters in its place.

Behind her, the door opened. Startled, Belle whirled. It was Master James. He’d followed her, wanting more of what they'd done in the gallery. She didn’t know which was worse, the thought of repaying Squire Hollier’s kindness with betrayal or that Master James now thought her no better than a whore.

Instinctively, she stepped back from him, only to collide with a floor candelabrum. As the pole tilted, its circular iron foot shifted. The grate of metal on wood was loud in the room's deep quiet.

With a quick step Master James closed the distance between them. He reached for her. Propriety demanded she scream for Peg. Unfortunately, the rest of her body sighed at his nearness. Between the two she made no sound.

Rather than embrace her, he caught the pole and steadied it. Then, lifting a finger to his lips, he bade her to silence. There was something in the way he moved that said he didn’t intend to finish his seduction.

Trapped between shame and desire, all she could do was bury her face in her hands. A tiny sob escaped before she bit her lip to stop it.

“Nay, I am not deserving of your tears,” Master James breathed, “not after what I’ve done.”

Stunned, she lifted her head from her hands. “What you’ve done?” she asked.

“Shh.” He touched a finger to her lips in warning. “Softly so. I’d not have your servants witness us as we are now.”

The very idea of either Peg or Brigit seeing her with Master James in naught but her nightshirt left Belle too breathless to speak. She managed to nod her assent.

He loosed a relieved breath. “My lady, for whatever my word is worth to you now, I vow you’ve no need to fear me.”

“I don’t fear you,” she replied just as quietly.

Then the words she prayed might in some way mend her error tumbled from her mouth. “I know I’ve lost your respect. Such is as I deserve, given my actions this night. But I beg you on your honor, speak no word of this to Squire Hollier. He has been kind to me and I’d not repay that kindness by besmirching his name.” Tears trembled in her voice.

“Nay, Madam,” Master James said softly as he took a step toward her.

Although he didn't touch her, he bent his head over hers. A moment ago, his closeness had awakened her desire. Now, it was oddly comforting.

“I'll not let you hold me blameless when there were two of us in yon gallery. We must share the guilt between us for what happened there.”

Startled, Belle raised her head. Instantly, he shifted back until there was a decent distance between them. She studied his face in the moonlight.

“It was I who threw myself into your arms.”

“And I who kissed you when you would have pushed me away,” he said, bitter amusement staining his words. “Would that I had an excuse to offer other than to say I was in the throes of some sort of temporary madness. Will you accept my vow that it won’t happen again?”

Relief grew. If he wanted to share the blame, he wouldn’t be telling Squire Hollier that his new wife was a whore. “I will indeed, Master James.”

It wasn’t until she heard him catch a swift breath that Belle realized she’d called him by his given name when he hadn’t given her leave to do so. Once again she had bumbled. Her cheeks burned with embarrassment.

“Pardon. I mean Master Wyatt. I wouldn’t have behaved so familiarly toward you, except that I was frightened, believing I’d seen the White Lady in my bedchamber.”

A hysterical giggle rose in her throat. Not only had she seen the White Lady, but the spirit had seen her.

“You cannot be serious,” Master James said, his quiet tone disbelieving. “In your bedchamber, you say?” he asked, already striding toward that door.

With no idea how to explain what she’d seen, Belle could only follow him. Once in the doorway, she stared into the chamber she’d thought wondrous this morn. Moonbeams streamed in through the window, cutting through air that was as light and, well, airy as it was supposed to be. There was a welcome coolness to the night, not the bone-chilling cold she’d imagined with the supposed spirit’s arrival.

Master James looked at her. “There's nothing here.”

“So I see,” she said in pained agreement. “I think I but dreamed I saw her.”

With that, the certainty that her ghostly encounter had been nothing but a nightmare, brought on by the strain of this wedding, three weeks of travel and a night of rich food and wine awoke in Belle. If the housekeeper's tale had been a fabrication meant to frighten her, it had worked perfectly.

She looked up at Master James. His white shirt glowed in the moonlight, marking the broad line of his shoulders. He smiled. Traced by darkness, small crinkles appeared at the corners of his eyes.

“I regret the poor welcome you’ve had this day, my lady. Would that I could have made it better for you.”

“It’s kind of you to say so,” Belle replied, “but then, you have been kind to me from our very first meeting.”

For a long quiet moment, he studied her in the dimness then shook his head. A low, bitter laugh left him. “Madam, I fear you have strange ideas about kindness. What say you? I'll accept your excuse and you’ll take mine, each of us granting the other the forgiveness we crave. Henceforth, neither of us will ever again mention the incident.”

Since there was nothing Belle wanted more, she nodded.

Again, a slow smile touched his mouth. “With that settled, I shall bid you a good night,” he said, turning toward the door.

Belle hurried ahead to open it for him. “Thank you again, Master Wyatt,” she whispered.

He paused. “Until the morrow then.”

“Until the morrow,” she breathed, and closed the panel behind him.

As he closed Lady Purfoy’s door Jamie stared blankly at the oriel before him. The sound of his name on her tongue yet resonated through him. Why should something so simple give him so much pleasure?

He turned toward his office and nearly jumped out of his skin. Cecily stood in the doorway between tower and gallery. Arms crossed, she watched him.

“Where have you been, Jamie?” she asked. “I was worried. It's not like you to leave candles burning in your office.”

His desperate need to hide this night's misadventure brought his second lie of the night leaping to his lips. “It was the child,” he said, striding swiftly from the lady’s door to the tower landing. His honor groaned as it suffered yet another puncture. Would that he could heal it by sleeping in the stables, but things had gone too far for so simple a solution.

“What child?” Cecily asked as he passed her to reenter his office.

“Lady Purfoy’s daughter Mistress Lucretia,” he said. “She’d wandered out of her apartment I had to wake the governess to see her tended.” In case Cecily might be able to read the truth in his gaze, he busied himself with blowing out all the lamps and candles save one to light their way to his bedchamber.

“Nick said nothing about a child.” There was a strange tone in Cecily's voice.

Turning, Jamie said, “I doubt he knows. I don't think I mentioned her to him.”

Cecily stared at him, her brow creased, her fingers pressed to her lips. The strange emotion he’d seen on her face this morn again played across her features. Her hands dropped to her sides.

“You should have,” she whispered. “You should have told him from the very start.”

He shot her a confused frown. “Why? What difference does a child from the lady’s previous marriage make?”

Cecily gave a shuddering sigh. “Nick should have an heir.”

“Ah,” Jamie breathed in understanding. It was proof of Lady Purfoy's fertility that was upsetting Cecily.

Between the time that Cecily and Nick had known each other as children and became lovers as adults, Nick's mother had seen Cecily wed to a man in a distant village. While heavy with her second child an illness had taken Cecily's husband and first babe. Once they were buried, Cecily, almost dead herself, returned to her mother's home in Graceton's parkland. Despite all of Goody Elwyn's skill, she’d barely been able to save her daughter; the stillborn babe's coming had left Cecily barren.

“He has his brother,” he said.

Sorrow deepened in Cecily's eyes. “Aye, but Nick would be a good father. Indeed, a child of his own might even improve his health. It often does in a man. I should never have tried to keep him for myself.” This last was an aching cry and a far more personal complaint than any Cecily had ever before voiced to him.

“Now, that's enough of that,” Jamie said, stopping her before she could say more. He was already more intimate with Nick’s lover than comfort would bear. He didn’t need her confidences.

Herding her out of his office, he turned to close the door. “Why torture yourself with this sort of thinking? You know Nick. Once he's decided what he wants, he gets it. He always has.”

Only this time, Nick wouldn’t get what he wanted. And as right as it was that Cecily should give him up to Lady Purfoy, her heart would still be broken.

When he looked at her again, he smiled. “Enough fretting when Nick is waiting for you. Shall we?”

Cecily's answering smile was slow and small. “You're a good man, James Wyatt, tolerant and kind. I thank you for that.”

Jamie only shook his head. For the second time this night, a woman had called him kind when he knew well enough he was only and always expedient. “If you say so,” he replied, and led her into the gallery.

A door creaked open. The sound wormed its way through his layers of sleep to penetrate Jamie's dream.

“Hush.”

A lusty image of Lady Purfoy faded as awareness grew.

“I'll be quiet.” It was a child’s piping whisper. “Is that my stepfather?”

“Nay, that's Jamie, our steward.”

At the sound of Cecily's voice Jamie catapulted out of sleep. Eyes opening, he came bolt upright on the mattress, thrashing his way free of his tangled bedclothes. There, in the center of his room and gilded by the first hints of a rosy dawn, was a catastrophe in the making.

Cecily had Mistress Lucy by the hand as they crossed to the hidden door in the wall. The child had just arisen, or so said her rumpled nightshirt and the way her golden curls were matted about her lovely face. Her feet were bare while the bridge of her wee nose was blistered.

“What are you doing?” he cried, even though he knew exactly what Cecily was doing.

Woman and child stopped to look at him. Regret dashed across Cecily's face while Lady Purfoy’s daughter graced him with a lovely smile. “Good morrow, Master Wyatt,” she said prettily, even managing a bob. “I’m going to see my stepfather.”

“Jamie, I'm so sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you,” Cecily said. “I found her in the gallery asking after her stepfather. Since I didn’t think you wanted me waking her dam or the lady’s servants, I brought her here.”

“She can’t see Nick, not now,” he cried, throwing back his bedclothes. He was too late.

The latch in the hidden door clicked, the panel swinging into Jamie's bedchamber. Nick poked his head through the gap. “Cecily, have you come back for a kiss?” he called to his lover before he realized it wasn’t just his steward and his paramour in the chamber.

Mistress Lucy caught one look of the stepfather she so craved and her eyes widened to great circles in her face. Whimpering, she retreated as far as Cecily’s grip on her hand would allow. As he read the repulsion on the child's face, pain flickered through Nick’s gaze. He started to withdraw into his chamber.

“You stay where you are, Nicholas Hollier.” Cecily's command nigh on thundered in the bedchamber.

Jamie stared at her in shock. To the best of his knowledge, she’d never before spoken so boldly to the man who was for all intents and purposes her lord. Even more startling was that Nick did as he was bade despite his rank and discomfort, although he did his best to somehow turn the bulky robe he wore atop his shirt and breeches into a shield by pulling at its lapels until they stood upright about his face.

Crouching, Cecily brought herself to eye level with her rival's child. “This is your stepfather, Mistress Purfoy,” she said, her voice low and calm as she stroked a soothing hand down the lass’s arm.

“Cecily,” Nick said, his fear of rejection roughening his voice.

“I want my mama,” Lucy moaned, her eyes huge and fixed on Nick's ruined face.

Tom appeared in the sitting room doorway, hastily tucking his shirt into his breeches; his legs and feet were bare. “Did I hear you call for me, Master James?” he asked, his voice trailing away as he saw the odd group congregated in his master's bedchamber. He glanced across the tableau until his gaze caught on the child then a fool's grin split his face.

“Why, Mistress Lucy. Come to meet your lord stepfather, have you? How did you find your first night's sleep at Graceton?” He spoke in that tone Jamie so despised, the one all folk seemed to use when they conversed with young children.

Wrenching her gaze from Nick, Mistress Lucy looked upon the servant. Against his friendly visage fear ebbed from her face. “Good morrow Tom,” she said to him, even remembering to bob.

Yet crouching beside her, Cecily used the distraction to wrap an arm around the child and draw her close. “Come lass, here is your stepfather.”

Mistress Lucy cowered. Nick's jaw stiffened, his eyes narrowed. “Let her, go, Cecily,” he pleaded. “She doesn’t wish to meet me.”

With equal pain Cecily looked up at her lover. “But she does, Nick. Give her a chance to become accustomed to you. Please.”

Graceton's master sighed. With his nod Cecily's smile glowed. Lifting the child in her arms, Cecily came to her feet.

Mistress Lucy yelped as she looked upon the disfigured man. Rearing back, she cried, “What does he have on his face?”

“Naught but scars, little one,” Cecily crooned. “Talk to her, Nick,” she begged, her voice low. “Tell her what happened to you.”

Nick's breath exited in a harsh stream. “When I was but a lad, only a little bigger than you are now, I fell into a fire.” He spoke slowly so his words were clear enough for the child to understand.

A battle raged on Lucy’s face, the dream of an ideal stepfather warring against the cruel reality of Nick's scars. Curiosity won. Jamie recognized it in the way the child relaxed in Cecily's arms.

“You fell into a fire?” Lucy repeated, a frown creasing her perfect brow. “Brigit always tells me I must be cautious around a hearth and never let my skirts come near the flame. Did your governess not warn you to be careful?”

Glimmers of amusement took light in Nick's eyes. “I didn’t have a governess to warn me. Even if I had, my brother and I were prideful lads and would have ignored her.”

“You have a brother? I don’t.” The child's hand opened, her wee fingers stretching out to touch Nick's cheek. She traced across his brow then descended one cheek. “Does it hurt?”

“Nay,” Nick replied, letting out a shaky breath. “The burns healed long ago.”

Lucy touched a fingertip to her own nose. “My mama healed my burn. It hurt yesterday, but not this morn.”

A smile filled Nick’s eyes. “You are fortunate to have so clever a mama.”

The child wrinkled her nose at her stepfather. “It's odd, the way you talk.”

Cecily jiggled her a little, resettling the girl on her hip. “When the burns healed they left the skin stiff about his mouth.”

“Oh.” Lucy's brow creased anew as she considered this.

“So, now that my face no longer frightens you, shall we see to the introductions? I am Squire Nicholas Hollier.” Nick gave her an abbreviated bow. “And you are?”

Lucy looked at Cecily. “Please, I need to be down to do this rightly.”

“Well then, down you shall go,” Cecily said.

With her nightshirt held out from her sides, Lucy dropped into a curtsy so deep and unsteady it took a finger braced upon the floor to hold her upright. As she rose she stood with her chin high. Jamie fought a smile. In this very formal stance she was the picture of her infamous grandam.

“I am Mistress Lucretia Purfoy. It is my pleasure to meet you, Your Worship, and to be your stepdaughter.” Courtly illusion crumbled in the next second as she loosed an elated giggle. “I didn’t miss a word!”

Nick coughed out a laugh. “Well met, Mistress Lucretia,” he replied, now clearly pleased with his new kinswoman.

“Nay, you must say Lucy,” the child instructed, even daring to point her index finger at her new stepfather. “My papa said you’d call me Lucy, just as he did.”

“Lucy it is,” Nick agreed.

“Pardon,
Your Worship
,” Jamie said, his words owning a sharp edge, “but may I remind you that this is my bedchamber and I haven’t yet had enough sleep to be civil.”

Another laugh rasped from Nick as he shot a glance at his steward. “You'll have to forgive our Jamie, Lucy. He’s a bear in the morning.”

Then Graceton's master looked at Tom, who yet stood agape in the doorway. “Will you fetch this lass and me something to break our fasts? Also, let her governess know I'll be keeping her charge for an hour or so until we've had time to become acquainted.”

“As you will, Lord Nicholas,” Tom said. The formal bend of his head belied the fact that his legs were bare.

Nick stretched out one of his ruined hands in invitation to Lucy. “Come then,” he said.

Lucy closed her fingers around his with no more hesitation than she’d shown in taking Jamie's hand the previous day. “There are scars on your hands, too,” she told Nick as he drew her into his chamber through the door in Jamie's wall.

“I knew that,” Nick replied with another laugh then the panel clicked back into place, cutting off whatever else he might have said.

Jamie looked at Cecily. Tears glistened in her eyes. “She thinks Nick will climb trees with her then teach her to ride his horse,” she said, wiping at her cheeks.

“So I've been told,” he said with the harsh cock of a brow “Since we both know Nick won’t be doing those things with her, who do you think he'll try to recruit to do it for him?” He slumped against his headboard once again. “He’s been a happy recluse all these years. Why must he decide to change that now when I not only have harvests to get in, but a wedding to plan?”

Amusement sparked golden in Cecily’s strange eyes. “What, has Graceton no grooms capable of teaching a child to ride? Why, Master Wyatt,” she drawled out his name, “if I didn’t know you better I'd think you almost eager to claim the child as your sole responsibility.”

“What nonsense,” he snapped back even as her words pierced him. Cecily was right. He had been assuming he alone would be burdened with Lucy. Why?

She laughed. “Nick's right. You are a bear in the morning.” With that, she swept from the room, laughter in every twitch of her skirts.

Confused and wondering why, Jamie forced himself to lie back upon the mattress. But all hope of regaining sleep’s blissful numbness was gone. He closed his eyes. It promised to be another hellacious day at Graceton Castle.