To Have and to Hold (8 page)

Something on the wall over her bed caught his eye. Pictures of some sort. He walked over to investigate, intensely aware of her standing, rigid with suppressed indignation, in the doorway behind him. There were two pictures tacked to the wall with pins, both on low-grade paper, neatly cut, as if from a magazine. One was a pen-and-ink drawing of a small, ivy-covered house, much idealized; the other was a sentimental portrait of two children, one an infant in a carriage, the other older, wearing a woman's enormous bonnet and pushing the carriage, pretending to be the mama. Sebastian stared at them in growing discomfort, realizing what they were: Mrs. Wade's attempt to decorate her little room, embellish it, give it some human warmth with the only things she had at hand—cheap representations of other people's happiness.

He backed away, embarrassed, but before he could turn, his attention was caught by another picture on her bedside table. This one was a framed photograph. He sensed more than heard her soft, indrawn breath when he reached out and picked it up. It was a family portrait, and at first he thought it was another of her impersonal consolations. Then the face of the girl in the picture came into focus, and he realized it was she. Rachel.

She had heavy, black-silk hair, an oval face, a straight, willowy girl-figure, strongly provocative. Her light eyes stared straight into the camera, poised, winsomely confident, maybe secretly amused. The child and the self-possessed woman met and mingled in the startling image. She was a good, dutiful daughter, everything in the portrait proclaimed, a joy to her middle-class parents, the father stern-looking, the mother vapid but pretty. She was turned slightly toward her tall, handsome brother, and her smile was soft and unbearably sweet.

"What was your maiden name?" he asked, not looking up from the photograph. A moment passed. He lifted his head. She was staring at him, and in her face he saw everything that was in the portrait except hope. But that was everything.

"Crenshaw." Her intonation gave the two syllables a quiet, devastating bitterness.

"You were .. . lovely."

She made a dismissive gesture with her hand and looked away, but not before he saw the sad mask of her face begin to crack, the crystal-colored eyes almost caressing in their melancholy. He put the picture down and crossed the small room to her in three strides.

She pressed her back against the door, thinking he was leaving, making room for him so their bodies wouldn't touch. When he stopped before her, she stiffened, realizing the truth. Her instantaneous understanding of what was going to happen helped him get over a bizarre urge to embrace her and hold her close, give her comfort. Comforting Mrs. Wade didn't figure in his plans.

Touching her did. He imagined caressing her breasts, holding them through her dress right now, with no preliminaries. Would she jerk away in fright? No. Oh, no, she would close her eyes and bear it, let him handle her as intimately as he liked, a martyr to the inevitable. There might be
nothing
he could do to her that she wouldn't bear. The thought excited him. Depressed him.

He lifted his hand to run his fingers along the line of her jaw. Fine white skin, virginal skin, smooth as warm glass. What had Wade done to her? The question was starting to obsess him. Wade the sodomite, Wade the flagellant. He pressed lightly against her opposite cheek, making her turn her head and look at him. Her eyes were downcast, and martyrdom had never been one of his aphrodisiacs. Leaning in, he ran his tongue along the prickly line of her lashes. She had stopped breathing. She waited for him to do the next thing, take the next conscienceless liberty with her body. Very well, he would. He gently inserted the tip of his middle finger between her lips. Her mouth moistened it, and he wet her lips with his finger, smoothing it back and forth, going back inside for more wetness when her lips went dry. He thought she might be trembling, and brought his other hand to the back of her neck to see. Yes. Soft, subtle quivers coursing through her, like a light breeze rustling the leaves of a small, slight tree. Her neck was so thin, so fragile. Had he ever had a woman more vulnerable than this one? His head was swimming.

He put his hands flat on her chest, feeling her heart thud, thud, as she drew a choking breath. She was going to the stake like St. Joan, brave and above it all. He slid one hand to her face, spreading her lips to the sides a little with his thumb and forefinger, parting them. She made a soft sound, helpless. He put his open mouth on hers, breathing on her, and tasted inside her lips with his tongue, circling them slowly.

Heat jerked through him, rough and willful, out of control. He stopped tonguing her, stood perfectly still, his mouth on hers but not moving.

Seconds passed. Control returned, but he was wary. A lesson had been learned. The seducer could be seduced.

Ruthless now, he used his teeth, biting her full lower lip until she whimpered, then soothed her with his slow, hot tongue. A taste of salt startled him. Blood? Impossible. He pulled back, and saw the long, lone tearstain on her pink cheek.

A good way to end this, tears, because he hadn't intended it to go this far. Not yet. And if they stood in this doorway much longer, the next step would be quite, quite inevitable. But what he wanted wasn't a fast, hot fuck in the housekeeper's narrow bed. What he wanted ... he had no words for it yet. Possession. Appropriation. Whatever it was, it called for more finesse than this backstairs grope. He might not deserve more—although he didn't believe that—but she did. Rachel Crenshaw did.

He leaned in toward her and caressed her lips with his, just a soft, farewell brash. Her breath rippling over his skin excited him, invited him to linger, but he didn't. He could always master himself when he chose to, and he chose to now. But what was she thinking? Had he moved her at all? No way to tell; she kept her eyes down, and the pitiful little tear could mean anything.

"Have dinner with me tonight, Mrs. Wade. Since we've missed our morning meeting." Not quite a command, but by no means a question. He stepped away so that they weren't touching, so she could entertain the illusion, if she wished, that she had a choice. "Six o'clock, you recall. I'll expect you, shaUI?"

He was a patient man; he could wait forever. It seemed that long before she realized there really was no choice. "Yes, my lord," she answered, in a voice that started out steady and ended in a harsh whisper.

He couldn't ask for more. Not yet. He made her a slight bow and left her alone.

6

"Putain! Imbeciles partout!"
Monsieur Judelet smacked a wooden spoon against the side of a bowl of rennet with such force, the handle split and the spoon end went flying across the kitchen.

Rachel flinched, but held her ground. "I have said I will order the anchovies," she enunciated in her careful schoolgirl French. "They will arrive in time for you to make the fricassee of partridges, monsieur. Do not worry."

That didn't begin to appease him.
"Espece de vache,"
he snarled, brandishing a fork. "Idiot—get out!" Those were his three best English words; he spoke them so often, they came out virtually accent-free.

"Remettez-vous,"
Rachel dared to say—Calm yourself—but she didn't turn her back on him as she sidled out of the room. So far Monsieur Judelet had thrown everything except knives at anyone who came into his kitchen with bad news—that they were out of anchovies, for example, or Lord D'Aubrey had barely touched his woodcock in caper sauce—but there was a first time for everything. Out in the hall, she could still hear him shouting, words she was thankful she couldn't understand. "Temperamental" was too mild a term to describe the hotheaded chef, but his rages never truly upset her. He was evenhandedly vile to everyone, and he was the only member of the household staff who seemed completely indifferent to her personal situation, if he even knew what it was.

"Mrs. Wade?" She turned to see Tess coming toward her along the corridor from the servants' staircase. "Mrs. Wade, can you come an' look at the curtains in the yellow sitting room? Susan were beatin' 'em wi' a broom to get the dust out, like you said? An' all at onct they ripped something tumble an' come down on top of 'er 'ead. She were quite a object," she added, grinning at the memory. "Now we don't know what's best t' do, hang 'em up again or throw 'em away. So can you come an' have a look?"

The housemaids were cleaning and airing all the drawing rooms, one each day when everything went well. Next week they would start on the second floor, where, besides a cavernous picture gallery, there were eleven bedrooms and an uncounted number of dressing, sitting, and powder rooms. It was a task Rachel had set for them herself, on her own initiative, after the most perfunctory consultation with his lordship. The fact that she gave instructions to the servants and they actually carried them out still seemed like a miracle to her, akin to parting the Red Sea or walking on water. She could scarcely believe she still had her job at all, much less that she was performing it fairly well. Any day, any minute, everything could blow up; one egregious blunder would be all it would take. So she moved slowly, worried about everything, and kept out of sight as much as possible. She reminded herself of some slow, plodding animal, a night creature turned out of its lair, blinking in the scary daylight, hoping no one would notice it and bash its brains in with a shovel.

What a violent metaphor,
she thought, following Tess upstairs. It would have disturbed her, except she was grateful for the fact that her mind was thinking in analogies at all. It hadn't in prison. Nothing was
like
anything there: everything was precisely, horribly, exactly what it was. Comparisons to anything better would have been pointless, to anything worse, impossible.

The yellow drawing room owed its name to the dingy, brocaded wallpaper, even though it had faded to a depressing shade of beige years ago. Before today, its best feature had been the blue velvet curtains covering the wide, west-facing windows. Rachel found Susan on her knees beside the fallen fabric, contemplating it with a jaundiced eye.

"They come down right in my hand, Mrs. Wade," she complained, blowing a damp lock of orange hair out of her eyes. "I promise you it weren't my fault."

"No, I'm sure it wasn't." She sank down beside Susan and ran her fingers over the stiff material, desiccated from age and dust, crumbling almost at a touch.

"What ought we to do, ma'am? The view's tumble without 'em, ain't it?"

It was. The bare window looked naked, and the unattractive vista was of the half-dead back of a boxwood hedge in need of trimming.

On the other side of the room, Violet Cocker squatted on the marble hearth, polishing a brass firescreen. She laid her blackened cloth aside and turned her full, malicious attention on Rachel. In a boldly taunting voice, she echoed, "Yes, ma'am, what ought we t' do?" Her spiteful eyes gleamed with anticipation; she was looking forward to witnessing the new housekeeper wrestle with this ridiculous dilemma, which to anyone else would be no dilemma at all. From the beginning, Violet had understood with devilish accuracy what Rachel's biggest fear was, the source of her deepest anxiety: making decisions.

"Should we throw 'em out, ma'am, or try to fix 'em back the way they was?" Susan asked innocently. "Dora's the handiest wi' a needle, but I'm thinking they're past that. Making new ones 'ud cost a fortune, I expect," she continued when Rachel didn't answer. "But the lookout through the window's that ugly, seems like it ought to get covered up
some
way. Don't it, ma'am?"

The ticking of the ormolu clock on the mantel sounded unnaturally loud and slow. What was best to do? Rachel's mind stayed nerve-wrackingly blank. She started when the clock chimed eleven. "See if you can hang them again," she managed at last. "Just—do the best you can. I'll have to speak to Lord D'Aubrey. He may want to replace them. Or repair them. I don't know. I'll speak to him," she repeated, feeling idiotic—and already dreading that encounter.

"All right, ma'am," Susan said, fingering the musty cloth doubtfully.

"I'd stay and help you, but I have an appointment in the village. I didn't realize it was so late. Leave them until I come back if you can't manage it."

"Aye, you'd best be hurryin' along," Violet spoke up from the hearth, "else we might get a visit from the high sheriff, wonderin' what's become o' you."

Rachel got to her feet stiffly, keeping her face still, making a show of dusting off her skirts. The proper retort eluded her, as usual. But Violet mustn't be allowed to belittle her in front of the others; some show of authority was called for. "They need guidance," Mr. Holyoake had warned her. Yes, yes—but when she raised her voice or spoke sharply to an insolent servant, it sounded in her own ears like lines read by an incompetent, insincere actress. She was the most transparent of impostors.

Still, she had to say something. But now too much time had passed. Her lame "Go about your business, Violet" came too late and did no good. The maid sent her a triumphant sideways smirk and went back to polishing the firescreen, smiling.

Hurrying along the corridor, Rachel tried to put the incident out of her mind. Easy—she'd worry about
the constable instead. How could she have let the time slip away without noticing? Her appointment was at eleven-thirty; she would be late unless she ran most of the way. Not that being late would be a catastrophe. She knew that, and yet the thought of being reprimanded for tardiness or even questioned about it filled her with the same stupid, dark, shivery dread she'd lived with every day in Dartmoor. What if it never left her? What if she went to her grave terrified of the consequences of a raised voice or a frowning face? In a thousand ways she was like a child, the natural development of her emotions cut off at the age of eighteen. But in a thousand other ways, she felt like the oldest woman on earth.