Edith Layton (21 page)

“What are they saying?” Brenna asked.

“The usual, about the manner of your engagement. Your character. And some damnable new things. They’re saying Rafe still longs for Annabelle and is moving in next door to her because of it.”

“It wasn’t next door!” Rafe said angrily. “And I mentioned the house to her because if we were going to see her in the street every day, I didn’t want her thinking it was anything
but
chance!”

Drum nodded. “I don’t doubt it. You were always a fellow who went straight to the point. And I don’t see how you could have avoided it. But now they’re also saying you’re brokenhearted, and not the least of it’s because Brenna’s expecting your child rather prematurely—or at least, she told you she was. Your child,” he added, casting his brilliant gaze down, “or another’s.”

Brenna gasped, “But I’m not even—”

Rafe’s hands turned to fists. “If I only could face them!”

“Do,” Drum urged. “That’s the only thing to do with rumor. But not with your fists. By disregarding
rumor and by letting them see your happiness. Face them. That’s how you end it.”

“I would, by God, I
have
done all my life, and it’s never ended a thing for me,” Rafe said harshly. “People will think what pleases them. Scandal always makes them happiest.”

“So let it stand as a truth?” Drum asked. He leaned forward, his expression sober. “Make no mistake, my friend, it’s not a trivial matter. Gossip’s a powerful weapon. You think only a sword or a pistol can be lethal? They’re merely more dramatic. Gossip can kill a reputation as effectively. Reputation is what our society is all about. Brenna can learn to turn her head when she hears the whispers. You can ignore it, go live in seclusion in the countryside, I suppose. Your children, when they go to school and face Society, are another matter. Rumor becomes legend if it’s not stopped quickly.”

“But if they consider the source?” Brenna said. “I mean to say, surely our friends can counter it?”

“Gossip’s like free beer in a barracks, a thing swallowed without a care for who provides it,” Rafe said bitterly.

“Exactly,” Drum said eagerly. “An apt analogy. Because if you can make new gossip, the old will seem stale. The freshest is the tastiest. Go to the soiree looking as radiant, devoted, and blissful as you are together. Then the look on Annabelle’s face will be enough to start a torrent of new gossip and divert it from you. Because she’s only a spoiled lady, not an actress.”

Rafe scowled.

Brenna saw, and worried. Was he afraid of hurting Annabelle’s feelings? Or was it only because he’d dislike hurting any woman?

Drum shrugged. “‘Consider the source’? Yes, do. And you’ll discover Annabelle and her mama. I’ve only gossip to prove that too. But I think this could be a way of laying the tattle about you to rest forever, whoever started it. If Brenna is willing to chance it.”

“Do you want me to stay or go?” she asked Rafe.

“I want you to be easy in your mind,” he said. “I must leave it to you.”

Her breast rose and fell in a deep sigh. She lifted her head high. “In our family we never turn from a foe or run from a battle. If Annabelle is such a social lioness, I can’t avoid her forever, can I? So if you
really
don’t mind, Rafe, I think it’s better that I go. I got a letter from Mama. My family’s coming, you see. If it’s going to be a crush as most London parties are, do you think we can get invitations for them too?”

“Doubtless,” Drum said. “I’ll see to it.”

“Good,” Brenna said. “I can face anything with them at my side.”

“And with me there?” Rafe asked, his eyes searching her face.

“At my side?” she asked frankly. “Then yes.”

They couldn’t look away from what they saw in each other’s eyes.

“Well,” Drum said, rising and stretching his long frame, “time for me to leave. No, it really is,” he added as Rafe protested. “If you don’t mind my saying, visiting newlyweds is more gratifying in the mornings than at night, anyway. I’m off to a few
places where I may find some gentle companionship myself. Give you good night. Look for me in the morning. Or don’t. I’ll likely be here anyway.”

“Did we embarrass him?” Brenna asked when Drum had left.

“Embarrass Drum?” Rafe asked. “Embarrass a rock more easily. He only stopped in for a chat. He’s a bachelor with rare taste. He really does have to visit quite a few places to find female companionship he approves of. He ought to marry, and would, I think, if he could find a female he could stay interested in above a month. Now, as to our night’s entertainment—I have a few letters I have to write, and then…”

He leaned over, and inhaling the scent at her neck, whispered, “I think we could find some entertainment of our own. Unless, of course, you’d rather go to the theater, or the opera, or a ball?”

But since he punctuated each possibility with a light kiss along her neck, ending at her lips, Brenna couldn’t answer for a while. When she did, it was only by putting her hand on his cheek and whispering, “Yes. I’ll be upstairs.”

When Rafe entered their bedchamber he found the lamps glowing low, his bride in his bed, her arms outstretched to him.

Poor Drum,
he thought as he went to her.
Every man should have this
. But he didn’t say it. Because her kiss put the thought from his mind and he had more important things to say and do. She was warm and
welcoming and as needy as he was. He pulled away the coverlets and exposed her to his sight. She wore what he liked best, her own skin and a smile. She didn’t shrink from his heated gaze anymore. She’d learned so quickly. So had he. She’d taught him much about the deeper joys to be found knowing what was needed and wanted, and being able to discover more. He filled his hands with her, slaked his thirst at her lips, and grew hungry even as he fed upon her desires, so sweetly expressed.

“Yes,” she gasped, as he feasted on her. It was all she could say while they made love. It was enough for him. She did much more. She tried the things he’d let her know he liked. He’d thought a wife would be above some of them, but she’d insisted on knowing all his needs. He’d doubted his decision to show her. Not anymore.

Her lips were warm, her mouth hot, doing wondrous things to his body. But he wasn’t selfish; he fought for control as he put his hands on her shoulders and drew her up. He kissed her lips, then lingered over her to reciprocate. And forgot himself in the sweetness of that, and what had to follow, lest he lose his mind and not just his control.

Too soon, and after too agonizingly long a time, he heard her gasp again. He looked down into her face and saw her rapture. Finding her release, he could at last allow his own, and reveled in it.

They lay entwined, letting their racing pulses slow.

He drowsed on the borders of consciousness, unwilling to relinquish his luxurious contentment to speak or sleep.

“Rafe?” she whispered.

“Hmmm?” he breathed.

“Do you really mind?” she asked. “Would you rather not go to Annabelle’s party?”

Her voice was so clear he realized she’d emptied her mind of their lovemaking. It amazed him how women could do that so quickly, no matter how moved they’d been. He settled her closer to himself. “Don’t be silly. It doesn’t matter. As you say, it’s inevitable. So why not now?”

He heard her unspoken question. “You’re my wife,” he said, trying to answer it.

Eventually he felt her relax in sleep. But he was wide awake now. He could see her in the dying firelight. Her raven hair was in glorious disarray, startling in contrast to the white of the pillow slip. Something about wild and witchy midnight hair always appealed to him. He smiled to think of how she’d scold herself in the morning for forgetting to tie her hair up when she tried to comb the snarls out.
Have to get her a maidservant,
he reminded himself.
She’ll have to look smart for that damned party…

He knew what else she’d wanted to ask and was glad he hadn’t had to answer. He wasn’t good with words. Or emotions either. He’d denied them too long to be comfortable with them.

How
would
he feel seeing Annabelle once again? he wondered. When she was dressed like an angel, dancing with every man in the room, knowing she was available to them and never to him anymore? When she would probably take pains to let him see what he’d passed up? How would he react if she was
cruel to Brenna? What could he do?
Had he loved Annabelle?
His eyes went wide, though there was nothing to see but the shape of his bitter thoughts in the night.

He knew he’d vowed never to think of her when he lay next to Brenna, but tonight he couldn’t help himself. It was Brenna who had brought the subject up, and now he couldn’t let it go. His feelings about Annabelle confused him. He’d been heartsick, no sense denying it, when he’d seen her shock as he told her of his hasty engagement. When he’d learned he could have had her and had been cheated of the chance.
Had he been cheated?
How could he think so with his wife at his side?

Still…what road would he have taken if he could have taken one of his choosing?

There was no sense to this, he thought in disgust, turning so he cradled Brenna against himself. He locked a hand over her breast and closed his eyes. There was no sense to this kind of thinking at all. He’d never had a choice. His life had been plotted out for him since birth. He’d tried to fight it, taken risks and chances, plunging himself into jeopardy time and again. To no avail. The truth was, he’d been labeled and put in the proper slots all his life. He was a second son, a cuckoo in the nest to boot. It had made his pattern.

It was like that Puffing Billy steam engine all London had been agog to see a few years back, everyone standing amazed as it went round and round on its track all by itself. It was as if his life, too, had a clear track he had to follow and he’d been set in motion on
it, and would travel it, whether he meant to or not, until his death.

He stroked Brenna’s hair back from her face. She arched her sweetly shaped rear, tucking it closer into the curve of his body, pressing it into his abdomen. Sated as he was, he felt rising desire. His life had been prearranged, from birth and likely to his death. That was the way of it for him. Not all of it was bad, he thought as he felt his body stir against hers. But no—none of it had actually been his choice, had it?

Her bent his head and nuzzled her ear, in apology for his thoughts. She turned to him so quickly he realized she hadn’t been sleeping. He kissed her. She answered his ardor with such desperation he wondered what she’d been thinking. Until he could no longer wonder because of the ecstasy she took him to.

I
come from a family of soldiers. I’m prepared for war. Or at least, I would be if I could decide which gown to wear,
Brenna thought as she gazed at the gowns she’d strewn on her bed. She couldn’t decide which to wear to Lady Annabelle’s party.

The blue was lovely. But Annabelle’s eyes were blue; it would look better on her. Brenna pensively fingered a lovely simple white gown. She looked good in white, but it was too virginal. Surely those who’d heard the gossip about her would snicker if she wore it. Gold—that gold tissue gown was regal and expensive looking. Too much so. It would make her look elegant, but might fuel more talk about her being greedy and grasping. Green was out of the question, she thought sadly, glancing at a pretty spring green gown. The lyrics about the courtesan in that old folk tune “Greensleeves” would surely occur
to everyone if she went wafting into Annabelle’s house wearing that!

She had to dress to fight rumor as well as to look her best. Mostly she wanted to look good enough to Rafe to make him forget his lady Annabelle. But for that, Brenna thought sadly, she needed a fairy godmother, not a dressmaker.

“What are you scowling about?” Rafe asked as he strolled into the room. He glanced at the gowns on their bed. “Oh. You have to get yourself a maid, Bren. They put clothing away for you. I’ll ask Peck if you like. He’d find you one in a snap.”

“Yes. Past time I hired a maid,” Brenna answered, “but that’s not why I’m frowning. I don’t know what to wear to that party we’re going to. Nothing I have seems right. I want to look just…splendid. After all, it will be like my debut in Society, won’t it?”

“You’ll look splendid whatever you wear.” He locked his hands around her waist and pulled her back against himself. “If you’re not happy with any of these, buy another. Your mama’s coming. Take her with you and choose one you like.”

“I wish I could,” Brenna sighed, leaning back against the solid warmth of him, “but mama won’t be here until the night before the party.”

“Then enlist Drum. No, really. The man has an eye. I’d go with you, but much good it would do. My taste in female attire runs to the sort of things an opera dancer might wear. Drum has taste in these things. And he owes me a favor.”

She laughed, “Poor Drum, he’d enjoy it that much? No need to go that far.”

“Then take your brother.”

“His taste in female finery is like yours. Besides, he’s coming with my parents.”

“Is he?” Rafe asked. “Then what’s he doing downstairs?”

She spun around and yelped. “Eric’s here? Oh, wonderful!”

She raced down the stair, into the hall, and threw herself into her brother’s welcoming embrace.

“Such a greeting!” Eric laughed, hugging her hard. “Has that villain been mistreating you? Well, I’m here to settle him.”

“You’re welcome to try,” Rafe said, from where he stood watching them.

“You’re staying here?” Brenna asked, peering beyond his wide shoulder. “Where’s Mama and Papa?”

“I’ll stay if you’ll have me, and they’re not here,” Eric said. “They’re going by coach. I rode in. And Mama has the most wonderful surprise for you two—just wait.”

“That’s why they came so slowly?” Bren asked, “They could have sent it on.”

“Not this gift,” Eric said with a grin. “But you’ll see. Now. Rafe, you wrote I must come to a party? I hope not tonight. I’m done in. I’m healthy as a horse now, mind. But I’ve been on the road since dawn.”

“Not for a week,” Rafe said.

“You wrote to ask Eric to come to the party too?” Brenna asked Rafe.

Rafe nodded. “I thought you’d like to have him with you. Your sister thinks we’re going to visit the
queen,” he told Eric, “not just to a social do. But it’s her first in London, and I want all to go smoothly for her.”

“Will the lady Annabelle mind?” Brenna asked.

“Mind a chance to host a dashing bachelor? Not likely,” Rafe said. He sounded so casual, Brenna’s spirits rose. “Hostesses always need extra males to take pity on the wallflowers,” he went on, dashing Brenna’s hope that he didn’t care if Annabelle was attracted to another male. “Now come, let’s sit him down before he collapses in my hall again.”

“Only offering me a seat?” Eric asked. “How about some dinner and a warm bed? That would go a long way to having me forgive you for inviting me to a party as a treat for the wallflowers.”

After dinner they spent the night the way they’d done so many times before in the days before Brenna and Rafe had married—or even thought of it. They sat in the parlor and talked. Eric had news about Tidbury. Brenna hung on every bit of it. Rafe eventually stood, yawned, and rubbed the back of his neck.

“I think I’ll leave you two for a while. Don’t take it amiss,” he said as the other two stopped talking. “It’s good that you catch up on news of home. But I don’t much care if Granny Tittle cut off her son without a cent, or if Squire made a fool of himself at the parson’s party. I have letters to write, anyway. So if you’ll excuse me for now?”

“More letters?” Brenna asked.

“Yes,” he said. “All to make your ‘debut’ run
smooth. You’ll see. Your mama’s not the only one. I’ve got surprises in store too.”

“He’s a good man,” Eric said quietly when Rafe had left the room. “Happy at last, Bren?”

She didn’t answer right away, which was answer enough for him. He sat forward, waiting for her to say more. Her voice was rough and solemn when she did.

“I don’t know,” she said. “I don’t and that’s a fact. Oh, he’s a good man, Eric, don’t get that look in your eye. He’d never hurt me, intentionally. The problem is that I…” She paused, and went on doggedly, “The problem is I love him very much. He’s everything I’d want in a husband and I don’t doubt he’ll make a good father too, someday. But before that day comes, I need to know if I’m doing the right thing by staying with him.”

“What the devil are you talking about?” her brother demanded.

She was still another moment, debating whether to discuss it with him. If she didn’t tell someone soon, she’d burst. If she discussed it with her parents, she’d hurt them more than help herself. Eric had protected her most of her life. If she couldn’t talk about this with him, she couldn’t speak about it to anyone. And she had to.

“I’m talking about the fact we both know,” she finally said. “He married me because he had to. Not because he
actually
had to. It would be better if he had. If he’d made love to me the way they all thought he’d done, at least I’d know he wanted me
from the start.” She looked at the fire instead of her brother because of the way her cheeks were burning.

Eric frowned. “Has he given you any reason to doubt him?” he asked, watching her carefully.

“No,” she said, looking up at him, her eyes filled with hurt, “but I’ve seen his face when he sees her. I’ve seen it when her name is mentioned.”

“A man can’t help his face!”

“Nor his emotions. That’s the point,” she persisted. “If I didn’t care for him so much, it wouldn’t matter. But you know I can’t do anything lightly—especially not live out the rest of my life that way. I know he didn’t love me when we married, but in my vanity I suppose I thought I’d find a way to his heart. Now I wonder if I ever will, or if it will always be obligation and duty he thinks of when he thinks of me.”

“I’ve seen his eyes when he looks at you,” Eric said, grinning. “How can you say that?”

Her face grew warm; she looked away. “
That’s
one thing—you know very well love’s another. Look,” she said in exasperation, “the facts are that he loved her. He married me. I wondered if he could forget her. Now I see she hasn’t forgotten him. It’s not just about my happiness. What about his? I can’t imagine any more bitter thing than to spend a life wanting something you can’t have. For him—or me.”

“That’s nonsense,” Eric said. “Put it from your mind. He’s an honorable man. She’s an unwed lady of quality. You think she’s so lost in love for him she’ll invite him to an affair and ruin her name? Or
that he’d do it? Then you don’t think much of him, do you?”

“I think everything of him!” she shot back. “
You
think a minute. She must marry. She will. And soon too, no doubt, and I doubt if there’ll be love in it for her either. She cared for that handsome Damon Ryder, well, everyone in London knows that. Then she set her sights on Rafe. Poor lady, I could almost feel sorry for her. But I don’t, because she was cruel to me. You think she’ll toss her heart over the moon again? I think not. She’ll wed, and well. You know how that kind of marriage works in Society. Married women are free to have affairs after they’ve given their husbands an heir. Damon Ryder’s utterly in love with his wife—that’s clear. But if Annabelle still fancies Rafe, and he’s still in love with her, and they kept seeing each other—and in this small world of ours, they will—once years have passed, who knows what may happen?”

“There’s nothing certain in this life but the end of it,” Eric scoffed. “Why trouble yourself with such notions?”

“If you loved, you’d understand. You know the gossip about me. I can bear it because it isn’t true. What if some of it becomes so? What if I did cheat him of his lady, what if I
am
the only thing keeping him from real happiness? I don’t want to feel like a villain for the rest of my life, Eric. I won’t.”

“Divorce is well nigh impossible,” Eric said. His head shot up. “You’re not thinking of anything drastic? I tell you, Bren, this is absurd, all of it. Put it from your mind. You want him to go down on one knee
and spout poetry at you? Rafe’s a plain-spoken man, I doubt if he’d shower any woman with praise. His actions
are
his words. And if he’s acted badly to you in any way, I’ll eat my words.”

“He hasn’t, he wouldn’t, and don’t worry. I’m sad, but not mad. I don’t intend to dispose of myself,” she said firmly. “But if I come to see he still loves her, I
can
do something about it. I can remove myself permanently, and not remove myself from the world.”

Eric stared at her as if she had run mad.

“I can pack up and go abroad,” she explained. “I have done, and know I can do it again. I can go away, to some other country, and start a new life. That way he can get a divorce, even an annulment, without scandal on his head. Don’t look so shocked. I can do it. I
have
done. When I picked up and went to India to tend to you, everyone was scandalized. Now I know why. That kind of independence not only gives a woman ideas, it shows her she can realize them. At least it showed me how wide the world is and how much a female can do, if she must. I won’t be a hindrance to him. And now I know I don’t have to be.”

“You don’t even have to consider such things!” Eric thundered. “What an absurd thing to say—to think!”

“Is it?” she shot back, “What about Mrs. McNeal, Mrs. Gray, Lieutenant Gumm?”

He was silent. She’d named good people who’d done bad things, wrecking their lives and others because of their loveless marriages.

“I don’t want that for me—or Rafe,” she said. “I suppose I am a ‘modern, reckless female who doesn’t
know her place’ like the gossips said when I picked up and crossed an ocean to follow my heart to you. But Rafe’s my heart now. And if he can’t give me his, if I must always know I’m second in his dreams—I promise you I’ll do it again.”

Eric shook his head. “You aren’t a quitter, Bren. We don’t run away. Father taught us better. You know that.”

“You don’t fight a losing battle, Eric. He taught us that too,” she answered sadly.

Eric frowned. It was an unfamiliar expression for him, but he was obviously deeply troubled. She knew he knew her too well to argue what might be true.

“You’re getting ahead of yourself—wait,” he said. “Your decision either way will last a lifetime.”

“I know!! It’s a drastic and dreadful thing. The mere thought makes me shake, believe me,” she said on a broken laugh. “But if that’s the only way to make him happy, that’s the only way I can really be happy. Or at least, be able to live with myself, no matter how unhappy it makes me. I love him too well to allow myself to be merely tolerated by him. Mama may say there’s no Gypsy in me, but people aren’t that wrong about these dark looks of mine. I find they do mean a passionate heart. And whether it came to me from Wales or Romany, I must follow it.”

Now Eric snorted. “And you’ll be able to know what to do after one party? Rash of you, Bren, to even plot such stuff now.”

“Rash, but not unwise. I’ll see the direction the wind’s blowing. And so will you.”

“Well, for myself, I intend to court the lady,” Eric said, sitting back and stretching out his legs. “Don’t goggle. I’d rather court a snake. But I want to see how fixed she is on Rafe. I’m not a monster of vanity, whatever you say, but I do know females. I should be able to at least interest her—if she’s not lost in love for Rafe. I doubt she is. Not that Rafe’s not attractive in his fashion. But I think, my dear sister, you’re so fixed on him you can’t see reality anymore. I just may be able to show it to you.”

“How will that show me how he feels?”

“It won’t,” he said as bluntly as Rafe might have done. “But if you see it’s all a game to her, at least you may realize that staying with him is in his best interest.”

She nodded. “But if I can see I’m still second place in his eyes? If I’m right? Will you help me?”

“Bren,” he said gently, “you don’t ever have to ask me that.”

Brenna’s new maid arrived with the morning post. She was slender and small, hardly out of girlhood, brown as a fawn, with great pansy brown eyes that looked around the hall with wonder before they settled on Brenna’s face.

She put her traveling bag down and curtsied. “If you please, ma’am, I’m Rebecca Forest. Your mother sent me to you. I came all the way from Tidbury. I hope I suit.”

“Welcome, Rebecca,” Brenna said happily. “I’m
sure you will.” Trust her mama to see things were done right. This modest little maid would definitely suit her much more than an arrogant London lady’s maid ever would. “Your first duty will be to accompany me to the dressmaker today.”

But in the end, Rebecca accompanied Brenna and two of Rafe’s best friends, Drum, and Gilly Ryder, to the dressmaker.