The Official Essex Sisters Companion Guide (34 page)

Rafe was vomiting again. Imogen could hear him all the way down the corridor. She couldn’t sleep. Of course, he deserved all the discomfort he got, but still . . .

Finally she got up and walked out of her room and down the hallway. It was the dead of night, and the castle was as a church on Wednesday. She hadn’t even caught sight of Ewan. The only people they had seen were servants, and the ever-helpful Mac.

Imogen stopped outside his door. He was retching again and again. He’d probably curse at her if she entered the room.

She entered the room.

“Damn you!” he roared. “Get out!”

“At least you’re not naked,” she said. He had a towel around his waist, but he was an odd gray-green color, covered with sweat, and shivering. “Do you think you’ve taken a chill?”

“Out,” Rafe said, bending over. “Get out. Do you hear me?”

But there was no way Imogen was going to leave him alone in this state. “You need a bath,” she said.

He was doubled over at the waist, almost gasping he was retching so hard. Imogen felt a germ of panic.

“Perhaps it’s too much to give liquor all up at once?” she said, panicking a little. “You could try cutting back first.”

“Father Armailhac says I have to get it out of my system,” he said, grunting as he straightened up. “Imogen. I’m begging you. Can I just go through this humiliation on my own? I’m sure it will be over in the morning.”

“No,” Imogen said. “Definitely not. You need a bath.”

“I am
not
calling the servants at this hour—”

“You don’t need to,” she said. “We’ll go to Annabel’s chamber.”

“Her husband—”

“Sleeping on the third floor,” she said. “In the throes of guilt, most like.” She took his arm. It was chilly and covered with sweat. “You’re a mess.”

“So leave me alone,” he growled. “You shouldn’t be in here, in the middle of the night.”

“You’re not going to seduce me, are you?” she said. “Because I’m nothing more than a wee, frail female and I might be overcome by the sight of your belly.”

“God damn—” but he was retching again.

As soon as he was done she took his arm again. “Come on,” she said bracingly. “Just down the hallway.” She got him down the hall and into Annabel’s room, protesting every inch of the way. Then she went into the bathroom, turned on the faucets, and dumped in some salts from a jar to the side.

“Isn’t this wonderful?” she said, watching as the hot water poured into the bathtub.

Rafe had followed her. “I have one of those,” he grunted. “Oh God—”

“Pail’s in the other room,” Imogen said. She had decided that the last thing Rafe needed was sympathy.

A moment later he returned, wavering in the door of the bathroom, pail in hand, looking about to faint. She grabbed his arm. “I’m not taking a bath with you in here,” he said, but his voice was losing strength.

“Nonsense,” she said. “You’ll do just as I please.” She pushed him down into the bath, taking some pleasure in the fact that a man who topped six feet and was a good hundred pounds heavier than she was would collapse at the press of her hand. His white towel billowed a little as he settled into the water, but it still covered his privates.

He didn’t even look to see if he was decent, just leaned his head against the back of the tub with a groan.

“God almighty!” he said. It didn’t sound like a prayer.

Imogen perched on the side of the tub. He was white as snow and sweating unattractively. But he couldn’t be more than thirty-five, for all he’d turned himself into a dissipated brandy bottle. “So did you start drinking when your brother died?” she asked, just to make conversation.

He rolled his head against the marble. “What if I have to vomit?”

“Pail’s next to the bath,” Imogen said. “When did your brother die?”

“Six years ago now,” he said. “Six years.”

“What was he like?”

“Argumentative,” Rafe said, not opening his eyes. “He would argue till the sun came up and went down again. He had a born lawyer’s tongue too. He would talk circles around me, and then talk himself into such a state that neither of us knew what the point was anymore.” He smiled faintly.

“Had he been to university?”

“No. He became the duke when he was only seven. Our guardian didn’t think it was appropriate for the Duke of Holbrook to go to Oxford. Peter . . .” his voice trailed off and he started to look a bit green again.

Imogen perched on the edge of the bathtub and threw a little water over his chest. It was broad and muscled, for all that he did little more than soak himself in whiskey. It must be because when he wasn’t drunk, he was down at the stables. “Was your brother’s name Peter?” she asked. She was thinking that he needed to be distracted. It couldn’t be good to be so sick, so many times.

But he threw up again anyway, though not much went into the pail she held for him.

“I can’t believe you’re doing this,” he said weakly, leaning back. “Quite the fastidious maiden, are you?”

“I’ve been married,” Imogen reminded him.

“More fool you,” he said.

Imogen narrowed her eyes. “Don’t speak ill of Draven.”

“I didn’t,” he pointed out. “I spoke ill of you.”

“You’ve no call to speak anything of me,” she said haughtily, rinsing out the basin in the sink.

“You were a fool to marry that puppy,” he said, still with his eyes closed.

Imogen filled up the basin with cold water and dumped it over his head.

“Argh!” He sat straight up and glared at her, water dripping down his face.

Imogen started laughing. All that messy brown hair of his was dripping with cold water, hanging over his face. “You look like some sort of water monster,” she said, gurgling with laughter. “Green and weedy. You could frighten children.”

“Shut up and give me the pail again,” he snapped.

Afterward she filled up the basin and he opened one eye. “Don’t throw any more water on me.”

“Warm this time,” she said. She poured it carefully over his head and then poured a handful of Annabel’s soft soap into her hand.

“What are you doing now?” he asked suspiciously.

“Washing your hair,” she said. She slapped it on top of his head and then started to rub it about.

“You can’t do that,” he said, sounding really shocked. “It’s entirely too intimate.”

“What? And holding a pail for you isn’t intimate?” She laughed at him. “Just think of me as your old nanny come to nurse you through an illness.”

“My nanny never wore a nightgown that turned transparent in the light,” he said.

Imogen looked down at her white nightgown. “Really?”

He nodded. “Every time you walk in front of a candle, I can see everything you have to offer.”

“That’s extremely coarse,” she said. “Not that it matters because you don’t care what I have to offer, and I certainly don’t care about your offerings,
if
you have any—”

He growled, a deep masculine sound that almost made her giggle nervously, but instead she just kept rubbing the soap around his head. She had never washed anyone’s hair. He had a beautifully shaped head with ears set back against his scalp. Bone-deep beauty. And his hair was long and surprisingly silky for a man. She wouldn’t have thought men’s hair felt soft.

Which made her think about Draven. Had his hair been soft? Draven had fine blond hair that he wore sleeked back in a style that accentuated his high cheekbones.

“What are you thinking about?” he demanded.

“Draven.”

“What about him?”

“His hair.” Then she added, “He had very soft hair.”

“He was going to lose it,” Rafe said dispassionately. “All those fair-headed men do. In a few years, he would have looked like one of those marble balls you find at the bottom of staircases.”

“Whereas you will just get hairier and hairier,” she said, sliding her fingers over his scalp again and again.

“God, that feels good,” he said, leaning into her hands. “Did you do this for Draven?”

She and Draven had never been so intimate. He was bathed by his manservant, and she by her maid, and they only met under the covers. “Of course,” she said without hesitation. “Draven loved the way I bathed him.”

“Well, damned if there isn’t something about which I agree with that husband of yours.” Rafe sighed. “Did he bathe you as well?”

“Naturally,” Imogen said, turning her mind away from the awkward couplings that she and Draven had shared.

“Lucky man,” Rafe said, sounding almost drowsy. “Perhaps I should get married. This is the part of marriage that you never hear about.”

Because usually it never happened, Imogen thought. In her experience, husbands and wives didn’t find themselves alone in palatial marble bathtubs lit with candles. At least she and Draven hadn’t. The thought made her irritated, and she didn’t pour quite as warm water as she might have into the basin.

“Oof,” he said, shaking his head like a dog coming out of a lake.

Imogen stood over him, grinning as he ran his hands back through his hair. Then she noticed.

His towel had come undone and was floating on the surface of the water. He had a little gut, but his legs were strong and muscular—the riding, she would guess.

And there between his legs—

She turned away to get more water and poured it over his head. He was definitely looking less green. His eyes were closed. She peeked again.

He was definitely much larger than Draven had been. Who would have thought that men came in different sizes?

Interesting.

The carriage swayed down Scotland post roads. Griselda moaned; Josie and Gregory chattered; Tess leaned against her husband’s shoulder. Annabel stayed in the corner and slept, league after league, hour after hour.

Father Armailhac had gripped her hands tightly when she was leaving, his mild llama face concerned. “We’ll bring him through this,” he had said to her.

“You don’t understand, Father,” Annabel told him. “Ewan never really loved me. He only desired me, and he confused the two because he had so little experience.”

“You talk, my child, as if desire were not a gift from God Himself,” Armailhac had said, his hands tightening. “Do not despair, promise me?”

Annabel had no trouble fulfilling that promise. She was beyond despair. She felt as if she could drift in and out of sleep forever. It was better than being awake, even though she had bad dreams sometimes.

Of course, she was awake part of the time. She sat through meals at inns, not letting herself remember that she and Ewan had supped at the same inns. It was easier to not think of him at all.

She could have forgotten him, almost, if her sisters would just let her be. Instead, night after night, they crowded onto the bed in whatever inn they happened to be, talking—always talking. Tess clucked over her like a mother hen, and Josie tried gentle humor. Both of them acted as if she were dying of a wasting disease.

“You have to stop it,” she finally said after a few days of this. “I’m
fine
. I’m the nonromantic one, remember? The logical one? I have to admit, there is a certain comfort
in realizing that I was right all along. The best marriages
are
those entered into by practical persons, for practical reasons.”

“Love doesn’t have to be uncomfortable,” Tess said earnestly.

“You will be the standard-bearer for marrying well,” Annabel said, smiling at her. “Josie, please keep Tess in mind while making your choice.”

“I shan’t choose a Scotsman,” Josie said immediately. “And what else should I look for? Oh yes, I should ask any candidates whether they have ambitions to race their own horses. And whether they intend to die young.”

“Marry someone who loves you,” Annabel said drearily. “Not someone who showed no real interest in whom he marries. Ewan just wanted a bride. He asked Imogen to marry him as well, you know.”

“I think he wanted you,” Tess said.

“Oh, he did. He
wanted
me. He desired me. But he hadn’t been intimate with a woman in years—”

Tess made a disgusted sound. “The more I learn about Ardmore, the more I dislike him. Who does he think he is, a priest?”

“Plutarch would agree with you, Annabel,” Josie put in, looking thoughtful. “I forget exactly how it goes, but he says that just as fire catches quickly in chaff, but goes out quickly, so mere physical love between married people can burn away in a moment.”

“Plutarch begins to sound like someone worth reading,” Annabel said, leaning her head against the headboard.

“He also says that a man who is enchanted by a woman’s beauty, and does not love her for her company and character, is a dull-witted fool.”

“Better and better,” Annabel said wearily.

“Yet Ewan did seem to like your company,” Josie said a bit uncertainly.

“I wish that translated into love,” Annabel said tightly. “But . . .” Her voice trailed off.

“I’m afraid that I agree with Annabel,” Tess said. “No man who truly loved a woman would be able to stay calm while she was being handled in such a fashion. I wish to God it were different.”

“So do I,” Annabel said.

“Don’t you think he feels guilty?” Josie asked. “He must have had something in mind to—”

“The problem for Ewan is not that he did not immediately save me,” Annabel said, pleating her sheet carefully so as not to meet Tess’s eyes. “I do not think that he has a cowardly nature. I’m fairly sure that he would have tried to save me when he felt the time was right. It is that in killing Rosy, he felt he killed his sister.”

There was a moment’s silence at that. They, if anyone, could acknowledge that as a horrific idea.

“That doesn’t explain why he no longer wishes to be married to you,” Tess pointed out.

“He hasn’t said anything of a divorce,” Annabel whispered, out of a throat that felt suddenly tight. “Has he? Did he say something to you?”

“No!” Tess said. “But . . .”

“I know,” Annabel said. “The marriage is over. But I can’t bear—I just—”

“Oh sweetheart, you
do
love him, don’t you?” Tess said, pulling Annabel into her arms.

“I will always love him,” Annabel said, her voice shaking. “It’s stupid of me, and yet I can’t stop. I try to make myself stop. I think about how he didn’t even look my direction when that man was touching me, and yet I can’t stop loving him anyway. My mind just goes in circles, thinking of reasons why he didn’t—”

Tess’s arms tightened in silent sympathy.

“I know!” Annabel cried, tears burning down her cheeks. “I know that if he loved me, he would have looked. He didn’t—he doesn’t—” and then her voice caught on her own breath, and she was silenced.

“Perhaps he was making a plan,” Josie said bravely.

“I expect he was,” Tess said. “The problem is that he showed no visible sign of worrying about Annabel while he was formulating it.”

“Ewan did shoot Nisbit when he tried to drag me away,” Annabel said, wiping her eyes. “He just grabbed a gun from the floor and shot him.”

“He must be an excellent shot,” Josie said. “It’s very difficult to hit a moving target without taking time to steady one’s aim.”

“But I still don’t see why all of this means he doesn’t want to have you in his house any longer,” Tess said, after a few moments of silence.

“I think he realized that he doesn’t really love me,” Annabel said. “There, when he was faced with having shot Rosy. And he did love her, he really did. Even though she was—”

“
Mad
,” Tess put in. “Are you saying that he loved Rosy and not you?”

“It wasn’t like that. Rosy was his sister, as if she were the sister who died in the fire. And then he killed her.”

“It’s awful,” Tess said. “And if he were anyone other than the man who married you, darling, I would have huge sympathy. But why does his grief have to lead to your going to England? That’s what I don’t accept.”

“Because he doesn’t love me,” Annabel cried. “Don’t you understand? I handed him the pistol that he used to shoot the person he really loved. And then he looked at me, and he knew I wasn’t the sort of woman that he could really love—just someone to desire!”

“That is
so untrue
!” Tess said sharply, giving her a little shake. “You are precisely the kind of person that he could love, if he were capable of loving a woman rather than a simpleminded child!”

Annabel gulped back her tears. “He believes in God, truly believes in God. And now he thinks that God will never forgive him for killing Rosy.”

“It’s
Measure for Measure
to the life,” Josie said with fascination. “The heroine doesn’t believe that God will have mercy on her, even if she believes in the idea of mercy in general.”

“Maybe he should take up Shakespeare.”

“Are you saying that Ardmore doesn’t feel guilt for the way he stood aside while you were mistreated by those men?” Tess demanded.

“Oh, he does.” She’d seen agony in Ewan’s eyes. “He does. But even that doesn’t change the fact that desire is no basis for a marriage. When it’s gone—” She shrugged. “There’s nothing left.”

“This is all his fault,” Tess said fiercely. “I only hope he comes to England so that I can shoot him myself!”

“For goodness’ sakes,” Josie said. “Our calm older sister has metamorphosed into a tiger. You shock and surprise me, Tess.”

“Stop funning,” Tess snapped at her.

Annabel swallowed and wiped away more tears. “I’ll be all right,” she said, her voice quavering. “I had—I had a lovely marriage while it lasted.”

“It lasted longer than Imogen’s,” Josie said encouragingly. “That’s something.”

“I wish Ardmore were as dead as Draven Maitland,” Tess spat.

“You grow more bloodthirsty by the moment,” Josie told her. “Do you think this is a side-effect of your marriage?”

“No,” Annabel said, “it’s likely just from watching two of her sisters marry utter idiots.”

“Something like that,” Tess agreed.

“You’re a tragic woman,” Josie said, staring at Annabel. “I could write a novel about your life and sell it to the Minerva Press.”

Annabel managed a weak smile. “Don’t tell me that you’re taking to writing prose.”

“Well, not yet, but I am thinking about poetry. Perhaps I’ll write a tragic epic.”

Annabel leaned her head against Tess’s shoulder and listened to Josie talk about Gregory’s lack of literary perception. She had put him to reading Shakespeare and the poor boy was finding it hard going.

But she was sleepy again, even though she’d slept on and off all day, and pretty soon Tess eased her down on the pillow and tucked Josie in beside her.