He wondered if his last failure had truly been the final one she could tolerate. Had she decided that he would never make something of himself? Without consciously deciding to, he asked the question aloud. "Have you decided to back the man as well?"
Her lip curled in disdain, and he knew that somehow she was again disappointed in him. "Don't be ridiculous. Have you never heard the adage 'know thy enemy'?"
"How would such an adage apply to inviting Gabriel Digby — a man who is currently my rival for the head of the Round Table Society — here to Camelot, our home? I can certainly know him from slightly farther away."
"Perhaps." She added, "If your choice of wives does not put you from the running altogether."
About Hero he had no hesitation. "If it does, I shall not regret it, Grandmama."
She looked at him sharply. "I wish I could say that sentiment of yours surprises me, but it does not."
"As it should not. Did Grandfather ever regret marrying you? I think not."
"Your grandfather had no reason to regret his marriage to me. I brought with me a fortune, and a dream." She shook her head, her expression almost tender: "What has your bride brought you but scandal and dishonor."
He knew in his heart she was wrong, though her words still stung him deeply. "A wife is to be cherished and protected, Grandmama. And Hero is my wife. That is never going to change."
"No? I confess to a bit of selfish disappointment when I heard that she nearly perished in that fire at the inn." She paused. "You know, the one where Digby met the Chivalric challenge."
Her words stunned him. He knew that his grandmother had a ruthless streak — but to suggest that she would have welcomed Hero's death? She must be overwrought. "I will forget you said such a thing, Grandmama. It must be that your nerves are too tightly strung with all the changes we have had here in the last few weeks."
"That is kind of you, Arthur," she said, though her tone was not sincere. "But it will not change the fact that your wife helped Gabriel Digby meet one of his challenges. Or do you not remember the event?"
Arthur took off his spectacles to add to his sincerity as he frowned warningly at her. "If you say one more word against my wife, Grandmama, I will order the guest house readied for you and move you into it within a day."
His grandmother hitched in her breath in outrage. "You would do that to me after all I've done for you?"
He sighed. She had taken him in, she had loved him. Still — "I would indeed if you continue to undermine Hero and her management of my . . .our . . . household."
She looked at him speechlessly for a moment, and then asked in an ominously quiet voice, "For that. . .that . . . girl?"
He replaced his spectacles and stood. "For my wife, Grandmama."
"As you say, then." She turned her cheek for his kiss as he came near her chair. "I suppose I have no choice, if you wish it."
He kissed her cheek gently. He knew it was a blow to her pride that he had chosen Hero over her. But it was her actions that had driven him to have to make a choice. "No, I'm afraid this time, Grandmama, you have none at all."
He saw her expression reflect the crashing loss of her hopes and dreams. And then, in a plaintive tone he had rarely heard from her, she asked, glancing down at her folded hands, half covered by the sweeping lace of her sleeves, "Does that mean you will turn my guest out into the cold?"
Wouldn't that be a shame? Arthur stifled his impulse to do just that. "Of course not. In fact, I must thank you. This luncheon conversation reminded me that Digby is a good man. One I have long admired."
She glanced up at him briefly, but he could not tell what emotions she felt at his statement. Fury? Approval? Hope? "I think you are wise, Arthur." Her compliment was deliberately vague, as sincere as it sounded.
"I know, Grandmama. Know your enemy." He pushed back his plate, surprised to note that he had eaten little. He would take something with Hero, as she was being fitted. "But you must understand that Digby is not my enemy. We are merely rivals for the same honor."
"And for the same woman?" Her eyes met his, and he saw that she had not truly been cowed by his threat. She had only been softening him for this moment.
He hardened his heart against her. "She is my wife, Grandmama. Digby, of all people, would not think of overstepping. Although I wonder that he has visited at all."
Her eyes flickered in a way that told him she was hiding something. He wasn't certain he wanted to know what secret lay behind that gaze. "I told you, I invited him. Why else would he come?"
He pressed her, determined to have an answer. "I can understand why you might want the company of a charming man like Mr. Digby, Grandmama. What I cannot understand is why such a charming man would want to be buried out in the country with the likes of us, when London is the place to be this time of year."
"Perhaps you should ask him?"
"Perhaps I should." He could not resist adding, "But I thought perhaps the servants' gossip might have told you what I want to know."
Her eyes flashed with annoyance or amusement or approval, he could not say, despite the years he had lived with her. "I'm afraid I have heard nothing. I cannot profess to know his motives." Her eyes flashed with emotion. "Perhaps he has set his sights on Gwen now that you have jilted her."
A flash of guilt spilled through him, but then he crushed it. "I did not jilt her, Grandmama." He thought it would be an excellent thing for Digby and Gwen to fall in love — it would certainly ease his guilt on several scores. But no, on second thought, the complications of such a thing were too dreadful to imagine.
"As good as jilted her, then, if you must. You have had an understanding — "
When would she stop lamenting? It was not as if wishing it weren't so would change the fact that he and Hero were married. "You have had an understanding with Gwen's father. Gwen and I had nothing to do with it."
She grasped his hands tightly when he would have turned away. "You were told what it would mean to the family. I never heard you protest."
"I did not — "
The pain in her eyes was genuine. Still, there was nothing he could do to remedy her distress. "I could have explained it more thoroughly if you had," she whispered. "I could have shown you why it would have made you into the man you have always wanted to be — the man I have always believed you could be."
"I don't believe you could have convinced me of such a thing, Grandmama. I am glad that I married Hero. And I suspect Gwen will be as well, one day."
She closed her eyes, her face pale, and he realized suddenly that age had rendered her more fragile than she allowed him to see most of the time. "You could have had a woman trained to handle Camelot."
"But I have — "
"You could have had a woman of great beauty. But no, instead, you choose to marry some milk-and-water miss in a hasty, nearly clandestine affair."
He wondered how long he would be defending his bride and her reputation from his own grandmother. "It was hasty, but it was hardly clandestine. Half of London came to the wedding — "
She sniffed. "Only to see if Gwen would squirm under their stares, wilt under the pressure of being jilted — "
He made a sound of impatient protest. She broke off, and then continued. "Oh, all right, if you insist, of having the understanding between you dissolved without her knowledge or consent."
"It is the truth." It was more than the truth, indeed, that his heart had not been in the understanding since the first time he had met Hero Fenster. If he had had the courage to tell his grandmother that — to tell Gwen —
Her voice was ice down his spine as she said, "And the truth may cost you what you prize most."
"I will not let it."
"No? Then you must discover the will and courage of Sir Balin to find the deed that will atone for your mistake and make amends to her father — or you will find Digby with the prize that is meant for you. And what will your little wife think of you then?"
Arthur felt his heart go cold at that thought. He had hoped perhaps Hero had been coming to see him in a more favorable light. But now, with Digby nearby, how could she help compare what she might have had with what she had ended up with?
"Arthur!" Hero was visibly astonished when Arthur entered the room where she was being poked and prodded and pinned for new gowns. Her first action was to cover her somewhat bared breasts, but the seamstress muttered sharply and slapped her hands away.
"Good afternoon, my dear." He quickly suppressed the urge to put his lips where her hands had pressed but a moment before.
"What has brought you here?" She blushed, evidently realizing how her actions could be interpreted. For the exposed skin, though delicious and tempting to him, was only what a ball gown would reveal. And Arthur was, after all, her husband.
A question formed in his mind — would she had moved so if it were Digby who had entered the room?
Ridiculous. What had put such a thought in his head? And why did he want to erase Digby from her memory? She was his wife. His.
Pretending that he had not noticed her discomfort, or her desire to cover herself, he said cheerfully, "Grandmama told me that you were being subjected to torture today." The seamstress and her minions glared at him as he spoke, whether at his words, or simply at his presence he could not say. "So I brought you some sandwiches."
"You needn't have done that, I could have rung for something from the kitchen," she protested.
"So my grandmother said," he replied, wondering if he had made a blunder. He set down the plate he had carried by his own hand, to the amusement of the scullery maid and the shocked disapproval of the cook.
She blinked rapidly several times, as if she realized her words had hurt him. And then she said, "How ungracious of me. I am so touched that you would think of me, but you needn't . . . I mean . . . it was too much trouble . . ."
He tried not to let his grin spread too widely across his face. He did not want to offend her. He had not expected to fluster her so thoroughly with such a simple action. Still, it was somewhat pleasing to know that he could. "It was no trouble, I assure you."
He borrowed Digby's phrase but turned it to his own advantage. "After all, I well remember the days of fittings you and your sisters suffered through when your family first came to live with the duke for the Season."
She smiled, and her discomposure faded at last. "Thank you."
He watched the fitting for a while. She glanced at him from time to time with a more puzzled glance each time. It was obvious she could tell he had something on his mind.
He made idle conversation. But he had no idea how to broach the subject he most wanted to discuss. Especially not when she was so intimately acquainted with the sheer volume of pins the seamstresses had overladen her with in their zeal to fit her new gowns perfectly.
Had she known that Digby would come? Or would she be just as surprised as he had been?
At last, just when she was having her corset tightened more than she could bear, more to distract her from the discomfort than because he thought she would want to know, he blurted it out. "Digby is here."
"Digby?" Her face was a study in expressions. Puzzlement, comprehension, curiosity, and then, at last, dismay. He wondered what that expression boded. For she could be dismayed to see the man she loved but could not have, or she could be dismayed to see her husband's rival. He wished there were some way he could tell which reason put the expression on her face.
"Yes, I'm afraid he has come to call here at Camelot," he said, hoping he would see something more in her face that would tell him what he most wished to know. And then he watched as she fully comprehended what he had said. "Here? He has come to call?"
He nodded. "He has come to stay at my grandmother's invitation, no less."
He was watching her closely, as if he did not know what her reaction might be. Did he suspect her of infidelity somehow, since she had unwittingly given Digby a way to meet his challenge? She hoped not. "But why would she invite him?"
"I think Grandmama is up to some game of her own." He touched her cheek gently. "I don't want to see you hurt by it."
With those words, he pressed a kiss against her cheek despite the seamstresses' clucks of disapproval, and departed.
Hero watched him go, disappointed. She had hoped when she first saw him that he might stay until the fitting was over, but apparently, as usual, he had business to attend to and she was left alone with the seamstresses, whose only words seemed to be "Hold still, please" and "Turn, please."
Hero could not believe Digby had arrived at Camelot. It was more than coincidence that he seemed to appear a few days behind them at each location.
His puppy-dog looks toward her were beginning to draw her nerves tight. What did he want from her? She was a married woman now, he knew that, and yet he still looked at her as if she were an eligible woman he wished to make his wife. It was most annoying. She had been exceedingly glad to be rid of him when they left the inn.
She was glad for Arthur's warning later that day when she ran into Digby himself in the library. She had meant only to get a book to read in the garden. But she could not be openly rude to a guest in her home.
He greeted her first, with delight. "Hello, Mrs. Watterly." She was relieved to see that he did not have that infatuated look on his face today.
"Hello, Mr. Digby." She had never felt nervous around him before, but this was too much. Knowing that Arthur was competing with him, knowing that Grandmama might be colluding with him for some unfathomable reason. Her palms were damp with perspiration and she had only said hello.
His words were innocuous enough, but his expression changed to the one she dreaded to see. "Married life seems to agree with you." The glance he gave her was unnerving in its intensity.
"How kind of you to say so." Although his eyes were sending a different message altogether. Hero moved away, careful to keep a discreet distance between them.