Martha Schroeder Page 14

  Intolerable.

  She rose and stood, trying to compose herself, staring blindly at the roses. “No, my lady, I am sorry but I could not. I have planned to return to my home for at least a—a while, and….” Her words trailed to a stop.

  “I would not expect you to come here immediately. Of course, you will wish to spend some time with your family. How long has it been since you have seen them?”

  “Three years, my lady,” Annis replied in a stifled voice.

  “Then you must stay for several months at least. How many of your brothers and sisters are left at home now, my dear?”

  How many what? Annis could not concentrate. She had become expert at hiding her emotions, But Meg’s marriage and her own uncertain future had eaten away at the iron discipline she had exercised for so long. Being so close to Gerald had further eroded her control, and now Lady Mattingly’s kindly intended but cruel offer had brought Annis to the breaking point.

  “No, no really, my lady,” she managed to say. “It would not answer. Please believe me.”

  If Lady Mattingly had thought to pursue the subject, the look on her guest’s face stopped her. It was clear that Miss Fairchild was overset. No doubt worry about Meg’s marriage was the cause.

  “I wonder what Gerald is saying to the captain,” Lady Mattingly said, letting the subject drop.

  * * * *

  “It is wonderful Madeira, is it not?” Gerald said as he raised his glass to James.

  “Yes, yes, quite good.” James ran his hand through his already disordered hair and said, “I don’t know why I came here. Except that I couldn’t stay a moment longer at—’

  “At home? Why not?” Gerald asked, regretting the question as soon as it was out of his mouth. He had no desire to know what had transpired between his two friends. Not only was it none of his business, he felt responsible for their marriage and did not want to hear of its failure after only a day. He’d considered the marriage a coup and was annoyed that James was already disabusing him of that idea.

  “It is not my home,” James said. “It is my wife’s home.”

  “Mmm.” Gerald buried his nose in his glass. “Lovely aroma, don’t you think?”

  “Lovely,” James put his glass down untasted. “We quarreled. Not married a full day and we quarreled, quite irrevocably.”

  “Mmm. M’father laid this down not long before he died.” Gerald held his glass up to the light and studied it.

  “I gave her every opportunity to apologize, but she refused. Said she would give me an opportunity to apologize.” James’s sense of injury had not abated.

  “Mmm. Wonderful judge of wine, m’father.” Gerald took a sip and closed his eyes. “Smooth, isn’t it?”

  “Very.” James glared at his glass, then got up and stalked over to the window. He gazed out for a long moment and took a deep breath. “I’m making an ass of myself, aren’t I?” He turned around, but Gerald did not look at him.

  “Mmm. M’father favored brandy, but he always had a soft spot for Madeira.”

  “Is this what you did in Vienna? Prattled on about inconsequentials until everyone calmed down and you could make some brilliantly sensible suggestion?” James smiled wryly at his host.

  “Mmm. Since you’re not going to drink my wine, and you have nothing useful to say about it—or anything else, for that matter—why not go home, old boy. To Hedgemere.” Gerald smiled and took another sip of his father’s Madeira.

  “Very sensible,” James said. “But I may as well escort Miss Fairchild home while I’m here. Meg was worried about her for some reason.”

  “I think m’mother plans to have her stay here for a while. At least until she’s managed to straighten out m’mother’s knitting wool. Tell Meg not to worry.”

  “I suppose I’d better take your advice.”

  “Always the best thing to do. I tried to tell Metternich that, but he wasn’t as intelligent as you.”

  James grinned ruefully at his friend and left, feeling calmer if much more foolish.

  * * * *

  “Annis didn’t return with you?” Meg frowned at her husband. He had been gone for hours. Now she was dressed in a simple sea-green gown she and Annis had designed, ready to dine, to converse, to forgive. But her spouse was studying the sherry decanter, his back toward her.

  “No. Lady Mattingly wanted her to stay for a few more days and she agreed.” He turned around and faced her. He didn’t look angry or even out of sorts. In fact, it was very difficult to tell just what he was thinking.

  Meg decided to ask him. “Are you still angry with me?”

  “No, I don’t believe so. Perhaps we could take a walk after dinner and discuss ... barley, since you apparently know a great deal about it. Or perhaps the difference between third-and fourth-class ships of the line—something I know a good bit about.”

  Meg flushed. “I am sorry I lost my temper. I said a good deal that I—”

  At that moment, whether for good or ill, Meadows came in to announce dinner.

  They managed a good imitation of cordial conversation during the meal. Meg told James about what was needed to bring the estate back to its former glory, as during the time her grandfather had owned it and had employed a good, honest man as bailiff. In his turn, James told Meg about the possibilities for making money in government bonds and joint stock companies.

  Afterward, they went out by the library door and strolled about the lawn, taking a long overgrown path that led to the small woods. For a while they said nothing, letting the peace of the night and the light of the stars soothe them.

  “It is a beautiful evening, isn’t it, James?” Meg said, constraint still in her voice. “What are the evenings like at sea? I’ve never even thought to wonder.”

  “Vaster. The sky and the sea are both so enormous that when you can see neither clearly because the sun is down, they seem to merge somehow.” James found to his surprise that he hadn’t thought of the sea for days. It truly seemed to him now as if his time at sea had been another life. “It makes most men feel quite small when they’re free to think about it. That could be why there is always so much to do aboard ship.”

  “It prevents sailors from feeling mortal?” He could hear the smile in Meg’s voice.

  “It is probably the reason why you farmers mend harnesses and polish tools all winter. So you don’t have to think about how much you are at the mercy of the sky, and what falls from it or shines down upon you and the earth from above.” He took her hand and tucked it into the crook of his elbow. He wanted to feel her next to him as they talked. Somehow he thought they would have less chance of misunderstanding each other if their bodies were in contact.

  Meg turned her head toward him. The moon pulled free of a cloud just at that moment, and James looked at her, surprised at the beauty and mystery he could see in her face.

  “Well,” she said, “it seems farmers and sailors have more in common than it would first appear.”

  “Yes. I think we can understand each other if we give our minds to it.” He stopped and put his arms around her, holding her lightly, making it clear he would release her if she signaled that she wished it.

  She did not. “I hope you are right. We have a great deal to discover about each other. I—I am sorry if I made that understanding difficult for us today. Sometimes I feel—” She couldn’t find the words.

  James found them for her. “Afraid?” he said gently. “Yes, I know. I do, too. We don’t know each other very well, my lady, but I think we may have learned a little today. I am sorry I rode away in anger. I think I would have done better to stay and fight it out with you.”

  Meg smiled. “You are right. I am afraid of you sometimes, of what will happen to life at Hedgemere now that you’re here. I don’t want to become unnecessary.”

  “Unnecessary! You? You’re the heart and soul of this place. Surely you know that.” How could she help but know it? Everyone knew her, listened to her, worked for her approval. She was the captain of
this ship, and he had thrown down a gauntlet when he had told her that he had taken over that position.

  But he hadn’t, not really, not yet. He knew that being named a commander and becoming one in fact were not the same thing at all. He would have to earn the respect and deference that his wife had won over many years. Would she let him?

  He felt her shiver beneath his hands, and immediately concern clouded his brow. “You are growing cold. I should have thought to have you bring a wrap.”

  “I am a grown woman, James. If I thought I needed a wrap, I would have fetched one.”

  James sighed. “Is there nothing I can do to show my concern for you and this place without arousing the Amazon in you?”

  Meg grimaced. “I’m afraid I speak without thinking sometimes. I do not mean to sound as defensive as I do. I have had to fight for my right to run Hedgemere ever since I began. It is difficult to believe that I no longer have to do so.” She took a deep breath. “Especially when you tell me that you are now in command.”

  “Meg, listen to me. I have no intention of trying to oust you as the owner of Hedgemere. But you must understand that my money was hard-earned, and while I am sure you know the people and the land, I don’t yet know enough to be able to decide what needs to be done first and what can wait. I cannot simply give you carte blanche to do whatever you wish. Surely you can understand that viewpoint.” He reached out to her, and instinctively she put her hand in his.

  He sounded so sincere. But how well did she really know this man? His childhood had been difficult, and she knew that he had no contact with any member of his family. She knew no one who had known him except Gerald, who had met him only recently. If she could just talk to someone who had known him in his youth or childhood. Someone who might be able to help her unlock the hidden springs of his personality. Someone who could help her understand this complex, difficult man whom she was very much afraid she was beginning to love.

  “Tell me about Kettering, James,” she said. He turned to stare at her, clearly unsure just where this request had come from.

  “I cannot tell you anything about the husbandry of the place. I don’t think I even knew who the bailiff was. You have to understand, it was an enormous estate, and we children were just a small, unimportant group on the edges of its life. Only Reggie knew anything about it, and I’m not sure he cared very much at that age.”

  “Did you know your other brothers and sisters very well?”

  Again he looked at her, his brow furrowed. “I knew them. For the most part they took their cue from the duchess and left me strictly alone.” He tried to keep his voice calm and noncommittal.

  Meg heard an undertone of bitterness. She was afraid she might cause him pain or rouse his anger, but she wasn’t ready to concede defeat yet. Her next words were a gamble, a guess. “For the most part? Then there were some who accepted you?”

  “No.”

  Meg’s heart sank. There had been no one who cared.

  “There were not ‘some.’ There was only one.” His face softened. Even in the uncertain light of cloud-dimmed stars, she could see the warm affection that transformed his face. “There was Claire.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  “Claire? Your sister?”

  “Yes. Claire was my defender, my consolation, my friend. Perhaps she cared for me because she was a plain little thing and the duchess had very little use for anyone who wasn’t beautiful. So we were both outcasts in a way.”

  Meg was growing colder as the evening breeze became stronger, but she was determined that James shouldn’t know it. She wanted nothing to break this mood.

  “Did you play together when you were small?”

  “Sometimes. Most of the games in the schoolroom and fields of Kettering were very rough. Claire was the youngest and a girl, and the boys had a tendency to pick on her because of it, so she and I had our own pursuits.” He walked on, staring down at the path, lost in the past.

  “What did you do?”

  “We read. I taught her to read and she loved it, so we spent as much time as we could in the library, up amid the thousands of volumes the duke had, hiding from him and from the other children.” James shook his head. “What a brave little thing she was! One Christmas she went up to the schoolroom and got me, insisted I come down to the great hall to listen to the caroling. I’d been banished so the duchess wouldn’t have to see me. Claire said she was sure no one would notice and she was right. The duchess never knew I was there.”

  “What if she had?” Meg asked, wondering how any woman could sentence a child to remain hidden at Christmas.

  “I would have been caned, and Claire would probably have had to miss the Yule log and the Christmas feast.”

  “Good God, James, punishment that severe for being someplace where the duchess might see you?” Meg was furious at the injustice that had taken place twenty or more years ago.

  “Yes. It was the way they treated servants and children— you were to stay out of the way unless you were summoned. So you can see, Claire was very brave. She looked like a little mouse, but she was as brave as a lion.” He smiled reminiscently for a moment, but his expression seemed to darken almost as quickly. “I saw her once, three or four years ago.”

  “You did?” Meg was elated. She had been cudgeling her brain to see if there was some way she could find out where James’s sister was living. Now perhaps she’d find out Claire’s name, if she chanced to have married, and her home. “Where was that?”

  “In Italy. She was in Naples staying at the British ambassador’s residence when some of the other naval commanders were invited for a dance. She chanced to mention me, and someone told her where I could be found.”

  Meg waited, but he said nothing more. “So, you went to see her when they told you she was there?” she prompted.

  “No.” Again that uncompromising tone. “She came to see me. And before you can ask, I told her not to come to see me again.”

  Meg was horrified. “But why would you do such a thing?”

  He turned on her, as if she had goaded him beyond his endurance. “My sister was a young, unmarried woman. Being seen with a man who was known to have a bar sinister in his past could do her no good at all. She should have seen that for herself, but Claire never cared for other people’s opinions! So, I had to take care of her, make certain she did herself no social harm.”

  “But, James,” Meg said, giving up her plan of staying neutral in order to glean information. How could he have sent away the one person at that time who cared about him at all? “She must have felt you didn’t want to see her.”

  “Yes, I made certain that’s what she thought. If I’d told her about her chances being blighted by acknowledging me, it wouldn’t have made the slightest difference to her.”

  “So you sent her away.” Meg looked at her husband, wondering as she had before at the stiff-necked pride that made his life so difficult. He knew his sister cared more for him than an advantageous marriage, but he would not allow her to act on that love. “She must have felt abandoned, as if you didn’t love her.”

  James shrugged, pretending indifference, but Meg wasn’t fooled. She knew his heart had been just as heavy as Claire’s.

  “Has she married, do you know?” Meg tried to sound casual.

  “Your Mr. Quigley said not. Apparently, Reggie insisted that any claim of kinship from me would hurt her chances. That was the reason he gave for threatening me if I let it be known that we were related. She’s probably still at Kettering looking after Reggie when he’s home and taking care of the duchess if she’s still alive.”

  “So she never married, even after your sacrifice,” Meg said. “Is she really so plain?”

  There was a pause. “Not to those who truly know her. Not to me.”

  Meg was silent. She had known before that James had built a lifetime of barriers against those who despised him. Now she realized that the barriers against those few who’d loved him were even higher. She quailed a little at
the thought of doing battle against them, but what else could she do? A tiny voice whispered, “Do as he asks. Let it go. It’s his concern, not yours.” Meg considered that cowardly voice for a moment, but she could not heed it. She cared for James. That was all that mattered. He needed her help to escape the prison of his past. Without it, he would remain emotionally in a cold, gray place remarkably like the orphanage he had escaped as a child.

  She took a deep breath. “I would like to meet Claire.”

  “Impossible.” James gestured impatiently. “I do not know why you encourage me to wallow in the past. It was not a happy time, and I would prefer to forget it.”

  “But you haven’t forgotten it,” Meg said gently. “And if Claire’s life is as bleak as it sounds, even a visit to an out-of-the-way spot like this would be pleasant for her.”

  James looked at her distrustfully. “I would be doing her a favor, is that the tack you’re taking?”

  “It isn’t a tack, whatever that may be. If she’s looking after a huge estate, a careless brother, and a sick mother, it’s the truth. You can help her by giving her a little respite with people who value her.”

  James shrugged his shoulders as if trying to shake off a burden. “I do not know that the duchess is ill. Quigley and I have both heard—rumors, that is all.”

  “I am not going to give up on this, James. The idea of your favorite sister languishing in that huge castle with no one around to care for her just makes my blood run cold. I know how it is when your life is all work and no end to it, seemingly, and no reward but the sense that you’ve done what had to be done.”

  He stared at her. “I never knew you felt like that, Meg.”

  * * * *

  Two days after she and James had discussed Claire, Meg brought up Annis’s name at breakfast. Having dispatched a letter to her sister-in-law, Meg decided that she had best clear up the matter of her friend’s continued absence from Hedgemere.