Martha Schroeder Read online

  “Meg, my dear,” Annis said quietly, “that is most kind of you and the captain. But this is not my home; it is yours, and you must live in it with your family, and I must return to mine. That is the way it is meant to be.”

  “Annis, you are as stubborn—”

  “Good morning, my dear.” James’s deep voice was even and unemotional. Meg hadn’t told him what had happened at the Mattinglys. He had guessed that it concerned Gerald’s feelings for Annis. Meg might not have seen how they felt about each other until yesterday, but James had known from the moment he’d seen them together. He did not resent Meg’s failure to confide in him. Her loyalty to her friend and her ability to keep her own counsel were qualities James admired and valued highly.

  “Miss Fairchild,” he said quietly. “As I came across the hall, I saw a horseman ride up to the house. I believe it to be Sir Gerald.” As Annis leapt to her feet, he added, “You do not have to see him. I can tell him you do not care to see him.”

  Annis paused, irresolute. “Is that what you want, ma’am?” he said.

  She gave herself a little shake, then said with unimpaired dignity, “No. I will see him, of course, Captain.”

  It was a good thing that James had spoken when he did, for Meadows immediately appeared in the doorway and announced Sir Gerald. Gerald came in after him, looking around the table until his eyes lit on Annis.

  Forgetting his usual impeccable courtesy, Gerald ignored the others. “I must speak to you, Annis,” he said. “Come with me, please. May we use your library, Meg?” he asked as an afterthought.

  Meg nodded and without another word being said, Gerald and Annis left the dining room, leaving two troubled friends behind them.

  “Why won’t she marry him?” Meg asked. “She loves him; I know she does.”

  “Of course she loves him. That’s not the issue,” James said impatiently. “It’s because she loves him that she refused his offer and is leaving.”

  Meg looked at him in astonishment. “How do you know that? Has Gerald told you how he feels? I know Annis hasn’t.”

  “Of course they haven’t said anything to me. But it’s as clear as glass, my dear. Except to you and Lady Mattingly, because you know them too well.”

  “That doesn’t make any kind of sense, James!” Meg was insulted. What did he mean, she knew Gerald and Annis too well? How could knowing somebody too well lead to blindness as to their feelings?

  “Yes, it does. It makes perfect sense. Sometimes it takes an outsider to see how people really feel.”

  Meg’s thoughts veered from the situation of her two friends to that of her husband. They had grown closer over the weeks of their marriage. But perhaps James was right Perhaps the reason she felt certain that in writing Claire she had done what James wanted but was too pigheaded to do himself was because she hadn’t known him long. He hadn’t thought about his sister as a grown woman. He was still trying to do Claire’s thinking for her. Maybe James had the same insight into her feelings.

  “Yes, James, I think you’re right.”

  There was a strange note in Meg’s voice, and James looked up, alert and wary, like a stag that has scented man. “What do you mean? I know when you’ve got some ulterior thought in the back of your brain!”

  “Only that what you said is true, James. What else could I have meant?” And, of course, that she would use his argument against him if he cut up stiff when he found out about the correspondence she had begun with his sister.

  James looked at his wife through narrowed eyes. She appeared and sounded much too innocent. “You’re up to something, Lady Margaret Sheridan, and don’t think I don’t know it.”

  “James, how can you say that? You have just this minute told me that you understand me better than I do myself. So, you must tell me, what am I up to? I’m sure I do not know.”

  If he hadn’t been certain before, Meg’s laugh would have told him he was right. She was up to something.

  * * * *

  “Annis, you can’t mean that you are really going away forever!” Gerald stared at her. What was wrong with his usually levelheaded beloved?

  “Why not?” She bristled. “What is wrong with my home, pray?”

  “Nothing, of course. But you have told me that the rectory isn’t large and your sister is there looking after your father. They no longer need you, my darling, and I do.” Gerald reached out, hoping to clasp her hand, but Annis stood and moved away. She went to stand at the window, her back toward him, idly stroking the silk cord that held the curtains back.

  “I am not returning because they need me, but because I need them,” she said, her voice low.

  “Why, my love? Isn’t there something I can do if you are troubled?” Gerald felt that he understood less and less about Annis with every passing day. He knew he wasn’t particularly handsome or overly rich, but he had thought that Annis cared for him. Perhaps it was conceited of him to think that she would welcome a proposal from him. Perhaps she found him distasteful.

  “You are what troubles me, Sir Gerald,” Annis replied.

  Cut to the quick, Gerald said, “My God, what have I done to overset you? I wanted only to love and cherish you as you deserve; I never meant to make you unhappy!”

  “Oh, no, I did not mean that precisely. No one could be more kind, more wonder—” She knew enough to stop before she betrayed herself completely.

  Relieved that she didn’t mean that he himself was detestable, Gerald strode over to the window and turned Annis around to face him. “Tell me what troubles you so I can mend it or change it—or simply sweep it out of our way!”

  “But you cannot. That is just it.” Annis looked up at him, anguish and determination mingled in her face.

  Gerald had to face the facts. It could only be one person’s objections that had driven Annis away. “Yes, I can. If it is my mama, I most certainly can.”

  “It is not that!”

  “I think it is. I think you do not believe that m’mother will change her mind if I ask her. You underestimate me! I can talk anyone into doing what I want,” he said, willing to try anything to see her smile again. He pulled her into his arms and held her tight, murmuring foolish little endearments into the silk of her hair.

  She wrenched herself away from him, her cheeks a hectic red and her eyes flashing. He had never seen her as angry. “You need not bother. My decision has nothing to do with your mother. I simply need a life that is more—more dedicated to bettering things. That is al!. I am going home to help my father with his work among the rural poor.” She rose, proud and withdrawn. “I think you had better go, Sir Gerald.”

  He stood, feeling as if he had been struck a paralyzing blow. He did not feel pain yet; he was simply reeling with shock. Annis had not led him on in any way, and still he had been so sure of her feelings for him. They were in complete sympathy in all their deepest beliefs. He knew her as he knew himself.

  It appeared he did not know her at all.

  Annis heard the door close behind him. She felt as if all the light and love in her life had just left with him. Her knees gave way and she sat down heavily.

  She would not cry. If she started, she would never stop. She had sent him away. He had believed her lie. She had not wanted to come between Gerald and his mother—they had such a warm and close relationship, she refused to tear him away from the person he loved best in the world.

  For years she had managed to maintain her unruffled calm even though she had to see Sir Gerald whenever he was home. But now, knowing that her life had changed irrevocably with Meg’s marriage and faced with Lady Mattingly’s hostility, Annis had felt some vital part of herself simply slip out of its moorings, like a ship that had lost its anchor.

  Gerald stood just outside the door, his hand still on the brass doorknob. For perhaps the first time in his life, he was unable to think of a single thing to do or say. He was still in the same position when James came out of the dining room some minutes later.

  Seeing the blank,
lost look in his friend’s eyes, the captain realized that Gerald’s suit had not prospered. He also had the glimmering of an idea of why. His expression bland, he said merely, “Did you ride over?” Gerald nodded grimly. “Why do we not go and look at one of the fields Meg insists are fascinating. Perhaps you can tell me why.”

  Gerald gave a perfunctory nod, and the two men left the house together. They rode in silence for a few minutes while the sun and breeze did their best to soften Gerald’s stony expression. Finally he drew up and turned to James.

  “Why won’t she have me? Is it really that she yearns for a life of good works with her father? Or is it something about me that she cannot tell me?” The words were all but wrenched from him. He had always been the one to offer advice and comfort Not until now had he known what it was to need someone else’s viewpoint on his affairs. “Do you know? Did Meg say?”

  He cringed inside. How humiliating. He was asking his friend to betray a confidence. How could he sink so low? “Never mind. Pray forgive me. I seem to be overset this morning. First I insist that Annis loves me until she has to firmly tell me mat she doesn’t. Now I badger you about your personal communication with your wife.” He shook his head. “I have no idea how I came to this pass.”

  “You fell in love,” James said as they brought their horses to a slow walk. “It makes fools of us all.”

  “You?” Gerald said, surprised.

  James suppressed a desire to protect himself and deny his feelings for Meg. Instead, he smiled ruefully and nodded.

  “I knew you would deal well together, but I never thought— you both seem so practical. And you are so self-contained.”

  “But then I would not have thought that anything could shake your sangfroid,” James replied. “Or Miss Fairchild’s calm good sense. Yet today you are both at the end of your nerves. Perhaps a test of love is whether under its influence we surprise our friends.”

  Gerald looked thoughtful for a moment. “It is possible you are right. I never knew Annis to be overset. But I never behaved so cowhandedly with anyone before, and, indeed, I never knew m’mother to behave so coldly to anyone under her roof, and heaven knows she is not in love.”

  James paused, waiting for Gerald to make the connection on his own. A minute passed as James gazed out over the fertile fields of his adopted home, wishing he had never begun this conversation. Gerald remained silent. Damning the fact that he knew as little about being a friend as he did about being a husband, James nevertheless decided it was better to make a mistake than to do nothing. It had been his motto in the navy, so now he took his courage in his hands and said, “Do you think there could be a connection?”

  “Yes, of course, it was the first thing I thought of, but Annis assured me m’mother had nothing to do with her decision.”

  James’s lips quirked in a half smile. “And you believed her?”

  “Well, yes,” Gerald said. “When the woman you love tells you very firmly that you cannot offer her what she needs in her life, I suppose one must believe her.”

  “And yet they say you could deal with Talleyrand and Metternich and beat them at their own game. Surely you didn’t do that by believing every word they uttered.” James shook his head, wondering how could love render an intelligent man so incredibly stupid.

  Gerald sat absolutely still for several minutes. At last his horse snorted and took a step sideways, as if to remind him that they had been standing, accomplishing nothing, for a very long time. Gerald picked up the reins, which he had allowed to go slack, and said, “Apparently I have not only lost whatever claim to intelligence I may ever have had, but I have become a dead bore. I’d best relieve you of my company.” He began to turn his horse. “I think I need to have a little chat with m’mother.”

  James thought a final accolade was called for. “Splendid idea!” he said.

  Gerald dug his heels into his horse’s flanks and called out over his shoulder, “Tell Annis m’mother and I are coming to tea!”

  Wondering if he had made things better or worse, James looked after his friend and hoped for the best.

  Damned if he’d ever again do anything as corkbrained as offer advice about matters of the heart! He gave a snort of derisive laughter. “You’re a fine one to encourage confrontations!” he muttered. “You can’t even screw up your courage to tell your wife you love her!”

  Well, why not put it to the touch right now? Why not tell Meg how he felt? Tell her that the nights he had spent with her had given him a kind of happiness that he had never even dreamed existed. His heart, an organ he’d heretofore had little use for, was entirely and forever hers. He didn’t trust many people, and he had never even been tempted to trust his heart to anyone’s safekeeping.

  But now there was Meg, and despite their arguments and misunderstandings, he knew she would never betray him. He could rely on her loyalty. She might never come to love him as he now knew he loved her, but she cared for him, valued him. Most important, he knew, he had not misplaced his trust when he’d told her about his childhood. She had understood and would keep his secrets.

  He was not sure he could get the words out—even if they found five minutes to spend alone. But, of course, there was always the night. Perhaps in the darkness and warmth and happiness that almost overwhelmed him when they made love, he could tell her.

  He spurred his horse. Right now he had best tell her that they were having guests for tea.

  Chapter Twenty

  Lady Mattingly’s plaintive voice greeted James scarcely an hour and a half later, as he came downstairs into the entrance hail. “Gerald, I wish you would tell me exactly what we are doing. I scarcely had time to clap my bonnet on my head before you were pulling me out the door! What in the world has gotten into you?”

  “Love, Mama. That is what has done it.” Gerald’s voice mingled laughter and hope. “I have fallen in love.”

  “Well, if this is the result, I wish you would climb out of love as quickly as you can,” his mother replied.

  James followed the sound of the voices and entered the drawing room just as Lady Mattingly was plumping herself down onto the settee, her face revealing unaccustomed ill humor.

  “Captain Sheridan,” she said when she caught sight of him. “How nice to see you. I am very much afraid we have inflicted ourselves upon your household in a most harum-scarum manner.” The familiar kindly smile she had shown when she first saw him was replaced by a peevish frown.

  “Not at all, Lady Mattingly. I issued the invitation not much more than an hour ago. You are most welcome. It is a pleasure to be able to offer you our hospitality after all you have done for me.”

  In for a penny, in for a pound, James told himself, and continued. “You stood by me, even after you learned how shockingly ineligible I was. That took courage, Lady Mattingly, the kind a naval officer can appreciate.” He paused for a moment, letting his words sink in. “Even though Meg was your neighbor and friend—almost like a niece or even a daughter to you—you understood that there are things more important than social standing.”

  James looked over at Gerald. He was stock still, looking at James as if he’d sprouted a second head.

  “I do not believe I have ever heard you speak with such— eloquence,” Gerald said.

  James was quite sure he had never said anything remotely like this in his life before. To refer to his birth, to thank someone for disregarding it! The tight-lipped taciturnity or silent rage with which he had reacted to any reference to his parents—how had he managed to set them aside? He had no idea, but he valued Gerald’s friendship. It was Gerald who had introduced him to Meg, and for that he had earned James’s gratitude. And Annis was dear to Meg’s heart. James still did not know what Meg thought she had done to put a spoke in the wheels of Annis’s romance, but he knew there was something, and he was going to fix it if he possibly could.

  Just as he was about to make some comment on Meg’s lateness, she entered the room. “Lady Mattingly,” she said, her smile a li
ttle forced. “What an unexpected pleasure.” Her voice was what she would have used to welcome Mrs. Headley under similar circumstances, full of false cheer.

  Lady Mattingly’s usual smiling effusiveness was nowhere in evidence. She regarded Meg uneasily. “My dear,” she said, “I do not know what is happening. Gerald assured me we had been invited. I am very sorry—” She stopped her disjointed apology abruptly.

  Annis had come into the room. Her face was pale, and she faltered for a step when she saw Lady Mattingly, but her dignity never wavered, “Good afternoon, Lady Mattingly,” she said with a curtsy. “And Sir Gerald.”

  Everyone stood silent, paralyzed by the weight of all the things they were not saying. Polite society did not condone emotional scenes at teatime. James observed the others with a slight, ironic smile. There was discipline and protocol to spare in the navy but nothing to compare to this quartet, engaged in an intricate social gavotte. He waited for someone to broach the subject that was uppermost in all their minds, and he continued to wait as Meadows brought the tea tray and everyone was served, commenting on the deliciousness of the watercress sandwiches and sipping their tea.

  He had just about reached the end of his tether when Gerald fired the opening salvo. “Mama, Annis, I know you both think you are too different to ever share the same family, but in truth you both are victims of the same idiotic idea.” He looked at them with exasperated affection. “For some reason, you have both decided I am too naive and stupid to select my own wife, and I, therefore, need you to make that decision for me. And you have both come to the conclusion that Annis Fairchild is not the wife for me. Why is that? Meg is delighted with the match, I am sure, and James approves as well. Why do you disagree? Mama? Annis? Which one of you will state your objections first?”