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‘Ren!’ Beth interrupted his thoughts in that blunt way of hers. She approached, counting her steps to his desk, and now stood before him. With a thud, she put down the large wicker basket. ‘You must see these!’
He dismissed Dobson and watched as Beth opened the carrier.
Then his breath caught. A stabbing pain shot just below his ribcage. His hands tightened into balled fists as she pulled out the rolled canvasses, laying them flat on the mahogany desktop.
‘Where did you find those?’ He forcibly pushed out the words, his throat so tight he feared he’d choke.
He stared at the images: the barn, its grey planks splitting with age, his old horse, the mosaic of autumnal colours, orange leaves and grass yellowed into straw from summer heat.
They were childishly executed, but with such care...such love.
For a moment, he felt that eager enthusiasm to paint. It was a tingling within his fingers, a salivation, a need, an all-consuming drive to create and capture beauty, if only for a moment.
‘Why did you bring these here?’ he asked in a staccato rhythm.
He felt his face twist into bitter lines—not that Beth could see them. It should have made him feel less vulnerable, that she could not discern his expression, but oddly it did not. He’d always felt as though Beth saw more, as though she was better able to discern human frailty, despite her lack of sight.
‘To remind you.’
‘I do not need reminding.’
He ran his fingers across the dry dustiness of the paint. It had been late August. The weather had been hot, a perfect weekend of cloudless skies and air still redolent with summer scent as though fate had conspired to give him that one, final, beautiful weekend.
‘I wanted you to remember how you felt,’ Beth said.
Of course he remembered! How could he forget? He’d felt as though, within a single instant, everything he had known, everything he had loved, everything he had believed had been erased, disappearing within a yawning hole, a cess pit.
The pain, the darkness—worse—the hopelessness had grown, twisting through him, debilitating even now. He closed his eyes, squeezing them tight as a child might to block out nightmares. He pushed the canvasses away. They fell to the floor, taking with them the brass paperweight and a candle stick, the crash huge.
‘Ren?’
‘Take them!’
‘But why? You loved to paint. You loved this land.’
‘You need to go.’ He forced himself to keep his voice low and his hands tight to his sides because he wanted to punch the wall and hurl objects against windows in a mad chaos of destruction.
‘Nonsense! I’m not going anywhere until I understand the reason behind your decision. There is a reason. Jamie said so.’
‘Jamie? Jamie?’ Did even Jamie know his secret—a man who seldom spoke except about seedlings? ‘What did he say?’
‘Nothing. He went silent. But I need to know, to understand. I thought these would remind you. I thought you might enjoy them.’
‘You were wrong.’
‘Why?’
‘I—’ Words usually came so glibly, fluidly. Now they stuck in his throat. ‘You need to go,’ he repeated.
‘Why?’
‘Because I am angry and I do not want to frighten you.’
The woman laughed—not harsh laughter, but gentle. ‘Ren, you could never frighten me. You could not frighten me in a million years.’
Of course not! He might frighten grown men in duels. He might race his horse so fast that his groom paled or punch so hard his knuckles bled, but this tiny woman laughed in the face of his rage.
‘Perhaps I should explain to you what my lifestyle has become. Even the fringes of polite society avoid me.’
‘Which is too bad as you can be excellent company. However, I do not frighten easily. Jamie used to have some terrible tantrums,’ she added.
And now he was being likened to an angry child. It made him want to laugh.
‘Right.’ He stepped around to the front of the desk, bending to scoop up the fallen canvasses, candlestick and paperweight with businesslike swiftness. ‘You are right. I could never hurt or even frighten you. And really it doesn’t matter whether you stay or go because I could stare at these childish chicken scratches for ever and my decision would remain unchanged.’
‘But why? I want to know. Doesn’t even a wife in name only deserve that much?’
Her tone seemed laced with distaste and derision as she said the words ‘name only.’ My God, he could have made her more than a wife in name only. He could have dragged her to London or to the marriage bed if he hadn’t respected her so damned much, if he hadn’t known about her aversion to marriage and her need for independence.
‘And why Ayrebourne?’ she persisted.
‘Graham Hill is his birthright.’ He ground out the words between clenched jaws.
She shook her head. ‘What utter tosh. It is your birthright.’
‘Not so much.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘Likely because it is none of your business.’
Two bright crimson spots highlighted her cheeks and her breathing quickened. They stood quite close now, in front of his huge oak desk. She shifted so that she was square to him, her hands tightened into fists, her chin out-thrust.
‘That is where you are wrong. You can marry me and then ignore me, but this is my business. I have been here. While you were in London, I was here. I helped Edmund after Mirabelle’s death. I organised village events, teas and fairs. I cooed over babies I could not see. I advised on how best to treat a bee sting and a—a boil which was on a place I cannot mention. Mirabelle was dead. Edmund was mourning. Jamie was Jamie. Your mother never came. You never came. I made this estate my business. I made the people my business. I helped Jensen run the place. I kept things going. I am sorry Edmund is dead, but if you are going to absolve yourself of this responsibility, I deserve to know why. You are Lord Graham’s second son. You are the heir.’
Out of breath, she fell silent. After the flow of words, the stillness felt intense. He heard a clock chime from the library and a gardener or stable hand shout something outside.
‘Actually, I’m not,’ he said.
‘Not what?’
‘Lord Graham’s son—second or otherwise.’
Chapter Five
‘Lord Graham was not my father.’
‘That is not possible.’ Her face blanched, the hectic red of anger now mottled.
‘Given my mother’s personality, it is,’ he said.
‘But...but who?’
‘A portrait painter. He came to paint my parents’ portraits in the year prior to my birth. Apparently his activities were not limited to capturing my mother’s likeness.’
‘He fell in love with your mother?’
‘Something like that,’ Ren said, although he doubted love had had anything to do with it. In fact, he rather doubted love’s existence.
‘But Lord Graham loved you so—’ She stopped. ‘He didn’t know?’
‘Not until the untimely return of the portrait painter. We rather resemble each other, you see. Me and the painter. Most unfortunate.’
‘Oh.’ She placed her hand on the top of his desk as if needing its support.
She would despise him now, he supposed. He waited, unconsciously bracing himself as though for physical assault. But her face showed only a dawning comprehension and compassion.
‘So that’s why everything changed,’ she said softly. ‘You must have been so sad and...shocked when you learned.’
‘Not so much. I was more intent on not drowning.’
‘Lord Graham tried to drown you?’
‘No.’
Lord Graham had flogged him. Ren hadn’t known why until Jason Barnes had blurted it out while the other boys had held his head under the water pump that the school used for the horses.
He remembered the boys’ faces, their mockery, the jeers and hard words. It had hurt and yet had also brought peculiar relief. At least he knew the reason for his father’s sudden hatred.
‘Who?’
‘The boys at school.’
‘I’m so sorry,’ she repeated. Tears shimmered in her sightless sky-blue eyes.
Where he had expected...rejection, he saw only sympathy. He reached forward, touching a tear’s glistening trail as it spilled down her cheek. Her skin was soft and smooth.
‘It’s ancient history. Not worth your tears.’
‘When Lord Graham found out, he sent you to school early? That is why you left so suddenly and why you don’t paint?’
‘Yes.’
‘And never came back for holidays?’
‘Lord Graham did not want me.’
Another tear brimmed over. ‘I’m so sorry. I did not think he could be so cruel.’
‘I do not blame him. What man would want his wife’s bastard?’
Her brows drew together at his words. She straightened, her cheeks an even brighter crimson. ‘Well, I do. Cruelty is never warranted. I blame your mother. I blame the painter. But not you. You are blameless. You were a child.’
He shrugged. ‘Opinions may differ on that score, but now you see why I must give the land to the Duke.’
Surprisingly, she shook her head. ‘No. He is still vile.’
‘Agreed. But he is my father’s nearest blood relative.’
‘It cannot be right or honourable to give the land, and therefore the tenants also, to a man who is dishonourable.’
‘It certainly is not honourable to keep property to which I have no right. I am not the true heir. You cannot argue with that.’
‘Jamie says I can argue about almost anything,’ she said, her lips twisting into a wry grin. ‘Did Lord Graham ever disinherit you? Did Edmund?’
‘Lord Graham died before Edmund’s wife died. He had every reason to expect that Edmund would have many children and live to a ripe old age.’
‘But Edmund? He knew before he went to war that he might not come back.’
‘Edmund was one of the few people who did not know the truth,’ Ren said.
‘You said the resemblance was obvious.’
‘He was at school when the painter came and then went to Oxford the next term. His attitude towards me never changed.’
‘But you said the students knew at school?’
‘I suppose they kept it to themselves. They liked Edmund.’
Edmund was the sort of boy who had fit in well at boarding school. They had understood him: strong, sizeable, not overly bright but good at sports and fishing and hunting.
In contrast, Ren was not. He had been an undersized runt, too bright, poor at sports and fishing and hunting.
A misfit.
* * *
Beth paced Ren’s study. Her thoughts whirled, a confused mix of comprehension, anger, pity and myriad other emotions. Her fingers trailed across the top of the desk, touching the familiar objects, the smooth metal of the paperweight which Ren had picked up from the floor, the leather portfolio, the edges of the inkstand and pen.
Then she turned, shaking her head. ‘It still is not right to give the land to the Duke. There is more than one kind of honour. I know Edmund would not want Ayrebourne to have it. He loved this land, almost like Jamie loves the land. He cared for the tenants.’
‘The Duke has a right to the land,’ Ren repeated in dull tones, like a child reciting lines.
‘And the tenants?’
‘I am sorry about them, but I cannot change facts. The tenants have no rights. They do not own the land.’
‘They have lived here for generations, for centuries. That doesn’t give them rights?’
‘No.’
‘It should.’
‘So now you plan to change society?’
She shrugged. ‘Why not? If I had acted the way people said I should, I would not be walking about this land. I would not be independent—’
‘Beth—for goodness sake—this is not about you. It is totally different. We all know you are independent and have done things no one else could do. But this is not the same.’
‘I—’ His tone hurt. ‘I haven’t.’
‘No? You have always been on a crusade. You always wanted to demonstrate that you were not inferior, that you are independent. You never wanted to marry because of that very independence. Likely you want an annulment for the same reason. Well, we’re agreed, you are the equal to any woman. But that doesn’t change the fact that this land is not morally or honourably mine. I must give it to Edmund’s closest relative. I am honour bound.’
‘Then it is a peculiarly cruel breed of honour.’
‘You can have that opinion, but my decision must stand. Anyhow Allington is completely independent and profitable so this should have a limited impact on the running of your affairs.’
‘What?’ Anger exploded like scalding water, pulsing through her veins, unpleasantly tangled with the fear she always felt when she considered the Duke.
She turned on Ren, hands tightened into fists. ‘Weren’t you even listening to me? These people, your tenants, are my friends. They will be kicked off land they’ve farmed for centuries. Or they will pay exorbitant rents so that they’re unable to feed their own children. I will feel gaunt faces, arms like sticks and the bellies of bloated babies. And I will know that the man who was once my friend and sort of husband is to blame.’
‘I am your friend and what sort of husband would you have me be?’
‘One that is not so—so self-righteous and honourable. You want to punish yourself because you are illegitimate. Fine, drink yourself into an early grave. Gamble yourself into oblivion, but don’t punish people far weaker than you and call it honour.’
* * *
Perhaps it was that cool disdain lacing the words she spat out as though they were noxious. Perhaps, for once, his anger could not be contained behind trite words and calm façade. Or maybe it was none of this but merely an impulsive, instinctive surge of lust.
His hands reached for her. He gripped her shoulders, pulling her tight, needing to feel her, to feel something. She stiffened, her shock palpable. Her hands pushed against his shoulders, ineffective like fluttering birds.
He didn’t care. Her futile movements fuelled the angry molten heat.
Her head moved, angling away as she twisted from him. He caught her lips, kissing her with a hard, punishing kiss.
Her fury met his own, her balled fists pushing him away.
Briefly, it was all fire and heat and rage. Then something changed. She no longer pushed against him; instead, her fists opened, her hands reaching upwards to grip his shoulders, pulling him closer. Her clenched jaw relaxed, her lips parting as anger eased, morphing into something equally strong. His kiss gentled. Her fingers stretched across his back, winding into his hair. He held her tight to him, hands at the small of her back.
The anger, the pain, the hurt drained away, pushed aside by a growing, pulsing need. He had wanted this woman for ever—long before he had known about want or lust or need. And she was here now, warm, willing, pliable and giving beneath him. He explored the sweetness of her mouth, shifting her backwards, pushing her against the edge of his desk. He stroked the column of her neck, the smooth line of her spine, the curved roundness of her bottom under the soft muslin gown.
He wanted—he needed—to fill her, to find forgetfulness in physical release, to make her his own. He wanted her to cling to him, to need him and desire him and to forget that annulment was even a word.
One hand pushed at her neckline, forcing the cloth off her shoulder so that his fingers could feel her skin and the fullness of her breast. With growing urgency, his other hand pushed up at the fabric of her skirt, his hands feeling and stroking the stockings she wore over shapely legs.
She said his name.
Something fell.
He stilled. He stared down at her flushed cheeks, tousled hair and bodice half-undone.
Disgust rolled over him.
What, in the name of all that was good and holy, was he doing? He moved from her so suddenly that she almost lost her balance, striking the lamp.
It fell, splintering against the hearth.
‘Ren?’
Self-loathing mixed with frustrated need. She was not one of his doxies. She was not one of the women who populated his London life. Moreover, she had made it quite clear she wanted to end their pseudo-marriage, which could hardly be construed as an invitation to consummate their union.
‘It would seem indeed that, after all, my sense of honour is somewhat impaired,’ he said.
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