Amanda Scott (30 page)

Alone in her room, she tried to relax only to be overwhelmed by thoughts of her husband. Aside from the brief respite in the new hall, she felt as though she had done nothing but think of him for twenty-four hours. Even longer, if one counted her worry over his reaction to her visit to Beléchappé. At first, she had merely wondered what he had in store for her. He was angry, and he no doubt believed she would always flout his wishes unless he took strenuous steps to prevent her from doing so. That he had the power to prevent her from disobeying him if he chose to assert that power, was a little frightening. She did not wish to find herself under guard at Andover Court. Nor did she wish to be left at Alderwood Abbey under the marquess’s authority. But Simon, by law, could command either alternative.

Even now the members of the
beau monde
were beginning to think of removing to London for the Season. Would she be left to kick her heels in the country? Moving to sit on the French daybed near the window of her bedchamber, she looked out onto the overcast world beyond and considered the likelihood that she would be forced to miss the gaiety of the annual whirl of activity that constituted the London social season. Lightning flashed on the distant darkening horizon. Would Simon dare to leave her behind and go to London himself, pleading the baby’s safety as his excuse? She wouldn’t let him. She would find a way to escape such captivity, for she couldn’t bear the thought of Simon in London without her. It had been bad enough to be left on the
Sea Maiden
while he went to Paris. She would not allow him to leave her behind again.

She hunched her knees up in front of her chest, hugging them as she grimaced at the last thought and wondered how she could stop him. Simon had changed again. No longer did he merely bellow at her. Now, he seemed to act with a sense of purpose. And now, as she thought back, her own activities no longer seemed such innocent bids for independence. Not when she considered them as though someone else had done them.

Supposing, she thought now, staring out the window again, that she had not managed to tell Simon about Rory’s deep involvement with Sophie? Simon would have ridden straight on to Paris in ignorance, thinking the Englishman the soldiers searched for in Louviers must be some other Englishman. Her own flight of temper had nearly kept that information from him. And later, when she had gone to the château, she had been in more danger than she knew. She would do the same thing again in the same circumstances, but she could not blame Simon for being angry with her. If first Rory and then Simon himself had not interfered, it was not inconceivable that de Lâche might even have killed her, and Pétrie, too.

By the time she fell asleep that night, Diana had come to the conclusion that, more than anything else, she wanted to end the squabbling, to live in peace with Simon. She remembered what it had been like during their courtship and the first, blissful, weeks of their marriage, when they had gotten along like a pair of happy children, delighting in each new thing they discovered about each other. She began to see, too, how the discovering process had grown to be a test of wills between them to discover whose was the stronger. Lydia’s words came back to her then, as though Lydia stood beside her. She and Simon had been testing each other. The fact was as clear as could be, now, when perhaps it was too late. Perhaps matters had gone too far between them for Simon ever to forgive her. As she drifted into restless sleep, the vision of his face as he had looked, standing there in the doorway of Pétrie Milice’s little cottage, returned, and Diana, half-asleep, stifled a sob in her pillow.

The storm that had been threatening since the day before finally broke during the night, and the winds lashed the abbey as rain poured down in torrents. But by morning the storm had passed with the violent but quickly spent power of a spring storm, leaving puddles in its wake but none of the snow that Darby had thought to see. Diana rang for Marlie and dressed, deciding to say nothing to the others about her delicate condition. She discovered, however, that Simon had not left the decision to her.

“I am sorry you left it to Pettyjohn to tell us your good news, Diana,” said Lady Ophelia, gesturing to a hovering footman to pour them both a cup of tea. “I cannot think why you did not tell us yourself.”

“I had thought to wait until Simon and I could tell you together,” Diana said, forcing a smile. She waited uncomfortably for whatever might come next, and was surprised when Lady Ophelia said nothing other than that she hoped Diana didn’t mean to quack herself, before commenting that their rather odd winter seemed truly to be turning to spring as it had been attempting to do since mid-December.

The day passed quietly after that, and Simon and Lord Roderick arrived during the afternoon. They closeted themselves with the marquess, however, and Diana did not see her husband until the entire family gathered for dinner, when the conversation centered upon the happy conclusion of Lord Roderick’s affairs. Even Lady Ophelia seemed reconciled to the fact that he intended to marry a Frenchwoman, and Susanna drew a laugh from the whole company when she said that Simon ought to have known it was a case with Rory as soon as he learned his twin had gone to France without his valet. Simon argued that the lapse had no doubt stemmed from lack of funds rather than from any other cause, but Diana noticed that he had been at great pains to make his twin sound like a hero and to describe the emeralds in glowing detail. When he made it clear that the comte meant the emeralds to serve as Sophie’s dowry, Lady Ophelia’s eyes actually gleamed.

When the covers were removed, Diana followed her ladyship and Susanna back to the new hall, assuming that the gentlemen would follow. Half an hour later, a smiling Lord Roderick entered with the marquess, but there was no sign of Simon. Unable to contain herself, Diana asked Rory, quite casually, if he knew where his brother had taken himself.

“The library,” he answered promptly. “Took a bottle of the best port. Said he wanted to think.”

Without a thought for what any of the others might think, Diana hurried to the library. The room was nearly dark, but she found her husband sprawled in a chair before the crackling fire, his feet stuck out before him, crossed at the ankles, the bottle of port resting companionably on the little table beside him. He raised his glass.

“Good evening, Diana mine.”

“Oh, Simon, are you drunk?”

“Not at all, sweetheart.” He sat up straighter in his chair and beckoned to her. “Come and talk to me. I have solved Rory’s problems but not my own, and I have made my head ache with thinking.”

“With port, more like,” she said softly, moving toward him. He watched her, his eyes glittering where they reflected the firelight. “You are very angry with me, are you not?”

“Aye,” he answered, still watching her. “You have a talent for stirring my temper, sweetheart.”

She stood by the little table, and the firelight made dancing patterns on her russet silk gown. Swallowing, she folded her hands together at her waist. “I-I wish to know what you intend to do sir. You have made a number of threats in the past, you know, and I fear that this time, however good my intentions were, I have pushed you beyond what your patience will bear.”

“I have made only one decision,” he said, “and that is that in future we will spend more time at home.”

Her hands gripped each other. “You
are
going to send me home! Oh, Simon—”

“Not send you, sweetheart, take you. We have spent too much time with our so-called friends. We’ll do the Season in London, but we won’t go until it’s time for Rory’s wedding in mid-March, and we won’t follow the prince to Brighton this year. I want to get to know my wife without an audience.”

She stared at him. “I feared I had made you angry enough to do something dreadful, and that you would say it was best for the child,” she said slowly, still watching him as though she could not believe, even now, that he would not do some such thing.

Setting his glass down on the table, he held out his hand to her. “The firelight is making a halo around your head, sweetheart, and the absurdity is distracting. Come to me.”

Taking his hand, glad of its warmth, she let him draw her nearer, then folded suddenly, in a swirl of skirts, to sit upon her heels at his feet. “Oh, Simon, I have been wrong to fight you. Lydia was right. I didn’t understand what I was doing, and I wouldn’t listen to her when she tried to tell me.”

“So everything that has happened between us is your fault, is it?” Simon said gently. He gave her fingers, still nestled in his large hand, a hard squeeze.

Diana bit her lip, but she could not go so far as he seemed to want her to go. Not even her rear of what he might do could make her accept all the blame. “No, Simon,” she said quietly, looking away into the flames. “I have done much for which I am sorry, but you have done things too.”

“Diana,” he said suddenly, “do you love me?”

“Oh, Simon.” She turned back to him, tears welling into her eyes. “Oh, yes, Simon, so much. Enough for both of us if need be.”

“But it is not the same as it was, is it? The way it was when we met.”

“Not the same, no,” she said softly, “but I have been thinking, too, and I don’t think such feelings were meant to last.”

“What do you mean?” His voice was tight, as though he controlled it with effort.

“What we felt at first was too strong, too fierce to sustain itself,” she said. She turned toward the fire again. “Like fire.” Her voice was low, but she had thought much, and she had things to say. “You know how it is when one first lights a fire, Simon, when the tinder catches in a huge, brilliant blaze?”

“Aye,” he said. “There is a flash, and one has a wonderful fire. I remember the first time I lit one myself, as a child. I was proud. A magnificent blaze. But it soon went out, because I had not laid the kindling properly. The larger bits smothered the flame. Is that what has happened to us?”

“I think it nearly did,” she said. “A good fire needs air. Remember when they were laying the Yule for Christmas? You were the one who said that.”

He sighed. “You’re right, sweetheart. I did. And you are going to say that I have not given you sufficient air to keep the fire breathing. You have said much the same thing before, have you not? Yet you say you still love me, so the fire cannot have gone out altogether.”

“I thought it had,” she said, looking down into her lap. “I told Lydia it had, that we no longer loved each other. She said we were only going through what every newly married couple goes through. But I didn’t believe her, Simon. I felt stifled. And, too, I felt as if I was striking out in all directions at once, like one does when one is caught under a blanket and suddenly cannot breathe. But”—she felt warmth that had nothing to do with the flames crackling on the hearth rushing to her cheeks—“you have only to touch me, sir, to prove that the fire has not gone out. And when I realized where our quarreling might have led when it kept me from imparting vital information to you before you left for France, my feelings were such that—” She broke off to peer searchingly into his eyes, fearing more than anything that she would find only a wintery chill there. But she was wrong. The corners of Simon’s mouth were turned up, and his eyes were glowing with warmth. He gave a little tug to her hand, and Diana flung herself into his lap. “Oh, Simon, I might have lost you!”

“And I, you, you stubborn, willful little wretch,” he murmured against her curls. He pulled her tighter into his lap, one arm about her waist, the other hand moving to her chin. “Look at me, Diana. Do you dare to doubt my love? Have you any notion of the feelings that went through me when I saw you in that cottage and realized you were not, as I had thought, safe aboard the
Sea Maiden?
When I knew that had de Lâche bested me, you—aye, and our child, as well—would have been at that villain’s mercy?”

She snuggled against him. “I saw the look on your face, sir,” she said. “I was certain you would beat me at the first opportunity. But you did not. You never do,” she added simply.

“Perhaps this past year would have been easier for all concerned had I made good a threat or two, sweetheart, but I found, for all my fury, that I could never truly hurt you. No matter how much I wanted you to prove your love by submitting to my authority, I could not force you physically.”

“I will submit now, Simon,” she said gently. “I do love you. If you truly wish it, I will become the most submissive of wives.”

He chuckled low in his throat. “Such an arrangement might indeed prove interesting, my love, particularly since it could never last long enough to become dull.” She looked up quickly, indignantly, and he hugged her tight. “Ah, Diana, I do not wish it. It was wrong of me ever to demand it, to think it would prove anything. I only thought I wanted such a thing until that night you asked me why I’d married you and not another who would have bent easily to my will. Then,” he added with a teasing smile, “I thought ahead to the future and realized I could never allow the mother of my daughters to set an example of meekness.”

“Daughters, sir?” She raised her eyebrows as haughtily as Lady Jersey at her most arrogant. “I’ll have you know that no daughter would cause me the physical distress that your son has been causing me.”

“Nay, I’ll not argue the point with you, sweetheart, but it did occur to me that we shall no doubt have a daughter or two among our dozen children, and if any man ever tried to rule my daughter as completely as I tried to rule her mother, I’d take a horsewhip to him.”

“But, Simon, you are a diplomat,” she protested, amused. “Surely, you would reason with him first.”

“Aye, and if he did not do exactly as I told him to do,
then
I would thrash him,” he said firmly.

“Not if he truly loved her, Simon.” She locked her gaze with his. “Surely, not then.”

“No,” he answered, lowering his head till his lips were but a breath away. “Not then.”

A fourth-generation Californian of Scottish descent, Amanda Scott is the author of more than fifty romantic novels, many of which appeared on the
USA Today
bestseller list. Her Scottish heritage and love of history (she received undergraduate and graduate degrees in history at Mills College and California State University, San Jose, respectively) inspired her to write historical fiction. Credited by
Library Journal
with starting the Scottish romance subgenre, Scott has also won acclaim for her sparkling Regency romances. She is the recipient of the Romance Writers of America’s RITA Award (for
Lord Abberley’s Nemesis
, 1986) and the RT Book Reviews Career Achievement Award. She lives in central California with her husband.