Devotion (39 page)

"No," she said softly.

Without looking at her, John left his chair. He proceeded to pace back and forth before the fire. "You need never have to see your father again, Maria. We'll make arrangements for your mother—"

"No."

He paused his step, held his hand over his eyes for a few moments,
then
turned his grave, quiet, affectionate smile on her again. His voice, at first tremulous, and always low, was touched with a solemnity that reflected how intensely moved he felt. "I shouldn't ask it, but I must. God forgive me, but
ï
must. Is there something between the two of you?
Between you and
that . . .
the duke."

"What do you mean?" she averted her face.

"I was there when you were found together at the base of that chasm. It was I who pulled you from his arms. No, I see that you don't remember. You wouldn't. You were sleeping as soundly as a baby with your head on his shoulder."

Color drained from his face. "Are you in love with him, Maria? No. Don't answer me. The scene I witnessed earlier convinced me. Maria. Maria. 'Tis a tired cliché; a domestic falling in love with her employer and he taking advantage—"

"He hasn't," she cried hotly. "He wouldn't."

"Does he love you? Has he proclaimed himself thus?"

"Nay!"

"But you believe it here." He thumped his chest. "You want it . . . here. Maria, don't you see; his kind
gobble up children like you then toss
them aside. You want to believe in fairy tales, Maria. You always have. But reality isn't like that. Reality is stability.
Strength.
The ability to make intelligent choices and to reach intelligent conclusions rationally with the mind—not the heart.

"You were always mindlessly devoted to the helpless.
To the broken.
To the dispirited.
You hoped your devotion would endear you to them. You wanted them to love you . . . didn't you realize, sweet Maria, that they would have loved you regardless?"

He picked up his Bible and turned it over and over in his hands,
then
he muttered, "The devil with it," and strode angrily toward Salterdon's door.

"What are you doing?" she demanded, and flung the counterpane aside. "Where are you going? Leave him alone, John. John!"

Reaching the threshold, she sank against it as John's voice reverberated through the quiet.

"Were I not a man of God I would see you at dawn. I would demand satisfaction. Tell me, sir, have you spoiled her?"

Salterdon gazed into the fire, his countenance fixed. At last, he said in a monotone, "Do I look like a man who could
spoil
a woman, Mr. Rees?"

"Are you aware that she's in love with you? Do you even care?
Of course not.
Your
kind never do
. You collect women's hearts and souls as if they were mere butterflies to assemble under glass. Were you any kind of gentleman at all you would direct her immediately to gather her things and leave with me for
Huddersfield
.
"

"But I'm not a gentleman, Mr.
Rees . . .
as you have so adeptly reminded me."

John looked up then and saw her, clinging to the doorframe, her gown forming a pale pool around her little feet, her sleep-tousled hair a halo around her head. He swallowed convulsively and moved toward the distant exit—obviously too shaken to go near her.

"John," she called.
"Friend!"

Swinging around, he shouted, "Friend? I would rather rot in hell than be considered your friend—
only
your friend."

He trembled and for a brief moment looked as if he yearned to escape the torture of seeing her there and knowing then that he would be forced to leave her to another. That this perhaps would be the last hour—the
last moment—that he would stand in her presence, hearing her voice, receiving the tokens of her unconscious affection. He gazed with mad, dumb passion on her stricken features before saying, "God help you when you finally realize what he is. God help you when you're forced to experience this terrible stab of rejection.
God help me . .
. but I'll be waiting . . ."

With that, he quit the room.

A stillness
ensued, shaken only by the rattle of wind against the windows. The room felt frightfully cold.

At last, Salterdon looked up. "Come here," he ordered her.

She obeyed. Dropping to the floor at his booted feet, her shoulder toward the fire, she rested her head upon his knee and pulled her gown down over her toes. At last, he caught her chin with his fingers and forced her to look at him squarely. There was something dark and bothered about his face. His cheeks looked flushed, and there were strong workings in his features. An odd light lit his eyes.

"You should have gone with him," he said.

There come at times in life deep, still pauses; when the spirit rests upon its full content, as a child lies down on the grass of a meadow, fearing nothing, desiring nothing, ceasing almost to think, and satisfied only to feel. The days following John's leave from Thorn Rose Maria existed in a sort of rapture. What else could she call it?
For the first time she exhilarated in her own frailty, looking forward to those moments when her master would join her.
For hours he would read to her; he fed her soup; he sat near the fire—not so far away—and scribbled musical notes on paper when he thought she was sleeping.

He seemed, in those moments, like a soul adrift, hearing music where none existed except in his mind.

Where now was the beast?
The dragon?
The wolf?

Lost in a sonata.

She gave herself to a dreamy kind of delight—there seemed over her a sort of golden haze through which all her life's realities, bitter and sweet, were seen from afar
like shadows. The world beyond her chamber ceased to exist.

Occasionally, she dreamt that she awoke from a deep sleep to discover Salterdon's chair empty before the fire; he stood at the end of her bed, his arms crossed over his chest, his face a mixture of pain and promise.

Those were the times she fought her awakening. Oh, but she was beginning to understand why Salterdon found more solace lost deep in the oblivion of his mind. The illusions were so much kinder there . . .

Alas, duty forced her from her bed as, after a week's recuperation the duchess requested her appearance in the blue room. As Gertrude brushed and plaited Maria's hair, preparing her for the meeting with the duchess, the housekeeper regarded Maria's reflection in the mirror.

"Yer right radiant," Gertrude told her.

"I've never been happier, I think," Maria replied with a smile.

Her eyebrows raised and her little red mouth pursed in concentrated effort, Gertrude ventured, "I reckon I ain't never seen 'Is Grace in quite so congenial a mood . . . that is,
after'e
got
over'is
concern for
ya
."

"Was he concerned,
Gerti
?"

"Hardly left yer bedside, '
cept
to wheel down to the music room.
Thrice I found him deep in the night
makin
' music on that pianoforte." Bending toward Maria's ear, she said softly, "I think '
e's
become quite enchanted with
ya
, lass. And if I'm any judge, I'd say the
feelin's
are mutual."

Gertrude then presented Maria with a freshly laundered and mended gown and, upon wrapping a shawl securely about her shoulders, ushered her to the blue room, just as Molly was exiting, her normal smirk a bit more self-righteous than usual.

"I ain't right sure I like the looks o' her," Gertrude muttered, and continued to eye Molly as the girl sauntered down the corridor, glancing back over her shoulder occasionally, and still smirking.

Maria found the duchess poised by the hearth.
Edgcumbe
hovered nearby.

"
Your
Grace." Maria curtsied.

"I trust you're better?" the duchess offered with an odd sort of aloofness in her tone.

"Much, thank you."

As the duchess nodded at Gertrude, the housekeeper hurried to collect the scattering of cups and saucers around the room.

The duchess gazed up at a portrait of her husband. Young, handsome, imposing, he was the epitome of aristocracy—as was the portrait of his son—the former Duke of Salterdon—which hung next to his father's.

"I look at these images," she said, "and I am filled with despair. For generations this family has prided itself on its distinguished heritage. Scandal was virtually nonexistent. Failure was not a word in our vocabulary. Now . . ." She sighed and lowered her head. "I am constantly bombarded by controversy. Is it any wonder why I am forced to continually seclude myself in shame?"

"There, there, Isabella."
Edgcumbe
took the duchess's hand and stroked it fondly. "It will all work out."

A soft smile turned up her mouth as she gently pulled away from the adoring physician. She then turned her attentions to Maria.

"I'm relieved, my dear, that you're better. You might have been grievously injured, if not killed. Were it not for my grandson's rather . . . heroic measures, you might have frozen to death."

She added in a low, contemplative tone, "Imagine my surprise when
I
was informed that the coach departed without me.
I
was even further stunned to learn that
I
was supposedly ill and could not join you . . . Trey has a most vivid imagination when it suits him. Still, I suppose it's rather fortuitous that I didn't accompany you as
Í
had intended as I rather doubt
I
would have survived such a tumble. Still in all, I'm not accustomed to being undermined, especially by my eldest grandson. Trey has always had a proclivity for bending over backwards to please—or appease me, should the need arise . . . which it did on more occasions than I choose to remember . . . unlike his brother who has invited me to hell as many times as he has affectionately kissed my cheek.

"Early on I learned what sort of shenanigans to expect from Clayton. Roughhousing with a lot of plowman's boys wasn't unusual. I wasn't at all surprised to find him sitting at my dinner table sporting a black eye or skinned knees or knuckles as he grew older. As a young man he didn't have much time for nonsense; he was too busy making his own fortune so he wasn't dependent on mine.

"Trey, on the other hand, was busy depleting mine- Gambling.
Womanizing.
Occasionally I wondered if his actions stemmed from some buried animosity he might have harbored for me and my attempts to control his behavior . . ." Pausing, the duchess took a breath and appeared to collect her thoughts just long enough for Maria to offer softly:

"'Tis against human nature to be controlled, Your Grace."

Her eyebrows lifted. "Is it? Then why, I wonder, did he so ingratiate himself on me throughout the last years? I'll tell you why, my dear. Because there is nothing more important to Trey Hawthorne, the Duke of Salterdon, in this entire world than the power and position left to him by my husband and his father. The wealth he will inherit upon my demise is beyond your meager comprehension. He couldn't gamble away my fortune in a hundred lifetimes. Imagine the opportunity: the duration of his existence spent in unadulterated dissoluteness. Even now . . . regardless of his apparent condition . . . I suspect there is nothing he wouldn't do, or sacrifice, to guarantee my continued financial support.