Hadrian (33 page)

“Hadrian, we can’t. That is, I can’t—” She
couldn’t
stop looking, and her fingers nigh twitched with the need to touch him.

He stepped closer and drew her to her feet. “The dress goes, the chemise stays, if you insist.”

When had polite, charming Hay Bothwell become a man who casually disrobed before a lady and gave her orders to do likewise?

“You presume on my privacy because you were married. You’re used to this casual intimacy, but Hadrian, I am not.” Though she could learn to like it very well—with him.

He knelt to slip off her boots, untie her garters, and peel down her stockings before drawing her dress over her head and unlacing her stays. “I will never knowingly violate
your
privacy, Avie, but then there is
our
privacy. Into bed with you.”

She didn’t immediately comply, not sure what he intended. All morning, he’d been intent on the notes, his mind whirling along, spotting patterns and details Avis hadn’t seen. He’d been attentive over lunch, keeping the discussion to estate matters his prospective wife ought to find interesting, and then they’d taken a walk to inspect his gardens.

All the while, he’d been content to merely hold her hand.

She climbed onto the high, fluffy mattress, the bed dipping as Hadrian joined her. The sheets smelled of lavender and sunshine, the window admitted a soft breeze, and abruptly Avis’s beleaguered sense of propriety was felled by sheer fatigue.

“I ought to kick you out of this bed.” She settled on her side, facing that open window, away from him.

“Rue was a kicker,” Hadrian replied, sliding an arm around Avis’s middle. “She couldn’t help it. She moved a great deal in sleep. I got so I could nap through anything.”

Through several years of marriage, perhaps? “Do you miss her?”

“In a sense.” Hadrian’s fingers laced with hers against her midriff. “Ours was a peculiar union. It bore all the trappings of domestic bliss, but I don’t think she was any happier than I was. Then she died, and my regret knew no bounds.”

“Regret?” Though missing a late spouse “in a sense” implied that the spouse was also
not
missed in some way.

“For better or for worse, she was the wife I had, and rather than trouble myself to force some substance into our marriage, I let matters drift, as did she. Then came the accident. She lingered for ten days, though it was clear she was fading, and we came to a dreadful sort of peace.”

“She was trampled by a runaway team?” Avis wanted to roll over, to see his face, because this topic had to be difficult, for all that Hadrian’s body, aligned so closely with hers, radiated no tension.

“A damned beer wagon, in York. Somebody had the presence of mind to send for Harold, and he managed matters so I could sit with my wife until she slipped away. I don’t think she suffered physically.”

“How could she not?”

“Whatever injuries she sustained inside, they were of a nature that she could no longer move her legs. She felt nothing, not cold feet, not wrinkled bed covers, nothing below the waist. I’d initially resented her restlessness in bed, but that last week, I longed to see her toes twitch.”

Avis considered this, considered the indignity to the lady, and understood, just a little, why Rue Bothwell might have gone peacefully to her death. Except that meant she’d peacefully left Hadrian to grieve, alone and likely bewildered at the swiftness of his wife’s passing.

“You loved her.”

His grip on her hand became more snug. “I did, and it’s a relief to state that honestly. I wasn’t in love with her, nor she with me, and had she not died, I doubt I would even have been able to say that much.”

“I’m sorry for your loss, Hadrian. I was pleased to think you were happily married, to think you had somebody dedicated to sharing life with you.”

She’d envied his wife ferociously, too. She could admit that now—to herself.“Go to sleep, love.” He untangled their hands and slid an arm under her neck. “I’ll wake you in time for tea.”

“You’ll stay with me?” Though he shouldn’t, and she shouldn’t ask him to.

“Of course, and yes, the door is locked. You’re safe here, Avie. Please rest.”

She drifted off, though Hadrian had divined something else Avis hadn’t wanted to admit to herself: For years, she hadn’t felt safe, not even under her own roof.

“He wants to know who Hart Collins’s accomplices were.” Harold passed the letter to Finch, who shared a tea tray with him on their sunny terrace, one of many small pleasures the summer afforded. “This could get ugly.”

Finch scanned the letter.

“To hear you tell it, matters were quite ugly enough twelve years ago. What do you make of this Fenwick fellow? I met him on more than one occasion—tall, dark, rugged in a Highland sort of way?”

“Always flirting, aren’t you?” Harold could tease, because Finch did flirt—but it was flirting only. “I like Fen and I respect him. I never once had a sense of anything untoward or devious from him, though he can be an unsettling man.”

Finch set the letter aside, closed his eyes and turned his face up to the afternoon sun. “Coming from you, that says something. Unsettling in what way?”

“There are depths to him,” Harold said, reaching for the teapot. Cook had a way with a fruit pastry and didn’t begrudge anybody a serving at any time of day. “Some of those depths are troubled. Fen’s orphaned and has a foot in two different cultures. I have the impression he isn’t entirely accepted in either one. Leave me the raspberry tart, at least, would you?”

“I’ll ring for more. You’re getting positively gaunt, my dear.”

“Putting on muscle. Keeping up with you has got me more fit.” He poured them both tea while Finch licked lemon crème off his thumb with the artless appeal of the true sybarite. Finch had also put on muscle, and lost…sadness. He wrote regularly to his wife and children, who seemed to get on swimmingly without him, though Harold was considering having the lot of them to visit.

The summer sun, or true love, was making him daft.

“Eat,” Finch advised, passing Harold the raspberry tart. “You’ll need your strength.”

“My strength?”

“It’s officially summer, dear heart. If we set sail within a week, we’ll have plenty of time to get to Cumberland and back here before fall.”

“We will?” Harold bit into his tart and wondered if the Danes grew more flavorful raspberries, or if everything tasted better when shared with a loved one.

“You love those two, and you worry about them. The engagement is all well and good, but a nudge in the right direction is in order. We’ll sail no later than Friday.”

“Thursday. We’ll sail on Thursday. Ring for more tarts, would you?”

“You’re spending a lot of time at Landover,” Lily observed as she rubbed at a patterned fruit knife with a flannel cloth.

Avis had declared it time to sort through the kitchen silver, because the day fast approached when she’d take up residence in the dower house. Hadrian wasn’t in favor of the plan, because she’d be more isolated with a much smaller staff and only Lily to sound the alarm if something went amiss.

Assuming she didn’t sack Lily first.

“I am engaged to the Landover heir,” Avis replied mildly, though she’d told Hadrian engaged was all they would be unless they got to the bottom of the threatening notes. He’d kissed her,
patiently
, the wretch. “I had best acquaint myself with Hadrian’s situation. Service for eight should be ample.”

Lily sent her the most fleeting look, but Avie read both pity and the history fueling it: In their years together, Lily had never seen more than five others at the same table as Lady Avis Portmaine, and those five would be family, Fenwick, the local vicar and his wife, or Lily herself.

Where Avis might have felt shame and bewilderment even a few weeks ago, Lily’s subtle dramatics now filled her with a satisfying sense of exasperation.

“You needn’t look so woebegone, Lily. I do have some good news.”

Lily held the fruit knife up to the sunlight streaming in the kitchen window. “We’ve little enough of that.”

The shearing had been abundant, the hay harvest equally good, and both accomplished without a major injury. Was Lily truly so far above the realities of a country existence that she disregarded those blessings?

“I’m sending Fen down to Manchester to do some shopping.”

“For?”

Avis waved a hand. “This house, my trousseau, some items Blessings needs. The hay is off, the crops are thriving, the foals, lambs and calves are on the ground, and it’s a good time for him to be useful elsewhere. He’s happy to go. He’s bored watching the corn ripen and in need of diversion. I don’t suppose you’d like to go with him?”

“Are you joking?” Lily resumed polishing the knife, though it was spotless and gleaming. “The last place I’d like to be is in that man’s company.”

“Any particular reason?” Avis kept the question casual, but it had plagued her ever since Hadrian had raised it.

“He’s far too forward,” Lily spat. “With you, me, everybody. The man’s an ill-bred, godless, presuming offense to everything genteel and decent.”

He offended none save Lily that Avis could see. “Do you protest too much, Lily? He’s an exceedingly handsome ill-bred, presuming offense, as offenses go, and he works very hard. He’d provide well.”

Fen was also not godless, though his piety was of the rustic variety.

“You do jest now.” Lily set the fruit knife in the velvet-lined silver chest. “You’re joking if you think I could consider matrimony with that man, if you think any woman should be so burdened.”

“Is it Fen you detest,” Avis pressed, for Lily had given her no real answer, “or holy matrimony?”

“Both, if you must know.” Lily tied up the laces of the cloth covering to the silver chest, the trailing ends of her bow matching exactly for length. “Marriage is supposed to be for the protection of women, but married women die in childbed more than unmarried women.”

“Because unmarried women aren’t to be in childbed at all?”

Lily gave her a look that suggested she knew Avis had crossed a certain line willingly with Hadrian. She’d crossed it joyously, rapturously even.

“Can you be happy married to Mr. Bothwell?”

Yes—if Hadrian could be safe married to her.
“One can’t know these things until one is married. Were I to marry him, I think I’d be happy.”

“You’re sending Fenwick shopping for your trousseau, but you haven’t set a date.” Lily was asking if Avis had set a date with Hadrian, which was none of Lily’s business.

“I’d like my brothers and sister to be at the wedding,” Avis said, which was true enough. “Alex has recently changed positions and likely can’t come north for a while.”

“You’re marrying the next thing to a title, Avis,
if
you marry. When Mr. Bothwell sends a polite note to your sister’s employer, she’ll be put on the first coach north.”

Lily spoke with an odd authority, considering she’d never met Alex.

“Lady Alexandra has accepted employment in the home of a widower with two boys, and she wouldn’t want to leave her charges so early into their getting acquainted.”

“You’re her only sister, and you’re getting married—if you marry, but you don’t seem convinced of that outcome yourself.”

Another subtle question.

“I’m not.” Avis filled the tea kettle from the oven well, set it on the hob and leaned back against the kitchen counter. “Hadrian is a good man and deserves so much better.”

“You are the one who deserves better,” Lily retorted. “When I think of you having to endure his attentions after what you’ve been through.” She shuddered, eyes downcast, then raised her chin, all pretence of the genteel English rose banished. “You don’t have to marry him, Avis. You don’t.”

“I know.”

But she wanted to. More and more, she wanted to.

“This is for you.” Fenwick tossed a scrap of paper onto Hadrian’s desk.

Hadrian unrolled it carefully. “You’ve read it?”

“That’s the odd part about affixing letters to little birds,” Fenwick said, helping himself to a drink from the sideboard in Hadrian’s library. “There’s no address on the outside, no seal. One must read the contents to determine the intended recipient, and rather than have any old groom or footman read it, I insist the notes be brought to me with the seal intact.”

Suggesting—testily—that Fen hadn’t read the note itself.

“Benjamin Portmaine is concerned that Collins may be larking about in the south, but he doesn’t know the man’s whereabouts for certain,” Hadrian murmured, setting the paper aside.

“If Benjamin can’t find Collins, then Collins must truly be up to no good.” Fen held up the decanter in invitation—quite the hospitable sort, was Fen.

Hadrian rose from his desk, the ramifications of Benjamin’s note ruining an otherwise lovely summer day. “Just a tot will do.”

Fen passed him two generous fingers. “You must keep a particularly close watch on Avis for the next few weeks. I’m sent off on a fool’s errand, supposedly because we’ve finally reached that part of summer when brutal hard work isn’t the order of every waking day.”

“You’re going somewhere?” Hadrian knew damned good and well what awaited Fen, and had argued long and hard with Avis about it when she’d awoken from hours of unbroken slumber. Hadrian took his drink to the French doors and tried to let the peace of the gardens fill his soul.

“I’m off to Manchester shopping for your bride.” Hadrian heard Fenwick amble over to the table that held the family bible, which some helpful soul had once again left open to the Twenty-Third Psalm. “I’m to sell our cast-off furniture and otherwise absent myself from Lady Avie’s side.”

“Who else could she send?”

“Look at me, Bothwell.”

Hadrian waited several heartbeats for form’s sake, then swiveled his gaze from rose bushes slightly past their peak to the glower Fen turned on him.

“I myself showed you the similarity in the penmanship. I didn’t send that note.”

“I believe you. The evidence points to you, but my instincts rebel against such a conclusion.” When it came to who was lying and who was telling the truth, a former vicar’s instincts were to be trusted—mostly.