Her Gilded Prison (Daughters of Sin Book 1) (15 page)

As the damp earth turned his warm skin chilly, mournfulness impregnated his soul. In two days’ time there would be no Sybil to tumble and make love to, to laugh with and make him feel like a naughty schoolboy and the world’s greatest lover in equal measure.

“Cousin Stephen?”

A rustle in the bushes and the familiar girlish accents sent shock and horror rocketing through him.

“Er, just a moment, if you please...” He leapt to his feet and grabbed his clothes, nearly overbalancing in his haste to don his shirt and breeches.

Araminta sidled into view before he was finished. “Did you enjoy your swim, Cousin Stephen?”

Her look was far too knowing to put him at ease and he blurted out, “Forgive me, Cousin Araminta! You caught me unawares. I was swimming—”

“Oh, you were doing more than swimming, Cousin Stephen.” She’d stepped up close. Too close.

He took a step back, swallowed and pretended ignorance. “Nearly time for tea,” he said, fumbling for his timepiece, which he remembered he’d left beside his bed.

“Cousin Stephen!”

Shocked by the insistency in her voice and the firmness of her hand upon his sleeve, he looked down. He didn’t want to hear what she had to say.

She sighed, toying with the loose material of his unbuttoned shirt as she prevaricated with artful coquetry. “You know I don’t love Edgar.” She raised limpid eyes to his, as if appealing for understanding. For something more from him than he could give her, but he could not step away. She was clinging to him.

“You must know my feelings for you,” she went on.

Her lips glistened, moist and inviting. Except that he didn’t find them inviting at all. Not even when she gripped his arm tighter and added as she raised herself on tiptoe and tilted up her chin, “I saw what you were doing. I’m not so innocent, though it’s not a thing a man wants to hear. That is, a man intending to take one as his bride, but you’re not intending that, Cousin Stephen.” She sighed again and said with commendable emotion, “I  do  so  wish Cousin Edgar  had  died  after  all. You  can’t imagine how much I wish that so I didn’t have to marry him but was free to marry you instead.”

Stephen shrugged. “No one’s forcing you to do anything.” He felt quite unaffected by her machinations. All he wanted to do was return to the Grange and see Sybil’s face light up as he entered the room. His mind took it to the next step. They’d find some excuse to leave—either separately or together—and then they’d throw themselves into and onto each other. That’s all that mattered. Sybil.

“It’s my duty toward Papa.” For once she looked deadly earnest. So much so that he actually believed she was sincere in considering it her duty to her father to marry her bottle-headed cousin.

“Papa once said to me, years ago, that I’d have made a fine master of the Grange. Even better than poor George. Now that Edgar is going to inherit, I will at least be able to keep Edgar’s foolishness in check and be the mother of the next viscount, even if I can’t actually be lord of the manor, so to speak, in my own right. Do you see?”

“Your loyalty to your father is commendable.” Stephen tried to disentangle her hand from his wrist but was unsuccessful. Her gaze grew more wistful, her grip more urgent.

“Cousin Stephen, I told you, I am not the innocent you think me.”

He wasn’t about to cut her off and say he didn’t think her an innocent at all.

“You may have heard rumors about the reason I had to cut short my season. Have you?”

“I believe a...young gentleman inflicted some damage to himself.”

“My suitor, Cousin Stephen. A worthy enough gentleman. Indeed, he was most insistent that I become his wife. That is, after...” She blushed and Stephen thought it was genuine. After all, regardless of what she’d done, she was an innocent by most standards.

“We went for a carriage ride. I was without a chaperone and he became quite amorous. Indeed, I myself got carried away and...” She shrugged. “Suffice to say I realized I may well be ruined and he was determined that I must become his bride. But time passed, I realized I wasn’t quite as ruined as I’d feared and the idea of spending the rest of my life leg-shackled to the gentleman was not my idea of happiness. Only, when I told him so in the nicest possible terms he took offense and blew his brains out.”

She brandished a tiny square of muslin and dabbed her eyes. “Oh, Cousin Stephen, I’ve studied you so often when you haven’t noticed, and my heart has cried out for you.”

Suddenly her arms were around him and she was pressing her small, fragrant body against his, her face upturned, her lips slightly parted in open invitation.

Coolly, he said, “I will not snatch clandestine kisses, Miss Araminta, when you are all but betrothed to another man.”

“Another man  who  means nothing to me.”  She  pulled  him down,  murmuring against his lips, “When my soul craves you, Cousin Stephen. You can have it all: my heart, my soul, my body. All Edgar will have is a marriage contract and a wife in name only.”

Sickened by her naïve ramblings, Stephen  was in the act of drawing back and telling her in no uncertain terms what he felt about her words, when a scandalized voice broke in.

“Araminta? Stephen?”

He turned to find Sybil’s shocked eyes upon them. Not only shocked but hurt too. Araminta looked down at her feet. She opened her mouth to speak but no words came.

Oh God, thought Stephen, he was going to have to find an excuse for this one, alone. “Lady Partington, it is not the way it appears.”

She drew herself up to her full height. “Araminta,” she said, not looking at her daughter. “You may go now.”

Dismissed, Araminta hurried out of the clearing and Stephen watched her head toward Grange Hall while he waited to defend Lady Partington’s natural charges.

Better to meet this head-on, he thought. Sighing, he took her hands and lowered his face. “Araminta found me after I’d been swimming.” He indicated his dishevelment. “It obviously aroused some latent feeling for me as she’s just professed her preference for me as her husband while still steadfastly maintaining her intention to marry her cousin Edgar.”

He waited, the growing silence reinforcing how desperately he needed her understanding. God, if she sent him packing it would mean yesterday was the last occasion he’d glory in her luscious body and rest his head against her beautiful, pillowy breasts. Quite frankly, he couldn’t bear it.

For a long moment she allowed him to hold her hands in his. He hadn’t realized how soft they were. Soft and girlish. Like the rest of her. In the shade of the forest glade he could see no sign of crease or mark to indicate her real age. She was lovely, truly lovely with an inner depth he’d never found in all the women of his intimate acquaintance. She could laugh with him as if they were of the same generation, make fun of him yet still fill him with the sense that his physical strength and sexual prowess were important to her but that there was more about him she valued.

“Araminta was spying on you?” It was a whisper. Questioning, rather than accusing...he hoped.

He wanted to see her smile, not look at him with such suspicion, as if he were Beezlebub himself, slyly seducing her daughter behind her back. Lady Partington was a queen among women and he wanted—no, needed—her high regard.

But Sybil didn’t smile. “Araminta told you she loves you?”

Stephen nodded, not sure why her mouth was trembling until, withdrawing her hands from his grasp to cup her cheeks she cried, “In that case what we are doing is outrageous. If Araminta truly loves you we must do all in our power to persuade her to give up this foolish notion of marrying Edgar merely to become mistress of this pile of old stones.”

Abruptly she turned on her heel, ignoring his pleas to return, not even raising her hand to acknowledge them.

Stephen stood in the glade, wretched, and watched her proud, stiff exit, desperately hoping it was not forever.

* * * * *

D
uring dinner Sybil watched Araminta with covert suspicion. There was a hectic flush to the girl’s cheeks and she seemed to have lost her appetite. Of course, Humphry would not notice that the servants removed her untouched plate after each course. But a mother deeply concerned with the happiness of her daughter would.

And clearly Araminta was...well, as wretched as she was.

She glanced at Edgar, who sat between Araminta and Hetty, attacking his beef with gusto, talking about his hunting exploits with his mouth full. Then at Stephen on the opposite side of the table. So far he’d said nothing the entire meal.

Humphry, misinterpreting Stephen’s silence perhaps for preoccupation with his uncertain prospects following the house party that would signal his departure, said, “I’ve contacts in the Foreign Office, Stephen, which might be useful. You’re a bright young man. If you could distinguish yourself there—”

“You’re very kind, my lord. I shall leave you a forwarding address.”

His words sent a pain like a lance through Sybil’s heart. Suddenly it all seemed so final. The image of Araminta locked in his embrace caused another wave of anguish. She shifted in her seat, her hands going to the napkin that slid from her lap. Surreptitiously she contoured her belly. What if Stephen had already planted the seed that would oust Edgar from his position, yet what if Araminta, in relinquishing Edgar, left Edgar free for Hetty?

Oh God. She licked dry lips. It was still possible that Hetty might make a match with Edgar, whom she truly loved. And if Sybil were with child, she’d have then denied Hetty the chance to become mistress of the Grange. Instead, Hetty would be living with Edgar in decidedly more modest lodgings.

“My dear, are you all right?”

It was unusual for Humphry to be so solicitous. She raised her anguished eyes to his and nodded. He really had been much kinder to her lately. More thoughtful.

He reached across to pat her hand and she froze. Humphry never touched her. Never engaged in physical affection of any sort. His mistress had been gone a few days, however. Perhaps Humphry would, in fact, come to Sybil’s room that night. Or the next. Perhaps he really could transcend his aversion for physical relations with her in order to sire the next heir.

The rightful heir.

Everyone was looking at her. Curious, concerned, confused by her odd behavior. Sybil generally smiled through any pain.

“I...I’m afraid I’m not feeling myself,” she said, preparing for the first time in her life to quit her position as mistress of the dinner table pleading ill health.

“Don’t go yet, Mama.” It was Araminta, putting down her knife and fork and looking at her with an expression of odd defiance and sudden determination.

A ghastly premonition visited Sybil. She caught her breath.

Araminta squared her shoulders and looked around the table, her gestures indicating that what she was about to say was of the greatest importance. Sybil didn’t miss the almost petulant tilt to her chin as her gaze rested briefly on Stephen.

“Mama...Papa...everyone—”

Sybil  drew  in  her  breath  in  an  audible  gasp,  drawing attention  away from Araminta, her mind racing but not fast enough to keep up with her mouth. For the words spilled out before she had time to process the good sense in saying,

“The reason I am feeling unwell is...” She gulped in air and tried a new tack. “Doctor Marsh was here this morning and I am very happy to announce, everyone, that he has confirmed what I have long suspected. I am to have a child.”

Her announcement was greeted by stunned silence. This was not a simple instance of the patter of tiny feet a few months hence. This had ramifications for everyone. Oh, she knew it very well.

Which was why everyone was lost for words except Hetty who did not factor in ramifications in her simple pleasure at what most people would consider a joyous occasion.

“Oh Mama, so that’s why you’re not yourself! I’ve been watching you all through dinner.”  If she  thought it a  most singularly odd  manner in  which  to drop  such  a bombshell she did not say it.

Gathering her wits, Sybil forced a smile at Araminta. “I’m sorry to cut you off like that, Araminta, dear. What was it you were going to tell us?”

She  noticed  that Edgar had  gone  white  around  the  gills and  that his grasping fingers were rejected by Araminta, who all but croaked, “It was nothing, Mama.” She looked for a moment as if she were about to be ill. “Congratulations to you and Papa on this...astonishing news.”

* * * * *

S
ybil excused herself as quickly as she could and was not surprised to be visited by her husband a short while later, his expression unreadable, though his voice shook.

“You are with child, Sybil?” He stood over her as she reclined upon the chaise longue, a flannel across her brow, which her maid had dampened for her.

Wearily Sybil raised her hand to prevent him saying anything more. “Humphry, I’m sorry for lying. Dr. Marsh didn’t visit but I simply had to say something to stop Araminta blurting out in front of everyone that she and Edgar were betrothed.”

She had her eyes closed and when the silence continued, opened them, shocked as Humphry let out the first genuine guffaw she’d heard since they’d been married.

“Oh, my dear girl,” he laughed, wiping the tears from his eyes as he sat beside her, putting his arm about her. “That was inspired! Did you see Edgar’s expression? Oh, Lord, what a picture! Young Stephen dealt with the hobbling of his ambition with a great deal more dignity than that young ninnyhammer. Hoisted on his own petard, eh wot? If what you said were true it’d be rusticating in the Cotswolds for young Edgar, who’s no doubt been rubbing his hands the past four years at the thought of taking on all this.” He made a sweeping gesture before hugging Sybil again.

Sybil, acutely aware of the rare sensation of Humphry’s arm about her, held her breath, hoping to ward off the plethora of extraordinary mixed feelings that consumed her in this unprecedented moment of comradeship with her husband of twenty years.

Was that  desire  for  him that  churned in  her  lower  belly? She  intercepted his familiar, uncomplicated smile.