Martha Schroeder (18 page)

“It prevents sailors from feeling mortal?” He could hear the smile in Meg’s voice.

“It is probably the reason why you farmers mend harnesses and polish tools all winter. So you don’t have to think about how much you are at the mercy of the sky, and what falls from it or shines down upon you and the earth from above.” He took her hand and tucked it into the crook of his elbow. He wanted to feel her next to him as they talked. Somehow he thought they would have less chance of misunderstanding each other if their bodies were in contact.

Meg turned her head toward him. The moon pulled free of a cloud just at that moment, and James looked at her, surprised at the beauty and mystery he could see in her face.

“Well,” she said, “it seems farmers and sailors have more in common than it would first appear.”

“Yes. I think we can understand each other if we give our minds to it.” He stopped and put his arms around her, holding her lightly, making it clear he would release her if she signaled that she wished it.

She did not. “I hope you are right. We have a great deal to discover about each other. I—I am sorry if I made that understanding difficult for us today. Sometimes I feel—” She couldn’t find the words.

James found them for her. “Afraid?” he said gently. “Yes, I know. I do, too. We don’t know each other very well, my lady, but I think we may have learned a little today. I am sorry I rode away in anger. I think I would have done better to stay and fight it out with you.”

Meg smiled. “You are right. I am afraid of you sometimes, of what will happen to life at Hedgemere now that you’re here. I don’t want to become unnecessary.”

“Unnecessary! You? You’re the heart and soul of this place. Surely you know that.” How could she help but know it? Everyone knew her, listened to her, worked for her approval. She was the captain of this ship, and he had thrown down a gauntlet when he had told her that he had taken over that position.

But he hadn’t, not really, not yet. He knew that being named a commander and becoming one in fact were not the same thing at all. He would have to earn the respect and deference that his wife had won over many years. Would she let him?

He felt her shiver beneath his hands, and immediately concern clouded his brow. “You are growing cold. I should have thought to have you bring a wrap.”

“I am a grown woman, James. If I thought I needed a wrap, I would have fetched one.”

James sighed. “Is there nothing I can do to show my concern for you and this place without arousing the Amazon in you?”

Meg grimaced. “I’m afraid I speak without thinking sometimes. I do not mean to sound as defensive as I do. I have had to fight for my right to run Hedgemere ever since I began. It is difficult to believe that I no longer have to do so.” She took a deep breath. “Especially when you tell me that you are now in command.”

“Meg, listen to me. I have no intention of trying to oust you as the owner of Hedgemere. But you must understand that my money was hard-earned, and while I am sure you know the people and the land, I don’t yet know enough to be able to decide what needs to be done first and what can wait. I cannot simply give you carte blanche to do whatever you wish. Surely you can understand that viewpoint.” He reached out to her, and instinctively she put her hand in his.

He sounded so sincere. But how well did she really know this man? His childhood had been difficult, and she knew that he had no contact with any member of his family. She knew no one who had known him except Gerald, who had met him only recently. If she could just talk to someone who had known him in his youth or childhood. Someone who might be able to help her unlock the hidden springs of his personality. Someone who could help her understand this complex, difficult man whom she was very much afraid she was beginning to love.

“Tell me about Kettering, James,” she said. He turned to stare at her, clearly unsure just where this request had come from.

“I cannot tell you anything about the husbandry of the place. I don’t think I even knew who the bailiff was. You have to understand, it was an enormous estate, and we children were just a small, unimportant group on the edges of its life. Only Reggie knew anything about it, and I’m not sure he cared very much at that age.”

“Did you know your other brothers and sisters very well?”

Again he looked at her, his brow furrowed. “I knew them. For the most part they took their cue from the duchess and left me strictly alone.” He tried to keep his voice calm and noncommittal.

Meg heard an undertone of bitterness. She was afraid she might cause him pain or rouse his anger, but she wasn’t ready to concede defeat yet. Her next words were a gamble, a guess. “For the most part? Then there were some who accepted you?”

“No.”

Meg’s heart sank. There had been no one who cared.

“There were not ‘some.’ There was only one.” His face softened. Even in the uncertain light of cloud-dimmed stars, she could see the warm affection that transformed his face. “There was Claire.”

Chapter Seventeen

“Claire? Your sister?”

“Yes. Claire was my defender, my consolation, my friend. Perhaps she cared for me because she was a plain little thing and the duchess had very little use for anyone who wasn’t beautiful. So we were both outcasts in a way.”

Meg was growing colder as the evening breeze became stronger, but she was determined that James shouldn’t know it. She wanted nothing to break this mood.

“Did you play together when you were small?”

“Sometimes. Most of the games in the schoolroom and fields of Kettering were very rough. Claire was the youngest and a girl, and the boys had a tendency to pick on her because of it, so she and I had our own pursuits.” He walked on, staring down at the path, lost in the past.

“What did you do?”

“We read. I taught her to read and she loved it, so we spent as much time as we could in the library, up amid the thousands of volumes the duke had, hiding from him and from the other children.” James shook his head. “What a brave little thing she was! One Christmas she went up to the schoolroom and got me, insisted I come down to the great hall to listen to the caroling. I’d been banished so the duchess wouldn’t have to see me. Claire said she was sure no one would notice and she was right. The duchess never knew I was there.”

“What if she had?” Meg asked, wondering how any woman could sentence a child to remain hidden at Christmas.

“I would have been caned, and Claire would probably have had to miss the Yule log and the Christmas feast.”

“Good God, James, punishment that severe for being someplace where the duchess might see you?” Meg was furious at the injustice that had taken place twenty or more years ago.

“Yes. It was the way they treated servants and children— you were to stay out of the way unless you were summoned. So you can see, Claire was very brave. She looked like a little mouse, but she was as brave as a lion.” He smiled reminiscently for a moment, but his expression seemed to darken almost as quickly. “I saw her once, three or four years ago.”

“You did?” Meg was elated. She had been cudgeling her brain to see if there was some way she could find out where James’s sister was living. Now perhaps she’d find out Claire’s name, if she chanced to have married, and her home. “Where was that?”

“In Italy. She was in Naples staying at the British ambassador’s residence when some of the other naval commanders were invited for a dance. She chanced to mention me, and someone told her where I could be found.”

Meg waited, but he said nothing more. “So, you went to see her when they told you she was there?” she prompted.

“No.” Again that uncompromising tone. “She came to see me. And before you can ask, I told her not to come to see me again.”

Meg was horrified. “But why would you do such a thing?”

He turned on her, as if she had goaded him beyond his endurance. “My sister was a young, unmarried woman. Being seen with a man who was known to have a bar sinister in his past could do her no good at all. She should have seen that for herself, but Claire never cared for other people’s opinions! So, I had to take care of her, make certain she did herself no social harm.”

“But, James,” Meg said, giving up her plan of staying neutral in order to glean information. How could he have sent away the one person at that time who cared about him at all? “She must have felt you didn’t want to see her.”

“Yes, I made certain that’s what she thought. If I’d told her about her chances being blighted by acknowledging me, it wouldn’t have made the slightest difference to her.”

“So you sent her away.” Meg looked at her husband, wondering as she had before at the stiff-necked pride that made his life so difficult. He knew his sister cared more for him than an advantageous marriage, but he would not allow her to act on that love. “She must have felt abandoned, as if you didn’t love her.”

James shrugged, pretending indifference, but Meg wasn’t fooled. She knew his heart had been just as heavy as Claire’s.

“Has she married, do you know?” Meg tried to sound casual.

“Your Mr. Quigley said not. Apparently, Reggie insisted that any claim of kinship from me would hurt her chances. That was the reason he gave for threatening me if I let it be known that we were related. She’s probably still at Kettering looking after Reggie when he’s home and taking care of the duchess if she’s still alive.”

“So she never married, even after your sacrifice,” Meg said. “Is she really so plain?”

There was a pause. “Not to those who truly know her. Not to me.”

Meg was silent. She had known before that James had built a lifetime of barriers against those who despised him. Now she realized that the barriers against those few who’d loved him were even higher. She quailed a little at the thought of doing battle against them, but what else could she do? A tiny voice whispered, “Do as he asks. Let it go. It’s his concern, not yours.” Meg considered that cowardly voice for a moment, but she could not heed it. She cared for James. That was all that mattered. He needed her help to escape the prison of his past. Without it, he would remain emotionally in a cold, gray place remarkably like the orphanage he had escaped as a child.

She took a deep breath. “I would like to meet Claire.”

“Impossible.” James gestured impatiently. “I do not know why you encourage me to wallow in the past. It was not a happy time, and I would prefer to forget it.”

“But you haven’t forgotten it,” Meg said gently. “And if Claire’s life is as bleak as it sounds, even a visit to an out-of-the-way spot like this would be pleasant for her.”

James looked at her distrustfully. “I would be doing her a favor, is that the tack you’re taking?”

“It isn’t a tack, whatever that may be. If she’s looking after a huge estate, a careless brother, and a sick mother, it’s the truth. You can help her by giving her a little respite with people who value her.”

James shrugged his shoulders as if trying to shake off a burden. “I do not know that the duchess is ill. Quigley and I have both heard—rumors, that is all.”

“I am not going to give up on this, James. The idea of your favorite sister languishing in that huge castle with no one around to care for her just makes my blood run cold. I know how it is when your life is all work and no end to it, seemingly, and no reward but the sense that you’ve done what had to be done.”

He stared at her. “I never knew you felt like that, Meg.”

* * * *

Two days after she and James had discussed Claire, Meg brought up Annis’s name at breakfast. Having dispatched a letter to her sister-in-law, Meg decided that she had best clear up the matter of her friend’s continued absence from Hedgemere.

“James, would you mind very much if I drove over to Mattingly Place this morning? I am concerned that I have heard nothing from anyone there since our wedding.”

James looked over at her, a smile in his eyes. Meg smiled back. The last two nights had been filled with a breathless tenderness that felt so fragile and yet so real that tears had come to her eyes as she and James made love. She hugged the memory of those moments to her, but they did not make her rethink her beliefs. Despite her feeling of closeness to James, she had written to Claire without his knowledge, and now she was going to bring Annis back to share their home, putting an end to their growing intimacy anywhere but the bedroom.

No more laughter over James’s silly jokes, designed to make her blush. No more kisses before Meadows arrived with the evening tea tray. Meg sighed, but it never occurred to her to change her plans. This was Annis’s home, no matter how inconvenient that fact might be.

“Is she ready to come, do you think?” James asked. Meg felt that she heard regret in his voice.

“Oh, yes. Annis was only staying at Mattingly Place because Lady Mattingly asked her to. She’ll be eager to come home.”

Meg took the carriage over later that day, pleased that she was going to make Annis happy. But when Meg told her that her stay at Mattingly Place was to come to an end, Annis’s reaction seemed strangely subdued. “Thank you for coming, Meg. It is very kind of you. But perhaps Lady Mattingly still needs me.”

“Really, Annis, I’m sure you have her tapestry wools beautifully arranged, and her correspondence up to date. What more can you do?”

Gerald entered the small, informal morning room at that moment. At first he seemed not to be aware of Meg. “Annis, I thought I’d find you here. M’mother asked if you could help her with the roses.” His smile was warm, and Meg noticed that Annis’s face lit up when she saw Gerald. The prospect of returning to Hedgemere with Meg had not drawn such an animated response.

Gerald tore his gaze away from Annis and noticed his friend who was staring at him. “Meg, how nice to see you. You’re looking very fine. Married life seems to agree with you. Where’s James?”

“He wanted to go over the accounts,” Meg said. “He said you would understand, and besides, the carriage will be full with the two of us and Annis’s things.”

“Her things? Is Annis leaving us?” Gerald tried to keep his sudden dismay out of his voice. “M’mother has projects planned for the next two months at least. Must you leave so soon, Miss Fairchild?”