Obsession (21 page)

John moved up behind her, his body brushing hers as he laid one hand upon her shoulder.

“I searched for you, you know. After Salterdon came to Huddersfield looking for you.”

Maria closed her eyes, shaken by the truth, and relief, that Salterdon
had
searched for her.

“I searched for months, Maria. Everywhere, even to London. At last I gave up. I’m sorry. What could I do? My parishioners needed me and I…I had to move on with my life. Had I known—”

“You couldn’t know, John. ’Twas good that you moved on.”

He picked up the poker and stared at the fire, nudged the embers away from the betty before saying, “I married, Maria.”

“Married?”

The firelight reflected the tear trails on his cheeks, and his mien had a sadness that robbed her of breath.

She reached for him, his hand trembling at her touch. She tried to rally enthusiasm, though her body felt tense.

She smiled. “Married, John? To whom? Do I know her?”

“Nay, you wouldn’t know her. Jane Myles. From Edgerton, where I had taken post as vicar for a while. A kind lass. Simple. Not pretty…like you.”

He took a breath and slowly released it. “She loved me at first sight, I think, and I was so heart-shaken over you…

“I cared for her very much, although I wasn’t in love with her. But she was good and sweet, a wonderful companion—”

“A perfect vicar’s wife?”

“Aye.” He nodded and tugged at his clergy collar as if it were suddenly too tight.

“Where is she? I would love to—”

“She’s dead.”

He turned away.

“Dead. Oh, John, I’m so sorry.”

John moved to a window and stared out at the night, one hand pressed upon the gray windowpane. “When your father told me you were dead, I was…shattered. Jane and I had only been married a few months. I had already told her about you, of course; I was honest with her from the beginning. Honest, if nothing else.

“Sweet, kindhearted Jane. I lost her then. Yes, ’twas then she began to die a little more every day.”

“I don’t understand.”

At last, he moved away from the window and walked to the bed where her father lay as gray as ash upon the white sheets. For a long moment John neither moved nor spoke, the only sound in the room the quiet crackling of the fire and her father’s rattling breaths.

John appeared as pale as the dying invalid, almost as lifeless.

“He told me you were dead,” he repeated. “Do you know how violently I contemplated murdering Salterdon? I had never hated a human being in my life. I had never experienced even a twinge of fury. Naive fool that I was, I had always believed that I could forgive and save the soul of Satan himself, so sanctimonious were my convictions.”

He slowly raised his gaze to Maria’s, his eyes red-rimmed and swollen. “Tell me, Maria. Truthfully. Do you still love him?”

She blinked and swallowed, despair rousing in her breast.

Aye, despair.

Despair that she should be forced to acknowledge her lingering feelings for Salterdon; despair that she should be forced to acknowledge them to a man who regarded her with so much love, she felt her heart break.

“Right.” He cleared his throat and forced a semblance of a smile to his lips. “Of course you do. Please, no apologies. ’Tis nothing more than what I deserve, after what I put Jane through. Those years of her adoring me, quiet sobs into her pillow while I dreamed of you. But I had to know.”

“I’m sorry. Had he truly turned his back on me, as I first believed—”

“Stop.” He lifted a folded blanket from the foot of the bed and approached her. “You look cold, darling. Here, this should warm you.”

She smiled into his eyes as he gently wrapped the blanket around her shoulders, then nudged aside a tendril of hair on her brow.

“I don’t deserve you. There isn’t a man on the face of this earth who deserves Maria Ashton’s love and devotion. Salterdon is an extremely lucky man.”

“ ’Tis done with him. You must know that, John. He’s moved on with his life. Soon he’ll have a wife and a child to cherish. Aye…he is an extremely lucky man, and I wish him well.”

John laughed softly as he sat in a chair before the fire, clasped hands in his lap and his gaze downcast.

“You would have made the perfect vicar’s wife: forgiving to a fault. You deserve to wear this collar more than I. You and I—together—might have worked miracles.”

She moved up beside him and laid a hand on his shoulder. Silent, they watched the flames dance among the wood, her thoughts returning again to Trey; the memories of his face, the gentleness of his touch that had once made her heart and body sing with pleasure.

John placed his hand upon hers, and looked up into her eyes, holding her gaze with his, emotions moving across his countenance like strange shadows.

“Do you think he loves her?” he asked. “The Lady Edwina?”

“I don’t know, John.”

“If it weren’t for the coming child…would you have remained at Thorn Rose and fought for him?”

“I—”

“Does he still love you?
Does
he?”

“What does it matter? I shan’t stand between him and the woman who loves him and is carrying his child.”

“Aye, he loves you. Had he not, he wouldn’t have rescued you from that hellish place. He wouldn’t have fought those long weeks to revive you. I recall his look of anguish when he showed up at Huddersfield and discovered you weren’t here. The times through the next few months when he returned and returned yet again, frantic to find you. A man who loves that deeply doesn’t give up that easily.

“Besides, if he loved that woman, he would have married her by now, wouldn’t he? He was waiting for you.”

Frowning, Maria shook her head. “It doesn’t matter now.”

His hand closed more fiercely around hers, and he stared again into the fire. Moments ticked by until he said, “I have a confession to make. I should have told you already, when I first mentioned Jane.”

She waited in silence.

“I didn’t want to upset you, considering…”

“What is it, John?”

He took a ragged breath. “I have a child, lass.”

“A child.” Maria swallowed and her hands clasped fiercely together.

“Aye.” He nodded.

She sank into the chair beside him.

“A daughter,” he admitted softly.

The tears rose. She couldn’t stop them. The admission awakened the pain she had experienced since losing Sarah, the sadness she felt when Lady Edwina had told her that the child was dead.

A sob escaped her and she looked away, doing her best to swallow back the emotion that filled her throat. She swept away the tears on her cheeks and forced a smile for his sake.

“That’s wonderful,” she finally managed. “So wonderful, John. I’m so very happy for you. What is her name?”

He looked into her eyes. “Maria,” he said.

20

I
AWAKENED FROM A FOG.

Those years I had desperately struggled to forget, memories of that time when I had been little more than a mental cripple, rushed back at me as I lay there in the dark, warm womb of my comfortable chamber. Those nightmarish times when I had lain twisted in my bedsheets, incapable of speech and movement, my thoughts locked like prisoners inside my brain.

Maria had come to save me.

Maria, with her angelic face, her halo of pale hair, her voice like the music of angels, had spirited me out of my madness, infused me with the fight to recover from my injuries.

I needed her now as I had needed her then.

I garnered my strength and whispered, “Maria?”

“Trey?”

A form moved toward me through the shadows. I focused hard on my brother’s face, which regarded me with such solemnity, I felt my heart climb into my throat.

Then he reached out and took my hand in his; a smile touched his mouth. “You’re fine now. Over the worst of it. Iris has brought you a tray of food. A slice of manchet and some jam.”

“I’m not an idiot again?” I asked.

“Well.” Clayton grinned. “I suppose that’s debatable.”

He helped me sit up and plumped my pillows. “It’s a sour night, to be sure. The storm is vicious. Are you cold? I’ll have Henry bring more—”

“Where is Maria?”

Clay turned away as the door opened and Edwina floated in, her face aglow from the lamps placed around the chamber.

“Smashing!” she cried upon seeing me. “You look marvelous, darling!”

She positioned herself next to me on the bed. Her eyes twinkled as she took my hand and placed it on her rounded belly.

I continued to watch my brother as he sat in a chair near the hearth and crossed his legs. He reached for his drink and centered his gaze on Edwina. There was something in his sobriety that unnerved me.

“The child moves, Trey. Do you feel it?”

Still, I regarded my brother. “Where is Maria?”

Edwina sighed. “Maria, Maria, Maria. Must every conversation we have begin with Maria?”

“Where is she? I want to see her.”

Clayton sipped from his snifter and remained silent.

At last, I looked up at Edwina. Her smile appeared forced, and her eyes had become sharp as flint.

“You must focus now on recovery, darling. You’ve been very ill. You’re weak and need to eat.”

“I’m not eating a bloody thing until I see Maria.”

She reached for a slice of manchet and lifted it to my lips.

“Stuff it,” I told her, and knocked it away.

I proceeded to kick away the covers and roll from the bed. The room spun, and suddenly Clayton was there, doing his best to force me down on the mattress.

“You’ll not be doing yourself any favors—”

“Get the hell away from me.”

I shoved him aside and stumbled to my feet, then grabbed the bedpost for support while the chamber made a slow undulation in my brain.

“Something’s wrong. I feel it.”

Twisting my hand in Clayton’s shirt, I pulled him close as I glared into his eyes. “What have you done with her? Spit it out, man.”

“I haven’t done a damned thing with her. What do you think I am?”

“Then let me see her. Bring her to me.”

“She’s gone,” came Edwina’s voice, cold as the howling wind outside the house.

Gone.

Unsteadily, I turned.

Edwina, having left the bed, backed toward the hearth, wringing her hands. “She’s gone, Trey. Left.”

“Explain.”

“A man came. From Huddersfield. Her father is dying. It seems he desired to make peace with her before he passed.”

I looked at my brother.

“ ’Tis true,” Clayton said. “She was gone yesterday when we returned from church. Iris herself heard the exchange between them.”

“You left Maria here alone with that bitch?” I thrust one finger toward Edwina.

“How dare you!” she cried.

“Shut up!” I then asked Clayton, “Who was he, the man? How the hell would you not believe this is our grandmother’s doing—again?”

Clayton forced my hand from his shirt, and stepped back.

“You don’t,” I said through my teeth, anger wild within me.

“I doubt that Grandmother would be that stupid.”

“Stupid?” I laughed, a maniacal sound that caused Edwina to gasp and Clayton to pale.

“Our grandmother isn’t stupid, Clay. She’s evil personified. She’s a goddamn lunatic, yet you march off to church and leave Maria here alone and vulnerable? That wasted old bitch probably had someone waiting for the first opportunity—”

“I’m sorry.”

Clayton once more attempted to push me back on the bed.

“You’re sorry?”

With all the strength I could muster, I shoved him away. He backed into the night table with enough impact to send it toppling to the floor.

Exhausted, I sank onto the bed, still gripping the bedpost, against which I rested my brow and closed my eyes. My illness and fever had left me weak, my breathing labored.

“I should have murdered the old bitch when I had the chance.”

The door flew open and Miracle rushed in, Maggie clinging to her mother’s skirts and her eyes enormous.

“What’s going on in here?” She ran toward Clay.

“Get out,” I growled, so threateningly Miracle froze in her tracks and tucked the child protectively against her. “And get that child out of my sight. Now!”

Clayton nodded and Miracle, scooping Maggie up in her arms, hurried from the room. Then he turned on me.

“Speak to my wife and daughter like that again, and I’ll leave you here to rot in the morass of your own misery, you son of a bitch.”

“Fine. Good. Get the hell out of here. I’m fed up with your sanctimonious babble as it is. And take that bitch with you when you go.” I motioned toward Edwina.

“Very well. If you want me out of your life, Trey, so be it.”

Clayton turned on his heel and stormed from the room, leaving Edwina cringing in the shadows. Slowly, I shifted my gaze to hers.

“You heard me. Get out. I’ve tolerated your company long enough.”

“But darling—”

“Shut up,” I sneered, and managed enough strength to stand. Step by cautious step, I approached her, positioning myself between her and the door as I did so.

“You don’t frighten me, Salterdon.” She lifted her chin. “Your tantrums never have.”

“Idiotic woman. Tantrum doesn’t come close to describing what I’m about to unleash on you.”

“You wouldn’t dare strike me. I’m with child.”

“What do you care? You’ve never cared for another human being your entire life, Edwina.”

She took a step back, her eyes growing wider. “You’re a fine one to talk.”

As I stared into her flushed face, saw the nervous trembling of her body, an ember of suspicion began to flicker in my brain.

Surely I could not have been so daft.

As the possibility began to flourish, the memories of the last months bombarded me—how Edwina had turned up again and again at my usual haunts, befriending me and seducing me, using my own vulnerabilities to manipulate me.

Why hadn’t I recognized it for what it was?

Edwina would have had no qualms whatsoever in birthing her child and pandering it off to the lowliest beggar in London or Paris. Why, suddenly, had she become so desperate to find a father to legitimize her baby?