Only Beloved (15 page)

He had not heard her come up behind him. His arm jerked and then stiffened when she set a hand on it.

“I am sorry,” she said.

He swung about. “
Don't
keep saying you are sorry.”

Her hand went straight up, as though she had scalded it, and remained suspended above the level of her shoulder, palm out, fingers spread. For a moment there was a look of alarm on her face.

“I am sorry,” she said again.

His shoulders sagged. He could not even remember the last time he had lost his temper. And now he had lost it with Dora.

“No,” he said, “I am the one who needs to be sorry, Dora. I do indeed beg your pardon. Please forgive me. When I married you, I very much wanted life to be new and good for both of us, unencumbered by memories of the past. The past has no real existence, after all. It is gone. The present is the reality we have, and for that fact I am grateful. I like the present. Do you? Do you have any regrets?”

It bothered him that a moment passed before she shook her head and lowered her arm to her side.

“I have always dreamed of being married to a man I could like,” she said, “even though I did not waste my life waiting for him to put in an appearance.”

“And can you like me?” he asked. He found that he was holding his breath

“I can,” she said gravely. And then she smiled, an expression that began in her eyes and spread to her mouth. “And I do.”

“I think,” he said, clasping his hands behind his back, “we ought to go down for tea.”

*   *   *

Despite a certain amount of nervousness, Dora had quite enjoyed the morning. She had established a working relationship with both Mrs. Lerner and Mr. Humble, the chef, though she believed the latter must be grossly misnamed. She felt she had won their cautious approval. She had met several of the kitchen staff after
Mr. Humble had lined them up for her inspection and scolded one bootboy for slouching and one maid for having a stain on her apron even though it was still only morning. Dora was confident that she would remember each servant and even be able to attach the correct name to the correct person.

She had fully enjoyed the afternoon despite the fact that the rain had prevented the walk down on the beach to which she had been looking forward. But there was so much to discover in the house itself that she was not greatly disappointed. And it was lovely indeed to be shown about by George himself, who so clearly loved the house and loved talking about it. She had thoroughly enjoyed his reminiscences about his fellow Survivors and the years when they had all stayed here. And she had loved the visit to the gallery and listening to him identify his ancestors in their portraits and describe a little of their histories. He was not normally a talkative man, she knew. He preferred to listen, and he was very skilled at drawing others, including her, into talking about themselves. He had become absorbed in his family history there in the gallery, though, and he had looked relaxed and contented.

But now she wished they had not gone there at all.

There was something horribly wrong.

Any stranger who knew nothing about the family would assume after being in the gallery that George had been a bachelor until now, though even then the stranger might expect that he would have had a portrait of himself painted at some time during the past thirty
years. But in reality he had married a mere three years after that family painting. His son had been born the year after that. And though both the wife and the son were now gone, they had lived as a family for many years. Almost twenty. Right here. At Penderris Hall.

The truly puzzling part was that George loved his family history. That had been obvious this afternoon, as well as the fact that he was proud of those portraits, reaching back in an unbroken line for several centuries. Why, then, had he broken the chain by neglecting to commission a portrait of his own family?

They walked in silence to the drawing room, her hands clasped at her waist, his behind his back. Dora shivered inwardly when she thought of his reaction to her question about the absent portrait. He had turned on his heel and hurried away. Even though he had stopped almost immediately, he had not turned back toward her. And then his temper had snapped and he had blazed at her. For a moment he had seemed like a rather frightening stranger. Oh, he had recovered very quickly and apologized to her. But she had been left with the feeling that she had been told in no uncertain terms that his past was off limits to her. And to everyone else too. There did not seem to be any record of it, any sign, any trace of it.

He had, in so many words, told her that everything that had happened in his life between the ages of seventeen and thirty-five or thirty-six was none of her business. A huge, dark gap of years. And he was right, of course. His former marriage was none of her business. Except
that he was her husband and there was supposed to be openness between marriage partners, was there not?

And except that he had somehow induced her to spill out her own life history with all its skeletons and demons before they even left London.

Dora walked beside her husband and realized that she knew him scarcely at all and perhaps never would. For how could one know a man if one experienced only the present with him and knew nothing of the past that had shaped him into the person he was? He had done almost
forty-eight
years of living before she married him.

Her mind touched unwillingly upon that episode in the church, when the first duchess's half brother had accused George of murdering his wife. Dora did not believe it, not even for a single moment. And yet . . . And yet something had provoked the Earl of Eastham into coming to their wedding to make such a public scene.

What had happened? What had
really
happened?

A fire awaited them in the drawing room despite the fact that it was well into June, and the tea tray was being carried in even as they arrived there. George thanked the two footmen and Dora smiled. She liked that about him. She liked that servants were not invisible to him as they seemed to be to so many people who had always been waited upon hand and foot.

“The weather has not been kind to you so far, Dora, has it?” he said as she poured their tea.

“But it will be,” she said. “Imagine my wonder when
I wake up one morning to find the sun sparkling from a blue sky onto a blue sea.”

“I hope to be there to witness it,” he said.

They settled on either side of the fireplace and chatted comfortably. His manner was relaxed, pleasant, even affectionate. He smiled often at her, and even when he did not, his eyes were kindly. His irritability, his fury in the gallery seemed almost like a dream. But Dora did find herself wondering about his almost perpetual kindliness, his smiling eyes. Were they a sort of shield? To stop other people from seeing in? To see the world and other people as he wanted to see them despite whatever it was that was shut up deep within him?

Or was she imagining that there was deep darkness inside him?

“I have a wedding gift for you,” he said after setting his empty cup and saucer back on the tray.

“George!” She spoke reproachfully. “You do not need to keep lavishing gifts on me. Your wedding gift was a diamond pendant and earrings, and they were more than enough. I have never owned anything half as precious.”

“Jewels!” He made a dismissive gesture with one hand as though they were nothing of any real value. “This is something more personal, something I believe you will like.”

“I like my diamonds,” she assured him.

“You will like this more.” He got to his feet and took her hand in his. “Come. Let me show you.”

He looked like an eager boy, she thought.

He took her downstairs and past the door to the room she knew was the library, though she had not seen
inside any of the ground-floor apartments yet. She might be exploring for the whole of the next week before she saw everything, or so it seemed. He stopped outside the door next to the library.

“It is the music room,” he told her, his hand on the doorknob. “It overlooks the rose garden rather than the sea, and I have always thought that a particularly clever touch. There has always been just a grand pianoforte in here apart from the chairs awaiting an audience. It has an excellent tone, and you will enjoy playing it, I believe, whenever you can tear yourself away from your own pianoforte in your sitting room.”

She tipped her head sideways and looked up at him. He was deliberately delaying opening the door.

“It is neither the rose garden nor the grand pianoforte that is your wedding gift, though,” he said.

“The chairs, then?”

He smiled and opened the door, standing to one side so that she could precede him into the room.

The grand pianoforte, standing almost alone in the middle of a large, high-ceilinged chamber, was indeed a magnificent instrument. That was immediately apparent to Dora. It had elegant, pleasing lines, and its high gloss gleamed even in the dull light that came through the windows. It was reflected in the highly polished wooden floor. Roses were blooming outside. But it was upon none of those beautiful things that her eyes focused.

“Oh.” She stood rooted to a spot just inside the doorway.

A full-sized harp, intricately and elegantly carved and looking as though it might well be made of solid
gold, stood to one side of the pianoforte, a gilded chair drawn up to it. “Mine? It is
mine
?”

“Only on condition that you allow me to listen occasionally whenever you play it,” he said from behind her shoulder. “No, correct that. There are no conditions. It is a gift, Dora—my wedding gift to you. Yes, it is yours.”

Memories of last year and her first meeting with the Duke of Stanbrook came rushing back to her. When she had entertained Viscount Darleigh's guests at Middlebury Park, she had played the harp first before moving on to the pianoforte. Everyone had been kind and appreciative, but it was the duke—George—who had got to his feet when she had finished at the harp and drawn the stool back from the pianoforte for her. It was he who had led her upstairs to the drawing room for refreshments afterward and filled a plate for her and brought her a cup of tea before seating himself beside her and speaking in warm praise of her talent.

She had fallen a little in love with him that evening, foolish and presumptuous though it had seemed at the time.

“I have never seen anything more magnificent. It is a work of art,” she said, crossing the room toward the harp and touching the solid beauty of its frame with reverence before running her fingers lightly across the strings. A mellow ripple of sound followed their movement. She dared not even hazard a guess at how much it had cost.

And it was hers.

“When I was a girl,” she said, “I was enchanted by an old battered harp that no one ever played at the home of
one of our neighbors. I could not stop running my hand over its strings just to hear the sound that came from them. More than anything in the world I wanted to coax real music from it. My mother arranged with those neighbors to allow my music teacher to accompany me there on certain days and teach me to play. Sometimes they allowed me to go there alone and practice. Mama persuaded Papa to buy me the little harp I still have, the one I used to take with me when I visited the sick and elderly at Inglebrook. I did not encounter a real harp again until Viscount Darleigh—Vincent—employed me to give him pianoforte lessons and I saw it there in the music room at Middlebury Park. Even in my dreams I did not imagine that I would ever own one.”

“But now you do,” he said.

She swung around. He was still standing just inside the door, his hands clasped behind his back, beaming with pleasure.

“What have I done to deserve this?” she asked him.

“Let me see.” He looked up at the painted, gilded ceiling as though deep in thought. “Ah, yes.” He looked back at her. “You agreed to marry me.”

“As if any woman in her right mind would have refused,” she said.

“Ah, but you are not any woman, Dora,” he said as he crossed the room toward her, “and I believe you would have refused me if you had not liked me just a little. I purchased the harp for you because I thought it would make you happy. And also for selfish reasons. For if
you
are happy, then I am happy too.”

Dora felt suddenly uneasy again. For the thought had
occurred to her yet again as she gazed into his smiling eyes that he was a terribly, terribly lonely man. Still. And it occurred to her that he could deal with his loneliness only by giving, by making other people happy. Not by receiving. He did not know how to receive.

Who had taken that ability away from him?

He had not needed to have her pianoforte brought here. He had not needed to spend a fortune on a harp for her. He had married her and was kind to her. That was sufficient. Oh, that was more than sufficient.

“You do not need to cry,” he said softly. “It is only a harp, Dora, and you do not even know for sure yet that it is a good one.”

She raised both arms and cupped his face in her hands.

“Oh, it is,” she said with conviction. “Thank you, George. It is the most wonderful gift I have ever received. I shall treasure it all my life, mainly because you gave it to me. And you may listen to me play whenever you wish. You have only to ask—or to come when I am playing alone. I am your wife. I am also your friend.”

She did what she had never done before.
She
kissed
him
. On the lips. He stood very still until she was finished, though his lips softened against her own.

“Play for me now?” he asked her.

“I am very rusty,” she warned him. “It is well over a month since I last played the harp at Middlebury. But yes. I will play for you. Of course I will.”

He adjusted the position of the chair for her and stood a little behind and to one side of it as she drew
the harp against her shoulder until it felt comfortable. Then she spread her hands over the strings.
Of her harp.