Sweet Bargain (19 page)

He looked so very unhappy she reached out and touched his shoulder, but he shook her off.

"Don't ... touch me ... now," he warned. "Go in. Go in, if you want me to keep my promise."

She rose then, looking about her a little blindly, and stumbled to the edge of the path. Looking down, she reminded him, "You promised you would not stay away."

He nodded but did not lift his head.

The stable smelled of hay as fresh and sweet as hope. The brisk rhythms of currying brushes, chaff-cutters, and brooms, accompanied by a low mumbling sort of chatter among the stable boys, greeted Bel as she entered.

"Good morning," she called out.

Farre appeared at the entrance to one of the stalls and nodded to her. "Good morning, my lady," he said. "Would you like a horse readied?"

"No, thank you, Mr. Farre," she answered. "Is ... is my husband about?"

"Haven't seen the 1—his lordship yet today, my lady."

"You don't call him that, do you, Mr. Farre?"

"Only to anger him."

Bel digested that. The man knew her husband perhaps better than anyone. Farre turned back to the mare he was grooming and led the horse out into the aisle between the banks of stalls.

"You've known my husband since he was a … boy?" she asked.

"Since he came to Haverly." Farre inspected the horse's feet. Then he retrieved a bit, bridle, and saddle from the tack room. He slipped the bit and bridle on the horse. The little mare tossed her head once, and Bel stepped up to stroke the velvety nose.

"Is Haverly very grand?"

"Very." Farre flung the saddle on the horse's back.

"I suppose there is a great ballroom there."

"Aye." Farre bent down to adjust the cinch.

"And the society there is very fine?"

"There's no society there." Farre straightened and tested the saddle's fit.

"No society? But who comes to the dinners and balls?"

"The old earl gave no dinners, nor balls. He couldn't abide 'em, didn't like ladies."

"And my hus—Nick, did he give balls?" She had to ask.

"Never."

"Why did he buy Courtland? For the river?"

"Aye, and to have something of his own." Farre looked at her, apparently assessing her reaction to his words.

When Bel let her doubts on that point show, he continued. "Nothing at Haverly belonged to ... his lordship, my lady."

"You mean 'Nick.' But it must all belong to him now," she protested.

Farre snorted. "As long as he leaves everything just the way it is. A museum it is."

"Even the clocks?" Bel asked.

Farre looked at her sharply. "Especially the clocks." Then he smiled, and suddenly Bel felt she had a friend. She smiled back.

"You're sure you won't ride, my lady?" he asked.

"No, thank you, Mr. Farre, and I don't want to be called 'my lady.' 'Bel' will do." She turned to go.

"Are you off to the river, then?"

She nodded.

"Aye, I thought so."

It was Auggie's voice she heard first, clear and distinct above the rush of water. "I don't like it."

"You don't have a better idea, Shaw," came Darlington's voice in reply.

"What are you two doing here?" Bel asked, coming into the open along the bank above the spot where she and Nick had fished the night before. Darlington was kneeling at the edge of the river, an open basket at his side, a vial in his hand. Auggie looked up, glanced quickly at his companion, and shifted his stance so that he blocked her view of the kneeling man.

"We came to fish, of course," Auggie said. She frowned at him. "It's true," he went on. "The earl gave all the Shaws permission to fish his spots."

"When?" she asked.

"Just as soon as the honeymoon was over," replied Auggie. There was a smugness in his tone that Bel found most annoying.

"The honeymoon
is
over, isn't it, Bel?" mocked Darlington, rising.

"Hardly," she said, but she could not speak with quite the assurance she wished to have.

"Or did it ever begin?" he taunted her. "Where's your bridegroom, Bel? Does he have pressing business at the far end of Courtland again today?"

"You shouldn't have married him, Bel," put in Auggie.

"Auggie Shaw, you have no right to say such things."

"Oh, don't I? Well, it's just what Tom would say. Why didn't you wait for Tom to be there? You think I don't know it was a havey-cavey affair?"

"Havey-cavey affair!" She spoke as forcefully as she could, but Auggie's mention of not waiting for Tom hurt. She turned to Darlington. "Mr. Darlington, what have you been suggesting to my brother about my marriage?"

Darlington shrugged. "What is there to suggest, Bel?"

Bel forced herself to speak calmly. "Auggie, if there was any unseemly haste in our marrying, you may blame your friend Darlington, who forced us to announce our betrothal before we ... were ready."

"Well, Darlington didn't force you to kiss the earl in the squire's garden."

No, you did
, she thought.
To save you I made a bargain. And here you are at the river again, up to no good.
She glanced at the basket at Darlington's feet. It was closed. There were no rods or nets anywhere, and Auggie had not brought the dog. "Why are you here, Auggie?" she asked.

Nick had left his room before dawn, intending to so occupy his time and his thoughts that there would be no room for images of lying with Bel, but when he had returned from his morning ride, the stable hand who had taken his horse volunteered the information that he had just missed her ladyship. The further information that she had taken the river path led him to turn his steps in that direction. She could not entirely resent his passion of the night before if she was willing to return to the scene of their lovemaking. When he came to the end of the path, however, he was forced to change his mind about his bride's motives. It seemed she had gone to the river to meet her brother and her former suitor.

"Don't be hard on the boy, Bel," Nick heard Darlington say, "just because he sees through your sham marriage."

Nick could not hear Bel's reply over the pounding of his own heart.

"I think I
must
speak, Bel," Darlington said, "when your family isn't here to speak, when you've ignored their invitations for a sennight, when your husband is seen everywhere without you ..."

"You aren't even part of the family anymore." It was Auggie Shaw's voice. Nick drew nearer, letting the trees conceal him.

"Of course I am," came Bel's voice, clear now that Nick had taken a position just above the speakers. "There is nothing I care more for than my family. Even through this marriage, for which you blame me, I will be doing things for all of you. But you must not let the earl find you here without your fishing gear, Auggie."

"He hasn't yet," said Auggie. Darlington laughed.

"I hope he never does," came Bel's reply.

Nick did not hear the next remarks clearly. Darlington and the boy seemed to be gathering up some things at the river's edge. Then Bel and her companions moved off down the path along the bank, and he was left with his thoughts.

He stepped out of the trees and descended to the river, blue in the sunlight against the green of the reeds, clear in the shadows before him. He had been unguarded with Bel, letting the mask of their bargain slip, revealing his feelings for her while she remained indifferent to him. He should have known better. His parents had had their lovers, his uncle had had his possessions, and Bel
Shaw
had her family. If no one particularly needed or wanted him, so be it. He would have his river. A trout broke the surface where insect wings caught the sunlight. Flopping back in the water, it scattered sparkling drops. The trouble was, Nick did not think he could look at that sparkle without wanting Bel.

By Bel's count, Gerry, their young footman, had now contributed three more words to the dinner conversation than Nick had. She stole a glance at him. His face was set in rigid, haughty lines; his eyes were cold, his neck swathed in yards of crisp linen. She had a vivid recollection of the evening before, when he lay beside her, his head thrown back, his throat bare and taut with emotion. Then she had been touching him; now he seemed unreachable.

But he had come to dinner. Whatever had happened to make the passionate shepherd of the night before appear so cold and distant now, he had not forgotten his promise to dine with her. And she must do what she could to bring her husband and her family together. So when Gerry left them to their dessert, she summoned her courage and mentioned that Richard and Mary were giving a farewell dinner for her London cousins.

"If you wish to attend, by all means do so," he said with cold civility.

"I wish to go with you."

"Why?" he asked, giving his attention to a thin slice of cheese on his plate.

"We did not begin our marriage well, but I think we have done better these past two days, and we might do better still if we appeared together as husband and wife."

He lifted angry eyes to hers. "But we are husband and wife in name only. Did you wish it to be otherwise?"

"There are still obstacles to our . . . union," she said, thinking of Auggie and the sadness she felt at seeing him under Darlington's influence.

"Dozens of them."

"You mean my family, I suppose, but you must—"

"Neither you nor your family has any use for me except to provide a river and pin money, and I can do both without attending any Shaw dinners." He stood and tossed his napkin on the table. "You go. We have only a
sham
marriage, and I am no good at pretending. Excuse me." He bowed and walked out.

Bel picked up the little box she had concealed beside the flowers on her side of the table and lifted the lid. Inside were three flies she had tied for him that afternoon. Though she had not seen him all day, she had imagined they would talk and laugh and stroll to the river. With the sweetness of their kisses still in her mind, it had been easy to imagine his saying yes to a Shaw dinner. She had gone so far as to imagine dancing with him in Richard and Mary's parlor. At least there had been no witnesses to her humiliation.

Nick leaned against the windowsill, staring at the moon-brightened landscape. A nightingale sang in the wood and, nearer, insects hummed. He had avoided his bed for hours now, but he felt the emptiness of it, of the room behind him, while the night beyond his window seemed to pulse with life. What he wanted was tantalizingly close, in the next room. He felt a bit like Tantalus, standing in his particular pool in hell, reaching for the sweet fruit that would ease his hunger, and having it withdrawn even as his fingers seemed about to clasp it.

When had desire sharpened into this longing for one girl? After years of comfortable indifference to his parents' indiscreet couplings, he had been awakened to his own lust by the widow who had been stranded in the Seymour household the summer he was fifteen. What she had stirred in him had been lulled to sleep by the dreary routine of his uncle's rigid establishment. But the parade of temptresses in town had roused the sleeping beast with a fury. Dreams of breasts and thighs and hands reaching for his aching body had disturbed his rest and sent him fleeing to Courtland. There, in one moment, a girl standing in a stream, lost in admiration for the shining beauty of the river, had begun to sharpen all his desire to this keen edge that seemed to pierce his heart more each day.

Earlier, riding about Courtland after he had stormed out of the dining room, he had indulged himself imagining he might have avoided his desire for Bel. What if he had allowed himself to be fully seduced by the widow? What if he had assuaged his lust with one of the beauties of London? But he knew that thinking was false and he understood why, even before he met Bel, he had been unwilling to seek those comforts. His parents' energetic couplings had not been unions at all. He himself had never felt more lonely, more isolated, than he had in the bed of the woman who had stirred him at fifteen. Now, if he gave in to his desire for Bel before he won her love, that would be empty too. And to win her love, he was going to have to humble himself. He was going to have to accept that he meant less to her than her family. He was going to have to go to that dinner.

From next door came the scrape of the window being pushed open. Nick's heart hammered in response. He crossed to the connecting door between the two rooms and knocked.

Silence.

"Bel, are you awake?" he asked. "Can I speak with you?"

After a minute he heard the key turn in the lock. The door opened. Moonlight streamed in from the open window. Bel stood before him in a white gown, her hair silver in the white light, her eyes wide.

"I was angry and rude at dinner. I apologize," he said. He made no move to enter the room.

"I forgive you," she answered.

"I would like to go to the dinner with you."

"I'm glad." She smiled. "Come in?"

"I think not," he said, but he couldn't take his eyes off her.

"The moon is beautiful," she offered.

"Yes, were you looking at it from your window?"

"Yes, were you?"

"Yes." His whole body strained to move toward her and take her in his embrace. Carefully, he put a hand on the door frame and gripped it firmly.

"I don't suppose you are ready to come to my bed yet?" he found himself asking.

"No," she said, taking a step back.

He nodded and looked over his shoulder at his room. He should step back too, end the conversation—now.

"Wait," she said. She crossed the room, away from the moonlight, a white blur in the shadows, and returned with a box. She held it out to him, and he pulled his fingers loose from the door frame to reach for her gift.

"I tied these for you today," she said.

"Today? When?" he asked, lifting the lid on the little box.

"This afternoon. Why?"

"I did not think you liked me this afternoon."

"I do like you." She hesitated. "I want you to like ... my family, and I want them to like you."

"I like the dog," he said. It was true—and more than he could yet say for the others.