The Bride's Secret (18 page)

There, he instructed his cook to put on the tea, and he offered Carlotta a wooden chair to sit upon. “You won't get dirty in this chair,” he said. “I avoid it so I'll have a clean chair when visitors come.” Glancing around his tidy cottage, he added, “You'll have to pardon that it looks so filthy here. We learn to live with the soot.”

The man spoke the truth. Despite that everything was orderly, the walls were gray with the soot, as were the curtains and the pieces of upholstered furniture. Yes, she could well understand how a gently bred woman could run away from such a life.

“Then you have visitors here?”

He laughed. “Occasionally.”

From her chair near the hearth, she glanced around the cottage with its thick stone walls. “Your home is cozy,” she told him.

Despite the coziness, she could not put a stop to the trembling inside her. She feared for James.

Mr. Hastings looked her in the eye. “You're just like Alice—my wife. You hate the mines.”

“Then it shows?”

“I know the signs. Hopefully, the miners don't. Their wives apparently accept it.”

“As I must. Though I'd as lief not.”

“Don't worry. Thanks to your husband, the mines are most likely the safest in England.”

“I wish I could take comfort in your words.” She watched the door, hoping James would hurry and come.

As she sat there she was struck by the contrast between Mr. Fordyce and Mr. Hastings. Both men had only just met her, but one seemed ill-at-ease in her company while the other established an easy camaraderie with her. Perhaps it was the difference in their ages. Mr. Fordyce had most likely not reached his twenty-fifth year, and Mr. Hastings was likely forty.

She looked up when Mr. Hastings's middle-aged cook, an apron tied round her waist, brought their tea tray and set it on a table in front of the sopha where Mr. Hastings sat. Carlotta came to pour the tea into two ironstone cups. “I think what disturbs me most—next to having my husband hundreds of feet below the ground—is the age of some of the lads I see here today.” She handed his cup and saucer to him. “Why must you employ them?”

“What else would they do?”

“What did you do when you were ten or eleven?”

He sat down his cup. “I was in school.”

“As were my husband and my brother.”

“But there are no schools for the lads of their class, and their size can be most helpful in mining.”

“They're only children! Besides the dangers, they are too young to be responsible for life-or-death procedures. You allow your safety to be held in one of their small hands?”

“They're well trained.”

Her cup clattered into the saucer. “But they're children.”

The door opened and James stepped into the room. “What children are we talking about?” he asked, his eyes settling on her.

She gazed at her husband with narrowed eyes. Now he, too, was covered with soot. “The mere lads whom you allow to work in the mines.”

“We'll discuss this when we're alone,” he snapped. “Are you ready to return to Yarmouth?”

She sat down her cup. “I am.”

* * *

On the way back to Yarmouth, she broached the subject of her dissatisfaction that boys were employed in the mines.

He glared angrily at her. “I beg that you never express your opinions in front of the colliers.”

She stiffened. “I would not because I know it would displease my husband.”

“Perhaps I shan't have you come here again.”

She jerked up her head haughtily. “Then you plan to tell me where I can and cannot go?”

He muttered an oath. “Woman, you are trying my patience.”

“Forgive me,” she said without sincerity. “If my words displease you, I shan't speak to you the rest of the way home.”

And she didn't.

Chapter 18

Though he was vexed with his wife, at dinner that night James attempted to put his anger behind him. He would put from his mind Carlotta's stubborn silence that afternoon and treat her as if they had chatted contentedly all the way back to Yarmouth. His plan worked. Once Carlotta realized James was not going to dredge up the afternoon's disagreement, she readily returned his amiable banter throughout the remainder of the dinner.

“I see that you've been successful in removing the coal from your skin,” she remarked while spooning potatoes onto her plate.

“A bath is all that was needed.”

“Yet I perceive the colliers certainly do not bathe every day.”

He shrugged. “They're used to the soot, and I daresay their families are, too.”

Carlotta grimaced. “Then I'm thankful my husband is of a different ilk, for I could never get used to the horrid blackness. Did you see how grimy Mr. Hastings's house was? I declare, everywhere you looked was either black or gray. It's so dreary.”

James smiled at hearing himself addressed as her husband. A short time earlier, though, he had been unable to smile. When she had glided into the dining room, the sight of her and the lavender scent of her had nearly overpowered him. Her graceful movement and the intensity of her beauty caused a profound physical reaction in him. He had thought that by now he would have become immune to her, but she still wielded an almost magical power over him.

Even now, as she cut the mutton on the plate before her, he hungrily watched her. Soft candlelight from one of the overhead chandeliers cast a circle of light where she sat. Her glossy hair was swept back from her pensive face, and her lashes swooped down as she concentrated on her cutting. His eyes trailed over her flawless, milky skin from her brow, down her romanesque nose, to her slender neck, to the plunging bodice of her orchid silk gown.

“I beg that we avoid discussion of the mines tonight,” he said. Eventually, he knew, they would have to discuss their differing views on the mines, but not tonight. Not after this afternoon's estrangement. Tonight he only wanted peace.

Next, he directed his attention to Stevie, whom they had agreed could continue sharing their dinner until his nurse arrived. James had warned Carlotta that Stevie would likely be uncomfortable in another new setting and should be permitted to dine with them during his first week at Yarmouth.

“To make up to you for not taking you to the mines today,” James said to the boy, “tomorrow you'll have my full attention. Should you like to go angling?”

Stevie's eyes grew large, as did the smile which seemed almost too big for his small face. “I should love it above all things!”

James tossed a glance at Carlotta. “I don't suppose angling appeals to you, my love?”

She shook her head. “About as much as sitting and watching my grandmother read the Bible,” she said with a wink and a giggle. “Tomorrow should be a day just for the males. I'm certain you'll have a much better time without me. I have a profound aversion to worms.” She paused, “Besides, there are so many new poetry books here I'm longing to read. I shall just curl up before the fire in your library and read the live-long day.”

“'Tis not
my
library, but ours,” James countered.

“I confess it's not with ease that I can call all of this mine. To do so would make me seem a usurper.”

James laughed. “But how could you usurp anyone since I've neither been married nor engaged, and the last Yarmouth countess died two decades ago?”

She shrugged. “If I'm not a usurper, then I fear I seem mercenary. Don't forget just a few months ago I was living in rented lodgings in a not-too-genteel rooming house.”

He reached out to set his hand on hers. “You're not mercenary.”

Stevie, his brow wrinkled with concentration, glanced at James. “Papa?”

James's heart quickened. “Yes, son?”

“Do you have a fishing pole for me?”

“I do. You will have your very own.”

“I wish it were already tomorrow,” the boy said.

“Twill be soon enough, lamb,” Carlotta said.

James had swelled with pride when the boy had called him Papa, then again when he saw what tenderness Stevie elicited in Carlotta. For a flash of a second, James wondered if Carlotta would be equally as gentle with a child of theirs. His heart grew light and his chest tightened for love of the child that might never be.

Since he had brought Carlotta to Yarmouth as his wife, James's see-saw emotions were in a constant state of turmoil. The very sight of her sent a burgeoning desire sweeping through him. How long would he have to wait to possess her? Fear gripped him. Would his thirst for her ever be slaked? He could go mad with his want of her. He doubted he could wait much longer.

Since she had confessed that her affections had been engaged somewhat recently, jealousy had consumed James. Hatred toward this unknown man surged within him. Who was the man? How could he have been unable to return Carlotta's ardor? James wished him to hell.

When dinner was finished, Carlotta turned to James. “I shall just run along upstairs to tuck Stevie in with a bedtime story.”

“I'll go with you.”

The three of them ascended the stairs, talking and laughing and making plans for the morrow. After Stevie dressed for bed, it was James whom Stevie wanted to tell him a story.

James and Carlotta sat side by side on the edge of the boy's bed while James told the lad a tale of the good farmer who slayed one of the wicked Doone bandits. Though Carlotta had once protested that stories of violence and death were not
bedtime
stories, Stevie could never seem to get enough of them—and, she had to admit, with no ill effects to her son.

After each of them kissed the lad on the cheek, James and Carlotta went back downstairs to the saloon, where the servants had set up a card table in front of the fire.

“Should you like some brandy?” James asked her.

She nodded as she sat at the table.

Moments later the two faced one another, and James began to instruct her how to play cribbage. She caught on quickly, and to his surprise, she was not just playing to please him. She actually wanted to win. Which was an excellent start.

As the play grew more intense and the brandy bottle less full, Carlotta mellowed before his eyes.

“You, my dear,” he said, “are possessed of an excellent, quick mind. I look forward to many years of looking across the game table at my lovely bride.”

Her finger twirling her hair, she smiled across the table at him. “Has anyone ever called you Jim or Jimmy?”

He shook his head. “My mother thought James a more commanding name, more fitting for my future importance,” he added with a wink.

“I should have liked your mother,” she said. “You realize you are an important man.”

He laughed. “The Lord of Exmoor.”

“I wasn't thinking of the way others here perceive you, though they most certainly find you a very important personage. I was thinking of how important you've become to Stevie and me.”

“As have you and Stevie to me,” he answered, hoping his voice held the steadiness the rest of him presently lacked.

She blushed as she advanced her peg.

“Should you wish to call me Jim or Jimmy?” he asked.

She looked at him with her great violet eyes. “Sometimes, when the brandy has rendered me warm and pliable, I wish to call you Jimmy, but I don't think the name suits you nearly as well as James.”

Warm and pliable
. Damn, but it was difficult to keep his mind on cribbage when he thought of his wife as
warm and pliable
.

* * *

What a fool he must think her! The mental picture of herself, thick tongued from the brandy, addressing Lord Rutledge as
Jimmy
was utterly ridiculous.

It was important to her that he find her not only intelligent but also a worthy opponent for the games he enjoyed every night. She must concentrate on her play so her skill could compel him to forget her foolish behavior.

Playing the nightly games with her husband was small repayment to him for all he had done for her and Stevie. She pictured James as he had looked when he had told Stevie the manly story at bed time. He gave every indication he enjoyed relating the story as much as Stevie enjoyed listening to it.

And tomorrow, she thought with satisfaction, her
men
would spend the day together fishing.

Because of Stevie, James had come into her life and filled it. The earl was completely devoted to the boy. She doubted he could care more for the lad had he been his own son.

Thinking of the earl having a son of his own—or not having a son of his own—saddened her. He deserved a son and heir. And as a man, he surely desired the intimacy which could produce that child, though she thought he had seemed content with their non-physical relationship.

Or had he? There had been instances when she had caught him hungrily looking at her. At least, that was how she had perceived it. A man, after all, did not have to be in love with a woman to desire to make love to her. 'Twas the nature of men. And the Earl of Rutledge was most certainly a man.

His looks of naked desire puzzled her. Were she one to wager, she would have wagered James married her because of his affection for her son—as well as his guilt over what had happened to Stephen. Never because he wanted her. Surely, he couldn't even like her. He knew her many faults better than anyone else on earth.

Since she had first met James, she had been struck by his seeming immunity to her physical attributes. For anyone else to think such conceited thoughts about her own appearance would be sheer arrogance. For Carlotta, it was like commenting on the weather. Compliments on her beauty had always been as commonplace as observations on the day's sunshine.

She drew a card and matched it with another in her hand. James, she lamented, deserved her unwavering physical affection. Why could she not be attracted him?

It wasn't actually that she was not attracted to him. She was. Not only was he the finest man she knew, he was also possessed of a high level of intelligence and a handsome appearance.

She thought the reason she had been unaffected by James's many charms could be lain at the door of Gregory Blankenship. After Gregory, she had been injured so deeply and her pain was so all-encompassing, she had lost the ability to feel. To feel was to be exposed to hurt.