The Improper Wife (13 page)

Gray sank down onto the bed. What the devil was he about?

He’d almost taken her to his bed, almost bullied her into it, in fact. Some gentleman he was.

Too damned foxed, that’s what he was, and more the fool for succumbing to long-lashed eyes, rose-colored lips, and curves that begged for a man’s hands to explore. What a colossal attack of idiocy. If he did not desire to be a husband, he ought not demand the rights of one. Which is what he had done. He’d damned near made her his wife.

He rubbed his face. Would she have stopped him? Would he have allowed her to stop him? Thank God the child interrupted. He’d be eternally grateful for that twist of luck.

If only his loins didn’t still burn for her.

The next day the sun was high in the sky when Gray trod carefully down the stairs. Trying not to jar his aching head any more than necessary, he slunk toward the breakfast room. Even so, each step sounded like a French drum beating the
pas de charges.

The scent of coffee quickened his pace.

The breakfast sideboard was laid out with rolls and toast, kippers and ham. Olivia sat at the table, along with the young man introduced to him at dinner as his nephew’s tutor.

“Good morning, Gray,” Olivia said brightly.

He winced, “Morning,” he mumbled, nodding politely to the tutor. Mr. Hendrick was it? He filled a plate from the sideboard. The aroma of the kippers nearly made him retch.

“There is coffee, sir,” Hendrick said.

“Or chocolate,” added Olivia.

Damned if Olivia didn’t have a loud voice.

“Good morning, Uncle,” a smaller voice said.

Gray turned around and almost dropped his plate. “My God,” he breathed. He’d not noticed the boy when entering the room, but there was no mistaking who he was.

“I’m Palmely,” the boy said politely. “Rodney. You know, your nephew.”

Tears stung Gray’s eyes. It was like the parlor painting had come to life. “Yes, yes, I do know you,” he said, his headache forgotten for the moment. “You are so like him.”

The boy smiled, obviously pleased. “My father, do you mean?”

Gray nodded. “So very like him.” He sat opposite his brother’s son, still unable to take his eyes from him.

“Do not tax your uncle,” Olivia broke in, and Gray’s head resumed its cannonade.

“We have lessons, Lord Palmely,” Hendrick added.

Gray started at the use of his brother’s title. How much more disconcerting could this become? It was already like seeing Vincent return to life.

“Might I not stay a little?” Rodney asked. “I hoped to ask my uncle about the war.”

A footman appeared at Gray’s elbow with the coffee. He nodded gratefully for the man to pour.

“Do not be tedious, dear one,” Olivia said. “I am sure your uncle has no wish to speak of war.”

She had the right of it. There was too much horror in the remembering, too much he could not speak of. On the other hand, his nephew was the only one so far who had made more than a polite reference to his soldiering, the cause of his exile so long ago.

He took a sip of his coffee, not bothering to add milk or sugar. He’d done without in Spain and now preferred it plain. “I do not mind,” he said. “What might you wish to know?”

Rodney beamed. “Well, I know you were in the 13th. What battle was your finest?”

“Waterloo,” Gray responded.

Don’t ask more,
he silently begged.
I’ve no wish to speak of all that battle cost. It was the finest merely because it bloody ended the whole affair.

Rodney nodded, a serious look on his face. “Did you kill many Frogs?”

“Really, Rodney. What kind of question is that?” Olivia broke in, raising her voice to the level of rocket fire. “Why on earth would your uncle wish to kill frogs?”

His nephew shot Gray an amused glance, looking so much like his brother that Gray laughed out loud. Either laugh or cry, not much of a choice, though both would make his head pound. The boy laughed too. The tutor covered his mouth with a handkerchief.

“I fail to see what is so amusing,” Olivia sniffed.

“My lady,” Hendrick said. “‘Frogs’ are Frenchmen.”

She colored. “Well, I don’t see how I should know that.”

“No reason at all.” Gray cast her a fond look, before turning his attention to his nephew. “There is no glory in the killing, you know. Surviving the battle is the only thing.”

Rodney gave another knowing nod, but he persisted, “Did you kill many, Uncle?”

“My share, Rodney.” Gray twisted his napkin into a tight rope. “I killed my share.”

Mr. Hendrick then insisted Rodney hurry off to his lessons. Gray poured himself another cup of coffee and forced himself to take a bite of an unbuttered roll. Not from appetite. His appetite fled with memories of war. Or was it being reminded of what he’d left behind to go to war? In any event, food would settle his stomach.

Olivia remained in the room, though she seemed to have finished eating. Gray suspected she felt obliged to keep him company.

He could still vividly recall the day he’d first seen her, fair and golden-haired, as delicate as a bisque figurine. Vincent had brought her to visit Summerton after their betrothal. Gray had been home from school for the summer, a very impressionable fourteen-year-old. She must have been only a few years older than he, and he’d thought her the most beautiful creature who’d ever graced the earth. He was wildly jealous of his brother, who constantly was in her company, taking her arm, leaning over to share some words with her.

Olivia was still beautiful, Gray thought, observing her over his coffee cup. Not quite the newly bloomed rosebud of her youth, but far from the withering flower she’d been after his brother died. And he had left.

She must have caught him staring, because her hand fluttered nervously to her face.

“Olivia, I am sorry.”

She flushed a becoming shade of pink. “For what?”

“For leaving you and Rodney after Vincent died. I thought of myself, I confess, not you.”

“Oh,” she said with a shy smile. “But it was important for you to fight Napoleon.”

He could almost hear himself arguing with his father. It was his duty to his country, he’d claimed. His honor depended upon it. Their arguments had never been quiet ones, and Olivia must have heard many of them. He wondered now if all his lofty words were not merely excuses to escape his father.

“How did you fare after I left?”

Her expression changed, giving him a glimpse of the toll his brother’s loss and his abandonment took on her. “I was, I fear, in the dismals for a long time.” She sighed. “I could not shake them off. Vincent was my whole world, you know, and all I had left was Rodney. I daresay I might have done something foolish if it had not been for him.”

He’d failed another young mother and hadn’t even thought to add her to his tally.

She went on, “I suppose it was Maggie who truly helped.”

“Maggie?” He raised his brows.

She smiled. “Oh, yes. I am not certain how she accomplished it, but she raised my spirits.” She gave him a pointed look. “I do not know how I would go on without her. She is an exceptional person, Gray.”

He could not meet her eye. “Indeed. Exceptional.”

Maggie.

Her name was like a splash of cold water dumped over his head. So Olivia was another of the woman’s allies? He still had difficulty even thinking her name. “Maggie” caught in his throat, much too intimate for what he felt about her.

Liar,
he told himself.
You whispered her name in the dark readily enough last night.

“Where is the exceptional Maggie this morning?” he asked, eager to change the direction of his thoughts.

“With Lord Summerton, I believe,” Olivia replied. “She usually spends time with him at this hour.”

Consolidating her forces. Who knew what stories she poured in his father’s ear? His lordship would be predisposed to think the worst of his son, of that he could be certain.

By God, he’d confront her sober this very day, before she finished her work on his father and sister-in-law. He’d be damned if he would wait in line for her, though, cooling his heels outside his father’s door until she was at liberty to grant him an interview. He knew very well when he could get her alone.

He stuffed a couple of rolls into his pocket and stood up. “I believe I’ll take a look around the estate today, Olivia. Maybe ride into the village.”

Olivia’s brow furrowed. “I could fetch Maggie for you, if you wish.”

“No. I’ve no need of her.”

“Gray?” Olivia asked. “Might . . . might I ask what happened between you and Maggie? To estrange you from each other? I mean, if you do not mind telling me.”

He gave her an intent look. “What does
she
say?”

Olivia rolled her eyes in exasperation. “Nothing.”

“Perhaps she tells the truth.”

Olivia’s brow wrinkled at his remark.

“I’ll be back in time for dinner,” he added before leaving the room.

Maggie strolled behind Sean, who was giddy with the freedom of running and jumping without a hand to hold him fast. Never straying far, he ran back to her often lest the distance between them become too great.

They sang a song as they walked, or to be more accurate, Maggie sang and Sean added the words he knew, unless something more interesting, like a butterfly or a flower or a pebble, caught his interest.

“Abroad as I was walking

Down by the river side,

I gazed all around me,

An Irish girl I spied . . .”

As Maggie sang she swung her basket back and forth in time to the tune. It was heavy with the bread, jam, cheese, and two plucked fowl she was carrying to one of the tenants. The day was fine, with the peacefulness one could only find in the country. Sean was happy, and she could let go of her troubles for a time. It would do no good to worry about her next confrontation with Gray, not when there was such a glorious day to be savored. There might be precious few days left at Summerton.

“I wish my love was a red rose,

And in the garden grew,

And I to be the gardener;

To her I would be true . . .”

“Look, Mama.” Sean stopped, his little finger pointing toward the field to their right. “Horfe.”

Sure enough a horse and rider approached, cantering toward them. Maggie stopped singing, her hand steadying her bonnet.

Captain Grayson. She recognized him even at this distance. It had taken only one glimpse of his image on horseback to indelibly embed it in her mind. He headed straight for them.

She considered seizing Sean and running as if the devil pursued them, but much good that would do. She could not hope to outrun a horse, especially one ridden by a cavalry officer. Sean hopped up and down.

“Papa’s horfe!” He suddenly took off like a shot straight toward the horse.

Maggie dropped her basket and ran after him, her skirts catching in the long grass. She grabbed him just as the rider reined in.

“I would not have run him over, you know.” The captain’s tone was unfriendly.

“Horfe, Mama.
Horfe.
” Sean struggled so in her arms that it took all her strength to contain him. She could not think about the man who sat so erect on his beautiful black horse.

“Bring him here.” Grayson urged his mount closer.

Maggie hesitated, but Sean immediately caught on to what he offered. His little hands reached for Gray.

“I don’t eat children, Maggie.” Her name rolled off his tongue like sour-tasting berries. “Let him ride with me.”

Against all her maternal inclinations and any good sense God had given her, she lifted Sean up into Gray’s strong hands. He sat the boy in front of him on the saddle, one arm holding him in place.

“Mama! Mama!” Sean cried with joy. “Horfe.”

Grayson nudged the horse into a walk, and Maggie followed them to the path where she’d left her basket. He waited for her while she picked it up.

“Where are you bound?” His gaze bore down at her.

She shaded her face with her hand as she looked up at him on the tall horse. “One of the tenants is near her time. Her husband broke his leg, so they are in some difficulty. I am bringing them food.”

“Who is it?”

“Caleb Adams and his wife, Mary.”

“Caleb, you say?” The veriest hint of emotion crept in. “We were boys together. Are they in the old Adams cottage down this lane?”

“Yes.”

“I will accompany you. I should like to see Caleb.”

She nodded. What else could she do but agree?

He followed a pace or two behind her, which only made her more uneasy. She could not see Sean. Worse, she could feel Gray’s eyes upon her.

She had expected to encounter him in the house before she left for her outing, had braced herself for his entrance in the breakfast room, had anticipated him pulling her into some room alone and renewing his shocking proposition.

There was no doubt in her mind that she was as susceptible as ever to a man’s seduction. Why, she could even now still feel the heat of Gray’s kiss, the reawakening of sensations she’d carefully buried . . . after her false husband’s accident.

During the last two years, she had gone over in her mind every moment that had led to the folly of marrying him. Oh, at the time she had told herself theirs was a grand love match, romantic in its haste and secrecy, but in truth she had wanted the marital bed as much as he had. Now she realized the marital bed was
all
he had wanted. She had thought herself so virtuous to insist upon a wedding first, but he had utterly fooled her. He had been false from the start, pretending to be a person he was not. Pretending to be Captain John Grayson.

She glanced back at the real Captain Grayson. His eyes met hers and even from this distance she could feel the wrath in his gaze. She quickly turned away. His anger was more than justified. He had been ill-used indeed, first by her false husband . . . and now by her.

She ought to have anticipated his return. Sir Francis had long ago explained that Lord Summerton had banished the captain from the estate when he had joined the army. The earl favored the eldest son and had no use for the younger, Sir Francis said. The reason had something to do with Gray’s mother.