The Improper Wife (22 page)

“Oh,” she said in surprise. “I beg your pardon.”

Gray stepped aside.

“I play, Papa!” Sean ran ahead to the park.

“What is all this?” Gray asked, pointing to the basket. He had not meant to make his voice sound so disapproving.

Maggie seemed to ignore his tone. Her eyes lit with excitement instead. “Mary Adams had her baby last night. Her son came with word a little while ago. I’m taking her some food and some baby things Olivia and I made.” She pulled out a tiny cotton dress to show him.

“The ground is still wet,” he said. “You’ll be slogging through mud.”

Sean’s shoes were already muddied as he chased a small bird across the lawn.

She shrugged. “We shall manage.” She walked past him, calling for Sean to come with her.

“One moment, Maggie,” he said.

She stopped.

“I will drive you in the curricle.”

She raised her eyes to his. When she did so, that sense of connection returned. It often did for him when their eyes met.

“I do not mind walking, Gray.” The blue of her eyes sparkled like sapphires.

“I insist,” he murmured, still caught in her gaze.

“As you wish,” she responded, almost in a whisper.

They had not spent any time together, not without Olivia or his father or even Sir Francis being present. Gray found himself looking forward to the outing. He told himself it was due to Caleb’s happy news. Sean would provide enough of a chaperone.

“Come back in the house. I’ll send for the curricle.” He looked toward Sean. “Sean,” he shouted. “Come here!”

Sean turned and looked at him, but went on playing in the grass.

“Sean!” he shouted again. “Horse!”

Sean came running.

Gray and Maggie each kept up a running conversation with Sean during the short trip to the tenant’s cottage. They did not talk to each other. It put Gray in mind of the first time he’d been alone in a girl’s company. He’d not known what to say then, either. Sean rose to the occasion by having much to say about the “horfes” and the “curkle,” so the time was spent pleasantly.

The roads were passable but not ideal and the mud that might have caked Maggie’s and Sean’s boots instead gave the horses harder going.

When they reached the Adamses’ cottage, Caleb’s son ran to greet them and to hold the horses. Gray put Sean on his shoulders before he jumped down from the two-wheeled chaise. He flipped Sean to the ground, a dismount the boy loved. Gray turned to give Maggie his hand. As she started to step off, the horses shifted, jostling the curricle. He grabbed her by the waist and she fell against him. For a brief moment he held her in that sudden embrace, feeling all her softness and inhaling her lavender scent.

Then her feet found the earth, and Caleb limped out of the cottage. Young Bob tended to the horses and took charge of Sean, as he had done the last time they had visited.

Gray extended his hand to Caleb. “I understand congratulations are in order.”

When Caleb let go of the handshake there was a gold guinea in his palm. The man stared at it.

“Something for the wee one,” Gray said.

He glanced at Maggie. Approval shone in her eyes.

She turned to Caleb. “How is Mary? Is she well enough for callers?”

With pride, Caleb said, “She’s right as rain. Wouldn’t even stay abed. She’ll be honored t’see you.”

Caleb waited for them to enter the house first. A small fire was cheerfully burning in the parlor and Caleb’s wife was hurriedly putting on a kettle to boil.

Maggie hurried to her. “Mary, do not trouble yourself. Ought you not to rest?”

Mary gave an awkward curtsy to Gray and smiled at Maggie. “I am fit enough to serve you some tea, ma’am. The second was a breeze to the first.”

Maggie put her arm around the woman and led her over to a rocking chair and handed her the basket. “We certainly shall not put you to the trouble. I have brought some food for you and some gifts for the baby.”

As if receiving a cue on a stage, the baby began crying. The sound was jarringly familiar, Gray realized. He’d heard such cries when Sean took his first breath.

Mary tried to rise, but Maggie shooed her down. “May I pick him up? It is a boy, is it not?”

She stooped down to the wooden crib next to Mary’s chair and picked up the infant who quieted suddenly. She cradled the baby in her arms.

“Oooooh.” She beamed. “What a lovely boy.”

“Come look at him, sir,” Caleb said proudly.

Gray obliged out of politeness. He gazed down at the infant with his miniature features and shock of dark hair. The baby’s arms and feet were waving about and his mouth was open. As Gray watched, the baby turned its head, rooting at Maggie’s breast.

She laughed and their eyes caught.

Gray knew her thoughts as certainly as he was convinced she knew his. They both traveled back to that day a little over two years ago, in a small room not so unlike this one, where their eyes had met over another newborn.

The baby started to cry, having not found what he was seeking. Maggie smiled at Gray, a smile of remembrance. She did not speak, but there was no need of words.

She handed the baby to the mother. “We must go, Mary. We merely wished to deliver the basket. I will visit again another day. Send word to the house if there is anything you need, or anything we might do for you.”

“Thank you, ma’am,” Mary replied, clutching the newborn to her chest.

Another offer made as if she were lady of the manor, Gray thought, but he could not make himself care about it. The spell of the memory of Sean’s birth remained with him, a day that had connected him to Maggie in more ways than a name on marriage papers.

“I’ll see you out,” Caleb said, and they finished their farewells.

Rounding up Sean, they were soon on the road again. This time their silence joined rather than separated them.

They had not gone far when Sean mumbled, “Mama.” He crawled onto Maggie’s lap and she cuddled him in her arms. A moment later he was asleep.

Gray peeked over at him. “Visiting makes him sleepy, I gather. He slept the last time, as I recall.”

“He did indeed.” She smiled.

Their eyes caught again and Gray felt her gaze warming him, in a carnal way as well as in the special sharing of a memory. What was he to do about such feelings with a wife who was not a wife?

He turned his attention back to his driving. “He seems often in your company.” His voice came out brusquer than he’d intended. He glanced at her. “Do we not employ a governess?”

“I enjoy taking charge of him.” She brushed the soft hair from the sleeping child’s forehead, looking down at him with the same awed look she’d had that first day. It discomfited him more than his own carnal feelings did.

“Then why, pray, do we pay Miss Miles?” By God, he sounded vexatious and prosy, as bad as his father. “Isn’t the boy a bit young for a governess in any event? Would not a nurse do as well?” Could he not stop this absurd lecture?

She regarded him quizzically, as if he had just sprouted horns. Whatever had sprouted—or almost sprouted—had broken the connection between them.

Her countenance was stiff when she answered him, “Miss Miles was employed by the Camervilles before this, but Lady Camerville dismissed her.”

He kept his eyes on the road ahead, telling himself he was not really the sort of person who pulled wings off of butterflies.

She continued. “Lord Camerville had shown too much interest in Miss Miles—”

His brows lifted in surprise. “Cammy? He was a schoolmate of Vincent’s. Cammy was chasing maids in his school days.”

Perhaps they could converse comfortably after all.

“Mr. Hendrick interceded on Miss Miles’s behalf,” Maggie explained. “So we hired her. You have noticed, of course, that he is sweet on her?”

He had not, but at this point was not surprised the flirtations of a boy’s tutor were known to Maggie. It was merely another pie in which to dip her fingers.

He glanced at her and saw her softly rocking her sleeping son, rekindling the memories that connected him to her. He took a deep breath, determined not to foster this train of thought, but all he succeeded in doing was inhaling the scent of lavender.

“Hendrick is sweet on Miss Miles?” he finally managed. “We are matchmaking as well, madam?”

He had meant the comment as a jest, but she regarded him solemnly, as if he were demanding she explain herself.

“She would have been turned out without a reference. Olivia and I took pity on her.”

“You do take care of everything and everyone, do you not?”

She turned away.

He had meant that as a compliment, but it had come out wrong, sounding petulant and unnecessarily critical, and so like his father.

“I shall endeavor to make more use of Miss Miles.” Her voice was cold as frost.

Deuce. What she had done for Miss Miles was admirable. Why could he not have merely said so?

She fixed her attention on the distant landscape, pointedly not at him, and the distance between them grew.

He did not care, he told himself.

As they drew up to the house, one of the grooms ran out from the stables. Gray climbed down from the curricle.

“Come, Sean,” Maggie said, gently waking the boy.

Sean mumbled something and burrowed farther into her.

“Hand him to me.” As soon as he had Sean in his hands, the boy wrapped his arms around Gray’s neck and laid his head on Gray’s shoulder. Gray held him tight, remembering when Sean was an infant as small as Caleb’s son, light as a feather.

Holding the child in one arm, he gave Maggie his hand. When they touched, they again looked into each other’s eyes.

No matter how he protested, Gray thought, he was tied to this mother and child, and it was a bond that went much deeper than he had let himself suppose.

As soon as they crossed the threshold, Parker rushed up to him. “Master John, Lord and Lady Caufield have arrived. His lordship wishes to speak with you.” The butler was obviously quite discomposed, to lapse into using Gray’s Christian name.

“Trouble, Parker?” Gray asked. Why else this anxiety regarding a visit from his cousin? He handed Sean back to Maggie. “Is someone ill?”

“I have not his confidence.” The butler’s already wrinkled face gained additional creases. “You must come immediately.”

Gray followed the butler to the parlor and entered to find Harry, Tess, Olivia, and Sir Francis. Olivia was urging tea and biscuits on everyone, but tension crackled throughout the room.

Harry popped to his feet. “Gray, you are here at last. I must speak with you.”

Tess tossed him an agonized look. Olivia gave him a bewildered one. Sir Francis shrugged his shoulders.

“Of course, Harry. What is all this? What has happened?”

Harry gave a loud sigh. He rushed over and placed his hand on Gray’s arm. “Your trunk was delivered to Caufield House.”

“My trunk?” Gray blinked in bewilderment. This was the crisis? “I dispatched it to London.”

Harry let go and began pacing. “First it was misdirected. Went God knows where. By the time it arrived in London, we were already in the country. Trimble sent it on to us.”

“I apologize for the trouble of it. I shall collect it, of course.” Gray followed with his eyes, back and forth like watching a shuttlecock.

“No need. We have brought it to you.”

Maggie quietly slipped into the room. Seeing her, Harry mumbled, “A pleasure, Maggie.”

Tess jumped up from the settee and embraced her. “Oh, Maggie!” She dragged her to sit next to her, draping her arm around her.

“How nice of you to visit.” Maggie looked mystified.

“Yes, well, it is nice, I suppose. Oh, I do hope you are well—” Tess said, drama in her voice.

Gray cut her off. “Harry, what the devil is this about?”

Harry barely slowed his pace. “I am talking about your papers!”

“My papers?”

“Your trunk was damaged, Gray,” Tess cried. “Water leaked into the contents, so naturally we opened it to dry everything.”

Oh, yes, naturally. What could be more natural than Harry and Tess snooping into his property?

“Naturally.”

Tess blinked rapidly. “It was I who decided we must dry your papers. Do not hang that upon Harry.”

“You looked at my papers?” What the devil had they found?

“We saw it, Gray,” Harry intoned. “You may not deny it.”

“Deny what?”

“Your marriage to a Spanish girl.”

Gray felt the blood drain from his face. Of course. Along with other items of no importance, he’d packed the papers that had given permission for his marriage to Rosa.

All eyes were upon him. Olivia’s and Sir Francis’s confused. Tess’s accusing. Maggie’s? He could not tell.

He swept his arm over the room. “Harry, do tell us your conclusion of this inspection of my personal belongings.”

Harry lifted his chin in his most self-righteous expression. “Two wives, Gray? That is bigamy, sir! You are lost to all propriety, to all honor—”

“No.” Maggie tried to rise. Tess pulled her back down. “It is not true—”

Tess hugged her. “Dear one, there is no mistake.”

Harry chimed in. “The papers are very clear. He married a woman in Spain, November, 1813.”

Maggie wrenched herself from Tess’s grip and stood. “There
is
a mistake, but it is not Gray’s. You do not understand! He—”

“Silence, Maggie!” Gray’s voice boomed, startling them, startling himself most of all.

Their eyes were riveted upon him, too ready to believe, to condemn. While they waited expectantly, Maggie’s face contorted with pain.

Gray could not look at her. He swung around to his cousin. “You hasten to believe the worst of me, Harry?” He clenched his fist.

“The dates on the papers say it all, Cousin.” Harry gave him a significant look. “The marriage took place when you returned to Spain after your leave in England that year. And by that time—if one counts the months—well—you—you would have already . . . um . . .”

Gray’s eyes blazed. “I would have already been with Maggie. Is that what you mean?”

Harry gave him a priggish expression. “
Her
paper said—”

Gray’s grip on fury was rapidly slipping.