The Irish Bride (22 page)

Not that Rietta would sacrifice herself to preserve her virginity, he hoped. He’d much rather have a willing wife. As he thought that, it struck him that she might never be willing.

“Very well, Rietta. It will be as you wish. You need time to accustom yourself to all this.”

She let out a breath she seemed to have been holding a long time. “Yes. I feel like I’ve been picked up by a whirlwind and dropped into another world.”

“I only wish my world had more to offer you. We should discuss many things that you will need to know, but not tonight, I think.”

Her smile warmed him, making him feel less of a brute. After all she’d been through, he really had no business even being in her room. Certainly, making advances to her was the act of an unfeeling cad. Sitting in his room earlier, he’d told himself not to trouble her, only to find himself powerless before the compulsion to visit her, to prove with the evidence of his eyes and hands that she was indeed his bride.

“Who’s that?” he asked, glad of the interrupting knock. A third party would make it easier yet to control his needs.

“Only the maid. Your mother sent for tea.”

“Mother’s tea. You’ll find she has a tea or tisane for every ill from a headache to ... to gangrene.”

Nick stood by the fire while Sarah Boole brought in the tray. He kicked at the ill-burning log both to let the air in and to change the pictures he saw in the depths of the embers. He heard Rietta speak to the girl.

“Thank you, Sarah. Pass my thanks to the others.”

“Yes, m’lady. Thank you, m’lady.” She curtsied her way to the door. On the threshold, she took courage. “May the Lord keep ye in His hand, m’lady, and never close His fist too tight upon ye.”

“May I see you gray and combing your grandchildren’s hair, Sarah."

The girl grinned, showing the wide space between her two front teeth. Her bright eyes flicked between the man and the woman, then she giggled, cast her apron over her face, and ran from the room.

“You’ve made her great in the eyes of her fellows,” Nick said, sitting down.

“Have I?”

“She’s the first one to see you, but she won’t be the last.”

“I’ll pay a call in the servant’s hall tomorrow, if you don’t think your mother would find it impertinent.”

“She’ll most likely take you there herself. She can’t wait to show you off.” He leaned forward to cover her hand with his own, then remembering her strictures, took a cup of tea instead. After a sip, he made a face.

“You’d prefer whiskey, no doubt.”

“I’m not a drinking man. At least not often. A man hopes that drink will destroy the thoughts he cannot bear; in truth, it only ruins the strength he needs to bear them.”

“Have you many thoughts that you cannot bear?”

Chapter Fourteen

Nick sat back,
seemingly at ease, but Rietta had seen the slight tremor in his hand until he’d lowered it to his knee. Now she noticed that he gripped tight, his fingers pressing into the cloth of his breeches. Yet his other hand was as steady as could be as he lifted the cup to his lips.

“You’ve been talking to my mother,” he said with a laugh so nearly believable that anyone else would have thought all was well.

“Yes. She’s troubled in her mind about you.”

“She’s a good mother, but she should realize that we’re not children anymore.”

“Perhaps, to a good mother, her children are always children. Perhaps worrying about them becomes a habit impossible to break.”

Sipping from her own teacup, she watched him over the brim. She didn’t doubt that Lady Kirwan had reason for concern, but never having met Nick before his return from Europe, she herself could not judge how much he’d changed. Except for the trembling hand, which he seemed to have under control, she could discern nothing amiss.

“Does she have cause?” she asked. “I’m not idly curious, you understand.”

“Yes, I see that you’d rather not have married some man of unpredictable moods, prey to gloomy ruminations upon mortality.”

Rietta smiled warmly at him. “No woman minds a philosophical man, so long as he doesn’t pursue it when there are more vital issues at hand.”

“Like?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Musing on theology while the supper burns.”

“I’m not much of a cook. My friends used to tell me they’d rather have a Spanish muleteer cook supper than me.”

“You had no servants?”

“Batmen, Rietta, we call them batmen. Oh, yes, I had MacMurray—a short, plump fellow from the Lowlands of Scotland. Whoever went short in the regiment, it wouldn’t be MacMurray. Once, I remember, he found us rabbits on a night so wet and dark the bivouac fires looked like volcanoes of mud. The Spaniards couldn’t find their own stew pans, let alone anything to put in ‘em, but MacMurray came back with a brace of rabbits—scrawny enough, but the first meat we’d seen in a week. Cashman said those rabbits saved his life....”

He stood up abruptly, almost turning over his chair. He caught it, set it upright, and threw her a swift sideways glance as though wondering if she’d noticed his perturbation. “I’ll say good night.”

“Good night,
Nick.”

“If you need anything in the night,” he said, after clearing his throat, “knock on my door.”

“Which is your room?”

He paused, out of all proportion to the question. Then he stepped to what she’d thought was a closed window curtain. Drawing back the swath of blue silk, he looped the heavily tasseled tie over a wall hook. Underneath the curtain was a six-paneled door that matched the door to the corridor.

“This is mine,” Nick said. “Our rooms connect.”

“Do they, now.”

“Naturally, my mother and sisters assumed ... they made the natural assumption. You needn’t worry, Rietta. The door has a lock—on this side.”

“Must I ask you for the key?” Rietta asked, holding out her hand.

Nick tossed his head toward a delicate ladies’ desk against the same wall. “It’s in the top left drawer. You’ll have to get it out to let me through. And if I may have the loan of a candle? They weren’t expecting me to use the room tonight.”

“Won’t the servants wonder if you use it?”

“Let them. They’ll talk about us anyway.”

The key was long and gilded, with a faded blue ribbon tied through the scrollwork at the top. Nick slipped it easily enough into the lock but, though he tried until the veins stood out on his twisted hand, he could not turn it. “Rusted through,” he said, stepping back.

“Perhaps it needs oil.”

“No doubt. It’s been a long time since these rooms were occupied. Mother left this one when she became a widow.”

“I didn’t put her out? I wondered.”

“She always planned to leave it when I married anyway. Of course, I have my father’s old room, but the bed’s too soft.... Listen to me run on. I forgot for a moment that you’ve no interest in my bed. Here, take the key and put it away and bury all my hopes of you coming through that door with it.”

“Good night, Nick,” Rietta said, controlling her lips with effort. They so wanted to smile. “You’ll have to risk the hall.”

“Good night,” he said again, but didn’t move toward either door. “I wonder if I may ask a favor, Rietta?”

“Of course.”

“May I... ?” He opened his arms stiffly, awkwardly, as if afraid of a rebuff.

Rietta walked into his embrace. His arms closed about her, warm and strong. Nick made no advance. He merely held her tightly, his cheek resting atop her head. Her own arms were looped lightly about his waist, his warmth seeping through to her. She had not realized how completely chilled she was until he wrapped her up in his strength. Rietta closed her eyes, savoring the moment.

They stood like that, their separate rhythms of breath mingling into one even pace, until the clock chimed softly. As though it awoke them from a spell, they stirred and parted in the same instant. Rietta felt him drop a kiss upon her hair before she opened her eyes to find herself alone. One candle was missing from a branch of three on the dressing table.

Rietta had never known the pleasure of a simple, spontaneous embrace. Her father was not demonstrative with his children and her sister accepted the affection of others but offered little generosity in return. Was Nick’s the action of a generous man, giving comfort and warmth without expecting any recompense? She knew what she could give him in return.

Nick’s arms around her had seemed to send a heavenly shaft of light flooding through her body. To be cherished like that was all she’d ever wanted. Rietta promised herself that she would prove to be worthy of Nick’s affection. She vowed that she would be an absolute saint. Not another word of recrimination for his actions tonight would ever pass her lips. After all, he had saved her from the fearsome fate that her father had threatened. The manner of her wooing may not have been all a girl dreams of, but at least she’d met Nick before she’d been forced into marriage.

Whether it was exhaustion, chamomile tea, or simply a desire to escape into the relatively simpler world of dreams, Rietta fell asleep almost before her head touched the pillow. When she awoke, it was to a sensation that no time at all had passed.

She lay on the bed, quite cold, the bedclothes tumbled and tossed so that hardly a corner covered her. Contrary to all training and habit, Rietta had only removed her gown and corset before falling asleep. She’d always despised sleeping in her petticoat, and thought it the epitome of vulgar laziness. This one time, she hoped that circumstances would plead for her before whatever judge punished lazybones. She would have changed had she not literally run out of strength and energy by the time she’d unlaced her gown and washed her face.

At first, she attempted to pull the smooth linen sheet over her shoulder and retreat again into sleep. Yet it was not bodily discomfort that had awakened her. Something else had done that—a sound on the farthest shore of consciousness.

A faint white light washed through the curtains. Rietta sat up, rubbing her forehead in an attempt to clear her head. She shuffled her feet across the carpet as she crossed to open the curtain. Was it dawn?

Rietta blinked stupidly at the darkness beyond the window. Had she slept all day and into the following night? Or, horrible thought, had she hardly been asleep any time at all?

The moon had to be riding the sky above the house, for there was milk-pale light everywhere, deepening the shadows to impenetrable depths but highlighting trees and the undulating ground. Rietta thought the view in daylight from this window must be remarkable both for beauty and tranquility. The colors of the flowers were all asleep under that bleaching light, but the beds looked well-filled and healthy.

Rietta yawned and indulged in an ill-mannered scratch of her neck. She’d take a moment to change into something more seemly and then the world could just try to wake her. She started to untie her petticoat, then became aware of a strange sound.

All the time she’d been gazing like a moonstruck ninny out of the window, this sound had been with her. Perhaps her neck had itched because of rising hackles.

It was a voice, murmuring on and on, as ceaseless and as senseless as the waves tumbling onto shore. Was it Emma, dreaming of her false-hearted lover? Lady Kirwan, as troubled in sleep as in her waking?

Rietta didn’t yet know enough about Amelia to hazard a guess over her secret sorrow. Advancing to the hall door, Rietta pulled it open as silently as possible and stood listening. Somewhere a clock was ticking, monotonous and reassuring. A skritching in the wainscoting told her that at least one mouse was keeping its tiny nose to the grindstone. But she didn’t hear the faint rumble of an indecipherable voice.

She drew back into her room and instantly dismissed the idea of ghosts. Nick would have told her if Greenwood was haunted. But the prickly feeling on the back of her neck wouldn’t leave her.

Then she could have slapped her forehead. Of course. The sound came from Nick’s room. Once she realized it, she recognized his voice—the rhythms, the depth, the thousand and one tones that expressed feeling. But who was he talking to so late? His mother, perhaps, come to see why her son had returned to his own room instead of lying close to his bride of a few hours.

Rietta raised her hand but thought better of knocking. Her feelings toward Nick had whipsawed too much already. The intimacy of calling him through a matrimonial door might increase his already matrimonial ideas.

Instead, Rietta turned her ear toward the door. She didn’t press against the keyhole or fetch the water glass from her bedside to amplify the sounds. She simply listened, her concern her excuse.

At first, she heard only a continuation of the confused murmuring. Then a long silence—so Jong that she straightened up with a kink in her back. Just as she was about to give up, she heard a shout.

“No! Not that way, you bloody fool!”

His voice fell off again. A man being tortured, fighting to defy his tormentors with silence, must make those same muffled gasps and cries. Only a few words were understandable and those wretched pleas wrenched Rietta’s heart. “No ... oh, God. Go back. Please. Please go back.”

Snatching up a silken shawl from the foot of the bed, Rietta swirled it about her shoulders. Barefoot and swift, she passed from her room to Nick’s without so much as a glance about her to see if anyone was watching. The house lay as if under a spell of silent enchantment.

Rietta pushed open Nick’s door and stole in. His curtains were wide open, the maddening moonlight pouring in like a cataract of quicksilver. Nick lay as though on a gridiron, the crosspieces of his window frames quartering the moonlight with shadows. His coverlet, pillows, and nightcap had all slithered to the floor.

Slipping closer, Rietta whispered, “Nick?”

He muttered in sleep, a grumbling sound like a thunderstorm threatening on the horizon. He was sprawled out, every limb pointing to a different compass heading. The moonlight was so brilliant, she could see the sheen of sweat on his forehead and the restlessness of his eyes beneath their lids.

“Nick,” she said again, reaching for his hand. His skin felt as hot as a coal snatched from the fire. A delirious notion of sliding into bed beside him possessed her. What would it be like to share so much heat?