The Next Best Bride (28 page)

"I said leave that for Dibby," he whispered as forcefully as he dared without waking Helena.

Nanny Bea stood, bundling her apron around her burden tightly so that the shards made little noise. "I've taken care of the mess now, milord. No need to trouble Dibby."

He followed her out into the hall. He was not pleased that Nanny Bea had joined the household. "Why are you not at Avonmeade with my bastards? Do you want a larger salary?"

She didn't offer excuses. Only reasons. As always. "Your grandfather called me and asked me to come to look after your wife. He trusted me, as he does not trust you. Or her, I'm afraid."

He reminded himself that Nanny Bea had been loyal to him always, even through the worst. "I know why he called you. I asked why you came."

She looked at him steadily, her tone a nursery room scold for a child who was not seeing what was right before his eyes. "Would you rather he hired some other woman you neither know nor trust to see to your wife? Things are in hand at Avonmeade, I would not have left otherwise."

He wanted to believe her. Wanted to believe she would not hurt Helena. But she was a wise woman, and knew the use of herbs better than most. "What was in the tea?"

"Nothing that will hurt your wife." Her gaze flicked away from him as she spoke, though she brought her eyes back to his almost before they left his face.

Nothing that would hurt his wife.
His stomach began to ache. "And the child?"

Her hands fidgeted, making the broken pottery captured in her apron click together erratically. "He thinks it best for there to be no questions about your heir." Her eyes full of sympathy, she spoke slowly, as if afraid her words might hurt him. "He has good reason to believe the child may not be yours."

Damn. His grandfather had spilled Helena's secret to Nanny Bea. "He told me. I assured him she had been the victim of a libertine of the worst order and that there was no chance the child was not mine."

She seemed surprised. Her mouth curved up in the enigmatic smile she had tormented him with when he was a child. Never knowing if he had pleased her or come too close to disappointing her. "What would you have me do?"

"Protect Helena and the child from him." He wondered if the frail woman was up to the challenge of besting the marquess right under his very nose. She had done her best when he was a boy. But she was older now.

"Have you thought of the consequences of opposing him?" She sighed. "It might be wiser to let him have his way."

Perhaps better for himself, but not better for the innocent woman he had dragged into their battle by benefit of marriage, Rand was certain. He had already as good as crushed her heart under his boot, he would not be the cause of her losing their child if he could help it. "I've let him have his way so often that I don't even know myself anymore. Not this time. Even if you won't help."

"I never said I wouldn't help." She raised a wrinkled hand to his cheek. "But your grandfather won't give up. There's really only one way to protect her. And only you can do it."

"What? Take her far away and never look back?"

She frowned, as if she thought he was being deliberately obtuse. "Tell her the truth."

The truth? No. She was the first person since Jenny to look past his glib exterior and see a man worth loving. That they had both been wrong was beside the point. He would be damned before he'd tell her that he wasn't the man she thought him. "I've told her all the truth she needs to know. That I am not a man who can love anyone." He tightened his fists. "Or a man any woman is wise to love."

She patted his cheek with a sharpness just short of a slap. "How you can bring yourself to hurt that sweet creature, I never can guess, my lord."

Rand looked at Nanny Bea with a pained expression.

She never called him my lord unless she was greatly put out with him. "If I don’t, she could end up drowned like Silky."

She scoffed. "Silky was a puppy. Your wife is a woman grown."

"A wife, Nanny. Not a gamekeeper’s son to be sent away as fitting punishment for daring me to climb a tree and sprain my arm. Or a tutor to be fired at a moment’s notice for not caning me when I stumbled with a sum. Or Jenny. My wife has a family. She cannot so easily be got rid of. Do you want to test his limits?"

"Perhaps he’s softened some in his old age?" There was a strain of hope in her voice.

"You've been away from him too long if you think that."

"If there is a chance..."

Rand shook his head. "You think I should test him with my wife? And if he hasn’t softened with age? What will become of her then?"

Nanny Bea shook her head. There were tears in her eyes. "You can’t do this alone. You’re right about her being your wife and not being so easily dismissed. There’s only one thing you can do. Tell her."

"I can never do that."

"You must."

She meant well, he knew it. But no one, not even Nanny Bea fully understood his grandfather. He didn't want to argue any longer. "She would not believe me, anyway. She thinks he is everything he seems to be."

He moved down the staircase blindly, wanting peace. The door to Helena's studio was open and he entered. She said she had finished the portrait of him and he was curious to see it.

The room had changed greatly in the two months since he had left here. The old musical instruments were gone. The rugs had been rolled and no doubt carted to the attics. There was an airy feel to the room. Not entirely workmanlike. Dainty chairs grouped around a table made a feminine rest area.

He admired the neat way she had organized her supplies. The easel she had placed to catch the best light. The painting she had just finished still rested upon the easel. He walked around to take a look, his stomach clenching in anticipation.

The portrait itself struck him like a blow. Just as she had promised, he was dressed. Like the sketch she had showed him, he and his horse were caught in mid-leap over a stile. But the color, and the size, and the detail made everything plain to him. She loved him. It was there in every careful detail of the portrait.

He closed his eyes, fighting the rage that threatened to spill out at last. He would not let the demon in him free in this bright and hopeful room. He would not damage her work. He would not. No matter how much he wanted to smash the portrait of himself as she saw him. As he could never be.

* * * * *

Helena woke abruptly to find it was full dark. Groggily she realized that Marie must not have awakened her for dinner. She sat up and saw the napkin covered tray, the pitcher of lemonade, a favorite treat of hers.

She glanced at the closed connecting door between her room and Rand's. He must have told Marie not to wake her. Had he also thought her too tired for a visit from her husband? She hoped not.

The rest had done her good, she realized. She must thank him for his concern. If only the marquess would not take it amiss that she had missed dinner. Did not consider it a mark against her. Think it showed some weakness of the younger generation. She sighed. She would have to tell Marie not to let her sleep through dinner again.

A thud from his room brought her fully alert. She realized that a matching thud had been what pulled her from her exhausted slumber in the first place. She rose and pressed her ear against the door. She heard only silence.

Without giving herself a moment to be afraid, she opened the door and went through. Rand sat slumped in a chair by the fire, a nearly empty bottle of brandy clutched in his fist.

Unbidden, the stories Mrs. Robson and Marie had told rose up in her mind. Madness. Murder. She dismissed the suspicions. He was drunk. She had seen him drunk before, though she wished never to do so again.

And then she took in the state of his room. The mattress had been torn from his bed. The bed hangings ripped and shredded into ruins. A mirror hung shattered and crooked upon the wall. How had she slept through this destruction?

He was awake, she discovered, as he said, "You should be asleep, Helena. Walking about in the middle of the night is not good for the child." His voice was raw. From drinking so much, she supposed.

The child. She did not think he cared a fig for the child. He simply wanted her to leave him alone. "Why have you done this?"

The painful sound of his voice made her throat ache in sympathy. "I saw the painting. You are more talented than even I expected."

Did he consider that an answer to her question or a change of subject? "I am pleased with it." Was he too drunk to hold a sensible conversation with her?

"You should be." His words carried brutal accusation. "You created a miracle with your brushes. You turned a weak and infinitely flawed man into a hero ready to ride to the rescue of his fair damsel."

"I painted what I saw." Had her painting turned him to drink? Had she allowed the stories from Mrs. Robson and Marie to color her work? Did Rand spy a hint of madness in how she saw him? The thought horrified her.

She had fought believing such a thing of him. But the evidence of this room... "Have you gone mad?" From where she got the courage to ask him outright she couldn't have said.

A stillness came over him. But not surprise. She thought he must have been expecting the question. "What do you mean?"

"Marie told me. And Mrs. Robson. About the harp." She did not dare bring up the village girl. That was rumor. Unlike the harp she had seen with her own eyes.

He didn't look at her, although he raised the bottle to his lips and took a drink. His arm fell back to the floor limply, the remaining brandy sloshing in the silence. "They told you about Jenny, as well, I suppose. And you believed them, of course."

"If you tell me differently, I will believe you."

"Then you are truly a loyal little fool." He raised his head to look at her and his eyes were not unfocused, as she expected. They blazed at her. Terrified her. His voice rasped ominously, like a rusty hinge. "I'm not fit company tonight, Helena. Go back to your bed."

She wanted to comply. Her legs were rubbery with fear. But she was his wife. And her painting had somehow helped to cause the incomprehensible pain that visibly wracked him. "Can I not help? A pot of tea? A cold cloth for your head?"

He laughed. "Help? There is no help." His laughter halted in a fit of coughing.

She wanted to go to him, but her feet were too heavy to command. "Surely there is something I can do."

His look pinned her and he smiled. A terrible parody of his usual smile. The dimple jagged like a crazed scar down his cheek. He seemed to know the fear that choked up inside her. "There is."

"Name it." Her voice sounded reedy and thin, even to her own ears, but he showed no signs that he noticed.

"Go back to bed."

"But..."

"I want to win my wager, Helena. I am more likely to do so if you have a healthy child, am I not?"

"Yes."

"Then go back to bed and we will both be better off."

She managed to force herself to walk steadily out the door. But once it closed behind her, she could not help herself. She turned the key in the lock. And then she leaned against the sturdy oak bonelessly, trembling like a leaf in a gale wind.

Chapter Twenty Two

Rand woke with the sun shining in his eyes. His drapes were opened wide. No doubt Griggson's subtle reminder to him that he was expected to rise at some point in the godforsaken day. He groaned and commanded himself to get out of bed. But the pounding in his head and the sudden bile that rose in his throat convinced him to do so would be much too much effort just now.

No matter what Griggson thought, there was absolutely no good reason for Rand to go to all the effort to rise, wash, dress. This day would be like every other day for the last two weeks. Sheer hell.

Two weeks of wanting her and the absolution she hoped to give him. Two weeks of not taking what she bravely offered him each night, despite her obvious fear. Because he did not want his grandfather to hurt her. And he did not know how to protect her. He sighed. If he was not already mad, he soon would be.

She was afraid of him now. She knew about his past. And she, like everyone else thought him finally, irrevocably, run mad. Although, with courage he could only admire, she had not chosen to desert him. No, worse than that, she still wanted to rescue him.

Even a solid fortnight of drinking and a constant crashing hangover had not erased the sight of her from his memory. Wanting to run and yet offering him help. He had craved to tell her to stay. He had longed to bury his troubles in her soft body and pretend that all would be well in the morning. But even with a bottle of brandy in him, he had known that would only be a lie.

He felt trapped like a butterfly in a jar. Unable to leave for fear of what his grandfather might do to her. Unable to face her without brandy burning warm in his gut. Face her courage. Her questions. Her hope. Haunted by her, he rose at last, ignoring the pounding of his head. He rang for Griggson and when the valet came, he demanded a bath be prepared. "I'm done rusticating, Griggson, it's back to London for us."

"As you wish, sir." The valet nodded impassively.

Dressed, shaved, feeling better than he had since he had faced the portrait, he cornered Nanny Bea in the hall. "I am leaving, for my sake. For hers. Promise me she will be safe."

She looked at him sternly. "I can't promise such a thing. Already your grandfather is impatient that the tea I am supposedly giving her has not worked."

"I can't leave her unprotected. But if I stay I will go out of my mind."

"Tell her the truth, then. She’s not so softheaded as you think, my boy. Give her a chance. Her heart is loyal and she loves you."

Helena was most definitely loyal. To the point of lunacy, perhaps. "Loves me?" It was his turn to scoff. "She wishes me to Hades and no doubt about it."

"So? All wives should wish their husbands to Hades when they behave as badly as you have. First you leave her alone for two months and then you come back and treat her like she's a flame and you're an icicle."

"You know why I must keep her at a distance." She was perhaps the only one who truly understood. "Grandfather must not believe Helena is more than means to an end for me."