Virtue's Reward (17 page)

“I can hardly credit that you have discussed me with Mr. Garthwood. I have nothing of Edward’s, but not because I didn’t care for him.”

“So you have nothing of Sir Edward Blake’s, after all? Why does Garthwood think that you have?”

“I have no idea. How dare you talk about me in such a way?”

“Because you married Dickon, of course,” Harry said

“It would seem to me,” Helena said, rising to her feet with a sudden blush of color rushing to her cheeks, “that you are the last person to express concern for Richard. As for Mr. Garthwood, he is as welcome here as you are.”

“Rats!” Harry said. “I was rather afraid of that. But I will stop in from time to time, nevertheless.”

“You really don’t need to trouble yourself, sir.”

Harry’s expression was irrepressibly merry. “Don’t you think I should come and stay for some shooting?”

“I would prefer it, sir, if you did not even stay to take tea.”

“But I’m under orders, my lady. I must. Though tea isn’t necessary.”

“Under orders?” Helena said, thoroughly confused. “Whose orders?”

And this time Harry laughed out loud before bowing again and striding away to the stable.

“Richard’s, of course,” he said, and winked.

* * *

Helena plunged into the organization of the house. She had every room turned out and cleaned, and supervised the storage of supplies for the winter. Then she found solace in the library.

Among the ranks of leather-bound books, she discovered several titles that Richard had mentioned. She devoured them. There were also geographic guides and travelers’ tales. From the books about India she learned the history of that far-flung continent.
He was there,
she thought,
he has seen all this. Did he go hunting tigers riding an elephant?

No wonder he didn’t want to settle down at home. But then, why marry her in order to gain Acton Mead, if he didn’t actually intend to live there?

It was almost November. The nights were now noticeably dominating the days. Most of the leaves were stripped from the trees to dance away in the cold wind. The last petals from the white roses went skipping off to join them.

Helena came up through the home wood from the village, where she had been visiting a sick family, and walked into the drawing room. A bright fire burned in the grate. Standing before it, in a cut-off jacket and Eton collar, was a boy. There was no mistaking those black eyes and the shock of yellow hair, but the hands were rather grubby and he looked as if he could use a good wash behind the ears.

“Hello,” Helena said. “You must be John.”

“Who are you? How did you know?”

“I am Lady Lenwood, Richard’s wife, and it was easy to guess who you are. Your brother told me about you, and you look just like him.”

“Is he here?” John asked hopefully.

“Well,” Helena said, sitting down and waving the boy to a chair. “I’m afraid not, so I’ll have to do at present. How can I help you, sir?”

“I wouldn’t mind some cakes and stuff, actually,” John said. “I’m awfully hungry. I came all the way here in a wagon, you know. The blunt Pater sends wouldn’t stretch to a seat in the post chaise. Then I walked up from Mead Farthing and came in through the blue-room windows. I say, it looks awfully pretty in there now.”

“Thank you,” Helena said with a wry smile. He had the family charm, obviously, as well as the good looks. “I’ll ring for some tea and cakes—and scones, perhaps? First things first. Then I think you had better tell me why you have decided to visit.”

Half an hour later, after the tray of tea and cakes had been reduced to a couple of cold cups and a scattering of crumbs, and John had manfully endured the hugs and exclamations of Mrs. Hood, Helena invited him to sit opposite her at the fireplace once again.

“Well, I ran away, if you must know. Harris Major is an awful bully and he’s been picking dreadfully on some of the little chaps, so some of the fellows and I thought we’d pay him back.”

“What did you do?”

“We dumped all his clothes in the ditch in a pouring rainstorm. He’s a horrid dandy, too. You should have seen his face when he discovered all his collars and things all limp with mud.”

“Yes, I can imagine.”

“Well, Harris Major put up a frightful stink and we had to ’fess up. Three weeks detention and a whipping from old Potter for me—as ringleader, you know. I didn’t see that it was fair at all, so I ran away.”

“I see. And why did you come here?”

“I got a letter from Mater saying I was to come here for Christmas and I wanted to see Richard. He does live here now, doesn’t he?”

Helena looked away from the pleading black eyes and busied herself with the tea things.

“He’s in London at the moment.”

“Then can’t I stay here till he comes back? I’ll be on my best behavior, promise. Cross my heart and all that. I can help you with stuff and I’m awfully good at shooting sparrows. Richard will be pleased to see me when he comes home. He stopped by at school a few times and the other fellows weren’t half jealous that he was my brother, I can tell you. One time he was in uniform—it was splendid! I want to hear some more of his stories, too. Richard really has the very best stories, you know.”

“Yes, I know,” Helena said.

“Then I can stay? That’s terribly decent of you, Lady Lenwood. You won’t regret for a minute letting me visit you. Would you like to play a game of whist? I’m pretty good at whist.”

And so Helena found to her amazement that she was laughing and enjoying herself for the first time since the fateful day of the fair by entertaining Richard’s little brother John across the card table. He was good at whist. By the time she packed him off to bed, John had supplemented his pocket money with several shillings won from her purse.

* * *

The next day they went together to the village. John carried her basket. Helena could tell that he was really trying hard to act the gentleman, but on the way back she let him loose with his slingshot after sparrows and carried the empty basket herself. A few sparrows met an untimely shock, but less mayhem resulted than she had feared and a great deal of youthful energy was expended in the exercise. They came in together in the greatest good humor. The weary youth who was finally chased into bed by Mrs. Hood had more than earned the additional five shillings extracted from his hostess across the whist table.

With a smile Helena combed out her hair that night, thinking about some of the things John had said. He had all the family wit. He had even made up an impromptu poem. Richard never had told her the end to those verses he had begun that day in Exeter.

She shook her head and looked at herself in the mirror. A single candle burned in front of the glass. She was wearing only a light silk nightrail, since the dancing flames in the fireplace cast a warm glow over the room. The daily walks in the brisk air had brought color to her face, but she was paying for it in the inevitable entanglements that resulted in spite of the bonnet she wore. She was proud of her hair, but otherwise she really was quite ordinary looking. Was Marie a great beauty?

She ran the comb carefully through the last of the tangles.

Something moved in the shadows near the window.

The breath froze in her throat.

The shape solidified into the tall figure of a man. He was clad from head to toe in black, a midnight coat over dark breeches, plain black riding boots. Darkness sank into long, deep dimples carved on each side of his mouth. Black hair lay like soot on his brow.

The constriction in her throat threatened to suffocate her.

“Don’t stop,” he said. “Your hair is irresistible. It’s like a sheet of golden silk. I have never seen you comb it before.”

“What are you doing here?” she whispered as the breath came back. “How did you get in?”

Shadows ran gaily up the creases beside his mouth as he smiled.

“The traditional method, of course,” he said. “Up the ivy. I didn’t particularly want to be seen.”

Her heart bounded like a landed fish. Her limbs felt paralyzed. How did he expect her to react?

“So the house is to be broken into once again?” she said shakily. “At least Sir Lionel didn’t go rattling to the floor and shake the rafters this time. But suppose I had cried out and roused the household?”

“But you didn’t. Thank you for your forbearance.”

She watched him in the mirror, a mad, desperate craving beating at her senses—for a man’s touch, a man’s strength. She had been left alone all this time. Why question the reason for this strange visit?

He took the comb and bent to kiss her hand as he did so. His hair spilled forward over her fingers like ink.

“I have been wanting to do this for a very long time,” he said. “It’s so beautiful. I can’t decide if it reminds me more of gold or of celandines.”

Without a murmur of protest she let him comb her long hair over and over again, back away from her forehead, until it fell like a waterfall to her waist. She closed her eyes. The feeling was delicious.

I have been so longing for this, she thought. I can’t make any protest now!

The comb fell unnoticed to the ground as, still standing behind her, he gently slipped the silk from her shoulders. His long fingers smoothed her hair over her bare skin. Helena bit her lip to stop herself from moaning aloud as the stroking reached lower. At last, at last, he brushed over the soft flesh of her breasts. Heat ran in rivers through her blood when he at last, at last, with infinite gentleness massaged their hardened tips. Her moan could not be suppressed now. The sound eased from her lips as if it came from the depths of her soul.

She lifted heavy lids and watched in the mirror as he bent his head—the wild, wicked strangeness of sooty hair instead of gold against her skin. Cupping both breasts in his hands, he kissed the back of her neck, then the pulse where it shook under his lips at her throat.

By the time he bent her head back to his and kissed her full on the mouth, she was vibrating in his hands like a violin.

“May I take you to bed?” he asked.

Helena could only nod and bury her face in his strong neck as he lifted her from the stool and carried her across the chamber.

He laid her on the sheets and smoothed her hair out over the pillow, while he quoted softly from ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream.’

“ ‘And all the faith, the virtue of my heart, / The object and the pleasure of mine eye, / Is only Helena.’ ”

“And what,” she said lazily some time later, “have you done to your hair?”

“I have dyed it black, sweet wife,” Richard said, sitting up in the disordered bed and swinging his legs to the ground. “Thanks to your foresight, the materials were to hand.”

“You mean you took some of my galls of Aleppo? I thought I had been shorted by the man at the fair.”

“I plead guilty. I thought it might be better not to have such an obvious and garish yellow flag on my head for a while. As it happens, I was right.”

“You didn’t dye your hair black for a whim. Richard, what’s going on?”

“I don’t know, to be honest. But there’s no danger anymore. You must trust that I can take care of myself. I’ve been doing it for a very long time.”

“There is more that you could tell me. Richard, for heaven’s sake, there is some huge mystery here, isn’t there? And there is obviously terrible danger. Don’t you think I have a right to know?”

“Don’t, Helena! I can never tell you.”

Helena closed her eyes for a moment. How could he make love to her as he had just done and then shut her back out of his life?

“But you stay in London?” she asked at last.

“Helena, you must understand. There are some things that in all honor a gentleman cannot tell his wife.”

“Of course,” she said. “I didn’t mean to pry.”

How could she have been so clumsy? Whatever else was going on in his life, no man ever told his wife about his mistress. And maybe there really was no danger any longer.

Yet, if so, what had lain between him and Harry?

Perhaps Harry was only jealous of Acton Mead and there would be no more attacks as long as Richard didn’t live here. In which case, if Richard stayed in London and lived quietly in disguise with Marie, Harry would leave him alone.

None of it made any sense at all.

Only one fact remained clear: Her husband would rather live in London with a courtesan than at home with a wife.

“You must believe, Helena,” Richard said at last, as if inexorably reaching the same conclusion, “that I would never deliberately hurt or deceive you. You are my wife and I owe you the honor that the title implies. If I were free to do so, I would be here with you at Acton Mead. It was my original intent, but there is something that binds me to London just now. Be patient, I beg.”

If he would not tell her, there was nothing more she could do. To continue to press him would only drive him further away.

So instead she said, “Did you hunt tigers from the backs of elephants in India?”

He turned to her, surprised. “What?”

“I have been reading your books. In the library. The maharajahs go on great elephant hunts after tigers. Is that how you learned about elephants?”

He laughed. “Let me get a dressing gown and I’ll tell you.”

With that he strode to his own chamber, his body as lithe as a panther’s in the flickering firelight. While he was gone, Helena slipped from beneath the sheets and recovered her night rail where it lay abandoned by the dressing table and her own silk gown from its hook on the door.

Richard came back and led her to the chairs by the fireside. He had brought wine from his room and he poured two glasses.

“I learned to ride elephants from an old rascal in Bengal. They are remarkable beasts. And yes, I’m afraid I was obliged on later occasions to ride with a certain maharajah after tigers. Though it seems a sin against nature to try to bring about the death of such a terribly beautiful creature, for a tiger hunt they go to great and fascinating lengths of pomp and circumstance. Nothing could have kept me away. It was like being fed on a diet of syllabub for days at a time.”