Looking at her honest countenance, Owen’s slight bitterness toward her faded away at last. The circumstances might be painful for him, but they must be even worse for her, confronting both her husband’s angry elder brother and the man Tom had preferred to her, all at once.
“Mrs. Drake,” Owen said, as soon as she had her foot on the step. Impulsively, he went down to meet her and held out his hand. “Welcome to Alton Hall. You are very welcome.” Her eyes widened, perhaps at his breach of etiquette — Tom ought to have introduced her to Arthur before anything, Owen had just ignored Tom completely, and really Owen had just committed several faux pas at once. But Owen thought she had caught his emphasis, and understood that while he might be still angry with Tom he did not include her in it.
She took his hand, meeting his impropriety with a small one of her own. “Mr. Honeyfield-Drake,” she replied, her voice low and pleasant. “I am so very glad to make your acquaintance. Truly.” Her lips quirked, acknowledging everything she couldn’t say, and Owen found himself smiling in return.
“Not a greeting to spare for me, Owen?” He looked up and met Tom’s eyes for the first time since Tom had left him two weeks before their aborted wedding. Tom’s tone was light enough, belied by the furrow between his brows and the tight line of his lips.
Before Owen could even begin to reply, Arthur’s voice sounded from just over his shoulder, colder than Owen had ever heard it. “I have a greeting for you, Tom.”
Tom’s cheeks flushed a dull brick-red. “Artie,” he gritted out.
Oh good goddess. Owen quickly stepped to Mrs. Drake’s other side and committed yet another solecism by tucking her hand around his elbow. “I’ll show you directly to your room,” he said. “You must want to be off your feet.” He tugged, none too subtly, and she took the hint and detached her other hand from Tom. He didn’t even appear to notice, locked in a glaring match with his brother. Owen didn’t think much of his chances.
He led Mrs. Drake quickly up the steps and in the front door, bypassing the several servants arranged just outside with no more than a nod. The acknowledging bow he received from Barnard in return, the first sign of approval he’d ever had from the man, lent him the courage he needed to continue into the house alone with Tom’s wife.
They passed through the hall and up the great curving staircase that led to the upper floors in silence, and it wasn’t until they had nearly reached her bedchamber door that Owen found his tongue.
“I’m sorry to pull you away so — so unceremoniously. I’m afraid my manners aren’t what you may be used to in town, but —”
“Don’t apologize,” she said with a shudder, and a quick press of her hand around Owen’s arm. “That scene — thank you. I am fatigued from the journey. And this must be so very dreadful for you,” she finished, so low Owen had to lean his head toward her to hear.
“Not more than for you,” he replied without thinking.
She stopped and turned, tilting her head up just a little to look at him. She was rather tall, Owen realized; he topped her by only an inch, and her bonnet’s white plumes waved well over his head. They were alone, with no servants in sight from end to end of the corridor and only some distant Drake ancestor, captured forever in a rather gaudy surcoat and imprisoned in a gilt frame, to see them. She bit her lip and started to speak several times; Owen thought he knew what must be coming. He wished he had the presence of mind to find a polite way to stop her.
To his profound relief, a bustle down the corridor announced the arrival of Mrs. Drake’s maid, bearing a hatbox and followed by two footmen with the luggage.
He took a step back, hoping he didn’t quite look poised to flee. “We usually dine at seven. I hope that will suit you?”
“Yes,” she said, sounding rather relieved herself. “I will see you at dinner.” One of the footmen set down his burden to open her door for her, the maid began a cheerful patter of concern for Mrs. Drake’s welfare and promises of tea, and Owen set off for his own room as quickly as he could without running. He could likely remain there undisturbed until it was time to dress.
“Fish, Artie? You detest fish. I declare, you continually surprise me.” Tom’s tone, while superficially polite, held just the faintest edge. Owen nudged a bit of salmon with his fork, and then raised the empty fork to his lips to give the appearance of eating. Since the table was meant to accommodate ten and held only the four of them, none of the others would likely be near enough to notice his lack of appetite.
In any case, Mrs. Drake, on the long side of the table to the left of Owen’s seat at the foot, had her eyes fixed firmly on her own nearly untouched salmon, Tom was busy baiting Arthur without sparing a glance for his wife directly across, and Arthur was perhaps too distracted to care.
“It is usual to have a fish course when entertaining guests, is it not?” Arthur sounded nonchalant enough, if one didn’t know him at all. Perhaps he could convince Mrs. Drake. Or perhaps not, if the slight frown she shot at her husband was any indication.
Tom took another draught of wine, enough that the footman behind him immediately stepped forward with the decanter. Owen winced. That was Tom’s fourth glass since sitting down. He wondered if more experienced hosts arranged a subtle signal in advance to give to the servants when a guest ought to be offered water. Or chucked out the window; Owen wasn’t particular about which, after the last half hour of silently watching his former fiancé goad his current husband.
He had begun before they even sat down, complimenting Owen on the table arrangements and then, as if just remembering, reminding Arthur how much he had used to sneer at anything as fussy as flowers on the dinner table. Owen had gone to great trouble, finding the little-used antique silver basin that matched the candelabra, and filling it with hothouse roses at some expense, and the barb mortified both Arthur and him. Conversation over the soup had only deteriorated from there.
Tom took his hand off the glass long enough for it to be refilled. “It is usual to serve it, when you eat fish,” he said. “Or perhaps your husband is very fond of it? I wouldn’t have thought you’d change your habits for him.”
“You wouldn’t have thought I —” Arthur closed his eyes for a moment. “It’s a salmon, Tom. Not a profound symbol of my state of mind. Eat it, or don’t.” He took a bite, glaring daggers at Tom as he did.
“It’s very good,” Mrs. Drake said suddenly, the first words she’d spoken since they were seated. “I must ask your cook to write down the recipe for mine.”
Neither of the brothers replied, and after a moment Owen forced himself to do so. His lips were a little numb, though he’d taken only a sip of the wine. “She will be so very flattered, Mrs. Drake.”
Mrs. Drake gave a strained little smile and lapsed back into silence.
Tom was the first to break it, of course. “I took something of a walk before dinner.” He took a bite, sipped his wine, and then leaned back, smiling. “Don’t you want to know where I went?”
No one answered. Tom grinned, clearly leading up to something Arthur wouldn’t like, and then, to Owen’s horror, turned to him. “I visited your parents, Owen.”
Owen nearly choked, despite having nothing in his mouth. “You — why?”
Arthur looked up sharply, and Owen could see his knuckles go white around his wineglass, even from the other end of the table. “I thought it was high time I made amends,” Tom went on blithely, still with that faint, mocking note that hovered over his words like the fumes on brandy, and just as inflammable. “I won’t say they were delighted to see me at first, but I had a gift for Mrs. Honeyfield that smoothed things over a bit. She said it matched perfectly.”
A gift…that matched what, precisely? Before he could bring himself to ask, Arthur had already answered. “You took her the saucer.”
“I thought she ought to have it at once. After all, one can’t live comfortably with an incomplete china service.”
The saucer could only refer to a match for the one Arthur h
ad broken. “And of course,” Arthur enunciated with deadly precision, “you told her that I had commissioned you to find one in town, and to bring it with my compliments? Although I rather recall asking you to find it and bring it to me.”
Tom laughed, grating horribly on Owen’s overstrung nerves. He had not even thought to replace the damn saucer, and yet Arthur had — and had gone so far as to ask Tom for a favor in pursuit of it. The thought of Tom taking credit for Arthur’s thoughtfulness nearly brought him to boiling. And pushing himself on Owen’s parents, after the way he’d all but broken their hearts on Owen’s account. How dare he!
“Oh come now, Artie,” Tom said, still laughing. “You’re the golden son-in-law, the master of Alton Hall. You could hardly want any credit with them. I’m the one who was in need of rehabilitation.”
Owen could no longer suppress himself. “How dare you!” he cried, while at the same moment, Arthur burst out with “You don’t know a damn thing about my credit with them —”
“Ohhhh,” Mrs. Drake moaned; she half-rose, put a hand to her head, and toppled sideways out of her chair.
The room burst into chaos. Tom was shouting, Arthur dove for Mrs. Drake and reached her a moment after William, the second footman, and Owen called out to James to summon Mrs. Drake’s maid before diving into the fray himself. In the jostling confusion, one of the candelabra toppled and set the tablecloth on fire, and Barnard, showing more presence of mind than anyone, dumped the basin over it, roses and all.
The cloying, bitter-tinged stench of scorched flowers filled the room, and Owen swallowed down bile as he knelt beside Mrs. Drake where she lay supported against Arthur’s shoulder. “Goddess,” he whispered, “do you think she…” He could not quite complete the thought aloud. She certainly looked more dead than alive. Her chest barely moved with her breaths, and her lips had gone livid.
“No,” Arthur said firmly. “She’s fainted. It’s not uncommon when a woman’s with child. After the journey, and after — that.” He looked up at Tom, hovering a few feet away, finally shocked into silence. “I hope you’re pleased with yourself.”
“This is not my doing!” Tom cried. “You said it yourself, the journey was taxing. She will be well enough. Won’t she?” Something resembling sympathy flashed through Owen, very briefly; Tom’s last words came out small and high, as he might have sounded when he was little and made a plea for his elder brother’s reassurance.
A complicated mix of emotions passed across Arthur’s face: anger, affection, grief, and melancholy, followed by the harsh blankness he assumed when he hadn’t the time to indulge his feelings. “We’ll see soon enough. Barnard, send for Dr. Fellowes. Owen, would you run ahead and make sure Mrs. Drake’s maid is on her way to her bedchamber?”
Owen paused just a moment, reaching out to lay his hand over Mrs. Drake’s wrist. It was so very cold, and the bones were delicate as a bird’s beneath his fingers. He found a pulse, too fast and weak but definitely present. Reassured, he nodded and rose. “I’ll see to it.” He remembered something else, with no small relief. “She ought to be all right. Mirreith’s blessing should extend to her, I think.”
“Would it, though?” Tom asked. “Under the circumstances. I could imagine you might not want it to.”
Owen sucked in a breath, feeling gut-punched. Mrs. Drake’s prone, pitiful form, with the swell of her pregnancy clearly visible, was enough to arouse any man’s protective instincts. Even if the baby she carried had not been his niece or nephew by marriage, to even suggest that he would hope the goddess would abandon her was perhaps the greatest insult he had ever received.
He looked right at Tom, gathering his wits and his dignity. If ever there were a moment to show his character as a man, it had come now. “Mrs. Drake is my family,” he said quietly, his voice quavering only a little. “She and her child. Mirreith isn’t one to tell her blessed directly what she intends, but — but for my own part, I believe she will care for anyone whose well-being I care for. Which includes everyone in my family. You might want to take a lesson from it, Tom.”
And with that, he turned and swiftly went out of the room, face burning, in search of Mrs. Drake’s maid. It was the first time he had said Tom’s name since his arrival, and he found that he needn’t have avoided it after all. Tom had no power over him, not anymore.
Chapter Seventeen
Exhaustion was not a state with which Arthur was familiar. He had a strong constitution, an iron will, and the ability to use the latter to enhance the former; this feeling of utter enervation, then, was new and unpleasant. Tom’s constant attempts to drive him to retaliation — and thus make Arthur show himself poorly in Owen’s eyes, he was sure — had drained him of all his reserves.
Caroline’s collapse had merely been the last straw. Gods, but she had been terrifyingly lifeless in his arms as he bore her upstairs, her arms dangling limply and her head lolling on Arthur’s shoulder. A faint moan as he laid her carefully on her bed had been a welcome sign, but then Arthur was chivvied out of the room by seemingly every female in the house, and the door shut firmly in his face.
Dr. Fellowes was admitted when he arrived, and then Kitty, Caroline’s maid, shut the door again as Tom tried to ask how Caroline did. Arthur took a sour pleasure in Tom receiving the same treatment that he had.
He, Tom, and Owen sat a silent, dreadful vigil outside Caroline’s door for what felt like years, but the clock had only chimed the hour twice before the doctor emerged again. “She fainted from lack of sugar in her blood,” the doctor said without preamble. “Too much exertion, too little to eat, and she showed every sign of hypertension. I have her resting comfortably now. You, Mr. Drake,” he said to Tom, in much the same tone as he might have said you filthy vermin, “must take more care with a lady in her condition. She must be kept calm. She’s not in any danger now, but an episode like this, later in her pregnancy, could be very dangerous indeed.”
Tom began some form of weak protest that the doctor overrode at once. “She is your responsibility. And if you cannot spend more energy caring for her than you do attempting to defend yourself when you have so clearly been negligent in your duties as a husband, I won’t be answerable for the consequences.” Tom sputtered into silence, and Dr. Fellowes favored all three of them with a brisk nod. “I’ll return in the morning to look in on Mrs. Drake. Until then, I prescribe quiet. Good evening.”
He put on his hat and strode down the corridor. “I’ll see him out,” Owen said, and trotted after him. Arthur watched him out of sight around the corner, a swell of love so powerful he could hardly contain it leaving him momentarily breathless. The way Owen had dressed Tom down earlier still rang in his ears. He loved Owen, loved him to distraction, adored his every look and gesture and wanted to kiss him every moment of the day, but the fierce pride he had felt in him that evening was new.
Arthur shook his head to clear it a little and turned to Tom; he found then that he had nothing whatever to say. He was quite done. Tom studied the carpet with fixed attention. “I suppose I ought to go in,” Tom said.
“I suppose you ought,” Arthur replied grimly, and turned on his heel.
He went straight for Owen’s bedchamber. Arthur tried not to wear out his welcome there, leaving a decent interval between Owen’s retiring and his knock on the door, refraining whenever he thought Owen might need a night of solitude, and often slipping from the bed before dawn. Tonight he simply needed to sleep, and he needed to do so with his beautiful, splendid, generous husband wrapped in his arms.
Undressing was the work of a moment, since he left his clothing tossed every which way, and then he slid between the sheets and closed his eyes. He woke with a start to find Owen lifting the covers to climb in beside him. His golden hair was mussed, and he had changed into one of his prim nightshirts, garments that Arthur had found ridiculous when they first married, and that now delighted him. He loved sliding his hands beneath the edges of the linen, tracing the hidden contours of Owe
n’s supple form sight unseen. And then he was privileged to remove the shirts, unwrapping Owen as if each night was his name-day, and Owen the best gift he had ever been given.
“I’m sorry I left you the task of closing up the house,” Arthur muttered, his voice sleep-roughened and his mind fuzzy.
“I didn’t mind. You looked done in.” Owen pressed himself up against Arthur’s side and laid his head on his chest with a heavy sigh. “Goddess. I don’t know if I’ll move again until tomorrow. Or perhaps next week.”
Arthur wrapped him tightly in his arms and pressed a kiss to the top of his head. Doubts, held at bay by the distraction of Caroline’s illness, rushed back in. Tom had certainly shown himself in the worst possible light that evening, but Owen had loved him once, with all his faults. Had loved him enough to choose to marry him without any extenuating circumstances, a sign of favor Arthur couldn’t claim.
He clutched Owen a little more tightly — too tightly, he realized when Owen let out a squeak of discomfort. “I’m sorry,” he said again, loosening his hold. “I just — sweetheart, you were magnificent tonight.”
The head on his chest shifted a little, probably a shake of the head. “Sitting there and picking at my dinner, too much a coward to defend you?” Owen asked ruefully. “The way he spoke to you — Arthur, was he always that way? And I simply didn’t notice?”
His husband speaking of Arthur’s own brother with such obvious disgust oughtn’t to have made him happy. Under other circumstances, he might have been horrified. Arthur smiled up at the bed canopy, faintly visible in the light from the fire. “Only with me,” he sighed. “You don’t have a brother, or you might not be surprised by it.”
Owen lifted his head. “I always wanted one. I thought he would be my dearest friend. I dreamed of having a companion I could trust with anything.” Owen smiled a little sadly. “Someone who wouldn’t laugh at my being goddess-blessed.”
“Spoken with the naiveté of someone with no siblings. If you had a brother, he would have mocked you more than anyone else. Although he might also have thrashed anyone else who dared.”
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