Lady in Blue

by Lynn Kerstan

  Damned fool. Stupid, selfish, arrogant fool.

  He knew she would not be there, but he directed the driver to Clouds with a misbegotten compulsion to face the scene of his crimes. The Sunday morning streets were oddly quiet. Here and there, desultory street peddlers wandered with trays of muffins and raspberries, pork pies and nosegays. A few children were out early, rolling hoops in the small parks that studded the neighborhood.

  He knew the minute he entered the house that it was empty. His footsteps echoed in the hall as he stumbled upstairs to the bedchamber. The door was open, and the bed neatly made up. Clare’s dressing table was bare, except for the silver-backed brush and mirror he’d given her and one yellow full-blown rose in a narrow vase.

  He leaned his shoulders against the wall, arms clutched around his waist. One glance in the mirror confirmed that he looked almost worse than he felt. His eyes were red-rimmed and bloodshot, he’d two days’ growth of dark beard on his face, and his clothes were bedraggled and stained with wine and ale and God knew what else.

  Deliberately, he forced himself to cross the room and stare at his image. He needed to see what he was … what he’d become … and commit the picture to memory. A stranger stared back at him. Bryn suspected the real Earl of Caradoc was there in the mirror, his sins etched in the lines on his face and the guilt in his eyes.

  This was the man Clare had seen. She recognized what he was from the first, before the things inside him became visible. Of course she had left him. Right now, he could scarcely believe she’d stayed with him as long as she had.

  A tiny sound, like scratching, caught his attention. From the window, he thought, although it was closed and the curtains half drawn. Seeing nothing, he sighed and turned back toward the hall. Lambert’s coach waited in the street, and there was no reason to stay in this place. Tomorrow he’d put Clouds up for sale. Never again would he bring a woman here.

  At the door, he shot one last glance over his shoulder at the bed, remembering Clare as she’d looked the last time he saw her. His eyes blurred.

  Then something moved from behind the curtains onto the window seat, and he gazed directly into the round yellow eyes of a hostile cat. Attila bared two long fangs.

  Bryn stared at him for a long time.

  The cat stared back. And then, purposefully, he rolled over, lifted a black-and-white rear leg into the air, and licked himself.

  Bryn crossed the room, unable to believe Clare had left her pet behind. She loved that fiendish animal. The cat ignored him, slurping noisily.

  Bryn stopped a careful two feet away and looked out the window. Bright morning sunshine bathed the garden. He knew Clare had planted beds of pansies and had cultivated roses with a passion, although most everything looked brown to him. A patch of bright yellow daffodils blazed in one corner. He tugged the curtain aside so he could see them better, and his heart stopped.

  In a pale blue smock, a wide-brimmed bonnet on her head, Clare knelt by a small patch of brown soil with a tray of seedlings by her side and a trowel in her hand. Unable to breathe, he saw her scoop out a tiny hole, lift a slip from the tray, and place it in the ground. She wore heavy gloves. He watched her pat the soil in place around the plant, measure a hand’s breadth away, and dig another hole.

  Dimly, he was aware of wet tears streaking his cheeks, and thoughtlessly he patted Attila’s uplifted leg.

  Sharp claws swiped at him as the cat sprang away.

  It felt good. The pain in his head felt good. He felt better than he’d ever felt in his life. Clare had not left him.

  He soared out of the room, down the stairs, through the kitchen, and out the open door. Then he stopped, unable to go any closer to her.

  At the sound of his arrival, Clare’s head tilted and she glanced past the drooping brim of her sunbonnet. Carefully, she laid down the trowel in front of her, sank back on her heels for a moment, and then rose gracefully to her feet.

  Bryn just looked at her, unable to speak. Helplessly, he lifted his hands in a mute gesture of apology.

  Without hesitation, Clare walked directly up to him and wrapped her arms around his waist.

  “Forgive me,” she said.

  21

  Enfolded in Bryn’s arms, her head pressed to his shoulder, Clare could scarcely breathe.

  “I thought you’d left me,” he said again and again, crushing her against his chest as if not altogether sure she was really there. His whole body trembled.

  Suddenly he set her back, gripping her shoulders hard. “Why didn’t you?”

  “I was not certain what you expected me to do,” she confessed with a fragile smile. “Was I supposed to leave?”

  “No. I … of course not. But I thought you would.”

  She bowed her head. “Then I shall, if you wish me to go.”

  “Good God, that’s the last thing in the world I want.” He seemed to realize he was shaking her, and his arms dropped heavily to his sides. “Why aren’t you angry with me?”

  “Angry?” Clare fingered his lapel. “I’ve no right.”

  “The devil you don’t! You should be flaying me with your trowel. Planting me under the violets.”

  “Bryn, are you ill? Have you been injured?”

  “I’m perfectly well.”

  She tilted her chin, regarding him quizzically.

  “All right,” he muttered. “I feel rotten. But I’m not sick.”

  “Gut-drunk,” she observed tranquilly.

  He hung his head. “First time in my life.”

  “And last, I hope.” Clare stripped off her gloves and stuffed them in her apron pocket. “To be honest, my lord, you smell like a week-old fish. I’ll put some water to heat.”

  He caught her as she moved past. “Clare, we need to talk.”

  “Yes. Later, when you’ve cleaned up and eaten something.” She unclamped his fingers from her wrist. “I may need the trowel after all, to scrape off that grime. Did you sleep in a brewery vat last night?”

  He followed her into the kitchen, seizing a heavy pot from her hands. “I’ll make do with cold water for a bath.” He found a smaller pan, filled it, and lit the stove. “This will be enough hot water for shaving and some tea. Clare, there’s a coach out front. Will you tell the driver to go home? No, I’ll do it. I need to give him a message for Finchburton.”

  She watched him lurch toward the hall and released a heavy sigh. Of all the things she’d imagined during the long sleepless nights, and during the daylight hours tormented by guilt, nothing came close to the reality.

  Bryn thought she would be angry with him. He was furious with himself. But he had got everything backward, because it was all her fault.

  First things first. She hurried upstairs for towels, milled soap, and his robe. While he scrubbed himself down in the kitchen, standing in a copper tub, she prepared his shaving basin and stropped his razor. Then she brewed tea, leaving him a full mug and carrying the rest to the bedchamber.

  He joined her a few minutes later, the black silk robe belted around his waist and his thick hair sleek from a fierce washing. “You can take off your bonnet now,” he said with a lopsided smile.

  Flushing, she untied the ribbons and went back to the kitchen to fix him something to eat.

  Her father had drunk himself into a stupor every night, although he made sure to do it in the privacy of his study, and never on Saturdays. Not until he’d finished crafting his Sunday sermon with the passion of a man terrified by his own weaknesses. Most of the homilies were about forgiveness and divine mercy. She would sit with him then, and listen while he read passages aloud for her approval. But when he reached for the bottle, and he always did, she went to her bed and cried herself to sleep.

  Every morning, he woke up with a headache. The housekeeper had fed him broth and crackers, she remembered. Unwrapping the cold roasted chicken Mrs. Beales left for her luncheon, she stewed it on the stove in hot water seasoned with herbs. While the broth simmered, she cut some daffodils from the garden, arran
ged them in a vase, and prepared a tray. It felt good to be doing something for Bryn. Fixing things to please him.

  She did not please him in bed.

  He was sound asleep when she came into the room, propped up against the pillows as though he’d sat there to wait for her. His bristled chin rested on his chest. He had not managed to shave.

  Clare set down the tray, took hold of his bare feet, and used all her strength to tug him down the pillows until he lay prone. Bryn asleep was senseless as a banister. His robe had tangled around his waist, baring long, darkly furred legs. Above his manhood, limp in the nest of curling hair at his groin, his stomach was flat and hard. The robe had slipped over one shoulder, baring most of his chest.

  She had never truly looked at him in full light. Had never dared. After the one glimpse of him, fully erect, the night they first made love, she was careful to gaze at him only above the waist or shut her eyes. Now she looked her fill.

  He is truly beautiful, she thought, wondering that she had never realized it before. Beautiful all over. Not only his face, which was remarkably handsome, or his muscular shoulders and chest, which she’d accustomed herself to seeing, but the rest of him as well. A shiver swept from her scalp to her toes. Was this how he felt when he looked at her naked body with glowing, heated eyes?

  She moved to his side and pulled at the robe until it covered him to the knees. Then she fluffed a pillow under his head, stroked his cheek once with the back of her hand, and returned to her gardening.

  She had begun to cultivate the herbs needed for the potion Mrs. Beales mixed for her, the one that would prevent conception. It had seemed a good idea to grow them herself and make sure they were fresh and potent. But now it made her uncomfortable to place them one by one in the narrow patch of soil. Planting seedlings in the ground, so that Bryn could not plant his seed in her.

  She knelt back, wiping her forehead with her apron. The late-morning sun was warm, and she’d forgot to put on her bonnet again. What would it be like, to carry Bryn’s child? He would be furious, of course, but once the baby was growing inside her there was nothing for him to do. She could leave him before he even found out.

  The idea took hold. She could never have a child legitimately. No man would marry her now. And even if there were a man forbearing enough to wed a whore, she only wanted Bryn’s child.

  A bastard child. It was wrong. A sin. But she was already damned, and life was so brief. How could it hurt to claim for herself what she most wanted?

  Joseph and Jeremy had been conceived out of wedlock too, and no one who ever met them could be sorry they were born. They were the one truly good thing their mother ever did. And God had taken care of them.

  She dug her trowel into the damp earth, remembering the night Ardis told her about the twins’ father. A fantasy, no doubt, spun during the endless hours the woman rocked in her chair, mumbling psalms and gazing into space. But that evening she had seemed more in touch with reality, her eyes sparkling, her face almost beautiful again.

  He was a nobleman, she said, in the neighborhood to hunt with the Quorn. They met every day in a meadow fragrant with wildflowers, where his promises filled her with dreams. But one afternoon he failed to appear and she never saw him again, although she went to that meadow every day.

  After three months, her parents realized she was pregnant, something she in her ignorance had never imagined. They demanded her lover’s name, but he had never revealed it. “We are Tristan and Isolde,” he said, “reincarnated to fulfill their destiny.” Her mother and father, always cold and unfeeling, were certain she was lying to protect some tenant farmer’s son and immediately disowned her.

  Ardis had grown silent for a while, lost in memories, but suddenly she seized her stepdaughter’s hand. Clare must never forget the boys were aristocrats, she entreated. They must be properly educated, as befitted their ancestry. That idea settled into the woman’s mind, and for several months it replaced the endless recital of psalms.

  “You must do it,” she had said over and over, in tempo with the rocking of her chair. “You must care for them when I am gone.”

  Clare lifted a plant from the tray and studied the delicate roots, thin as the veins in her wrist. Then she held the rosemary to her nostrils and breathed deeply. Rich earth and new life.

  Joseph and Jeremy were hers now, and she had done her best for them. But dearly as she loved the boys, they were not from her own flesh, or Bryn’s. If she stopped taking the herbal drink, perhaps …

  But no. It wasn’t fair to him. Always he had made clear to her that he must marry and sire an heir. Only after that might he be willing to give her a child as well. It was tempting to imagine a lifetime as his mistress, making a second family for him.

  She crushed the rosemary in her hand. Dear God, how quickly one sin led to another. Once set on the slippery path to hell, with nothing to lose for herself, it was easy to forget that her wickedness would inevitably hurt others. Bryn intended to wed someone of his own class, probably Elizabeth Landry, and their marriage would have no chance for happiness while he remained unfaithful.

  She suspected Bryn never considered the possibility of a happy marriage. He always spoke of his nuptials as a wearying necessity, like paying taxes. And he was selfish enough to seek his pleasures elsewhere, given the opportunity.

  But she would not be the one to give him that. When her soul was consigned to hell, it would not be for the sin of adultery. She would take no one with her, especially the man she had come to love.

  When she had transplanted the last herb, she went upstairs to check on him. He had rolled onto his stomach and one leg was drawn up, taking the robe with it. White bare buttocks shone against the rich blue counterpane. She bit her lip. When a man looked good even from this perspective, a woman was really in trouble.

  Almost belligerently, she rearranged his robe, unable to resist touching the hard swell of his buttock. He stirred slightly and she jumped back.

  Glancing at his watch on the side table, she calculated from previous experience that it would be several hours before he awoke. But, considering his present condition he might well sleep the clock around. Feeling at loose ends, she wandered into the salon and picked out a book, settling comfortably on the sofa.

  Halfway through Le Morte d’Arthur, she was startled to hear a noise from overhead. What was he doing up ahead of schedule? She had meant to change clothes and at least comb her hair before he saw her again. But it always took Bryn awhile to wake up, so she tore upstairs to make herself presentable, astonished to find him sitting up against the pillows with a plate of crackers on his lap, crunching noisily.

  “Where’ve you been?” he demanded. “I didn’t think my hands were steady enough, so I decided you had better shave me. The water must be getting cold by now.”

  “I expect so,” she said with a wry grin. “It has been sitting there for six hours.”

  “The devil you say!” He grabbed his watch and peered at it. “By God, it’s three-thirty!”

  Clare laughed, crossing to sit on the bed next to him. “So it is. You seem remarkably alert for a man who could scarcely stay on his feet this morning.”

  “Am I supposed to feel better?” He rubbed his forehead. “I’m not sure I do. Go away, Clare.”

  She had been leaning over to kiss his cheek, but she pronked away like an antelope.

  “The chamber pot,” he explained, reddening with obvious embarrassment. “Come back in a few minutes.”

  With time to compose herself, Clare was cool as moss when she reentered to find him standing next to the tray munching on the last of the crackers. Somehow, the natural everyday things had taken the edge off her anxiety. She still didn’t know what she was going to say to him, although the next hour was very important, but she felt almost at ease. She smiled at him.

  He smiled back.

  “I’m sorry,” they said at the same time.

  “You,” he said firmly, “are not permitted to be sorry. For once I re
cognize that I have an apology to make, and I intend to make it. I’ve had little experience at humbling myself, and I’ll stumble around awhile before I find the best words, so do not interrupt me while I’m looking for them.”

  Clare shook her head. “Please, Bryn, don’t. You’ll bury me under coals of fire if you apologize for something that is all my fault.” He opened his mouth to object and she placed a finger across his lips. “Please.”

  He looked at her for a long time before pulling himself up on the bed against the pillows, gesturing to a spot next to him. “You may speak first,” he allowed. “And then I’ll apologize.”

  Clare settled near his waist, against his lifted knees. “I too have been looking for words,” she began. Her voice was scratchy with nerves, and she cleared her throat. “I understand that I have disappointed you”—he leaned up, and she placed her hand against his chest—“but truly I was trying to please you. I simply did not understand what was required of me.”

  His forehead wrinkled. “Clare, do you know what I want from you?”

  “Not precisely. I have given it much thought since you left, though, and I shall try to do better.”

  He smiled. “And how, exactly, will you try?”

  “I am not altogether certain. I finally decided you would explain it to me, and then I would do whatever you say.”

  He shook his head. “No, you don’t understand at all. I doubt this is a thing you can try to do better.”

  Her heart fluttered in her chest. “If I cannot do better, then … what?” For the first time in her life that she could remember, her voice squeaked.

  He heard it too, because his smile widened. “You can stop fighting me. More to the point, stop fighting yourself. Clare, lovely Clare, have you ever doubted that my body wants you, or mistaken the pleasure I find when we make love?”

  “Not until the last time,” she said in a small voice.

  “You are supposed to feel exactly the same way.” The smile vanished, and he studied her somberly, tilting her chin with his hand when she looked down at her lap. “But you won’t let yourself feel, Clare. And when you sense that you are responding to me, you—damn, I can’t define exactly what happens. You snuff out your own fire like a candle. Sometimes you come at me like a wild woman, other times you allow me to draw you to the edge and then you … go away. You never let me reach you and bring you where you are meant to be.”