by Elisa Braden
“Four,” she snapped.
His amusement seemed to baffle her, but she would understand eventually. Four months? Sweet, naïve Bumblebee. She’d be lucky if he allowed her four days.
*~*~*
CHAPTER NINE
“Call it what you will—part of marriage is battling for one’s ground. One may settle matters through warfare or negotiation or means far more pleasurably sly. But never doubt the battle exists. One need only observe the victor’s triumphant gleam to understand who has lost and who has won.”
—The Dowager Marchioness of Wallingham in a letter to the Marquis of Mortlock settling an old argument on the nature of matrimonial harmony.
*~*~*
Dearest Robert,
Cultivating a new source at Rivermore Abbey has been a trial. I despaired of finding one to last longer than a month. You’ve made so many changes to the household, it almost seems we are engaged in a pitched battle, you and I.
Happily, I discovered Major Colby’s weakness—and as of this morning, he has agreed to supply me with weekly reports in exchange for weekly deliveries of Chelsea buns.
In chess, I believe the term is checkmate.
Ever yours,
Annabelle
—Letter to Robert Conrad dated September 20, 1812
*~*~*
“Ah-choo!” Papa’s eyes were swollen and red, his face wreathed in misery. Although they’d reversed yesterday’s feline invasion before he’d arrived home, bits of fur yet lingered. The maids had been attempting to beat it out of the carpets and draperies for the past twelve hours.
Annabelle glanced at her poor Papa, who was on his fourth handkerchief of the morning. “Perhaps some tea will help,” she suggested. “I could—”
“Never mind me, sweet girl.” He smiled through his misery, sounding clogged. “I shall improve in no time at a—a—a-choo!”
Wincing in sympathy, Annabelle stood from her end of the breakfast table and delivered her napkin to her poor, suffering father. She patted his shoulder and returned to her seat.
Earlier, Mama had taken Eugenia and Kate shopping for hair ribbons, while Jane had dragged Estelle and Maureen along to the circulating library, so Annabelle and Papa were alone in the morning room.
Her red-nosed papa buttered a slice of toast before clearing his throat. “I’ve been informed I should expect a visit soon. Is this true?”
Annabelle’s eyes flew wide. She took a sip of tea before replying, “Visit?”
“From a certain suitor.”
Drat. Who had told him? Jane, perhaps? She replaced her cup with a gentle clink.
Despite his malady, Papa smiled in that don’t-bother-obfuscating-I’m-your-father way. “Why haven’t you said anything?”
She sighed. In truth, she didn’t know. Something in her didn’t believe it, she supposed. Any minute, she expected Robert to reveal his proposal had been a cruel hoax intended to humiliate her. But Mama and Papa would not understand. They doted on Robert. To them, he could do no wrong. “I thought to give you time to recover your health, Papa. That’s all.”
“But this is happy news, is it not?”
She forced a smile and nodded.
“You were so close as children. Rarely saw the boy smile unless you were in sight. What was it he called you? Bumblebee. Yes, that was apt. Such a restless little mite you were, forever wanting the next flower and the next. But as soon as Robert arrived, all the fuss turned into a singular focus. Nobody could stop you. Three years old, and we’d find you trailing him into the garden.” He chuckled. “Your mother and I always assumed you’d marry him one day.”
She dropped her gaze to the crumbs on her plate. She’d thought so, too, until she’d destroyed his life. That diminished the odds of matrimony rather decisively.
“Annabelle.”
She met Papa’s eyes, red-rimmed yet glowing gold.
“Sometimes a man feels he must bear his hardships alone, so as not to burden those around him.”
Immediately, she cringed with remorse. “Goodness, Papa. I am sorry I’ve kept you. Perhaps you should go to your club, where at least you’ll enjoy a few hours of relief.”
“Thank you, sweet girl, but I wasn’t speaking of myself.”
She sat back and blinked. “Oh.”
“Robert distanced himself from us, I think, because he feared being a burden. Perfect rot, of course. But young men do have their pride.” Papa wiped his nose. “I remember that age. My world was small, but by heaven, I had mastered everything in it. Only later did I realize how much more world there was.”
Annabelle smiled. “A mistake common to us all, I daresay.”
“Indeed.” Papa sneezed, wiped his nose, and then grinned. “He loves you, though. That much I do know.”
Loved her? No. Papa only remembered how Robert had been as a boy who’d carried her two miles on his back. He didn’t know what Robert had said to her as she’d begged on her knees for forgiveness. He didn’t understand what she’d done to turn a boy’s love to hate.
But, rather than argue, Annabelle pasted on the smile she’d practiced for hours upon hours when she was thirteen—the one with the twinkle. “Of course he does,” she lied. “Why else should he wish to marry me?”
Papa’s sneezing worsened, and she suggested they go for a ride. Papa complained about the rain, and she advised at least he must retreat to his club. He conceded, kissing her forehead before he left. “Tell Robert to come speak with me soon,” he said. “So long as you are content with the match, I could not be happier.”
For a long while after Papa left, Annabelle sat staring down at her hands lying folded upon lilac silk skirts.
In the two days since she’d agreed to marry Robert, she’d given his motives a great deal of thought. Why, of all the ladies he might choose, would he choose her, the one he must surely loathe most? The answer could only be that he wished to exact a greater price for the suffering she’d caused him. What could be greater than seven years of banishment?
The bleak weather mirrored her answers to that question.
A husband had absolute dominion over his wife. He might be kind, like Papa. Or cold, like Blackmore. Or ruthless, like Atherbourne. He might cosset his wife, protect her and strive for her happiness. Or he might revile her, turning her life into a winter without end.
Perhaps that was the source of his urgency. He feared she would realize his intentions and escape punishment.
She’d dreamt of Robert’s fall the previous night. Not since the nightmares had begun to recede at the age of fifteen had she been plagued with one so vivid. She’d awakened sobbing loudly enough that Jane had rushed over from the adjacent room.
Annabelle hadn’t been able to explain. Always before, she’d had John, if only through correspondence. John understood because he’d been there. After the fall. After the banishment. Jane had been too young. And last night, Annabelle had been in no condition to explain. Her sister had hugged her and wiped her cheeks. She’d assured her it was just a dream.
How Annabelle wished that were true.
Suddenly, she needed to write. She needed to tell the truth to someone who could never be hurt by it, spill her bitterest thoughts onto paper. Her fingertips itched. She shoved to her feet. Rushed from the morning room to the parlor, sat at the little writing desk between two windows, and began as she’d done for many years: Dearest Robert.
She’d written almost an entire page when she heard Ned’s knock at the door. She glanced up, noting the rain had turned to misty drizzle. “Yes?” she called absently, dipping her pen in the inkwell.
“A visitor for you, my lady.”
“Is it the Aldridge twins, Ned? Because if so, I fear I’ve been stricken by a grave malady of some kind. Call it a lung complaint.”
“No, my lady.”
“A putrid cat scratch, then. Dreadful sight.” She waggled her fingers in Ned’s direction. “Same answer for Miss Bentley.”
>
“It is Mr.—”
A deeper voice intruded, halting her heart and her pen. “My thanks, Ned. Lady Annabelle would like tea. Fetch it for us, won’t you?”
She stiffened, waiting until the door closed before she turned. His shoulders were damp, his newly trimmed hair glistening in the light from the window.
“Papa has gone to his club.” She kept her voice casual, though her heart pounded. “The kittens had their usual effect.”
He stood motionless in front of the door, his cane propped beside his foot. “Before I speak to your father, I wish to …” He glanced at his boots, wet and worn. “I need to speak with you.”
Not since she’d plummeted into the Tisenby had she felt such a shock of cold. This was it. He intended to cry off the engagement. After a few breaths to regain her sanity, she snapped, “Go on, then. Let’s have done with it.”
He frowned at her. Scowled, really. “Why are you angry?”
“Oh, no reason at all.” She snorted. “I suppose you’ll pursue Matilda Bentley, now. Men do seem to enjoy being the more intelligent half of a pairing. By the by, Papa already knows we’d planned to marry. If you think I’m vexed, wait until he finds out what you’ve done.”
His eyes narrowed. “Which is?”
She stood and jabbed her pen into its holder, then folded her arms beneath her bosom. “Do not pretend, Robert. This is insulting enough. I am hardly daft.”
“Perhaps I am, because I haven’t the slightest idea what you’re on about.”
“The engagement. You’ve come to break it.”
“Why the devil would I break it?”
She threw her arms wide. “I don’t know! Punishment? Some bizarre need to humiliate—”
Within seconds, he’d charged across the room and cupped her chin in his free hand. His thumb stroked across her lower lip with disarming sensuality. “Damn and blast, Annabelle,” he muttered. “I’ve no reason to punish or humiliate you. No reason whatever.”
Between his touch and the contradiction between his statement and her expectations, she suddenly needed something solid. Something strong. His shoulders would do nicely, she decided. The moment she stepped into his arms, he wrapped her up tight. No hesitation, no puny pressure. When Robert held her, he meant it. Muscular arms cinched around her back, drawing her flat against him. A large hand cradled the back of her head while she rested her cheek against his coat’s lapel.
“I don’t know how you can say that,” she whispered against the wool. Like him, it smelled like fresh air. “I don’t know why you asked me to marry you.”
She heard his sigh in his chest, heard his heart’s deep, thudding rhythm. She closed her eyes and let it calm her, as it had always done.
“Because I want you as my wife,” he rumbled. “As to the rest, that is what I came to discuss.”
She didn’t want to discuss anything. She wanted to wallow in his nearness, the reassurance that he still intended to marry her. Fancy that. She was going to marry Robert Conrad. Relief suffused her like heat from an oven.
“Bumblebee.”
She shushed him and snuggled tighter.
“I need to tell you something.”
“I was wrong. You are perfect for steadying.”
A brief silence was followed by a deep chuckle. “Happy to be of service.”
“It is lovely here, Robert. Can we stay like this forever?”
Another silence. His thumb stroked her nape. “Afraid not, Bumblebee.” His tone, quiet and solemn, suggested she would not like what he had to say.
She braced herself. Squeezed her eyes shut. Took a breath. And asked, “What did you have to tell me?”
He waited so long to speak, she began listing calamitous possibilities in her mind: He was unable to father children. He was about to be hanged by the crown. He would accept nothing but turnips at his dinner table. He wanted her to wear turbans. He’d only pay for one pair of slippers a year. He’d invited Lady Wallingham to stay at Rivermore indefinitely.
Oh, God. What could it be?
“I never blamed you for the accident,” he said.
She blinked, waiting for him to finish his thought. But he said nothing else. That was it? An obviously false reassurance? The minuscule slipper budget would have been more upsetting.
Men. They could be baffling. She patted his arms and drew back to look up at him. Brooding blue eyes roiled like storm clouds.
“Did you hear me?” he asked.
“I’m standing right here, Robert. Of course I heard you.”
His hands fell to his sides. “Why are you not … I don’t understand.”
She retrieved his cane from where he’d propped it against her chair. Handing it back to him, she sniffed. “The past is done. There is no need to lie about it.”
Now, he looked frustrated. “You don’t believe me.”
“I was there,” she pointed out.
“You’ve never wondered why—”
“No. You told me why. And you were right. Had I not followed you, the accident would not have happened. You’d have taken your commission. You’d have gone to war. You might have died. Or you might have lived. You might have been injured in battle. Or you might have come home a hero. In any event, that is not what happened. Instead, you must walk with a cane for the rest of your life. And that is my fault. It is what I live with.”
He raked a hand through his hair. He looked pale. Sickened. “Bloody hell, Bumblebee.”
“If you’ve forgiven me, just say that. Rewriting the past is foolishness.”
“Listen to me.”
She shook her head. “Let’s speak about something else.”
“Annabelle.” He looked tortured, now. Tight-lipped and tense. “Please listen.”
“No.”
“I never blamed you.”
“Stop it.”
“Not then. Not now. Not ever.”
Her throat tightened until she couldn’t breathe. “Robert. I don’t want to talk any longer. I think you should—”
“I drove you away—”
“—leave.”
“—because you were bound and determined to ruin your life for my sake.”
“Please, Robert,” she whispered. Her chest was collapsing. She reached blindly behind her, bracing against the desk. “Stop.”
“I could not let you sacrifice yourself. I spoke harshly so you would stay away. So you could be free.”
Covering her mouth with her hand, she gritted her teeth and stared at his boots. They were wet from the street.
“I was wrong to let you believe it was your fault. I thought it the only way to protect you. Perhaps it was, but I am no less sorry.” He went quiet. His boots shone gray in the misty light.
“Why …” Her voice emerged as a muffled croak, so she tried again. “Why say any of this now?”
“You deserve the truth before we marry.”
“Marry. You’ve just informed me the last seven years have been a lie.”
His boots inched closer. His voice came from above her head. “Our separation was necessary, Annabelle. Without it, you’d have been ruined within a year or two. It would not have mattered that I could scarcely lift my arm, much less debauch anyone. A young woman cannot remain constantly in the company of a young man and keep her reputation, even a girl whose only intention was to care for an injured friend.”
“Perhaps if you’d simply said that—”
“You would have refused to leave me. Tell me that isn’t so.”
A long silence fell before she forced the truth past the rocks in her chest. “I cannot,” she whispered.
He paused. “My survival was … uncertain for a long while. Had I died, you’d have been left no remedy to repair your reputation, not even marriage to a crippled man.”
“If you’d died, my reputation could go hang. I would not have cared a whit.”
“That was what worried me most.”
&nbs
p; For minutes, she simply stared at his boots, trying to absorb this new version of events. In a way, it made sense. Everything he’d claimed about her was true.
But how was manipulating her with guilt better than blaming her for an accident that had nearly killed him? It wasn’t. At least his bitterness had been understandable. But this—this decision he’d made for both of them—this was maddening.
Humiliating.
How pathetic she must have seemed to him.
Slowly, she slid her gaze upward. Past his twisted knee and thick thighs. Past narrow hips and trim waist and wide shoulders. Up to blue eyes that should have seen better. Should have seen her better.
“Arrogant, high-handed, stubborn man,” she muttered.
He frowned. “I understand if you’re—”
“No! You understand nothing.”
His mouth closed tight. He rolled his shoulders. “Probably true.”
“I should have had a choice, Robert. You should have given me that.”
He took the safe ground of silence.
She shook her head, fighting the urge to wail and shove at him and demand that he take it back. Instead, she gripped the edge of the desk. Felt the corner of the letter she’d been writing when he’d entered. How many had she written through the years? Letters to a phantom. What a piteous fool she was, too obsessed to relinquish him entirely.
He’d had no such trouble forgetting her, had he? But then, she’d always done the chasing. Sooner or later, he’d been bound to grow weary of it.
“Why pursue marriage with me?” She hadn’t meant to ask, really. The question escaped before she could squelch it.
He seemed caught off guard, opening his mouth several times as though searching for an answer safe enough to satisfy a madwoman. “It is a good match.”
“Lady Wallingham would give that answer,” she snapped. “You all but blackmailed me into consenting to become your wife.”
“As I told you before, that is what I want.”
