She shook her head. “No, I think not, but I have seen both styles before. This one looks as if the writer deliberately disguised his writing.”
Rob scrutinized her face. She looked perfectly composed. He himself shook with fury. “How can you be so calm?” His voice emerged in a shout. She winced, and he quickly moderated his tone. “I’m sorry. I did not mean to shout at you. But aren’t you angry?”
Her hands were shaking, but she shrugged. “There is no profit in being angry.”
“But you should be. You should be furious.”
She turned to look into the distance. “I prefer not to be.”
“No wonder you find your anger directed at innocent parties. Send it against those who deserve it.” He shook the crumpled paper in his hand. “Send it against these bastards.”
She turned her still face back to him, and her answer left him with nothing to say.
“How?”
How indeed. Rob had never been so frustrated in his life. His hands itched to close around the throat of the man who had written that letter, but that fellow remained safely anonymous. Rob longed to shake Iantha until he broke her icy calm, but he had never raised his hand against a woman, and he did not intend to start with his wife—his small, fragile, frozen wife. Shouting at her had been bad enough.
So, not knowing what to do, he sat with her in their parlor after dinner and resorted to small talk. “Is your new maid satisfactory?”
Tonight Iantha had consented to drink a little sherry, firmly refusing even the suggestion of brandy. She took a minuscule sip. “Oh, yes. Camille is French, you know, and very skilled. She came here as a chambermaid, but Gailsgill suggested her for me because she had previous experience as a lady’s maid.” Iantha smiled. “I feel very stylish with a French maid. She has such a lovely accent.”
“I’m glad you are pleased with her.” He cast about for something else to say. Drat! He did not want to make idle conversation. He wanted to hold Iantha again. Still staring at the fire, Rob reached out and closed his fingers around the slender hand that rested on the sofa beside him. She stiffened for a heartbeat, then with an audible breath, relaxed. Rob took another sip of his brandy.
She opened her mouth as if to speak. And then closed it again, as if she knew no more than he what to say. Rob set his glass on the end table and turned to her. “Will you sit a little nearer to me?”
“I…” She considered for a moment. “Yes. I will.”
She slid over until their shoulders were touching. “Rob, I…I want you to know that I do appreciate your anger on my behalf. I would express my own if I dared, but I honestly don’t know how, and I am afraid of what I might do.”
Rob could say very little in rebuttal. He knew all too well how the anger of grief could turn to violence. He put his arm around her shoulders and pulled her closer. “Perhaps together we will find the key. May I hold you as I did last night?”
A long pause followed. Finally she nodded. “I think that would be pleasant.”
Rob wanted to leap into the air and shout for joy. Instead, he turned her in his arms so that she lay across his lap again, her head on his shoulder. Commanding his body to remain quiet, he sat with the scent of her hair in his nostrils and the softness of her breasts against his chest.
Pleasant. Aye, it was that.
And he wanted so much more.
So much.
He drew on the cigar and let the soothing smoke flow out of his nostrils and into his blood. Carefully pouring the water through the sugar into the clear green liquid, he watched it turn milky before taking a swallow.
They should have the threatening letters by now. In truth, at this time he was only toying with them. He would kill them both someday when he found a likely opportunity. She had recognized Carrock’s laugh. She might remember something incriminating about himself. And Lord Duncan was just such a man as might interfere with his plans if he let him remain alive. In the meantime, he would keep her too afraid to think—to remember.
But before he killed this fine lady, he would bring her to a proper sense of her worthlessness—she who held her defiled self apart from lesser mortals. From lesser men than her own top-lofty class. Well, she would find that his sword fit her sheath just as well as her lordly husband’s.
And she would find it a sharp sword.
Chapter Ten
“Sam and Amelia are here. Thursby just came up to tell me.” Three days after the receipt of the hateful letters, Rob strolled into Iantha’s bedchamber to find her at her desk apparently lost in whatever she was writing. Her graceful back was carefully erect.
“Oh!” She jumped at the sound of his voice and spun around. Her hand swept across the desk, and papers went flying in all directions. “Oh. You startled me.”
“Forgive me.” Rob knelt and began to pick up the scattered sheets.
Iantha quickly took them out of his hands. “Never mind. I’ll get them.”
“I think that is all of them. No, here are two more.” Rob scrunched down and groped under the desk.
“Really, my lord. There is no need for you…”
Rob got to his feet and glanced down at the papers, puzzled. “‘Dear Lady Wisdom’?” He turned one over. “This is addressed to La Belle Assemblée. Did you receive it by mistake?”
Before he could lay the sheets on the desk, his polite new wife snatched them out of his hand. “This is my personal correspondence, my lord!”
“Hmm.” Rob regarded her thoughtfully for a moment. She looked seriously distressed. What did that imply? He had no idea, but if she were that upset, he had best find out. He strove for a light note. “It seems my bride is conducting a secret correspondence. Should I become alarmed?”
The expressions flitting across her face almost made him laugh, but he had enough experience with matrimony to know that laughing would rapidly put him in a position into which no wise husband would corner himself. He suppressed a smile and contented himself with raising his eyebrows questioningly.
She flushed very prettily and looked quite as guilty as any wife ever looked. “My lord, you know… I mean, I would never… I mean, you realize…”
In spite of himself, Rob let the smile escape. “As you say—you are the last person of whom I would suspect a clandestine relationship. So what is the source of these blushes?”
Iantha looked down at her hands. “I had rather not say, my lord.”
“Now I am beginning to worry.” Rob sobered. “Surely a woman’s magazine such as La Belle Assemblée has nothing to do with the other correspondence you have kept hidden?”
“Oh, no, my lord! It has nothing to do with that.”
“Then I would appreciate very much your telling me what this is all about.”
His wife let out a long sigh. “Very well. I do not want you to be concerned.”
Iantha studied her hands.
Rob waited.
“I…I have an…an association with La Belle Assemblée.” Had she been confessing to a flagrant affair, she could not have looked more conscience-stricken.
Puzzled, Rob frowned. “I don’t understand. What sort of association? Why are you so secretive about it?”
“Well… Most people—most men, at least—think women’s magazines are very silly. And in some ways they are—all about clothes and pretension. But some of the articles are very helpful. La Belle Assemblée encourages their readers to write to them for advice.”
The light broke in Rob’s mind. In spite of himself a laugh broke through his guard. “And you are Lady Wisdom?”
Iantha bristled and turned back to her desk. “I knew you would laugh.”
Rob hastened to make amends. He had well and truly made a mull of that! “I’m sorry, Iantha. I am not laughing at you. I—I believe that I am simply relieved.” He placed his hands on her shoulders and turned her to face him, looking as earnest as he knew how. “Truly, I do not think you, of all people, silly. You are serious to a fault.”
Rob gazed into her face.
Hmm. He did not seem to be making much progress in reinstating himself in her good graces. Maybe that last was not the thing to say, either. “Come now, Iantha. I didn’t mean…”
The color in her face now was not due to embarrassment. She stood and began to pace. “That is always the way with men. They continually think women too silly or too serious or lacking in wit or having too much of it. They take nothing we do seriously. Women cannot handle oils. Watercolors are too missish. Poems too sentimental. Novels too florid.”
She took a deep breath and clamped her mouth shut, crossing her arms across her breasts. Well, Rob had wanted her to get angry. But not at him. He decided on diplomacy. “I can see why that is frustrating to you. But I assure you, I do not feel that way about women and their achievements. I would like to read something you have written—perhaps the answer to that letter on your desk—if you would allow me?”
“You would laugh.”
“Is the letter humorous?”
“Definitely not.”
“Then I shall not laugh.” Rob waited for her permission to pick up the letter. For a moment he thought it would not be forthcoming.
Finally she nodded. “Here is the original question. And this is my answer.”
Hoping against hope that there was nothing in the letter that would make him smile, Rob perused the two documents. The writer had asked what she should do when her husband stayed away from home until late in the night. She feared that he had a mistress, especially since her own latest pregnancy. Signed with tears—“B.T.”
The cad! Rob turned to Iantha’s answer.
Dear B.T.—
I am sure it is very difficult for you to accept your husband’s resorting to another. But men are not creatures such as we. They do not exert control over their needs and desires as we must do. They appear to require variety. Nonetheless, you have no recourse but to control your tears and your anger. They will gain you nothing but further anguish.
With my best wishes for your happiness, I am,
Lady Wisdom
For an eye blink Rob wrestled with his own annoyance. So she thought that men did not practice control over their desire? What the devil did she think he had been doing ever since he had known her?
Or rather, not known her.
He took a calming breath and handed the letter back to Iantha. She regarded him with a question in her eyes. But he had a few questions of his own. “Is it always thus? Men may do as they wish, and women must contain their emotions? Is that always your advice?”
“Nearly always. Most of my corespondents are angry with their husbands, but it will not help them to show that. And men hate tears.”
And where did she get this comprehensive information about men? No wonder she had apologized for crying. Had she paid no attention to anything he had said or done?
Or not done?
Irritation prickled him again. “So you always advise self-control.”
“I have always found it to be the most comfortable policy.”
“I see.” Comfortable, no doubt, if very limiting. But they did not have time to deal with that at the present. “I have no objection to your pursuing this relationship with La Belle Assemblée if you enjoy it. But now we need to go down to Sam and Amelia.”
She nodded, and Rob opened the door for her. At least he had learned something. It appeared easy for women to direct anger toward their husbands. And anger tended to spread. And today they were both a bit indignant.
Perhaps he could use that.
Sam Broughton rose and extended a hand as Rob and Iantha came into the small parlor.
“How are you, Sam?” Rob shook the proffered hand, then leaned down to place a cousinly kiss on Amelia’s cheek. “You are looking well. Is Sam treating you as he should, or should I thrash him for you?”
“You wouldn’t dare.” Sam grinned and turned to Iantha, taking the hand she held out and jerking his head toward Rob. “He thinks himself formidable.”
Iantha thought Rob rather formidable herself. And one would think the tall, lanky Sam at a serious disadvantage against Rob’s breadth and muscle. The cousins hardly looked as though they were kin—Sam with straight, reddish-blond hair and Rob with brown curls.
Rob laughed and punched his cousin playfully on the arm. “I’d dare if you were mistreating the fair Amelia.”
Amelia shook her head, black curls bobbing, and smiled at Iantha. “Pay no attention to these two. They are always harassing one another.”
“Have to.” Sam lowered himself back to his chair as Iantha chose the sofa near the tea table. “It is the only way I can compete with my lord Duncan.”
Iantha wondered if she detected a hint of envy in the voice of Rob’s agent. Rob did, indeed, seem to have all the advantage—not only size and strength, but a title and wealth as well. Sam must content himself with being his employee.
Rob laughed aloud. “You gave a good enough account of yourself when we were lads. Always scrapping about something.”
The conversation paused briefly while Gailsgill brought in the tea tray and set it beside Iantha. When she had poured and distributed the tea, Sam turned to Rob. “Have you made any progress on discovering who killed young Carrock?”
“Not one iota.” Rob shook his head and set his teacup on a small table. “As you know, all the possible parties departed in great haste as soon as the roads cleared. Nothing has happened since to cast any light on the subject.”
“I saw Lord Alton recently when I went to London to talk with Welwyn about that shipping venture we are interested in. He is still sure that Prince Vijaya is the guilty party.”
Rob scowled. “He is letting his prejudices influence his judgment. The devil’s in it, though, that no one remembers when Vijaya appeared in the crowd outside the door.”
“I can’t think it of him, although I don’t know him as well as you do.” Sam sipped his tea.
“Well, they do say that still waters run deep.” Amelia blotted her lips daintily.
“Not that deep.” Rob’s brow furrowed again.
Iantha felt tongue-tied. She disliked the imputation that Vijaya was the murderer, but had no wish to bring up the alternate theory that Cosby had been silenced by someone involved in the assault on her. She caught a speculative glance directed at her from Sam. Did he know something of use that he was not willing to say to Rob in her presence?
She swallowed the last of her tea and turned to Amelia. “We are changing the furnishings in my bedchamber. Will you come up and give me your opinion on the drapes?”
“Of course! I would love to see it. I have never been in that room.”
“Nor have I, nor the master’s, either.” Sam set his cup aside. “Although we roamed everywhere else, my uncle never admitted the rabble into his sanctum.”
“Especially not two rowdy boys.” Rob stood as the ladies withdrew. When they could be heard climbing the stairs, he turned back to his cousin. “Come into the library. I have some tolerable sherry there.”
“That sounds a welcome relief from tea.” Sam followed Rob down the hall to his favorite haunt. “How are you and your lady faring? Does marriage suit you?”
Rob poured two glasses of the wine and settled behind his desk, propping his feet on it and leaning back in his chair. “Marriage has always suited me. I have missed the companionship.”
Sam took the chair by the fire. “I wish I might have known your first wife.” He sighed. “But I have always been stuck here in England.”
“That has its good aspects.” Rob drank a bit of the sherry. “You know a great deal more about how things stand here now than I do. Did you learn anything else of interest in London?”
“Only that there is friction between Welwyn and Wycomb. I’m not sure the source of it, but it was pretty obvious in my meeting with them.”
“Hmm. I guess that is not surprising. They are of two different generations—and from the argument here Christmas Eve, I’d say they don’t agree on politics.”
“No, t
hey don’t.” Sam stretched his long legs out to the fire. “And sometimes I can see Wycomb’s point of view. Bonaparte’s strengths show our monarch’s weakness, to the advantage of the French.”
“What do you think? Will we go to war with him?”
“Oh, certainly. He is preparing for that even as we sit here and drink French wine.” Sam emptied his glass, and Rob stretched across the desk to refill it. “But about the subject you asked me to explore… I can find no hint of who Iantha’s attackers might have been, except that Carrock ran with some rather wild companions. It is quite possible that they entertained themselves with rape.”
“But which of them was here—at my invitation? That’s the bastard I want my hands on now.” Rob’s fist closed convulsively around the wineglass, and he made himself set it carefully on the desk. “You know that they still send her filthy letters?”
“You told me.”
“Well, now I have also received a threat, and the same person sent one to her. Thank heaven I was able to intercept hers.” He pounded his fist on the desk. “God, I wish I knew who the bloody scoundrel is.”
“If you knew that, you would know the rest.”
“Yes. And it is only a matter of time until I do know.” He looked his cousin in the face. “I promise you that, Sam.”
Dinner had been a quiet affair. Rob still felt the pricks of vexation brought on by Iantha’s bias toward men and the injustice to himself that he perceived, and she apparently felt no more amiable. He spent some time studying with Vijaya afterward, still grumbling to himself. But grumbling would get him nowhere. Time to have a frank discussion with his lady.
As he opened the door of his bedchamber to divest himself of coat and cravat, he started at the sight of Camille, Iantha’s new maid, turning down his bed.
Rob frowned. “What are you doing here?”
Patricia Frances Rowell Page 13
