Her brown eyes never left his. Give her credit for more bravery than he was feeling at the moment.
Even his voice cracked a little as it had in his youth. Reyn gave her a twisted smile. “I’ve managed to get by so far on my good looks and charm, but you have found me out at last. I can barely understand my own notations some days. Now you see how hopeless it was for your husband to hire me to catalog the contents of Kelby Hall.”
“He didn’t hire you for that,” she said softly. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“How could I? I thought it enough to tell you I’m no scholar. No one knows my limitations, not even Ginny. She thinks I’m just lazy. Sometimes when I concentrate I can make out the gist of what I’m reading. I’ve got a good memory, thank God. If I hear something, it gets filed away. But as a lad, I didn’t sit still long enough to listen to much of anything.”
Reyn had trouble standing still, waiting for Maris to give her excuses and leave before partaking of Ginny’s eagerly planned supper. He heard the pulse sing in his ears, felt his heart race, and fought against the urge to flee from his office. From his life. He had been a fool to think he could cobble together some kind of order to his existence. Find a measure of happiness. He wasn’t worthy. His tenuous familial link to the ton was far overshadowed by his bad blood.
What if the child took after him, had his deficiencies? He had sentenced Maris with a problem that could not be solved. Reyn should never, ever have agreed to the absurd proposition, but it was much too late for regret.
She held the open ledger, her trembling hand revealing the impact of his words. He wished he could think of something comforting to say, but the truth was he was doomed and any child of his might be as well.
“You should have said something. If not to Henry, then to me.”
“I know. I was a coward. And you were so lovely I did not want to leave. If the child is afflicted, I can take it and spare you my parents’ misery.”
“You will not!” Maris was fairly thunderous, her brows every bit as frightening as a Durant’s. “There will be no way of knowing for years if the child has difficulties. Was your father—”
“Normal? Oh yes. Even if he was a gamester. He didn’t lose because he couldn’t read the numbers on his cards, he was just damned unlucky and didn’t have the wit to stop. I have no trouble there myself. Numbers are a bit easier for me to manage than letters. And the printed page is much clearer than someone’s handwriting.”
Her eyes widened. “You didn’t read all those desperate letters I wrote because you couldn’t.”
Reyn felt himself flush, “Guilty as charged. I hoped you’d stop writing once your husband informed you I’d changed my mind. And I had. I didn’t want to abandon a child, especially one who might need my help, what little I can provide.”
Maris sank onto his wooden desk chair. “Oh.”
“I’ve done a terrible, unforgiveable thing to you. The next Earl of Kelby may be as stupid as I am.”
“You truly are stupid.”
“I’ve told you I am sorry—”
“Do shut up, Reyn! No one knows what the future may hold for any of us. I could go blind tomorrow and then what would my ability to read matter? You have other skills, qualities that have served you well enough. You’ve made the best of a bad situation. To think you were beaten for what was not your fault. It is horrifying. Look here. See this d? Clearly you mean for it to be a b.”
Reyn stared at the line to which she pointed. “Isn’t it?”
“Is that how you see it?”
Reyn squinted, feeling the beginning of a headache take root. “Aye, I suppose.”
“Reading for you must be like looking into a fun house mirror. Nothing is as it appears to the rest of us.” She dropped the book and seized his hands, forcing his thumbs up and squeezing his fingers into the palm of his hand. “Look there. My governess Miss Holley taught me this trick when I was just a little girl. Jane had problems just as you do when she first learned to write, but she grew out of them. Your left hand makes a lower-case b.” She traced the curve of one letter, then the next. “The right is a d. Do you see it?”
Reyn examined his hands. He did! “How peculiar.”
“Isn’t it? There must be any number of tricks you can learn to help you. Miss Holley is still at a cottage on Kelby Hall’s grounds, retired of course. I bet she would love to help you. I can invite her to come and stay with me. No one would think it odd that I long for my old governess at this time.”
“Teach me at my age? Don’t be ridiculous.”
“It’s never too late to learn. I admire you for coping as well as you have, but surely there’s room for improvement.”
Reyn had been expecting rejection. Contempt. Pity. He had never imagined the Countess of Kelby would be looking up at him with such earnest encouragement when he had done nothing but lie to her. “I—”
“Don’t you dare say you can’t. Or you won’t. What have you got to lose, but an hour or two a day with a sweet old woman who would love to feel useful again? I might even be able to help you as well.”
Dear God. He still had some pride left, and would never want Maris to know his shame and frustration. He would go mad sitting in his seat poring over a pile of children’s primers. They didn’t take the first time. Why should it be any different now? He was nine and twenty, halfway to being thirty, far beyond anyone’s help. Reyn had an absurd image of himself crammed into a child’s desk, his knees splintering the wood. “I’ll think about it.” He just had, and it would not suit.
“You’ll do more than that if you know what’s good for you.”
He looked up from his clenched hands. Well, there was the Countess of Kelby he’d met so many months ago at the Reining Monarchs Society. It was too bad he could not summon the care-for-nothing man he’d been.
For he cared too much, and it might be his undoing.
Chapter 26
Reyn was stewing. There was no other word for his deportment as he scowled and growled across the table during Ginny’s elaborately correct meal. Once he’d crossed Merrywood’s threshold, he’d been elaborately correct himself, giving no indication that he was acquainted with Maris beyond their recent civilities. Certainly giving no indication that she knew his sad, dark secret.
But as the conversation continued amongst the women, his silence was a living thing, and the occasional grunts breaking it did nothing to make Maris more comfortable. He’d made no effort to exert his usual boyish charm, staring at his slab of roast beef as if it might rise up and bite him. Any questions Maris had posed to him about his hopes for his stud farm were met with brief syllables. Ginny was becoming increasingly embarrassed by her brother’s rudeness, and it was with relief that the ladies withdrew to the cheerful front parlor.
Poor Ginny. Her beau had been unable to come to dinner due to a parish emergency, and her brother was being a boor. She put on a smile and passed Maris a cup of India tea from a gleaming but dented silver tea service.
Maris accepted her cup of tea, wishing the tea leaves would tell her where she’d gone wrong with Reyn. She had shown no horror or disgust when he’d confessed his shortcomings, had truly not even thought what his problem might mean for their child. Now that he’d put the idea into her head, however, it tumbled around with ominous insistence. Could such a trait be passed on, like the family nose or a tendency to baldness?
Maris had never known anyone like Reyn Durant before. He was a man who cloaked himself in good humor and sexual prowess. He had gentled her along like one of his beloved mares, skilled in getting his way, literally charming her out of her petticoats. Such a force of personality indicated native intelligence. In their brief acquaintance, he had surprised her again and again with his knowledge for someone who’d boasted he’d hated school.
But he said he couldn’t read, not that he didn’t like to. Couldn’t. The handwriting in his business journal was practically illegible. How had he managed all these years? And how had Henry’s caref
ul investigation failed to reveal Reyn’s dilemma?
Well, she supposed one didn’t have to quote Shakespeare to kill one’s enemy. Reyn had been highly decorated for bravery on two continents. Henry had admired his virility and his fearlessness. He had told her once it was as if Captain Durant possessed an extra sense to detect danger. Perhaps that was God’s way of making amends.
It was she who was being rude, Maris realized, as Ginny and Mrs. Beecham looked at her with some anxiety. “I’m so sorry. I must have missed your comment.”
“It’s no wonder. That clap of thunder was enough to deafen us all.”
Thunder? Maris set her cup down and it rattled on the table after another clap shook Merrywood to its tenuous foundation. “Good heavens. A spring storm? It was so lovely when we drove over from the Grange.” There had been some unusual humidity all day, though Maris had not expected rain.
Ginny got up and walked to the window. The sky beyond had darkened early, not from nightfall but an abundance of threatening gray clouds. She jumped back at a sudden flash of lightning.
“Lady Kelby, you cannot possibly get home in time to avoid the storm. Reyn is a crack whip, but even he would not dare to drive you home now in your condition. Do say you will agree to spend the night with us. We have a spare room, not up to your standards, of course, but it’s clean and Molly can get it ready in a trice.”
“S-spend the night?” Maris’s little contingent would be concerned if she didn’t return, and she was not going to ask Ginny to send someone to Hazel Grange to inform them in this kind of weather, even if there was someone to send. She knew from her conversations with his sister that Reyn did most of the labor at Merrywood himself. The halls were not lined with spare footmen waiting to deliver messages. “I couldn’t possibly. My people would worry.”
“Oh, but you must! Look, it’s starting to rain right now.”
She rose and joined Ginny at the window and saw the sudden spatter of rain on the wavy glass. “Oh, dear.”
“So you see, it’s impossible for you to leave.” Ginny smiled and looped her arm through Maris’s. “We shall take good care of you, I promise. Your people will put two and two together and not expect you to come home in all this. Isn’t that right, Reyn?”
He was standing in the doorway, looking blacker than the sky outside. If he’d indulged in a cigar or a glass of port, it hadn’t seemed to relax him.
“Reyn, tell the countess she must stay the night. You can drive her home first thing in the morning,” Ginny wheedled.
“Of course.”
He didn’t sound willing to do anything with her. Perhaps that was a relief. All his marriage talk would stop, and that was a good thing, wasn’t it?
“Are you going to join us for a cup of tea, Reyn?”
“I think not. I’m headed to the stables. Thunderstorms spook the horses, Brutus in particular. I won’t have him kick in his box.”
“Heavens, you’re not going to sleep out there, are you?” Ginny asked.
“I might. Countess, do excuse me. I’ll return you to Hazel Grange at your convenience, tomorrow.”
Another rumble of thunder punctuated his words, and he was gone from the doorway before Maris could reply.
Well, damn. When Maris had been a girl, she and Jane had shared a pet, a raggedy little terrier much like Ginny’s Rufus. The dog had somehow acquired a thorn in its paw, and when Maris held him so Jane could attempt to remove it, the dog had bitten both of them quite badly. Henry had patiently explained to them that wounded animals often turned on those who tried to help them, but had the poor dog put down anyway. Maris had cried for days, and it was the only time in her life when she hated the Earl of Kelby.
Reyn reminded her of that long-ago animal. Somehow she would help him anyway, and pray he didn’t decide to bite her, too.
The violence of the storm had subsided, but the rain drummed steadily on the stable roof, reminding Reyn of an endless military tattoo. The horses had finally quieted, and he’d sent young Jack to bed above the mares’ building. Reyn lay on a lumpy pallet in his office, the wick of the lantern turned low. The mess on his desk lay as a rebuke to his folly. If only he’d cleaned up before Maris had visited. Idiot that he was, he’d been cleaning himself up, bathing and brushing, buffing his boots, donning a new coat.
It wasn’t his body that needed attention, but his mind. Now that Maris knew the truth about him, there was no point in letting himself think about their future. There was none.
It would be all right, or at least good enough. He had a useful occupation and Ginny was on the mend. To look at her, one would never know she’d ever been as sick as she was. Her lungs would never be strong, but if she was careful, that old drunk Dr. Sherman said she might even bear children one day. Reyn would miss her when she moved to the vicarage, but he’d managed most of his life being alone, even in a crowd.
In the midst of his troops, he’d guarded himself, masking his embarrassment at being so deficient. No one had guessed. He was skilled in duplicity. He should have lied to Maris, but his betraying tongue had run away with the truth.
He turned, scrunching up the folded horse blankets he was using as a pillow. He’d need another bath before he took Maris home. And that would be the last he would see of her. There would be no teas or dinners, no “chance” meetings at their boundaries. She would be going back to Kelby Hall eventually to have her child, and he would try to forget them both.
He tossed and turned, knowing he would find no comfort in his own bed, either, so he wasn’t asleep when he heard the latch lift and the light footsteps moving across the packed-earth floor. Reyn sat up, smoothing the tangle of his overlong hair.
He could see her peering through a gap in the homespun curtains that gave him privacy in his little office. What did she want? Surely she had not brought books to teach him tonight.
She rapped on the window, and gave him a hesitant wave. Reyn fought his desire to put a blanket over his head and pretend he didn’t see her.
“May I come in?”
Reyn could say no. Should say no. But he just nodded and watched her disappear around the corner to his office door. The hinges squeaked and she was inside, standing before him like a lost angel, her brown hair plated in a braid that fell over one shoulder. Her borrowed white nightgown showed a great deal of ankle, and more besides. She’d gotten wet on her way to the stables and the garment clung to her in all the right places. He could see the swell of her belly beneath her nervous clasped hands. Her nipples, too. He swallowed hard.
“What do you want?” Reyn knew he sounded surly, but couldn’t help himself. He wanted her gone.
“I-I came to talk to you.”
“We’ve talked enough, don’t you think? Your hope for my transformation is touching, but rather hopeless, Countess. I am what I am. I don’t need a nanny to feel sorry for me.”
“No, you don’t.” She didn’t move from the doorway.
“You’ll wake the horses. Or Jack. Go back to bed.”
“No.”
“Good God, woman! Can’t you tell you’re not wanted? Leave me in peace.” Her husband had once cautioned him to be careful with her, but sometimes it was kind to be cruel.
“No.”
“You sound like a singularly repetitive parrot.”
To his alarm, her mouth wobbled, but then she laughed. “Yes, I suppose I do. Let me say something else then. I want you to make love to me tonight.”
His rage boiled over. “A pity fuck? No thank you, Maris. I’ve got hands and my imagination.” Neither of which had come close to assuaging his desire for her all these months.
“Perhaps I want you to take pity on me, Reyn. I am rather ungainly at present. Unattractive.”
He snorted. “Don’t beg for compliments, my lady. You are magnificent and you know it.”
“I am?”
He sprang from his pallet and sat down at his desk showing her his back so he couldn’t see her and her magnificence. “Damn it, Maris, let�
��s not play games. You know I want you, and I can’t have you. We have nothing in common. I was wrong to ask you to marry me and have the child lose all its advantages. But then I’m often wrong. Anyone could tell you that.”
He shuddered as she came up behind him and placed a long white hand on his bad shoulder.
“This is no game, Reyn. I want you to hold me. I want to hold you. If you just give me tonight, I’ll understand.”
“No.”
“Now who’s the parrot? Why?”
“Because . . . because, damn you! It’s not right.”
“It was never right, Reyn. From the beginning, we both knew that, but we did it anyway. And it was . . . glorious.”
Oh, God. It was torture. He’d finally recovered his scruples, and she came to tempt him. Of course he wanted her. If he looked into her trusting brown eyes, he would not be able to say no again. He racked his brain for a sufficient excuse. “I might hurt you. Hurt the child.”
“I-I don’t think that can be true.” There was a bit of doubt in her voice.
Perhaps it was enough to send her on her way. “If you are desirous of release, Maris, I suggest you use your hand as I taught you.” Just that morning, he’d thought of her hand between them, his partner in her own bliss. He felt her breath on his neck.
“Perhaps I didn’t need you to teach me that particular trick.”
Another taunting image for him to dwell on. “You see? You’re perfectly capable of taking care of your own needs.”
She squeezed his shoulder and he thought he’d shoot straight out of the chair. “You ridiculous man. It’s not the same at all. If we are no longer to be friends, I’ll face the rest of my life alone. You can give me one last night, surely.”
Reyn couldn’t help himself. He swung around to face her. “Friends, Lady Kelby? You refused my friendship as I recall.”
“Only in the very beginning, Reyn. We became more than friends. We became lovers. From just two days this miracle occurred. Think on it. Anything is possible.”
She is at it again. Reyn frowned. “If you think you can turn me into some kind of scholar—”
Captain Durant's Countess Page 23
