Raymond hesitated. “I have never hidden that the marriage was purely one of duty to me,” he said evenly. “My father’s family insisted. I could put it off no longer. I complied. The Devlin family have their heir. I have done my duty.” He shrugged.
The harshness of his voice, the inflexibility of his jaw, surprised her. The depth of his feelings were also shocking. “You are angry,” she said. “I’m sorry, that was not my intention, to make you angry.”
He shook his head, frowning. “I am not angry at you. If I am angry at all, it is at myself, for…oh, all manner of things. I didn’t love Rose. It has been nearly a year and yet this morning, I still looked up expecting to see her sitting at the other end of the breakfast table, buttering her toast.” His gloved hand curled into a hard fist. “Why do I keep doing that?” He ground out the question, pain in his voice.
“You may not have loved her in the way you think you ought to have, but there was affection there, Raymond. Respect, at the very least, or you would not have made an heir. You are not the sort to…to…” Natasha took a deep breath. “You are not the sort of man to bed a woman with whom you have no relationship whatsoever. I do not believe that is in your nature. You cared for Rose on some level and you lived with her for five years—”
“Four,” he corrected softly.
“It was long enough for the relationship to leave its mark on your heart, Raymond.”
“Then why do I feel guilty all the time?” he asked flatly. “I feel guilty for not loving her enough, for not giving her all the affection I could. If I had known she would live so few years, I would have…” He shook his head.
Natasha jumped. Guilt. Yes, that was it. That was the ache in the middle of her chest. “I don’t think it matters what the type or quality the relationship may have been,” she said slowly. “What matters is that they have gone and we remain and we feel guilty for it.”
Raymond considered her, his gaze steady. The pain in his eyes faded. “Yes,” he said. “That’s it, exactly.” He sat back in the corner, almost relaxing into it. “We are a wretched pair, are we not?”
The air of free confession still lingered, which allowed Natasha to say, “I do not feel as wretched as I should, knowing someone else feels as I do.”
Raymond didn’t move or speak for a long moment. The carriage rounded the long curve into Knightsbridge. The tall trees of Hyde Park were visible over the buildings lining the wide road. They would be in Mayfair soon enough.
“My marriage was doomed from the start,” Raymond said. “I knew that, yet I married her anyway.” His gaze shifted from Natasha’s. “I loved someone else. I think I have loved her forever.”
Natasha nodded.
“You knew?” he asked, shock making his voice rise.
“Not for certain. Everyone has wondered for years if there was a woman you could not speak of. You never seemed to get into mischief the way Benjamin does, or that other single men are supposed to.” Natasha hesitated, then threw caution away. This frankness was helping ease aches and torments that had lived in her for a long time. It must surely be helping Raymond, too. “Did she…is the woman you love still unavailable, Raymond? I mean, you are a widower. It has been nearly a year. You are free to pursue whomever you wish, now.”
“If the woman would have me,” Raymond said in agreement. “Her name is Susanna.”
Natasha cast about quickly, names of friends and relatives, the peerage of England and Scotland and Ireland running through her head. She didn’t know a Susanna. “Is she…a commoner? Is that why you’ve never spoken of her before?”
He weighed his answer. Then he shook his head. “I can say no more. It would not be fair to her. It may even compromise her position.”
The woman he loved, this Susanna, was married. Perhaps even happily married. Natasha could read between the lines as well as any other society matron navigating the twin shoals of finding a good match for her daughters and warding off inappropriate matches for her sons. Marriages arranged with an eye toward securing titles and lands, with no regard for love and affection, were not unusual, alas. Yet society still maintained the pretense that every marriage was a love match. Raymond’s Susanna, if she was of the peerage, may have been forced to such a match by family pressure, just as Raymond had been forced to his.
Raymond must have lingered for years, saying nothing, perhaps waiting for Susanna, who was then wed to another. After that, he had refused to consider anyone else, until his father’s family had insisted upon an heir, at which point, Raymond had acquiesced and married Rose.
Natasha studied him, seeing him in this new light. He had always been a silent, introspective man. Now she knew why. “I’m glad you told me this much,” she said impulsively.
Raymond lifted his hand, in a small gesture of caution. “I should not have spoken at all,” he said. “I only wanted you to know I understand. You loved Seth very much. I saw it when he was alive and I know how you feel now, because I, too, can’t be with the one I love.”
Her heart shifted. “Oh, Raymond…”
“In the last year,” he went on, “I have learned that speaking my mind, that saying what is truly in my heart to a sympathetic listener, can ease the load.”
“You have done that for me, this morning,” Natasha admitted. “I was utterly miserable, until we spoke.”
His mouth turned up at the corners. Warmth lit his eyes. “I am glad of that,” he said softly. He glanced over her shoulder. “Piccadilly. We’ll be there in a moment or two.” He sat up again and spoke of general things—the upcoming Henley Regatta of which he was a marshal this year, which was considered a great honor; of the racing at Ascot; and of family things, such as Annalies’ daughter, Sadie, and her latest ambition to join a circus when she grew up. It was delightful chatter, filled with people they had in common, which were many. Natasha felt relaxed and very nearly happy when the cabriolet eased to a stop outside the townhouse on Park Lane.
Raymond stepped onto the pavement and turned to hand her out of the carriage.
Natasha gripped his hand a little longer than was strictly necessary. “Thank you, Raymond. You truly have eased my heart a little.”
His fingers pressed hers, then he let her hand go and stepped back, as was proper. “I, too, am glad we spoke.” His eyes met hers.
Natasha dropped her gaze, aware of passers-by observing them. “I would ask you in, only there is no one at home. Besides,” she added hurriedly, “I have to take tea this afternoon at the London Orphans Society. There is a perfectly dreadful woman from Scotland who is to lecture us on how to raise money.”
Raymond smiled. “Did your Orphans Society not raise nearly ten thousand pounds last year?” he asked curiously.
“Yes!” Natasha said heatedly. “Yet now we are to be told we are not doing it properly.”
“The cheek of her!” Raymond said. Only, his shoulders were shaking. He was laughing and hiding it.
Natasha realized how shrill and silly she sounded and smiled, too. “I was thinking I may send a letter to your mother and insist she invited me for afternoon tea before I received the invitation from the Society. Then I would simply have to decline the later invitation.”
Raymond gave her a short bow. “Far be it for me to get in the way of social machinations. Good day, Lady Innesford.”
“Lord Marblethorpe.” She picked up her hems. Corcoran was already standing at the door, waiting for her to enter. She slipped inside and heard the cabriolet roll away from the door as Corcoran closed it.
“Was that Viscount Marblethorpe, my lady?” he asked.
“It was,” Natasha said as she took off the veil and bonnet and dropped the hat pin inside. She handed it over to her maid, Mulloy, along with her gloves and the light shawl that was all that was needed in June. “Raymond was at the cemetery, too.”
“Visiting his poor wife,” Corcoran guessed. “Such a tragedy. Lunch will be ready in the dining room at the hour, my lady.”
She glanced at the
grandfather clock ticking heavily in the corner of the front hall. Noon was barely fifty minutes away. “I need to send a letter to Lady Farleigh, Corcoran. Can Kip run the letter over to Grosvenor Square for me?”
“Certainly, my lady. I’ll stir the lad up from the kitchen for you.”
“Mulloy, would you set out my afternoon dress? I’ll be up as soon as I’ve written the letter.”
“Yes, my lady.” Mulloy curtsied and hurried upstairs with Natasha’s things.
Natasha went through to the library, where her desk was located. It had been Seth’s desk, of course. Now it was hers. It would be Cian’s soon enough. He could claim his full inheritance this very day if he chose to. It was his by right. He was as reluctant, though, to take up his father’s mantle as Natasha had been for him to do so.
She had resisted using the desk up until now. Usually, she used the lap secretary, even going so far as to sit at the dining table instead of here.
Now she sat down and pulled out stationery from the central drawer and barely thought of the fact that Seth used to sit here, swearing over pilfering fingers and cargoes that were short, rotting or spoiled from sea water, or that reliable staff for Harrow Hall in Ireland were difficult to find from his desk in London. He would grumble, but stay in London for the Season to make friends of the right people, just so their children would have the best opportunities when they came of age.
She rested her hand on the leather inlay for a moment and realized she was smiling. Seth would have been just as happy as her to wriggle out of an unpleasant social engagement as she was doing now.
Still smiling, she wrote her letter to Elisa. The afternoon suddenly seemed brighter.
Chapter Two
Natasha looked over her cards and sighed. Whist was not her favorite game, especially if Annalies was playing it with her. Annalies seemed to be able to remember every card that had been played. Her brain must turn mechanically. Natasha never failed to lose—quite badly—when Annalies and Elisa were at the table. Even Lilly, their fourth player, was playing better than Natasha, even though she was distracted and kept cleaning her spectacles.
“Are the children being a bother this afternoon, Lilly?” Natasha asked her daughter kindly.
Lilly looked startled. “No, not at all!” She glanced at Elisa apologetically. “I assigned The Lady of Shalott for reading this afternoon. It is too warm for more energetic studies.”
It was very warm. The drapes at the tall windows had been drawn back as far as possible and the windows opened wide. There was not a hint of a breeze. The scent of dry dust from the road outside the windows was strong and made stronger each time a horse or carriage passed, which was not often, for all of London seemed to have fallen into a stupor this afternoon.
“I do so like The Lady of Shalott,” Annalies said. “If the girls enjoy it as much as I do, that explains why it is quiet upstairs.” She was not frowning over her cards as everyone else did. She waited, her cards in her lap.
“Floating down a shady river does seem rather attractive right now,” Elisa murmured, rearranging her cards. “For June, it is unseasonably hot.” She fanned her face with her cards, lifting the white gold curls from her temples.
“I’ve kept you from cooler pursuits, haven’t I?” Natasha said, guilt spearing her.
“Nonsense,” Elisa said firmly. “Rescuing a friend from social purgatory always comes first.”
“Absolutely,” Annalies said, just as firmly. “Is this Scottish woman really as dreadful as you say? Perhaps she does have some notions that would help with the Society?”
“You are always looking for new and better ways to do things, Anna,” Elisa told her. “The people whom Natasha must coax to part with their money for a worthy cause are far more staid. Tradition and custom serve better.”
“There, that is precisely what I told the President when she suggested the lecture,” Natasha said.
Annalies sat back with a sigh. “I cannot concentrate,” she declared. “This heat is pickling my mind inside my skull. Much more of it and vinegar will run from my ears.”
Natasha laughed at the notion.
Elisa threw down her cards. “I agree. It is more than uncomfortable.”
“That is because you have the windows open,” Natasha told her, folding her hand, too.
Elisa and Annalies both groaned.
“Not the window thing again, please!” Elisa said. “Seth would never stop...” she glanced at Natasha, “lecturing about the windows.”
“Well, it is very hot in Australia. Hotter than even today, I imagine,” Natasha said.
Lilly lurched to her feet. Her face was pale. “I am…I want to see to the girls, make sure they’re behaving themselves.” She hurried away, scattering cards as she went, and flashing ankles as she dashed up the stairs.
Paulson, the butler, who was just entering, bent to pick up the cards with a bellow of breath. His knees were not what they had once been.
Elisa watched Lilly leave. She looked at Natasha. “I am so sorry. That was thoughtless of me, to bring up his name like that.”
Natasha pressed her hand over Elisa’s. “Lilly is sensitive about her father’s death. Far more than anyone else. She’ll adjust eventually. She just needs time.”
Elisa didn’t seem convinced. She pressed her lips together.
Annalies was the one to speak, though. “We all miss him, of course. You mustn’t think we don’t.”
“Of course I don’t think that!” Natasha declared, shocked.
“It’s just that Raymond warned us where you had been this morning and you were…upset,” Elisa said gently. “I suppose Seth is on all our minds right now.”
Natasha could feel the sting of tears and blinked rapidly. She waited until the hard knot in her throat dissipated, then said calmly, “Is that why you were suddenly free this afternoon? Because Raymond told you I would ask to be invited?”
Elisa gave a tiny shrug. “Even if he had not sent his note, a gap in my schedule would have mysteriously appeared when you asked, anyway.”
“Mine, too,” Annalies said.
Natasha smiled at them. “Thank you. Both of you.”
Annalies handed the rest of the card pack to Paulson as he came over to the table. He put the section together with his stack and placed the full deck back on the table. “I thought you might enjoy tea under the willow tree, my lady,” he said to Elisa. “There is the tiniest of breezes out in the garden at the moment.”
“That seems like an excellent idea, Paulson, thank you,” Elisa said and got to her feet. “Could you ask the maids to close all the windows and draw all the drapes in the house, please?”
Natasha smiled.
“My lady?” Paulson stared at her as if she had barked like a dog.
“Yes, I want the whole house closed up tight so no more heat can get in. Around sunset, we will open the house up again and let the cooler air circulate until it is time to retire.”
Paulson was as devoted to Elisa and her family as Corcoran was to Seth’s family, yet Elisa often stretched the limits of his devotion, as she was doing now. Annalies and Natasha watched him struggle, until he finally cleared his throat and gave a stiff nod. “Very well, my lady.”
As they moved out to the terrace, to where the table and chairs had been set out under the shade of the century old willow tree, Natasha murmured; “He will assume it was all his own idea once he realizes how effective it is at cutting down the heat.”
“If it does reduce this heat, Paulson can claim himself Emperor and I will not care,” Elisa said, plucking away the edge of her afternoon dress from her chest.
“If it is still this hot in October, then I really am going to swim in the ocean this year,” Annalies added.
Natasha laughed. Annalies had been threatening to swim in public for many years. The waves and the beach fascinated her. “Then you will be arrested and the family will add one more scandal to its repertoire.”
“You’ve never gone swimming in
the sea, have you, Natasha?” Elisa asked, as they sat at the table. “All those years in Cornwall, listening to the waves, you were never tempted?”
Natasha picked up the teapot and poured, even though Elisa had not asked her to.
“She has!” Annalies breathed. “When?”
Natasha could feel her cheeks burning. “With Seth, one night…oh, a very long time ago.” She held out the cup to Elisa and stared at her, daring her to comment about inappropriate behavior.
Elisa took the cup and smiled. “Happy memories,” she said, making Natasha wonder what outdoor water sport Elisa may have indulged in.
Annalies leaned forward. “Were you…did you take off your clothes? All of them?” she asked, her tone intensely curious.
Natasha sought for a way to shift the conversation. Then she remembered. “Elisa, has Raymond ever spoken to you about a woman called Susanna?”
Elisa sat back, her expression thoughtful. “Susanna? Not that I recall. That isn’t to say he doesn’t know a woman called Susanna. Raymond has always been very discreet about his affairs.”
“That is because he didn’t have any,” Natasha told her. “Except for Susanna.”
“An affaire de coer?” Annalies asked. “Who is she?”
“I don’t know,” Natasha said. “Raymond wouldn’t tell me. He was…” She hesitated. “He was trying to cheer me up, so he told me about her and that she was the great love of his life.”
Elisa’s lips parted and her eyes widened.
“You didn’t know?” Annalies asked her.
“No,” Elisa said, a small furrow forming between her brows. “How odd. I mean…” She glanced at Natasha and Anna self-consciously. “It is quite normal for a man to keep his dalliances away from his mother’s attention, but the love of his life?” She shook her head.
Annalies was sitting with her teacup halfway to her mouth, her gaze distant. Her lips moved, while she made no sound.
“What are you doing, Anna?” Natasha asked curiously.
“I am reviewing Burke’s,” Annalies said distantly.
Soul of Sin (Scandalous Scions Book 2) Page 2
