by Liz Carlyle
Frederica tried to hand the deed back. “Thank you, Joan,” she said. “But I really don’t know—that is to say—I might be going back to Essex for a time.”
Joan eyed her stubbornly. “Oh, no, you shan’t!” she insisted. “Do not step one toe out of this county! Bentley will just have to straighten himself out.”
Frederica looked at her, curious. “Do you think he needs straightening out?”
But Joan looked away and began to fold the choir robes. “We all do, don’t we?” she answered vaguely. “Some, perhaps, more than others.”
Frederica gathered her courage. “You know about Cassandra, don’t you?” she whispered. “I overheard you once, in the nave, with Bentley.”
Joan’s hands had frozen in mid-motion. “Oh, do not ask me about that,” she whispered. “Oh, please do not! Once, we shared everything, Bentley and I. But now…well, you must speak to your husband.”
“I’m sorry,” Frederica answered. “But I never know whom to ask about anything. I don’t even know how she died.”
For a heartbeat, Joan was silent. “We aren’t sure.” She was staring down at the stack of robes. “But the whole sordid tale was common gossip. Cassandra had a long affair with Thomas, my husband’s cousin. He was our former rector.”
Frederica’s brows went up. “The rector?”
Faintly, Joan smiled. “Appalling, isn’t it? And when she ended it, Thomas took it badly. They quarreled. A lamp was knocked over; an accident, we think. Cassandra died in the fire.”
“Oh, my God.” Frederica slowly sat back down. “And Thomas? What became of him?”
Joan’s gaze flicked up from the robes, oddly emotionless. “Do you not know?” she asked very softly. “Bentley killed him. Shot him straight through the heart. He had no choice. Thomas was quite mad, you see. He had taken Helene and Ariane hostage. Did Bentley tell you none of this?”
For an instant, Frederica could not breathe. Could not think. It was as if the walls suddenly pressed in on her. She managed to shake her head. Later, she barely remembered taking her leave of Joan, but somehow, she made her way back through the chancel. A sheet of heavy canvas covered the gaping hole where the door had been taken down. Frederica pushed through it, then sat down on the doorstep to gather her thoughts.
Good Lord, she almost wished she had not asked Joan about Cassandra. Bentley had killed this man, Thomas? How appalling. And yet, he had had no choice. He had been placed, it seemed, in an untenable position. What must he have felt? What must he still feel? She remembered his letter then and pulled it from her pocket. His heavy scrawl was unmistakable.
My dear wife,
I am aware that I have broken our agreement. Such, I daresay, is my honor. I hope you will enjoy Bellevue in good health. If it does not suit, contact my broker in Lombard Street. Stoddard is authorized to cover your expenses, including the purchase of another property. In this regard, please yourself, as it seems I am incapable of doing so. I will wait to hear the news of the birth. Kindly write to me at Roselands Cottage, North End Way, Hampstead.
With all respect,
R.B.R.
Frederica’s hands began to shake. She read the note again. Oh, God. This was it, then. He really had left her. And she had brought it on herself. She had made unreasonable demands. She had asked him to do something he was unable to do. Something which really had little bearing on them. On their future together. Was that right? God, she was so mixed up! Perhaps marriage did not mean one got the chance to pick apart the past. Perhaps it meant only that one deserved fidelity and affection in the here and now.
Frederica thought again of the deed Joan had given her. Bentley had bought Bellevue? It boggled the mind. And so he had been planning for the future, albeit in his own rather ham-fisted fashion. He had been trying. Trying on many fronts, both of them. But would they have succeeded? She would never know now. She had spoilt it. Yesterday, she’d been quite confident in the rightness of her actions. Now, having seen the horror in her husband’s face—and having spent the first of what might be a lifetime of nights alone—she was not so sure.
Frederica felt the hot well of tears again. It was time to go and have a good cry. But it would have to be her last, she vowed. She had a child to consider. And because of that, she was going to return to her family. Perhaps she was weak, but she did not think she could bear to go through this without their support. Resolved, she stood and shoved Bentley’s note into her pocket.
It was then that she noticed the workmen on the hill by the yew trees. One of them turned, tossed a shovel onto his cart, and led his horse down the hill toward the village gate. In the empty spot in the last row of graves, she could see that a new marker had been set. Cassandra’s gravestone. For reasons she could not begin to explain, Frederica wanted to see it. Would doing so make it all seem less harrowing? Would it prove the past was dead?
When she reached the top of the hill, the workmen were latching the gate. Frederica stood alone in the shade of the yew tree, staring down at the smooth, honey-colored stone. Irrationally, she wanted to hate this woman who was dead and gone. She wanted to hate her for what she had been able to reach out and taint, even from the grave.
No, seeing it did not help. Saddened, Frederica turned and started away. But halfway down the slope, something began to nag at her. As if pulled by a magnet, she walked back and glanced at the stone again. The dates. The dates were wrong. She stared at them, her hand trembling. She fell to her knees, her skirts pooling in the grass and fresh earth, and leaned forward to touch the last line. The year of Cassandra’s death. The newly cut stone was rough as she traced it with a trembling finger. A cold realization was creeping over her.
God. Oh, God. That could not be right. Could it? Cassandra Rutledge had been dead better than a dozen years? But Bentley would have been…just a boy.
He was Gervais’s age when they married, Catherine had said that day in the churchyard. But Cassandra was not the nurturing type.
Frederica felt nausea roil up in her throat, choking her. Good God! How could she have misunderstood? She had thought…she had assumed…what? The worst. Yes, she had believed the worst of her own husband—but no worse than he’d come to believe of himself. He had spoken of this, an appalling horror, with such icy detachment, it was as if he spoke of someone else and not himself at all.
I did it. I did whatever she wanted.
You don’t understand. My head is like a bloody floodgate, and if I open it…
If I open it…
Frederica was still touching the gravestone. Horrified, she jerked back her hand as if scalded. And then she stumbled to her feet and flew through the cemetery, through the door in the wall, and all the way up the hill to Chalcote. Once inside, Frederica hastened through the cool, shadowy corridors, pushing open doors and flying up the stairs unhesitatingly. The garden suite was unlocked. She burst into the bedchamber and fell to her knees before the blanket chest. Without pausing to think, she jerked open the drawer and began to rip out Cassandra’s journals, one at a time, until her arms were so full she could carry no more. Leaving the last two or three in the open drawer, she raced down the stairs and into Bentley’s bedchamber, where she dumped the journals in a heap beneath the bank of windows.
She sat down, opening the first one she seized. Frantically, she read. At first, there were only veiled allusions. No proof. Just dark suggestions and sarcastic asides, separated by days, even months, of narcissistic drivel. For hours, Frederica kept reading, her heart growing leaden in her chest. She refused to see anyone who knocked. In the early afternoon, she finally accepted a luncheon tray from Queenie, but only for the babe’s sake. While she ate, she returned to her vigil. As the light faded away to nothing, Frederica closed the last of the books with a hand that trembled.
Cassandra had been no fool. She’d been clever in her seduction. Oh, so very clever. And wicked beyond human comprehension. But it was there, between the lines, for anyone to see. The truth. The horror. Why had no one not
iced what was happening? He had been a boy. Who was supposed to watch over him? Protect him?
Cam wouldn’t have given a damn, anyway, Bentley had said. If he had, maybe he’d have noticed.
Answers. More answers. Oh, dear God, were they all there? If one had the courage to look? Somewhere in the depths of the house, a clock struck six, the sound low and mournful. And finally, Frederica gave way to that one last cry she had promised herself on the doorstep of St. Michael’s. She cried from the bottom of her heart and the depths of her soul; deep, wracking sobs of despair which left her shoulders shaking and her ribs almost bruised. But this time, it was not herself for whom she cried.
Along the post roads of England, there were a thousand waysides like the Cat and Currier, places neither especially mean nor particularly dirty but with few pretensions to elegance. The Cat sported a dark, narrow taproom, a spartan dining room with a private nook or two, and, above it all, a half-dozen rooms to let. Situated as it was between Cheston-on-the-Water and greater London, Bentley frequented it often, for the Cat was the sort of place one could get a clean, louse-free bed and, if a man were so inclined, a clean, louse-free bedmate to warm it. And afterward, a game of dice or cards, perhaps a tad less clean, was easily had.
But Bentley didn’t know what the hell he’d had when he woke up on this particular morning. Or was it even morning? Damned if he knew. Someone, however, had the gall to be pounding on his door. Well, damn them, too. With a grunt, Bentley rolled over.
But the rapping on the door grew louder and faster, until it was a great, thunderous tattoo in his brain. “Mr. Rutledge!” cried a shrill voice. “Mr. Rutledge, sir, it is half past noon! I must know if you mean to keep the room. And there is that small matter of last night’s, er, expenses.”
“Ummph,” Bentley managed to groan.
The innkeeper took that as a sign of reluctance. “No, I really must insist, sir!” The shrill voice notched higher. “These debts must be settled. There was a vast deal of damage to my taproom.”
Bentley buried his head in his pillow. “Aw, fuck all!” he groaned. But sudden guilt stabbed him. Why? Then he remembered. Freddie had asked him not to use that word. And as foolish as it seemed, he’d meant to oblige her. Even if she wasn’t to be around to hear—or, in this case, not to hear. Jesus Christ, his brains had turned to mush. Or perhaps they’d been flushed out through his kidneys in dribs and drabs by the gallons of brandy he’d apparently drunk last night.
But it had all been for naught, hadn’t it? There wasn’t enough liquor in all of Christendom to make him forget his wife. To make him stop missing her. To make him stop longing for the taste of her in his mouth and the warmth of her hand in his. Nothing had changed, and yet everything was different. They were as one. They were.
He didn’t even know how or when it had happened. He knew only that he might as well cleave out his own heart, for, apart from her, he could not survive. He’d had time to think. Time to consider what she’d demanded. And now he knew. It was time to go home. Time to beg for forgiveness. First, God help him, from his brother. Then from his wife. She had left him no choice. He only prayed it was not too late.
In the passageway, the innkeeper was beginning to enumerate the smashed windows, broken tables, and shattered crockery which he’d been obliged to cart away. And then there was, apparently, the small matter of a missing mantelpiece. Good Lord, he was getting too old for this. What had he done last night? And with whom? Bentley remembered nothing—which had been, he supposed, his intent.
Suddenly, a second voice joined the fray. “’Ad bit o’ highjinks last night, ducks?” asked a perky female voice. “Aw, don’t fret. Rutledge is good for the blunt. Now, just ’and me that key, wot?”
Beyond the heavy door, the innkeeper made an indignant noise. Curious, Bentley tried to sit up. In the corridor, a tussle ensued. “Aw, now be a good chap, an’ give me that key,” said the female amidst a good deal of grunting and thumping.
“Madam!” huffed the innkeeper. “This is a respectable inn!”
“Aye, an’ I’m respectable as the old queen ’erself, God rest ’er!”
Another thump, a few more grunts, and Bentley heard the key scrape into the lock. Queenie burst into the room, her bosom leading like the prow of a battleship. The diminutive innkeeper was on her heels, leaping about like some overzealous rat terrier, trying to snatch back his key.
Irritated, Queenie spun about and slapped it into his hand. “Orf w’you then, me fine fellow,” she said. “I’ve private business ’ere.”
“I daresay your sort would,” he said nastily. “Still, there is the small matter of what’s owing for the damage.”
Bold as brass, Queenie hiked up her skirts to reveal a plump, milk-white thigh with a green morocco purse strapped to it. The innkeeper gasped and averted his eyes. “This ’ere is wot you call an old-age pension, ducks,” she chortled, extracting a banknote. She shoved it under his nose. The innkeeper took the hand from his eyes and gasped again. “Now, back downstairs, ducks, before I break one o’ your arms,” suggested Queenie sweetly. “Then send up a pot of strong coffee, two raw eggs, and a tankard of stout.”
The innkeeper hastened away. Bentley wobbled up onto one elbow, the bedcovers slipping down to his waist. “My coat,” he rasped, pointing an unsteady finger at a heap of clothing in the floor. “I’m paying you back, Queenie. Then get the hell out.” But the room was spinning, and Bentley was forced to flop back down.
“I’ll not be leaving without you, Mr. B., ’cause yer did me a good turn once, an’ old Queenie ain’t forgot it.” She slid an arm beneath his shoulders and hefted him back up again. “So let’s walk it off, eh?”
“Get out, blister it!” he growled. “I’m not decent.”
“Ooh, lawks!” said Queenie in mock horror. “Me delicate sensibilities!”
Soon Bentley found himself sitting on the edge of the bed in his drawers. The room had almost stopped spinning. Queenie was peering into his eyes. “Yer do look a tad rough, Mr. B.,” she said briskly. “But a tub o’ hot water, some fresh togs, an’ you’ll be your fine old self again.”
Bentley let his face fall forward into his hands. He’d left Chalcote too quickly to put up a change of gear. What a charming sight he’d make when he arrived home in filthy clothes and a stubbled beard. Freddie wouldn’t want to forgive him.
But Queenie was gesturing at a valise by the door. “Packed ’em meself with none the wiser,” she said proudly. “Forgot the razor an’ strop, though. Then Milford sent the coachman ter drive me here, just like a fine lady. O’ course it took us all day to run you to ground.”
Bentley was on his feet. Queenie went to the door and bellowed for a tub of hot water. A harried serving maid rushed in with a tray, and, quick as a wink, Queenie mixed up a tankard of something frightful and forced it down his throat. A tub was carried in. Brass cans of steaming water followed. And through it all, she scolded and cajoled.
“’Ow long yer been foxed?” she asked at one point. “’Tis two days you’ve been gone from Chalcote, and poor Mrs. Rutledge is beside ’erself.”
Two days? Where the devil had he been for two days? Bentley had vague memories of having won a small fortune at a boxing match somewhere. And even vaguer recollections of having lost it again in an all-night hazard game. But beyond that, memory failed. “Good Lord, Queenie,” he muttered. “I have to get home.”
Queenie dragged a screen before the tub and shoved him behind it. “Aye, that you do, Mr. B.,” she said. “She’s leaving, see? And ’er ladyship’s in an awful taking over it.”
His drawers half off, Bentley froze. “Who’s leaving?”
“Mrs. Rutledge,” said Queenie’s disembodied voice. “That scraggly little maid o’ hers fetched down the trunks from the attic, and the two of ’em were packing faster than the cat could lick ’er ear. Heading out at first light, they are.”
Disappointment crushed him. But what had he expected? “I might just have to live with th
at, Queenie,” said Bentley softly. “Frederica and I…well, we have an understanding.”
Queenie snorted. “Maybe you do,” she snipped. “But mark me, that wife o’ yours don’t understand nothing but she’s got a babe in her belly and no husband ter ’elp raise it.”
Bentley groaned and stepped into the water. “Don’t do this to me, Queenie. I’m begging you.”
“Aye, shut up in that room, she is, and crying the livelong day, I don’t doubt,” Queenie continued from a distant corner. He could hear her snapping the wrinkles from his clothes and then opening the valise she’d brought. “Won’t eat, neither,” she added on a heavy sigh. “Poor little mite won’t be no bigger’n a squirrel when it comes.”
The child. God, she was talking about the child.
Then Queenie’s voice became sterner still. “So I’m packing up yer things, Mr. B. And yer going to make it up to ’er. Whatever it takes.”
“I mean to try,” he said, hastily soaping up. And he did. Because even he couldn’t stay drunk much longer without doing himself some serious harm. Perhaps it was age, or just disinclination, but he could no longer run far enough, or wild enough, to escape it. Besides, this time, what had his running gained him? Hell, he hadn’t even made it past Oxfordshire.
Still, two days of drunkenness hadn’t washed away the memory of Freddie’s last demand. But if he did as she asked, then Bentley would have no brother. As it was, however, he had no wife. Slowly, that little conundrum was coming clear to him.
Yes, it was a deal with the devil, this thing Freddie was pushing him toward. But maybe it was the lesser evil. He loved Cam, yes. More than he wished to admit. Yet he was just so tired of this miserable, peripatetic life he’d been living. Tired of having no hearth, no home, no family of his own. And God help him if he didn’t miss her. If he drank enough to get past that, they’d be shoveling dirt on his coffin.
