by Cheryl Bolen
His blond lashes fluttered, then his big blue eyes opened, and a smile transformed his face when he saw her.
“Good morning, love. How do you feel?”
He bolted up in the bed. “Good.”
She fully opened the bed curtains. “Shall we go see if your papa’s awake?”
“Will you carry me like you did last night?”
“You little goose! All right, if you’d like.”
As soon as she got to her husband’s chamber door, she paused. She had to prepare herself for the fact he would probably be in his nightshirt. Having Chuckie with her would lessen any embarrassment and would make them seem more like a family. If she was ready to be a true wife to him, she should not be embarrassed over the sight of her own husband in his nightshirt.
She drew in her breath and rapped at the door.
* * *
Aynsley came awake, suddenly realizing that Rebecca stood on the other side of his chamber door. He sat up. “Come in.”
Seeing her with Chuckie in her arms nearly took his breath away. Rebecca had never looked so lovely. She wore a thick, snow-white night shift, no spectacles, and for a moment did not look old enough to be Chuckie’s mother. Not that she was, actually. “I must say Chuckie looks vastly improved from last night. How do you feel, lad?”
“Good. Can I get in your bed? I slept in Mother’s last night.”
His son was sure to have his stepmother twisted about his baby finger. “Get over here, you little scamp.”
The child scurried over and climbed upon his bed. Aynsley pulled him onto his lap and smacked a kiss on top his fair head.
“Chuckie was in much pain last night, and was feverish. I was a bit bewildered as to what to do so I was obliged to awaken Beaver.”
“She’s had enough experience with such matters. Did she help?”
“Yes. She warmed some mint oil and put a few drops in his ear. That seemed to ease his discomfort.”
He felt guilty that she’d had to face what must have been a fearsome situation alone. “You could have awakened me, you know.”
Amusement on her face, she cocked a brow. “Would you have known what to do?”
He shrugged. “Probably not, but I would like to have lent you support.”
She favored him with a smile. “Tell me, my lord, is there a physician hereabouts?”
“As a matter of fact, we’ve got one in Wey.”
“Should we not have him take a look at Chuckie today?”
“If he were still feverish, I’d send for him, but look at the boy! Who would believe him sick? He seems to be well on the road to recovery.”
“Beaver said these fevers always come at night. If it should return tonight, should we summon the physician at that time?”
“I’d rather not call him out in the middle of the night for what is likely a routine childhood fever.”
Her face grim, she nodded.
“Can we play the tickling game, Papa?”
“In a minute.”
“After you play the tickling game, my lord, would you like to join me in the morning room?” his wife asked.
“Indeed I would.”
“I should be dressed and there in twenty minutes.” She started for her own chamber.
“Then that gives me five minutes for the tickling game.”
* * *
On the way to the morning room Aynsley picked up the post, which had been stacked upon his desk in the library. He would bring along yesterday’s Morning Chronicle—just arrived from London—to read over while he took his tea and toast. He liked to stay abreast of parliamentary occurrences.
He had not made it out of the library when a headline arrested his attention. And made him feel as if he had been kicked in the gut. Lords Sethbridge and Aynsley Form Pact to Extend Franchise Next Year.
Anger as corrosive as acid slammed through him as he began to read the article.
The Earl of Aynsley has been credited with successfully championing Lord Sethbridge’s bill to raise taxes, the passage of which was secured early this week, despite initial resistance from members of the venerable House of Lords. The Chronicle has learned that the two members of the House of Lords have formed a pact. Lord Sethbridge, who has always opposed any new law that would give the right to vote to the masses, has now changed his mind. In exchange for Lord Aynsley’s help in passing the tax increase, Lord Sethbridge has pledged to help Lord Aynsley get votes for a franchise-expansion bill next year.
It has been reported that Lord Aynsley plans to spend the next year gathering votes for a bill to give the right to vote to more men.
How could the newspaper have gotten hold of such information? Only three people knew. He was certain Lord Sethbridge, who was only focused on the current session right now and who was only reluctantly planning to endorse Aynsley’s voting-expansion bill next year, would never have let the cat out of the bag.
Rebecca!
What a fool he’d been to trust her! She was just as deceitful as Dorothy had been. He still stung from Dorothy’s deceit. She, too, had gone behind his back. The duke’s daughter whom he had married had lied to his colleagues in Parliament, telling them he endorsed her father’s bill. His wife’s painful betrayal had authored an estrangement that had not been repaired until she’d drawn her final breath.
He should have known when Rebecca refused to reveal her P. Corpus identity that she did not really look upon this marriage as a true partnership, that she was unwilling to be truthful with him.
He had thought her different from others of her gender. He had thought their marriage united two like-minded souls for the rest of their days. He had come to believe that she cared about him. Romantically.
Had he so thoroughly longed for a woman to love and share his life with that he’d been duped by a conniving female?
Even knowing that Rebecca had to be the one who had betrayed him, it was hard to credit her with such deception. He thought he had come to know her. Had he imbued his wife with worthy qualities she did not possess? Had he been blinded by what he thought was her sweetness and intelligence? How could she have played him for such a fool?
A blistering anger strummed through him. Even more than the fury, he felt a deep sense of loss. Almost as if a loved one had died.
He supposed the Rebecca he had grown to love had died. Because she had never existed. His neediness had conjured up a perfect wife, and he had credited his bride with all the qualities he sought in a life’s mate.
At his age, he should have known better.
He stormed to the morning room and stood in its doorway, glaring at her. He had no desire to even be in the same room with the woman who had betrayed him almost as surely as an adulteress.
She spun around to face him, her face lifted into a bright smile, her spectacles absent. For a second he could not believe her betrayal. She looked so very sweet, so sincere. “What is the matter, my dearest?”
He clutched the newspaper in his hand so hard, his knuckles turned white. “This!”
The smile on her face crashed as she leaped to her feet and came to pry the Morning Chronicle from his hand. After she read it, she looked up at him with an expression every bit as angry as his own. “Who could have betrayed us like this?”
He gave a bitter laugh. “Us, indeed! You have played your charade long enough.”
“Whatever can you mean?”
“I will never believe that Lord Sethbridge would even consider addressing such a topic until the end of the current parliamentary session.”
“Then who?” Her hand came to cover her mouth. “Surely you cannot believe it was I!”
He studied that pretty face of hers. How innocent she looked. He harrumphed. “Can you look me in the eye and claim that you’ve always been completely honest with me since the day we married? Have you ever perhaps omitted to tell me something?”
“I have never lied—” The words froze on her lips, and a wild, frightened look leaped to her eyes. “I may have omitted to
tell you something. What is it you wish to know?”
“What things have you concealed from me, Rebecca?”
“Please, my lord, I beg that we go to your library for this discussion.”
He was so angry with her, he did not want to be in the same chamber with her, but he had no desire for the servants or his children to hear them arguing.
“Very well.” He stormed off to the library.
Slamming the library door behind them, he faced her. “Explain yourself.”
“Please, my lord, let’s sit and discuss this like rational adults.”
His body rigid, he went to his desk and sat, his fiery eyes never leaving hers as she went to the sofa and sat down facing him. He folded his arms across his chest. “I’m waiting.”
“I confess I’ve felt wretched for withholding information from you.”
“And what information would that be?”
A grave look on her face, she met his gaze. “I am the essayist P. Corpus.”
“Why have you not told me this before?”
“Before I married, I thought my writing was the most important thing in my life. I was afraid if you found out about it, you might forbid me to continue and I would have been obliged to obey you.”
“Why would you think I would prohibit you from your clandestine writing?”
“I didn’t know you well enough to know how you would address such a situation.”
“You must believe me an ogre.”
She stared defiantly at him. “Actually, not until the last five minutes.”
“You said before you married, your writing was the most important thing in your life. What has changed?”
Her eyes filled with tears. Had it been a day earlier, such a sight would have fairly broken his heart, but not now. Now his sense of betrayal was so strong and his anger so potent, he could hardly stand to look at her.
“Now...” She started to sob and buried her face into her hands and finished her sentence between more sobbing. “Now you and your family—which I had begun to think of as my family—are what mean the most to me.”
He shook his head. “How can you expect me to believe anything you say?”
“Because I am telling you the truth. I swear to the Lord in heaven that I am not the one who betrayed you.”
He stalked off. He felt like taking a bruising ride.
The farther away he strode, the more her words intruded. I swear to the Lord in heaven I am not the one who betrayed you. Rebecca would never take the Lord’s name for a falsehood. That much he did know about her.
Which made him feel even lower. Sweet heavens, had he falsely accused her? Was it possible someone else had betrayed him?
Chapter Seventeen
Her body racked with tears, Rebecca raced up the stairs. She prayed she would make it to her chamber before one of the children saw her, but at the landing she nearly collided with Emily.
“Whatever is the matter?” Emily asked, her eyes wide with surprise as they followed Rebecca.
Incapable of responding, her stepmother merely shook her head and quickened her pace until she reached her bedchamber. There, she locked the door behind her and flung herself upon her bed for a good cry.
She had never experienced such a mixture of emotions in her entire eight and twenty years. Her initial boiling anger simmered into a numbing sorrow. How could she be mad at John when she had deceived him through omission since the day they had married? She should have been completely honest with him. Now she was paying for her deception with a heart that felt as if it were surely being strangled of its budding life.
That he was so quick to blame her for betraying him wounded her excessively. How could he not understand that she would never do anything to hurt him? Could he not see that she was in love with him?
Love. Poets and philosophers had dipped their pens in the blood wrung from wounded hearts for centuries. It had taken her almost three decades to understand that kind of love. Now she felt the gnawing loss and aching love for John Compton, the Earl of Aynsley.
For just a moment the night before, she had thought John looked at her with love shining in his eyes. For those fleeting seconds she had felt that deep connection that had always bound her to him; she had felt that he returned her love in full measure.
But had he loved her, he would not have been so quick to condemn her. She did not know which hurt the most—the loss of his love or never having possessed it in the first place. She did know she had never felt more wretched in her life.
She lay there on her bed, thinking about the disclosure to the Morning Chronicle. Lord Sethbridge must have done so in order to undermine John’s efforts on behalf of franchise expansion during the next year. The peer had always been opposed to granting the vote to the lower classes. By releasing terms of his agreement with John, he was sure to rally most of the other peers to act against her husband.
Had John been able to approach them in his own way and in his own time, he would have had a good likelihood of changing their positions on the matter.
But now all was lost.
And he blamed her.
Her tears gave way to anger. After she dried her tears, she left her bed and went to her basin to splash cool water over her eyelids.
He may not want her for his wife. His children might not want her for their mother. But, whether they liked it or not, she was the Countess Aynsley, legally wed in a Christian ceremony in which she recited vows she intended to keep.
She was meeting with Mrs. Cotton this morning to go over the account books, and she had made plans to take Uncle Ethelbert for a walk this afternoon. She had no time to dwell on her pitiably bruised heart.
* * *
After she walked Uncle Ethelbert that afternoon, she went to the nursery to check on Chuckie. Beaver was sitting in a chair knitting while Chuckie was lying on the wooden floor with his tin soldiers. But he was not playing with them. He looked incredibly lethargic.
She addressed the nurse. “Chuckie doesn’t look well.”
“I’ll grant you, this laddie with not a drop of energy is not our Chuckie. I daresay it will take a few days for his good health to return.”
Chuckie sat up and offered Rebecca a smile. “Hello, Mother.”
“Hello, my sweet. How do you feel?”
“I can’t undersplain it.”
Undersplain! Leave it to a child to be so creative with language. “I know, my lamb. Is there something you’d like to do now? Something fun, perhaps?”
Puffy pouches underscored his eyes. “I feel like being in your big bed with the curtains around it. But not alone.”
“Oh, I see, you want me to stay with you.”
He gave her a forlorn nod.
The little boy knew exactly how to get whatever he wanted from her. She was powerless to resist his slightest request. “All right, you little goose. Come on.”
Even his step was lethargic as he came to her. “Can you carry me?” He looked up at her with those big blue eyes, and she could not sweep him into her arms fast enough.
But as she lifted him into her arms, she became alarmed. His fever had returned. She turned to Beaver. “Did you know Chuckie’s fever’s come back?”
The nurse’s face fell. “I did not. Why didn’t you tell Beaver, laddie?”
Chuckie, his arms encircling Rebecca’s neck, shrugged.
Instead of going to her bedchamber, Rebecca went to the library in the hopes her husband was there. She knew he wouldn’t want to see her or talk to her, but this was not about them. This was about a sick little boy whom they both loved.
When she opened the library door and saw her husband sitting behind his desk, she did not know if she was glad to see him or not. Had he not been there she would have demanded that a groom or footman or some such servant go seek the physician. Now she would have to abide by her husband’s decision.
Their eyes met and held for a moment. Until today she would not have thought him capable of so cold a look. She was totally unp
repared for how hurtful it was. “Yes?” he asked, not disguising his displeasure.
“I want to send for the physician. Chuckie’s fever has returned.”
Her husband’s gaze darted to his son. “The lad’s too old to be carried around like a baby.”
Now Aynsley got her anger riled! “He happens to be our baby, and if being carried makes him feel better, then I am most happy to placate him.”
“What’s the matter, lad?” Her husband’s voice had gentled.
Chuckie shrugged again. “I can’t undersplain.”
She kissed the top of his blond head. “The fever has sapped away all his energy.”
“I’ll send for the physician.” He glared at her. “Will there be anything else?” His voice was dismissive.
“Nothing at all.”
When she reached the door, he said, “By the way, I’ve found some of your letters in this top drawer. Should you like them?”
What letters? Then she remembered she’d put a couple of his letters there. “Yes, I should.”
He brought them to her.
In her bedchamber, she tucked Chuckie into the bed and gathered the curtains around it. Bringing her lap desk, pen and paper and the letters John had just given her, she joined him. She planned to write letters while Chuckie napped.
But first she would reread the letters John had written to her when he was in London—letters written when he felt more kindly toward her.
As she unfolded the first, she wondered if he had read them over again when he’d found them in his desk drawer. One really should not leave personal letters lying about. What if he had written something intimate? Or what if...sweet heavens! What if someone read about the secret only three of them knew—the pact formed between John and Lord Sethbridge?
She quickly found the place in the letter in which he referred to the secret only three of them knew. In that fleeting second, she knew without a doubt that Emily had read the letters. The knowledge was like a blow to her windpipe. Emily wanted to do something that would reflect so badly upon Rebecca that John might banish her to another of his properties.
