by Cheryl Holt
“I’ll do whatever you wish. I’ll be glad to.”
He’d claimed to his brother that he wasn’t interested in marrying her, but might he eventually change his mind? He liked her much more than he comprehended, and if she stayed with him through thick and thin, wouldn’t he recognize how much he needed her?
She’d toss the dice, would cast caution to the wind, and she wouldn’t waste a single second worrying that it might not work out. She was going to Spain! With Rafe Harlow! Had any girl in the world ever had such an exciting opportunity?
He grinned. “Were you aware that a ship captain can perform a wedding ceremony?”
“So?”
“We could marry when we’re crossing the Channel.”
“You’re pushing your luck.”
“I always push my luck. Didn’t you know? I’m the luckiest man alive.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Clarissa was pretending to dust her bedchamber in the Dower House, but her heart wasn’t in it, and really, the room didn’t need any cleaning. The maids had polished everything to a shine.
With Roland proving himself a lunatic, she’d assumed the isolated residence would be a safe haven, but as of yet, she’d achieved no peace of mind.
Roland had fled, but she was still overwhelmed by irrational fears—that he’d come back, that he’d be successful the second time and she wouldn’t survive it. She understood that her absurd fretting was ridiculous, but she couldn’t set it aside and behave as she would have previously.
She stopped by the window and gazed into the woods. Off through the trees, she could see the Abbey, and for a long while she stared at it. It had been her home for many years, but now she felt completely detached.
The prior afternoon, she’d run into Eddie in the garden. Their brief conversation had left Clarissa shaken, had put her in a huge bind. Eddie was racing to trouble with Rafe Harlow and Clarissa wasn’t sure what her role should be in the debacle.
She wasn’t Eddie’s mother or guardian. She was simply her friend, one who could provide advice and moral support. If she nagged and complained and told Eddie to stop mooning over Rafe Harlow, it would drive a wedge between them, and Clarissa wouldn’t even have the benefit of offering counsel. Eddie would shut her out.
What to do? What to do?
It was the question she constantly asked herself.
Captain Harlow, her once beloved Matthew, was at Greystone. Had he noticed she was gone? Did he care?
After he’d chased her away from Fox Run, she hadn’t seen him again. She’d yearned to call on him, to check on his condition, and she’d dithered and debated the issue. In the end, she hadn’t visited. He’d been very clear that he didn’t want her to attend him, and she was too proud to beg an audience.
If she’d knocked on the door at Fox Run and requested admittance to his sickroom, only to be denied entrance, she’d have been crushed.
He’d been doctored at Fox Run for ten days. Lady Run had written, reporting him to be weak and feverish, that his brother, Michael, wouldn’t let him leave. She’d invited Clarissa to come to Fox Run, to bring a satchel and remain as a guest during Captain Harlow’s convalescence.
Clarissa had ignored the invitation, and her decision to stay away was validated by learning that—unannounced and without warning—he’d returned to Greystone. He’d been back all afternoon, evening, and night, had had meetings with Angela, Rafe, and Eddie, but he hadn’t summoned Clarissa.
She’d expected him to order her to the Abbey, and she’d been on pins and needles, certain he’d send for her or show up to demand what she was about. But apparently he wasn’t concerned that she’d chosen to live elsewhere.
She’d been dying to speak with him, to ask after his health, to ask about his plans, to ask about Angela and Roland.
Most of all, she was eager to thank him for rescuing her and tell him how glad she was that he was recovering. But was he recovering? The rude oaf hadn’t deigned to apprise her of any important details, and she thought it boded ill for their future.
Though it didn’t seem like it, she was his wife, but his lack of regard indicated their relationship was teetering to a conclusion. They probably never should have wed. They were too different, and it had all happened too fast, but still she wished it had worked out.
There had been a few days immediately after the ceremony where it had appeared they were growing closer, that they might actually have a real marriage. It had been a wonderful dream dangled just out of reach.
She was yanked out of her reverie by a knock on the door.
“Yes, what is it?”
A housemaid peeked in. “There’s a letter for you. A messenger just delivered it.”
A messenger? Clarissa’s pulse pounded with dread. Her husband was the only one who might contact her, and if he would do it through a delivered letter, matters were very bad indeed.
Clarissa sighed and went over to retrieve it. There was a table in the corner, and she sat down and glared at the missive. Like an immature child, she found herself thinking she’d never open it. Then she’d never have to learn the awful news it contained.
Yet she wasn’t a child. She was an adult woman and wife who’d made a great muck of everything. She wanted to beg his forgiveness, but she would choke on the words before she’d ever say, Keep on with your mistress. I don’t mind.
Finally, bracing herself, she flicked at the seal. To her astonishment, it wasn’t from her husband, and she was so surprised by the discovery that it took her a minute to focus on the signature of the author.
Edwina! Oh, no!
Edwina had run off with Rafe Harlow, and Clarissa leaned forward, her forehead on the table. She had been so wrapped up in her own problems that she hadn’t had an extra second to worry about Eddie. What type of person was she?
After talking to Eddie the previous afternoon, it was clear Eddie was distressed, but had Clarissa helped her young friend? No, she had not.
She’d been riveted on the fact that Captain Harlow was at Greystone but hadn’t sought her out. Eddie had picked the worst path of all, and Clarissa had been too distracted to realize she should have intervened.
Well, she couldn’t avoid speaking to her husband now, despite what his feelings might be. She had to tell him what had transpired. Or did he already know? She couldn’t imagine Rafe acting so impetuously without Matthew being aware.
Letter in hand, she stood and staggered to the hall and down the stairs. She had to walk to the Abbey, and for a brief moment she hesitated. She’d been dusting and cleaning, so she was in a decrepit state. Should she change her dress? Fix her hair? Tidy her condition?
As rapidly as the notion occurred to her, she shoved it away. It was simple vanity driving her. The Captain had often told her she was very pretty, and pathetically, she wanted him to remember he’d once thought so. She had to be the most exasperatingly foolish female who’d ever lived. Why would she care for his good opinion? How could she trust it?
She marched to the foyer and was about to grab her cloak and bonnet from the hook by the door, when a man said, “Hello Clarissa.”
She halted and frowned. She knew that voice. It belonged to Matthew Harlow, but why would he call on her? Was she so painfully hurt by his disregard that she was hallucinating?
Slowly, she spun toward the front parlor, and there he was on the sofa. It seemed as if he’d been there for quite awhile too. He was drinking a whiskey, his legs stretched out, his coat off, his shirt sleeves rolled back. Wondering if he might be an apparition, she blinked and blinked, but he didn’t disappear.
How, precisely, was she supposed to greet him? How was she to act? Should she be glad? Furious? Grateful? Annoyed? Or should she exhibit no reaction whatsoever?
“Captain Harlow.” She nodded. “How kind of you to visit.”
“Isn’t it though?” he snippily retorted.
There was a hint of sulkiness in her tone. She hadn’t been able to completely conceal it. Apparently h
e’d noted it, and he didn’t look pleased by her attitude.
“The servants told me you’d moved,” he said, “but I didn’t believe them.”
“When I arrived from London, I couldn’t bear to stay in the Abbey with Roland and Angela, so I came here.”
“A wise decision, but they’re gone now. They won’t pester you again.”
“How can you be sure?”
“Just take my word for it.”
He stared at her with that implacable expression of his, the one that revealed nothing, and it was obvious he would never tell her much about how he’d dealt with her cousins. He could be so maddeningly circumspect. She’d need a shovel to dig the truth out of him.
“What happened to Roland? Did you kill him?”
“Why would I kill him? I offered him the money I promised him, and he left. But”—he grinned his devil’s grin—“if he tries to sneak home, I will kill him. He’s not a stupid man, your cousin. He won’t be back.”
“And Angela?”
“She’s on a ship to America, with coins in her purse to see her on her way.”
“How did you convince her to leave?”
“I didn’t convince her. I gave her a choice of the ship or a convent in Scotland. She chose the ship.”
She studied his eyes, but as usual, it was impossible to guess if he was lying. Yet in the end, how could it matter?
For years, she’d had enormous sympathy for her cousins, but it had vanished. They’d been so cruel, and Roland had grown so deranged. If she never bumped into either of them again, she wouldn’t mind.
Rumors were circulating that Captain Harlow had murdered Roland. What if he had? Clarissa couldn’t settle on an opinion. Should Roland have been arrested for attempted homicide and publically hanged? Or was a private execution better? Clarissa wasn’t certain, but after how Harold Merrick had brought shame on the family, they didn’t need further scandal. What was the most viable solution?
She was dawdling in the foyer, and he gestured to the chair across from him.
“Why don’t you sit down?” he said. “I don’t bite.”
As he posed the question, he looked decadent and dangerous, and he seemed to think she was afraid of him. She wasn’t afraid. She was angry and disgusted and very hurt, but she wasn’t afraid. She walked over and sat as he’d requested.
“How long have you been here?” she asked.
“Not long.”
“Why didn’t you have a servant fetch me?”
“I did, but apparently she was waylaid.”
“I was coming to find you,” she said.
“I saved you the trouble.”
“Have you heard from your brother this morning?”
“Which one?”
“Rafe.”
“Yes, he departed at dawn to head back to his regiment. I got up early to send him off.”
“He didn’t say anything out of the ordinary?”
“Rafe always says odd things. Why?”
She gave him Eddie’s letter. He skimmed it, then crumpled it in a ball and tossed it on the floor. His face still showed no emotion, not even from the news that his brother was a cad and a bounder and had absconded with a maiden.
“Well, fancy that,” he murmured.
“Will you chase after them?”
“No.”
“What about Edwina? Shouldn’t we rescue her?”
“From Rafe? Sorry, but I’m all out of energy for rescuing anybody, and she seems a tad headstrong to me.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning if I caught up with them and forced her home, she’d simply sneak after him the moment we stopped watching her.”
“Will Rafe wed her?”
“He might.”
“Or he might not?”
“He might not. He requires my permission to marry before he can get any of his money.”
“Oh. What about Eddie? What will happen to her?”
“I imagine she’ll have an adventure, and someday it will become too awful and she’ll slither to Greystone.”
“She’ll be ruined and maybe with child.”
“Yes, but hopefully she’ll have learned a few important lessons.”
“Such as?”
“Don’t run off with handsome devils, for one.”
“Every girl learns that lesson.”
“They learn it, but they don’t pay attention to it. When they meet a dashing libertine, they start to believe the moral rules don’t apply to them.”
“I feel dreadful,” Clarissa said. “I want to take action. What should it be?”
“We’ll simply be here for her when she staggers home, if she comes home.”
“She’ll be disgraced.”
He shrugged. “We’ll deal with it when it occurs. I won’t worry about it now.”
He rose and went to the sideboard, filled his glass with liquor, then limped back to the sofa. So he wasn’t completely healed.
“How is your wound?” she asked.
“Sore as the dickens.”
“And your ribs?”
“Worse.”
He eased down, and as he sipped his drink, he glared at her over the rim of the glass. While previously he’d been hiding his emotions, suddenly he appeared very angry, and at the notion that he might be, she was furious too.
What had he to be angry about? She was the one who’d been shamed and disavowed. She was the one who’d been cast off when she’d desperately yearned to be by his side. She was the one who’d spent the prior night fretting and stewing, knowing he was at the Abbey but hadn’t sent for her.
“You left Fox Run,” he said, “and you didn’t return.”
“Why would I have?”
“I was there for ten days! I waited and waited for you, but you couldn’t be bothered to visit.”
“You told me to go away. You ordered me to go. I wasn’t about to embarrass myself by barging in where I wasn’t welcome.”
“I needed you!”
“You needed me? Don’t make me laugh. You’ve never needed anyone—especially me.”
“You’re wrong. I needed you every second. I asked after you constantly, and my sister wrote you on my prognosis, but you didn’t reply.”
“Why would I have?”
She hadn’t meant to mention her humiliation at being rejected. It cut to the heart of every sad aspect of her life, but evidently she was more upset than she’d realized. She couldn’t hold it in.
“I planned to remain with you for the surgery and after, but you shouted at me.”
“I was in agony and felt my health to be in mortal peril. That’s why I was shouting.”
“You wanted your brothers with you instead. You commanded me to get Rafe. You wanted Rafe and not me.”
“Of course I wanted Michael and Rafe. Michael has treated dozens of gunshot wounds, and Rafe has witnessed hundreds. They recognized how gruesome the surgery would be, and I didn’t suppose you should watch.”
“Oh.”
“You can really be silly on occasion, Clarissa.”
“I heard you clearly. I’m not being silly.”
“Yes, you are. You’re being an absolute dunce about everything.” He patted the empty spot next to him on the sofa. “You’re too far away. Come here.”
Was he expecting they’d nestle like a pair of lovebirds? Had his injuries addled his wits?
“No, thank you.”
“There are a few topics I have to discuss with you, and it will be much more fun if you’re snuggled on my lap.” He patted the sofa again. “Come.”
Stunned, irked and very, very confused, she gaped at him. His stoic, bland expression had been replaced. He was smiling, brimming with mischief, as if he had a secret, as if he’d tell it to her should she beg him prettily enough.
“Fine,” he ultimately said, “you stay there, and I’ll stay here. I can see your eyes this way. I’ll know if you’re lying.”
“Unlike some people in this room, I’m not a liar.”<
br />
He ignored the insult. “I’d like your opinion about what should happen between us now. When we went to London, I was fairly horrid to you.”
She raised a caustic brow. “Fairly horrid?”
“All right, incredibly horrid.”
“You were,” she agreed.
“So you fled in a huff and raced home where you managed to get yourself kidnapped by a lunatic.”
“Roland absconded with me against my will,” she scoffed. “I hardly left with the deranged idiot on my own.”
“Then I hurried after you, and I was almost murdered for my troubles. I had to have a bullet dug out of my back, and I nearly succumbed to an infection afterward.”
He’d nearly succumbed? Is that what he was claiming? No, someone would have told her. Wouldn’t they have? Had it been that dire? She suffered the worst pang of regret. What if he’d passed away while she’d been dawdling in the Dower House and fuming over her hurt feelings?
She scowled. “Are you saying you almost perished?”
“No, but then I’ve always been too tough to die.”
“You look quite hale to me.”
“I’m faking it.”
She studied him, wondering just how ill he’d been. Lady Run’s letter had described him as feverish and unwell, but had it been more ominous than Clarissa suspected? She was extremely disturbed by the notion.
If he’d been sufficiently imperiled, what sort of spouse did it make her that she hadn’t checked on him? How she hated being a wife! Why had no author penned a book of instructions for the new bride? She didn’t understand her role, couldn’t figure out her authority, and being wed to him in particular was so difficult.
There were no half measures with him, no quiet interludes or easy exchanges. No, with him it was all bellowing and drama, shouting and barked orders, and since she’d never been a soldier, she didn’t comprehend what was expected and never responded appropriately.
“You haven’t answered my question,” he said.
“What question was that?”
“What should happen between us? How should we carry on?”
