“Minx.” Heath took her in his arms again and sealed it with a kiss.
Chapter 17
Heath could still taste that kiss like a fine wine days later as he returned home early from Exeter. The ship would be ready to sail on the morrow, and he must find some way of telling Aubree. The scenes Louise had created upon his sailing burned indelibly on his mind, and he had no heart for the task. He considered alternatives as he guided his stallion into the courtyard.
He should have known he wouldn’t find her in. John informed him she had ridden out with Jamie well over an hour earlier.
Wearily, Heath slid from his horse. His leg ached from the long ride, but he had no desire to lounge about waiting for his wife to reappear. He had hoped to spend a pleasant afternoon with her before breaking the news; he felt entitled to that much. Now it seemed he would have to work even for that small pleasure.
“Saddle up the mare, John. In which direction did they go?”
“Out toward the Shaughnessys’, milord,” John volunteered. “Their young un’s been down ill.”
This was a new aspect to his wife’s activities, but entirely in keeping with her character. He should have known his few lackluster tenants would soon be adopted into Aubree’s menagerie. Heath mounted his fresh horse and rode off in the direction indicated.
The crumbling cottage that once housed itinerant field hands had held only one family for years. The head of the family, Tim Shaughnessy, had worked two summers in the abbey fields, then drank himself into a grave during the second winter. Heath had not the heart to tell the impoverished family to move on, and they had squatted there ever since, eking out an existence on odd jobs.
He felt uneasy at Aubree’s involvement with the ramshackle brood, but his own guilty conscience, and not her safety, inspired the twinge. With relief, he noted Jamie holding the horses outside the cottage and none of the occupants within sight. He saluted the lad, handed over his reins, and swung his stiff leg in the direction of the cottage.
Aubree looked up in startlement at his arrival, but her surprise led to joy. She leapt from her place on the floor beside the small pallet and flew into his arms.
“Oh, I am so glad you have come. I have been at my wit’s end. I have tried everything, but there is no help for it. We must have a physician. Mrs. Shaughnessy says there is none to be had, but that can’t be possible, can it? An apothecary won’t do, I fear. Is there not a physician we can call on?”
She clung to his arms as if he could produce solutions simply through the strength of his presence. Heath bent her a wry smile, slid an arm around her waist, and faced the tired woman at the crippled table.
“How do you do, Edna? I take it young Michael is not well?”
The woman studied the labored breathing of the thin youth upon the pallet. “’Tis God’s will to take the good when they’re young.”
Heath held his tongue as he bent over the fevered youth on the filthy pallet. It was true, Michael Shaughnessy was the best of the lot, an eager youth willing to work at whatever given him, but he had never been strong. With healthy food and rest, he might have had a chance. As it was, Heath shook his head in dismay.
But Aubree clung to his arm, wide eyes watching his every expression, and he could not let her down. His gaze took in the linen-covered basket of food that must have come from his kitchen, and he wondered how much of it would ever cross the lips of the sick youth.
“How long has he been like this?” he demanded, rising to glare at the boy’s mother. His head barely cleared the low beams of the cottage, and he dodged the lamp hung on one wall.
“Don’t rightly know. He been sleeping in the fields, come warm weather. The rains done for him, I reckon.” The woman’s speech was a strange amalgamation of accents. Heath had wondered what dock Tim had found her on. She did not drink, and she struggled her best to feed the squalling mouths around her. Her pessimism sprang from a natural source.
“And where are the others?”
The woman sent him an odd look. “Out and about. They be home sometime.”
Aubree tugged at his arm. “I think it’s pneumonia, Heath. I have tried everything. We must have a physician.”
He doubted if the money spent would produce results, but gazing down into those dark-lashed eyes brimming with tears, he knew he would have to try.
“I’ll have John carry him to the abbey, where you can keep an eye on him. There’s a physician in Exeter I’ll fetch in the morning.”
The relief on his wife’s face was sufficient payment for the fruitless task he had set himself. Accustomed to having the best of everything at her beck and call, Aubree had no idea of the true difficulty of rural life. Physicians were few and far between, and what few existed were in all probability quacks. Exeter’s one physician catered to the wealthy.
Outside, they stood blinking in the sunlight before returning to their horses. Their lingering gave the rider down the path time to make her presence known. “And it’s time you stepped forward, my lord.”
Riding an ancient donkey, wearing a lady’s discarded raiment, the girl held herself proudly as she greeted them with a sneer. Hair that once must have been yellow was stacked in imitation of her betters above a narrow forehead and pale eyes of cornflower blue.
“Good afternoon, Blanche,” Heath replied, gripping Aubree’s elbow and steering her toward the horses without intention of carrying on the conversation.
“ ‘Good afternoon, Blanche’! Is that all you’ve got to say to me?” The girl slid from the donkey to confront them.
More woman than girl, Blanche had hard lines etched on her forehead and a sharp nose. Despite her wasted features, her breasts were full and high and exposed beneath open muslin. Her faded skirts revealed the bulge of pregnancy.
Heath drew Aubree closer to his side. “I did not think there was more to be said, Blanche. Did you not find the position I found for you satisfactory?”
“You expect me to work like this?” she demanded shrilly, indicating her distended belly. “I didn’t last long enough for it to take some silly twit to carp to the mistress on me. You’ll have to pay for my shame, my lord. No one else will.”
Aubree smothered a gasp. Heath tightened his fingers on her elbow at the implication of Blanche’s words. This was the maid he had sent packing before he’d brought Aubree home. She tried to twist from his grasp, but he held her firmly.
“I paid you fair wages, Blanche, and asked no more of you than you were willing to give. If that child were mine, I would acknowledge and support it, but I can count, too, Blanche. It has been nearly a year since I’ve spent time with you. You must find someone else to blame for your trouble.” He eyed a large, fading green bruise above her elbow. “Perhaps if you gave me the man’s name, I could persuade him to take proper actions.”
Cornflower-blue eyes grew fearful. “It could have been yours, milord. You owe me that.”
Aubree jerked from Heath’s grasp and strode angrily to her waiting mount.
Cursing, Heath swung on his heel and followed.
So much for the leisurely afternoon of pleasure he had planned.
Heath made no attempt to catch up with his wife. She had every right to be angry, and he would do better to wait until she cooled off. He had confidence in Aubree’s rationality once her emotions were out of the way. That he had once lain with a slut like Blanche even disgusted him. He could scarcely imagine the reaction of a gently bred lady like Aubree.
His anger with Blanche was diluted by his curiosity over her lover. Had he been the one to leave that vicious bruise on her arm?
Deciding Blanche could have as many lovers as trees do leaves and there need not be any significance in the old bruise, he decided he had little time to pursue the question.
He rode into the stable yard in time to catch sight of an urchin slipping through the kitchen hedge to the back door. A glance found John engrossed in brushing down Aubree’s mare and no other servants in sight.
Very few of
the villagers came to the abbey for anything. He did not recognize the urchin as one of his tenants, but a familiarity about him made Heath hasten his step.
The boy eased into the open stone archway to the kitchens and looked around as if searching for someone. Since Patience was the only one likely to be in the kitchens at this hour, Heath could only assume she was his ultimate goal. But the poor, slow-witted cook could be of little use to anyone, except as a conduit to the others in the mansion.
Heath came up behind the lad and caught him by the collar before he could flee. The youth yelped and wriggled, but gauging the firmness of his trap, he grew silent.
“You have some business here?” Austin asked.
The boy clutched the corner of a vellum letter sticking from the neck of his shirt. “Yes, sir—I mean, no, sir. Is Patience t’ home, sir?”
Ruefully, Heath realized his ungentlemanly attire had labeled him as one of the staff, but he had no need to assuage his pride at the boy’s expense. Any rank would be sufficient to pull authority over the child.
“What’s that you have, lad?” He jerked the envelope from its hiding place despite the boy’s cry of protest.
“It’s for the lady, sir. He says to put it in the lady’s hands and no other, sir. Please, sir, he’ll thrash me if I don’t.”
He ignored the lad’s cries as he examined the sealed message. The handwriting addressing Aubree was unfamiliar but unmistakably masculine. The seal meant nothing to him. But his fingers tightened in fists as he realized the implications of this secretive delivery.
“I’ll see that the lady gets it,” he stated, dropping the boy’s collar and sliding the paper into his shirt.
“But, sir. . .” Wild-eyed, the boy met Heath’s unrelenting gaze and subsided.
“I give you my word the lady will receive it. You need not tell your master more, but I suggest you discourage him from sending any more messages in such a manner. The master does not approve of strangers sneaking about his back door.” He flipped the boy a coin and entered the kitchen.
The vellum scorched his skin as he made his way through the cool stone and marble corridors to the front of the house. By all rights, he should take the letter directly to Aubree without questioning. He owed her that much. She had never done anything to deserve his distrust. But he had lost so much in the past due to neglect and ignorance, he could not afford to let history repeat itself. He had to know.
Once in the seclusion of his study, Austin had no difficulty in prying loose the seal. His hands shook as he unfolded the heavy paper. Slowly, agonizingly, he began to read.
Aubree, my love,
I can wait no longer. You cannot doubt my devotion after all that has gone between us, and tomorrow I am prepared to prove it. I have learned your husband sails in the morn, with provisions for two months’ journey or more. You cannot love a man who has stolen you from me. Now is the time to right the wrong that has been done. We will be far gone before he returns. Say you will, my love. I will give you everything your heart desires, if only you will come to me. I will be waiting for you in our special place tomorrow. Hurry, my love. We have been denied each other too long.
The large scrawled “G” across the bottom left no secret as to the writer.
Heath slowly reread the lines that tore at his heart. “After all that has gone between us” and “our special place” held hints of passion that only a lover knew. He could not believe that she had been unfaithful to him, but he did not doubt that Geoffrey had tried to seduce her. He must have judged himself successful to write a missive such as this.
Heath had thought his heart long since dead, but the cold bleakness within him now warned of worse to come. After today’s fiasco, he could scarcely blame a loyal and lighthearted girl like Aubree from fleeing to the devotion of her former fiancé. Geoffrey’s timing could not have been better. And his own could not have been worse.
Facing the bleakness of a future without Aubree’s lively chatter and warm affection, he was tempted to crumple the paper and burn it. But he had given his word, and he could not live his life wondering what decision she would have made had he not interfered. He had to know her feelings about the treacherous little pup. Then he would decide what to do with the scoundrel.
With that decision made, he refolded and resealed the message. With a casualness he did not feel, he handed the paper to Joan as she scurried through the hall.
“This just came for Lady Aubree. Take it to her, please.” He watched as the maid hurried up the long stairs to obediently deliver the sword that could slay him.
Aubree picked at her food, nodding when Heath reiterated his promise to send a physician for Michael, waiting for him to say more. She concealed her emotion when he did not. He made no mention of leaving her. Could Geoffrey’s sources be wrong? Surely Heath would not disappear for two months without some explanation, some farewell?
Perhaps he meant to send a letter. Maybe he feared a scene. That would be in keeping with her husband’s character as she knew it. His late wife had probably staged ugly scenes every time he said would sail. She didn’t understand how he could think she would be like Louise, but men developed strange notions.
Instead of moping, Aubree found new use for it. Two months was not such a very long time. There was so much to be done, and two months would barely begin it. If Heath left as the letter promised, she would have to hurry.
The memory of Blanche faded as this new plan took priority. After all, she had known Heath had never been a monk, and she had no right to protest what he had done in the past. But she did have this opportunity to change his future.
With that in mind, she made a concerted effort to be pleasant. Heath did not make it easy. He remained taciturn throughout dinner, and even after he finally responded to her chatter, his mind seemed elsewhere. Aubree would willingly have hit him over the head with the lovely soufflé sent over from the Dower House, but she had vowed to stay on her best behavior.
To make matters worse, he insisted on returning her pleasantries by walking with her in the garden after dinner. After months of barely sparing her the time of day, he seemed to have time on his hands. Nervous and uneasy under her husband’s calm scrutiny, Aubree wished for the easy camaraderie of before.
At long last, it grew twilight, and they turned back toward the abbey. In the privacy of the rose arbor, Heath halted. “Aubree, I have been as honest with you as I am able. Perhaps it was a mistake to let you see all my faults, but I cannot live a lie. I hope you feel you can be just as honest with me. We have been thrown together against your wishes, I realize, but there is no reason we cannot still be friends.”
Startled, not understanding what turmoil had led to it, Aubree searched his face. His eyes appeared troubled. Could he fear this trip he was about to make? Surely it would not be a dangerous one?
Alarmed, but unable to voice it because he had given her no opening, Aubree caressed his cheek. “I should hope we are more than friends, my lord,” she whispered with bewilderment. “You know all that I am and more than most. Have I done aught to make you doubt that?”
He slid his arms around her and pulled her to him. “No, halfling, sometimes I just terrify myself,” he whispered, bending to taste her willing lips.
Chapter 18
Heath reined in his prancing stallion on a hill overlooking the abbey, ignoring the look the portly physician gave him. His entire future hung on what he found waiting behind those stone walls, and he had need to gather his thoughts before he descended into the courtyard. If Aubree was preparing for flight, she would not greet his unexpected arrival with pleasure.
The decision not to sail with his ship had not been as difficult as he had thought. The ship’s captain was loyal and honest, and if he could trust the man with his life, he could certainly trust him with his cargo. It was the treasure he kept in the abbey that Heath could not leave unprotected.
With a curse at his own cowardice, he kicked and sent the stallion galloping down the road towar
d home.
Impatient to judge Aubree’s reception of his decision, he dismounted in the stable yard. Throwing his reins toward John, he strode toward the room that housed Aubree’s patient.
“Is Lady Aubree with Michael?” he called out as John hastened to hold the reins of both horses and follow in their footsteps at the same time.
“No, milord. When she saw he slept comfortably, she went out. We did not expect your return. . .”
Refusing to acknowledge the pain knifing through him, Heath swung his furious gaze to the groom. “How long has she been gone?”
He had trusted her, and she had not even waited to be certain of his departure before running off. Well, she would learn the folly of trying to make a fool of him. He would not suffer that torture again. Not waiting for John’s answer, he stalked back to his stallion.
“Upward of an hour or more, milord. They were heading for the village. The boy was with her. . .” Before the eyes of physician and the groom, Heath vaulted back into the saddle. “Did she send any messages before she left?” The words were curt and heavy with anger.
The groom swallowed hard. “To the gentleman, milord. There was no reply.”
Heath did not need to hear more. Jerking the reins, he swung the stallion around and raced down the abbey drive, leaving the two men in the courtyard to stare after him as if he were demented.
Harley watched with alarm as a small crowd gathered around the box beneath Aubree’s feet. It was market day, and the village had filled with travelers as well as the occupants of the outlying countryside. She could not have chosen a wider audience for her soapbox plea, but he doubted if the earl would approve. Harley had half a mind to reach up and snatch her down, but Aubree had already made it clear she resented his interference. She only wanted him here to add substantiation to her speech.
“I cannot offer high wages, but honest work and a roof over your heads and food in your bellies. I’ll pay you quarterly, so you need not doubt whether the coin is there. I know the times are bad and there are many of you who need work. Why should the jobs go to strangers from outside the county when you have your own to feed?”
Indigo Moon Page 17
