Fearless

by Lynne Connolly

  “Hmm. I’ve had the documents read to me,” Fielding said. “Are there no other witnesses?”

  “No, sir. The house is empty, and its occupants have disappeared.”

  They would no doubt appear again after the trial was over, probably to set up shop somewhere else. When he’d heard the news, Val had fallen into deep despond, but despite Darius’s diligent enquiries, he could find no trace of the madam or her staff.

  The court tensed. Val felt sick with relief.

  Fielding asked his assistant for the time. “I’ve heard enough,” he said. “For the benefit of the jury, I will sum up. There is no doubt that passion had much to do in this case. Lord Kellett went to the house of Lord Shaw with the intent to kill, wound, or threaten him. Lord Shaw considered his wife was under threat, and with good reason. That much is clear. Lord Shaw, by his own account and that of his servants, was unarmed. He tried to attack Lord Kellett to disarm him, he says, and I see no reason to disbelieve him. The guns were dueling pistols, weapons with fine responses. Lord Kellett had cocked one. In the tussle to gain control of the weapon, it was somehow discharged. I will leave it to you, gentlemen, to decide how. You may wish to consider reducing the charge to manslaughter, perhaps with the mitigation of self-defense. I will not speak to Lord Shaw’s discoveries that had led him to believe his wife was in danger. I do not believe it had anything to do with the sequence of events after Lord Kellett held the weapon to Lady Shaw’s head, only for motivation. They fought for control of the pistol, and it discharged.” He motioned to the jury. “Come to your decision, sirs.”

  The men who’d been sitting listening to the evidence moved together. If they retired, they would receive no comforts until they delivered the verdict, but that would not stop them.

  Val wrung his hands together, but he did not have to wait long.

  The spokesman stood. Fielding’s assistant murmured to him, and the magistrate nodded. “Your decision please,” he said.

  “Not guilty,” the man said promptly.

  Cheering began in the gallery, and Fielding had to raise his voice to be heard. “The present Lord Kellett has brought a frivolous case, and I do not take it kindly that he has taken up my valuable time. The prisoner at the bar is acquitted of all charges.”

  Waves of relief swept over Val and he sagged. Graham gently pushed him back into his chair. He knew how close he’d come and in cases like this, it was acquittal or death. He could have chosen to lower the charges to manslaughter, and then he could have suffered this ordeal all over again.

  The judge had given him his life back. He bent his head, and the tears came.

  Andrew Graham shoved a handkerchief under his nose. “I take it you want to leave this place? Best we do so before the public has left. I am told there is a carriage waiting for you.”

  “Thank you.” He tried to get up, but his shaky legs wouldn’t hold him. He was forced to grab the rail for support. He bowed his head, breathed in and lifted himself upright.

  His life had changed. His marriage had begun it, or perhaps his lighthearted engagement in investments and insurance had become more important, but this event, this trial was a gate between one section of his life and the next.

  First he would devote himself to his wife, use everything he had to help her back to the light.

  Val took one step and then another, and went to discover what life brought him.

  Chapter 22

  “You specialize in lovely houses.” Charlotte stepped through the door of the Leicestershire house, and felt the cool peace. This house was older than the villa by the Thames, built in the last century, but again of a comfortable size rather than palatial. After her childhood spent in houses where she could go for days without seeing anyone but her governess and the nurserymaid, she preferred this. She would never subject a child of hers to that upbringing.

  Not that she seemed likely to have any children. Her courses had come and gone since the last time she’d allowed her husband to make love to her, and still he hadn’t touched her. Of course, he had his own recovery to make. By mutual consent they had carried on as they were, neither forcing the issue, until he declared his intention of taking her to his other house.

  They had traveled up here in comfort, but occupied separate rooms at the inns where they’d stayed. In a month they would set out for Haxby Hall, the family seat of the Shaws, for the summer gathering of the family, but for the rest of June and the beginning of July they were together, husband and wife.

  Charlotte felt more like Val’s sister than his wife. He had treated her with the utmost courtesy, but it was as if his shield were greater than hers. She wanted to reach out to him, but she didn’t know how, and every day that passed she felt more distant from him. She had tried so hard, and now she could allow her maid to dress her hair and lace her into her stays. That was progress.

  Were the all-too-few nights they’d spent in the villa by the Thames all that there was for them? As he’d told her, there was no great pressure for him to set up his nursery, so there was no reason for them to share a bed ever again.

  She still shook with fear when someone touched her. She could control it better if she initiated the touch. As she did now, when he held out his arm and she laid her hand on his sleeve. Even now he hadn’t offered his bare hand to her. She wanted to try it, but she was deathly afraid that this time he would reject her.

  “Wait,” he’d told her after the first day’s journey. Now they’d arrived in Leicestershire, the lovely county of lush green fields and flocks of sheep, timber-framed cottages and elegant manor houses, of which this was one.

  The domestic staff gathered in the hall, and Val introduced them with a disarming charm she had discovered he could switch on and off at will. Like his town finery, which he’d discarded for simpler country wear. Val was always on point. She couldn’t imagine him ever inappropriately dressed. He’d even worn the right outfit in court. At the memory of that horrible day, both the best and the worst in her life, she shuddered.

  Immediately Val turned to her, his face a picture of concern. “What is it, my love?”

  She shook her head. “Nothing at all.” She forced a smile of reassurance. “I cannot wait to see the house.”

  “Wouldn’t you like tea first?”

  “Not at all. Afterward, I would love it.” She nodded to the housekeeper. “In the sunniest room, please, Mrs. Baker.”

  Mrs. Baker, a homely woman with an almost perfectly round face, smiled, curtsied, and led the kitchen maids back downstairs.

  Val took her on the tour. If not for the circumstances, she would love this house. It was set perfectly in a modest estate, and the furnishings were neat, but not showy. Charlotte was discovering she preferred that kind. “I hate the old solid way my father prefers, but I am not too fond of the French way of gilding everything, either,” she said. “I had no idea I had any taste at all, since everything was selected for me.”

  “Even your clothes?”

  She paused. “Well, I chose them, but if my father disapproved, he’d have them sent back. So in effect, he ruled there, too. The gown from Cerisot was the first I had chosen for myself. I enjoyed that. Does that make me completely frivolous?”

  When she turned to him, he was close enough to kiss. She could see desire in his eyes, the widened pupils with their rim of bright blue, the way his mouth tightened a tiny bit and his lips reddened. He moved toward her but then jerked back, as if remembering he could not. “You have many years of frivolity to make up for, and I’m just the man to show you.” But the words sounded wrong, as if he’d been about to say something else.

  Never one to shirk an issue, she said, “Val, what are we to do?”

  “You mustn’t worry.”

  “I worry all the time. I can’t do it, Val. I can’t let you touch me. I’ve tried, but it’s as if that part of me is locked away.” Finding a nearby window seat, she made use of it, sparing a glance at the pretty garden below. A gentle breeze stirred the leaves on t
he rosebushes. At least her enjoyment of gardens had not disappeared.

  He sat down next to her, and where he would once have taken her hands, he laid them on his thighs. “I know.” He followed her glance. “Would you like me to sell it?”

  At the thought of the house where she had known happiness for the first time in her life, she shook her head. “I will not allow him to taint my memories of that place. I would like to go there again.”

  “I have ordered the pavilion in the Thames-side house torn down. We’ll restructure that part of the garden, or we can rearrange it completely.”

  “Yes, that would be for the best.” She liked that idea, so the place where Hervey had died would be completely obliterated. “He was a terrible person, wasn’t he?”

  Val nodded. “Overindulged as a child and taught to believe that everything he wanted was right. By his father, I understand, not his mother, which was why she fled.”

  “Then why would she support him at the trial?”

  The shoulders of his brown country coat moved in a shrug. “Loyalty, or perhaps she loved him but couldn’t live with him. That’s not unknown. I do not know. I didn’t ask.”

  Stricken, she clenched her fist into folds of yellow silk. “Will that happen to us?”

  “No, never.” He closed his eyes, sitting very still. When he opened them again, his eyes were clear once more. “I have a plan. Are you brave enough to try it?”

  “Yes.” She paused, recalling Val’s reputation. “That is, if it’s not dangerous.”

  “Everything in life worth having carries a little danger with it. Will you try?”

  She nodded. If he could find them a way out of this torture, she would take it.

  Looking at him every day, longing to touch him, to love him as she had so briefly and being unable to do so was killing her. If she touched him, he would want to touch her back, but when anyone did so, visions of blood and death and the utter blackness descended on her, having its inevitable result.

  “I thought it would wear off, but so far I cannot bear to be touched. I’m so sorry.”

  “You think it’s your fault?” His voice rose as if he were angry. “No, love, it’s not. It is an obstacle we will overcome. If we don’t win tonight, we will do so another day. Believe it.”

  She dared do nothing else. His express was so fierce she would have believed anything he said.

  “Take off your ring,” he said abruptly. “Read what’s inside.”

  Her attention went to her hands. She only wore her wedding ring. She slid it off. The plain gold band gleamed in the sunshine, but she noticed writing inside. “What is this?” She held it to the light and slowly read, “Cert a Mon Gre.” Sliding it back on her finger, she shook her head. “What does that mean? It’s French, and it’s something like ‘certainly my…’”

  “It’s old French. It’s a medieval posy ring, and it’s been in the family since the first earl gave it to his countess.”

  “Shouldn’t it go to the heir?”

  Val shook his head. “They have their own troth ring. This is ours. It means ‘Certainly my will,’ or ‘For sure my choice.’ I mean it, Charlotte. If I had not, I’d have not used the ring without telling you. It’s a very quiet, very personal pledge. My parents’ marriage was arranged, so at the time he chose not to give her the ring. Otherwise my mother would have it.”

  “I thought they were devoted.”

  His smile disappeared. “They are, now, but it was not always that way. They fought for their love. Just as we will.” He glanced around at the pretty room. “This house has a romantic history. Perhaps we can add to it. I bought it a few years ago, but it was built for a minor mistress of Henry the Eighth. She fell in love with a local man, and they had to hide their love for two years, until the king met the Boleyn sisters and lost interest in her. Her love had to watch her with their monarch or lose his head. They waited, and when the king tired of her, she married the man she loved. They lived long and happy lives and never went to court again.”

  “That is lovely.” Leaning forward, she lifted her hand, as if to touch him.

  Val froze and watched her, but said nothing. She hovered her fingers over his hand, waiting for the profound shock that accompanied even this much proximity.

  It came, but it was muted. She could control it. She grazed her fingers against his skin, not sure if she was actually touching him or not, but snatched them back.

  He had not moved. “You can trust me,” he said. “If this is what it takes, we will do it.”

  “Was that your plan?”

  He shook his head, smiling. “No. Wait until later, my love.”

  She leaned back into her corner of the window seat, glad he could smile. “Thank you for bringing me here, and thank you for marrying me.” She shook her head. “I asked you to release me. I was foolish.”

  “You were duped. Anyone can be duped. Your father wanted you to give yourself to Kellett, so nobody was to blame but yourself. At least, in his perverted way of thinking, that was what he’d planned. But that is done with, over.”

  “Yes it is.” She drew back, marveling at what she had just discovered. If she gave herself time, worked through the initial shock of touching, she could prolong it. The feeling faded, and the visions of horror went away. Perhaps, with a little determination, she could do this.

  She could place exactly when the horrors began to diminish, but before, with the trial and its aftermath, the bustle of London and the constant visitors coming to the house to see them, she had not had time to let her mind and body settle.

  The moment was when Mr. Fielding had said, “Acquitted.”

  Charlotte let the tranquility of this place sink into her bones. As she went through the rest of the day, exploring her new domain, the garden, and afterward ate dinner with her husband, her body unwound like a clock does as the day passed.

  Val had taken care of her at every turn, even in gaol. He’d made his will the day before the trial. Whether her father provided her portion or not, whether he’d been condemned or not, she’d be a wealthy woman, able to make her own decisions. The thought of that fate made chills run through her, even on this warm day.

  She would not have allowed it to happen. If the verdict had gone the wrong way, she’d intended to stand up in court and claim that she shot Kellett, that she had aimed for that despicable man.

  After dinner, they read and chatted in the drawing room, and Val played a new air on the harpsichord, laughing when he realized it had not been tuned recently and turning the melody into a discordant jangle, pretending to sing along to it. Val had a pleasant baritone singing voice, but he turned it harsh for her, making her laugh more than she had done since—she didn’t think she had ever laughed that much.

  They had separate adjoining rooms. With a simple turn of the knob on the connecting door she could be in his chamber. Hers was hung in blue silk, with similar drapery around the bed, a charming place to sleep. But she would sleep here alone and yearn for him.

  She changed into her best night rail made of fine linen and lace, with a delicate wrapper of pale blue silk over the top. She’d refused to let her maid put her hair in its usual braids, but brushed it out, dismissing the woman to do it herself. She was sitting at the dressing table, brushing her hair when she heard the communicating door open.

  She kept her strokes steady until she found the brush being taken from her. Even then he was careful not to touch her hand. She let it go, and he took over.

  “Close your eyes,” he murmured. When she didn’t, he said, “Do you trust me?”

  Of course she did.

  His strokes were smooth, a little firmer than hers. Opening her eyes, she met his gaze in the mirror. He was smiling, the kind of open, happy smile she remembered from before his trial.

  He raised a brow. “How is it?”

  She swallowed. He was touching her. Yes, he had a brush in his hand, and he was doing what she could now allow her maid to do. As she watched, her tension rose
, but not so much that she could not quell it. This was a beginning.

  His robe was black with dull gold figuring tonight, more somber than his usual choice of bright colors. It seemed appropriate. “Sweetheart, I want more. I want us back where we were, but I know that will take time.”

  Before he masked it, she read the desperation in his eyes. She had not realized how much her reaction to him was pushing him toward the brink, but now she did. She felt sick, but also determined to put an end to this state of affairs. “We don’t have to live in the same house. Would you be more content if we parted for a while?” That might kill her. Her spirit, her heart, everything about her that mattered would shrivel and die.

  Her father had taught her how to hold herself up when she was dying inside and that to face a problem was better than to avoid it. “I want to try. If I cannot do this, I don’t deserve you.” He had stood trial for her, offered his life for hers. The least she could do was give him his life back.

  “You deserve it all.” Quietly, he put the brush down and stood behind her, his hands on the back of her chair.

  Still she did not turn around. Speaking like this, so close and yet separated by the mirror, gave her the confidence to say what she needed to. “I don’t.” She caught her breath on a sob, refusing to allow it to break free. “I deserve nothing, because I have earned nothing. Please, I want to try making love. Tonight.”

  “But I can’t touch you when you react the way you do. It destroys my spirit.” The words, spoken so softly, with such sincerity, broke her heart. “I do have an idea, but we will both have to take courage.”

  She meant what she said. If she could not manage to resume relations with him, she would leave and let him take his own path in life. So she had no choice, none at all. “Yes.” She didn’t need to think about her decision.

  “Very well.”

  He walked to the bed. Dipping in his pocket, he came out with a sharp knife and four long strips of cloth. Neckcloths, if she was any judge. He dropped them on the nightstand. Then he stripped off the black and gold robe. He was naked beneath.