“A woman needs to know only what her husband cares to teach her,” Terence pronounced, the Irish street urchin perfectly parroting British society’s manners and mores.
Beth’s hand slapped down hard on the leather cover, sending squirrels scurrying, startling birds into silence. Ignoring her stinging palm, she glared at her beloved. “I have discovered there are a great many things a woman needs to know which most husbands are unable or unwilling to teach. Not just what is in this book, but how a man’s hidden vices may ruin his wife’s life, his own, his children’s as well. How a woman may be bought and sold with little or no regard for her welfare. Parliament passed a law against slavery but has never considered the needs of the women right under their noses. We may be pampered slaves, but we are slaves nonetheless. Trapped, abused, our wishes, our desires disregarded—”
“I’m here!” Terence protested. “I care, your father cares, Tildy cares, your–Nell Archer cares. You’re about as far from a slave as a woman can get. They call you the Merchant Princess, remember?”
“Did that keep me from being spanked, whipped, choked?” Beth demanded. “Did that allow me to order out the carriage and escape my husband? Merciful heavens, Terence, Rodney wouldn’t even listen when I told him the value of the art treasures stored away upstairs. My opinion was worthless, my person valueless except as a brood mare. If that isn’t slavery, I don’t know what is!”
Jesus, be thanked! Terence, though not a church-goer, was not totally lost to the religion which was part and parcel of his Irish heritage. His beloved Beth was back. A miraculous revival, no matter how radical her views. He gazed into the distance, vaguely taking in the beauty of beds of tulips, each rectangle carefully color-matched in red, pink, or white. Daffodils standing as stiff as soldiers in their uniform frills of yellow. Beth was right, of course. Charlotte, the Princess Royal, and Beth, the Merchant Princess, were as much slaves as the rest of their sex. If a woman was matched with a kind and loving master, her life was good. If not . . .
Of course, he’d not admit she was right. That the pedestal he had put her on since birth was set in the midst of a gilded cage, so sheltered and circumscribed that she had no experience to protect herself from the ravages of the outside world. Beth, like most women of her day, had been passed from the care of the men of her family to the care of her husband with possibly less concern than men spent on breeding their race horses. No matter Tobias’s part in all this, he—Terence O’Rourke—had done this to her. And now he must fix it.
He let his hand drift over the irregular indentations of the cover’s embossed leather design. Lifting his eyes, he found Beth studying him with an intensity which said she knew exactly what he was thinking. She knew he was suffering. And was glad. But, as she so often did, his darling girl surprised him.
“I think,” she said softly, “someday I would like to go through this book and try almost everything in it.” She blushed, rosily. “There are a few, of course . . .” Her voice trailed away. “A few,” she clarified, “which are perhaps more easily done in a painting than in the flesh.”
Terence hid his shock and a wayward grin by cupping a hand over his eyes and mouth. His grin wasn’t all that needed hiding, he realized, almost startled into a blush himself as he glanced down at his lap. The minx! She’d become a woman while he was gone, and himself not fit to touch the ground she walked on. His baby, his Beth, the child he had idolized, now insisted he think of her as a woman. His mind might rebel at the idea; obviously, his body did not.
Supposedly, Monterne was out scouring the countryside on an investigation of his own. Terence suspected he was holed up in Exeter or Plymouth, enjoying the freedom of having a guardian for Beth. Or was he out hatching some additional plot against his wife’s life? Against his brother-in-law’s life? Hard to tell. Terence kept in touch with his own investigators and stayed glued to Beth. But spending all day, every day, with the woman he loved—who was married to someone else—was deteriorating from uncomfortable to pure hell. If Monterne didn’t come home soon . . .
Terence picked up the book, shoved it into Beth’s hands with perhaps a bit more force than necessary. “Suppose you show me the ones you think are impossible,” he suggested, blue eyes sparkling with a wicked gleam that nearly stopped her breath. “I’ll give you my–ah–experienced opinion.”
Hands shaking, Beth bent over the book in her lap, her eyes so unfocused she could barely see the paintings. Never before in her life, not even that night in the private dining room in London, had she felt so . . . She was unsure what to call it. Women of her class were not given the opportunity to learn the proper vocabulary for how she felt. Even the novels she had been allowed to read didn’t cover it. She only knew she was shaking with desire, for the need to be as close as possible to a man who was not her husband. That by every tenet of society which she had been so carefully taught, she was a sinner. An adulterer, even if only in her heart. Rodney was a monster, but the solid merchant society in which she was raised would consider her the sinner. The whore. The outcast.
The pages riffled beneath her fingers. Concentrate on the moment, don’t give in. Never let him know his power. She selected a painting, laid the page open before him. “This one,” she breathed. “What about this one?”
Nell Archer, torn between motherhood and friendship, between propriety and the desire to grant her daughter the freedom she so desperately needed, settled on a compromise which catered to traditional custom while turning a blind eye to the unconventional relationship right under her nose. When Viscount Monterne once again deserted the Refuge, leaving his wife and brother-in-law to entertain themselves, Nell’s inclination was to breathe a sigh of relief and go home. But there was scarcely a person in the area who was unaware that the heirs to the Brockman empire were not related by blood. Propriety, therefore, demanded she stay as chaperon to Lady Monterne. A woman of the world, Nell found the idea amusing. When she was not chagrined.
Madame Rosamund Rolande, whose lovers were legion, found herself playing propriety for a young lady whose best chance for survival was to firmly re-establish the forbidden love chaperons were supposed to prevent. For a young lady who just happened to be her daughter. The concept was close to ludicrous.
And now the boy . . . the man . . . the Merchant Prince wished to speak with her. Had as much as ordered her to meet him in the sunny morning room overlooking the gardens. Men! Always they acted as if they ruled the world.
But they did, of course. Nell, heaving a long-drawn sigh, tried to find comfort in the sight of the small sheltered garden just outside the floor-to-ceiling windows. She recognized hyacinths, violas in several shades, including white. A burst of pink blooms which she thought were camellias, a climbing vine whose name she had to struggle to recall. Clematis. Yes, those large lovely lavender blooms were clematis.
“Madame,” said a cool voice. Terence O’Rourke offered a slight bow before dropping into a chair across from where Nell’s elaborate rose silk morning gown was artfully displayed on a beige velvet sofa.
“Mr. O’Rourke.” Equally cool.
“Now that Beth is recovering, we need to talk, Madame—”
“Mrs. Archer,” Nell corrected. “Just Mrs. Archer.”
Terence stared down his nose in a look which would have reduced most people to the level of a bug. Nell Archer, not about to walked over by any one, glared right back.
“Mrs. Archer,” he said with a nod. Nell could almost swear she saw a flash of amusement in his eyes. “You think I intend to scold you for breaking your agreement with Tobias,” he said. “I assure you I’m not. What would Beth have done these past months if you had not been here? I am eternally grateful. And so Tobias will be when I explain. You’ve no need to fear for your annuity. Your position, now as then, is secure. You will never want for anything.”
Nell had heard of women who said their hearts turned over. She’d even thought she’d experienced the sensation a time or two herself. But Terence O’Rourke, for all
the stern demeanor he donned over his Irish good nature, was as attractive and as appealing a man as she had ever met. He’d never know how wrong he was, for there was indeed one thing she wanted which she would never have.
“I want to ask you about Monterne,” Terence said, leaning forward in his chair, his body tense, focused, leaving no doubt about the seriousness of his question. “Why did he decamp, simply walk away and leave me with Beth when he knew the entire story of her abuse would come out? What does he expect me to do?”
Ah . . . so that was it, Nell thought. She should have known. Terence O’Rourke hadn’t risen to his exalted position by being stupid. “Perhaps,” she suggested carefully, “he wishes you to take her away? Perhaps he wishes to be free of the marriage. Certainly, he spends little enough time at home.”
“Perhaps,” Terence countered, “he wishes me to take her away so he can have me arrested.”
“Yes, of course,” Nell murmured, finding she wasn’t even shocked. “A disaster not only for you but for Tobias as well.”
“Perhaps the nation,” Terence mused. “Any scandal which rocks the Brockman empire also rocks the country. Almost everyone who is anyone has money invested in Tobias Brockman’s financial empire.”
“But what could Monterne gain?” Nell asked. “I’ve had longer to think on it than you, and it makes no sense. He wants a child, of that there’s no doubt, even if only to secure Tobias’s fortune. If Beth dies, he has neither heir nor fortune. And,” Nell added, frowning in concentration, “he left that Wingfield girl without so much as a blink, so that can’t be it.” She stopped abruptly, following a new line of thought.
“Do you suppose,” Nell asked, demonstrating that not all Beth’s intelligence came from her father, “Monterne is giving you an opportunity to compromise Beth?” Her words came faster now. “That he wants an excuse to come home and challenge you, an excuse to kill you, not Beth—”
“So he ends up with it all,” Terence breathed. “My half as well as Beth’s.”
“It’s possible,” Nell said, playing Devil’s Advocate against herself, “but somehow I’ve never thought him that devious. He’s shallow, twisted, violent, but not, I think, capable of devising a plot which might bring down the empire which is feeding him. He is too selfish for that. Somehow—”
“But who else would benefit?” Terence mused.
“Is it possible the Wingfields still have hopes in that direction?”
Terence’s head came up, eyes bright, as he considered Nell’s suggestion. Slowly, he shook his head. “A trifle far-fetched, but I’ll see if the chit’s still hanging on the vine. I’ll send a courier to London within the hour.”
“A courier?”
“I didn’t come alone,” Terence assured her. “I have men spread through all the villages in Dartmoor. My own personal Bow Street Runners, if you will. Except smarter and better educated. We will solve this mystery—or perhaps I should say mysteries. I assure you Beth is not going to go in fear for the rest of her life.”
Nell believed him. And envied her child the devotion of such a man. But could a happy ending be contrived from such a situation? Beth, she knew, was torn in two. Grateful as she was for her foster brother’s presence, the dark shadow of what she believed was his desertion hung between them. A chasm which might never be bridged.
Not if she could help it, Nell vowed. These two star-crossed lovers deserved to be together. No matter how long it took.
Chapter Twenty-two
Beth was silently grateful for the steadying warmth of Terence’s hands as she lowered herself to her knees beside the softly gurgling river. No longer in flood, its clear waters shimmered in the sunlight, revealing every underwater shelf of granite, every rock, every tiny pebble as plainly as if they’d been on the bank beside her. She could even see a fish hovering in a pool near the bare roots of a semi-reclining tree. Yet she was unable to focus on the beauty around her, nor even recall the gleam of hope Terence had brought back into her life. As she clutched a bouquet of flowers she had picked that morning, memories came crashing back. Will’s shout, her scream, the pony’s terrified whinny as they plunged down the bank. Another scream—her own. Splintering wood, churning flood. Will holding her tight. Solid rock coming up to meet her. Oh, God, dear God, why? I had my chance in life and made a mull of it. Will was courting, had his whole life ahead of him. Why me? Why save me and let him die?
Terence squeezed her shoulder, murmuring words she didn’t hear, but she recognized the tone. Comfort. He was offering comfort, encouraging her to be brave. Beth laid the bouquet down on the bank of the river, forced her fingers of let go. Silently, she offered a prayer for Will Jenks, for his family. For Betsy the parlor maid, who was still slinking about the house, a wraith with red eyes and nose.
Gradually, the sights and sounds of the spring day came back. The rush of the stream, the buzz of insects, the call of birds happily building nests in the trees and bushes along the river.. Upstream, near the bridge, a row of ancient stepping stones peeked above the current. Ferns swayed in a gentle breeze over lichen-strewn boulders. Low-growing wildflowers sprang up everywhere, even from tiny cracks in the granite itself. So serene . . . so beautiful for a place of death.
A tug from Terence and Beth found herself on her feet, her head buried in his chest. But no tears came. Her hurt was beyond tears, a great welling of grief for Will Jenks, for herself, for Terence. For Rodney who could not help what he was. For all who died in the prime of life, unable to discover how they might have lived their lives, never to know the joy or sorrow of love, children, great accomplishment, or the simple satisfaction in a job well done.
As she would never know, living in penance for her mistakes all the days of her life.
The thump of hooves, the clatter of wheels plunging down the hill. Beth cringed, jerked her head up, wondering if the sounds came from her overactive imagination. She watched, stunned, as Viscount Monterne swept down the hill in his curricle, made the sharp turn to the left, and dashed smartly across the bridge. By not so much as a turn of his head or the lifting of his whip did he acknowledge their presence, though they stood in plain sight, not thirty feet from the edge of the road.
Terence fervently mouthed a word Beth had only heard once or twice in the stables. This was all that was needed, she supposed. The final, terrible straw. Would Rodney challenge Terence, demand pistols at dawn? Undoubtedly, he would beat her. This time, to the death. Several times during the past ten days she had allowed herself to feel a niggling of hope. Such foolishness. She was going to die here on Dartmoor, adding one more legend to Dartmoor eerie lore. The lady whose ghost was said to haunt the bridge at midnight. Or perhaps a wintry bog on the high moor?
“Terence, you’ll not fight him!” Beth commanded with no sign of her personal resignation to death. “You must leave at once. I’ll be fine, I promise you.”
“Don’t be absurd,” he growled as he started up the slope towards the bridge, dragging her behind him. “I’ll handle Monterne. He’s too high in the instep to fight a Cit anyway.”
“Then he’ll have you killed!”
“Let him try!”
Beth planted her feet on the dirt road and balked. “He will try,” she declared. “For all that he ignores me much of the time, I’m his lawful possession.”
Terence ran a hand through his black hair, tousling it into an imitation of the young man she once knew. If only they could go back to the days of her childhood . . .
“Beth, I’ll explain,” Terence told her in a more reasonable tone. “I’ll tell Monterne exactly what happened. That you were laying flowers for Will Jenks, I was merely offering comfort.”
“With a reasonable man that might work,” Beth declared, “but it’s been a long time since Rodney was reasonable. With him, everything is exaggerated, larger than life. In his mind he saw an embrace. By the time he reaches the house he will have seen us in flagrante delicto. By the time we arrive home, he will have conjured us into lovers since
the moment you arrived, perhaps since childhood.”
“We have been lovers since childhood,” Terence countered simply.
“Not . . . not in that way,” Beth murmured, trembling as she looked up into his forbidden face.
“No,” Terence agreed, his voice taking on the solemnity of a vow. “And at the moment I regret that more than I can say.” A finger came up, lifted her chin. “You have no idea . . . I’ve spent my life hiding my feelings. I’m not going to do it any more.”
Now in the hour of our death . . . That’s what he meant, Beth knew it. This was all they would ever have. Rodney would kill them, be legally justified in doing so. No viscount—possibly not even a smithy—would be found guilty of killing a faithless wife and her lover.
She was a slut, a whore. And at the moment she didn’t care. She’d waited for this all her life. That single finger under her chin was all that was keeping her knees from buckling. Body tingling with anticipation, she forgot to breathe. There was a roaring in her ears, though his lips were still a foot from her mouth. Through misty vision she saw the brilliance of his blue eyes darken with desire, saw him deliberately discard a lifetime of propriety. Right there in the middle of the road, in front of God and the world, Terence O’Rourke kissed her. His lips brushed hers, once, twice. Moved back to cling softly. May I? Is this really what you want? Do you really understand you’re taking your life in your hands?
Yes, yes . . . and yes!
His lips came back to hers, clung. As did the arms that enfolded her, pulled her close. Heat surged as Beth felt the hardness of him straight through his buckskin breeches. It wasn’t as if she’d never looked . . . never imagined. But she’d been so naive, so ignorant when she was younger. The immediacy of his reaction, the loss of his customary iron control, plunged her into a vortex of desire. At long last, this was Terence, her love, her life. And he was hers.
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