by Gaelen Foley
Continuing on with their tour, she kept an eye out for a wifely portrait of her predecessor displayed in some prominent place; her curiosity about Catherine was becoming acute, but there was none to be found. If pictures of her had existed, they had been taken down.
Georgie was beginning to find the whole thing very strange.
When she expressed polite admiration for a handsome sideboard in the dining room, Townsend looked pleased and informed her that the previous Lady Griffith had chosen it herself.
“Ah,” Georgie replied, but as their tour moved on, it was difficult to glean much about Catherine’s personality from studying the decor of the house. Each room was tastefully appointed with rich fabrics, safe colors, elegant but wholly predictable choices. Everything was in the best taste, but whose taste? she wondered. That was the question, for there was nothing individual or distinctive about one square foot of the Prescott showplace. Perhaps the architect’s firm had also designed the furnishings, for it could have been anyone’s home—or nobody’s.
“Darling, were you and Catherine married long before her death?”
“Less than a year,” Ian answered.
“I see. So, all these lovely rooms were done by—?”
“Mother.”
“Ah, of course.” This was the home Ian had grown up in, after all.
“Now that you mention it, I think we’re due for some changes,” he whispered diplomatically in her ear.
She grinned.
But when they went upstairs and approached the lord and lady’s adjoining bedchambers, she detected an icy turn in his demeanor. “Ghastly,” he said again under his breath, glancing around at the gold and scarlet bedroom in distaste.
She turned to him, losing patience with his gloomy attitude. “Are you quite all right?”
He blinked, as though drawn back abruptly to the present by her tart tone. “Of course. Forgive me. The long journey seems to have taken a toll on my agreeable nature.”
“I daresay. You’re ruining my fun! Maybe you should go and take a nap.”
He snorted.
“Please do, if it’ll improve your humor.”
“My dear, I shall leave you to settle in. I have a few matters to attend to, anyway. Damien’s fellows will want their instructions.”
“Right.”
He bowed to her. “I will see you at dinner.”
“Ahem!” she said pertly as he started to turn away.
He glanced back and raised a brow at her in question.
She tilted her head, angling her cheek toward him and tapping it with an expectant smile.
Some of the tension eased from his taut countenance. “Ah, how could I ever forget?” Looking very much the besotted husband, he returned to her, bent, and gave her offered cheek a tender kiss.
The butler coughed in astonishment and studied the curtains.
“You must always kiss me, coming or going,” she reminded him with a flirtatious smile.
“Especially coming,” he murmured with a potent gaze into her eyes.
“Wicked man.” She hoped old Townsend didn’t hear.
“I will see you at supper, my love,” Ian said softly. He bowed again. She caressed his arm as he pulled away.
“I love you,” she called after him as he went out the door.
He sent her a rueful smile over his shoulder, but he didn’t say it back. He didn’t have to.
She could see it in his eyes.
Over the next three or four days, Georgie observed that Ian’s mood grew increasingly distant. He did his best to try to hide it, and when the night came, he still made love to her with all of his usual, passionate vigor. But every now and then, she felt that moody isolation creeping over him, taking him away from her in some vague way she could not quite define.
As the days passed, his brooding aura deepened, and he became ever more withdrawn. She asked him if he wanted to talk, but of course he said no. She saw him on more than one occasion standing by the river, staring down the ravine at its churning flow.
The most bizarre behavior that she witnessed in him, however, was when she stepped outside and found him with a pickax, tearing out the yellow roses that climbed up the side of the house. She stared in astonishment to find the marquess mud-flecked in his shirt-sleeves, covered in sweat.
“What on earth are you doing?”
“Uh—um—they were in need of a trim. Actually, I’m thinking of tearing the house down. Would you like a new one?” His chest heaved as he paused, squinting against the sun. “It’s old, you know. Out of fashion. I was thinking, maybe, something neo-Gothic?”
She stared at him in disbelief.
He rested the pickax over his shoulder and paused to gulp a swig of water. “Was there, er, something you wanted?”
“N-no.” Even if her mind had not been rendered blank by his odd behavior, she wasn’t sure she would have dared protest, let alone remind the famed peer that he had gardeners for that sort of thing. Instead, she just shook her head and went back inside.
When he had finished tearing down the roses, he discarded the whole pile by throwing it in the river. She stared out the window in alarm as Ian watched the yellow clumps disappearing downstream. He seemed to be in his own world, and clearly, it was not a happy place.
She turned to ask the servants discreetly if they had any notion of what ailed their master, but they fled when they saw her coming, as though they anticipated her bewilderment. Instead of offering answers, they rushed back to their tasks in conspiratorial silence.
Something very strange was going on around here, and Georgie had no idea what it was. She wondered if even Robert, Ian’s closest friend, could have explained this to her.
But whatever demon haunted her husband, the destruction of the roses seemed to appease it for a few days. Once more, her amiable mate became his gentlemanly self again.
Eager to reclaim a sense of normalcy, Georgie suggested a picnic the next day. Whatever was bothering Ian seemed to have begun when they had arrived, so, she reasoned, perhaps it would help to get him away from the house for an afternoon.
To that end, she let him and Matthew choose the spot.
They did not go as far as the ruins of Uther Pendragon’s castle. Ian did not want her to leave the grounds—for safety’s sake, he claimed, though somehow she wondered if there was more to it than that. Grateful merely that he was human again today and not some shadowy beast, Georgie did not care to argue.
Before long, a large blanket was spread out on the grass in the shade of a huge oak tree, along with a low folding table and a few large pillows for them to lounge on.
The servants helped set up their simple luncheon, then withdrew to a respectful distance. Meanwhile, Ian indulged in kicking a ball around with his son. The spotted pup raced around them, yipping gleefully and occasionally disappearing in the tall grass.
Georgie was profoundly relieved to see Ian enjoying himself, carefree for once. Matthew was as delighted as ever by the attention, protesting with gusto when Georgie called to the pair to come and eat. They lingered at their game while she applied a bit of muscle to the corkscrew, struggling to open a bottle of chilled white wine to share with her handsome lord.
She gazed at him in unstinting admiration as he strode toward her in bone-colored trousers, loose white shirt-sleeves, a dark brown neckcloth casually knotted, and a single-breasted waistcoat of sky-blue and tan pinstripes. He looked beautiful, she thought, and thankfully, sane again.
“Need some help with that?”
She handed the stubborn wine bottle over to him with a smile.
“Papa! Come back!”
“Time for lunch, Matt,” he replied as he uncorked the wine bottle with ease.
“But I’m not hungry! I want to play!”
Ian sent her a twinkling glance. “I think it’s your turn to entertain him.”
“I’m not half bad at the old kick-to-kick, I’ll have you know. I did grow up with brothers, after all.”
“I don’t doubt it, my love, though you may be the first marchioness ever to possess that skill.”
She laughed, and he leaned down to give her a kiss.
“Papa, somebody, play with me!” Matthew insisted.
“That boy needs a little brother or sister,” Ian said softly.
“In due time,” Georgie murmured with a smile. “Matthew, Papa is going to eat now!” she called. “Why don’t you try kicking the ball against the tree and let it bounce back to you? We’ll watch.”
“All right.” He heaved a long-suffering sigh.
“There,” Georgie said to Ian in a low tone. “Now perhaps you can have a nice glass of wine with your wife, and a little peace.”
“Hope springs eternal,” he said sardonically.
She laughed and lifted her empty glass, and Ian poured for them both. He sat down across from her and they both began helping themselves to the simple luncheon fare, cold meats that she would not touch, cucumber sandwiches, potato salad, some cheeses and fruits, and soft rye bread.
Georgie was glad she had come up with this idea. A relaxed afternoon together on a balmy summer’s day was just the thing. More important, it provided her with the perfect chance to try to find out what was bothering him.
Slanting a probing glance his way, she noticed him rubbing his shoulder. “Sore?”
“Bit of a twinge. Can’t say I’m used to swinging a pickax.”
“No, I should hope not. Here. Let me help you.” She set her plate aside, got up, and knelt behind him, massaging his sore shoulder.
“Mmm, that feels good.”
“You know, darling, yesterday—that attack of yours on the roses was a little strange.”
“Eh, I couldn’t stand looking at them anymore.”
“Why?”
“They were ghastly. Honestly, aren’t you glad they’re gone?”
She lowered her gaze. “If it makes you feel better, then of course I am.”
“They were hers, you know.”
“Your mother’s?” she inquired, recalling his childhood anecdote of gathering a bouquet for his mother and being punished for it, but Ian shook his head.
“Catherine’s.”
“Oh!” she murmured, pausing.
“For such a well-bred girl, she really had some low and vulgar tastes.”
“Hey! Did you see how good I kicked it?” Matthew exclaimed, holding the ball triumphantly over his head.
All this time, he had been running back and forth, kicking the ball against the tree trunk, frequently missing altogether and having to chase it, and carrying on a chirpy monologue that he presumed they had been heeding. Now, however, little Lord Aylesworth realized in all his aristocratic hauteur that their attention had strayed from him. “Watch me!” he ordered them. “Papa, you’re not watching me!”
“I’m watching you,” Ian called back wearily.
“No, you’re not!” In a defiant show of temper, the heir to the marquisate drop-kicked the ball into the air. It flew up with impressive velocity, ricocheted off the underside of a thick gnarled oak branch, and careened down, meteor-like, onto Ian’s plate. It knocked his food all over him, splattering him with potato salad and spilling his glass of wine across his lap.
Georgie gasped. Ian jumped to his feet with a curse, and Matthew’s jaw dropped, his brown eyes growing perfectly round.
“Young man!” he bellowed. “Get over here, sit down, and eat your lunch, as you were told!”
Georgie rose and sought to intervene with the utmost delicacy as Matthew and his puppy both visibly cowered. “Darling, he didn’t mean to do it. I’m sure it was an accident—”
“Don’t defend his actions. That was a thoroughly obnoxious stunt and he knows it! Get over here, Matthew. Now!” he thundered.
Matthew sidled over to the blanket and dropped into position, as ordered, suddenly making himself look quite tiny and pitiful, his shivering puppy huddled beside him.
“Matthew, I think you had better apologize to your father,” Georgie advised in an even tone.
“Sorry, sir.”
Ian leaned down slowly. “You cannot throw a fit of temper every time you don’t get exactly what you want. That is no way for a Prescott to behave! So help me, you will not grow up to be spoiled like your mother was! If I want to have a conversation with my wife, you will wait until it is your turn to speak.”
“Ian, that’s enough!” Georgie exclaimed. “The boy’s been through a lot of late! You’re scaring him—and you’re scaring me.”
Her words caused Ian’s jaw to clamp shut. He turned pale, staring at her for a second. Without another word, he reached down for a large table napkin, then straightened up again, pivoted, and began marching away, angrily brushing himself off with the cloth as he stormed off.
“You’re leaving?”
No answer.
Georgie watched him in disbelief. All of a sudden, she felt her lungs seize up in response to his abandonment, and her temper frayed. “Ian, tell me what is wrong!” she cried.
“Trust me, Georgiana,” he bit out, pausing only for a moment, “you don’t want to know!” Then he turned around again and kept walking, and he didn’t come back.
Scared her, did he? No doubt of that. No doubt he scared his son. God, maybe he really was a monster. Just like Catherine had said. What kind of foolish monster ever hoped he could be loved?
Ian stood above the swirling river a short while later, his heart pounding. The broken bridge looked terrible, unmended as a gaping wound.
He closed his eyes, struggling for control with a slow, lengthy breath. The sound of the rushing river below filled his ears, and the scent of it teased his nostrils. If only he could make her understand!
He had been raised from the cradle with a lofty role to live up to, a gleaming family image to fulfill. He had worn this bright and polished steel armor for so long that it had fused into his skin. How could he rip himself open just to show Georgiana what he truly was?
Leave her her illusions. She did not really want to know.
Nobody did.
Yet he could not escape the feeling that the writing was already on the wall. She was going to leave him. It was only a matter of time. She was getting too close to the truth, just like she had with Queen Sujana. There could be no secrets with Georgiana Knight.
She’d find out, and then the only way to keep her would be to make her his prisoner, just like the beast he knew he was.
Only, Ian could not bear to make his bride unhappy.
When he flicked his eyes open again, the swirling waters of the River Griffith swiftly mesmerized him, always gliding by, catching against strewn branches and twigs, spinning leaves in the current. Spiraling miniature vortexes turned where the water seemed calm. Foamy rills, deadly rocks. One particularly jagged stone whose sharp edge matched the scar on his shoulder.
“Catherine!” His roar had echoed down the gorge.
“Let go of the horses, you brute! I’m leaving you, I hate you, you monster! Brute! I hate the very sight of you!”
“Hate me all you like, but I will not permit you to abandon your newborn son.”
“Oh, really? Watch me.”
He shut his eyes again, trying to ward off the memory. The past was behind him now, the future ahead, with Georgiana. Please don’t make me tell her.
It was the first time in his life he’d had anything close to real love, and if he told her what had happened that night, she would run from him, and he might never get her back.
Honestly, he did not know how much more of this he could take. He was on the verge of going mad, consumed by guilt, never-ending dread that she might find out some other way.
But then again, surely he was aware that Georgiana had given him another chance after his display of violence in Green Park. He refused to squander it by informing her that he was capable of even worse than what she had seen. He didn’t want her to know. He didn’t even like to acknowledge it to himself.
No, he could keep t
his awful secret bottled up tightly inside him. He knew that he could. Keeping secrets, hiding his feelings, these were his forte, were they not?
She loved her humanitarian diplomat, her noble justice-maker, her man of reason. Oh, Jesus, he was such a goddamned fraud.
When he had taken it into his head to marry Georgiana, he had been thinking logically, not realizing that things would ever become so…sticky. He’d had no way of knowing how it would be when they had grown so truly close.
Intimate.
But how could their love go any farther with this terrible secret in his soul forming a chasm between them? And yet he was sure if he told her, she would be gone.
It was not lost on him that in a sense, he was doing the same thing to Georgie that Catherine had done to him, coming into the marriage representing himself as something other than what he really was. But he couldn’t help it. He loved her so much. He would have done anything, been anything, to win her.
Somehow, he would fight this secret back into its cage and carry on in the hypocritically proper Prescott way, just as he had since that unspeakable night.
Henceforth, he would simply have to try harder to be the man she wanted, loved, needed him to be.
At the very base of it all, though, as deep as the dark silt and cold black river rocks, he knew that he did not regret a thing. He had told Georgiana a lie, true—he had told the whole world a lie—and now he had to live with it. But although it hurt, he would do so happily.
For Matthew’s sake.
Matthew went down for his nap later that afternoon. After the boy had dozed off, safe in his bed back at the house, Georgie decided to walk for a bit through the grounds.
Her husband’s brooding lately must have turned contagious, for she found herself still hurt and troubled by his abrupt exit from their picnic. Things had started out so well today, but now she saw that the trouble was still there, only hidden, just beneath the surface.
Lord, what had she gotten herself into? Married scarcely a week, and already her husband had barked at her, clearly wishing her to leave him alone.
Well, if that’s what he wanted, that’s exactly what he would get, she thought stubbornly. She wasn’t going anywhere near the man until he apologized.
