Graham noted the double meaning to Ainsley’s words.
His play.
In the days since he’d been reunited with Rowena, he had lost all control over the chessboard that was his life, and he despised it. Damn Jack for having been correct. By letting Rowena back into his life—nay, insisting upon it—he’d threatened the carefully constructed world he’d built for himself.
Thwack.
A loud crash ripped through the noise of the parlor... by God, they’re coming. The damned French are advancing... Heart thundering, Graham jumped up. Wild-eyed he searched for the approaching enemy.
“Don’t pretend you don’t hear me, Hampstead.” That sharp cry mingled with the rapid fire of bayonets in his mind. Why were they calling him, Hampstead? “I have had enough, Hampstead.” That second angry shout brought him reeling briefly back. Ainsley stood before him, arms planted akimbo. “Do you hear me, Hampstead?... I am talking to you... you vowed we’d attend...”
His ward’s rapid demands emerged muffled, intermittently going in and out of focus. Graham blinked slowly. What was she saying? What...? Sweat beaded on his brow. Then like a swarm of angry bees, the guests assembled around Wilkshire’s parlor began whispering. His stomach lurched, as he was jerked back to the moment. Oh, God. Horror creeping in to every corner of his numbed being, he glanced about the room—to the sea of observers staring back at him... Lady Serena with her hand to her gaping mouth... and Ainsley. His world was spinning. He stood there at sea.
It had happened. Publicly this time, when he’d taken such care to conceal his demons. Sweat beaded on his brow.
The whispers became rampant, growing into full-fledged discourse as the lords and ladies began talking in earnest. I’m going to be ill. Battling between madness and horror, Graham fought for control, when Rowena stepped before him, the only person in the room wearing a smile. It was a false one, tense, and deliberate, but it pulled him back from the edge, and he found a lifeline in that mark of her courage.
“Your Grace, Miss Hickenbottom was merely pointing out the previous engagement you’d accepted an invitation to.” Previous engagement? Graham clenched his eyes briefly shut, searching his mind. When he opened them, Rowena gave him a long, meaningful look. She’s attempting to disentangle me from this humiliation. Just as Ainsley had with her outburst. Shamed and grateful all at the same time, he gave a slight, deliberate nod for Rowena.
“Other engagement,” he dimly registered the Duke of Wilkshire’s sputtering.
Rowena looked to Ainsley. “Your elbow,” her faint whisper spoken through her still smiling lips, jolted him.
He hastily offered his arm and escorted the girl from the room.
After a painfully long trek and wait, they found themselves outside his carriage. Waving aside the driver, Graham helped Ainsley up and reached for Rowena.
Worry wreathed her delicate features and spilled from her eyes, but there was something more there, too.
Please do not ask questions. Please...
With not a single word spoken, they made their way through the London streets. As soon as their somber trio arrived at his townhouse, Graham marched quickly ahead of Rowena and Ainsley. From behind, he heard her quiet words for Ainsley. He lengthened his stride, his office, that sanctuary of reason, beckoning.
The soft tread of delicate but determined footsteps indicted she followed close. He rushed inside his office and made to close the door. “Graham,” she called quietly and put her hand out.
He wanted to spit, snarl, and sneer. To close the door in her face. Except... she’d called him Graham. He held the door open, and without hesitation, she entered.
The rapid pace she’d set for herself had knocked several dark brown strands loose. They framed her ashen face, highlighting saucer-round brown eyes.
Only, what was there to say?
She took a step closer, and he flinched. “After you left... when you’d gone off to fight...” His body went whipcord straight at that unexpected beginning. “When I was alone.” She’d been alone. Is that why she’d turned to another? “I found myself in need of employment.” He listened now, his ears trained on every word that fell from her lips. With each word uttered, he learned far more about her than he had in more than ten years’ time. “I was away from you... my family...” She drew in a shuddery breath and looked down at the tips of her slippers.
Graham stared at the glorious crown of brown tresses, strands another man had wound his hands through. “Mr. Bryant?” he supplied, this time without malice.
Rowena lifted her head slowly, and blinked: once. twice. A third time, befuddlement gleaming in her eyes. And then—she nodded frantically. “After all of that loss...”
I wasn’t lost to you. If you’d waited. Yet she hadn’t. Mayhap she’d had no choice. It was a thought he’d not allowed himself to think in more years than he could remember. He fought back the questions, listening to what she imparted.
“I shut everyone out, Graham. The other servants.” Oh, God, she’d been a servant. “The instructors. The students. I didn’t want to talk to them about any part of myself. Now”—clasping her hands at her back, she leaned against the paneled door—“Now, I wish I hadn’t. I wished I’d let someone be there because, in being alone, all one has is their memories... and silence... and that, I have to believe is more terrifying than letting someone in.”
His throat bobbed spasmodically. He couldn’t get the words out. Couldn’t share the reasons for his collapse that night. “Thank you... Mrs. Bryant.” In a bid to protect himself, he built up those barricades.
Rowena stiffened. “Forgive me. I will leave you for the night... Your Grace.” With a flawless curtsy, she swept from the room with a regal elegance the queen herself couldn’t muster.
As soon as he was alone, Graham unleashed a stream of curses. Hurt, frustration, anger, despair all broiled within, and letting out a roar, he shoved the ledgers off his desk, clearing the surface. They landed hard on the floor, a haphazard tangle of pages and leather that bore a marked resemblance to the chaos that his life had become.
What was happening to him? Everything he’d worked for, everything he’d sought to be—collected, reserved, unfeeling—had been singlehandedly destroyed by Rowena. She’d made him feel again; and he had paid the price of his control for it. And now she’d seen the darkest weaknesses of his mind and sought to placate him like a damned child.
Restless, he skittered his panicky gaze about. It collided with his sideboard. Marching over, he grabbed a bottle, carried it to his desk, and sat—determined to get himself, for the first time in seven years, well and truly soused.
Chapter 14
She should be sleeping. She should at the very least be sitting quietly in her chambers reading or evaluating the week’s activities planned with and for her charge.
Sleep, however, proved impossible. Lying on the four-poster bed more comfortable than any mattress she’d so much as sat on in the course of her life, Rowena stared overhead at the mural of an English country landscape. The fire’s glow cast eerie shadows upon the frolicking sheep and pastel blue skies there, turning the tableau into something macabre.
Graham’s struggles were not hers to worry after. Nor could he have been any clearer when he’d coolly addressed her by her surname that he’d no interest in her beyond the role she served within his household. The moment he’d departed for war and turned her away, he’d cut her from the fabric of his life in all the ways that mattered. She lived here now as nothing more than a servant in his employ, a companion to his ward, whom when wedded, would mean her return to Mrs. Belden’s.
“Miserable Mrs. Belden,” she whispered into the quiet.
The flames snapped and hissed in the hearth in an intangible agreement.
Not unlike Ainsley who referred to Jack Turner in those like terms. That was precisely how Rowena had, in her mind, referred to the merciless headmistress, when she’d arrived at that cold, lonely school. Mrs. Belden’s, that place devoid of
warmth and love and laughter—and she’d been forced there because of her connection to Graham.
She flipped onto her side and grabbed the book laying open on the nightstand. Tugging free the letter written long ago, she read. Though reading was no longer necessary. She’d had those words inked in her mind for more years than she cared to remember. She trailed her fingertips over the hated sentences there, back to when Graham would have made her his whore, when he wanted nothing more of her than that.
With the suffering brought into her life by the Linford family, why should she care about the haunted glint in his eyes—the terror, the horror, and shame—as they’d fled the Duke of Wilkshire’s card party?
Because I care about him, still.
Being here, with him, in his household didn’t lessen the truth of the love they’d once shared—it only heightened it.
Her mother, her stepfather, Graham... they may all have easily snipped her from their lives without another thought, but when Rowena loved, she did so deeply. It was why she’d been able to walk away from Blanche and Bianca and the fields of Wallingford. Because when one loved, one wanted to take away a person’s struggle and suffering. One did everything in one’s power to ease any hurt and ensure the happiness one could.
Love wasn’t conditional. For if it was, she’d now be sleeping like a babe who’d just finished a bottle of warm milk, Graham’s earlier outburst buried under the peace of her own slumbering.
A faint knock sounded at the door. Shoving herself to an upright position, Rowena hurriedly stuffed the missive inside her book, and snapped it closed. Graham.
Hating the charge that went through her at the mere thought of his name, Rowena jumped up, grabbed her wrapper. Sprinting across the room, she shrugged into the garment just as another knock ensued. She pulled the door open. “Oh.” An inexplicable disappointment swamped her. Her charge stared impatiently back. “Ainsley,” she belatedly greeted.
“You don’t look like you were sleeping,” she observed, sweeping inside with the air of one who owned the guest chambers.
Rowena peeked out into the empty hall, and then pushed the door closed. “Is everything all right?” she repeated.
Ainsley plunked herself down on Rowena’s bed, perching herself on the edge, dangerously close to her book and letter. “I’m sure the gossips will have a good deal to say about that in the morning.”
She didn’t pretend to misunderstand. “Yes. They undoubtedly will,” she said gently, coming over, and taking a spot alongside the young lady. Following Ainsley’s wild display at the Duke of Wilkshire’s they’d not spoken of the scandalous outburst. Rowena was not so oblivious or naive, however, to fail and realize just what had prompted that show. “You did that to help His Grace.”
The younger woman lifted her one shoulder in a little shrug. “Better me than him. They were always going to talk about me, anyway. Nothing he, you, or I could do about it.” Any other lady would have been shedding copious tears and bemoaning the unfairness of their cruel Society.
All these years, Rowena had prided herself on her strength... for having survived when most women would have crumpled. How wrong she’d been. This bold, fearless, and undaunted lady before her was far braver and stronger than she had ever been, or ever would be. And what was more, she moved through life with spirit and a smile, anyway.
Humbled, Rowena searched for some suitable reply, when Ainsley spoke suddenly and unexpectedly.
Ainsley hesitated, and then, eyeing her warily, demanded: “You are one of Hampstead’s friends, are you not?”
Rowena automatically nodded. For everything that had come to pass, he’d been her first friend and lover, and he would always own a place in her heart.
The young lady scooted closer. “And you witnessed him tonight.” She had. Rowena’s heart flipped over with the pain of his suffering. Ainsley edged back on the mattress and drew her knees up to her chest. “My father suffered the nightmares,” she confided, looping her arms around her small limbs. “After my father’s nightmares, when he came through, he’d drink heavily and shut himself away in his offices.”
Rowena listened on, filled with pain for the late father and Ainsley’s suffering. She covered the girl’s hands with one of her own.
“The night he...” With a somberness Rowena hadn’t seen in the young lady, Ainsley stared down at her toes peeking out from under the hem of her nightshift. “fell, I was walking the halls. I heard a thunderous bang. It was the worst sound ever, Mrs. Bryant,” she whispered, the hissing flames from the fire marred her tortured face in shadows.
Knowing Ainsley needed to speak these words, even as Rowena selfishly didn’t want to hear them or consider the suffering this young lady in fact had endured, she sat in silence.
“It wasn’t a normal sound.” She sucked in a shuddery breath. “Not the sound of a man who fell down the stairs.”
Oh, God. And despite the assurances Rowena had given Graham she proved to be a liar, once more. Tears pricked behind her lashes. She blinked furiously not wanting to give Ainsley those useless expressions of sorrow.
“Do you know what I’m saying?” Ainsley asked in solemn tones.
“I do,” she whispered. God, she did. He’d taken his own life, and his daughter had been listening the moment he did so. She remained in awe of who this young woman was. How had she maintained her cheer and spirit?
“Yes, well.” Ainsley cleared her throat and scooted herself to the edge of the bed. “As you’re a friend, I thought you might... look after Hampstead.”
And then her meaning became clear. Their eyes locked, and at the same time, a gooseflesh dotted Rowena’s flesh. She is worried Graham will find that same fate.
“He was in his office. Drinking,” Ainsley said, eerily following her unspoken thoughts.
She forced a smile for the young lady’s benefit. “You don’t have to worry,” she said softly, taking Ainsley’s hands in her own. “His Grace will not... do anything that might harm himself.” She was certain of it. “You should rest,” she said, climbing to her feet. Her charge followed suit.
Ainsley nodded, and then darted from the room. She closed the door quietly behind her, and was gone.
The moment she’d gone, Rowena let her false smile fall. Grabbing her book, she threw herself back on the bed. Of course Graham wouldn’t harm himself. Ainsley’s fears came from the loss of her own father. Furthermore, Graham had been eager to be rid of her. That much had been clear. Rowena popped her book open... and attempted to read.
Ainsley’s veiled warnings, however, blotted out her earlier confidence for the girl. With a sigh, she climbed to her feet. Book in hand, she made her way from her rooms, through the darkened halls, until she found herself outside Graham’s office. She pressed her ear against the panel. An eerie silence lingered.
She creased her brow. Shifting her book under her arm, she pressed the handle and dipped her head inside.
“Mrs. Bryant?” Back presented to her, Graham stood at the hearth, staring downward. Somewhere during the night, he’d discarded his jacket and boots, and this rumpled version of him tugged at her heart.
With more reserve, Rowena entered and closed them in once more. “Your Grace.”
Graham shot a glance over his shoulder. A derisive tilt on his lips, he took in the book in her hands. “Seeking out an early morn read?” That slightly jeering question gave her a brief pause.
Setting her thin disguise on the rose-inlaid table at the door, she ventured forward. “I didn’t know what to think,” she confessed with absolute honesty. At his silence, Rowena found her way cautiously over to him. She stopped at his shoulder. “You’ve nightmares, too,” she spoke into the quiet. Nightmares, as he’d taken to calling her panic during the summertime storms.
His muscles strained the fabric of his white lawn shirt. He nodded, an empty chuckle rumbling from within his chest. Graham raised his glass in salute, and then downed the contents. “What can one expect of a madman?” he asked in his rigidly
perfect ducal tones.
Rowena followed his jerky movements, as he set the glass down with a hard thunk. The quake of his fingers hinted at a man hurting. Is that how he saw himself? As a madman? “You are not mad, Graham,” she said softly, drifting closer.
He settled his palms on the edge of the mantel, that subtle shift of his body. Was his a deliberate move, to keep her out? As one who’d held everyone at arm’s distance, she well knew the power that came in protecting oneself from hurt. From feeling... anything. “What do you call it, then?” He directed his question to the flames. “What do you call it when a man’s control snaps, and he’s transported to another moment. Another moment so dark it leaves him sweating and shaking and incapable of rational thought?”
In those earliest days, when she’d returned to Mrs. Belden’s with a purse and a note from Graham, sniveling in her lumpy bed at night, she’d cursed him to the devil. Wished him to know pain like the one he’d inflicted. How wrong she’d been. The sight of it wrenched her heart in two. She laid a palm on his shoulder, and the muscles bunched under her hand. “I call it being human, Graham. It does not make you weak or insane to think of what happened. It makes you a very real man, who hurts at the suffering he’s seen—”
“And caused,” he rasped, spinning around. Rowena braced her legs, refusing to retreat.
“It was war,” she said simply. “You did not create that conflict... but you helped to end it.”
He dragged a hand through his hair, and then glanced about. The fire illuminated the volatile glint in his eyes as he turned and stared blankly into those crimson depths. “Do you want to know the truth?” he asked with a vagueness that raised the gooseflesh on her arms.
Rowena nodded, and yet selfishly she did not want him to reveal those words that would let her into any more of his darkest horrors.
“In the first year I returned home, the pain was so great I willed myself to die.”
Agony lashed at her heart. “Oh, Graham,” she said on an aching whisper, stretching a hand out.
Schooling the Duke (The Heart of a Scandal, #1) Page 19
