Secrets of the Heart

by Candace Camp

  Then everything grew even worse, for her father and Michael walked through the door. She jumped to her feet, fear flooding her at the sight of her furious father. He began to berate her, driving home what she already had begun to know in her heart: the scandal of eloping would haunt her for the rest of her life. And the stain of it would spread to the rest of her family, too—her parents, even Caroline and Richard, though they had done nothing wrong. She had failed to do her duty to her family. Darkwater would crumble into ruins; her parents would have to live entirely on Richard’s generosity.

  But worse than her father’s words was the look on Michael’s white, set face. For the first time she understood what a disservice she had done him. He cared for her. She did not know how much—obviously her proud lineage and the fact that she was one of the reigning and most sought after beauties of London made her an appropriate match for him, but there must have been some affection or desire on his part, as well, to have made him willing to overlook the obvious disadvantage of her family’s financial situation. Rachel saw now, in the pain that lay in his quiet gray eyes, that his feelings had been deeper than she knew. Her elopement was a slap in the face to him, a blatant announcement that he meant nothing to her, and though she had not intended it, she could see that what she had done cut Michael deeply.

  Moreover, it would involve him in a tremendous scandal. Through no fault of his own, he would be exposed to the ridicule of Society, an object of amusement and scorn for having been left at the altar. Michael had been nothing but kind to her, Rachel knew, and she realized how selfish and wicked she had been to treat him this way. The fact that she had not wanted or intended to hurt and shame him didn’t really matter; the fact was that she had, and out of sheer selfishness.

  Guilt swamped her, and, oddly enough, she felt even worse when Michael offered to make everything all right by marrying her anyway. The very kindness of his offer seemed to emphasize the enormity of her own selfish wrongdoing.

  Tearful and ashamed, she rode back to Westhampton with Michael and Ravenscar, slipping into the house quietly to escape detection. The whole way, Michael never looked at her or spoke to her.

  The next morning, she sat quiet and subdued under another one of her father’s lectures. Then he turned her over to her mother, saying he washed his hands of her.

  “It is the only way Lord Westhampton can save his own name from scandal,” Lady Ravenscar told her. “That is the only reason he swallowed his pride, I’m sure. Still…there is many a man who would not have done so.” She sighed. “I cannot imagine what possessed you to act so stupidly. No doubt you will have to spend the rest of your life trying to get him to forgive you.” Again she sighed, looking at Rachel with a mingling of puzzlement and, Rachel thought, a touch of pity. “Well, it is probably exactly what you deserve for behaving so foolishly. I cannot think where you acquired such a lack of judgment.”

  “Nor can I,” Rachel responded wryly. No one else in her family would have behaved so, she knew. Even Caroline, who was the closest to her in all the world, had been aghast when she learned what Rachel had done. Dev, of course, would never have agreed to marry to please his parents in the first place.

  Lady Ravenscar glanced at her sharply, unsure whether her daughter was being inappropriately flippant. Rachel was saved from having to make a response by a tap upon the door, followed by the entrance of one of the parlor maids.

  The girl gave them a polite curtsey and delivered her message. “Lord Westhampton requests Miss Aincourt’s presence in the conservatory, if you please.”

  Lady Ravenscar looked alarmed, and as soon as the maid exited the room, she turned her worried gaze on Rachel. “You don’t suppose he is going to take back his offer to continue with the wedding, do you?”

  A frisson of fear ran down Rachel’s back. “No,” she said stoutly, as much to reassure herself as her mother. “Lord Westhampton would not go back on his word.”

  “You had better hope so.” Her mother looked her over critically, shaking Rachel’s skirt out on one side and picking a small piece of lint from the shoulder of her dress. “In any case, I trust you will be appropriately apologetic.”

  “I will.” The weight of her guilt was still like a physical burden upon her shoulders.

  Rachel went down the stairs and along the spacious hallway to Westhampton’s study. The door stood open, and Lord Westhampton was inside, his back to her. Rachel paused for a moment, steeling herself, then stepped inside.

  He turned at the sound of her approach, and their eyes met, then dropped quickly away. “Miss Aincourt. Thank you for joining me.”

  He gestured toward one of the chairs, and as Rachel walked toward it, he closed the door and came back to where she sat and took a seat across from her.

  “I, ah, I wish you had told me, Miss Aincourt.”

  “I’m sorry.” Rachel’s eyes flew to his, and her hands curled into themselves in her lap. “I did not mean for that to happen. When I accepted you, I intended to marry you. I was not—” She paused, the breath suddenly running out of her so that she had to make an inelegant little gulp. “I was not even going to see him again.”

  “Still, it would have been…easier if I had known.”

  “I know,” Rachel agreed miserably. “I am sorry.”

  “It—well, it hasn’t turned out well. Not as I had hoped. Or you, I’m sure.”

  “No.” Her voice was barely a whisper.

  “Miss Aincourt…I want you to know…” Michael paused, then abruptly rose to his feet and began to pace. “I am making a hash of this. What I want to know is, is your father compelling you to say yes to me? I have no desire to force you to marry me. Or for you to feel obliged to do so. We can make an announcement—you may cry off, if you wish.”

  Rachel looked up at him, tears swimming in her eyes. He was offering her a way out, not a perfect one, but a far better one than her elopement. If she cried off, everyone would assume that he had done something to cause her to; he was offering to bear the blame for her.

  “No,” she responded in a choked voice. “I do not want to break it off. Father was right. Even An—Mr. Birkshaw admitted it. He needs to marry well. I know there is no—Anyway, I am a more responsible person, I hope, than I have appeared to be so far. I know that I have given you little reason to trust me, but I promise you that I will never do anything like that again.” She paused, then added uncertainly, “Unless, that is, you have changed your mind and would prefer to break it off?”

  “I have not changed my mind.” Michael glanced at her, then away. It occurred to Rachel that he could not bear to look at her for longer than a few seconds, and the knowledge made her heart swell even more with guilt and sorrow.

  “Marrying would be the best thing for us to do,” Westhampton went on, his voice distant and calm. “I know that it is hard for you. It—is not easy for me, either. But it will prevent any gossip, and you have said that you cannot marry, um, as you wish.”

  Rachel nodded, clasping her hands in her lap and gazing steadfastly down at them. “Yes. It would be best.”

  “Knowing how you feel…that is, given the situation…naturally I would not expect, a, um…It would not be a true marriage, of course. I would not press you. We would not share a bedroom.”

  Startled, Rachel glanced up at him. Was he saying that those things her mother had talked about would not happen? Surprise shot through her, followed by relief. Then she realized, with another pang of guilt and even hurt, that Westhampton was saying this because he no longer wanted her. She had killed his love by her disgraceful actions. She wondered if he despised her now, if he was disgusted by her.

  She told herself that of course he must be. She had hurt and humiliated him, yet he felt obliged to marry her in order to save his family’s good name from a scandal that she had created. How could he feel anything but dislike for her? It was simply that he was too much a gentleman to tell her so.

  “I see,” she responded inadequately.

  “I h
ope that you will not find the burden of marriage too onerous,” Michael went on in the same stiff voice. “However, I have one…stipulation, I suppose I should say. My family’s reputation is important to me, and I will not—I cannot—allow it to be besmirched.”

  Red stained Rachel’s cheeks, and she said in a low voice, “Please, my lord, I am so sorry. I promise you, I would not do anything to hurt your name or reputation. I realize that I have acted in such a way as to make you think that I am…irresponsible, even dissolute. But, please, believe me, it was an aberration.”

  “I do believe so. I know that you are a woman of honor. But, painful as it is for both of us, I must have your assurance that you will not see Mr. Birkshaw again.”

  Rachel’s head flew up, her face horrified. “No! I would not. Lord Westhampton, I will do nothing to harm your good name. I would not break our wedding vows. I swear it to you.”

  His face was unreadable, his jaw clenched tightly. “I believe you. But not even the faintest appearance of impropriety can—”

  “Of course not.” She rose, her fists clenched in determination. “I promise you—on whatever you like—that I will not see Mr. Birkshaw again. I will not talk to him or write to him. I know how kind you have been to me, how easily you could have left me to the contumely of the world. I would never repay you that way. I will never dishonor you. Or myself.”

  “Thank you.” The smile Michael gave her was more a twisting of his lips than any genuine smile. He took a step backward. “Well, then. Until tomorrow.”

  * * *

  That had been the tone of their marriage ever since—formal, slightly awkward and distant. It had been a relief, of course, not to be expected to take her place in Michael’s bed. Her heart was broken, and she could not imagine how horrible it would have been to have had to pretend to be in love with her new husband, to let him have his way with her when the thought of even kissing someone besides Anthony turned her to ice inside. She had been grateful to Michael and remained so, but she could not help but feel sometimes as though she had missed out on the most important aspect of life. She had no children. She was not, in any real sense, a wife. Their marriage was such a sham that even the thought of spending the night in the same room with Michael was embarassing to them both.

  Rachel glanced back at the room she had just left and wished, not for the first time, that she had not been so foolish that night seven years ago.

  CHAPTER 6

  For at least the tenth time that evening, Rachel glanced over at the graceful ormolu clock that adorned the mantel of the music room. It seemed as though its hands had sped up for the last few minutes, racing toward the time when everyone would decide to leave the room and retire. Her stomach had been a knot of nerves all through the evening, dreading the moment, and she had barely been able to enjoy the conversation with her family or the songs that Veronica and Gabriela had played for them. Indeed, she had felt only half there, the rest of her mind occupied with what she would do when she and Michael climbed the stairs to their room.

  She thought about the maid helping her to undress with Michael right there in the room with them, and she blushed at the idea. It would be completely humiliating, of course, and yet…something odd stirred low in her abdomen at the thought. She could not help but wonder how Michael would react to the sight. Would he watch? Would he turn away, polite and disinterested? Indeed, did he ever think about the strangeness of their private life?

  Rachel was no longer quite the naive girl she had once been. She had never had any actual experience of the marital act, of course, but over the years she had heard a good bit from other married women who had assumed that she shared in their knowledge of men and the marriage bed. Like her mother’s speech, their conversation was usually couched in euphemisms that hindered learning, but she thought she had come to have, more or less, a basic understanding of what went on.

  Apparently men were more interested in the act than their wives, she had decided from the comments of her friends and acquaintances, so much so that they often broke their marriage vows by having affairs and mistresses—sometimes, amazingly, to the relief of their spouses. However, she had also gleaned that there were a fair number of other women who enjoyed the attentions of their husbands. And in the past few months, she had been witness to the fact that Miranda and Jessica seemed to take as great a delight in passion as did Dev and Richard. She found her mind turning to the matter more and more often lately, wondering what her reaction would be to lovemaking, whether she would revel in the pleasure—as Miranda obviously did, given the way her mouth curled up and her eyes took on a certain gleam when she alluded to the act that had gotten her with child—or would, like her mother, view it with cool disdain and resignation.

  There was a vast difference between Jessica’s and Miranda’s situations and hers, of course. They both loved their husbands deeply and were loved by them in return, whereas she and Michael—Well, she was not sure quite what lay between her and Michael, but clearly it was not love. A kind of friendship, she supposed, despite the awkwardness that often hindered them. Certainly she knew that she could depend on him, and there had been times when she had gone to him with a knotty problem. Rachel admired and respected him more than any man she knew. But none of those things involved the sort of heart-stopping emotion she had felt for Anthony Birkshaw those many years ago.

  Still, he was the only man in her life. She had not seen Anthony since their ill-fated elopement, just as she had promised Michael, and there would never be any other man. She would never do anything to betray Michael or sully his name.

  Therefore, she knew, if ever she was to experience what normally occurred between a man and woman, it would have to be with Michael. So when she thought now and then—with strangely increasing frequency, it seemed—about how it might feel to kiss a man or to feel his hands upon her, it was Michael whom she imagined herself with. It seemed an odd and unlikely thing, however, and at the times when her thoughts strayed in that direction, she was quick to pull them back.

  It was silly, really, to think about what she was missing. She knew many a married woman who would have told her that she was lucky, that she had all the advantages of a married lady and none of the difficulties. It was probably true, she knew. It was just that sometimes, like tonight, she could not help but wonder what it would be like to…to have Michael watch her as the maid removed her dress until she was standing in next to nothing…or to have him take the brush from her hand and begin to brush her long, thick hair himself, as she had heard Miranda once say Devin did…or to lie with him beside her in the bed, to hear the steady rhythm of his breathing and feel the warmth of his large, masculine body.

  She felt a faint flush creep into her cheeks at her thoughts, and she glanced across the room at Michael. Now that Veronica and Gabriela had quit entertaining them at the piano, he was listening to Miranda describe the renovations she had set in motion around the house. Rachel watched as he nodded, smiling, at something Miranda said, and leaned forward to speak earnestly to her. Around the others of her family, Rachel had noted, Michael was rarely as reticent as he was with her. His gray eyes were alight with interest, and his firm, well-cut lips curved up into a smile.

  He was a handsome man, she thought—not devastatingly so, as her brother was, for Dev’s green-eyed, black-haired good looks were the sort that made women swoon—but Michael was agreeable to look at, nevertheless. His hair was dark blond, streaked through, particularly in the summer, with lighter strands, and his gray eyes were wide and intelligent. And his mouth was really quite attractive, she thought, with that small scar near the corner that gave his well-bred face a hint of devilishness when he smiled.

  Rachel wondered how he would react if he knew what she was thinking. Did he ever regret the decision he had made not to share her bed? Or wonder what it would be like if their marriage was different? She wondered if he had thought about tonight, when they would go up to the same room, and if he had, whether he’d felt the same strang
e flutter of nerves in his stomach that she did.

  So deep in her thoughts was Rachel that she did not notice that Jessica was speaking to her until the second time she said, “Rachel? Did you hear me?”

  Rachel started and glanced over at her friend. “What? I’m sorry—were you speaking to me?”

  Jessica laughed good-naturedly. “Yes, I was, actually. But I’m afraid I must have been putting you to sleep.”

  Rachel blushed. “No, of course not. I apologize for my rudeness.”

  “No need. You are doubtless sleepy, as I am.”

  Dev, listening to them, added, “We have all turned into country folk, I fear. Here I find I get up about the time I used to be going to bed in London. The light is too good in the morning to waste.”

  Rachel smiled at her brother. “I am so glad you have returned to your painting. The work you have done the past few months is beautiful.”

  He smiled. “Thank you. But it is all due to Miranda, you know.” He turned toward where his wife sat, gesturing enthusiastically as she talked to Michael, and the look on his face told Rachel everything she needed to know about his happiness. “Look at her. Have you ever seen such a woman? I think she is talking about crop rotation now.” Dev chuckled. He looked at Rachel and added more soberly, “It was a good turn you did me when you steered me in her direction.”

  “I am so glad,” Rachel answered honestly.

  “Now if only—” he began impulsively, then stopped.

  “If only what?”

  Dev shook his head. “Nothing. I find sometimes that Miranda rubs off on me and I want to step in where I have no business.”

  A little self-consciously, he turned away and raised his voice to speak to his wife across the room, “Miranda, my love, I know that you never tire, but you might have some sympathy for poor Michael. He has ridden a long way today, and I suspect he would like to seek his bed.”