by Candace Camp
* * *
Richard did not linger long after that, obviously eager to return to his bride. Michael stayed for a few more minutes before he gave up his hopes of finding a book to keep him occupied. He had given Rachel ample time by now to dress and get into bed. With any luck, she would probably already be asleep. He might as well get it over with, he told himself, and stop pretending that a book would do him any good. He knew that he would spend the rest of the night thinking about Rachel; anything else would be impossible when he would be spending it so close to her.
He climbed the stairs to her room and slipped inside. Rachel was in bed, eyes closed, her hair spilling like a waterfall across her pillow. Michael simply stood for a moment looking at her. She had left a lamp burning on the dresser for him, its wick turned low so that it cast only a soft glow immediately around it. In the dim light he could see little of his wife; it was his mind that provided the tantalizing images of her nestled between the soft sheets.
He tore his gaze away from her and picked up the lamp, then walked softly across the room into the dressing room beyond. The cot was made up for him, a thin, narrow mattress spread across its utilitarian frame. He had slept on worse in the course of investigations, when he took on one of his disguises; it was Rachel’s nearness that would make it difficult to sleep, not the camp bed. He set the lamp down on a chest and undressed quickly. After blowing out the light, he settled himself on the bed and closed his eyes. Sleep did not come, of course. His head was filled with thoughts of Rachel, each one more enticing than the one before.
With a sigh, he turned over onto one side. It was going to be a long night.
CHAPTER 7
Miranda reached up to give her taller sister-in-law a hug. “I do wish you would not go so soon, Rachel. You have scarcely been here any time. Why, Westhampton did not even arrive until yesterday.” She cast an accusing glance over at Michael, who stood waiting by the carriage.
Michael looked a trifle embarassed. “I am sorry, Miranda….” He fumbled for something else to say.
“Yes, I know, he is a harsh taskmaster,” Rachel said lightly, coming to his rescue. She strongly suspected that Michael had insisted on leaving this morning primarily because he did not wish to have to spend another night in the same room with her. That fact caused her a little pang of hurt—was it really so terrible to be around her?—but she, too, preferred not to have to deal with the awkward situation another night.
Rachel went on more seriously. “Spring is an important time of year on the estate farm, you see, and I know that Michael is taking off more time than he would like to escort me to London. I hate to put him out any more.”
“Well, all right, I won’t scold him any further,” Miranda conceded. “However, you must promise me that you will return in time for my lying in.” Miranda’s forehead wrinkled in an unaccustomed frown of anxiety. “I really want you to be with me when the time comes. I—my stepmother will be here, of course, and Lady Ravenscar offered to. But…I would much prefer to have you. Just for support, you know. I am a trifle frightened.”
Rachel’s eyes widened at this astonishing admission from Miranda, but she took her friend’s hand and squeezed it reassuringly, saying, “I promise I will be here. I plan to leave London by the end of July, and that will give me over a month before the happy event is supposed to occur. And if you are worried or wish me here earlier, just write, and I will come sooner than that. There will be dozens of other Seasons, but only one first child for you.”
Miranda smiled back at her. “Thank you. I daren’t tell Dev I feel nervous about it. He fusses over me far too much as it is.”
“Naturally. You need another woman.”
“I need you.”
Tears sprang into Rachel’s eyes at the unexpected, heartfelt compliment. Several years younger than her brother and sister, she had rarely been the one that others depended upon. In general she regarded herself as somewhat “less than,” not as talented as Dev nor as beautiful as Caroline—and fond as she had become of Miranda, she was also rather overwhelmed by the other woman’s confidence and ability.
Rachel hugged Miranda again before she turned to say goodbye to the others. Then Michael helped her up into the carriage and climbed in behind her. As the carriage rolled away from the house, Rachel pushed aside the window curtain for a final look at her family.
“I am sorry to take you away from them early,” Michael told her.
Rachel turned back to him. “Don’t worry. It is perfectly all right. I shall return in a few months, anyway.”
She did not add that it would be something of a relief to get away from the other two couples. She loved her family and was very glad that both Dev and Richard had found rare and wonderful loves. But there were times when the sight of the others so deeply and obviously in love aroused a piercing envy in her heart.
It seemed as though everywhere she turned the past two days, she had been witness to some indication of the love that lay between her friends and their husbands—a glance between Jessica and Richard or a quick smile from Dev to Miranda, a brief touch of Dev’s hand to Miranda’s cheek or Richard, yesterday evening when he had thought no one was looking, lifting his wife’s hand to his lips for an affectionate kiss. They were small things, true, but filled with such depth of feeling that no one could have missed the love that underpinned their marriages.
Rachel wondered what it would be like to feel that way, to have a man look at her the way Richard looked at Jessica—a way that never failed to make Jessica’s eyes sparkle and her cheeks flush with color. It was clear that it was not only the men who delighted in the physical aspects of these two marriages. There were times when Rachel thought that she would give almost anything to feel for even a moment what Jessica and Miranda obviously felt for their husbands—the excitement, the passion, the overwhelming love. It did not make it any easier to bear to know that she herself had recklessly thrown away any chance she had of such a marriage.
She knew she was a terrible person for feeling these things. Even worse, she could not deny that she envied Miranda for her pregnancy, as well. Over the years that she had been married to Michael, she had come to long for a child. The life she lived, the social round of parties and calls, was not enough to fulfill her. She needed more; she wanted children. And with each year that passed, the longing grew worse.
Rachel looked across the carriage at her husband. She wondered if he ever regretted their childless state. Women were more eager for children, she supposed, but if nothing else, Michael must be aware of the need of an heir. Surely he must want a son of his own to succeed him to the title, to receive his fortune.
He would be a wonderful father, she thought. She could see him walking through the garden with the children—two sons and a daughter, as she saw them in her mind’s eye—telling them all about the plants around them, answering their questions and lifting them up so that they could better see the bud on a tree or a hovering butterfly.
“Rachel? Are you all right?”
“What?” She focused on Michael, his words bringing her back from where her mind had wandered. He was watching her with concern, and Rachel realized that there were tears in her eyes.
“Shall I tell the coachman to turn around?” he asked gently. “I should not have insisted on leaving. We can stay a few more days without problem.”
“No. No. Really.” Rachel gave him a smile. “I will be fine now.” She cast about for something to say to change the subject. “Do you suppose we will have a visit from your protector?”
“Who—Oh!” Michael’s face darkened. “I’d bloody well like to meet the scoundrel—frightening you like that.”
Rachel’s eyes widened with surprise. For an instant there had been something in Michael’s eyes that she had never seen there. She wasn’t quite sure what it was.
“I am sure we will not, though,” he went on in something more like his usual calm tone. “He got some money from you, and I imagine that satisfied him. No doubt not
hing will happen, but—you know me—I like to be prepared.”
“Yes, I know.” Rachel was well aware that Michael did not like uncertainty or slipshod preparations. Everything he did was done with a meticulous neatness and careful foresight. In many ways he was the opposite of her brother Dev, who tended to act impulsively and emotionally. Or, really, she supposed, it was more that he was the opposite of his father, who had been, by all accounts, a man given over almost completely to his physical appetites.
Even when Michael acted in a way that seemed impulsive, such as coming to Darkwater to escort her the rest of the way to London, or last Christmas, when he had made his way across the snowbound countryside to Castle Cleybourne when she had not made it home, it was not emotion that drove him. Even at those times, he was calm and possessed, thinking clearly and logically. He was simply responding to correct a plan that had somehow gone awry—usually, she admitted wryly, because someone less competent, such as herself, was the person carrying out the plan. He would swoop in and take charge because he considered it his duty.
The journey from Darkwater to London was the longer leg of her trip, and it took them two days to accomplish it. Rachel had made the journey many times, but it went more easily and quickly when Michael was with her. A learned man, he could talk with ease on many topics, and he usually had a ready answer for any question she might ask. He had a lovely voice, she thought, rich and deep, and she enjoyed listening to him.
She wondered what it would have been like if she had not made the mistake of eloping with Anthony. Would they have made this journey together many times? Would he have wanted to be with her, to talk and laugh with her, or to sit in companionable silence rather than to be with her out of sense of duty?
If it had all happened differently, she thought, she would have known him in the intimate way that most wives knew their husbands. Even when they did not like the man or spend much time with him, wives knew their husbands at an elemental level at which Rachel knew she would never know Michael. There would be an ease and comfort between them, a familiarity, rather than the faintly stiff way they sat together now. They might even have been able to communicate with one another by just a glance or a word, as Dev and Miranda did.
She could not quite imagine what it would be like to know a man in that way, to have a man know her. From listening to other married women talk, she had a fair idea of what the basics of the marital act involved; the idea of it no longer shocked her as it had when her mother had first broached the subject before she married Michael. Indeed, there were times when she found herself trying to imagine how it would feel, wondering—well, yes, she might as well admit it to herself, wanting to find out—if she would enjoy it, as many women she knew seemed to.
She recalled one day when she had rounded a corner and accidentally come upon Richard and Jessica locked in a passionate embrace. They had been lost to the world, their lips pressed against each other, their arms wrapped around each other so tightly that it seemed as if they would scarcely be able to breathe. Rachel had stopped, gaping at them, wide eyed, for an astonished moment. Then, the heat of embarrassment sweeping up into her face, she had managed to unstick her feet and turned to move swiftly and silently away. The image had been difficult for her to forget, however.
Rachel wondered now, looking across the carriage at Michael, how it would feel to be crushed in his arms that way, to have his mouth devouring hers. She had been in such turmoil when he had kissed her that once, before their marriage, that she could remember little of the details of the kiss, or the panic that had seized her. If he were to kiss her that way now, how would it feel? She blushed a little, just thinking about it, and quickly turned to look out the window of the carriage. Still, it was a subject that kept returning to her mind again and again during the course of their trip. She thought about it as they rocked along in the carriage, and she thought about it when Michael sometimes rode on his horse outside the carriage and she looked out at him. There was something, she realized, that stirred in her as she watched him astride his mount. He was an excellent horseman, and there was something so physical and commanding about him as he rode that she felt…Well, she was not sure what it was she felt, but it was at once odd and intriguing. It was not the wild leap of love she had felt in her chest whenever she had seen Anthony when she was young and madly in love with him. It was something warmer and lower in her body, not at all giddy, but almost an ache.
And at night, when she lay in her bed in the inn where they had stopped to spend the night, she would think about Michael lying in his bed in the room next to hers. And she would wonder what it would be like to lie beside him in the bed, to sleep with the heat of his body cuddled behind hers. She thought about going to his door and rapping softly. Would he open it to her? Would he take her in his arms?
Rachel told herself it was foolish to even think this way. Michael did not love her or want her. The marriage they had was what he had chosen. If he had wanted anything else, he could easily have said so over the years…or even hinted at it, or made the slightest gesture toward taking her to his bed. But he had not.
She was not sure why she was thinking such things. She normally was not what she would have called a licentious person. She did not even comment on certain men’s attributes, as some women of her acquaintance were apt to—in a veiled and hushed way, of course. Frankly, she usually did not even notice the men or the topics under discussion until someone else pointed them out.
She supposed it was because she had been thinking so much lately about having a child. She wanted a baby to hold and cuddle, to lavish her love and affection on, to feed and rock to sleep, even to comfort when it cried and ease its pain. She yearned to hold its warm little body close to her heart. It seemed the worst of ironies that she, who had so much love to give, should have no one to whom she could give it. Because she had the desire for a child so much on her mind, she must have slipped into thinking about the act that would bring a child into existence.
That thought made her feel a little better, less prurient. It was the desire for a baby that drove her, not just some base animal instinct. She wondered what Michael would say, how he would react if she went to him and explained how much she longed for a child. Would he tell her that he, too, wanted one and take her to his bed? Surely, she thought, he would not be so cruel as to spurn her, to turn her away, saying that he did not need an heir that badly.
She thought more than once of doing so, both during the ride or after they reached London. But she could never quite bring herself to face even the embarrassment of asking him to make love to her, let alone the even more humiliating prospect that he might turn her down.
Rachel had thought that Michael would stay a week or two in London with her; it would be fun, she thought, to have her husband as an escort instead of going with her friend Lady Sylvia Montgomery or with Michael’s friend Peregrine Overhill, who often acted as her escort. But to her dismay, Michael told her the day they arrived that he would be heading back to Westhampton the following day.
“Tomorrow!” Rachel protested. “So soon? But you haven’t had a chance to rest. Surely you could stay in London a day or two. Go to your club, see some of your friends, like Perry, or—or what about that man at the museum who you get along with so well? And we should call on Araminta.”
Michael made a face and said in a teasing voice. “You just want to have company to call on my sister.”
“Well, it does make it easier when there are two to share her disapproval,” Rachel admitted.
Michael’s older sister, Araminta, was a woman of stern habits and equally stern demeanor, and she had never approved of Rachel as a wife for Michael. She had warned her brother not to marry into the Aincourt family, considering them too profligate in their spending and for generations too wild and flighty in their characters, despite Rachel’s father’s bent toward religion. When Michael had returned to the family estate in the north after a year of marriage, Araminta had considered it a vindication of h
er warning. She had actually once told Rachel that it was clear Michael had regretted his choice of her as a wife.
“I am sorry, my dear,” Michael said. “But I really cannot afford to spend any more time away from the farm. I am starting a new experiment with legumes this year, and Jenks cannot be counted on to keep the standards scientific. They will be planting before long, and I must be there to oversee it.”
Michael felt a pang of regret at the disappointment on Rachel’s face. He would very much have liked to stay with her, to squire her to parties and dance with her until the small hours of the morning. It was, as always, a combination of heaven and hell to be around Rachel all the time—to enjoy the pleasure of looking at her, listening to her, simply being close to her, yet at the same time to suffer through the longing that being with her always invoked in him, to ache for her, knowing that he could not have her, that any move on his part to kiss her or touch her would break the friendly companionship between them. He usually stayed with her until the pain of it grew too great, until the desire in him reached the point where he thought that he must have her or die, and then he would tear himself away from her.
This time, however, he could not afford that luxury. Escorting Rachel safely had not been his only reason for coming to London. He must see his Bow Street ally, Cooper, to make sure he had hired a man to take up a watch on Rachel to keep her safe, and to pick Cooper’s brain on the matter of this enemy who thought he knew more than he did. In order to make sure that Rachel was not in danger, he needed to solve this difficult case quickly. It would entail not only talking to Cooper and his friend Sir Robert, but also making use of his disguises to work his way into the underbelly of London and find out what he could among the thieves, prostitutes and other criminals who made their home there. He could scarcely adopt those disguises here, around Rachel, nor could he be chasing down clues if he was spending his time taking her to parties and plays and such.
