Hidden Affections

by Delia Parr

  Chapter Five

  The stage came and went twice over the course of the next several days, but Annabelle and Harrison were not on board. Dr. Marley visited frequently, but Harrison refused to let the doctor get close enough to treat him, sending him away every single time.

  Whether it was lung fever or an infection from his wounds that ravaged his body mattered little to Annabelle. Reducing his fever, tending to the wound on his wrist, and getting her stubborn patient to take some nourishment proved to be all-consuming tasks that had drained her stamina, as well as her patience. Fortunately, the wound in his thigh was healing quite well, which saved her the embarrassment of having to apply poultices to that part of his body.

  Six days after their arrival, she awoke at dawn after getting her first full night of sleep. She glanced up from the cot Mr. Lawrence had put next to the sickbed for her, eyes widening the instant she found Harrison was leaning up on one elbow and staring down at her. “Y-you’re awake,” she murmured, surprised to see that the sparkle was already back in his eyes, since his fever had only broken yesterday afternoon.

  “Quite so,” he murmured, grinning when she clutched at her blanket and held it just below her chin. “I’m feeling much better now, so I should warn you that I’m well prepared to defend myself if you make any further attempts to torture me,” he said with a shudder, although he never lost that twinkle in his eyes.

  “It was my pleasure to torture you,” she retorted. “I just can’t decide which I enjoyed more: packing towels with the snow that fell over the past few days and using them to help bring down your fever, or using that awful-smelling ointment from Dr. Marley on my hands, which ended up being chafed from handling all that snow.”

  “Wrapping me in towels filled with snow was particularly barbarous treatment. There must have been another way to bring down my fever,” he argued.

  “I tried. Nothing else seemed to be working,” she countered, noting how easily he dismissed her own discomfort and focused on his own. “I might argue that changing the poultice Dr. Marley recommended for the infection in your wrist was rather barbarous from my point of view, considering I ended up with a blackened eye for all my efforts,” she quipped.

  “I’ve never hit a woman. Not ever!” he exclaimed. He got back up on his elbows again, leaned forward, and studied her face. His voice grew husky. “Are you quite certain I actually hit you hard enough to blacken your eye?”

  “It wasn’t really your fault,” she assured him, regretting her quick words. Annabelle turned her face so he would not see the bruise encircling her eye, even though it had already faded from deep purple to a pale but garish yellow. “You were fevered, and you reacted instinctively when you tried to yank your arm away while I was cleaning the wound you got from those horrid handcuffs. I just didn’t get out of the way fast enough. I did every time after that, though,” she added, trying to keep her tone light so she would not appear to be whining.

  “I’m sorry. Truly, truly sorry for hurting you. And for complaining, as well. Instead of being ungrateful and dwelling on my own discomforts, I should be thanking you for taking care of me all this time.” He lowered himself down and rested his head back on his pillow.

  “Everyone helped. Besides Dr. Marley, who was very kind and very interested in your welfare despite the fact that you dismissed him every time he tried to come near you, Mrs. Lawrence was very kind to us both. She prepared all our meals, including the broth you had to be cajoled into swallowing in order to rebuild your strength. She helped me change the bedclothes as well and tidy up the room,” she gushed, feeling guilty for taunting him a bit when he really could not be held responsible for his behavior. He had been a very sick man. In point of fact, when he was not sleeping, he had rarely been strong enough to talk to her, except to ask what day it was.

  “Where did you get that cot you’re resting on?”

  “I have Mr. Lawrence to thank for that. He also filled buckets with the snow so I wouldn’t have to go outside, and he made sure we had enough wood to keep the fire going. He . . . he said you spoke with him once or twice while I was in the kitchen with Mrs. Lawrence taking a meal,” she prompted, hoping he would tell her what they had been talking about, since Mr. Lawrence had been so closemouthed about their conversations.

  “As a matter of fact, I did,” he admitted, without offering her anything more. “Today’s date. Do you know it?”

  “It’s Thursday, which means it’s the first of December,” she whispered, unable to keep the disappointment out of her voice.

  “You missed your appointment.”

  She cleared her throat and batted back tears of disappointment. “It was yesterday. Mr. Saddler has surely offered the position to someone else by now.” She stared up at the ceiling. Although she would have been satisfied working in Mr. Saddler’s candy shop, she was still deeply disappointed she would never be able to teach again. Since divorced women were not permitted to teach, her first husband had taken that right away from her when he divorced her to marry someone else. “I’m hopeful there will be other opportunities. In a city the size of Philadelphia, there must be more than one shopkeeper who needs to hire someone.”

  “I promised you a settlement once our marriage is annulled, which should allow you to live comfortably for the rest of your life without worrying about finding a position,” he said firmly, although his voice sounded much weaker than it had only moments ago. “In the meantime, I can hardly abandon you to your own resources when I have more than enough to share with you.”

  Although she had agreed to let him replace what she had lost during the robbery, she had no intention of relying on this man who had so reluctantly been saddled with her as his wife—regardless of how he felt about it. “For a man who prides himself on being able to really listen to women, you certainly haven’t listened to me, even though I’ve tried several times to make myself very clear. I’m not interested in a settlement from you of any kind. Just an annulment, thank you. And the opportunity to live independently through my own labor,” she added.

  “And I’ve tried to make it equally clear that you have no say in the matter. In the first place, I was the one the thieves targeted when they decided to rob the stage. In the second, if I hadn’t taken ill, you would have arrived in Philadelphia in time for your appointment. That makes it my obligation to see that you’re taken care of until we’re both freed from this marriage of ours.”

  “Then consider yourself relieved of any responsibility for me at all,” she argued. “But since I’m completely unfamiliar with the city, I would appreciate it if you could help me find a suitable place to live.”

  He let out a long sigh. “I can’t risk inviting questions by having you stay at my home, even for a short period of time. I’ll make arrangements for you to live quietly, using your own name, in a respectable boardinghouse. Other than having to wait until my lawyer has the marriage annulled and trying to convince you I truly do have your best interests at heart, I can’t foresee any problems that might arise. Do you?”

  She shook her head, fully confident the only possible problem that could arise would be her former husband, Eric Bradley, though he would have no reason to suspect she was anywhere other than in Four Corners, where he had abandoned her. Even if he did, he had told her himself he was well-established with his new wife in New York City, eliminating any fear she might have had that she would encounter him in Philadelphia. “No, I suppose I don’t, but—”

  “Good. Now get some sleep. I’d like to leave after breakfast, and we’re not going to stop until we’re in the city again, which I suspect will be sometime tomorrow afternoon.”

  “We can’t leave today. The stage isn’t due to stop here again until tomorrow,” she offered and wondered whether he was getting fevered again or was simply anxious to be rid of her company.

  “We’re not taking the stage. We’re—”

  “Well, we certainly aren’t going to ride that far. I’ve been astride quite enough lately, and y
ou’re definitely in no condition to ride. Like it or not, you’ll have to be content to wait for the stage. . . .”

  “Do you always leap to conclusions, or do you simply enjoy arguing for the sake of arguing?”

  She huffed. “I didn’t leap to any conclusion, and I’m not trying to argue with you. I’m simply trying to point out that we don’t have any logical way to travel to Philadelphia other than by stage.”

  “I never said we were taking the stage. By now my private coach and two of my drivers should be parked somewhere in the vicinity of the inn’s stable, waiting for us. I promised Mr. Lawrence a handsome reward some days ago to send word to my staff in Philadelphia that I needed both. Unless I was dreaming last night when I spoke to the innkeeper, which I most definitely was not, he assured me that all would be ready for us to leave this morning after breakfast.”

  “He never said a word!”

  A chuckle. “I told him not to tell you.”

  “You might pray that the drivers you sent for are closemouthed. Otherwise, you can add yet two more names to the list of people who know about our marriage.”

  Harrison snorted. “I don’t need to rely on prayer. I pay my staff extremely well to be discreet.”

  “Given your reputation, I shouldn’t be surprised,” she snapped.

  “Go to sleep. And stop sounding like a . . . like a wife.”

  She pursed her lips and wondered if this man prayed for much of anything at all.

  There was indeed a private coach nearby, ready to take them both back to Philadelphia.

  By ten o’clock, Harrison had dressed in the clean clothes his drivers had brought for him. While he ate a solid meal for the first time in many days, Annabelle slipped back into the room they had shared. Grateful for the privacy she needed to dress and get ready to leave, she was surprised to see that her travel gown, which Mrs. Lawrence had freshened and pressed, was lying on the bed next to a hunter green cape.

  When she picked up the soft woolen garment, she grinned when she saw that it had a full hood and deep pockets that held a pair of leather gloves dyed to match the cape. She was so happy she would have something to keep her warm during their journey, she wasted little thought on his extravagant gift or how he had managed to secure it for her on such short notice.

  Instead, she dressed quickly, making sure the certificate for her first marriage and divorce decree, along with her first wedding ring, were safely tucked away inside a thin cotton pouch she pinned to her chemise. Her knitting stick was secured at her waist.

  After brushing her hair with her fingers, she twisted the long, wavy tresses into a thick braid she let fall down her back, donned the cape, and met him back in the kitchen with her gloves in her hands. “I’d like to say it wasn’t necessary for you to provide me with such a fine cape to wear, but that wouldn’t be altogether true. I appreciate that you thought of my comfort, and I . . . I thank you,” she murmured.

  When he smiled, his dimples deepened and his eyes glimmered with satisfaction. “The color becomes you. I’m glad you’re pleased.”

  His gaze was so intense, she felt her cheeks warm, and she looked beyond him to see Mrs. Lawrence standing next to the table holding a pair of wooden baskets. She was wearing a grin so wide it nearly reached her ears.

  “Mr. Lawrence is out at the coach with your drivers setting in those warmed bricks you asked for, and I’ve got enough victuals packed up in here for everyone to last the entire trip, just like you wanted,” she offered, handing over both of the baskets.

  Harrison grasped them, and when he looked down and smiled at her, the innkeeper’s wife actually blushed. “You’re a good, good woman. Thank you,” he said and pressed a kiss to her forehead.

  As Harrison exchanged a few words with Mrs. Lawrence, Annabelle was fascinated by the transformation that had taken place in their relationship. When they had first arrived at the inn, the woman had made it perfectly clear that she thought he was the worst kind of scoundrel. That he had been able to charm the woman into changing her opinion of him, only hours after emerging from their room, merely added more credence to the claims about this man’s reputation she had heard from both Sheriff Taylor and Mr. Jenkins. If Harrison could charm this elderly woman, Annabelle had no doubt he would have an even greater effect on women his own age.

  “All the more reason to leave and make my own way in this world,” she whispered, determined not to be swayed by a sweet-talking womanizer. Not again. Not even if he did come from the wealthiest and most prestigious family in Philadelphia.

  Chapter Six

  When the coach stopped in front of his Philadelphia home the following evening, Harrison ranked his decision to spend some time on his country estate in western Pennsylvania as the greatest mistake of his life—quite an accomplishment considering the many mistakes he had made over the course of the past several years.

  If any one of his friends had told him four months ago when he left that he was going to return with a wife, he would have called them an addled fool and laughed. He was most definitely not laughing now, and only the thought that he would soon be single again gave him the strength to tolerate this very temporary marriage and keep his hidden heartache and pain at bay.

  Although still feeling weak and travel-weary, he helped Annabelle down from the coach a good half day after he had expected to arrive. He watched with amusement as she looked about to get her very first glimpse of the property his family had occupied for nearly a hundred years. Massive stone walls, with narrow doors to provide access from the street, started at the sides of the house and continued around the perimeter of the property that swallowed up nearly half a city block.

  The walls guaranteed privacy for him, as well as his guests, to enjoy spacious gardens in fair weather. In addition, the narrow doors allowed him to slip in or out of the house without alerting the staff or any of the neighbors.

  The mansion itself was constructed of red brick, like most houses in the city, but the entranceway was by far one of the most ostentatious. Tall marble columns supported an intricately decorated gable roof over the massive front door, which was surrounded by more marble and small glass windows that allowed the light from a crystal chandelier in the foyer to illuminate two wide marble steps outside and spill out to the walkway.

  Heavy wool curtains covering the windows on the second and third floors blocked out the unusual cold but also kept any houselights from shining out. Since he had not been in residence for some time, Harrison did not expect the rooms to be lit, since the staff lived in quarters behind the kitchen at the rear of the house.

  Annabelle dropped her hood, in spite of the frigid wind whipping at her cape, and gripped his arm to maintain her balance on the icy walkway in front of the house. With her cheeks brushed pink by the cold and her pale green eyes wide with wonder and disbelief, she looked up at him. “This is where you live?”

  “Only for the past eight years,” he admitted. After he waved off the drivers, he ushered her toward the house, but he kept their pace slow and deliberate in order to avoid slipping. He was anxious to get her inside before anyone noticed he had not returned home alone, but he was twice as anxious to crawl into his own bed. Tomorrow would be a long day, and he would need a good night’s rest if he planned to meet with his lawyer and make all the necessary arrangements to place this woman in a proper boardinghouse by tomorrow night at the latest.

  She tilted her head back to get a full view of the three-storied mansion. “The house looks quite grand, even at night. I can only imagine what it must look like in the full light of day,” she murmured.

  He chuckled. “I’ve heard that some people actually refer to it as Graymoor Castle,” he said, unwilling to admit that he had only moved into this massive house out of a sense of duty to family tradition—one of the few family traditions he had chosen to follow when he became the sole remaining heir to the family name and fortune.

  She dropped her gaze. “Those high walls on either side do make it look like a fortr
ess of sorts,” she offered as they approached the entranceway.

  “They’re only there to protect the rather extensive gardens, which I fear may not survive this brutal winter.” He was surprised when she stopped, forcing him to do the same.

  She pointed to the narrow door within the wall, nearly hidden by night shadows. “Since neither one of us would like to make our presence known, wouldn’t it be better to slip inside one of those side doors instead of using the main entrance? It’s so well lit, I suspect someone will notice us.”

  “We’ll be inside well before we’re noticed,” he countered and ushered her up the two marble steps to the landing at the main entry. Before he even had a chance to knock, however, the door swung open. Pleased that the staff had been alerted to his return by the instructions he had forwarded through the innkeeper, he greeted the staid housekeeper, Mrs. Faye, with a smile.

  She acknowledged them both with a prim nod of her head but spoke directly to him. “Good evening, sir. Welcome home,” she murmured as she stepped back to allow them entrance. “Your rooms are ready, just as you instructed,” she informed him as she closed the door behind them.

  “It’s a relief to be back,” he replied. Once he had Annabelle safely inside, he helped her out of her cape. After he had removed his own heavy cloak and hat, he bent down to kiss the housekeeper’s cheek before handing her all the garments.

  Flustered as usual by his informal manners, she swiped at her cheek before carrying the garments to a narrow bench at the far end of the hallway and leaving them there.

  While he waited for her to return before introducing Annabelle as the young woman he had described in his instructions, he caught the sound of laughter and conversation coming from the second floor, which was reserved for entertaining, saw the light spilling down the staircase, and froze.