A Grave Matter

by Anna Lee Huber

It was like scouring an infected wound clean, and though I knew it was probably for the best, I didn’t enjoy doing it—either during or after.

  When my sobs finally ceased, I felt ill. My head pounded and my stomach churned, but I swiped away the remainder of my tears and climbed determinedly to my feet. I reached for my palette and my brush. There was no solace like art. Even if that art was of the man you’d just rejected. Taking a deep calming breath, I swirled my brush through the paint on my palette.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  I woke the next morning stiff and bleary-eyed on the wicker settee in my art studio with Earl Gray curled up against my side. I vaguely remembered his comforting presence pressed against me as I stroked my fingers down his back and cried into his fur at some point during the night. I think I might even have hugged him, but he hadn’t squirmed away. The eyes of the peacefully slumbering feline opened to slits as if to say, “You’re welcome,” before closing again.

  I pushed myself upright, and a blanket I hadn’t remembered pulling over myself slipped from my shoulders. I pressed a hand to my face as the shift in position made my sinuses pound. And as the haze of sleep cleared, I began to recall why I had been weeping in the middle of the night in the first place.

  I looked up at Gage’s now finished portrait still propped on my easel. The first rays of dawn shone through the windows at my back and filtered through the conservatory’s foliage, bathing the painting in muted light. With a few hours of much-needed slumber, I found I could view it more objectively than before.

  I’d chosen to paint him informally, standing near a window with his arm pressed to the frame at the level of his head. His coat had been discarded and his shirtsleeves were rolled up to reveal his strong forearms. Light filtered through the window to limn his blond curls with gold and highlight his sharp features. But rather than looking outward, he had tilted his head to throw a glance at the viewer.

  His mouth quirked upward in his customary smile and his eyes twinkled with their familiar playfulness, but there was also a depth to them, a seriousness that belied the flirtation. Just as there was a certain steadiness, a firmness of posture that contradicted the carefreeness of his stance. This was the type of man who not only could charm you, but would also stand firm when the storms of life railed, or hold you gently when they simply became too much to bear.

  I stared down at the hands which had brought this image to life and felt sick to my very soul. There was no way Gage could have missed the affection with which I had wrought the painting. That must have been what he’d seen.

  But why hadn’t he simply said so? Why did he have to speak in riddles and vague comments? Why couldn’t he just speak plainly?

  I swallowed my frustration, bitter as it tasted, for the truth was, whether he’d spoken it aloud or not, my regard for him was not reason enough to propose marriage. Perhaps that had made him more certain of my answer, wrong as he had been, but it only meant misery later on if Gage did not reciprocate that devotion.

  Suddenly desperate to escape my studio and the house, I pushed myself to my feet and went in search of my warm winter cloak and half-boots. Frost coated the ground, crunching under my feet as I stepped off the portico. My breath fogged in the crisp, early morning air, floating upward into the deep blue sky. I wrapped my arms tightly about me and began to walk at a brisk pace, allowing my feet to take me where they would.

  I crossed the west field and wove my way through the barren wood separating our property from the village. The shops along the main street were still locked up tight, it being too early for most people to be up and about. The low sun at my back cast my long shadow ahead of me down the road. I contemplated it as I came upon the lych-gate to St. Cuthbert’s Church, and on an impulse, I entered.

  My steps wove between the gravestones, absently noting the names of families who had lived in Elwick for generations, standing side by side in death as they had in life. Before I knew what I was doing, I found myself beneath the old oak tree that guarded over my parents’ graves. I stared at my mother’s inscription and then reluctantly forced myself to look at my father’s more austere marker. There were no pretty flowers or scrollwork, just simple block lettering, as our father would have wanted it. Ever practical, ever pragmatic. Even when it came to his youngest daughter’s marriage.

  I frowned, feeling the bitterness I’d denied for so long that I’d stirred up last night blacken my heart. For years I’d been making excuses for my father’s lapse in judgment. He had been the one man I’d known I could always trust and rely on, no matter what, but in the end he had also failed me, spectacularly. I had been afraid to admit that, afraid to feel this intense anger for the man who had loved and raised me, especially when he wasn’t here to defend himself. But after last night, after watching Gage’s and my relationship crumble to dust around me, I could no longer push it aside. I wanted to scream at him again, only to do so would mean shrieking at an inanimate gravestone in the middle of a churchyard at dawn, and would surely convince anyone who happened to hear me that I was insane.

  Regardless, my face must have been twisted up in quite a nasty expression, for when my brother suddenly appeared at my side, he knew exactly what I was thinking.

  “Father would have understood your being furious with him,” Trevor told me in a gentle voice. “He would have expected it.”

  I turned my scowl on my brother. “Did you follow me?”

  He replied without hesitation. “Yes. I saw you leaving Blakelaw through my bedchamber window, and thought you might like some company.”

  I frowned down at our father’s grave. “Does it look like I want company?”

  “Actually, yes.”

  I furrowed my brow, trying to decide if he was attempting to be funny. When he didn’t elaborate or even acknowledge my aggravation, I rolled my eyes and returned to my contemplation of our parents’ eternal resting place.

  We stood there silently side by side, the skeletal branches of the oak clattering together overhead. Between the tree and my brother, I was pretty well shielded from the wind, but not from the cold of the frozen ground, which I could feel even through the soles of my boots. I shifted from one foot to the other, allowing my agitation to grow. Anything to escape this sorrow pressing down on my chest, making it difficult to breathe.

  “I’m sorry, Kiera,” my brother said, his voice heavy with regret.

  I turned to meet his gaze, surprised by the anguish I saw shimmering in his eyes.

  “I should have protected you from this. I should have done something to stop it.”

  “How could you?” I protested. “I never confided in you, in anyone, while Sir Anthony was alive. I . . . was too scared, too . . .” I swallowed “. . . ashamed to admit what was happening.”

  “Yes. But I knew something was wrong. I knew you were unhappy. You’ve never been good at hiding your emotions.” He tilted his head to the side. “Why do you think Sir Anthony kept us away as often as he could?”

  I stared unseeing at the earth between my parents’ graves. I’d never realized he was keeping them away. I’d simply thought my family had been too busy with their own lives, too preoccupied to visit me.

  “It didn’t matter,” I replied, my voice rough as sandpaper to my ears. “Sir Anthony was my husband. He had all the power. The only good you or father’s confronting him would have done was to cause a scandal. He would have won any dispute placed in front of a court of law.” And taken out their meddling on me. I didn’t speak the last aloud.

  “Perhaps. But we still should have tried.” Trevor grabbed my arm, turning me to look at him. “It wasn’t right that we did nothing to stop his treatment of you. That we didn’t force you to confide in us.” Brackets of pain formed around his mouth and eyes. “I will regret that for the rest of my life.”

  “Trevor, no.” I shook my head. “I am not going to let you take this on yourself. I should have been brave enough to tell you or father what was going on. I . . . I should have had the courage to
defy him.”

  “Why didn’t you?”

  I blinked up at him, surprised by the question.

  “Why didn’t you trust me enough to tell me?” His face twisted with agony. “Did you think I wouldn’t believe you? That I would stand by and let that brute treat you that way?”

  “Oh, Trevor, no.” A tear slipped down my cheek at the pain I’d unknowingly caused him. I reached up to press my hand to his chest over his heart. “I . . . I don’t know why I remained silent for so long. Believe me, I ask myself that every day.” My gaze drifted over his shoulder to the church steeple towering above us. “I suppose initially it was shock. I simply couldn’t believe what was happening. And by the time I came to my senses, he’d already forced me to sketch his dissections, to observe his cutting open a human being.” I closed my eyes tightly against the memory. “By then I was too horrified to say anything.”

  Trevor gripped my arm above the elbow tighter, offering me what comfort he could.

  “Any time I felt myself growing stronger, somehow he sensed it. And he would remind me what would happen if I told anyone the truth. He . . . he would smash one of my paintings, or twist my wrist until I begged him to stop. And once a year he would take me to tour Bedlam or some other lunatic asylum, to . . . remind me what fate awaited me if I dared defy him.”

  I shook my head again, wishing I could dislodge all those recollections from my mind. “I’m sorry,” I whispered.

  Trevor pulled me close, smothering my apology in the fabric of his coat. I stood there biting back tears and let him hold me and stroke the back of my head.

  “No more apologies. You did nothing wrong. You know that, don’t you?” he said, his voice tight from suppressed emotion.

  “But that’s why you fell in with that bad crowd, isn’t it?” I insisted, realizing now how much my own cowardice had cost my brother as well as me. “That’s why the estate is in trouble.”

  “No, Kiera . . .”

  I pushed back to look up into his face. He knew better than to lie to me.

  He sighed wearily. “Perhaps partially. But that is not your fault. I did not have to punch a man in Almack’s.”

  My eyes widened at this detail.

  “And I should have known better than to console myself with drink and gambling.” He grimaced. “At least, not at the same time.”

  “How bad is it?” I ventured to ask.

  He frowned, finally admitting all. “I’m not in danger of losing the estate, but it will take several years to recoup the losses. That’s why I’ve been consulting with our uncle and Philip, among others, exploring the possibility of expanding our stables with racing horses, or adding more sheep to our fold. I’ve also been looking into investing in these new steam locomotives. There are opportunities to be had, if one is willing to take the risk, and smart enough to implement the changes correctly.”

  I breathed a sigh of relief and squeezed his shoulder where my hand lay, proud that my brother was mature and wise enough to admit his mistakes and seek to remedy them. Many men would have hidden such errors in judgment from the men they admired, but Trevor had instead prudently sought their advice. Though I wasn’t sure why he couldn’t have confided this to me before, rather than make me worry.

  We turned to stare down at our parents’ graves again, with my arm linked through his and my head tipped to the side to rest on his shoulder. Standing thusly, I couldn’t help remembering that cold March day when we’d stood a few paces apart, almost in the same way. It had been nearly a week since our mother had been laid to rest, and still being children, Trevor and I had not been allowed to attend the funeral. So with all the confusion and macabre curiosity of an eight- and a ten-year-old, we had escaped from our governess and come to the cemetery ourselves to see where our mother now rested. I had been frightened to approach, but Trevor had held my hand, letting me know I wouldn’t have to face it alone. Our father had found us several hours later, still rooted to the spot, trying to come to grips with the fact that our mother was truly never coming back to us.

  I was as grateful now as I had been then for my brother’s solid presence beside me, his warm arm wrapped around mine.

  “Do you know why father agreed to the marriage proposal from Sir Anthony?” Trevor asked.

  I glanced up to find him staring at our father’s grave, a pucker between his eyes. I shook my head.

  “He thought that since Sir Anthony was a self-made man promoted from the ranks of a lower class that he would better understand and support your painting. He worried a gentleman would never appreciate your need to create art, would never allow you to exhibit it, because gentlewomen simply didn’t do such things.”

  I could appreciate the consideration my father had given the matter. After all, I’d been subjected to ridicule and belittlement from the members of the upper class since before I could remember. My first exhibit in our family’s town house in London at the age of seventeen had been met with derision and scorn. Such things would not have been easy for many gentlemen to accept or condone.

  “I’m certain he had no idea what Sir Anthony’s real intentions were.”

  “I know that,” I told Trevor stiffly. “None of us did.”

  “But he did know something was wrong.” His voice was solemn. “Had he not been so ill at the end, so unable to travel, I think he would have confronted Sir Anthony. It was his biggest regret.”

  I was about to ask my brother how he could possibly know such a thing when he turned to look at me.

  “He told me. On his deathbed. And he made me promise to look out for you.”

  I felt something inside me swell and expand, pushing out some of the anger that had seemed a part of me for so long, burrowed deep down in my heart as it was. My eyes traveled over the letters of my father’s name carved into his gravestone.

  “He loved you, Kiera. He loved us all.”

  I nodded, sniffing back tears. “I know that. I’ve always known that.”

  “But love doesn’t make us perfect.”

  I gasped a laugh, swiping away the wetness gathering at the corner of my eye. “Oh, how well I know that.”

  “Then why are you being so tough on Gage?”

  I stopped and turned to Trevor, trying to read from his guarded expression how much he knew. “Did you eavesdrop on us?”

  “No. But it was hard not to notice how angry Gage was when he nearly collided with me on the stairs yesterday evening. Or how ferociously you were glaring at the portrait you’re painting of him.” His eyebrows rose in expectation.

  I turned aside, unable to meet his gaze. I hadn’t even heard him come into my studio last night.

  I considered ignoring his question, brushing it aside. But I did want to talk to someone about it, and without Alana here, I had few options. It would be a somewhat awkward topic to discuss with my brother, but really, who better was there to give me advice? He already knew most of my history and he’d seen Gage and me together. What’s more, he was a man. He might be able to offer me some insight.

  So I gathered my courage and told him the truth. “He proposed marriage.”

  “Ah,” Trevor murmured, as if that explained much. “And you said no.”

  “I . . . I suppose so,” I replied, realizing I hadn’t actually given him an answer, though the “no” had certainly been implied.

  He asked me why I’d turned him down, and as soon as I began to explain, the words seemed to simply pour out of me. I told him about the portrait, how that had seemed to be the catalyst for Gage’s proposal, and how it had confused me. I complained about how there was so much I didn’t know about him, and how stubborn he was about sharing details of his life. But then somehow I ended up defending his secretiveness, being able to relate to it myself. I confided my worries over our future happiness, and how I feared Gage would swiftly realize he’d made a mistake when he saw how incompatible we were, particularly in a public setting. And I even told him how I feared he only wanted to marry me because of my usefulnes
s in investigations, not for me alone. How I feared no one would want me for me alone.

  Sometime in the midst of my long speech, Trevor shifted to my other side to lean back against the old oak tree with his arms crossed. He listened attentively, his focus never wavering, and when my words ran out along with my breath, I waited for him to speak.

  His head tilted to the side and his eyes were kind. “Did you ever stop to consider you might be thinking too hard about this?”

  My chest rose and fell rapidly as I tried to catch my breath. “What do you mean? This is serious.” I gestured with my hands. “Marriage is serious. After what happened with Sir Anthony . . .”

  “But Gage isn’t Sir Anthony.”

  “I know that,” I snapped, remembering that Gage had argued the same thing.

  “But you’re acting as if he is. As if the same thing is going to happen between you and Gage as happened between you and Sir Anthony.”

  I paused, considering his words. “But how do I know that it won’t?” I murmured softly.

  Trevor stepped forward to take my hands, staring down into my troubled face. “I want you to forget Sir Anthony for a moment, if you can, and tell me something.” His eyebrows rose in emphasis. “Do you trust Gage?”

  I stared up at him, uncertain how to answer.

  Sensing my doubt, he elaborated. “If you were in danger, do you trust that he would rescue you if he could? Would he defend you from accusations? Would you willingly confide in him all you’ve told me about Sir Anthony and what he’s done to you?”

  “Yes,” I replied relatively easily.

  He leaned closer, his eyes warm with affection. “Is he the first thing you think of in the morning and the last thing you think of at night? Would you race to his side if he were ever sick or injured?” His lips quirked upward at the corners. “Would you shield him from our sister’s wrath?”

  “Yes,” I whispered, beginning to see his point.

  “It’s obvious to anyone who sees you together that you love him. And that portrait fairly gives it away as well.”