The Inconvenient Elmswood Marriage (Penniless Brides 0f Convenience Book 4)

by Marguerite Kaye

  But Daniel pushed past him, desperate to be on his own. On the terrace he met Kate, hurrying towards him.

  ‘I saw you fall.’

  ‘I’m fine.’

  That was a nasty fall.

  ‘Are you sure you’re not hurt? You look—’

  ‘Let me be, Kate. I need to be alone.’

  He made it to the master bedroom, where he locked the door and went to the window embrasure. His father would have seen it all, watched it unfolding day by pernicious day, knowing what he was witnessing while Daniel continued to be blissfully oblivious.

  How could he have been so blind, so utterly naïve? The memories came tumbling back, unfolding in his head like a play acted out at breakneck speed. He remembered all the way back to school, where Leo had singled him out, had told him they were kindred spirits, had recognised something in him that no one else did.

  ‘You can turn to me.’

  ‘You can confide in me.’

  ‘I understand you as no one else does.’

  ‘You can rely on me to look after you.’

  ‘I’m your friend. It will be our little secret.’

  ‘You’re not alone.’

  He had never had a friend. He had taught himself not to want or need a friend. Then Leo had made him see how lonely he’d been. And Leo had told him he need never be alone again. They’d had so much in common. They’d had so much to talk about. They’d made so many plans.

  ‘I want to be an explorer.’

  The shy confession had taken him months.

  Leo hadn’t laughed. ‘We’ll see the world together,’ he’d said. Then he’d touched him.

  Daniel shuddered. His shoulder. His hand leaning on it a fraction too long. He had known it was a fraction too long, but this was Leo, who cared for him, who told him he would protect him, so it couldn’t be wrong.

  It was the same when Leo ruffled his hair in passing. When he tapped Daniel’s cheek. When he straightened his jacket or adjusted his necktie. Innocent everyday touches. Yet he had known. For he had never said anything. And he’d never returned them.

  Then Leo had come to Elmswood, and they’d been alone much of the time. In the library, that day he had fallen from the steps, Leo had been laughing. Then dropping down on the floor beside him, putting his arms on his shoulders. Daniel had gone quite still. Leo’s hand had smoothed over his jaw.

  ‘Poor Daniel.’

  ‘I didn’t hurt my head.’

  ‘Then show me where it hurts.’

  And then his father had come in.

  Leo had left.

  His father had been furious, throwing accusations that Daniel had felt honour-bound to defend. Until that morning by the lake.

  ‘That was a nasty fall. Let me look.’

  ‘I’m fine.’

  ‘Don’t play games with me, Daniel. You know what you want.’

  ‘I don’t want anything.’

  ‘You know you do.’

  He had been frightened. Torn. Leo was his friend. He’d stood passively, but at the last moment hadn’t been able to help recoiling, so that the kiss had landed on his cheek.

  That was when his father had erupted onto the scene. And Leo had disappeared for ever.

  Shaking, sweating, Daniel sank down on the window seat, dropping his head into his hands.

  * * *

  Daniel had remained locked away in the master suite for much of the day. Kate, feeling foolish but too worried to care, had stood at the door several times, on the verge of knocking, before creeping away again. If he wanted her, he would find her. But when he’d eventually left the room it had been to retire to his own bedchamber.

  He didn’t come down for dinner. He didn’t go for his swim the next morning. He didn’t come to breakfast either. But as she took her tea she heard the tell-tale creak of the front door.

  She followed him at a discreet distance and stood at the gate of the manor grounds, watching as he took the road to the village, turning into the churchyard just before the village green. An hour later, after hovering by the gate, keeping her eyes fixed on the road, there was no sign of him returning.

  Kate could stand it no longer. She hurried down the road and through the churchyard gate, but the church was empty. Outside, the sun was hidden by a grey haze, the air heavy and damp with rain, clouded with insects. The churchyard was very old. She picked her way through overturned stones and broken urns. The grass needed scything.

  The hem of her gown was soaked by the time she turned the corner, and there was Daniel, sitting cross-legged on the ground by the railings surrounding the Fairfax family tomb, staring at the huge stone set into the wall, which listed the Earls and their Countesses and the surprisingly frugal number of their offspring, whose mortal remains were interred here.

  Kate stood stock-still, but he must have sensed her presence for he turned his head and to her immense relief beckoned her over.

  ‘There’s no mention of Gillian or Diarmuid,’ he said.

  ‘They were lost at sea, their remains never found.’

  ‘My father tried to pretend she had never existed, but she did. Her name should be recorded here, and her son’s, regardless of whether they are buried here or not.’

  Kate sank onto the grass beside him. ‘That’s easily remedied. If you tell me what you want to add, I’ll speak to the stonemason.’

  ‘Thank you. You’ll get soaked, sitting on the ground.’

  ‘I don’t care. I’ve been so worried about you.’

  His hand sought hers. It was cold. He squeezed her fingers, but then immediately released her. ‘I needed to be alone.’

  ‘Do you want me to go?’

  He shook his head. He was holding his turquoise in his other hand.

  ‘I remembered yesterday what happened with Leo.’

  ‘Leo?’ She had been imagining any number of reasons for his strange behaviour, but all of them had been connected with their visit to Eloise. ‘There was a quarrel with your father, you said?’

  ‘That’s what I assumed. But it wasn’t a quarrel. My father saw something. Something I didn’t.’ He turned the turquoise round and round in his hand. ‘Though, looking back, deep down I knew. But I didn’t do anything about it because I thought he was my friend.’ He gave an odd little laugh. ‘I so desperately wanted to believe he was my friend.’

  Kate’s skin prickled ominously. She waited with bated breath, watching Daniel turn the stone over in his hand.

  ‘The school I went to was brutal. It was a harsh, cruel and well-established regime that required you to submit entirely to the dominance of the older boys and the prefects, and then to step into their shoes when you’ve served your time, and take your turn at whipping the next generation into line.’

  ‘That is utterly disgusting.’

  ‘Fidelitas, veritas, integritas. Fidelity, truth and integrity. That was the school motto. If you played the game, you’d get your reward. I didn’t play the game, so my life was hell on earth, but I kept myself going by thinking that the one thing I did have was my integrity. And then Leo arrived at the school, and at last I had a friend who thought like me. He was an outsider, like me, though he seemed popular enough. But he was simply better at playing the game, he told me. I was making it too hard for myself, he told me. There were ways to make it easier without compromise. He’d show me. I believed him. I thought he was my friend. But he wanted me to be a different sort of friend entirely, if you take my meaning.’

  ‘Oh, God. Oh, Daniel.’

  ‘I knew there was something wrong, that I occasionally felt uncomfortable in his company, but I didn’t say anything or report it to anyone.’

  Kate’s head was spinning. The tale Daniel was unfolding was utterly shocking, and such a complete bolt out of the blue that she could barely follow it, but she was terrified of saying anything f
or fear of it being the wrong thing. Daniel was clearly still reeling. So she waited.

  ‘Looking back, he was subtle, clearly well-practised at his sordid game,’ Daniel said with a sneer. ‘There was never anything I could object to. He used to ruffle my hair, like Gillian did. It was much longer then. It curls when I let it grow.’

  And now he never let it grow.

  ‘What else?’ Kate asked, though she wasn’t sure she wanted to know.

  ‘More of the same. Nothing overtly wrong. It never got that far.’ His lips twisted into a horrible mocking smile. ‘I’d like to think that I would have put a stop to it before—before... But I didn’t have to.’

  ‘Your father did,’ Kate said, as the pieces began to sink into place.

  ‘That summer he saw what I didn’t want to see. I thought he disliked Leo simply because I had chosen him to be my friend. In the same way, I suppose, that I thought he disliked Sean Brannagh—because Gillian had chosen him. He came calling at Elmswood at first, did Sean Brannagh—how odd that I’d forgotten all about that. But my father didn’t like him—said he was a wastrel, told Gillian to have nothing more to do with him.’

  ‘Which naturally ensured that she was interested in him and only him.’

  Daniel laughed sourly. ‘And look how well that ended for all of us.’

  He stared at the tombstone for a long time, and Kate sat in an agony of indecision, wanting to throw her arms around him. But he was almost trembling in his effort to sit rigidly, and she feared the slightest touch would overset him.

  ‘To cut a long story short,’ he finally continued, ‘my father caught Leo in the act of trying to do something that even I could not explain away. And that’s why Leo left Elmswood. And that’s why I was removed from school and sent to the Admiralty. Not spite. Not hate. He was trying, in his own ham-fisted way, to protect me from Leo. Just as he’d been trying, in an equally ham-fisted way, to protect Gillian from Brannagh.’

  ‘But he—he did succeed in saving you, didn’t he?’

  ‘Yes, he saved me. He saw enough from his bedroom window to put a stop to it—though, as I said, I’d like to think I’d have put a stop to it myself if it had gone any further. I’m not like Leo, Kate.’

  ‘I know you’re not. I have ample proof that you are—Oh, my God.’ She stared at him, her hand covering her mouth. ‘But Oliver is, isn’t he? And that’s why you’ve been so—That’s why you don’t like it that he’s been watching you! And yesterday... Did he—? What did he do, Daniel?’

  But he shrugged impatiently. ‘It was nothing. What he did—and it was nothing, I assure you—it reminded me, that’s all. That’s not the point.’

  ‘No, the point is that a man you thought your friend—a man who was older than you, and your tutor into the bargain, a man you trusted implicitly, took advantage of you.’

  ‘No!’ Daniel exclaimed. ‘That’s not the point at all.’

  ‘Then what is?’

  ‘Everything I think I know about myself is false!’ Daniel jumped to his feet. ‘Through it all—my miserable childhood, my schooling, the Admiralty—the one thing that’s kept me going is my determination to do things my way. Not to submit to my father’s will or the collective will of that bloody school. To go my own way, be my own man.’

  ‘And you certainly have.’

  ‘But it’s not been my way at all.’ His voice quivered. He dashed a hand across his eyes. ‘You don’t understand.’

  Kate finally gave in to the need to hold him, jumping to her feet, wrapping her arms around him. But he stood stiffly in her embrace, quivering.

  ‘You’re soaked through, and you’re hot. We should go back to Elmswood.’

  ‘No!’ He wrenched himself free, stumbling backwards. ‘Listen to me!’

  ‘I am listening.’ Kate held her hand out slowly, as she would to a spooked horse. ‘We’ll sit down here,’ she said, gently pushing him towards an ancient tombstone. ‘You talk and I’ll listen.’

  He did as she urged, making a visible effort to control himself, and his hand curled so tightly around the turquoise that his knuckles showed white. When he spoke, it was with his jaw clenched equally tightly.

  ‘I feel as if I don’t know myself—who I am. I’m seeing my life through a prism. Everything is warped...not as it seems. My precious independence is a sham. I have spent my life being manipulated by others, shaped by events.’ He stopped, breathing heavily. ‘Take Gillian. I knew it was wrong of me to carry those damned letters, but I was so stupidly proud of her choosing me to help her to defy our father—because that’s what it came down to. I thought we were in it together, she and I. I had no idea that she was using me.’

  ‘You were a child.’

  ‘Yes, you’ve said that—and I was. But I thought I’d learned my lesson. Then I went off to school and I thought that I was making a stand, staying firmly on the outside, suffering for my stance,’ he continued viciously. ‘I was determined they wouldn’t make their kind of man of me, but they did. They made me exactly the kind of man my father wanted me to be—one who does his duty, one who is unquestionably loyal, a man who can be relied on. I’m the sort of man my father would have been proud of.’

  He cursed, then took another couple of breaths.

  ‘And then there was Leo, who did exactly what Gillian did and made me feel wanted, special. I fell for it just as blindly, and I came very close to being exactly what he wanted me to be. And then came the Admiralty.’

  He had stopped shaking. His voice was cold, clipped, but his jaw was no longer so tightly clenched.

  ‘And finally I became an explorer. It was the one thing I’d always wanted to be, and Sir Marcus arranged it so that I could have it. I knew my father wouldn’t like it, so of course there was the added attraction of defiance for me, and off I sailed, ecstatic to have finally have achieved my lifelong ambition. And when I returned home Sir Marcus was waiting to offer me a career in the foreign service that he thought I was uniquely suited to. And he was quite right. I can see by your face that you still don’t understand.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Kate,’ he said, reaching for her, ‘when Alex said that no one knew the real Daniel Fairfax, he was right. When you said there were many Daniel Fairfaxes, you were right too. I thought I knew the essence of myself, though.’

  ‘As I do.’

  His hand tightened around her. ‘We’re wrong—both of us. I don’t think there is an essence—that’s what I’ve been trying to tell you. The reason I’m so perfectly suited for my work is that I can be anything I choose—or, more accurately, I can be whatever person is required. I acted as Gillian wanted. I nearly became what Leo wanted. I have been countless other men in my years serving abroad. I am not my own man at all, Kate. I’m not only a perfect fit for the work that has become my life, that life is the only one I’m fit for.’

  ‘You’re wrong. This thing you’ve remembered—this terrible, awful thing—has skewed your memories. And, yes, it’s changed your understanding of your father, but it doesn’t change the fact that he was a terrible father to you and to your sister.’

  ‘No, I’m not sitting here weighed down with regrets, if that’s what you’re imagining.’

  ‘There is a real Daniel Fairfax,’ she said fervently. ‘He’s sitting here with me. He’s a man who refuses to run with the herd. He’s self-sufficient, and he’s brave, and he’s funny, and he’s infuriating, and he can bend himself in two, and he has a unique dress sense. He won’t fight. He won’t kill. He breaks the rules if he feels they’re wrong. He puts others first. Always. And I love him—so he must exist, mustn’t he?’

  ‘Kate...’

  Her stomach sank at his tone. There was an agonising air of finality to it.

  ‘I’ve been playing your husband for the last two months. One thing I can do is throw my heart and soul into any part I take on.’
r />   ‘All or nothing?’ she whispered. ‘I won’t believe this has been an act.’

  ‘I don’t believe it either. I think I love you. At this moment in time I believe that I love you with all my heart. But when I leave...’

  ‘You’ll pack up your feelings and become someone else?’

  ‘I won’t have any feelings to pack up. I’ll have some lovely memories, but no regrets. I’m sorry.’

  ‘You don’t believe that.’

  ‘Not at the moment, but I will.’

  ‘If you wanted to, Daniel, you could be any man you choose.’ Her eyes stung with tears, but Kate blinked furiously. She didn’t want to be pitied. ‘You could choose to be with me.’

  It was her last throw of the dice.

  He didn’t even waver, merely looked at her with such sorrow that he might as well have cut out her heart with a blunt knife. But she was protecting her heart.

  ‘I hope for your own sake that you come to see that what I say is true. You could be anyone, Daniel, and the choice belongs to you, no one else. But I—I am not going to wait for you. I have no idea who I am either, but, unlike you, I’m determined to find out. Now, I think tomorrow we should discuss how we put an end to this situation. I think for both our sakes it should be sooner rather than later.’

  Chapter Twelve

  Two months later, October 1831

  Kate sat in the morning room, flicking through the contents of the leather folder that contained the embryonic history of Elmswood which Estelle had started. She was seated at her desk, taking her morning tea. Since Daniel had left she always sat at her desk with her tea. She had packed the Turkish coffee pot and cups away.

  Estelle’s latest letter had been posted in Paris, where Estelle was relishing her newfound freedom and enjoying practising her languages—which came as a surprise to Kate. She had been studying while Kate was abroad, it seemed, in preparation for this Continental journey of hers. She had an ear for language, it turned out. Another thing she had inherited from her mother’s side of the family, since Daniel...

  Kate pushed her unfinished tea aside. Daniel was gone. Estelle would never meet him. Daniel was in some far-flung part of the globe, playing some new role, and whatever he was thinking about, it most certainly wasn’t Kate.