The Secrets of Wiscombe Chase

by Christine Merrill

  ‘Very lucky,’ Ronald said, feigning modesty. ‘But I will allow that I have some skill in the game.’

  ‘You must play me next,’ Gerry said, finishing his drink in one gulp and giving the broad smile that he knew made him look like a simpleton. ‘I have not played in ages. There was no time for games in Wellington’s army.’

  ‘Well, then. This should be interesting for both of us.’ Ronald’s smile was positively wolfish as he chalked his cue.

  Gerry turned to the rack and chose a mace instead. The old club-headed sticks were horribly out of fashion. But he was as good with one as he was with a cue and they overcame the deficiencies of the table quite nicely.

  Ronald arched an eyebrow in surprise and replaced his cue, as well. ‘My, but it has been a while since you played.’

  ‘When Father taught me, it was with wooden balls so lopsided there was no telling where they would go, even at the best times.’ As if demonstrating, he swung the mace wide, nearly knocking a drink from the hand of Wilson, who was standing too close to him.

  ‘You’ll find that the new ivory balls work much better,’ Ronald said, setting up his first shot and tapping the red ball with his white one.

  ‘I expect so,’ Gerry said and deliberately missed, sending his cue ball bouncing off the padded rail. Then he looked up and smiled. ‘But we have not set a wager yet.’ He brought the mace up so quickly it set the oil lamps above the table to swaying.

  Ronald sent Gerry’s cue ball rolling into a pocket. ‘Nor have we set the points. Play to six?’

  An easy thing for him to say, when he was already up by four. Gerry smiled broadly again. ‘Excellent. And let us make it interesting. Fifty quid?’

  ‘Fif...’ The wind was escaping from Ronald like gas from a balloon. ‘I do not have so much ready money.’

  ‘Fifty from me, then,’ Gerry said. ‘And if I win, you may forgive the debts of the men who have played so far. That should call it even.’

  ‘If you really think that is wise,’ Ronald said, pityingly.

  Gerry grinned and nodded like a fool. Then, with a single stroke, he sunk all three balls with a cannon, to the calls of ‘Capital shot’ and ‘Huzzah for the captain!’

  ‘And how many is that, again? I cannot remember.’ Gerry counted points on his fingers.

  ‘Ten,’ said Ronald, his smile disappearing. ‘Game to you, sir.’

  ‘It is all a matter of geometry, dear fellow. Back in the day, I was quite good at mathematics. The markers, if you please.’ Gerry held out his hand for the IOUs and his brother-in-law handed them over with a frown.

  Gerry tore them in half with a single decisive motion and dropped the pieces on to the table beside him. Then he yawned. ‘And now, I think it is time that I retire.’

  ‘You must not,’ Carstairs said. ‘The night is just beginning.’ By the slur in his voice, the night had gone on far too long already.

  ‘I have been away from home and wife for seven years,’ Gerry said. ‘She will not want me lingering with the gentlemen until dawn.’

  ‘A lovely woman she is,’ Burke announced. ‘And a shame that she has been alone so long.’

  Gerry felt the hair at the back of his neck prickling as if it could rise like the ruff of an angry dog. How many other men had noticed Lillian’s beauty and made drunken comments over the billiard table about her sleeping alone? And what sort of man was Ronald North for showing not a hint of disapproval?

  ‘Those days are now past,’ Gerry said and gave Burke a look that brought a mumbled assurance that no disrespect was intended.

  He nodded and looked past the man at Ronald. ‘I am home for good.’ Then he stared into his brother-in-law’s eyes to be sure the idiot noticed that there was a wolf beneath the sheepskin. ‘I will be with her, until death us do part. Just as I am sure you intended when you introduced us.’ Then he quit the room, ignoring the low curse behind him.

  Chapter Seven

  Once upstairs, Lily put on her best nightgown and allowed the maid to put a ribbon in her braided hair. By the smile on Jenny’s face, she could guess that the girl was imagining the fond reunion to come.

  The ribbon was superfluous. She doubted it would matter to Captain Wiscombe how she looked. Despite what her father and brother believed, Gerald’s reasons for lying with her had nothing to do with romance. He was merely staking a claim of ownership.

  Would that her own motivations were as clear. She could tell herself that going to his bed tonight was nothing more than an attempt to be the loyal wife he’d deserved from the first. It would have been much easier to believe, if both her father and brother had not reminded her that she was a North and therefore an expert manipulator. Was she being her usual, obedient self and doing what Gerald wanted her to do? Or was she following her family’s instructions and doing what might make him do what she wished at some later date?

  Or was this about nothing more than her fascination with Captain Gerald Wiscombe, late of the Fifth Dragoons? Her only experience with what went on in the bedroom had left her with no desire to repeat the act. But after years of reading about his exploits, the thought of Captain Gerald Wiscombe made her heart flutter in anticipation.

  There was fluttering in other places, as well. Her husband was not some paper idol. He was here and all too real. And tonight, she would finally be his bride. Suddenly, it felt like her chaste cotton night rail was made of butterfly wings. Each shift of cloth on skin reminded her of just how bare she would be when he removed it.

  For a moment, memories from the past clawed at her mind like a rat in a cage. The headache, which had eased during the quiet hours since dinner, began to return.

  She took a slow breath to clear her head. The past was the past. Tonight would be different. There would be no fear or guilt since the man involved was her husband. Not only that, the man she had married was a romantic daydream come to life. There was not a braver or more honourable man in all of England than Gerald Wiscombe and there were few men as handsome.

  If only he didn’t hate her...

  After what seemed like hours of silence, she heard the hall door of the room beside hers open and close. There was no second voice, or any other indication that he’d summoned a servant to help him prepare for bed. In fact, there was no sound at all. Had he forgotten about her already and gone to sleep?

  It would be better to face her fears and seek him out than to lie awake in her bed, waiting for a summons that might never come. It took a few more minutes to steel her nerve before she tiptoed across the floor of her room to the connecting door and opened it, just a crack.

  ‘Come.’ It was a command. The first of many, she suspected. As a good wife ought, she obeyed it.

  Perhaps the wine at dinner had mellowed him. Except for his boots, he was still dressed and stretched full length upon his bed, staring at the canopy above him. Compared to the scowls of the afternoon and the guarded smiles of dinner, he looked at peace with himself and the world.

  It would be a shame to ruin that for either of them. She had the sudden, craven desire to retreat.

  ‘I thought you had a headache,’ he said without looking in her direction.

  ‘It is better,’ she lied. Now that she was in his room, it was coming back again.

  ‘Then do not hang about the doorway. If you are coming in, come in.’ He did not finish with the suggestion that she should do it or go away, but it was implied.

  So forward she went, into the room, shutting the door behind her. A different man, she reminded herself. A different room. Or it might as well have been. She had made sure that nothing remained of the old master bedroom but her memories.

  He turned away from her to stare at one of the pictures on the wall, giving it far more attention than a simple landscape deserved. Were the details in some way wrong? Most likely they were and he was m
aking a note to have the thing removed and replaced.

  The one thing he did not seem interested in was her. She had not expected him to spring upon her like a wild beast and force her on to her back. But neither had she expected uninterest. She felt like a fool standing here in her simple gown and her sad little hair ribbon. He did not want her. Now that they were alone, there was no reason for him to pretend otherwise.

  He sighed as if her presence in the room was an interruption and looked back to her, then gestured absently to the side of his bed closest to her own door. When she did not move, he prompted, ‘Get in.’ Then he sat up and untied his neckcloth without bothering to see if she complied.

  Before he could ask again, she pulled back the coverlet and climbed between the sheets, resisting the urge to pull them up so she might hide under the blankets. It was not as if there was anything to see, should he decide to look. Her gown was buttoned to the throat. But it proved one thing to both of them. She was not planning to bend him to her will through seduction. If she’d intended that, she would have done a better job of preparing for it.

  Her husband sat on the edge of the bed, his back still to her. When he pulled his shirt over his head, she got her first look at a man’s naked back. She could not help it. She gasped.

  ‘Eh?’ He turned with a half enquiring, half annoyed look.

  ‘The scar.’ She pointed.

  His face softened, then he laughed. ‘It is not a very heroic story, I’m afraid. A screaming Frenchman was galloping down upon me from behind. On seeing that my attention was elsewhere, my friend, MacKenzie of the Scots Greys, shot him in the back. It was too late to stop the full charge. He did not run me through as he’d planned. But the damned frog dragged the blade down my back as he fell and cut my coat to ribbons. It was some time before we were able to dress the wound, which was hardly deep enough to care about. I stripped off what was left of my shirt, and Mac poured a measure of his usquebaugh on my back and a wee dram into me. Then I sewed up my jacket and slept on my stomach for a week.’

  ‘That is all?’ she said, surprised.

  He nodded. ‘If it bothers you, then I suspect you will be even more disturbed when you see the rest of me.’

  She had been thinking just such a thing when trying to imagine him naked.

  He laughed again and gave a lascivious waggle of his eyebrows to show that he had been talking of other scars, but knew full well what she’d been thinking.

  She shrank a little farther under the covers. The papers had said nothing of such things. They’d left her to imagine entire scenarios based on the phrase heroic charge. ‘Were you injured often?’

  He gave a non-committal shrug as he pulled off his stockings and threw them towards the wardrobe. ‘As much as anyone, I’m sure. But not as much as those who did not come home.’ Then he stood, turned to face her and displayed his chest. There was another cut across his upper arm, but it was clear from the wide scar that this had been deeper than the one across his back. And lower, just above his waist, was a puckered puncture.

  He pointed. ‘This is the one that should have done for me. A hole in the guts is a damned ugly way to die. But it managed to miss my vitals and come right out the other side. Of course, you won’t see that until I take off my breeches.’

  ‘But you recovered,’ she said with a sigh of relief.

  ‘I was feverish, of course. But I fought it off and was back in the saddle in a month and a half. The surgeon said it was a miracle. I assume I should be thanking you for your prayers for my safety.’ He said the last with an ironic twist of his lips.

  For all she knew, it was exactly how he had survived. Would he believe her, should she tell him so? ‘I prayed fervently for your good health each night for seven years.’ When she saw the answering glare, she added a smile as ironic as his had been. It seemed to satisfy him more than her sincerity.

  ‘And now you have got your wish.’ He undid the buttons on his breeches, dropped them to the floor and kicked them out of the way as he pulled back the bedcovers and climbed in beside her.

  She had known for some time that it would not be the soft dumpling of a boy who came to her, should her wedding night ever occur. But she had not been prepared for Gerald Wiscombe in the flesh. Even flaccid he was a formidable specimen. His lack of embarrassment at his own nakedness made him all the more intimidating.

  Despite the scars, he was also blessedly intact. She’d seen more than her share of veterans of the Peninsula walking the halls of the Chase on wooden legs and crutches, or with empty coat sleeves pinned up to keep them out of the way. But whether from luck or answered prayers, her captain had returned with two strong arms and two good legs.

  Now that she could see all of him, she’d noted the tracery of smaller scars that accompanied the major wounds. This was a man who viewed injury as mere inconvenience, should it stand in the way of what he wished to achieve. Once he had begun, resisting would be futile.

  For a moment, the old fears returned and she shrank back even farther towards the edge of the bed, glancing towards the door of her room.

  He made no effort to reach for her. ‘You may leave if you wish. I have no intention of holding a wife by force, especially you.’ Then he rolled on to his stomach. ‘Or you might make yourself useful and rub the knots out of my shoulders. After three days in the saddle I am as stiff as an unsoaped harness.’

  ‘H-how would I do that?’ It was an unexpected request. But it would be less frightening to do than to be done to.

  ‘It will not be difficult. Begin by putting your hands about my throat and pretending that you wish to choke the life out of me.’ He laughed into the pillow.

  She could not see his face. But by the tone of his voice he seemed to be honestly amused by the idea that she might want to hurt him. At least he trusted her enough to turn his back to her while naked and defenceless. She responded to his trust with her own and pulled her legs up under her to kneel at his side. Then she placed her hands on his shoulders and began to knead.

  It was easy to see why he’d wanted her help. The muscles beneath her fingers were as hard and unyielding as bags of sand. Or perhaps that was normal. She had never touched so much bare male skin in her life. As she worked over them, she felt the flesh begin to soften and relax.

  Her own tension was easing, as well. The warmth of his body and the rhythmic kneading of her own hands worked as a soporific. The last of the pain in her head diminished to a dull throb, then disappeared.

  It was replaced by hesitant pleasure. She liked touching him. There was something very comforting about the feel of his warm flesh beneath her hands, as if he could transfer his bravery to her through the skin. She wanted to curl up next to him, to press her cheek into his shoulder and stay there until the world felt right again.

  In response to her massage, her husband grunted in satisfaction. ‘You are almost as good at this as an army leech. Of course, he used horse liniment.’

  In spite of herself, she smiled. Then she dug her fingers more deeply into the space beneath his shoulder blades. ‘I am sure we can find something better than camphor and turpentine to use in the bedroom. My maid has a recipe for a balm made with beeswax and peppermint...’

  He was laughing again, his shoulders shaking with mirth. Then he gave a lurch and rolled, catching her wrists and pulling her off balance and on to her back. ‘By all means, we must render me sweet-smelling if we are to share a bed.’

  The sudden change in position left her breathless and light-headed. But this time it was a good feeling, more like floating than fainting. There was something about his smile, so close above her, that kept her from being afraid. She answered him with a hesitant nod.

  He leaned on his elbows so that he might look down into her eyes. ‘You are a comely wench, Lily Wiscombe.’ He ran a fingertip along the line of her jaw. Then his smile was coming closer and
his lips met hers.

  Wiscombe.

  She was not a North any more. She was a Wiscombe. One of two. Soon, two would become one. If it was anything like this kiss, she had nothing to fear. His mouth was open and his lips moved slowly against hers. Very gently, she reached out with the tip of her tongue to taste the crooked smile and the tiny imperfections that made him so fascinating to look at.

  In response, his body stirred. His arms tightened around her. Their breath mingled in a sigh.

  ‘He mounted his horse in the night at the door,

  ‘And sat with his face to the crupper.’

  The song, bawdy and off-key, came like a nightmare interrupting a dream. Mr Carstairs was in his cups, and walking down the corridor of the family wing at the worst possible time.

  Her mind immediately flew to the hall door of her own room. She replayed the memory of locking it after her maid left. She’d set the key upon the dresser, just as she did every night. She was safe.

  But that room had never been the problem. This was the room that was dangerous. It might look different, but underneath the paint and paper it was the same. And the doors here were not locked as they ought to be. Anyone might enter from the hall. Her head was pounding now as she waited for the sound of a hand testing the handle.

  Her husband pulled away from her, staring at the door. ‘What the devil...?’

  ‘Some scoundrel has cut off the head of my horse,

  ‘While I was engaged with the bottle...’

  The song was even louder now, even closer. But she was not alone this time. And it was not just her husband come too late to save her from dishonour. Her hero, Captain Wiscombe, was finally here and bristling with righteous anger.

  Suddenly, her fear of the drunk in the hallway seemed overblown. She touched her husband’s bare arm. ‘It is nothing,’ she said, praying that was true. ‘If we ignore him, he will go away.’ She would lie awake the rest of the night fearing that he, or someone else, would return. But as long as Captain Wiscombe was here, she would be safe.