The Secrets of Wiscombe Chase

by Christine Merrill

  He did his best to ignore it. But now that he had recognised it, the sound of shifting feet on the hall rug behind him was maddening. At last, to no one in particular, he said, ‘Go away.’

  There was a sniffle in response.

  Children’s tears were even more annoying than women’s. Especially when they were someone else’s children and none of his concern. But it was not the child’s fault that he was a bastard. It would be unfair to treat him too harshly. ‘And well done on the mathematics,’ he added, without turning around.

  The sniffling stopped. There was a sigh, then the shuffling receded down the hallway.

  Very good. He had no time to deal with a single mouse when the whole house was full of rats. He continued down the hall. Gerry checked the morning room, and music room, and salon, but found them vacant. This left him with the biggest folly of his foolish house: the conservatory.

  Father had claimed that no true Wiscombe cared a fig about plants, on a plate or in a pot. So it had been the first space to fail after his mother had died. With its cracked panes and overgrown tangles of ivy and ferns it had sat for years like a cancer in healthy flesh, letting the noxious wildness into the rest of the house, as if the woods themselves had come to take revenge for the continual disturbance of the wildlife.

  But when he entered today, he was struck by the fresh smell of lemons on the two dwarf trees that flanked the entrance and the sweet spice of geraniums and gillyflowers in pots by the windows. Sunlight streamed through the glass roof and walls, which were both clean and unbroken. The beams shining though the green glass panes that decorated the walls cast a mottled pattern on the veined marble floor that resembled a carpet of fallen leaves.

  In the midst of it was the fairest flower in the house: his Lily. She had not yet noticed him enter, so he used the opportunity to observe her. Did she know that the midday sun behind her shone through the muslin gown to reveal far more of her figure than he had seen last night while they were in bed? A thin layer of gauze and a few embroidered flowers were all that stood between him and the paradise of her high, full breasts, round hips and shapely legs.

  Seven years’ bitter experience separated him and the naive child he’d been when he’d married her. Yet, when he looked at her he felt the same tightening in throat and groin that he’d experienced on the day he’d met her. He’d known that they were not making a love match, despite what her father claimed. What would a beauty like her want with a nothing like him? But perhaps, if he returned to her with a chest full of medals and a full purse, she would look at him with something other than frustration and disappointment. What a fool he had been.

  As if she had heard his thoughts, she looked up at him now and gave a little gasp of shock. She dropped the bamboo-handled paintbrush she had been holding and it rolled across the floor to stop at his boot toe.

  He stared down at it in surprise. Just now, he’d been too preoccupied by her figure to notice the easel she worked at and the watercolours on the glass-topped table beside her. It should not have surprised him. All ladies had hobbies and this one was not uncommon. But it had never occurred to him that his wife would have interests, other than spending his money and making him miserable with her infidelity.

  Without a word, he picked up the brush and went forward into the room to give it back to her.

  ‘Thank you, Captain Wiscombe.’ She gave a nervous curtsy and cast her eyes downward, as though not quite sure how to respond to his sudden appearance.

  His mind was equally unsettled by her demure response. ‘You paint?’ It was good that he had not been trying to impress her. He’d never have done it with such a fatuous remark.

  She shrugged, embarrassed. ‘Watercolours, mostly.’ When pressed to make conversation, she seemed just as awkward as he felt.

  He glanced down at a tall stack of books and newspapers beside the paints. A closer look revealed them to be a mix of atlases, gazetteers and histories of Spain, France and Portugal, along with several old copies of The Times. ‘And these?’

  ‘Inspiration,’ she said and almost knocked over her water glass as she tried to hide the clipping on the top of the stack.

  He was faster, holding her wrist with one hand and snatching up the paper with the other. He scanned the text, reading a few lines aloud. ‘“And notable for their valour in the charge was the troop led by Captain Gerald Wiscombe...”’ He put the paper back on the table and smiled at her. ‘You find me inspiring?’

  She shrugged again, blushing. ‘I followed the news of the war. It would have been foolish not to. And while flowers are lovely, one can only draw so many of them before it becomes tiring.’

  A feeble excuse from someone who was obviously enamoured of the dashing hero the newspapers had made him out to be. He’d met such women before. He could set them to giggling and blushing with a single smile. An invitation to hear a few of his tamer war stories would end with them sitting indecently close, his arm draped about soft shoulders in reassurance as sweet lips offered rewards for his bravery.

  He looked at the woman before him, his woman, and stifled recollections of his romantic past with an embarrassed cough. He released her hand. ‘And what is your current project?’ He glanced at the work in progress. ‘Mont-Saint-Jean?’ He could not keep the surprise from his voice.

  ‘It is only a copy.’ She pointed to the open book beside her paints.

  Perhaps it was. But the style of rendering was familiar. ‘You did the paintings in my room?’

  ‘It seemed like a sensible place to put them,’ she said. ‘At least until something better could be found to decorate the walls. I hesitated to choose permanent ornaments without your input. I will remove them, if you like.’

  ‘No,’ he said hurriedly. ‘Your work is surprisingly accurate for someone who has never visited those places.’ He glanced back at the picture in the book. ‘See here?’ He pointed. ‘You’ve changed the angle of the light and captured the colour of it in a way this pencil sketch did not. And in the pictures in my room you’ve found the wild beauty of the countryside and omitted the chaos and blood that we left. It is how I want to remember the places I’ve been. The pictures are perfect just where they are.’

  ‘Perfect,’ she repeated, surprised.

  ‘I like them well, as I do the rest of the decoration. Is that also your doing?’

  She gave another shrug. ‘I merely chose the things I imagined a man such as Captain Wiscombe might appreciate, after reading accounts of your bravery.’ Her gaze dropped even farther, as if she were fascinated with the toes of her own slippers. ‘You were quite famous, you know.’

  ‘I did nothing that other soldiers wouldn’t have done in my place.’ If she would giggle or flirt, he might be able to respond in kind. But the earnestness of her praise embarrassed him. While in the thick of the action, he’d never intended to be a hero.

  ‘On the contrary, the papers said Captain Wiscombe showed singular bravery, charging ahead when others retreated.’ Now that she’d admitted to her preoccupation with his career, she gathered the nerve to look up at him with wide-eyed awe.

  ‘You talk of this Wiscombe fellow as if he is some sort of paragon that a lady might swoon over and not standing here in front of you.’ He looked at her, waiting for her to laugh at the hyperbole.

  Instead, the blush in her cheeks turned scarlet. She could not seem to utter a syllable in response. This was no common infatuation that might be appeased with a single kiss on the cheek. She might have stood yesterday’s criticism with cool grace. But today, she was suffering an agony of mortification over gentle mockery.

  Had she really created an ideal of him in her mind and doted on it, just as he’d hoped she would? If so, it was too late. Her loyalty was worth nothing if she’d only found it after she’d betrayed him. But staring at the half-finished picture on the easel, he felt the anger beginning to drain o
ut of him, just as it did when he entered his room the previous evening. He looked away.

  ‘Whatever the reason for your painting,’ he said gruffly, ‘you’ve done well by it. And the bedroom you’ve prepared for me is quite the nicest I have been in. It suits me. Do not change a thing about it and hang as many pictures there as you care to paint.’

  ‘Very well, Captain.’ With her assent, she seemed to stifle her more tender feelings with the unquestioning obedience he’d requested yesterday.

  She must not give up so easily. ‘We will admire them together tonight,’ he reminded her, flashing his most devilish grin. It was unfair to toy with her, but he could not resist.

  ‘Yes, Captain.’ This time, the breathlessness in her voice stole his own, as did the thought of this beautiful creature in his bed. It would be just as he dreamed of, after all. Once he’d chased the last of the guests from the house, they would be able to explore their passions in private.

  And then he reminded himself that she and her family had been instrumental in gathering the people he must now evict. While they might have stopped the leaks in the roof, they’d let Greywall into the house, allowing the one thing he’d hoped to avoid by accepting wife and commission.

  While his wife’s devotion to him was flattering, it was a new thing compared to the loyalty she’d shown to her conniving father and brother. Though Lily was beautiful, sometimes poison could be hidden in a pretty bottle. He should have better sense than to drink it.

  ‘I did not come here to speak of my war record, or your feelings about it,’ he said, crushing the fragile rapport between them. ‘I want you to tell me what is really going on in this house.’

  ‘What, exactly, do you wish to know about?’ He watched the blush fade from her cheeks, revealing the cool, distant woman who presided over his dinner table. Her question was not an evasion so much as a request for clarification.

  He gave it to her. ‘What are your father and brother doing in my house, and who are these guests they have invited here? And what does it have to do with their initial eagerness that I marry you?’

  To his surprise, she looked almost relieved that he had asked. ‘My father makes regular trips to London, where he has ingratiated himself into the sorts of circles where there is too much ready money and very little standing in society. When he has found three or four fellows who seem interested in changing one for the other, he invites them to a house party.’

  ‘You cannot buy rank,’ Gerry said with a shake of his head.

  ‘You did,’ she pointed out. ‘Father often opines that it would be better if society worked as the military did. There would be room enough at the pinnacle if it were easier for men of vision to pay their way up to being gentlemen.’

  ‘Perhaps so,’ he acknowledged. ‘But that is not the way of things.’

  ‘But suppose there was an opportunity to dine in intimacy with a member of the peerage. A friendship there might result in other invitations and a chance to move in more august circles once one returned to London.’

  ‘Greywall,’ Gerry said with a frown.

  ‘An earl could be kept like the bear in the Tower of London,’ she agreed.

  ‘As if my neighbour was ever of real benefit to anyone,’ Gerry said sceptically. ‘And what does your father gain by this far-fetched altruism?’ It was a question he should have asked himself when offered a beautiful wife and a commission. ‘Does he charge admission?’

  ‘That would be too obvious.’ She waved the hand that held the brush as if painting the truth in the air. ‘The gentlemen who visit are better at making money than friends.’

  ‘They are drunken louts,’ Gerry agreed.

  ‘It makes them susceptible to offers that appear friendly, especially when they include a chance to make even more money. After a few days spent bagging partridges and chasing foxes, and a few nights drinking good wine, they are offered an opportunity that cannot fail to profit. My father thinks of them as investors.’

  ‘Investors,’ Gerry repeated. ‘In what?’

  ‘I believe the current offering is the breeding of Russian sables,’ Lily responded with a sigh.

  ‘That is the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard.’

  ‘So you would think. But it has worked several times before. The first time, he bought an actual pair of the animals to bolster the plan.’

  ‘The first time?’ he said, amazed.

  ‘It seems the sable farm is doomed to failure. The first pair escaped into the woods and have been—’ she gave an embarrassed cough ‘—fornicating with martins and not each other.’

  ‘If he has no sables, how can he convince anyone of the viability of this plan?’

  She gave a small shrug. ‘Does a Londoner know what a sable looks like before it has been made into a coat collar? A stoat dyed black will do just as well.’ Now she was smiling. ‘Ronald got a rather nasty bite during that process. Apparently, stoats do not enjoy being dipped.’

  ‘Is that your brother’s sole part in the scheme, the painting of weasels?’

  She shook her head. ‘My father is a man of big ideas. My brother less so. He enjoys cards and billiards. Any game of chance, really. He invariably wins. That is why Greywall is here. At this point, I believe we own more of his estate than he does himself.’

  We. Had she even noticed she’d said it? Possibly not. But it annoyed him that as she’d explained her family’s plans, she’d grown more animated and the colour had returned to her cheeks. ‘That explains your father and brother,’ he said. ‘The guests and the earl, as well. But what is your part in all this?’

  Her smile disappeared. ‘Recently? I am hostess. Nothing more than that. I make sure the house is maintained. I avoid the guests as much as I am able. I do not approve of what is happening here. Really, I do not.’ The protest was adamant, but it came far too late in the conversation.

  ‘But that is, as you say, recently. What was your part before?’

  ‘To be pretty and biddable,’ she said, her eyes falling. ‘To marry where I was told and not ask questions.’

  ‘You were bait for me,’ he clarified.

  ‘To make the plan work, they needed the earl. He is your neighbour.’

  ‘And he has coveted this house since my father was alive,’ Gerry added.

  ‘He wants the stag that has been roaming your land for ages.’

  Gerry nodded. ‘My father called him Rex. King of the forest. I saw him in the woods as I arrived.’

  ‘Wanting a thing is different from getting it,’ she replied.

  ‘I am aware of that.’ He looked at her and thought of his own marriage and what that first decision had gained and lost him over the years.

  ‘They wanted you so they might get the house. They needed the house to trap the earl. The earl attends these parties to reclaim his markers from my brother.’

  ‘And his presence attracts your father’s investors from London,’ he finished.

  ‘As will yours, if they are allowed to continue,’ she whispered, glancing at the door as if she feared to be overheard. ‘My brother thinks he will convince you that you owe them for the improvements made on the house. If that does not work, he will find some other way to trick you out of your money. Father assumes I will help them because I am a North. And the Norths always look after their own.’

  She looked so dejected at the thought that his common sense fled, just as it had on the day he’d met her. ‘Then it is a good thing you are not a North,’ he reminded her, taking the paintbrush from her hand. ‘You are a Wiscombe now.’ Then he tipped her chin up so that he might kiss her.

  In Portugal, he’d often regretted that he had not come to her on their very first night as man and wife. He should have claimed her as his own immediately. But kissing her today, the remorse faded. Without having known others, how would he ha
ve recognised the sweetness of her kisses? Her mouth opened to him with the slightest coaxing. As he drank deeply from it, her body settled against his, ready to submit.

  His hands were resting on the bare flesh at the base of her neck and he felt the pulse beating against the tips of his thumbs grow faster. He squeezed her shoulders in encouragement before smoothing his palms over and down her back, pressing her breasts and belly hard against his chest. At last, he reached the flare of her hips and her rounded bottom. He first cupped and then kneaded the flesh until she was squirming against his budding erection, gasping in eagerness.

  He would have her here, naked as Eve in the Garden of Eden. He could imagine trapping her against the windows, his palms pressed flat to the cool glass. The scent of lemons would mingle with her musk as he thrust. And her cries...

  Her cries would alert the household. He did not give a damn for any of the people here. But it would be more enjoyable to act out this particular fantasy once he had divested the Chase of the excess inhabitants.

  He tightened his hands to fists, digging his nails into his palms to distract him from the temptation of her body. Then he moved his hands back to her shoulders and gently pushed her away. It pleased him to see that she looked as disappointed as he felt by the end of their play. But it was not nearly as nice as it would be when they had time to continue.

  He cleared his throat and smiled. ‘As I said before, tonight we will have time to discuss the pictures that are hanging in my room.’

  ‘Yes, Captain Wiscombe,’ she said with a dazed smile.

  ‘And we will discuss your concerns about the future, as well. But do not worry, Mrs Wiscombe.’ He added a slight emphasis to the surname, so she might remember it. ‘Since there are but two of us Wiscombes, we must stick together.’

  ‘Three.’ The child’s voice came from the doorway, breaking his mood like a stone through window glass. ‘There are three Wiscombes, Papa. Do not forget me.’