The Seduction of an English Lady

by Cathy Maxwell

  Not even Colin.

  “I understand a bit of how you think,” Matt continued, “because I knew Father Ruley, and I knew you wanted more than I did. It was always that way between us. I was content and you were restless. So, now, let us bring home to roost some other truths, brother. Has it dawned on you yet that you didn’t receive your precious knighthood for service to the Crown during the war not because of your willingness to speak your mind but because the world doesn’t always believe the end justifies the means? You run roughshod over people, Colin. You’ve trampled on your family. You married Lady Rosalyn for the basest of reasons—prestige and fortune. You’ve done everything without any true conviction other than your own gain. And now, you are here and wanting me to wish you happy?”

  Matt shook his head. “I can’t. I won’t. I would have preferred true and genuine affection. I would have liked the banns to be announced and time taken for the two of you to consider what the vows you would be making before God would mean. But then, it doesn’t matter, does it? Because you’ll have your life in London and she will be here. Eventually, you’ll be too busy on ‘important matters’ to return to Clitheroe, and so the circle continues.”

  Colin took a step back. The earth no longer seemed beneath his feet. The truth of his brother’s words shook him deeply.

  Matt gripped both sides of the pulpit, his face tense from emotion. He stood as Colin’s judge, and Colin didn’t like it one whit.

  “You know, I would like to plant a facer on you right now,” Colin confessed.

  His words broke the tension a bit. “Why don’t you?” Matt asked, the condemnation gone from his voice.

  “Because,” Colin started, his eyes burning. “Because some of what you said is right.”

  He didn’t wait for a response but turned on his heel and walked out of the church. It would be a cold, dark day before he returned, he silently vowed.

  Joseph and Thomas had found Oscar and had led him and the phaeton down to the church. They pulled up grass in the yard and fed it to the starving horse. Colin mumbled something appropriate about their being good lads, and he tousled both their heads before climbing onto the phaeton. He barely remembered driving to Maiden Hill.

  And yet, that was where he was going. Nowhere else. Maiden Hill was his home now.

  He’d tell Rosalyn what had happened. She’d help him make sense of everything. With her clear, level thinking, she would understand, and she’d sanction his reasons for not returning all these years, not even to see his parents. She’d remind him he wasn’t a bad sort…just a selfish one.

  Colin reined Oscar to a halt. They sat in the middle of the road. He looked around, recognizing this spot of the Valley. As a boy, he’d run and crawled over every field and hillside around Clitheroe. Matt had rarely wandered off, but Colin had always pushed the boundaries. He’d always wanted more.

  Was that such a bad thing?

  He slapped the reins, and Oscar started off at a trot. What a great heart this horse had. He was loyal to Colin. “Is that not a start?” he asked aloud.

  Matt wasn’t there to answer.

  As Colin pulled up in front of Maiden Hill, he saw they had visitors. John held two fine hunters, one of which was Lord Loftus’s horse.

  Colin set the brake on the phaeton and jumped down. “We have guests?”

  “Aye, you do, sir.”

  Colin took a moment to unharness Oscar. He deserved a rest. He’d tend to the horse’s other needs in a moment, and he walked toward the door, aware that Oscar was making his way in the direction of Rosalyn’s flower beds. Colin wasn’t going to worry about it now.

  He’d just stepped inside the door and tossed his hat on a side table when Loftus charged into the hallway, his face red with fury. Shellsworth, also dressed in hunting clothes, followed close behind.

  “Mandland, I want an answer!” Loftus barked.

  “To what question, my lord?” Colin asked, not really in the mood for Loftus’s nonsense.

  “The fox!” his lordship charged. “You stole my fox! Took him right out from under me! And I want him back!”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Confronted by Lord Loftus’s anger, the thought struck Colin that here he had owned Maiden Hill for a little over three weeks and he’d yet been able to sit in front of the fire and put his feet up.

  Behind Loftus and Shellsworth stood a very scattered Mrs. Covington and a tall, confident Rosalyn, who said proudly, “I told Lord Loftus his charges are silly.”

  Colin smiled. Damn if she wouldn’t brazen it out and get away with it, too. She had more pride than a queen.

  “They aren’t silly!” Loftus returned. “A young lad and his girl saw Mandland pick the fox up off the road and put him in his rig. They saw it! And I’d just about run him to ground! He was mine.”

  Rosalyn opened her mouth, ready to defend Colin’s actions, but he couldn’t let her. His brother’s words still echoed in his ears. What did he care that Loftus was upset over the fox?

  “My lord, you are right. I did pick up the fox,” he said. “The creature appeared injured and, since I value all God’s creatures, I rescued it.”

  “Do you expect me to believe that horny toad nonsense?” his lordship shot back. “ ‘All God’s creatures.’ What a farce!”

  “Farce or not, it is what happened.” Colin dared Loftus to take the matter a step further and call him a liar. He’d stared down better men, and he was not afraid to put steel behind his words.

  The portly lord didn’t want to back down. His temper had the better of him, and, yet, his sense of self-preservation was starting to doubt the wisdom of a challenge.

  Shellsworth took this moment to interject himself. “My lord, may I make a suggestion? It’s admirable and noble of Colonel Mandland to rescue a woodland creature, but now he knows it is your fox, and therefore should hand it over to us.”

  “Yes! That’s right!” Loftus quickly seconded. “Give me back my fox, and all will rest easy between us.”

  “No.” Colin didn’t even weigh the consequences before he gave his succinct, definite answer. He’d not turn the fox over to be destroyed.

  Lord Loftus’s response was something to behold. His face grew redder, his eyes crossed, and his whole body shook. He sputtered out, “You would tell me no?”

  Colin flicked his glance to the lawyer, who shrugged with an apologetic smile. “I would tell you no,” Colin affirmed.

  For a moment, Lord Loftus’s mouth opened and shut like a fish gasping for air as if no one had ever dared to defy him.

  Rosalyn came forward. “Lord Loftus, you look as if you could use a glass of a…um…what do we have, Covey?”

  “We have some sherry,” Covey answered. “Perhaps two glasses—?” she suggested hopefully.

  “Yes, Covey, two glasses of sherry is a brilliant idea,” Rosalyn was saying. “Lord Loftus will feel better in a moment. Here, I’ll pour.” She started for the sitting room, presumably to fetch sherry, which no man worth his salt would ever drink, when Lord Loftus’s voice stopped her in her tracks.

  “If you believe I will give the Commons seat to a man who would defy me, you are wrong,” Loftus said. “Now, give me that fox.”

  There it was. The gauntlet had been thrown down between them. What man would be fool enough to toss away his future for the life of a miserable little fox?

  What was it his brother had accused him of? Believing the ends justified the means? Of running roughshod over others for what he wanted?

  Apparently not when it came to a fox.

  “I will not give you the fox,” Colin said.

  Loftus stumbled back, as if he had not expected Colin to defy him. “You have made an error. A grave, grave error.” He looked to Shellsworth. “You want the Commons seat.”

  “I would be honored to accept the position, your lordship,” the lawyer responded promptly.

  “And you know your place, too,” Loftus practically growled out. “Come, let us discuss the matter.” He s
tomped past Colin and out of the house.

  Shellsworth had to scurry to keep up.

  Colin watched the two of them mount their horses and ride off. It wasn’t until the dust of their leaving had settled that he realized what he had just done.

  He knew the Valley. Everyone knew better than to offend Lord Loftus. The man wielded real power, passed down through his family from one generation to another. He was the feudal lord, the law. His power in the Valley rivaled the king’s.

  And he was furious with Colin.

  Shutting the door, he turned to find Rosalyn and Mrs. Covington looking at him, each in a state of shock.

  “Sherry? Right?” he said, not expecting an answer. He walked into the sitting room, where he didn’t have any trouble identifying the liquor cabinet.

  Rosalyn couldn’t gauge Colin’s mood. She exchanged a glance with Covey, who was even more confused than she was. The barely controlled violence in Lord Loftus’s temper had been disconcerting, as was Colin’s silence following the scene.

  With a nod, she silently asked Covey to give her a moment alone with her husband. Her companion didn’t even miss a beat. “I’ll see to supper,” she said.

  The sitting room was dark enough now that a candle would not be inappropriate. Colin had the liquor cabinet open. In his hand he held a bottle of whiskey three-quarters full. He acknowledged her presence by saying, “There’s sherry, but also this bottle of aged whiskey here. Do you think Mrs. Covington has been holding out on us?” He poured himself a glass.

  “She probably didn’t know it was there. She rarely goes into the cabinet. It may be years old.”

  “Perfect. That is the best whiskey.” He toasted her and downed the glass.

  “You didn’t do anything wrong,” Rosalyn said. “I wouldn’t have let him have the fox either.”

  Colin didn’t answer, save for a self-deprecating smile. He refilled his glass.

  “Colin, drinking yourself into a stupor solves nothing.”

  He shook his head. “Do you think I give a damn what that petty little tyrant thinks?”

  “Yes.”

  At last he looked at her, and what she saw in his expression tore at her heart. “You know me better than I know myself,” he admitted. He drew a deep breath and released it slowly. “Rosalyn, let me have some time alone. I fear I’m not going to be good company.”

  He grabbed the bottle in one hand and walked over to the upholstered chair in front of the hearth. He set the glass and bottle on a side table and, propping his booted heels on a footstool, sat down as if settling in for the night.

  Rosalyn didn’t know what to do. She’d been shut out. Their early camaraderie, the connection between the two of them, had vanished as if it had never existed. She sensed his distance. He wanted nothing to do with her right now. He preferred his bottle.

  “I’ll see you at dinner,” she said uncertainly.

  He didn’t answer, his attention on the drink in his hand. She had no choice but to leave the room. She shut the door, needing a physical barrier to symbolize the emotional one between them.

  An hour later, she met Covey in the dining room. “Is the colonel coming?” Covey asked. Bridget and Cook had gone to great pains for this dinner. The table was set as if for the most respected company. Rosalyn hated disappointing them.

  “I don’t think so,” she said slowly and braced herself for the questions that would be asked and for which she had no answers.

  But Covey surprised her. “Ah, well, sometimes men have to work out their frustrations in their own ways. Let us enjoy the meal.”

  Bridget served, and then Covey excused her so that she and Rosalyn could be alone. Rosalyn was thankful her dear companion had taken charge. Personally, she had little appetite.

  “I don’t understand it,” she said finally, setting aside her fork and giving up all pretense of eating.

  “He wanted the Commons seat,” Covey answered.

  Yes, Rosalyn knew that. He’d married her for it…and right now, with her heart involved, the knowledge that it had meant more to him than herself hurt in ways she could never have imagined.

  Covey leaned across to her and covered Rosalyn’s hand with her own. “Don’t think it.”

  “Think what?” Rosalyn challenged.

  “You are wondering what you mean to him. You are equating his behavior now to his feelings for you.”

  She was right. “How did you know?”

  Her companion smiled sympathetically. “You are in love with him. I could tell the moment I saw the two of you together this afternoon.”

  “More the fool I,” Rosalyn confessed.

  “Why? Because he’s feeling sorry for himself in the other room?”

  “Because he doesn’t love me,” Rosalyn answered. There, she’d said it. “It’s the story of my father and my mother all over again. Covey, I told myself I would never let such a thing happen, and here I have gone off and fallen in love with a man who married me for political gain. And now he isn’t going to get what he wants….” She put her elbow on the table and pressed her fist to her lips, struggling to not break down.

  “My dear, he’s disappointed—and, yes, in a bit of a pout—but I don’t believe he blames you,” Covey said stoutly.

  “Who else is there to blame?”

  “Himself.” Her friend leaned forward. “The colonel is a fair man. He made his own choices.”

  “You and your ‘choices,’ ” Rosalyn said in frustration. She shook her head. “He doesn’t love me,” she repeated, the words still having the power to hurt.

  “Then make him love you.” Covey pushed back her chair with an exasperated sound. “You don’t try, Rosalyn. You’ve never tried.”

  “Tried what?”

  “Tried to make yourself loveable. It’s as if you can’t trust anyone. You assume the only reason any of us are near you is for our own gain. You think I’m here because I have nowhere else to go. You organize routs and parties because it gives you power and from power comes respect and need. You’ve never once entertained the idea that we enjoyed your company, that you mattered to us.”

  That was true. Covey was the only person Rosalyn trusted, and only after she’d secretly tested the depths of that friendship.

  “The irony, of course,” Covey continued, “is that now that I am a member of the tight sphere of your friends, I was so valuable you would have sacrificed yourself to marriage for me. Rosalyn, please, you must not always be so afraid. I haven’t let you down, others won’t either.”

  “But Colin isn’t you,” Rosalyn protested.

  “No, and he could leave. My dear, he didn’t have to marry you—”

  “He wanted the seat—”

  “He tossed it aside for a fox!” Covey shook her head. “Rosalyn, Rosalyn, Rosalyn. Please, don’t be so hard. Be forgiving. None of us is perfect. Let your husband have his ‘pity’ time…but don’t be so stiff and unyielding that he can’t turn to you.”

  “I’m not that hard,” Rosalyn said, hurt and a bit embarrassed over Covey’s characterization.

  “You are hard,” Covey answered without sentiment. “I know about the letters your mother has sent. You’ve never answered one, and I imagine she has begged you for some small word of forgiveness or understanding.”

  “You know she has written me?” Rosalyn thought this her secret alone.

  “Who do you think gave her your address?”

  “You?”

  “Yes.” Covey folded her hands on the table.

  “She abandoned me,” Rosalyn said, her temper rising.

  “She made a mistake—a grave one—but she is trying to make amends.”

  “She can’t!”

  Covey didn’t flinch in the face of Rosalyn’s flat rejection. “No, she can’t,” she agreed. “Not unless you are willing to unbend.”

  “My pride is all I have,” Rosalyn reiterated.

  “Your pride is leading you around by the nose,” Covey corrected.

  If her frien
d had slapped her in the face, Rosalyn would not have been more surprised—until the truth of Covey’s words sank in.

  The older woman must have sensed she was making progress. She leaned forward again and took Rosalyn’s hand. “You spend too much time trying to please the wrong people. My dear, there is so much to life, but not if you hide behind hurt feelings. I don’t ask you to write your mother. That is between the two of you. But that man in the other room is your one chance for a happiness greater than any you have known.”

  Tears filled Rosalyn’s eyes. She looked away. “What if he never loves me?”

  “How can he not love you? See? It’s a matter of changing the perspective. And there is something between you. I could sense it from the moment you met. Go to him, Rosalyn. Make him share his feelings. Men sometimes have to be coaxed a bit.”

  “I don’t know if I can do that,” Rosalyn said, the words tight in her throat.

  “Yes, you can,” Covey said firmly. “Rosalyn, you are a woman now. You weren’t away for nearly a week in Scotland looking at the sights. You could already be carrying his child in your womb. There is so much that awaits the two of you, but first you must conquer your doubts.”

  “I don’t even know what to say to him. I tried. He wasn’t in the mood to talk.”

  “Then try again.”

  Rosalyn looked into her friend’s face and wondered how she could make something so hard sound so simple. “Where do I begin?”