Lord of Secrets

by Alyssa Everett

  Instead she turned her thoughts once again to his father’s suicide. “You don’t really believe your father was mad, do you, David?”

  He glanced at her with an expression of surprise. “I’m not sure what to believe. I do know he lacked any compelling reason to kill himself. He’d suffered no political or financial reversals. He wasn’t embroiled in any scandal. It had been years since my mother’s death, and I expect I would have heard by now if he’d met with some added heartbreak. What possible explanation does that leave, except madness?”

  She leaned toward him, propping an elbow on one knee, her chin cupped in her hand. “Perhaps he was simply lonely.”

  “Lonely?” David shook his head. “If that were the case, he might have remedied it easily enough. He could have gone to London, or at least played a larger part in local society. He might even have remarried. Even with a young son at home, he was an eligible widower.”

  “But when one is profoundly unhappy, it can be hard to make a change. Change requires the energy to strike out in a new direction and the conviction that matters are likely to improve. Perhaps your father lacked that conviction.”

  David reflected a moment before giving an almost imperceptible shrug. “Perhaps you’re right. My uncle Frederick often said my father gave others the credit for his successes, yet took his failures personally. I can even remember my father remarking that he envied my uncle his ability to go through life without doubts, regrets or second thoughts of any kind.”

  “Your father and your uncle were very different, then?”

  Restless, David plucked a stalk of grass and rolled it between his fingers. “Completely different. That’s what I meant when I said my father could have taken a greater part in society if he’d wished. He cared about the people he met. He felt things. My uncle, on the other hand, was thoroughly practical and matter-of-fact—and, much to his credit, quite the sanest and most rational man I’ve ever known.”

  “But not very popular with your neighbors.”

  “Well, he was not only of a naturally more dispassionate character, he was also plagued by one besetting sin—pride. To my uncle Frederick, duty and lineage were everything, and the greatest sin of all was admitting weakness.”

  “It’s no crime to feel things, David.”

  “No,” he said after a moment, as if he’d never seriously considered the question before. “No, it’s not.”

  Silence settled over them again, David gazing thoughtfully into the distance.

  After a time, Rosalie said, “So you and your uncle didn’t see eye to eye?”

  He tossed the stalk of grass away. “We never clashed openly—that would have been beneath the vaunted Linney dignity—but we were as different as chalk and cheese. I’d inherited something of my father’s thin skin, I suppose, as well as my mother’s love of poetry and language. My uncle, on the other hand, was a stolid, unexcitable sort. His hobby was collecting pocket watches, taking them apart and putting them back together again, scrutinizing their inner workings through a jeweler’s loupe. He took more interest in the springs and dials of his timepieces than he did in the people around him.”

  Rosalie privately thought David was not so much thin-skinned as sensitive, but most men regarded the word as an insult. “Then why did your father choose him as your guardian?”

  “He didn’t—that is, not until Fate stepped in. It’s customary to appoint a maternal relative, someone who doesn’t stand to benefit in the event the heir should suffer some misfortune. But my mother’s father and her only brother died a scarce few weeks before my father’s suicide, and my father neglected to change his will. He never really intended Uncle Frederick to be my guardian, but as the only surviving designee, my uncle acquired the position by default.”

  “How wretched you must have been, left in his charge.”

  With a faint, wry smile, David shook his head. “No, my dear. I can see I’ve put too much emphasis on his flaws, if you imagine he was anything less than a model guardian. The terms of my father’s will put no restrictions on his guardianship, but my uncle nevertheless went before the officers of the Court of Chancery every year and gave a full accounting of the decisions he’d made on my behalf. He was as honest as he was exacting. I couldn’t have asked for a more scrupulous protector of my interests.”

  “Yes, but one would expect any estate manager or man of business to conduct himself with the same correctness. One looks for other things from one’s family, and your uncle was the only real family you had left.”

  “Deep down, he wasn’t a bad fellow. On those rare occasions when some willful act of disobedience earned me a birching, he always seemed more reluctant to deal out the punishment than I was to receive it. He made sure I had only the best tutors and instructors, and every possible comfort and advantage. My allowance would have been the envy of any boy my age. And when I was at Oxford and came down with scarlet fever, he rushed to my sickbed with a prominent physician he’d all but waylaid and forced to accompany him. Beneath the cold exterior, he really did care for me. He simply had trouble showing it.”

  Rosalie remembered the way David had pulled away the first time she’d set her hand on his. Had he acquired his distaste for physical affection from his uncle? No, there had to be some other explanation for David’s reaction. That day on the ship, he’d seemed more than merely uncomfortable. He’d looked positively unnerved.

  She clasped her hands around her knees. “Very well. I accept that your uncle was a good man at heart. But I still think he was the wrong guardian for an impressionable boy who’d lost his father in such a harrowing fashion. What you needed most was kindness and sympathy.”

  David smiled with strained good humor. “It’s a good thing my uncle is no longer alive to hear you suggesting a Linney might need anything, least of all sympathy.”

  Rosalie smiled back, though it was a smile of understanding rather than amusement. “But what of your aunt? She was kind to you, was she not?”

  David had been gazing at her tranquilly, but at her question he looked away. “She was the opposite of my uncle—caring, attentive, indulgent. A thoroughly softhearted woman.” He snatched up another stalk of grass, this time tearing it slowly and methodically into pieces.

  When he glanced again at Rosalie, his face wore an expression of polite inquiry, but the guarded look had returned to his eyes. “Shall we start back to the house? It’s growing hot, and I shouldn’t wish to set back your recovery. You’ll be more comfortable indoors.”

  The day was indeed growing hot, but a chill went through her just the same. The stiffness was back in David’s manner. He’d withdrawn from her again.

  Part of her wanted to challenge him about it—demand to know what she’d said or done wrong, and why his sunny mood had dimmed again. But, step by step, David was slowly coming to open up. He’d said he trusted her. She couldn’t risk that now.

  So she merely nodded, and they made their way back down the hill to the waiting house.

  For the rest of the day, he behaved with impeccable courtesy. They shared a fine dinner and passed the evening playing piquet together. He was civil and gracious. But his expression remained guarded, and when they retired for bed, he bid her a formal good-night and disappeared to his own rooms without a word of excuse or explanation.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Unnatural deeds

  Do breed unnatural troubles: infected minds

  To their deaf pillows will discharge their secrets.

  — William Shakespeare

  It took Rosalie hours to fall asleep that night, wondering what she’d done to make David turn so abruptly distant. Whenever she began to think they were growing closer, he would stiffen up and revert to the studied coolness he used to keep others at arm’s length. How could she learn what pleased him when he kept his real thoughts and feelings to himself?

  Something was troubling him. She’d assumed it had to do with his father’s suicide, but he’d spoken candidly enough about the tragedy.
He’d also come to his uncle’s defense, and described his aunt as caring and attentive—though it seemed to Rosalie that David had grown withdrawn after she’d asked him about his aunt. Was it simply talk of sympathy and affection that had made him uncomfortable, or was there something more there, some family misfortune or bitter rift? She longed to understand him, but he made it so difficult, pulling away.

  After more than an hour of tossing and turning, wondering whether their celibate marriage worried him as much as it did her, she finally drifted off to sleep.

  Halfway through the night, she jerked awake. She lay still for a moment, her heart galloping, listening to the quiet all around her and wondering what had pulled her so roughly from her dreams. Then she heard a shout—muffled, but still unmistakable. Someone was calling out.

  The sound had come from the room on the other side of the wall. David’s room. She slipped out of bed and hurried to the connecting door.

  It was unlocked. The door swung open noiselessly. She paused on the threshold for a moment, waiting for her eyes to adjust to the darkness. She’d never ventured into David’s rooms before. She stepped cautiously toward what she judged to be his bed.

  “No,” David said.

  Rosalie froze at his angry objection.

  Before she could explain herself, however, he burst out, “No, Uncle Frederick! I didn’t...”

  He was talking in his sleep? Plucking up her courage, she drew closer.

  “No.” He mumbled something unintelligible, his head thrashing on the pillow.

  “David.” She spoke in a firm voice. “Wake up.”

  Even in the darkness, she could tell when he snapped awake. He lay blinking in confusion, breathing shallowly.

  She gave him a moment to make sense of his surroundings. “You were having a bad dream.”

  He turned his face to her. “Rosalie?”

  “Yes. I heard you from my room. You were calling out in your sleep.”

  Dimly visible in the gloom, he propped himself up on one elbow. “What did I say?”

  Was it her imagination, or was there a note of apprehension in his voice? “When I came in, you were saying ‘No, Uncle Frederick’ and ‘I didn’t.’ I couldn’t understand anything more.”

  “Oh.” He lay back on the pillow with a heavy sigh. “I’m sorry I woke you.”

  “Please don’t be sorry. I was only worried about you.” She hadn’t even taken the time to draw on her wrapper. She hugged herself against the night’s chill. “Would you like to talk about it? My mother always said that telling someone else about a dream keeps it from coming back.”

  He shook his head. “No, my dear. Just go to bed.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “It was only a dream. There’s no sense in dwelling on it.”

  “Very well, David.” She gathered her nerve and, closing the distance to his bedside, gave him a quick peck on the cheek.

  To her surprise, he caught hold of her wrist as she turned away and squeezed her hand strongly. “Thank you for waking me,” he said before letting her go. “It really was a dreadful nightmare.”

  * * *

  David lay awake after Rosalie withdrew, regretting he’d called out his uncle’s name, but not especially surprised. For years he’d suffered from nightmares in which he struggled vainly to justify himself to his guardian. Even in his waking hours, he never pictured his uncle Frederick without feeling either guilt or the same gnawing fear of discovery that had plagued him nearly every day of his minority.

  He’d never really understood his uncle, who’d been so different from him in every way—in outlook, temperament, experience, character, even in looks. Linney men were typically lean and dark, but his uncle had possessed a squat, powerful build that had reminded David of nothing so much as a bulldog. He’d possessed a bulldog’s coloring, too, his tawny hair streaked with iron gray like a dog’s brindled coat. Years ago, at White’s, David had overheard a scrap of gossip, a rumor that his uncle wasn’t a true Linney at all, but the natural son of his grandfather’s chaplain. David still wondered whether his uncle Frederick had been aware of the rumor, and if so, whether it explained his relentless insistence on the family dignity, as if upholding the ancestral standard must prove him a bona fide Linney after all.

  Well, if anyone had fallen short of that ancestral standard, it wasn’t poor Uncle Frederick. David had skulked about Lyningthorp for a decade, avoiding his uncle as much as he could, and, when avoidance proved impossible, mumbling his way morosely through every encounter.

  One particularly painful interview stuck out in his memory. He’d received a summons to his father’s study, since his uncle Frederick, in a stubborn refusal to acknowledge the horrific details of his brother’s death, had insisted on establishing his office in the very room in which the suicide occurred. Entering the masculine study with its oak-paneled walls, tall, orderly bookshelves and uncluttered desk, David had taken one look at his uncle’s face and instantly read the disapproval written there.

  “How old are you now, Deal?” his uncle asked without preamble.

  “Fifteen, sir.”

  “Fifteen. Disgusting.”

  David stiffened in indignation. “I beg your pardon?”

  His uncle rarely wasted his time in conversation with living, breathing human beings. Lord Frederick Linney considered most people beneath his notice, if not because of some perceived social inferiority then because he judged them tiresomely talkative and dull-witted. He prided himself on his levelheadedness, organization and attention to detail. He’d gone through most of his life never expecting to be saddled with a moody and volatile young ward, and as a rule he took a distant, laissez-faire approach to David’s upbringing, ignoring most of his nephew’s youthful freaks and humors.

  Not so that morning. He glowered across the desk with frank displeasure. Dread coiled inside David like one of his uncle’s watch springs.

  “I said it’s disgusting,” his uncle repeated. “I’ve had a very ill report of you, Deal, a very ill report indeed.”

  David swallowed down his trepidation. “What report is that, sir?”

  “It concerns your trip to Town with your tutor last week. I have a letter from an acquaintance there who was driving through Russell Square last Monday and saw you entering a certain house.” Frowning, he snatched the offending letter from his desk and shook it. “A house of infamous reputation. Do you take my meaning? A whorehouse.”

  “Ah.” Not sure whether to feel cornered or reprieved, David was at a loss to fashion a more coherent response.

  His uncle stared at him without speaking until the silence grew oppressive. “So,” he said at last, “is it true?”

  David briefly considered lying. After all, what was one more lie on top of all the others he’d already told? Since he’d plainly been seen, however, and since he had no desire to impugn the integrity of his uncle Frederick’s London acquaintance when the man had written nothing but the simple truth, David elected to answer truthfully. He looked down at his feet. “Yes, sir. I fear so.”

  Clearly his uncle Frederick had been hoping for a different answer. His breath went out of him in a whoosh and his stern air evaporated as his shoulders sagged. Finally he managed an incredulous whisper. “A brothel, David? At your age?”

  It was no ordinary interview when his uncle called him not by his title but by his Christian name. He could count on one hand the number of times Uncle Frederick had permitted himself that intimacy. The shame that lurked constantly at the back of his thoughts came surging to the fore—only more strongly than ever, because this time he could see his disgrace mirrored in his uncle’s slack face.

  “I don’t suppose there’s any chance this is all a misunderstanding.” Uncle Frederick rubbed his jaw, clearly laboring to throw him a lifeline. “Might you have mistaken it for some other address, perhaps, or gone there for some innocent purpose?”

  A cold hand clamped down on David’s heart. “No, sir.”

  “I see.” Hi
s uncle heaved himself back in his chair, dismay etched plainly on his features. “David, David, David...I can’t think where to begin. You know these women have loathsome diseases, don’t you? To say nothing of the kind of low and dangerous company you must necessarily find yourself among, consorting with such creatures.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And the immorality of it! I know at your age it’s all too easy to put the teachings of the church out of mind, but such appetites are still licentious, and giving in to them shows a most disturbing weakness in your character. How will you present yourself to a wife one day, knowing your heart and mind have been coarsened by such acts?”

  It took a moment for David to realize the question wasn’t simply rhetorical. “I can’t say, Uncle Frederick.”

  “You can’t say! Shouldn’t you have considered that eventuality before you engaged in this—this vileness?”

  David couldn’t meet his uncle’s eye. “Yes, sir.”

  Lord Frederick regarded him from across his desk, his square bulldog face deeply disappointed. He shook his head. “I don’t know what else to say to you, Deal, except to express the hope this was simple curiosity on your part, and that now, having satisfied it, you’ll steer clear of such vulgar company in the future.”

  “I’ll try, sir.”

  “You had better do more than try. Other families may have their rakes and wastrels, but I’ve no intention of raising you to join their number. You’ll be free to do as you like once you reach your majority and, God willing, develop a little discretion, but for now, you’re in my charge.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I intend to speak to your tutor about keeping a tighter rein on you in the future. In addition, I’m suspending your allowance and all such trips to Town for the remainder of the summer. I trust that will teach you to conduct yourself with greater propriety.”