Tavis looked back to Amelia and lifted her small hand to his mouth to bestow a soft kiss on it. He heard the unmistakable sound of the door opening and then Margaret’s voice from the doorway imploring, “Please don’t hurt her, my lord.”
When he turned to tell her he didn’t plan to, the door had already closed and Margaret was gone.
Chapter 16
Amelia slept the entire day and night through, which sometimes happened after she had an episode, but the next morning she made it downstairs to breakfast. Though Tavis wasn’t there when she awakened, she knew he had been with her throughout the day and evening. There was a chair next to the bed and a Tavis-sized impression on the bed next to her, testament to his sickbed vigil.
About halfway down the stairs, she realized she didn’t even know where the breakfast room was, having only taken her breakfast in her room since arriving at Ballywith. With no footmen in sight, Amelia wandered on the lower level, poking her nose into rooms, praying one of them led to breakfast.
Upon opening the third door, she thought she heard the low timbre of her husband’s voice. Following it through one room and into another, she had her hand on the knob when an unfamiliar voice spoke.
“Have you found out anything more from her?”
“No.” Tavis sighed. “I’ve told you everything she’s told me already. Aside from the name Harry the Horse, she has not said anything else of what she overheard from her small nook. Besides, I thought you no longer wanted to use her for information.”
Amelia was confused. Why was Tavis sharing with his friend the information she’d told him about her secret nook? Of what importance could it be to Tavis or his friend? She pressed her ear to the door. Perhaps one of them would say something to give her an idea of what secret her husband was keeping from her.
“Have you heard of anyone who goes by that name, Wickes?”
“I thought perhaps there was someone…” The stranger’s voice trailed off. “But it can’t be him because he’s been dead for years.”
A chair scraped on the floor, making it difficult for Amelia to hear what Tavis said next. She caught the tail end of the other man’s reply.
“…and there was no one by that name at Westby’s house.”
“Who did we send in?”
“I said that no one knew the name Jeremiah Meeks, but when I described Meeks to them, they knew exactly who I was talking about. Do you remember Amelia discussing her father’s houseguest?”
“Yes. Vividly.”
“No one knew who Jeremiah Meeks was, but from the description I gave them, they all recognized him as one Jeremy Michelson, the Westbys’ long-time houseguest.”
“That bastard!” Tavis’s furious shout echoed throughout the room, startling Amelia in the process.
Jeremy! She slapped her hand over her mouth to quiet her surprised gasp. Why are they talking about him? Pressing her ear once more to the door, she heard Tavis yell, “He lied to me!”
“He lied to all of us, Tavis. No one knew of his other identity or of the game he was playing.” Wickes sighed, and Amelia wondered how her husband and this Mr. Wickes knew Jeremy and why they were so upset he had lied to them.
Wickes was speaking again. “But now that we know, we can search for him. It’s obvious Westby planted Meeks with you to act as courier between you and your father when you were both stationed in France. Think, Tavis,” Wickes demanded. “Did you ever receive any correspondence from home in all the time you were on the Continent?”
My father? Why are they talking about my father like this? What is going on? Amelia chewed her nails and waited to hear more from Tavis. Yet nothing made any sense! The more she heard, the more confused she became.
“No, never, Tom.” Amelia heard Tavis pacing across the floor, his step already familiar to her ears. “You know my father hated me. I never…” The pacing stopped.
Wickes pounced at Tavis’s falter. “What? What is it, Tavis?”
“Once.” His voice had become so low and hoarse Amelia had to strain to hear. “I received one letter from my father in all the time I was stationed in France.” There was a pause in which Amelia heard the pounding of her own blood in her veins. “I…I didn’t even look at it when Meeks brought it to me. I told him to get rid of it, and he obviously did. I never saw it again.”
“Your father was probably betting on the fact you wouldn’t read anything from him, which gave Meeks the perfect opportunity to read the letter and pass on whatever information was written within it.”
“I don’t understand. Surely the War Department was reading letters before they were sent abroad. I’ve heard how they blocked any incriminating information and discovered many traitors through this practice. How did my father get away with it?”
The War Department? What is Tavis doing involved with the War Department?
“An encoded message. It had to be. Otherwise you are right; it would have been stopped. That’s why Meeks showed up out of nowhere to be your batman. Once your father realized you were going abroad, he and Westby must have arranged to send Meeks along to intercept it and carry it on to their contact in France.”
“Do you know where Meeks has gone, Tom?”
“When I asked, none of the servants knew. All they told me was that he left a week ago Friday, but no one knew where.”
“Which means he could be anywhere, including here in Stanton.”
This time Amelia did gasp out loud. Jeremy here in Stanton? Near Ballywith? She backed away from the door, and in the process knocked into a side table, sending a vase crashing to the floor. The talking from the other room stopped. Afraid of being caught, Amelia hiked up her skirts and ran out the door.
“Stupid, stubborn man!” Amelia yelled. She stomped into the gardens at the side of the house and kicked a small bush near the main path. When her foot connected with its solid trunk, she cried out in pain.
“Ouch!” Amelia hopped on one foot down the path to where a small wrought iron bench waited underneath a flowering tree. Sinking onto the seat, she took off her slipper, now stained from its contact with the plant, and lifted her foot to examine it for any injuries. Aside from a small bruise, she was in fine physical shape. It was her emotional state she questioned.
It was obvious her husband was keeping something from her, but what his secret entailed was no longer clear. If it had been a simple affair with her sister, as she had thought upon reading Bea’s letter, why involve Mr. Wickes? Amelia now knew he was involved, and according to Mr. Wickes, this secret could prove dangerous to…Tavis? To her?
“If only Tavis would trust me with his burdens, I could help him.”
“Men do tend to keep things close to themselves, don’t they? And yours especially.”
“Who’s there?” Amelia demanded, rubbing her arms against the sudden chill in the air.
From out of the dark shadows of a sheltering grove of trees stepped an old woman. Despite age, her posture remained proud and erect. Her hair was thick but gray, making it impossible for Amelia to tell what color it might have been when she was younger. Fine lines adorned the woman’s face around her eyes and mouth, a testament to the joys and sorrows she had lived through. Dressed in a simple gown of fine, silver cloth, she wore no other accessories save for a magnificent hand-woven shawl of startling green, the same shade as her eyes, draped around her shoulders.
“Who are you?” Amelia asked.
The old woman walked regally over to Amelia, who sat clutching her dirty slipper in a white-knuckled grip, and seated herself. “I’m just an old woman passing through, but you can call me Jane, if you’d like.” Jane had an amused smile on her face, and Amelia wondered what could possibly be making her smile in such a manner.
“I’m Lady Amelia Stanton,” Amelia said. She was still too taken aback by the sudden appearance of this woman to truly credit what was happening.
“I thought you might be,” Jane said again, that same amused smile gracing her face.
“How did
you know that?” For a moment, Amelia feared Jane might be a gypsy. The last time she had been spoken to by an elderly woman alone in the outdoors had not turned out well for her or her family. She prayed Jane was not a gypsy.
Jane patted her on the arm in a familiar, grandmotherly fashion. “Oh, you know how word gets around. People love to gossip, especially when it involves a young, handsome earl marrying a beautiful titian-haired woman from London. I made an educated guess when I saw you sitting here.”
Said like that, Amelia guessed Jane was a local woman who had wandered up toward Ballywith on her daily walk to see the new Countess of Stanton for herself. “Do you know my husband or his family well, Jane?”
This time, Jane outright laughed. “You could say that, my dear!” Amelia waited to see if Jane would elaborate, but the perplexing woman remained silent, her laughing eyes trained on Amelia.
“What did you mean about my husband keeping things closely to himself? Do you know what he’s keeping from me?” Amelia needed to discover what her husband was hiding, and she wasn’t going to overlook any scrap of information, even if it were given by a stranger with questionable sanity.
Jane’s eyes sobered and misted over as she stared off into the distance, lost in her memories of the past. “Yes, yes, I believe I do know what he is hiding from you, and no, my dear, I cannot tell you what it is.”
Amelia balled up her fists tighter until the hard sole of her shoe cut into the tender flesh of her palm. “Why won’t he trust me?”
Jane took the shoe from Amelia’s hand and smoothed out the creases made in anger and frustration. Setting it on her lap, Jane rubbed the palm of her own hand in the exact location where Amelia was now wrapping a handkerchief over hers to stanch the bleeding from the cut on her palm. “Careful,” Jane said as she massaged her palm. “You’ll leave a mark.”
“Can you tell me anything useful?” Amelia demanded, growing frustrated with Jane’s cryptic comments and unanswered questions. She tied off the handkerchief and re-balled her fist. “Such as how I’m supposed to help my husband when he won’t tell me what’s going on?”
“I think you already know the answer to that question, Amelia.”
“No, Jane! No, I don’t know the answer. That’s why I’m asking you!”
Once again, Jane’s eyes grew misty, as if she were looking back through the veils of time. “I had forgotten…” she said. Placing Amelia’s shoe on the bench, she rose and stepped away from Amelia toward the dark shadows of the trees. “I had forgotten how passionate youth is.”
“Amelia!” Tavis’s shouted voice echoed in the distance. Amelia suspected Tavis had seen her hurried flight from the house and guessed she had overheard his conversation with his friend, Mr. Wickes. He would want to know what she had heard, but right now, she needed to know what Jane knew, and she needed to know now.
Jane turned and took Amelia’s hands in her own. “It is time for me to leave.”
“But…but you haven’t answered any of my questions.” Amelia knew she sounded desperate, but she was. Jane had only raised more questions than she had answered, and Amelia was more confused now than she was before their talk. “How am I going to make him trust me?”
“You’re not asking the right question, Amelia. Instead of asking how you can get your husband to trust you, you need to ask yourself why he doesn’t.”
“Fine, then. Why doesn’t he trust me?”
“I think you know the answer to that, Amelia.”
Amelia knew. She had known all along if Tavis were keeping something from her it had to be something big, something that could endanger either one or both of them. He didn’t tell her because it was too risky to involve her. No one confided in Amelia, not unless they wanted to run the risk of having their innermost thoughts and feelings shared with the world should someone ask the right question. And she hated that. Hated not being trustworthy, and that’s why Tavis refused to divulge whatever it was he was keeping from her.
“The curse,” she whispered. “He can’t trust me because he can’t be sure I won’t be forced to tell the truth.”
“Amelia!” Tavis shouted, his voice louder than before. He was getting closer.
“What do I do, Jane?” Amelia clutched Jane’s hands.
“It’s time for me to leave,” the woman repeated, removing her hands from Amelia’s tight hold. Jane moved back toward the awaiting darkness in the tree grove.
“Please!” Amelia begged. “Tell me! What should I do?”
Jane stopped and looked over her shoulder at Amelia, who was hugging herself about the middle, as if her arms were the only things holding her emotions together.
“Break the curse, Amelia. That’s the only way.” Jane turned around again and stepped into the darkness on the other side of the path.
“I’ve tried! I don’t know how, Jane,” Amelia cried to the darkness which enfolded the old woman in its ghostly embrace.
From a distance, as if traveling through time itself, came the faint echo of Jane’s parting words. “The curse has power over you only for as long as you allow it, Mimi.” Amelia blanched and took an unsteady step back until her knees hit the edge of the wrought iron bench. Sinking onto it, she asked herself how Jane knew the exact words her sister Bea had said to her weeks ago when she told Amelia to stop letting her curse take over her life. How had Jane known?
A cold lick of fear shivered up and down her spine, and Amelia rubbed her chilled arms. As she contemplated returning to the house, Jane’s voice once again reached her ears, not faint as it had been for her last message but clear and strong, a forceful cry slicing through the turmoil in Amelia’s mind.
“Hurry and break it, Amelia! You are going to be tested sooner than he thinks!”
Amelia jumped and looked next to her, expecting to see Jane once more sitting beside her, but she was alone. The inky darkness in the tree grove into which Jane had disappeared was gone, and faint rays of sunlight filtered through the branches.
Wasting no time in replacing her shoe, Amelia sprang up from the bench and ran along the main path back to the house.
“Amelia!” Tavis shouted again, but closer this time. Hiking up her green skirts, she raced faster up the path. Spying him, she picked up speed and ran straight into his arms.
“Amelia!” he exclaimed. “You’re trembling!”
She buried her head on his chest and took in several shaky breaths to slow her pounding heart. “Do you believe in ghosts, Tavis?” she asked.
“Ghosts?” he asked. “Don’t tell me you saw one wandering the gardens, Amelia, mia.” He laughed but stopped when she nodded her head yes.
“I…I think I saw one.”
“You aren’t hurt, are you?” he asked with true concern in his voice.
“No, just a little shaken.”
“As long as you’re unhurt, then there’s nothing to worry about.” He kissed her on the lips, and as always, her passions quickly began to rise. Wrapping her arms around his neck, she pulled herself flush against Tavis’s solid, reassuring body and tangled her fingers in his hair. Darting her tongue into his mouth, she reveled at the dark, salty flavor of his mouth. When she sucked on his lower lip, he rewarded her with a throaty growl from deep in his chest. He grabbed her around the waist and trailed kisses on her neck and shoulders.
“I heard you talking to your friend Mr. Wickes this morning,” Amelia accused, her breath coming in rapid pants because her husband’s gentle kisses had turned more lingering and intimate.
His kisses stopped, and he raised his head to look at Amelia with a mixture of suspicion and dread on his face. “What did you hear?”
“A lot of things,” she responded, “but mostly you and he share a secret you are unwilling to tell me.”
“That’s true. Are you angry with me?”
“I was, mind you, but not anymore,” she replied, pleased when he resumed his attentions to her neck and collarbone.
“Did your conversation with the ghost change your min
d?” he teased, his gentle laughter tickling the tops of her breasts.
“Joke all you want, Tavis,” Amelia retorted as she leaned her head back to allow him better access to her throat and chest, “but she made me understand why you can’t tell me what I want to know. I understand now, and I want you to know it’s all right.”
“She?” he asked straightening from where he had been engaged in tormenting her trembling breasts from their perch over her bodice.
Amelia related what had happened to her with Jane. When she was done, he looked more worried than when she had first told him she had seen a ghost.
He grabbed her hand and pulled her down the path she had come from. She sat on the bench and watched him walk to the tree grove and back. “Find anything?”
“Nothing. I guess you were right; it must have been a ghost.”
Amelia shivered again, and he joined her on the bench. Wrapping his arm around her shoulders, he pulled her close. “I am curious. What did she help you figure out?”
“That what is preventing you from trusting me fully is me. You want to trust me, but my curse makes it difficult for you to confide in me.”
“I want to, lass, more than anything, but not all of the secret is mine to tell.”
“Then how is it that Bea knows?” she asked. “Did you have an affair with her? Is that how she knows?”
“What? God, no! What gave you that idea?”
“Her letter. I thought she must know because of what she wrote.”
“You concluded that, did you?” he asked. “I told you yesterday I only ever met your sister one time, and it’s not an occasion I am keen on remembering. She took me for a hundred pounds at the tables, and was most unladylike about it, too.”
“I remember you saying that, but I needed to be sure. It’s what I was trying to avoid saying yesterday when I fainted.”
“You were going to ask me if I’d had an affair with your sister? Why didn’t you say so in the first place? You could have avoided all the pain you caused yourself.”
Amelia fiddled with the folds of her skirt, avoiding Tavis’s gaze. “I didn’t know how to say it without upsetting you.”
Little White Lies Page 15
