Barbara Metzger Page 13

  Rockford had a glass of brandy in one hand, and she wondered how many drinks he’d had that day. Who could keep count between the toasts and the supper and the punch? She had no way of telling if he was in his altitudes, for he wore his habitual unsmiling expression, like a pagan god carved from marble. For that matter, she did not know if Rockford was a maudlin drunk or mean, if he grew silly or sleepy. If she had to guess, she would wager her new husband held his liquor as well as he rode a horse. The Earl of Rockford was not one to make a fool or a spectacle of himself. Even now, in his undress, he was elegant, in control. And masculine. Very masculine.

  Alissa wished she had something to drink now too, but he did not offer. She licked her lips again. When he scowled at her, she hurried into speech. “I am glad we have this chance to speak, my lord.”

  His frown deepened. “We are married. Do you think you could cease handing me the title with every breath?”

  Alissa ran her tongue over her lips to try to call him Rock, or Rockford.

  “And stop that!”

  Perhaps he was drunk after all. “Yes, well, we, ah, have a great deal to discuss, uh, Robert.” She smiled at him. “Will that do?”

  He had not taken his eyes off her mouth. He raised his glass to his own lips and took a long swallow, then nodded.

  Alissa took a deep breath and began again. “For instance—”

  His eyes had moved to her expanded chest, and he growled.

  Nervous enough to start with, Alissa was nearly in a panic, but then she started to grow angry. She could not be the only one trying to make something of the marriage. He could be civil, at least. Otherwise she would lock that bedroom door, marriage license or not. Rockford had conjugal rights, but she had more self-respect than to put up with a besotted brute. The servants would talk and the whole village would know the wedding night was a failure. They would shake their heads and ask what else one could expect from such a mingle-mangle of a marriage.

  “For instance, what?” he asked when she started to get up from the love seat before she started to cry.

  She sat back. “We need to talk about the boundary dispute between Mr. Tavistock and Ned Danvers. And hiring an underbutler for Claymore. The wall hangings in the master suite need replacing and I do not know your preferences. The miller wishes to put up a new building, and the boys need a tutor, especially Hugo.”

  Only the last seemed to catch his attention. “I thought the boy was bookish. What, did his grandparents merely let him loose in the library without instruction? Confound it, they taught him to add and subtract, didn’t they?”

  “Of course, but—” She did not get to finish, to tell him that Hugo was so far advanced in his studies that neither she nor the vicar could teach him anything. She did not even know what books to order.

  “Well, find one to bring him up to par. As for the rest, I am certain you are capable of handling everything. I have every confidence you can manage while I am gone.”

  “Gone?”

  Chapter Thirteen

  “Yes, I have matters that need attending. You knew I was a busy man. That was why I took another wife.”

  “Yes, but…”

  Lud, if he did not get out of here soon, he’d pull the pins out of her rose-scented, honey-colored hair just to see how long it was, and if it could be as silky as he thought. If she smiled, he’d have her out of that revealing gown and on the floor in front of the fireplace before she could say his name again. Robert. He let the sound echo in his mind, like a sweet, unfamiliar song. If she licked those lush lips of hers once more, he would not bother with the hair or the gown. He’d lift her skirts right where she sat and bury himself in her softness.

  And then where would he be? In the arms of a woman who had married him for his money but who wanted words of love. They always did, before, during, and after lovemaking. There would be tears and recriminations and bitter words, and she’d take a lover to spite him.

  Besides, once a female knew the power she had over a man, how her perfume could drive him mad, how the sway of her hips could make his watching eyes cross, then she would make his life hell.

  Better he left now.

  “You cannot simply leave!”

  He raised his eyebrow. Was she trying to tighten that sexual noose already? “I thought we had this discussion earlier.”

  “We have discussed nothing! Not where we would live, certainly not that we would live apart!”

  “And yet you signed the papers, Countess, making you a wealthy woman. You have no cause for complaint.”

  “The money is to replace courtesy, then? Loyalty? Affection?”

  It was to replace carping conversations like this. “Ours was, and will remain, a marriage of convenience. Those were the terms upon which we agreed.”

  “Your notion of convenience, it seems, does not reconcile with mine.”

  “Ah, but my name is the one that signs the checks.”

  She inhaled sharply at his bluntness. Her cheeks were flushed, her fists were clenched, and the gold flecks in her green eyes were flashing like lightning in the forest. She looked superb to him, and his arms ached to hold her, to smooth away the hurt. He might as well wear a ring through his nose for her to lead him by.

  So Rockford kissed his new wife on the forehead, repeated that he had every confidence in her, and that Claymore could get a message to him at any time. Then he left. Not just the room, but the house, the village, the shire.

  He left, on their wedding night!

  Alissa sat in the parlor long after the fire had burned down. She did not wish to face that bedroom, the countess’s chamber, more than ever. The flowers, the sheer nightgown—the travesty of her marriage!

  She did not feel the cold. What was a chill after the winter in her soul? Her hopes for the future, the dreams she had not dared speak aloud, even to herself, were all turned to shards of ice, piercing her heart. Rockford was gone, and she felt more alone and abandoned than when her first husband had died. At least William Henning had not been in such a hurry to leave!

  She tried to convince herself that she was no worse off now than she was then. She had no hopes of happiness then. She had none now.

  What she had, in the morning, was a stiff neck from sitting up all night. She also had wealth. With it came the servants’ pity, her sons’ confusion, Rockford’s sons’ disappointment, and a few I-told-you-so nods from the neighbors.

  Alissa decided she would play by the earl’s rules. He dealt the cards, he held the bank, but she was still in the game. So she became the Countess of Rockford, all on her own.

  She took over the books and the land management. She consulted bankers, the tenant farmers who knew the area best, architects and engineers, but she herself made the decisions of where to invest the earl’s money, which improvements to make first. With Claymore beside her she started renovating the house, the grounds, and everyone’s wardrobes. She hired local men to teach the boys archery and fishing and shooting, but sent to London for instructors in dancing and deportment for Aminta. She turned Hugo loose in the lending library when he had exhausted Rock Hill’s collection, until she could find a tutor who knew more than young Viscount Rothmore.

  Even with winter approaching, a lot could be accomplished on the farms. Manures and minerals could be spread, and late crops could be sown to nourish the soil, according to the latest farm journals. Alissa also went to livestock auctions, buying prime bulls for stud, fresh blood to strengthen the herds. She purchased seeds; she ordered the newest equipment. She hired men who were out of work and set them to clearing fields for added productivity, and to draining swamps to avoid spring floods.

  Alissa also looked into starting cottage industries, such as pottery, stonemasonry, or brickworks, so the people could be independent of the land—and of their absentee lord.

  That was the first two weeks.

  The third week she started inviting ladies from the vicinity to tea. Some had raised their noses at her before; some had never known s
he existed. None refused her invitations, nor her pleas to help start a free school in the village, and a place where orphans could be taught a trade, rather than languishing in the poorhouses.

  She had put the emerald pendant and the matching engagement ring back in the vault, keeping only the gold filigree wedding band on her finger. The matrons seemed to approve, noting that she was not flaunting her new wealth and elevated position. They decided among themselves that Lady Rockford was a mature, modest, capable sort, not flighty like the earl’s previous wives. Alissa Henning was not as beautiful, of course, and without the centuries of blood and breeding, but she might turn out to be a better asset to the community than those young ladies who spent all their time in London. She was a good mother, too, not only to her own children but also to the heir and the spare, who obviously adored her. That mattered to these women of Leicester.

  While she had the ladies’ attention, Alissa made sure to introduce Aminta, who impressed the women with her sweet smile and demure manner. If mention of her sister’s new dowry found itself stirred into the rumor mill, so be it. Soon the Rock Hill ladies were accepting invitations to the leading houses of local society, where Aminta met a wider circle of possible suitors than Squire’s spotted son, the blacksmith’s nephew, the butcher’s delivery boy. She was the countess’s sister now, and could look much higher, although there was no rush to marry her off. Rockford could not complain of Amy’s continued presence at his residence, Alissa decided, if he recalled her existence at all. If not for her sister, Alissa would have to hire a companion or else take her meals alone and travel to social engagements by herself.

  The boys kept her company when she visited the tenant farms and the horse fairs, but they had their own pursuits, their own interests, and she did not want them to grow up knowing only women’s company. Hugo was not as enthusiastic about the sporting lessons, but he happily went off on walks and collecting excursions, finding plants he had only studied in books. His grandparents had seldom permitted him the outdoors, much less physical exertion. Alissa insisted that he take a groom or a footman with him, if not her own sensible Kendall, to make sure he did not injure or exhaust himself. Hugo was the heir; protecting him was half the reason Rockford had wedded her.

  The other half was falling out of trees and into fountains, ransacking the pantry, and ruining the gardens by taking Rosie, the pig, on her daily constitutional. When he was not up to some mischief or other, Billy was filling an unused stall in the stable with things that slithered or slimed or swam or stung. Alissa was terrified of half of them, but she wisely let Billy have his menagerie. She knew he’d keep the creatures in his pockets, otherwise. Like his father, Billy knew what he wanted.

  Alissa was getting almost everything she wanted: a good upbringing for her sons, a chance at a good match for her sister, a good name for herself. And she had a good cry both times one of Rockford’s impersonal correspondences arrived from London, from his new secretary.

  Then his sister came home.

  Lady Eleanor was as astonished to find Alissa in the house as Alissa was to see her new in-law.

  “You and Rockford are married?” the earl’s sister asked, amazed that her high-toned brother would take a common-born wife.

  “You are not?” Alissa asked in return.

  Eleanor was dark like Robert, with his thick brows and straight hair, but she had a different nose, one seen on some of their ancestors’ portraits. It looked better on the dead relatives. She was tall and thin and sat erect, every inch a lady, except for that bare spot on her finger.

  She followed Alissa’s glance, then said, “No, Arkenstall and I found we would not suit after all.”

  After a month or so together? Alissa raised her brow the way she had seen Rockford do it. “I…see.”

  “No, I do not suppose you do.” The two women had not been precisely friends, due to the disparity in their stations, but that raised eyebrow told Eleanor that Mrs. Henning had come into her own. Eleanor realized that she was no longer mistress here, and could not assume a welcome in the countess’s home. She owed her brother’s unexpected bride a better explanation. “I was blind,” she started. “Love does that, you know,” she added with a bitter laugh. “I did not see what Arkenstall was doing until too late. I never knew he was actually stealing from the estate until we were well on our way to Ireland—”

  “I thought you were going to Scotland.”

  “Oh, that was just to throw people off the scent, if anyone bothered to pursue us. I knew Rockford would not, but Arkenstall wanted to take no chances, and it was far more romantic to be plotting intrigue. Rockford would never have given permission for me to wed a bailiff, of course, which was why we were eloping.”

  “Of course not.”

  Something in Alissa’s tone warned the older woman that she had overstepped the line. “Oh, your father was a bailiff, wasn’t he?”

  “And my husband. My first husband.”

  “Yes, well, I decided that I could wed one too. After all, I was nearing forty, with no other prospects in sight. And I thought I loved him, fool that I was. But I was not a thief! He was clever, Arkenstall was. He had me convinced Rock Hill was suffering a bad year, that the revenues were off. He said things would turn around in the spring and we could rehire the laborers, make the repairs. I swear to you I never knew he was embezzling money until he bragged about it, when we were well on our way. I never looked at the ledgers. That was Arkenstall’s job, or Rockford’s, if he ever bothered to look.”

  “I believe you. But how did you think you would live if Rockford did not give his blessings?”

  “Oh, I thought he would come around once the deed was done. What was it to him whom I married, anyway? If he would not take Arkenstall back, I reasoned, then we could have led a decent life on my dowry, which was considerable.”

  “Was?”

  “How could I ask my brother to release the money, when Arkenstall had stolen from him?”

  “I can see where that would be a problem.”

  “I was still going to go through with the wedding, for I was already ruined and he said he had done it for love of me, to give me the life I was used to. You would think that at my age I would know better than to trust a silver-tongued devil, but perhaps I believed him just because I was an old spinster, and no one else was going to love me. Oh, I could have found a man to marry me anytime these last years, but I decided I would rather stay unwed than have a husband bought with my dowry. I was content here, until Arkenstall showed me what I had been missing.”

  Alissa could well understand the other woman’s feelings. She handed over a handkerchief.

  Lady Eleanor blew her distinctive nose before continuing. “Yes, well, then I discovered that he had not only robbed from the estate, but he had taken items belonging to Rockford besides, antiques, heirlooms, small items he could pawn. I found a case full of them while I was looking for one of my misplaced bags at an inn. There was no jewelry that I could see. Is it all accounted for?”

  Alissa twirled the ring on her finger. “Claymore would have known if something was missing from the vault.”

  “Good, because I could not search all Arkenstall’s bags. But I realized then what he was up to, why he had taken me away.”

  “How dreadful.”

  “Uglier still to realize that he never cared for me, only for what he could get. We had a terrible row. He did not want me to leave.”

  “He could never get your dowry then.”

  “Oh, he had to know Rockford would not release my portion to a thief. Anyone who has the least acquaintance with Rockford would know his moral inflexibility.”

  “Arkenstall must have cared for you, then, to have wanted you to stay.” Because the other woman sounded so forlorn, she added, “For that matter, he must have held you in affection or he would not have taken you along or planned an elopement. Surely he could have traveled faster on his own.”

  Lady Eleanor shrugged. “Perhaps. Or perhaps he needed the coa
ch. Or else he had yet another plan, like ransoming me back to Rockford.” She sipped at the glass of sherry Alissa poured for her. “More likely he did not wish me to leave because I knew his plans and he feared I would tell the authorities. He claimed I was an accomplice, that I would hang alongside him, or be deported. I did not want to spend another minute in his company, much less voyage to Botany Bay with him.”

  “So what did you do?” Alissa refilled Lady Eleanor’s glass and took a swallow from her own, leaning forward. The story was almost as good as one of Aminta’s novels from the lending library.

  “I wrote to Squire Winslow, telling him which port Arkenstall planned to sail from. We were going to travel a bit until the dust settled.”

  “You did not write to your brother?”

  Lady Eleanor made no comment. They both knew Rockford would not have come, if he bothered to read the letter. He would have washed his hands of his errant sister, with that same moral inflexibility. “The squire is my godfather, you know.”

  Alissa had not known that. Winslow was the magistrate, though. “And he rescued you from Arkenstall?”

  “There was no rescue. I foolishly told Arkenstall what I had done, so he took an earlier ship. He was well out of reach when Squire Winslow arrived. Squire came home with me in the coach. Rockford’s coach.” She shook her head. “Quite a sad ending for an adventure, isn’t it?”

  Aminta’s stories never ended so poorly. “At least you had an adventure. What shall you do now?”

  “I thought to live here quietly. Rockford never comes, and old Claymore would not care that I am a ruined woman. He’s known me from birth, too. But now… I do not know. My presence will reflect poorly on you. It could even destroy your sister’s chances. I’d leave, but I have no funds left. I did retrieve a few items that belong to Rockford by hiding them in my own luggage, but if I sell them, then indeed I am a thief.”

  There was no arguing Lady Eleanor’s estimation. Everything Alissa was working for would be destroyed by the scandal that was merely a rumor now—and she had enough money to send her sister-in-law away into safe anonymity. For that matter, the rent was paid through the new year on her old cottage. But this was Rockford’s sister, and she was supposed to be looking out for his family, wasn’t she?