Her Convenient Husband's Return

‘She is more bound by custom than yourself. Besides, she has been unable to rise since our arrival.’

‘That was four days ago.’

‘Yes.’

‘She has been in bed since then?’ she asked.

‘Yes.’

‘You have been alone in the big house? With no one to talk to?’

‘Mrs Bridges loves to discuss the menus.’ He spoke in crisp tight syllables, like twigs snapping.

She was cruel, that woman. Selfish. Lady Graham, not the cook.

Without conscious thought, Beth reached again for him, taking his hand within her own. She felt its size and breadth. She felt the small calluses. This time he did not jolt away. Instead, with a soft sigh, he allowed his grip to fold into hers.

* * *

Ren wanted only to leave, to spring astride the nearest horse and ride and ride and ride until everyone and everything were but tiny pinpoints, minutiae on a distant horizon.

The carriage halted in front of the country church. The building was as familiar as his own face, its walls a patchwork of slate-grey stone criss-crossed with verdant moss. His glance was drawn to the graveyard, a place he and Edmund had tiptoed past, scaring each other with wonderful stories of disturbed ancestors, ghosts, spooks and clanking chains.

Now Edmund would join their number.

Ren looked also to the grassy enclosure with its clutter of uneven tombstones, clustered about the family mausoleum.

Edmund’s family.

* * *

The church was full. The villagers had placed vases of yellow daffodils at the end of every pew. Their blossoms formed bright dabs of colour against the darkness of the polished wood. Sunlight flickered through the stained-glass windows, splashing rainbows across the slate floor. Particles of dust danced lazily, flecks suspended and golden within the light. The atmosphere was heavy with hushed whispers, perfume, flowers and the shuffle of people trying too hard to be quiet.

Ren went to the Graham family pew where he’d sat as a child. The organ played. He could feel its vibration through the wooden seat. Beth loved that feeling. She used to say that she didn’t even miss her sight when she could both hear and feel each note.

The villagers looked at him, covert glances from across the aisle. He wondered how many of the farmers and tenants knew or suspected his questionable paternity? Did they despise him? Hate him? Pity him? Did he even have a right to mourn?

His gaze slid to Beth. Black suited her, the dark cloth dramatic against her pale skin and golden hair. Not that she would know, or even care. Beside her, Jamie sat solid and silent.

Ren did not know if their presence comforted or hurt. They reminded him of a time before loss, a time of childhood happiness, a time when his identify, his belonging had been without question.

His mother’s secret had shattered everything. Even his art no longer brought joy. Indeed, his talent was nothing but a lasting reminder of the cheap portrait painter who had seduced his mother and sired a bastard.

The vicar stood. He cleared his throat, the quiet noise effectively silencing the congregation’s muted whispering. He had changed little from the days when they’d attended as children, though he was perhaps balder. The long tassels of his moustache drooped lower, framing the beginnings of a double chin. Thank God for the moustache. It kept sentiment at bay.

The organ swelled, off key and yet moving.

They’d been here for their wedding. No spectators, of course. Just Beth and Jamie and the vicar with his moustache.

Ren swallowed. He could not wait to be gone from here. He wanted to escape to London with its distractions of women, wine and gambling.

In London, he was a real person—not a pleasant or a nice person—but real none the less. Here he was a pretender, acting a part.

In London, he could forget about Graham Hill and a life that was no longer his.

Slaughtered in a single truth.

* * *

Finally, as with all things, the service ended. Everyone rose simultaneously like obedient puppets.

Beth stood also, touching his arm, the gesture caring. Except he did not deserve her care. Or want it.

‘Best get this done with,’ he muttered. ‘You don’t need to stand with me at the door, you know.’

She tensed. He felt her body stiffen and her jaw tighten, thrusting forward. ‘I do,’ she said.

He shrugged. He would not debate the issue in the middle of the church. ‘Fine.’

They stood at the church entrance beside the vicar. Ren felt both the fresh breeze, combined with the warm, stuffy, perfume-laden air from the church’s interior. It felt thick with its long centuries of candle wax and humanity.

The tenants came in a straggling line. They gave their condolences, paid their respects with bobbing curtsies and bows. Strange how he recognised each face, but knew also a shocked confusion at the changes wrought by time.

And strange, too, how difficult it was to focus as though forming simple sentences involved mental capabilities beyond him. The vicar seemed to have an endless supply of small talk, caring questions and platitudes as though he stored them within his robes like a squirrel stores nuts.

Surprisingly, Beth also appeared aware of each tenant’s issues: births, deaths and crops. Her knowledge of such minutiae made him realise the level of her involvement. He had not fully recognised this before.

At last, when they had spoken to everyone and the steps had cleared, he turned to Beth, touching her arm.

‘I can’t go into the carriage yet,’ he said. ‘I need—’

He stopped. He didn’t know what he needed—a break from these people with their condolences who thought he mourned when he had no right to. Escape from the pain which clamped about his ribcage so that he could breathe only in harsh, intermittent gulps.

‘We used to go to service here every Sunday. The family and the servants. I remember Mrs Cridge, Nanny, would see us all around back to “get rid of them fidgets”.’

‘We can do that now, if you want?’

He nodded. He could not go into that carriage with its memories, echoes of their childish giggles. She placed her hand on his arm and allowed him to guide her as they stepped around to the other side of the church which overlooked the valley and winding stream.

‘I can hear it,’ Beth said, cocking her head. ‘The brook. Once you said it was as though the bells of a hundred fairy churches rang.’

‘Good Lord, what utter nonsense I used to spout.’

‘I liked it. You made me see in a way Jamie and Edmund could not. I suppose it is because you are a painter.’

‘Was.’

‘You don’t paint at all now?’

‘No,’ he said.

For long seconds, Ren stared at the expanse of green, the grass sloping into the twisting brook. The weather had worsened, the clouds thickening and dimming the light, muting the greens and making the landscape grey.

Beth placed her hand on his arm. He glanced down. Even in gloves, her hands looked delicate, the fingers thin.

‘Ren?’ She spoke with unusual hesitation. She bit her lip and he felt her grip tighten. ‘How long will you stay here?’

‘We can go to the carriage now if you are cold.’

‘No, I mean at Graham Hill before leaving for London. I want—I would like to talk to you some time.’

‘I will leave as soon as possible,’ he said. ‘Tomorrow most likely.’

This was a fact, a given, in a world turned upside down. Everything felt worse here. He was more conscious of Edmund’s absence. He was more conscious of the wrongness that Edmund should predecease him and that he belonged nowhere.

‘Tomorrow? But you can’t. I mean, will you come back soon?’

‘No.’

‘But the tenants need you.’

‘Then they will have to make do without.’

He watched her frown, pursing her lips and straightening her shoulders, an expression of familiar obstinacy flickering across her features.

‘The tenants look to the big house for support at times like this. They need to know that they will be all right. That there is a continuity of leadership that transcends the individual. If they are too worried, they can’t grieve properly.’

‘A continuity—heavens, you sound like a vicar or a politician. Is there a subject on which you don’t have an opinion?’

‘Icebergs,’ she said with a faint half-smile.

‘Pardon?’

‘I don’t have an opinion on icebergs.’

For a brief moment, he felt his lips twist into a grin, the feeling both pleasant and unfamiliar. ‘We don’t even get icebergs in Britain.’

‘Probably why I don’t have an opinion on them,’ she said.

For a moment, he longed to pull her to him, to bury his face into the soft gold of her hair and feel that he was not a solitary creature.

Except he was a solitary creature, a bastard. Moreover, even if his birth hadn’t made him unworthy of her, his more recent behaviour had.

He stepped away, squaring his shoulders. ‘My life is in London. The tenants will have to grieve as best they can without me. Therefore, if you need to speak to me, I suggest you do so now.’

She inhaled, brows drawing together. ‘But...’ She paused. ‘Very well, this is not really the best time, but we are alone and I do not know when I will next have the opportunity.’

‘Yes?’ he prompted.

‘It is just that, as Lord Graham, it is important for you to have a suitable wife and heir. When—when you married me, this was not the case. We thought Edmund and Mirabelle—Anyway, Allington is prosperous, our debts paid. The Duke is seldom here. And I...um...I thank you so much for your protection, but...but you must wish for your freedom. Likely that would be the best course of...of action, given the circumstances.’ She finished in a hurried garbled, stammering rush.

‘An annulment? You’re asking for an annulment?’ The effort to remain without expression was greater than that exerted in a thousand poker games.

‘Yes—an annulment—I suppose.’

The pain was physical. The word slammed into him, so that he felt himself winded. Annulment... It was a battering ram, beating into his eardrums, punching at his stomach. Fury, anger, hurt twisted and exploded. He clenched his fists so tightly the muscles hurt.

‘You choose to mention this now?’ he said when he could trust his voice.

Her face flushed. ‘I did not want to, but you gave me little option. Besides, I have never beaten about the bush. You have a new role and you need a proper wife. Anyway, it is not as though we have a real marriage. I mean, we have hardly spoken in eighteen months. You have not visited—’

‘I have no need of either wife or heir,’ he snapped, cutting through her words.

‘As Lord Graham, it is your duty—’

‘Stop!’ he shouted, losing any semblance of his hard-won self-control. ‘Stop calling me that ludicrous name.’

‘It is your name.’

‘A name I do not merit and do not wish to assume.’

‘You don’t have a choice.’

‘I may have to assume the title,’ he ground out. ‘But I can certainly choose to dispose of the estate, thus alleviating your unreasonable worry that I might require an heir.’

‘Dispose of?’ She twisted, angling herself to face him as though sighted and able to discern his expression. ‘How?’

‘The Duke of Ayrebourne will have the estate.’

He did not know why he felt compelled to speak the words. It was as though everything was hurting and he was driven to hurt also. Or perhaps he needed to voice his intent to make his decision real.

There was a pause. An expression of disbelief flickered across her features. ‘The Duke? How? Why?’

‘I intend to give it to him.’

‘What?’ Her hands reached for his face, her fingers skimming across his skin to discern expression. He startled as she traced his jaw and cheek.

‘You are serious,’ she whispered. ‘I thought it was a foul joke.’

‘I am serious.’

‘But why?’ Her hands dropped from his face, reaching for him and clutching the cloth of his sleeve. ‘The Duke of Ayrebourne? Your cousin? He is despicable. You always said so. That is the reason we married. You can’t—do that.’

‘I believe I can. I have confirmed it with the solicitor,’ he said.

‘Your solicitor? It isn’t entailed?’

‘No.’

She shifted, her grip still tight. ‘If you are in straitened circumstances, we can help. Jamie has made Allington prosperous. He will help you with Graham Hill. He is surprisingly clever with agriculture.’

‘I am not in straitened circumstances.’

‘He is blackmailing you?’

Ren laughed. ‘One has to care about the opinion of others to be susceptible to blackmail.’

‘Then why sell?’

‘Give.’

‘Give?’ Her face had flushed, a mottled mix of red and white marking her neck. ‘Have you taken leave of your senses? Your family has owned this land for generations. Ayrebourne cares nothing for the people or the animals or the land.’

‘Then we have much in common,’ Ren said.

‘But you are not cruel.’

He shrugged. ‘People change.’

She shook her head, the movement so violent that her black bonnet slid to one side, giving her a peculiar appearance and making him want to straighten it. The odd impulse cut through his anger. His eyes stung. He wished—

‘Not like this,’ she said. ‘Something has happened. Something has changed you.’

‘My bro—’ He stopped himself. ‘Edmund died, if you recall. That is not enough?’

‘No. Something else. It happened long before Edmund left.’

For a moment, he was tempted to tell her everything. To tell her that Lord Graham was not his father, that Rendell Graham did not exist, had never existed. Why not? So many suspected anyway.

Then he straightened, moving from her.

She had always seen the best in him. She had run her fingers over his artwork and found beauty. She had touched his scrawny boyish arms and discerned muscle. He could not tell her. Not now. Not today. Not yet.

‘We should go to the carriage,’ he said.

‘And that’s it? You throw out this...this...ludicrous, awful proposal and then suggest we go home for tea.’

‘I will be having something considerably stronger, but you may stick to tea if you prefer.’

‘You’re doing it again.’

‘Yes?’ He raised a brow.

‘The drawl. It makes you sound not yourself.’

He smiled. ‘Perhaps because I am not myself,’ he said.

Chapter Four

Beth told Jamie after dinner that Ren intended to dispose of the estate. She had delayed, fearing it would distress him. Besides, she needed the time to mull over the news, to ensure that she was capable of speaking the words without smashing plates or throwing cutlery.

She heard Jamie’s angry movement. He stood and the dining room chair clattered, crashing into the wall behind him. ‘What? Why? Why sell?’

‘He is not selling. He intends to give it away.’

‘Give it away?’ Jamie paced. ‘Even more ludicrous. You have to stop him.’

‘Me?’

‘You are his wife.’

‘Not really. And he certainly will not listen to me.’

‘Who will he give it to?’ Jamie asked.

‘The Duke.’

‘The Duke?’ Jamie’s movements stopped, his stunned disbelief echoed her own. ‘Why? Good Lord, Ayrebourne turns his fields into park land so his rich friends can hunt. Starves his tenants. Why? Why the Duke?’

‘I don’t know,’ Beth said. ‘I mean, Ren knows that his cousin is loathsome. That is why he married me. It makes no sense that he would choose that man out of all humanity!’

‘His cousin...’ Jamie spoke softly. She heard him return to his chair and sit. His fingers drummed on the table.

‘You’ve thought of something? It matters that the Duke is his cousin?’

‘Yes.’

‘Why?’

‘I—’ She heard Jamie’s movement from the creaking of the chair. ‘Can’t.’

Jamie had never been able to speak when distressed. Words were never easy for him, particularly if the topic digressed from agricultural matters.

‘But you know something that makes this understandable, or at least more so?’

He grunted.

‘And you can’t tell me?’

‘No.’ Jamie pushed his chair back. It banged against the wall. She heard him rise. She heard the quick, rapid movement of his footsteps across the room. ‘Don’t know anything anyway. Rumour. Best ask your husband.’

With this curt statement, he left. The door swung shut, muting the rapid clatter of his brisk footsteps as he proceeded down the passageway.

‘Bother.’ Beth spoke to the empty room. Jamie would drive a saint to distraction, she was sure of it. His knowledge was usually limited to seedlings and now, when he actually knew something useful, he refused to speak of it.

She half-rose, intent on pressing him further, but that would accomplish nothing. He was right, she supposed. She should talk to Ren. He was her husband, at least in name, and she deserved some form of explanation. Besides, she thought, with a characteristic surge of optimism, the fact that a logical reason existed, however warped the logic, was hopeful. One could argue against a plan rooted in reason and while she lacked any number of skills, fluency in words or argument was not one of them.

Beth stood with sudden purpose. She was not of the personality to give up. She would talk to Ren. She would make him tell her why he was so driven to give away his birthright. She would remind him that, whatever he felt now, he had once loved this land and its people—

That was it!

For a second, she felt transported. The plan flashed across her mind, fully formed and brilliant. She could almost feel those heady, optimistic days of childhood: the sun’s warmth, the splash of water, the smell of moss and dirt mixed with a tang of turpentine and paint.

Grasping her cane, she hurried, counting her steps between her chair and the door and then took the twenty paces along the passageway to the stairs. Of course, she hadn’t been to the nursery in eons, but everything was familiar: the smooth wood of the banister rail, the creak of the third stair under her foot and the whine of the door handle. Everything was reminiscent of childhood. Layered under the dusty scent of a closed room, she even detected a hint of cinnamon left over from long-ago nursery teas.

Beth crossed the hardwood flooring until her cane struck the cupboard. She knelt, swinging open the door and reaching inwards. Papers rustled under her fingertips. She could feel the cool dustiness of chalk, the hardness of the slate boards and the smooth leather covers of books, soft from use.

Then her fingers found the artist’s palette with its hard ovals of dried paint and, beside it, the spiky bristles of brushes. She stretched her fingers from them and, to her delight, felt the dry, smooth texture of rolled canvas. She grinned, pulling eagerly so that the canvasses tumbled on to the floor with a rustling thud.

Squatting lower, she unrolled them, bending close as though proximity might help her see. Carefully, she ran her fingers across each one, focusing as Ren had taught her to do. She felt the dusty residue of chalk, the ridged texture of oils and the smooth flatness of water paints.

She saw, as her fingers roamed the images. Memories flooded her. She felt close to him here, yet also distant. This was the person she had known. This was the person who had captured beauty and who had joked and laughed as they walked for miles, dragging with them the clattering easel.

The bottom canvas fascinated her most. It was a landscape. She could feel the tiny delicate strokes which formed the tufts of grass mixed with the strong, bold lines of fence posts and trees.

Likely she’d been with him when he’d painted this, lying with the sun hot on her face and the grass cool against her back. Ren had said that the grass was green and she’d decided that green must smell of mint and that it would feel damp like spring mist. In autumn she’d touch the dry stubble in the hay field and he’d say it was yellow and she would decide that yellow was like the sun’s heat.

In those days, he had loved every inch of this land.

And then everything had changed.

* * *

The next morning, Ren glared at the neat columns of figures written on the ledger in front of him. The estate was in excellent shape. The tenants seemed content and the crops prosperous. Sad to give it to a man such as the Duke.

He shifted back in his seat, glancing at the paintings on the study wall left over from his grandfather’s time: a hunting scene and a poorly executed depiction of a black stallion in profile.

He felt more an imposter here than anywhere else on the sprawling estate. In fact, he had been in the study only twice since the return of the cheap portrait painter—the before and after of his life. He’d been summoned that day. Lord Graham had been sitting behind his desk, his face set in harsh lines and his skin so grey it was as though he had aged a lifetime within twenty-four hours. He’d stood immediately upon Ren’s entry, picking up the birch switch.

And then his usually kindly father had whipped him. And he hadn’t even known why.

He had been summoned one other time, after completing school. There had been no violence. Instead, Lord Graham had sat behind this desk, his eyes shuttered and without emotion. He’d spoken in measured tones, stating only that an allowance would be paid, provided Ren stayed away from Graham Hill and kept his silence. Ren had taken the stipend for three months before profitable investments had allowed him to return it and refuse any further payment.

Now, in an ironic twist of fate, Graham Hill could be his. Ren looked instinctively to the window and the park outside. The branches were still largely bare, but touched with miniscule green leaves, unfurling in the pale sunshine. Patches of moss dotted the lawn, bright and verdant beside grass still yellowed from winter.

It hurt to give it up, just as it had hurt to leave it.

A movement caught his attention and he saw a female figure approach. She held a cane in one hand and a basket in the other. His wife. She was counting her steps. He could see it in the tap and swing of her cane and the slight movement of her lips. She moved with care, but also with that ease which he had so often admired. Good Lord, if he were deprived of sight he would be paralysed, unable to move for fear of falling into an abyss.

He watched as she progressed briskly, disappearing about the side of the house. He supposed she had returned to berate him. Or else she wanted to again demand an annulment.

Anger tightened his gut. He’d kept his word. She’d had freedom, autonomy and yet she’d thrown it back at him—

‘My lord, Miss...um, your...her ladyship is in the parlour,’ Dobson announced.

He stood at the study door, his elderly face solemn and lugubrious.

Poor Dobson—he’d found the marriage difficult enough. Not that Dobson disliked Beth, he simply disliked the unconventional.

Beth entered immediately. Naturally, she had not remained in the parlour, as instructed. She never had been good with directions. He watched her approach and knew both a confused desire as well as a reluctance to see her. Even after years spent amidst London’s most glamorous women, he found her beauty arresting. She was not stunning, exactly. Her clothes were elegant, but in no way ostentatious or even fashionable. Yet there was something about her—she had a delicacy of feature, a luminosity which made her oddly not of this world, as though she were a fairy creature from a magic realm—

‘Ren!’ Beth interrupted his thoughts in that blunt way of hers. She approached, counting her steps to his desk, and now stood before him. With a thud, she put down the large wicker basket. ‘You must see these!’

He dismissed Dobson and watched as Beth opened the carrier.

Then his breath caught. A stabbing pain shot just below his ribcage. His hands tightened into balled fists as she pulled out the rolled canvasses, laying them flat on the mahogany desktop.