Chapter Eleven
The Third Week
“I have received a letter that may be of interest to you,” Everett said to Grace as soon as they had left the formal garden and started up the hill.
He had appeared at the doorway of her sitting room that morning already wearing outdoor clothes, his frock coat replaced by a brown and cream check country suit. His hair had flopped over his forehead, ready to shift at the slightest breeze, rather than being stuck down with macassar oil. The black and white text descriptions of France in the book she was pretending to study hadn’t been able to compete.
“From whom?” She felt her shoulders tense up. Subtly, she rolled them loose again, pushing them down to release the instinctive stress.
“Lord Rayner.”
She stumbled and her foot slipped on the mud as her sight blurred. Rayner. Everett’s hand was under her arm immediately, steadying her.
“His letter was very courteous. He suggested we meet, since he was an old friend of yours.”
“I’m not sure I’d put it like that.” She hastened her step, but allowed her hand to rest on his forearm as she pushed on upward. It felt natural to rely on him for this small thing. He’d just slipped his own arm underneath hers as a support. She could take her hand away at any time.
“Mmm. There was nothing much in it, but at the same time, something didn’t ring true.”
Grace exhaled her concern. He hadn’t mentioned the case in Chancery, then. And the bonds of aristocracy were not sufficient for Everett to immediately side with Rayner. There was a silence and Grace began to relax, thinking he wasn’t going to pursue anything further. By tacit agreement, they headed toward the big oak.
“I should like to know why you didn’t want to marry him.” Her sideways glance revealed that his eyebrows had settled into a frown of contemplation. “I’m not demanding to know. But if there is something important, so essential that you wished to hide it from me, I wonder if I might help?”
A heaviness pressed across her lower back, but warmth with it. She was doing everything possible already to get Henry. “How could you help?”
As they reached the oak, she separated from him to circle around the immense tree. It had a split in its side, but the overhanging branches were strong, reaching out as if to shelter every creature in the park under them.
His frown cleared. “It depends what the problem is.”
The gleam in his eye made Grace replay her words and spot her mistake. He hadn’t known for sure there was something amiss, until she’d confirmed it. She looked at the acorns scattered on the floor while she contemplated. Could she depend on him to keep this secret? Though the case for Henry had been started, Everett could still make things difficult for her if he wished. But she didn’t think he would. He had shown her, from the first evening she’d arrived at Larksview, that he was trustworthy.
In short, he was not the same kind of earl as Lord Rayner. It had taken her weeks to see that, but she had good reason for being cautious. Perhaps he deserved the truth. Inclination tugged at her, too. She wanted to tell him, to have there be no secrets between them, as though they were a couple rather than partners thrown together by circumstance.
She rolled around the events in her mind. At the beginning, that was where one started. “During my season, I stayed with the Fishers. You met them when we agreed to marry, if you remember?”
He dipped his chin encouragingly.
“Father didn’t want to go to town and thought I would have a better chance of a good match with Lady Fisher behind me. While I was in London, I employed a lady’s maid, Anna. She said she was a French lady’s maid, but she was really from Dover. She does an excellent accent and knows a smattering of rude words and polite phrases in French. We’re of a similar age and we got along immediately. She can do extraordinary things with curling irons.”
They shared a little smile and Grace could see him wondering where this was leading. She gestured and they continued onward, away from the oak, on the rough path in the grass to go farther up the hill. Her legs were weighted with her reluctance.
“When Samuel and I became engaged, he took up all my thoughts.” Young infatuation, rather than anything substantial. She could see that now—he had given up their attachment so easily. She thought hers had more longevity, but was that the case? She had instantly placed her brother above the possibility of marrying Samuel. That was evidence of a transient relationship on both their parts. But she’d resented it when her father had judged it as such.
“When I returned home, I brought Anna with me. Living at home again, with Caroline some miles away rather than in the same house, I…” Her mouth was cast-iron as she tried to speak. “I lost a good sense of the employer-servant relationship. I insisted Anna come with me wherever I went. She became like my companion.”
More than that, though, they were friends. Given the opportunity, Anna displayed her wit and quick mind, as well as her sewing and embroidery skills. They’d shared confidences, giggled over gentlemen, and generally acted like young women without cares beyond dresses and flirtations.
“One particular day, we went out for a picnic with Lord Rayner and the Fishers. We’re all neighbors, you see, in Northamptonshire. Rayner pursued Anna. He singled her out and I, in my naivety, imagined a Cinderella story. Anna was Jane Fairfax, and I was a cleverer Emma, matchmaking my maid. You know the Jane Austen characters I mean?”
Everett tilted his head up in confirmation.
She was gratified that such novels weren’t beneath him, even as she felt her face heat at the stupidity of her attitude then. “Nothing came of it, though. Their nascent romance seemed to die, and I forgot about it, consumed in my own affairs.”
Everett’s assessing glance brought out her shame in cold lumps across her skin. But she wouldn’t flinch away from her wrongdoing.
“It was when I was secretly engaged to Mr. Brooker and he was foremost in my mind. I was only worried for my own happiness, only concerned about how I could persuade Father to allow me to marry Samuel. I was careless.” There. That was her confession, her guilt. Most of it, anyway. “Months later, Anna broke down. She was pregnant. Then it all came out: how Rayner had been wooing her in private, walking with her, giving her presents. They had been meeting secretly. One evening, he tried to kiss her. She said no and tried to leave.”
Everett inhaled sharply.
“He wouldn’t let her go. He said that she owed him. She said no. He continued…he…forced her.” Her chest convulsed for a second and she swallowed down bile.
“I see.” He stabbed his walking stick particularly hard into the ground.
His face was cloaked in a serious expression. What did he see? A young woman charmed by a young earl and then taken against her will? A loose lady’s maid who brought ruin upon herself? Did he see Grace’s own culpability as an employer and a friend?
“It was only later I remembered asking her about the bruises on her wrists some months earlier. I did nothing more than chide her to be careful.”
What had she thought had caused such bruises? Perhaps the worst aspect was that she, somewhere in herself, must have known that there were further bruises and injuries. But she hadn’t done anything to explore or find out. Perhaps a part of her hadn’t wanted to know.
“I’m so sorry.” His voice was tight. “Force, payment, or even guilt, should not be the way between a man and a woman. You must know by now that is my opinion.” His knuckles were white, gripping his walking stick.
Grace nodded, and the movement spread the relief through her. He didn’t blame Anna. And it occurred to her that she’d known his opinion from the first. His brief interchange with Maurice when they’d made their bargain had been about exactly this. She hadn’t been able to trust his words then, but she saw now they were true.
A heavy silence descended between them, and they continued up the hill. In the silence were all the sordid details Grace did not want to dwell on. Anna’s distress, her own feeling of helplessness.
“She gave birth to a little girl last month. Her name is Mary, and I haven’t met her yet.”
“You write to her? Is this what you’re busy doing when you’re feigning reading about Europe?”
Just write to her? They did correspond, of course. They’d been friends, and Anna was grateful for her help in making a new persona. They wrote as an uncomfortable balance of friends and equals, but also employer and servant, benefactor and beneficiary. The instant Grace’s eye line met his, he appeared to understand his misconception.
“Ah, no. You send her money.” He frowned. “But Lord Rayner and your father. It’s not your responsibility.”
Grace couldn’t suppress a huff. “I employed her to serve my own vanity, so her well-being is my responsibility. I couldn’t go to my father. He had been against me bringing back my fancy maid at all and wasn’t happy I treated her like a companion. When he wanted me to marry Lord Rayner, I told him about the incident. He dismissed it, saying that Lord Rayner wouldn’t treat his wife like that.”
He’d said that if a lord could get away with such a thing under his nose, it showed how imperative is was to ally oneself with the aristocracy. It was then she’d understood that the word lord was essentially the freedom to be irresponsible, immoral, and dissolute. It certainly wasn’t the panacea her father thought it. Not all earls took up their freedom in that way. She sneaked a look sideways at Everett, then focused on the ground in front of her before he could notice.
“I thought I could solve it, and Lord Rayner would marry her.” She’d been so naive. “I went to visit Lord Rayner. At first, he denied it. When I laid out some of the evidence to him—her pregnancy, the general knowledge of his interest in her—he blamed her. Said she had led him on, that she was a whore and all French maids had loose morals.
“When I told him he must marry her, he laughed at me. He said people like him didn’t marry down without better incentive than that.”
He’d meant money, and the expression in his eyes had suddenly made it clear that Anna was just a passing diversion for him. It was Grace herself, and Grace’s dowry that was his true interest. He was secure in his aristocratic right to have anything he wanted. The knowledge had crawled up her spine like a centipede.
“I tried to persuade him to give her money to help with the baby. He said that it was her fault for getting herself into the situation, so it was her responsibility to care for it.” She looked over at Everett. He’d been silent throughout her story, and his expression was stern. “I failed. He doesn’t support his child. I do.”
“It sounds almost as though you blame yourself for what happened to Anna,” he said, his inflection neutral.
The air in Grace’s chest was suddenly thick and hot. She couldn’t say anything.
“The only person to blame for what Lord Rayner did to Anna is Lord Rayner. Your wishing for, or even encouraging, a romance between them does not make you culpable for him taking advantage of her.”
“I should have known better.” How she wanted to believe what he said. But a lady ought to be on her guard. She ought to have known what he was like. But really, what signs had she had? He’d been politely flirtatious with her. Perhaps a little wild around the edges, but didn’t everyone say that reformed rakes made the best husbands? “I shouldn’t have tried to mix up the classes like that. It was always going to end in disaster.”
“No.” He took her hand and shook it gently. They both stopped walking. She looked up into his eyes. “It’s nothing to do with class. Good behavior is classless. It happens everywhere and should be universal. Sadly, it isn’t, and the vice is just as equally distributed. You can’t blame yourself. People aren’t always what they seem.”
His expression was fierce. He’d seemed like a lazy aristocrat, which he was the furthest thing from. He was honest, kind, and caring. By comparison, she felt like she was much worse on the inside than she appeared outwardly. She nodded her assent and he accepted it with a squeeze of his fingers. Her hand remained clasped with his as they continued strolling past a horse chestnut tree. Its prickly green fruit had begun to fall and reveal the glossy conkers inside, scattered across the ground.
“You reasoned with him and he didn’t respond. Presumably, you looked into legal recourse?” Everett asked.
She jerked her head in agreement.
Everett’s mouth wrinkled as though he’d tasted something sour. “I believe that rape in such cases is classed as theft from the woman’s father.”
“She doesn’t have any close family alive. She’s an orphan.” Yet another thing they had in common.
“Even if she did, it hardly encompasses the true situation. And the use of force is tricky to prove, especially sometime after the attack. Leaving violence as the only route of justice.” He tilted his head thoughtfully. “Do you want me to call him out for you? I could shoot him.”
He said it so casually, Grace didn’t understand for a moment. Then her heart swelled that he would do that for her, even as she shook her head. He was a lord, but he’d offered to use his power for her, rather than to get what he wanted.
“What, and get yourself arrested for dueling? No, it’s not the eighteenth century anymore. I want to make things better, not wreck another life.” She didn’t want him to be in trouble on her behalf. But still, it felt good for him to want what she did. The same thought had gone through her mind many times since she’d found out about what Rayner had done.
“I agree. But I’m still sorry there isn’t better provision.” He tilted his head to look up at the sky. She followed his gaze to cerulean blue and white patterns moving gently across. “And I’m sorry for what happened. Not all men, and not all aristocrats, are like that.”
“I don’t understand why any man does things like that,” she said, half to herself.
“An infinite variety of reasons. Some sane. Some not. But the army, and my two most recent Westbury predecessors, do give me some insight into destructive bents.”
“Well?” she asked when he didn’t continue.
He twisted his lips into a grimace. “I’m guessing, of course. But many privileged young men have fragile egos and are used to getting their own way. When my brother Peter was thwarted, even in something he didn’t want, he would feel it as a slight. He would do irrational things to prove you wrong, and he coveted things he couldn’t have. By the time we were at school, I knew to be careful about revealing to him what I valued, because he would take it. The worst thing you could say to Peter was ‘no.’”
The wind suddenly felt chilling as she thought of Anna saying no to Lord Rayner. And hadn’t Grace thwarted Lord Rayner’s expectation when she married Everett? Her father had been rather unsubtle about his wish to see Rayner and his daughter marry. Perhaps Rayner knew that Grace ought to have been his.
“The last time I saw Peter was in London.” Everett’s eyes were steely, looking into the distance, his arms stiff. “I told him to stop gambling and said he needed to hire additional staff to take better care of things. His response was to gamble more than ever and cut down on the essentials. He used the cheapest hired wheelwright he could when his curricle was damaged. If I hadn’t said anything, he might have used a decent tradesman and still been alive today.”
“That isn’t your fault.” She wanted to protect him from his own implicit criticism.
“No. Though it is uncomfortable that my attempt to do good indirectly enabled me to do good now that he is gone. That is the uncomfortable part of inheritance that no one talks about.” His brow furrowed. “Your predecessor has to die.”
He was silent for a moment, and she assumed he was thinking about his brother. This role had been put upon Everett and he wasn’t the same as other lords.
“This is why you wouldn’t marry Lord Rayner, even though your brother is his ward.”
“Yes.”
He’d been thinking about her. Her heart throbbed and she walked faster, reaching the flat grassy top of the hill and continuing round its edge. She’d never doubted it was the right thing to do, though it was a tear in her to leave her brother.
He kept step with her, his walking stick digging into the ground each time he swung it. The divots were plainly visible in the arc of the path they’d come up the hill. “Would he have hurt a child? Your father must have trusted him.”
She slowed her pace. “I have no reason to think he would be any more respectful of a young boy than he was of a woman.”
“What is your plan?” He wasn’t looking at her, but even in profile, she thought she could see the beginnings of a sly smile.
“What makes you believe I have a plan?” The breeze buffeted her skirt, picking her petticoat and underskirt up at the hem and playing with them.
“Don’t you?”
She stopped and looked across the valley laid out before them in green and blue, the house and gardens at the center of it. The ribbons of her bonnet flicked around in the breeze. “Yes. But how do you know that I do?”
He came to stand next to her, and out of the corner of her eye she saw him regard the view for a moment before turning to look at her. He ducked down a little, as though to get a better angle to observe her. “I am beginning to see you, now.”
Her breathlessness was just from their walk up the hill. And her heart was racing because of the exercise, not because he was looking at her as though he coveted her. As though he saw her. Did he like what he saw?
That he thought well of her was significant, particularly since her latest confession.
She was beginning to believe him. Maybe even like him, rather a lot, and like looking at him. Maybe, too, it was important that what he saw he thought was attractive.
His gaze was warm, despite the chill of the breeze at the top of the hill, and his hair was wayward, dancing around as he looked at her. She wanted to touch it. Instead, she smoothed back her own hair, trying to tuck it into her bonnet. It was futile, and the wind whipped it straight back out.
“Also,” he said conspiratorially, “you do not become a lieutenant colonel without having some idea of when someone is up to something.”
She looked back at the house. It appeared larger from here. The angle allowed the square shape with a central courtyard to be seen.
“I’m going to use my half of the dowry to make the legal case that I ought to be Henry’s guardian.”
It was a full minute before he replied, while they stared out over the vista together. “I wish you had explained all this to me sooner.” He frowned for a moment before going on. “Why did you not tell me?”
“How could I know you wouldn’t try to stop me? It’s only six weeks. It didn’t seem worth the risk. I needed…” She searched for the right words.
“You needed to stay in my good graces.” His pensive tone was gone, replaced by playfulness. “And your experience has taught you lords don’t easily bestow their grace and favor.”
She couldn’t help but smile.
“I’m glad that you’ve confided this.” He turned to her. “Because now you have told me, I can help.”
“I’m not sure you can. The court of Chancery is just papers, money, and time.” Her heart sank. If only it were that easy. “Unless you know the queen.” She gave him a dry look.
He shook his head. “Second son, remember. But why would that help?”
“The queen is the official protector of all orphans, but Chancery helpfully manages the business for her. Via a huge number of letters.”
“Well.” He grinned. “You will have to show me your secret papers.”
He made “secret papers” sound like something not just illicit, but downright scandalous. Grace had to take several breaths to prevent herself from blushing. His smile was inviting and drawing her in.
“You don’t have to hide things. I am offering husbandly assistance.”
Grace felt her eyes widening.
“Not taking husbandly rights,” he hastened to add. “If you really do not want my help, of course, you only need say so. But the offer is there.”
Did she trust him enough to allow him to help? Moreover, did she trust herself enough that she wouldn’t take up some of that assistance as a real wife. The world was not so friendly to women, even countesses, as it was to men. And it was only a few more weeks.
What could be the harm of taking up his offer, just a little? There was nothing stopping her now.
She looked up at him; he was watching her patiently for her response. “Yes. Thank you.”
His smile was as pleased as if she had given him a gift, rather than allowed him to aid her. “Good. We’ll start tomorrow morning.”