Chapter Fifteen
She was avoiding him. Again. For two days, she’d taken her meals in the chamber she’d chosen after the death of Captain Randolph, and only left that chamber when she was assured he had left the house. Then she secreted herself in her study and tended to the business of the estate. Business he had Babcock check over every night.
Now, he had no choice but to confront her and present his plans for her in person. He descended the stairs to the entrance hall and spotted Voil and Achilles deep in conversation. They each handed a flustered Vaughn a small leather pouch that clinked in the butler’s hands.
They were at it again. Betting on his inability to persuade his wife to—
“Your Grace,” Vaughn announced as he slipped the pouches into his pocket, “Her Grace is in the rose garden awaiting you.”
“Thank you, Vaughn. If either of you two follow me, I will order Cook to keep that basket of pasties she baked for our journey, Voil,” Endymion said as he walked out the front door.
He reached the terraces and paused on the top of the stairs that led down several levels of blooming flower gardens, ending at the rose garden that rolled out to the edge of the ha-ha. Rhiannon sat on a bench amidst the rows upon rows of rose bushes. She sat very primly, gazing down the length of the garden with perfect posture, dressed in green with her hair done up in the latest style from London. She wore no bonnet, but her hands were covered in some sort of lacy gloves.
He’d lain awake most of the night. He’d had no choice. The memories, the secrets revealed, and the events of the past few days played through his thoughts over and over. He’d arrived at few conclusions. It appeared, over the last seventeen years, everyone had controlled his life save himself. Captain Randolph had taken his family. Rhiannon had taken his hand in marriage. His grandfather had taken his freedom and given him order, an education, and a way to survive, but at a cost he’d never imagined.
As if she sensed his presence, Rhiannon turned and gazed up at him. His heart slowed. He forced himself to stroll casually down the steps when every instinct begged him to run. To gather her in his arms and take her to a place where there were no dukedoms or secrets or pasts full of lies and ghosts. That world did not exist. But he wanted her in his world, even if he had no idea why, or how that could be achieved.
“I am here, Your Grace, as commanded,” she said when he came to stand before her. “What are my orders?”
“I would not have to issue commands if you were not so intent on hiding from me.”
“We have lived separately for seventeen years. We have lived in the same house for nearly a month. Who is hiding from whom?” She turned her attention to her hands.
“I am not hiding. I am, that is, Voil and I are… I have a great deal of business to conduct in Town. Rather, it is my intention to return to London this afternoon.” What was it about her that turned him into a stammering idiot?
“I am aware, Your Grace. I wish you a safe—”
“I have decided you will accompany me.” He clasped his hands behind his back and fixed his attention on a curl determined to fly free of her coiffure.
“I see,” she replied, her voice uncharacteristically quiet and sweet. “For what purpose?”
“I am not convinced you are out of danger. I prefer to have you in London until I am certain the danger is past. I think the running of the estate has taken a great deal of your time and effort. You are the Duchess of Pendeen. You deserve an easier, less strenuous life. I will leave Babcock to put things in order here and to hire a qualified and fair steward to run the estate. You will—”
“No.” She rose gracefully and started up the steps toward the house.
“I beg your pardon?” He knew it would not be easy, not where Rhiannon was concerned. He ran up the steps to catch her. “What do you mean, no?”
“The same thing I meant when I turned down your last invitation to London.” She whirled and nearly knocked him down the steps. “How dare you try to take Pendeen away from me?” She poked his chest with a finger. “You may leave Babcock here, if you like. I am certain he will send you a detailed report of my every order, my every purchase, and every single entry on the estate ledgers.”
He had no choice but to back down the steps as she continued to poke and rage at him. “That isn’t—”
“I have lied to you, forced you to marry me, kept your brother’s return from you, and I am certain I have not run this estate as you or your precious grandfather would prefer.” Her eyes were bright with unshed tears. “I will live the rest of my life here alone, without husband or children, and that will be punishment enough for my crimes. I will not be carted away from the only people who care for me just so you can parade me through the ballrooms and drawing rooms of London and remind me of all the wrong I have done to you. I won’t.”
“How is offering you a life of ease and privilege a punishment?” he shouted. She saw life with him as punishment? The force of this pain was far too powerful to be wounded pride.
“That isn’t what you are offering me and you know it, Your Grace. You are dragging me off to control me the way your grandfather controlled you.”
“I am weary as the devil of hearing about my grandfather’s control. I am my own man, madam. And as Duke of Pendeen, your husband, and my own man, I will have my wife with me in London where I choose to live.”
“Where you choose to live?” Her chest heaved against the confines of her muslin dress. Her bottom lip trembled and then stilled. “Leave me here, Dymi. I am useful here. I serve a purpose. I can do nothing for you in London.”
“You can provide me an heir,” he replied, even as his mind provided a thousand things she might do for him. A thousand things he needed from her and feared only she might provide. He could not make sense of any of it.
“So you can raise him the way you were raised?” She shook her head. “You are a good man, Endymion, but there is something broken in you, something lost. I don’t want a child of mine to grow up believing duty is a cage and needing and trusting anyone is a weakness.”
“Lest you forget, you may already carry my child.” Was it weakness to hope he might have that to tie her to him?
“Mrs. Davis worked as a midwife. I asked her when I might take you to bed and not risk getting with child. There is little to no chance, Your Grace, when one schedules marital relations correctly.”
“Not all dangers are to the body, Dymi. Some dangers are to the soul.” She reached up to run her forefinger across his lips. “I can’t do it. I can’t go to London. I can’t have a child with a man who gives me nothing of himself, least of all, his trust. We both did foolish things when we were children. I forgave you long ago. You will never forgive me. And that leaves us where we have always been. Apart.” She shrugged. “Perhaps it is for the best.”
She started back up the steps. He caught her hand.
“No, why? Why did you want to marry me? What made you do…all those things to make me your husband?”
“No, I don’t.” He searched the past for an answer, just as he’d done all night. Achilles said he’d know if he just thought about it, but Endymion truly did not understand. Perhaps she was right. Perhaps he was irreparably broken.
“It doesn’t matter, Dymi. I shouldn’t have done it. If could undo it, I would. I would grant you that freedom, at least.”
He stood at the bottom of the steps surrounded by roses and watched her go. The clatter of carriages arriving under the portico made the decision for him. It was time he returned to London. When he reached the top of the steps, Voil and Achilles waited for him.
“I take it she said no,” Voil said, not bothering to put his inquiry in the form of a question.
“Which of you betted she’d say yes?” Endymion walked past the carriages being loaded under Babcock’s capable supervision.
“Neither,” Achilles replied. “Our bet was on something entirely different.”
“Why are we headed to the stables?” Voil asked.
“I am going for a ride. You may accompany me, if you wish.”
The two of them looked at him as if he’d lost his wits. Just as well. He was beginning to think he had. He hoped a ride might help him to find them.
They rode the entire estate, from the cliff’s edge that threatened to drop into the sea, to the rolling green fields dotted with sheep, to the mines, and through the forests. They rode through the village where men doffed their caps and bowed, and women curtsied. Children stared, as they had every right to do. They rode to the ruins where Voil and Achilles remained on their horses whilst Endymion climbed to the top of the tower and slowly circled the battlements, studying the land like a Latin text in search of an answer that eluded him.
He descended to the tower chamber where they’d hidden the night his mother died. The voices were silent now, save for one. He listened this time, truly listened, and the odd, murky scrap of an idea at the back of his mind grew clearer. Once he remounted his horse, he turned toward the village once again.
“You are certain you won’t come to London with us, Achilles?” he asked after they’d ridden in silence for a while.
“There are two more men out there, Dymi. I intend to find them.”
“Cornwall is my home,” Achilles said. “I’ll not let anything or anyone keep me from it. London holds nothing for me. It never has.”
“Why did she do it, Achilles? Why did she want to marry me?”
“The proper question is why does she still want to be married to you?” Voil suggested.
“Your wife does not strike me as the sort of woman who lets others make choices for her,” Voil replied.
“Why do you want to be married to her, Dymi?” his brother asked.
“Why did she do it? Why did she do something she knew you’d hate her for? Why did she do any of it?” Achilles asked with a disgusted shake of his head. “She is married to you for the rest of her life. Uncle Richard has offered her a great deal of money to have the marriage annulled.”
“Have I told you how much I despise your uncle, Pendeen?” Voil offered, as he had on numerous occasions.
“Why did she do it?” Achilles asked once more.
Endymion stopped his horse. He closed his eyes and filled his lungs with the bright summer Cornwall air. He remembered. He remembered her face the night they’d married. He remembered her face as he came down the stairs on his return to Cornwall. He remembered her face in the room at The Mermaid’s Tale, her touch, and words of comfort. He drew each vision in like air, her face, always her face, and her voice, and her touch. And he knew. Why she married him. And why he needed her, like the very air he breathed in the gentle heat of a Cornwall summer.
“I need a favor,” he shouted as he urged his horse into a gallop. “Of the both of you.”
A favor, some luck, and a chance in hell it wasn’t too late.