In the Prince’s Bed by Sabrina Jeffries (17)

Chapter Twenty-three

“You know that you’ve lost your mind, don’t you?” Katherine’s mother said two days later from across the hired carriage.

“I know.”

She really did. The closer they traveled to a tiny village called Fenbridge, the more insane this trip seemed. Yet she had to make it. She had to find out what Alec was hiding.

Because she knew he was hiding something. Otherwise, why not let them go with him to Suffolk?

Her stomach tightening with every mile, she stared out at the forest they passed. His reluctance simply made no sense. If he was so eager to bring her home with him to begin their life together, why not do it at once?

Unless his trip to Suffolk had nothing to do with the spring planting.

She shook off the thought that plagued her constantly.

She’d made the mistake of leaping to conclusions before—she wouldn’t do it again. But neither would she head blithely into marriage to a man she couldn’t trust. Until she was sure she knew all his secrets, she couldn’t marry him. And the only way to do that was to go to his home and see what he seemed determined to keep hidden.

“Really, my angel,” Mama said as she bounced on the uncomfortable seat, “I don’t understand why you’re doing this. First you insist upon our visiting some fellow at the Stephens Hotel yesterday. Then you spend our meager funds to hire a coach, rouse me before dawn, and drag me on this trip across two counties…and all to appear at an estate where you’re clearly not expected. Faith, you’d think you didn’t want to marry his lordship.”

“Of course I want to marry him,” she said mechanically. “I just want to be certain whom I’m marrying.”

“The Earl of Iversley, of course. Surely you’re not confused about that.”

“It’s not his title I’m confused about, Mama.” Katherine had grown tired of going round and round on the same subject. “It’s his character.”

“Character, character…you’re obsessed with character. Most girls would be happy to marry an earl with an estate of twelve thousand acres. But not you, oh no. You must run him down at his home, whether he wants you there or not. You’ll ruin all your chances with him yet,” her mother predicted.

“That’s a risk I’ll have to take.”

Ever since the night he’d left her at the town house with a kiss and a promise to return within the week, she’d fretted over his odd behavior. Especially after she’d gone to speak to the owner of the Stephens Hotel the next day. She’d told him that she wanted to retrieve The Rake’s Rhetorick while Alec was off in Suffolk.

“Jack” had been more than happy to sing Alec’s praises once she’d made it clear that she knew Alec had been living in his establishment. But though he’d professed to know she was Alec’s betrothed, he’d politely refused to let her into Alec’s room to look for “the book she’d lent him that he’d forgotten to return.” And when she’d asked for Alec’s direction so she could send him a note, he’d flatly refused to give it to her.

That had only deepened her suspicions. Alec hadn’t given her his direction, either—what if she needed to reach him? Clearly, he’d intended to keep her in the dark.

Combined with Alec’s peculiar reaction to her request to go with him—and his strange insistence on taking care of estate matters in person—it had been enough to send her on this quest.

It had taken her half the afternoon yesterday to coax someone at the hotel into telling her exactly where Alec was headed. Even then, she’d only managed to get the name of the nearby town. But if he was as well-known a landowner as her mother thought, then someone could direct them from there.

One way or the other, however, she intended to surprise him at his estate.

“What exactly do you expect to find out?” Mama asked her peevishly.

“I don’t know.” And that was the God’s honest truth.

“If you surprise a man in his own home, you’d best be prepared for what you find. Men often dismiss their mistresses just before they marry, you know.”

She did know. And it shouldn’t bother her if he was getting rid of a mistress. It was certainly better than keeping the mistress after they married. But it did bother her, and it boded ill for their life to come. She refused to marry a man with Papa’s morals.

Of course, he might be hiding something else entirely. Or perhaps she was being unduly cautious again. No, she didn’t think so. She only prayed she didn’t get more than she’d bargained for by surprising him like this.

They traveled in silence a while as thick forests of ash and elm turned to clay hills, and the sun slid toward the horizon. It was nearly dusk when Katherine saw a sign-post that said, FENBRIDGE—2 MILES.

Her heart began to pound. “We can’t be far,” she told her mother.

“It’s not too late to return to London,” Mama retorted. “Why risk it when you have so much to lose?”

“Because I must.”

She spotted a farm laborer driving a cart ahead of them. As they came alongside, she ordered the hired coachman to stop.

The laborer, a weathered man with an unusually tall brow and long-fingered hands, reined in as well, turning a pair of suspicious eyes on her. “Lost, are ye?”

Katherine flashed him a smile out the open window. “Indeed we are. We’re looking for Lord Iversley’s estate. Edenmore.”

The man jerked his head to the field that ran by the road. “You been driving by it for a good bit. You can see the house from the road up ahead—it’s a big ’un.”

“Thank you,” she said, and offered him a coin.

With a derisive snort, he ignored it and clicked his tongue to send his odd-looking horse clopping on down the road.

As they passed him, Katherine gazed at the cleared fields he’d indicated and felt a moment’s unease. Three men toiled in them with horses much like the odd one she’d just seen—short, barrel-bodied, and devoid of the thick hair usual to the legs of draft horses. They were turning the earth in nice, neat rows…with shiny new tillers.

What if Alec had been telling the truth? Might he get angry enough at her distrust to toss her aside, as Mama feared?

Then where would she be? She couldn’t go back to Sydney—not unchaste as she was. And even if Sydney would have her, she’d already realized he wasn’t the man for her. Indeed, she greatly feared that no man could make her feel what she felt for Alec.

But what did she feel for Alec? Did she dare give a name to the dizzy pleasure she felt when he entered a room? The way his teasing always brightened her day? She could say anything to him, and he understood. Even around Sydney she’d always had to censor her more…reckless thoughts.

So why couldn’t she trust Alec? Why did she still hold a piece of her heart back from him?

Just as she wondered if she should turn back to London after all, she caught sight of the house the laborer had described, and her heart leaped into her throat.

This was to be her home, this huge house of red brick and a hundred glass windows, with an elm-lined drive they now entered, and a fishpond and flower gardens and long lawns…

But they were overgrown flower gardens, choked with weeds. And the fishpond was covered with a thick green scum. And of the hundred windows, a good third of them were boarded up, turning what had once been a beauty of a house into a pockmarked crone.

“He wasn’t lying when he said the place was in no condition for a wedding,” Mama remarked.

Katherine glanced over to see her mother scrutinizing the place with a frown. “Don’t you remember, Mama? He said his father neglected the place for years. That’s why he wanted to be here rather than in London.”

No wonder Alec had spoken so fiercely of his poor home. What sort of unconscionable creature had his father been, to let this beautiful old building fall into such disrepair?

“This is more than neglect, girl,” her mother said. “This doesn’t look good to me, not good at all.”

Katherine ignored her mother as they drove up before the front entrance. Of course it didn’t look good; that’s what happened when a man didn’t do his duty. And it wasn’t as if there’d been much time for Alec to turn things around.

It was odd, though—Alec had mentioned workmen, yet there were none around. No one repaired the sagging eaves, no one pulled the weeds in the beds of rosebushes gone wild, and no groom ran out to greet them as they approached.

Indeed, even after they disembarked, it took several moments to get any response to their knock at the front door. When at last it opened, the aging fellow who greeted them seemed confused by their appearance. “May I help you?”

Katherine forced a smile, though her unease increased by the moment. “I’m Lord Iversley’s intended, Miss Katherine Merivale. My mother and I have come to see him.”

There was no mistaking the poor man’s alarm. “All the way from London?”

“Yes. If you could just announce us—”

“Forgive me, miss, but his lordship isn’t here at present.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Where is he?”

“He’s…er…in town. So you’ll have to come back later.” He actually started to close the door, but she was too quick for him and thrust her foot in the opening to block it.

“Then let us in, and we’ll wait for him to return,” she said.

“Oh, no, miss,” the man said, so violently she feared he might keel over in shock right there. “You mustn’t come in. But if you’d be so good as to wait outside with your carriage—”

“We will do no such thing.” She pushed past him into the house. She’d been right all along—Alec was hiding something. Scarcely noticing the frayed carpets and sparse furnishings, she turned a dark scowl on the man. “Now where exactly has he gone?”

“Wait here, and I shall send for him at once.”

That was the last thing she wanted—for this fellow to warn Alec. “Never mind. I’ll find someone else to tell me.”

Hearing voices upstairs, she headed for the main staircase. Mama followed right behind her.

So did the annoying servant. “I beg you, miss,” he said as he struggled to keep pace with her, breathing hard, “do not go up there. I know that his lordship would prefer that you wait while I fetch him—”

“Oh, I’m sure he would,” she retorted, her steps more resolute the farther she marched up the stairs.

If she hadn’t been so upset, she might have noticed the lack of other servants coming to the man’s aid or the shaky banister that clearly needed repair. But her entire focus was on the laughter coming from upstairs. Because she recognized it. Alec was up there, along with some female. The masculine laughter was interspersed with decidedly feminine giggles.

As she reached the next floor she caught sight of beds through open doors. This was where the bedchambers were, and the laughter was coming from the one at the end of the hall, probably the master bedroom.

She stalked toward the sound of laughter, growing sicker by the moment. How many times had she gone to fetch Papa, only to find him with some tart he tried to pass off as a servant? How often had she had to turn away while he fumbled with his breeches even as he lied to her?

Now she could make out the voices, and they only spurred her on.

“What do you think?” said the voice she definitely recognized as Alec’s. “Is it too wicked?”

There came that feminine giggle again. “Not for a bedchamber, master.”

Some grunting ensued. “Is that all right?”

“It’s fine.”

“I don’t think it belongs there.”

“It’ll be fine if you put it more to the back.”

“A naked woman should never go to the back.”

That sent the female into peals of laughter. “Oh, go on with you, now. You ought to be ashamed of yourself, my lord.” Then the only sound was more grunting and groaning.

Katherine rushed the last few steps to the end of the hall. She would make the wretch ashamed of himself, only see if she didn’t.

He was cursing now, but that didn’t stop her from bursting through the open door to cry, “What is going on here?”

A fully dressed Alec jumped and lost his grip on the three-foot-high marble sculpture he was taking down from atop a massive mahogany tallboy. It plummeted from his raised hands, glanced off his skull, and went crashing to the floor…with Alec close behind.

“Alec!” she screamed, racing over to where he lay prone.

She was quickly joined by a portly woman at least twice his age. “Oh my word, master…master, are you all right?”

Katherine knelt to cradle his head in her hands, cursing herself for being ten kinds of a fool. “Lord preserve me, he’s dead. I’ve killed him!”

“He’s not dead,” the older woman said in a soothing voice. She took his hand and pressed a finger to his wrist. “He’s got a good strong pulse.”

“But look, he’s bleeding!” Katherine’s heart twisted painfully to see the thin trickle of blood running down the side of his face. “He’s hurt badly.”

“I don’t think so, miss,” the other woman said. “He’s just knocked senseless is all. Give him a minute. His lordship has a hard head—he’ll be all right.”

But the older woman’s voice held an edge, and Katherine knew she wasn’t as sanguine as she tried to sound. “You must be his intended,” the woman added. “I’m Mrs. Brown, the housekeeper.”

“I’m Katherine Merivale,” she choked out. The ninny who nearly killed your master. Tears welled in her eyes. “This is a fine way to meet, isn’t it?” Brushing the hair from his forehead, she examined the gash while the housekeeper chafed his limp fingers.

Katherine glanced up, suddenly remembering Mama, who stood in the doorway, eyeing everything with suspicion. “That’s my mother over there.” She cast Mrs. Brown an imploring glance. “Can’t we make him more comfortable than here on the floor?”

“Best not to move him just yet,” the woman said. “He’s breathing right, and the color is coming back into his cheeks. I think he’ll come round.”

“This is all my fault. I should never have burst in like that.” Katherine glanced over at the sculpture of a woman on horseback draped only in her own hair. Lady Godiva…the naked woman.

Her tears burned her eyes. “What was he doing, anyway?”

Mrs. Brown shrugged. “He wanted to make the room nice for you, and there weren’t too many things left in the attic to do it with but this old sculpture of his father’s and a few paintings nobody would buy. I told him he shouldn’t try to put that up so high himself, but he wouldn’t go fetch the ladder.”

“One of the footmen should have helped him, or—”

“We have no footmen, miss.” The woman caught herself, then said, “That is, they’re…er…all out…um…in town.”

Mrs. Brown was as bad a liar as the butler. And suddenly it hit her. The lack of servants, faded carpet, dilapidated stairs, and overgrown gardens…As Mama said, it was more than just neglect. Katherine recognized a lack of money when she saw it. She’d certainly lived with it enough since Papa had died.

She stared at Mrs. Brown. “He has no money, does he? His lordship has no money.”

The old woman blanched, then shook her head.

That was why Alec stayed in a hotel. Because he needed money. And all his other secrets and evasions simply came down to that.

A weight lifted from her heart, leaving it to soar. Alec was poor! Never had she thought such a thing would make her so happy. His refusal to bring her here hadn’t stemmed from a desire to consort with a mistress, or have one last wild orgy, or hide a passel of illegitimate children from her, or any of the insane possibilities that had plagued her over the past few sleepless nights.

No, he’d hidden it from her because he was ashamed.

Yet despite his own poverty, he’d chosen to marry her even after she’d told him she had no money, either. He could have found an heiress, but instead he’d pursued her, not knowing that she expected a fortune. How much more proof did she need that he really cared for her?

And now she’d killed him. With a little sob, she pulled his head against her breast. He groaned.

“Alec!” she cried. “Speak to me, darling. Can you hear me?”

With his eyes still closed, he frowned against her breast and mumbled, “Katherine…must be…dreaming…”

“You’re not dreaming,” she whispered.

“Mmm,” he murmured as he turned his face into her breasts. “Nice. Soft.”

She choked back a hysterical laugh. “Wake up, you silly fool, or I’ll never forgive myself.” She cupped his face in her hands. “Oh, please, Alec, wake up.”

His eyes fluttered open, and he frowned at her. “Katherine? What are you doing here?” He shook his head as if to clear it, then glanced around. “And why in God’s name am I on the floor?”

With a little cry, she clutched his head to her chest. “You’re all right,” she whispered. “Thank goodness you’re all right.”

“My head hurts,” he muttered into her breasts.

“I know, my darling.” Guilt assailed her again. “But I’m here, and everything will be fine now.”

“You’re here…” He stiffened and tried to sit up, alarm on his face. “You’re here! What the hell are you doing here?”

“It’s all right,” she said quickly, guessing the reason for his alarm. “I know everything now. I know that you’re poor.”

He scowled. “Add insult to injury, why don’t you?”

She gave a relieved laugh. “It doesn’t matter, not to me. Not now that you’re all right.”

“I don’t feel all right,” he complained, rubbing his head. “I have a devil of a headache.”

“I suspect that will last for a while,” Mrs. Brown said.

He sat up, then struggled to stand. Katherine leaped up beside him. “No, you must rest!”

“I’m not going to lie on the blasted floor.” But he swayed on his feet.

She looped his arm quickly about her shoulders. “Come on then, we’ll get you to the bed.” She called back to Mrs. Brown, “Fetch some warm water, will you? And a cloth to clean his wound with.”

“At once, miss,” the housekeeper said cheerily, clearly happy to be of use.

“Katherine, I need to speak to you,” her mother put in.

“Not now, Mama,” she answered as she helped Alec to the bed.

“But, my angel—”

“Mrs. Brown,” Katherine called to the woman as she was leaving the room. “Take my mother with you, will you? We’ve had a long trip, and she could use some tea and something to eat.”

“Yes, miss,” the old servant chirped, “and I’ll bring something for you and his lordship, too.”

“Nothing too heavy for him!” Katherine cried, as the old housekeeper rather firmly led her mother off.

She caught Alec staring down at her with a bemused expression. “You take charge right away, don’t you?” he said.

“Somebody has to.” She helped him sit on the bed. “Since I’m the one responsible—”

“It was an accident.” He pulled her down to sit beside him. “Though I still can’t figure out why you’re here.” There was definite tension in his voice.

“It doesn’t matter,” she said quickly. “All that matters is we’re together, and I know the truth about you.”

He went still. “But you aren’t…angry.”

“That you’re poor?” When his lips tightened at that bald phrase, she hastened to add, “It’s nothing to be ashamed of, my darling. You can’t help what your father did.”

He only stared at her as if she’d gone mad. “You could have married Sydney, and instead I convinced you to marry me.”

“Yes, and I’m glad you did! Glad, do you hear?” She was giddy with relief, aware of nothing but the joy of knowing he was all right. And that he was a man of character, for clearly he cared about his estate and was trying to turn things round. “But you should have told me, Alec. If anyone would understand, you should have known it would be me, for goodness sake.”

He still looked confused. “I thought you’d refuse to marry me if you knew.”

“No, indeed! How could you think it? Have I ever cared about such things?” Memories came flooding back. “Oh, that’s why you asked me if I were marrying Sydney for money—because you thought it mattered to me. But it doesn’t. Indeed, it means that I can at last give you something. You see, I have a fortune myself, left to me by my grandfather! What do you think of that? Now we can restore Edenmore exactly how we want. Isn’t that marvelous?”