Chapter Eight
Graham began the morning with a visit to Lady Agatha. Her dragon of a maid had let him in but only just. As he seated himself in the chair placed next to Lady Agatha’s bed, he noted that while she certainly appeared less weakened than she had the night before, she still did not look well. Her pallor was sickly and her fatigue was obvious in the hollows beneath her eyes.
“I fear that my return, if in fact I am Lord Blakemore, has done you more harm than good,” he admitted with regret. It had not been his intent and, yet, it was clear that the shock had, indeed, been too much for her.
“I will not have such foolishness uttered in my presence,” she said. “I do not have the words to express the joy that I have felt since you returned. My body may be weak, Graham, but my spirit is soaring. I could not bear it to think you regretted coming back to us… I know that your welcome has not been as enthusiastic on all fronts, but trust me when I say that Edmund’s opinions matter far less to anyone than he is capable of grasping.”
He smiled at that. “Why do you tolerate him so?”
“He grew up here,” Lady Agatha offered, pausing to take a sip of her tea. “His mother had died so very young, and Sir Godfrey, well… sometimes he was fine and at others not. Regardless, he never gave Edmund the attention and guidance that a young boy needed. He would bring Edmund here for ‘visits’. The length of those visits would grow and the time he actually spent with Sir Godfrey shrank year after year, until, without anyone ever explicitly stating it, Edmund had become a permanent fixture.”
Graham considered that carefully, how two wounded people such as Lord Blakemore and Lady Agatha had become the de facto guardians to a likely unwanted boy. “Was he always so determinedly unpleasant?” Graham asked.
She smiled at that. “No. He was a sweet boy, but he did become decidedly less so over time. In fact, every time Sir Godfrey came and went, Edmund would grow sullen and unhappy after his departure. He became particularly unpleasant to poor Beatrice in your absence.”
She paused for a moment, as if collecting her thoughts and then continued. “You all played together as children, sometimes more peacefully than others. But, it was a comfort to me to have him near after you were gone… it was a connection to a time before everything had changed. He was always so dear and so sweet to me, despite his snobbishness to dear Beatrice—that was his father’s doing, by the way. He was always worse when Sir Godfrey was present. That, I fear, has not changed. He writes to Edmund every day and every day the boy grows more discontent.”
It certainly had not changed, but he’d lay the blame at no one’s door but Edmund’s. Edmund had behaved badly enough toward Beatrice in his own right that Sir Godfrey’s influence was the least of their concerns. But he’d told Lady Agatha the night before all he meant to of Edmund’s actions toward Beatrice. Instead, he replied, “I have no recollection of him. Or of this house.”
“Yet you are never lost here,” Lady Agatha stated pointedly. “You go unerringly to whatever area it is that you are seeking and you do so without guidance… if that does not prove that this is your home, what could?”
He had no answer for that. It still puzzled him. The knowledge was innate, simply a part of him, like walking and talking had been, or reading. Those skills and knowledge had remained, while personal details had simply vanished. And there were other things that he dared not share with anyone, flashes and glimpses in his mind that made him feel as if he were going mad.
“It will come back to you in time, I am sure, just as you said last night,” she continued. “But regardless, there will be no talk of leaving and no talk of regretting your decision to return. I could not be happier unless your father was here to share it with me.”
“What was he like?” Graham asked. It was a selfish question, making her linger on memories that would cause her pain, but the need to know was insistent.
She pointed to a small box on top of her dressing table. “Bring me that box.”
He rose and did as she’d bid. When he returned it to her, she opened it carefully and withdrew a miniature portrait in an elaborate, gilded case. “He was nearly the age you are now when this was painted. We had not been married very long… I was still a young bride and very enamored of him.”
Graham accepted the small painting and stared down into a face that could nearly have been his own. The skin was pale, that of a gentleman, but, otherwise, the similarities were undeniable. But there had been something in her tone that alerted him. “You were enamored of him as a new bride… did you not remain thus?”
Lady Agatha ducked her head. “Your father was the best of men, Graham. But I was not the best of wives. I married him because he was handsome and wealthy and charming—I was so young that I truly believed those things were all that mattered. I was more concerned with whether or not the other girls envied me than with whether or not I could make him happy, and likewise that he could make me happy.”
Graham frowned at that, more puzzled than ever by her confessions. “Did you love him at all?”
“I did not love him then, but I did in time. You must believe that!”
“Why would I doubt it?”
“Again, I was not a good wife… I did not understand that his diplomatic duties would require leaving England and moving far from my family and friends. Or that he would often be occupied with other things that were far more important than simply catering to my whims. I was petulant and spoiled, and I behaved abominably. Yet, he never lost patience with me. He never failed to forgive me, even for the things which I could not forgive myself. And he loved you… he loved you fiercely. He was determined that you would grow up to be the very best of men.”
He would be disappointed then, Graham thought bitterly. What kind of man would be proud of a son who had been both a thief and a pirate, a man who’d been flogged publicly for his crimes?
“I know what you are thinking. I can see it clearly on your face,” Lady Agatha said. “It would not matter to him. I saw the way you shielded Beatrice when you thought Edmund, in his temper, might strike her. The fearlessness you showed in rescuing her when it might very well have placed your own life at risk—you are everything he would have wanted you to be and the things you had to do in order to survive without us do not matter now. Do you understand me?”
He desperately wanted to believe that. “I need to speak to Beatrice before I leave for York. Do not get out of this bed today. Take your meals here and spare yourself the badgering Edmund will no doubt greet you with. Please?”
“I will… if you tell me truthfully—what are your feelings for Beatrice?”
Graham answered her as honestly as he could. “I do not have the ability to express them… only to say that they are unfamiliar to me and I am out of my depth.”
“Then it can be nothing other than love… or at least the beginning of it. It would have pleased your father, I think. He loved her like a daughter and often worried for her future. Had he known how short his time would be with us here, he would have done more to secure it.”
“And if I am not Lord Blakemore?” he asked.
“There are worse things than to be loved by a man who does not have a title,” she reproved. “You’re nearly as bad as Edmund with your snobbery!”
Graham didn’t gainsay her. He simply left the room and went in search of the woman who had occupied most of the conversation and nearly all of his thoughts.
*
Beatrice did not go down for breakfast. She found herself reluctant to face Edmund and Christopher with their false concern, if they even bothered with that. Eloise would still be in bed. According to Betsy, she’d had two bottles of very potent wine delivered to her room the night before. But it was not Christopher, Edmund or Eloise who had sent her into hiding.
She was also reluctant to face Graham again. He unsettled her, robbed her of the ability to think clearly and to maintain her hard-won composure. In short, he rattled her and made her yearn for things she did not fully understand nor was she entirely certain she should have them.
Peace had been found in a secluded corner of the third floor where she sat on a narrow window seat. Her sketchbook lay forgotten beside her as she watched the bitter and angry sea in the distance. Her peace was short lived, however. She didn’t need to turn to know that he had found her. His presence fell over her like a welcomed shadow.
“And what brings you to this distant corner of Castle Black, my lord?” she asked softly.
He stepped closer, close enough that she could see the elegant shrug of his powerful shoulders from her peripheral vision.
“You did, Beatrice. Are you hiding from everyone this morning or is it just me?”
“I think I’m hiding from myself more than anyone else,” she answered, finally tearing her gaze from the window and settling it on him. “Betsy said that Lady Agatha was taken ill last night. Is she better this morning?”
“According to her dragon of a maid, no,” he replied. “I’m leaving for York in a few moments. I know a fellow there, a renowned physician, who may be able to help.”
Beatrice raised her eyebrows in surprise. “You are certainly stepping on many toes, my lord. Have you considered that bringing in an outside physician might anger Dr. Shepherd so much he refuses to treat any of us after?”
“I have. I have also found that money buys a great deal of forgiveness… I need to ask you about Christopher,” he said.
“What of him?” It was a curious thing for Christopher to ever draw attention to himself. The boy moved like a shadow through their lives most of the time. He had, over the past several months, grown increasingly more sullen and prone to outbursts at times. It was almost as if he were two people. No doubt, the arrival of Graham and the proverbial nail in the coffin of his chance to become Lord Blakemore had increased his general discontent with life and would result in increased moodiness from him.
“Why would he disappear into the tower at night?”
Beatrice blinked at that. “I couldn’t say. He talks very little period and never at all to me. He is resentful of my closeness to Lady Agatha, of my very presence here. But he’s also resentful of Edmund, of everyone and everything… did you ask him?”
“No,” Graham admitted, turning and settling himself on the window seat beside her.
Beatrice gathered her skirts to make more room for him. It didn’t matter. Seated as close as they were, she could feel the heat of his thigh against hers through the fabric of her gown.
“I didn’t ask him. There was something in the way he moved, something furtive and secretive that lends me to believe he was up to no good… I tried the door to the tower after he left it and found it locked. For what possible reason?”
“Was it the eastern tower, then? The one past my room?”
“Yes.”
“It’s unsafe,” Beatrice replied, her brow furrowing in concentration as she considered the implications. “It was damaged in storms some years ago, crumbling to ruin. Because no one ever used it, Edmund refused to have it renovated. He said it was a waste of money.”
Graham grunted in response to that. “He says everything is a waste of money. Is the estate struggling? Is there some reason for his skinflint ways?”
“I do not know,” she answered honestly. “Such things would never be discussed with me even if I were to ask. While Edmund is hardly a spendthrift himself, Eloise is very much in fashion… a more likely explanation would be that funds from the estate are being used to support Sir Godfrey or to pay his debts as he continuously lives beyond his means.”
Graham stooped over and picked up her sketchbook. She wanted to stop him, to ask him not to look. But whether he saw it or not, he knew her thoughts were preoccupied with him, just as she knew his were with her. He’d been quite forthcoming about that. As he flipped the book open and stared at her last drawing, his frown deepened.
“I look very angry here,” he said finally, indicating the charcoal sketch she’d completed of him.
“Fierce,” she said. “Not angry. But that was my intent and perhaps not my execution.”
“Why would you draw me when you are surrounded by so many subjects more worthy?”
She shrugged then, borrowing the gesture from him. “Because I like your face. I like that you do not hide behind polite smiles and make small talk only to attack the moment my back is turned. I like that, with you, what is seen in your eyes and in your expression is exactly who you are and what you are thinking at any given moment is clearly evident.”
*
“I remember this,” he said softly. It wasn’t fully fleshed or distinct with context, but there was a memory playing in his mind as surely as if the scene were unfolding before him. Children running in a field near the cliffs that overlooked the sea. He’d taken her sketchbook, running away with it and making fun of her drawings. It had been jealousy even then. He’d been jealous because she’d drawn a picture of Edmund rather than him. “You sketched a portrait of Edmund and I stole your book… I threw it over the cliff and into the sea.”
As he met her gaze, he saw the tears in her eyes, but a smile curved her lips. “Yes, you certainly did,” she said. “And I’m still quite angry about it. That book held some of my best work.”
“I have to go… I have to get to York and get back before dark.” He didn’t want to leave her. He wanted to stay there and explore those shimmering moments that had finally come into focus in his mind. It was the most distinct of any vision or memory he’d had since returning to Castle Black. He also wanted very much to know that she would be safe in his absence. And if he were entirely honest, he wanted to pick up precisely where they’d left off in her room, but with far less talking and much more doing. “About yesterday?”
“I won’t leave the house,” she said. “I think, perhaps, I shall spend the day keeping watch over Lady Agatha. Safe and sound.”
He sighed. “Good. I’m very glad to hear that, but that wasn’t what I meant… the things I said to you in your room.”
“Oh—you needn’t worry. It was a difficult day and we were both quite overset by it all,” she offered dismissively.
“I wasn’t overset. I meant every word of it. I cannot explain it to you, Beatrice. But as much as I came back here to claim my title and my home, I think more so, I returned to claim you. What I remembered just now… last night, Lady Agatha, said that I played all those pranks on you as a child, that I picked and plucked and bullied because I wanted your attention.”
“Surely not,” she denied with a blush staining her cheeks.
“I did. When I threw your sketchbook into the sea, it was motivated by jealousy… you’d sketched a portrait of Edmund and I was infuriated by it.”
She smiled at that. “You were only a boy.”
“I was a tyrant,” he admitted. “Perhaps being lost, having a life of hardship, was the best thing for me. I cannot imagine what manner of man I would be otherwise.”
“What manner of man you would be is irrelevant. I am quite pleased with the man you are.” The admission was uttered softly, her gaze locked on the floor between them.
Those words pierced him, sinking deep, twisting something inside him until his control snapped. Without thought or care that he was breaking all the rules, he reached for her, pulling her to him, until her breasts were crushed against his chest and he could bury his hands in the silken strands of her dark hair. It snagged on his work-roughened hands, a reminder, if he was willing to heed it, that he was not for her.
“Tell me to stop,” he said.
“I cannot,” she admitted breathlessly. “God help me, I cannot.”
Graham was lost, consumed by the need to kiss her, to have the taste of her on his lips once more. As he pressed his mouth to hers, savoring the soft sound she made as he did so, he conceded defeat. Whatever happened, whatever existed between them, it was not simply that she was his. He was hers. She owned him body and soul.
The kiss grew into its own entity. It raged like a fire, consuming them both. Carried away by it, swept up into the storm, they were both lost to its power. Crushing her to him, every curve of her lush figure burning him like a brand, Graham knew that no other woman would ever ignite him the way that she did.
Graham was helpless to resist the temptation of her body. Having seen every delectable inch of her, he knew precisely what treasures awaited him beneath the modest gown she wore. With one hand at her waist, holding her to him, he explored her body with his other hand. Mapping the curves and contours, he tested her reaction by brushing his thumb against the underside of her breast.
Her breath hitched, but she did not draw away. Moving more deliberately, he covered the tender swell with his palm. He could feel the hardened peak beneath his hand. As she arched her back, pressing more fully against him, the need to claim her, to possess her overwhelmed him.
A door opened at the end of the corridor and then closed quietly. The draft of it wafted past them. It did not douse his ardor but it was an effective reminder that there was a time and a place for what he wanted from her and the middle of a corridor was not it.
He drew back, reluctant to let her go, but determined that, for the moment, he would try to be the gentleman he was born to be and not the pirate he’d been forced to be at times. She was not yet his to take.
“I must go… I need to bring Dr. Warner here to attend Lady Agatha. This is not finished between us, Beatrice,” he cautioned, his words both a warning and a promise.
“It must be,” she said. “I cannot be your mistress and you should not take me as your wife. There is no course of action here that will not leave someone hurt, Graham.”
“I hurt now,” he said. “I ache for you in ways that I cannot describe. What I should and should not do is of no matter to me. I will do exactly as I please and the rules be damned… I want you, Beatrice. But if I thought for one moment you did not want me in return, I would never speak of it again.”
She ducked her head, not looking at him. “Wanting something does not mean that you can or should have it.”
“We will continue this discussion when I return,” he said firmly. He would not let her deny them both something that they not only craved but clearly needed out of some misguided sense of propriety.
*
Beatrice watched his departing figure until he’d vanished from sight. She was trapped. Leaving the house after the events of the day before was not an option. Even if there were not untold dangers awaiting her, there was nowhere for her to go. Castle Black had been her home since she was a small child and her father had passed away.
It was not Graham that she had to resist. It was her own traitorous body. Yearnings that she had never before experienced were driving her behavior, making her forget herself and all that she knew of decorum. Was it truly wanton if only one man affected her so?
It was not love. It could not be love, not so soon, not when they were little more than strangers to one another. Yet he compelled her, his presence excited and enticed. She was inexplicably drawn to him, as he was to her, it seemed.
The door at the end of the hall opened again. It was Betsy. She graced Beatrice with a knowing look.
“Master Edmund is beating the battle drums, Miss. He’s looking for you and for his lordship. It would not go well for him to find you together.”
“What did you see, Betsy?” Beatrice demanded, her voice soft.
“I saw nothing, Miss. But you should not be here alone. Let’s get you back to your room and then, if you need me to, I’ll walk with you to Lady Agatha’s rooms. There are many dangers in these halls, Miss Beatrice,” the maid warned. “And some are hidden better than others.”
It was a carefully worded warning and Beatrice knew that it ought to be heeded. She also knew that if he kissed her again, all the warnings in the world would be wasted on her. With her things gathered up, she followed the maid through the maze of secret passages and corridors that the servants of Castle Black utilized to fulfill their duties. Who else used them, she wondered, and for what purpose? Thinking of Christopher and whatever he might be hiding in the tower, Beatrice knew she’d have to risk it.
“Betsy, is there a passage that leads into the East Tower?”
“There are several, Miss. But no one uses them anymore. I can’t vouch for their safety.”
“Will you show me?” Beatrice asked. “Not now, but during dinner? I’ll beg off and ask for a tray. After yesterday, no one will question it.”
Betsy turned to her then in the small confines of the passageway. “I’ll show you, but you’ll not go alone. Not again.”
Beatrice nodded her understanding. They were bound by their roles of servant and mistress only to a point. Friends and playmates as children, young girls sharing their dreams together in a grand house filled with sadness, their bonds went beyond that.
“Thank you, Betsy… and I will be careful.”
“As you should be, Miss… and I lied when I said I didn’t see anything before. If a man kissed me that way, I’d lose my head, too. Like he was starved for you. It’s what we all dream of, to be wanted that way… to have a man feel like he’d die without possessing us. Just don’t let it blind you too much.”
Beatrice blushed and ducked her head. “I am out of my depth.”
“Yes, Miss, you are. Folks like me, working class like, we can give our bodies without giving our hearts. We’re more practical about that than a lady is raised to be. If he takes one, he’ll take the other. I only pray he doesn’t break your heart.”
They reached her chamber and didn’t speak of it again. She couldn’t, Beatrice realized. She lacked the words to express what she felt and what she feared. Losing her heart to Graham was not an option, not when her prospects were so limited.