Chapter 37
“It’s a good night for music,” Callie said as she inserted the wires of her topaz earrings. “Soothing, one would hope.”
Gordon arranged his cravat while watching Callie dress. He never tired of observing her. Though her dark green gown with gold trim was used and restyled, Callie’s careful tailoring made her and the gown look superb. “I believe these musical evenings are small and informal, perhaps fifteen or twenty people. Not a great, stressful crowd. A good introduction to London.”
She turned and smiled at him. “I wonder if there will be ices.”
“I’d be surprised if the Kirklands don’t have a standing arrangement with Gunter’s involving portable chests of ice and prompt service. Doable since they live so close.”
“Then I shall hope.” She grinned. “And if there are no ices, I’ll nibble on you later.” They headed downstairs together and he helped her with her cloak. Not that she needed help, but he liked having an excuse to touch her. As she’d said, they were sometimes silly. And they both liked it.
Since the evening was mild and there was a moon, they walked to Kirkland House. Callie was a little quiet this evening, but she no longer looked upset. He guessed that she was coming to terms with what Elinor had done.
Kirkland House was well lit when they arrived and the ethereal music of a harp floated down the stairs when they were admitted. Lady Kirkland herself greeted them when the butler had taken Gordon’s hat and Callie’s cloak.
Smiling warmly, she said, “Gordon! I was so glad when I received your note that you could come this evening. Will you introduce me to your guest?” She turned expectantly to Callie.
“Lady Kirkland, I’m pleased to present my wife, Callista Audley.”
Lady Kirkland’s eyes widened with delight. Taking Callie’s hand, she said, “What a pleasure to meet you! I gather this is rather sudden? When Gordon was last here at the beginning of the summer, he didn’t seem at all married.”
Callie smiled back, responding to the countess’s warmth. “Marriage wasn’t even a gleam on the horizon then, but it wasn’t as sudden as it seems.”
Before she could say more, Kirkland joined them. “Did I hear something about a recent marriage?”
Gordon put his hand on the small of Callie’s back. “Meet the successful results of my mission to America. The unknown Widow Audley is now my wife. As it turned out, we were childhood friends and it was a delight to find each other again.”
“Well done!” Kirkland’s shrewd gaze suggested that he knew the story was more complicated than Gordon’s simple comment. “I’ll send word to Sir Andrew Harding that you succeeded in finding the lost lady and bringing her home to England.”
“No need,” Callie said with a touch of dryness. “This afternoon I learned that Lady Harding is my sister Elinor. Her husband was out, but I’m sure she must have given him the news.”
“I want to hear more about how you came to marry,” Lady Kirkland said. “I’m sure it’s a romantic story! But now I must greet some new arrivals.”
“So you’re one of the Brooke sisters,” Kirkland said as he offered Callie his hand, his eyes thoughtful. “Knowing that makes your husband’s mysterious and alarming past rather clearer.”
“And rather less alarming,” Callie remarked as she shook his hand. “He and I got into mischief together with great regularity. We thought we’d lost each other forever, so I must thank you for sending him off to rescue the widow.”
“The Lord works in mysterious ways,” Kirkland said with a private smile. “I’ve experienced that myself. But I regret that I’ll lose your particular talents for future missions, Gordon. Marriage does tend to make a man want to stay closer to home.”
“It has already had that effect on me,” Gordon agreed. “Why would I want to go someplace where Callie isn’t?”
“True, not to mention that you’re going to be too busy to wander off to far places.” Kirkland’s expression was wry. “I just heard the news. I’m not sure whether to offer congratulation or commiseration.”
“If you mean my marriage, definitely congratulation,” Gordon said, puzzled.
Kirkland’s brows drew together. “You haven’t heard? You’ve just become the seventh Marquess of Kingston.”
Gordon gasped, feeling as if a swinging spar had slammed into his midriff, stopping his breath and leaving him too numb to feel the pain. Callie grabbed his left hand hard, anchoring him to reality. “Richard!” she whispered urgently. “Richard!”
Her warm hand was a lifeline, but he was still so shaken he could barely speak. “I’ve spent half my life getting as far from Kingston Court as I could,” he said unevenly. “Now . . . this.”
“Come in here,” Kirkland said as he took hold of Gordon’s other arm and steered him from the reception room across the front hall to his private study.
Callie maintained her grip on his left hand. When they were safely inside Kirkland’s study, she guided him to a sofa set at right angles to the massive desk. There she knelt before him and caught both hands. “Talk to me? Please?”
He saw that she was terrified and trying to conceal it, so he made a huge effort to pull himself together. He squeezed her hands, not letting go, and looked up at Kirkland, who had poured brandy and was offering it to him. “Take this,” his friend said quietly.
He took one hand back from Callie and sipped the brandy. The burn helped clear his wits a little. “How can I have inherited the title? Lady Agnes said that my father had died a year or so ago and my oldest brother, Welham, inherited. Even if he died unexpectedly, there’s my second brother, Julian.”
Kirkland had poured two more brandies. He gave one to Callie and indicated the sofa. “You sit, too. You can still hold his hand.”
She gave a crooked smile as she settled beside Gordon. “You have the air of a man used to dealing with shocking news.”
“For my sins, yes.” Kirkland took a nearby chair. “To answer your question, your brother Julian died in a riding accident not long after your father’s death. Taking fences while drunk, I think.
“Welham . . .” Kirkland hesitated. “He died just a few days ago, perhaps by his own hand. The official explanation is an accident while cleaning his guns. He loved guns and had a lot of them, so no one who knows him found that improbable.”
“Did he leave a note to suggest it was suicide?” Gordon asked, impressed as always by Kirkland’s sources of information.
“Not that I know of, but if there was one, the family wouldn’t want it made public.” Kirkland glanced at Callie before continuing. “There have been recent rumors that he wasn’t fond of females. That his tastes ran in a different, illegal direction.”
“You needn’t mince words around me, Lord Kirkland,” Callie said. “I know what you mean, and I must say it surprises me. Growing up, every girl in our part of Lancashire learned not to get caught alone by Welham. He was known for being a groping brute. He tried to do things to me, but luckily I’m better at standing up for myself than many girls.”
Kirkland’s gaze sharpened. “Interesting. Perhaps his bad behavior with females was to conceal his true preferences. Or he might like both genders.”
Gordon frowned. “If he liked both, he shouldn’t have to kill himself over it.”
“Perhaps he had become a drunk and it made him so unbalanced that in a moment of misery, he decided to end it all,” Callie suggested.
“That’s a possibility,” Kirkland agreed. “Another is that he was rumored to be on the verge of betrothing himself to a well-born and very wealthy young lady. Perhaps she changed her mind and that upset him badly. We may never know why or how he died. But like it or not, and it seems you don’t, the title and estate come to you.”
Gordon exhaled roughly. “I should have stayed in America and pretended I was dead. I’m sure my next younger brother, Eldon, would enjoy being Lord Kingston a great deal more than I will.”
The faint sound of a piano playing floated into the office and Kirkland cocked his head. “I need to go upstairs to the music room. Laurel and I planned to play several duets together. Did you bring a carriage? If not, would you like one of my people to drive you home now?”
“Thank you, but I’ll be fine. My brain is starting to work again.” Gordon sighed. “I suppose that the first step is to visit the family lawyer and tell him I’m alive. I don’t imagine I can just stay invisible and hope that no one notices me.”
“By this time, too many people know you’re alive. If you like, I can go with you to the lawyer’s office tomorrow morning to vouch for your identity in case there’s any question. Lady Kingston, I assume you’ll go with him?”
Callie looked blank. “Lady Kingston? My mind hasn’t moved that far!”
Gordon smiled a little. “I outrank you, Kirkland, since you’re a mere earl.”
Kirkland laughed. “I can endure that. Since you don’t have a carriage in town, shall I pick you up in the morning?”
Callie answered for them both. “Thank you, that would be very convenient. Ten in the morning?”
After Gordon and Kirkland agreed, the earl left and Callie moved so that she was pressed against Gordon’s side. “Have you figured out why the idea of inheriting the Audley wealth and honors is so upsetting?”
“I hated being part of that family,” Gordon said slowly as he sorted through the tumult of his emotions. His father’s voice echoed in his mind. “Feel free to kill him. I have better sons.” “I despised most of my relatives because they were so beastly, and I hate Kingston Court, which is surely the ugliest, most mildewed great house in Britain. Sitting on the lake makes it damp and musty and it’s downwind from a coal seam fire. The house made me ill whenever I stayed there very long.”
“All good reasons to loathe the idea of becoming lord and master at Kingston Court. It is a dismal place,” Callie observed. “But the worst of your relatives are dead, and you’ve moved far beyond your miserable childhood.”
He squeezed her hand, never wanting to let go. “You were the best part of my childhood, Callie. Because of you, I managed to grow up at least somewhat sane and happy. But I have no desire to return there.” He grimaced. “Among other things, this inheritance will make it impossible to return to America if you decide you don’t want to live in England permanently.”
“Where you go, I go,” she said calmly. “Your sense of responsibility is too great to walk away from the land and tenants and businesses that are part of the Kingston estate. Since that responsibility has fallen on you, I’ll be right there by your side.”
He studied her lovely, delicate features, complete with stubborn chin, and wondered how he had become so lucky. With Callie beside him, he could face anything. “I was better friends with the Kingston tenants than with my family,” he said, remembering. “I can’t let them down. My father was a competent lord, but not a likable one, and Welham would have been worse in all ways.”
“A selfish brute,” Callie agreed. “If he had proposed to a young woman, she might have decided that living at Kingston Court with him was too high a price to pay, even to be a marchioness.”
“No sane person would want to live at the Court,” he said dourly.
“Fortunately we don’t have to live there,” Callie pointed out. “Though you can’t walk away from your responsibilities, there’s no requirement that we live at the family seat. We can build a pleasant, modern house elsewhere on the property, far enough from the lake and the smoldering coal seam to be healthy. I assume the entail includes a London house, but there’s no need to live there, either. I like your house on Mount Row. Our house on Mount Row. We can jolly well stay there.”
“Thank God for you, Catkin.” He released her hand and put an arm around her to draw her even closer. “I’m realizing that I took the news of my inheritance so badly because it brought up everything I hated about my childhood. I thought I’d recovered from it, but I haven’t. All the pain and anger were simmering deep inside, waiting to erupt like a volcano.”
Callie frowned. “One can move beyond a difficult childhood, but I don’t think it’s possible to really forget. The scars are always there and the pain will flare up again if struck unexpectedly, as you just were.”
“Exactly. And these scars have just been bludgeoned by English inheritance laws. If I could leave the whole mess to my next younger brother, I would.” His mouth tightened. “I’m happier now than I’ve ever been in my life. I don’t want to lose that.”
“You won’t.” She rested her cheek on his shoulder. “We’ll both have more responsibilities, especially you, but we’ll also have great power to shape our lives as we want. You can build a new house and hire good people to run the estates while you become the resident rebel in the House of Lords.”
He smiled a little. “That part I might like.”
“You will,” she predicted with an answering smile. “Are there any modest Kingston estates near London? If so, we can have our convenient country manor without having to look for one.”
“There is such a manor in Hertfordshire, if I recall correctly. I visited once and the place was quite pleasant. I’ll have to ask the lawyer about it when I see him tomorrow.” He kissed her with deep gratitude. “You’re a miracle, Callie.”
The kiss deepened and hands began to move. He was shocked when he realized she was unbuttoning the fall of his trousers. Almost paralyzed when her fingers touched bare, heated flesh, he gasped, “What the devil are you doing?”
She chuckled. “Isn’t it obvious? I just hope that everyone in the house is upstairs listening to the music.”
Then she bent and put her mouth on him and he lost whatever awareness he had left. The pleasure lasted and lasted, deliberately prolonged as the cascading brilliance of a Vivaldi piano concerto twined through the voluptuous sensations.
When he reached the point where he thought he would incinerate into ashes, she brought him to a swift, annihilating culmination. As the madness faded into peace, he held her close, her cheek resting on his chest as he stroked her head and neck.
When he was coherent again, he said in a rusty voice, “If your intent was to distract me, it certainly worked. But what about you?” He caressed the provocative curves of her waist and hip, thinking how wondrous a woman’s body was.
She tried to brush him away. “We can discuss that once we’re home and in our very fine bed.”
“No. Now.” Despite her willingness to wait, he sensed her arousal in her quickened breath and flushed cheeks. He needed to give her the intimate pleasure she’d given him. Doing that would bind them even closer, and he needed that closeness desperately if he was to survive having his world turned upside down again.
His hand slid under the hem of her gown, then glided up her stockinged calf. Silken seduction. She gasped and rolled back a little, her legs separating to his touch. His own breath quickened as he touched intimate heat and moisture. They knew each other’s bodies well by now, and it was so easy, so satisfying, to bring her to the kind of shattering completion she’d given him.
He caught her cry in his mouth as he kissed her, inhaling her passion and returning it to her with his own. If he was a marquess, she was his marchioness, his match, his mate.
Most of all, she was his savior.
As her silent convulsions ended, he drew her against him, her head on his shoulder again. Wise man, Kirkland, to have a sofa in his study. It made misbehaving so much easier.
As he brushed back her shining apricot hair, he said softly, “Were you ever told the whole story of my mother and father? It was a great scandal.”
“I heard that she was very beautiful, of Scandinavian blood, and that you look very like her,” Callie said with equal softness. “That she was an actress and that she died when you were very young, about four. When I was a child, I simply accepted those facts and didn’t think to wonder more.”
“My father fell insanely in lust for her and they married in a matter of weeks, or so I’m told.” It was hard to imagine his father feeling such passion, but Gordon’s birth was proof. “The lust burned out quickly and, being the man he was, he blamed her for the fact that he’d married an actress. He began taking mistresses, which enraged her. She might have looked like a cool northern blonde, but apparently she blazed with fire and temper. She left my father and took a lover of her own. My father was outraged and planning to divorce her when she and her lover died in a carriage accident.”
Callie winced. “Surely you didn’t know all that when you were so young!”
“I knew my father despised me, but not why.” He smiled humorlessly. “A boy at my first school told me the stories about my mother. You can imagine what he called her. I was expelled for half killing him. Insults about her were the cause of several of my expulsions. I scarcely remembered her, but I couldn’t bear to hear her slandered.”
“I knew none of this,” Callie whispered, appalled.
“I couldn’t speak of it. Not even to you,” he said simply.
“My family’s domestic tragedies were much quieter than yours.” Her fingers moved restlessly at his waist. “My mother endured endless pregnancies trying to give my father his male heir, but he was cursed with healthy daughters and sickly sons. It was such a relief when my brother Marcus was born and he was a healthy, jolly little boy.” Callie sighed. “But my father wasn’t content with his heir. He needed a spare. That next pregnancy killed my mother.”
Gordon swore under his breath. “How can a man do that to his wife? Your life is infinitely more important than having a male heir. Though I’d like to have a daughter or two that look like you.”
“You wouldn’t mind if she had red-blond hair that has been touched by the devil?” Callie asked.
“Never.” He smiled briefly before shaking his head. “No wonder neither of us wants to return to our childhood homes. We both had reason to escape.”
“Going back won’t be so bad since we’ll be together. I’m certainly not letting you go to Kingston Court alone!” She reluctantly pulled away from his embrace and rose from the sofa. “By tomorrow, we’ll be more accustomed to the thought. For now, let’s go upstairs and listen to fine music. It will soothe us both.”
“It’s either that or fall asleep on this rather undersized sofa, which would be rude.” He stood also and began straightening his appearance.
Callie smoothed back her hair with both hands, using some magic that allowed her to look as if she hadn’t just been doing what she’d done. Then she smiled and took his arm, and they headed upstairs into a healing river of great music.
* * *
Callie found herself relaxing during the concert. As Richard had told her, Kirkland and his wife were superb pianists, especially when they played together on the same instrument. Though Callie was no musician, she could tell that their playing was love expressed as music.
There were indeed ices.
She and Richard left after the refreshments, pleading fatigue, which was true, though it was more emotional than physical. Arms around each other’s waists like young lovers, they walked the blocks to Mount Row in silence.
When they reached home and bed, they made love again, this time with slow tenderness. Richard fell asleep swiftly afterward, his arm around her, but Callie lay awake. He’d come back into her life with an easy confidence and a mastery of life’s challenges that she had desperately needed then.
But tonight he’d been vulnerable in a way she’d never seen before in all the years they’d known each other. For the first time she realized that he needed her as much as she needed him.
At what point did friendship become what the world defined as love?