Katy Cooper - Lord Sebastian's Wife

She would drive herself mad if she stayed here, unable to keep from looking at Sebastian even when the sight of him sent her thoughts into places she did not want to go. He was a wound she could not help prodding. She would have time enough to prod it once she began to live with him as his wife, but not now.

She rose. All heads at the table swiveled to face her. Her mother looked irritated at this breach of manners, Ceci worried, John thoughtful. Sebastian’s fist curled on the table as her father turned toward her, but that was all he revealed. His composure let nothing else escape.

Her father rose to his feet, as well. “Well, mistress?” he asked quietly.

“I beg your leave to retire, sir,” she said softly.

He eyed her thoughtfully, the silence in the room stretching tightly. Her father could reprimand her, deny her permission to go, humiliate her before Sebastian and her family. She had acted without thinking.

He shoved his chair aside, creating space between his chair and her mother’s. “Come here.”

She went to him and knelt at his feet. Even if he shamed her, it would be nothing to her other humiliations. She had endured so much already; she could surely endure a little more. He surprised her by laying his hand on her forehead in a blessing, then, when she rose, saying, “Come closer, puss.” She stepped closer, her forehead still warm where his hand had been. He kissed her cheek, patting the other with a gentle hand at the same time. He had kissed her that way when she was a tiny girl. She pressed her cheek against his rough one.

I wish I were the woman you raised me to be.

“You have my leave to go.”

Her mother said in a very soft voice, “My lord.”

Her father put his hand on her mother’s shoulder. “No, Pippa.”

Her mother sat back. They never quarreled in public nor before their children. Whether they quarreled at all had been a favorite topic of speculation for their children while Beatrice was growing up.

“Go, child,” her father said.

She took a candle to light her way to her bedchamber, but it cast more shadows than light, and the dark quivered as if full of demons. No, not demons; she saw the shadows cast by her jumbled, unruly thoughts.

She stopped outside the door of the bedchamber, unable to lift the latch. Today had been the one of longest days of her life but she was not weary. A fretful energy twitched in her limbs, the kind of energy she had used to absorb with riding and walking at Wednesfield. She could not go walking or riding now, in the dangerous, deadly dark. Nor could she be still. Where to go? Where might she find a haven, a sanctuary against her fears and the demons within?

Sanctuary…

Blowing out her candle, unwilling to be accompanied by its unsettling shadows, she turned on her heel and began walking to the chapel at the other end of the house.

S hortly after Beatrice left the solar, Sebastian rose and made his bows to the earl and countess. With Beatrice gone, all who remained in the solar—John and his wife, the earl and countess, even Cecilia—reminded him of what he would never have: a sweet, serene married life. The reminder was more than he could endure.

From the solar, he went down to the great hall. Night had fallen and it was past time to go to bed, but he was too edgy to sleep. If he returned to his chamber, he would lie awake, unable to stop thinking about wool prices, his rents, income that covered less and less of his expenses…and Beatrice.

Around him the house was silent, as if all its occupants, even those he had just left, slept without dreams. He envied them. He remembered how heedless he had once been, assuming that because no harm had ever come to him or his, no harm ever would. If it had not been for his uncle’s aid, he might well have lost everything. Since then, he had taken fear for Benbury’s future to bed with him.

At the far end of the hall a white blur moved into sight, gleaming faintly in the low light cast by the fire-place to one side. Sebastian stepped deeper into the shadows. Who was this creeping through the hall when most of the household had retired? And why did he only see the white oval of a face?

She came closer and firelight glittered on her jet ornaments, smoldered on the velvet of her skirts. Dressed in widow’s black, she had melted into the shadows, barely discernible even to his sharp eyes.

Beatrice.

She passed him without seeing him—or at least without betraying that she had seen him—and slipped through the arch that led to the chapel stairs. He crept after her, wondering why she went to the chapel at this hour, and hesitated at the bottom of the stairs. She had to have gone to the chapel; there was nowhere else. But why? Of all her family, she was the least pious, not the kind of woman to pray in the middle of the night.

Intrigued, and more than willing to let curiosity distract him from the weary round of worry, he followed her up the stairs.

The chapel was located at the top of the stairs. Faint light from within the room revealed that the door was half open. Resting a hand on its panel, he paused to reconsider entering. If Beatrice was praying, he could only be an unwelcome intrusion—and no matter what she did within, he would have to speak to her if he joined her. He had nothing to say, nothing that he dared say.

He imagined himself turning and going back down the stairs, crossing the hall and seeking his bed. Rest would only aid him in his meeting with the earl; staying here with Beatrice was folly. The days when he could follow every impulse were long past.

He pushed the door open.

The chapel was dim, illuminated only by the sanctuary light, a brave, weak show against the blackness of night. Beatrice knelt in the middle of the chapel floor, her head bent over folded hands. The gabled hood she wore concealed her face, but even if he had not seen her climb the stairs, he would have known her by the graceful bend of her long neck. In truth, he would know her anywhere, under any circumstance. When he had discovered her with Conyers, he had recognized her even though she had been enveloped in Conyers’s arms.

Tension tightened his shoulders, the too-vivid memory of Beatrice embracing George Conyers sparking fury as if he faced it anew. He fought both anger and memory, pushing them down, beyond reach, and swung the door shut. It slipped from his hand to bang softly against the frame, the latch rattling.

Beatrice jerked around, her mouth open, her hands flying up to her breastbone. Then she saw him and the expression left her face.

“My lord, you startled me,” she murmured as she rose to her feet.

“I did not intend to.” He moved deeper into the chapel, drawn unwillingly closer. Then, because he could not help himself, because he could not reconcile her apparent piety with what he knew of her, he asked, “Why are you here?”

She blinked as if the question surprised her. “I came to pray.”

“At this hour? When the household sleeps?”

She lifted her chin, her eyes wide and wary as if she did not know whether or not he mocked her. “Why does the hour matter?”

“I should have thought you would seek the comfort of your bed.”

She was silent for so long he thought she would not reply. She lowered her chin. “Prayer is good for the soul. If I did not know it before, I know it now.”

Because of your sins. Again anger rose in him; again he pushed it down. He had not followed her to abuse her about the unchangeable past. Or had he? Fool that he was, he did not know why he had followed her, except that he could not stop himself.

“Do you pray to be delivered from our marriage?” He spoke without thinking and immediately wished he had said nothing.

Her face shuttered. “There is no deliverance.”

He had thought her furious refusal to accept the betrothal earlier in the day had been shock. The way she had looked at him again and again at supper had given him hope that she would not go into the marriage furious and cold. Her bleakness now withered that hope.

“How can you know?”

“Because you are not pleased. If we were delivered, you would be happy.”

That surprised him. He had not thought she would interpret his behavior so. “Do you think I should be pleased to be delivered?”

A frown creased her brow. “How not? You would be free of me then, free to marry Cecilia.”

He did not want to marry Cecilia. He might not trust Beatrice, but he would not choose her sister over her. The realization was another surprise, as were the words that spilled from his mouth.

“You are not a bad bargain, Beatrice.”

Her frown deepened and she dropped her gaze from his. “You do not know that.”

“I know.”

She smoothed her hands over her skirt, talking to the floor. “You cannot.”

She spoke so softly he had to move closer. He stopped when the hem of her skirt brushed the wide toe of his shoe. “You are wellborn, well dowered. And you have been a wife before. None of marriage will be strange to you.”

She looked up at that, speculation in her eyes as they searched his face. He waited for her to find what she sought.

“I have not been your wife nor do I think my dead lord’s ways are your ways.”

Pain sparked at the reminder. Just as he did not want to remember her dalliance with Conyers, neither did he want to think of her life with Manners. “I am a man, as he was. How different can we be?”

Some bleak memory stirred; he could see its shadow in her face before she turned away. “Not all men are the same,” she murmured.

As you well know, a voice whispered in the back of his mind. He clamped his mouth shut lest he speak the words aloud. Despite the anger that would not remain at bay, he would not fling accusations at her, chastising her for sins he imagined, all of them greater than the one he had witnessed.

When he did not reply, she turned back to him, the question in her expression fading as her gaze traveled over his face. Understanding flickered in her eyes as if she saw what he wished to hide and then it was only the candlelight gleaming in their blue-gray depths while her face smoothed to blankness. The hair on the back of his neck prickled. Beatrice had somehow vanished, leaving her body to face him.

Come back to me.

“Beatrice,” he said softly.

“My lord?”

Do not hide from me and name me as if I am a stranger to you. You know I am not.

“Call me by my name.”

Her eyes met his and in their depths he saw Beatrice return, the distance between them melting like spring snow. She searched his face as if she had never seen him before.

“What do you want of me, Sebastian?”

“Nothing,” he said. He could not say what he wanted. All he knew was that she could not give it to him.

She folded her hands. “I do not believe you.”

He crossed his arms. “Does it matter?”

“I wish to know what you desire, so I may prepare myself to provide it.”

“Do you think I will ask anything you do not know how to give?”

“Yes, I do.”

“Why? What have I ever done that you should think that?”

“You are a man. That is all you need.”

“Do you think so ill of men?”

“Think ill of them? No, Sebastian, I do not. Men are what they are, not to be ill or well thought of for it. I only ask so I may be all you desire in a wife.”

“It does not matter. You can never be all I desire in a wife.” You lost that ability when you let George Conyers into your bed. He clamped his jaw shut before he could speak the words. Anger ached in his chest, burned in his throat. If he was not careful, he would begin to curse her and there would never be peace between them.