Captain Durant's Countess(30)

“Not so fast, my dear. What about your pin money? It does come in handy. One must keep up appearances as heir to an earl.”

Maris went to her escritoire and opened a drawer. “Blackmail is such an uninspired crime. It’s so . . . banal, don’t you think? This will be the last of it, David,” she said, tossing him a velvet bag of coins. “Tell Henry whatever you want. I don’t care.”

The look on his face was almost worth her imprudence. She’d wait to be frightened later. At that moment, she was enjoying herself too much.

“You aren’t serious.”

“Oh, I am. Who do you think Henry will believe, his devoted wife or his disreputable nephew? He thinks you are a murderer, David. Your actions led to the death of his only child. If he could, he’d see you imprisoned for the rest of your days.”

David stood, white-faced. “You’ll regret this, Maris.”

“I don’t think I will. And don’t think to come back here to Kelby Hall while Henry still lives. I’ll have you barred at the door.”

He was angrier than she had ever seen him. For a moment, she thought he might stride across the room and hit her. To her relief, he turned and slammed the door behind him, hard enough to wake the dead.

Maris couldn’t stop shaking at her brazenness. At first, she’d watched every word she spoke, sure that her newest secret would be revealed to David Kelby. She’d always been a terrible liar. Henry had teased that he’d been aware of her every fib from girlhood on. Those lies had been harmless ones—No, Jane and I didn’t steal the last strawberry tart; Yes, our governess let us study in the garden—but now the future of Kelby Hall depended on Maris’s ability to dissemble. She thanked heaven she’d washed and perfumed herself again before David arrived. The scent of sex, the scent of Reyn, even to her inexperienced nose, was unmistakable.

She had made a great enemy, and there was a spy in her household, someone on David’s payroll. How ironic it was her coin that paid the traitor to report on her. David’s allowance had been boosted by her own guilt money over the past five years. She’d given him the last of it to go away.

Could she hold to her resolve and refuse him anymore? The blackmail would never stop unless she found and kept her courage.

If she confessed to Henry, would he understand and forgive what she’d done?

She couldn’t do it. Couldn’t hurt him. He may have given her permission to have an affair with Reynold Durant, but what she’d done with David was true betrayal.

Maris felt all her carefully basted-over seams begin to unravel, stitch by stitch. She could not go back to the attics and make any sort of order of anything. She needed fresh air.

Her hands were trembling too hard to tie her cloak strings properly, but she managed and would worry about the knot later. She hurried down one of the numerous sets of stairs to the ground floor and went out into the garden through the breakfast room door.

A sharp gust of wind whipped her cloak up. Soon there would be snow on the diamonds and rectangles of the rigidly arranged plantings. The expansion of the original Elizabethan knot garden had been designed by Henry’s first wife. It was not to Maris’s taste, though she supposed it was impressive enough.

What she loved most was the statuary that kept vigil in each brick or hedge-walled space. They had come from all over the world and some were in better repair than others. There were the obelisk, a fountain with cavorting dolphins, several ancient plinths, a grumpy stone lion, and a young Greek god, amongst others. She didn’t mind a missing limb or the creep of moss or the vacant stares of sightless eyes. The statues had been her imaginary friends as she was growing up, and she headed for the garden the farthest from the house where her favorite reigned.

The queen’s crown glinted in the sun. Paste jewels—the real ones had been stolen centuries ago—sparkled in the polished marble. The queen’s country of origin was unknown. Henry had grown up with her, as had his father and grandfather before him. Family legend had it that she had ruled over this corner of the garden before Kelby Hall had been rebuilt for Queen Elizabeth. Her history was lost.

It was why Henry wanted to account for everything. For future generations, if there were to be any. To share his knowledge and his family’s collection with the wider world. Kelby Hall’s gardens were open to the public once a year for the local parish fete. It was Henry’s intention that the house would also be open, not just one day but many. There were so many things to be learned from studying the relics of the past, and Kelby Hall was crammed to the attics with them.

Maris squinted up at the roofline of the only home she’d ever known. Captain Durant must have given up on her by now. She didn’t want to face him. He could not have missed David’s insinuations. He must think her an utter hypocrite. All her hesitancy, all her reluctance, the war with her conscience, her tears—all must seem false to him. She’d lost her virtue for far less honorable reasons five years past.

The tears flowed, hot against her cold cheeks. No one could notice her cry but the queen in the center of the garden room, and she had stopped listening to Maris’s girlish hopes years ago.

Maris didn’t hear the crunch of Reynold Durant’s boots on the stone path until he was right above her, thrusting a handkerchief at her face. She took it gratefully, wiped the wet from her face and then blew her nose with all the grace of a trumpeting elephant. Just another reason to be mortified.

“You’d better tell me,” he said quietly, “although I think I can guess.”

“I’m too ashamed.”

“Here, shove over on the bench. All the way over in case there are prying eyes. If I could see you out here, others can. Take a breath.”

She had turned into a watering pot around this man. She hadn’t ever had a real friend to confide in except Jane, and for obvious reasons she had not been able to confess what she’d done with David. Maris sometimes wondered if Jane had discovered the relationship anyway, and that had contributed to her decision to walk into the lake. Maris wouldn’t put it past David to have told Jane and taunted her with it.

Layers of guilt. It was a wonder Maris could stand upright when she was so bent by the weight of them.

“I’m listening. Take your time.”

She hardly knew Reynold Durant. Oh, that was absurd. She’d allowed him into her body for the past two days. The handsome stranger who sat beside her knew more about her than her own husband did after ten years of marriage. A limited knowledge, yes, but a profound one.

She hiccupped to hold back a wave of hopeless laughter. She was becoming hysterical at the absurd situation she found herself in. “If you’ve guessed, you tell me.”

He raised a wooly brow. “No indeed. I’m not going to make it easy for you. Confession is good for the soul, I hear. I’ll not rob you of the relief of it. It’s been hard for you to keep it in, hasn’t it?”

Damn him. He was supposed to be ignorant, wasn’t he?

“I have nothing to say.” She blew her nose again, with a little more discretion.

“Your face said it all upstairs. But tell me in words. I won’t judge you, I promise.”

“Won’t you? Don’t you think me the basest sort of woman? I’m an unfaithful wife. A liar.”

“You haven’t lied so much as not told the truth. I’m not one of those who believes much in the sin of omission. Most people usually have a valid reason to leave out a word or three and keep quiet. You have the greatest reason of all. You wanted to protect your husband. Because you love him.”

The simple understanding let loose a fresh assault of tears. Reyn waited patiently while she snuffled and sniffed into his handkerchief. It smelled of sandalwood and starch and was somehow comforting.

“I-I made a horrible mistake.” She reached for more words, but they didn’t come. She’d tried to explain it all to herself for five years, and had never succeeded. How could she explain to Reynold Durant?

It turned out she didn’t need to. “You were lonely, Maris. You love your husband, yes, but he’s much older than you are—a bit of a father figure, if you want my unsolicited opinion. By his own account, he’s obsessed with his studies, not his young wife. You were looking for something that made you feel alive. Important. It’s just too bad you sought it from David Kelby.”

She almost smiled. “I thought you were going to let me confess.”

“I’m sure I left out some details. I’m not a wizard at mind reading, you know.”

“You’ve come close.” She looked at the marble queen, so regal and composed, and took a steadying breath. “When Henry married me, he’d already been afflicted with . . . oh, I don’t know how to say it.”

“He couldn’t exert his husbandly rights.”

Maris knew she was blushing. “Yes. He tried, but—” She did not wish to revisit her greatest disappointment and shrugged. “He pleased me in other ways, but we were never able to consummate the marriage despite his desire for a son.