Love in the Afternoon (The Hathaways #5)(27)

Christopher made a noncommittal sound. Inside his coat pocket rested the small, tattered note he carried with him always.

I’m not who you think I am . . .

Come back, please come home and find me.

Yes. He would find her, and discover why she had written those haunting words. And then he would marry her.

“Now that your brother is gone,” Beatrix said, “you’ll have to learn how to manage the Riverton estate.”

“Among other things,” he said curtly.

“Riverton encompasses a large part of the forest of Arden.”

“I was aware of that,” Christopher said gently.

She didn’t seem to notice the touch of sarcasm. “Some estate owners are overcutting, to supply the local manufacturing businesses. I hope you won’t do that.”

Christopher remained silent, hoping that would quell further conversation.

“Do you want to inherit Riverton?” Beatrix surprised him by asking.

“It doesn’t matter whether I want it or not. I’m next in line, and I’ll do what is required.”

“But it does matter,” Beatrix said. “That’s why I asked.”

Losing his patience, Christopher said, “The answer is no, I don’t want it. It was always supposed to be for John. I feel like a bloody impostor trying to assume his place.”

With anyone else, the burst of vehemence would have put an end to the questioning. But Beatrix persisted. “What would you have done if he was still alive? You would still sell your commission, wouldn’t you?”

“Yes. I’ve had enough of the army.”

“And then? What would you do?”

“I don’t know.”

“What are your aptitudes? Your talents?”

Their footsteps slowed as they reached the woods. His talents . . . he could hold his liquor, beat a man at billiards or cards, seduce a woman. He was a crack shot and an excellent rider.

Then Christopher thought of the thing in his life he had most been lauded for, and showered with praise and medals.

“I have one talent,” he said, taking Albert’s leash from Beatrix’s hand. He looked down into her round eyes. “I’m good at killing.”

Without another word, he left her standing at the edge of the forest.

Chapter Nine

In the week after Christopher had returned to Hampshire, the discord between him and his mother became so pronounced that they found it difficult to occupy the same room for more than a few minutes at a time. Poor Audrey did her best to serve as peacemaker, without much success.

Mrs. Phelan had fallen into a habit of relentless complaining. She couldn’t go through a room without tossing out nagging comments like a flower girl flinging handfuls of petals at a wedding. Her nerves were acutely sensitive, obliging her to lie quietly in a dark room in the middle of the day, every day. A collection of aches and pains kept her from supervising the household, and as a result, nothing was ever done to her satisfaction.

During Mrs. Phelan’s daily resting period, she reacted to the rattling of plates in the kitchen as if she had been stabbed with invisible knives. The murmur of voices or the thud of feet on the upper floors were agony to her nerves. The entire household had to tread upon eggs for fear of disturbing her.

“I’ve seen men who had just lost arms or legs and complained far less than my mother,” Christopher told Audrey, who had grinned ruefully.

Sobering, Audrey said, “Lately she has become fixed in her mourning rituals . . . almost as if her grieving will keep John with her in some way. I’m glad your uncle is coming for her tomorrow. The pattern of her days needs to be broken.”

At least four mornings a week, Mrs. Phelan went to the family burial plot at the graveyard of the Stony Cross church, and spent an hour at John’s grave. Since she did not want to go unaccompanied, she usually asked Audrey to go with her. However, yesterday Mrs. Phelan had insisted that Christopher escort her. He had waited for an hour in grim-faced silence while she knelt by John’s headstone and let a few tears fall.

After she had finally indicated that she wished to rise, and Christopher had gone to help her to her feet, she had wanted him to kneel and pray as she had.

He hadn’t been able to do it, not even to please her.

“I’ll mourn in my own way,” Christopher had told her. “At a time of my choosing, not yours.”

“It’s not decent,” Mrs. Phelan said heatedly, “this lack of respect for him. Your brother deserves to be mourned, or at least be given a show of it, by the man who has profited so greatly by his death.”

Christopher had stared at her in disbelief. “I have profited?” he had repeated in a low voice. “You know I never gave a damn about inheriting Riverton. I would give everything I have, if it would bring him back. If I could have sacrificed my life to save his, I would have.”

“How I wish that had been possible,” she had said acidly, and they had ridden back to the house in silence.

And all the while, Christopher had wondered how many hours she had sat at John’s grave and wished that one son were in the place of the other.

John had been the perfect son, responsible and reliable. Christopher, however, had been the wilder, rougher son, sensual and reckless and careless. Like his father, William. Every time William had been caught up in some kind of scandal in London, often involving some other man’s wife, Mrs. Phelan had been cold and distant to Christopher, as if he had been the designated proxy of her unfaithful husband. When William Phelan died as a result of being thrown by a horse, it had been whispered in London that the only surprise was that he had not been shot by some outraged husband or father of one of the women he had debauched.