In the Arms of a Marquess(22)

He rubbed a hand over his face, Kali’s heavy hooves sinking into the street. The night hung thick with mist and soot, just like Ben’s head.

He didn’t give a damn about Lady Carmichael. A hundred such perfumed and petted females could seek him out and he still wouldn’t be interested. Lil’s businesslike honesty appealed to him much more, if not the particulars of what she had to offer.

But Ben didn’t want a woman. Like an idiot schoolboy drunk on his first bottle of brandy, he wanted a fantasy. He wanted the past. The past in which, for a few precious moments, he had willfully forgotten how the weight of the world seemed to rest upon shoulders far too young to carry it.

Chapter 5

ROACHING A SAIL. A term used by sailmakers to signify the allowance made for the beauty in the appearance of a sail.—Falconer’s Dictionary of the Marine

Waking at midday to a pounding head and mouth apparently filled with cotton lint, Ben shaved, dressed, and poured a cup of coffee into the tin bucket that was his stomach. In the stable his saddle horse, sleek-headed and strong-withered, met him with a wicker.

“My apologies for last night, old girl.” He ran his hand along her ebony neck. “But you made it home despite me. The gods were kind this time, it seems.”

She turned her face to him and he imagined compassion in her deep brown eyes.

“I shan’t do it again, I promise.” He moved to the tack room, where a groom sat polishing a harness. “Saddle Kali for the road, and have the traveling carriage readied to go to Fellsbourne. Samuel and Singh will ride in it.”

Despite Styles’s skepticism, Ben visited his principal estate at harvest time and whenever else his steward needed him. Perched upon an offshoot of the Thames, its bulk nestled at the edge of a forest of oak, pine, ash, and walnut, Fellsbourne was the single place in England Ben felt thoroughly at home. Memories lingered there, all good, of holidays from school spent with his brothers riding, shooting, practicing swordplay, and getting into trouble with the butler and housekeeper—like all hot-blooded English boys of the nobility. They’d been largely alone there, free to do what they wished, only the three of them and sometimes Walker Styles.

Ben’s father had spent little time at the estate, busy in Parliament, living in town in the exotic retreat he had created twenty-five miles away from the grave of his first wife. It was her death in childbirth that had driven him to travel four thousand miles, seeking comfort. There, in India, he discovered a beautiful native maiden with a brother eager to make a lasting alliance with an English lord. A love match, some tittered. A scandal, everyone else gossiped. A failure of a marriage that propelled the marquess back west in less than a year.

Eleven years later he finally sent for his son.

The October afternoon shone cool and mild when Ben set off from London, and the road was short. He arrived at Fellsbourne as its granite and limestone mass glowed in the amber glory of the waning sun, its ancient crenellations and modern windows tipped with gold. Depositing Kali with a servant, he turned from the house and made his way across the green.

Beside the little Elizabethan chapel, free standing in a cluster of ancient trees, a wall enclosed the family cemetery. Ben stepped into the carefully tended plot of tombstones to the newest. Three massive white marble slabs stretched across the turf. The dates etched upon his father’s and eldest brother Jack’s tombs were a mere two months later than Arthur’s, the middle brother.

Burying Jack and his father had been Ben’s first act as the Marquess of Doreé. Trained as a child to the dangers of spying, the complexities of eastern trade and Indian power struggles, the harsh realities of war, and the responsibility of hundreds of people who would someday be in his employ, the funeral had seemed oddly pure and simple, his grief profound yet clean.

He walked back around the house. A carriage stood in the drive. Constance descended from it with the aid of a footman.

She came forward upon light feet. “Do you mind that I have appeared without warning, or asking?”

He took her outstretched hand. “You know you are always welcome here.” He drew her toward the stair to the front entrance.

“Your butler in town told me you were here. He said you intend to make a week’s stay of it. Whatever for?”

“I have invited several acquaintances here upon business.”

“Always business.”

In the foyer, he removed her cloak and passed it to a footman. Her cheeks were rose-hued, her vibrant gaze skittering away from him.

“Come and have a cup of tea. You must be weary after your journey.”

“Oh, it was nothing, a short ride, of course.” In the parlor she drew away, moving to the window facing the north side of the house. “Did you already visit their graves?”

“You know me well.”

She pivoted. “Of course I do. But I do not understand why you do that. It is mawkish.”

“You should try it sometime.” But he knew she would not visit Jack’s grave. He didn’t think she ever had.

Her high brow furrowed. “Do not tease me, Ben. I don’t think I will like it just now.”

“Constance, why are you here?”

She trailed her fingertips along the windowsill, the movements agitated.

“I need distraction. I have had a wretched several days, and must put myself back to rights. Please let me stay. You will need a hostess anyway when your guests arrive.”