The Youngest Dowager: A Regency romance(6)
Marissa stole a sideways glance under the pretext of dabbing her lips with her napkin. The new Earl’s hair, shot through with the warmth of the tropical sun, curled over-long on his collar. His face was lean and tanned and there were white lines at the corners of his deep blue eyes, as though he often screwed them up against the sun-dazzle on the Caribbean sea. His nose was straight, his mouth was as firm as her husband’s had been. But Marcus Southwood’s lips looked as though they more readily curved into a smile than tightened in displeasure.
He was attractive, dangerously so. But he was also a man, and that meant that whatever face he showed in company there was another, darker side to his character, as there was with all men. Marissa reminded herself that was something she should never lose sight of.
As the clocks stuck two Marissa gave up on the unequal struggle to sleep and threw back the heavy silk coverlet, wincing as her feet touched the polished boards by the bed. She padded across to the banked glow of the fire and held out her hands in an attempt to draw its warmth into her restless body.
In time she supposed the numbness would pass, but for the moment she was gripped by a strange sense of unreality. Only the routines and duties of the chatelaine of a great house made everyday existence possible and she had never been so grateful for the sense of duty which had been inculcated in her from childhood.
But in her chief duty she had failed, and failed repeatedly. Marissa gazed into the flickering red depths of the fire and remembered again her lord’s cold disappointment that she had once again failed to conceive the heir to Southwood. Not that he had lost his temper of course. The Earl had never allowed himself to show his emotions, least of all to his wife. And he had expected the same restraint from her.
At least that discipline had enabled her to bear the embarrassing ordeal of the doctor’s questioning yesterday, the knowing eyes of the men in the library as the will was read. Her cheeks burned hot and Marissa turned from the fire to cool them. As she did so her gaze fell on the door which led, via a suite of dressing rooms, to the Master Bedchamber. On an impulse she went into her dressing room and opened the connecting door. It was unlocked but the key, as always, was on his side. With a swift twist of her wrist Marissa pulled it out, closed the door and secured it from her side.
It was a foolish, pointless gesture to bar the way into those empty rooms beyond with their black-draped bed and mirrors veiled in mourning for the dead Earl. But it was her room now, hers at least until the man who occupied the Red Bed chamber, the best guest room, decided to take control of his inheritance. And by then she would have long gone to the Dower House.
The view from her windows showed an expanse of parkland glittering with frost under a chill moon. The windows were already rimed on the outside, by morning the frost fingers would have crept up the panes inside too. Was the new Earl able to sleep in the big bedchamber, his warm Caribbean blood cooled by this unseasonable spring? Doubtless he would have been snugger in the Longminster Arms at the park gates, where he had originally left his valise. But it was unthinkable that the fourth Earl should not sleep in the house of his ancestors.
A familiar restlessness filled her. Marissa felt the urge to run, to feel the blood sing in her veins, her heart beat wildly in her chest, to let go of all the rigid formality which had kept her confined these past few days. She slipped her long white silk peignoir on over her nightgown, pushed her feet into kid slippers and opened the door onto the corridor.
All was silent, then the sound of the hall clock striking one reverberated through the corridors. The night watchman would have done his rounds of the house by now, checking for open windows and guttering candles, and would be dozing quietly in the hooded porter’s chair by the front door. Occasional lanterns illuminated the galleries and the moonlight flooded in through the long windows.
The patterned marble floor stretched enticingly long and clear before her. Marissa picked up her skirts and ran, ran as she had so often done in the freedom of the night. Her feet made only a slight pattering on the hard floor as she flew, hair loose, skirts billowing. She took the newel at the top of the stairs in both hands as she passed and swung round it, a bubble of laughter beginning at the back of her throat at the exhilaration, with the freedom of the movement.
She paused, panting slightly, between the doors of the Library and Long Gallery, trying to decide which way to go. She could dance in the Gallery under the disapproving eyes of the marble goddesses. But then she remembered the equally disapproving eyes of the ranked Southwood ancestors and her enthusiasm waned, leaving her feeling guilty that she should be behaving like this in a house of mourning. She was alive, vital, while they were all consigned to dust.
Marissa turned to retrace her steps in a more decorous manner. She never knew what stopped her: perhaps some sound, or the mysterious sense of another presence close to her. There was someone in the Gallery.
Tiptoeing in, she paused in the doorway. In the strong moonlight the figure by the south window was plain to see. He had his back to her, but there was no mistaking that burnished head, the width of the shoulders, the height of the man emphasised by the sweep of his heavy brocade dressing gown.
Marcus Southwood was standing braced with his hands on the mullions on either side of the long window. His head was bowed, as though the weight of the world was on his shoulders. Marissa had an impulse to run to him and throw her arms around his waist, to tell him that, whatever it was, she would make it all right. She took half a step, then checked herself. What was she thinking of? She did not know him, but she did know that one thing you never dared do was to show you had seen a sign of weakness in a man. She had only made that mistake once.