Her Convenient Husband's Return

‘Give.’

‘Give?’ Her face had flushed, a mottled mix of red and white marking her neck. ‘Have you taken leave of your senses? Your family has owned this land for generations. Ayrebourne cares nothing for the people or the animals or the land.’

‘Then we have much in common,’ Ren said.

‘But you are not cruel.’

He shrugged. ‘People change.’

She shook her head, the movement so violent that her black bonnet slid to one side, giving her a peculiar appearance and making him want to straighten it. The odd impulse cut through his anger. His eyes stung. He wished—

‘Not like this,’ she said. ‘Something has happened. Something has changed you.’

‘My bro—’ He stopped himself. ‘Edmund died, if you recall. That is not enough?’

‘No. Something else. It happened long before Edmund left.’

For a moment, he was tempted to tell her everything. To tell her that Lord Graham was not his father, that Rendell Graham did not exist, had never existed. Why not? So many suspected anyway.

Then he straightened, moving from her.

She had always seen the best in him. She had run her fingers over his artwork and found beauty. She had touched his scrawny boyish arms and discerned muscle. He could not tell her. Not now. Not today. Not yet.

‘We should go to the carriage,’ he said.

‘And that’s it? You throw out this...this...ludicrous, awful proposal and then suggest we go home for tea.’

‘I will be having something considerably stronger, but you may stick to tea if you prefer.’

‘You’re doing it again.’

‘Yes?’ He raised a brow.

‘The drawl. It makes you sound not yourself.’

He smiled. ‘Perhaps because I am not myself,’ he said.

Chapter Four (#u5f252952-154a-55bd-a0d3-0e561d1f748d)

Beth told Jamie after dinner that Ren intended to dispose of the estate. She had delayed, fearing it would distress him. Besides, she needed the time to mull over the news, to ensure that she was capable of speaking the words without smashing plates or throwing cutlery.

She heard Jamie’s angry movement. He stood and the dining room chair clattered, crashing into the wall behind him. ‘What? Why? Why sell?’

‘He is not selling. He intends to give it away.’

‘Give it away?’ Jamie paced. ‘Even more ludicrous. You have to stop him.’

‘Me?’

‘You are his wife.’

‘Not really. And he certainly will not listen to me.’

‘Who will he give it to?’ Jamie asked.

‘The Duke.’

‘The Duke?’ Jamie’s movements stopped, his stunned disbelief echoed her own. ‘Why? Good Lord, Ayrebourne turns his fields into park land so his rich friends can hunt. Starves his tenants. Why? Why the Duke?’

‘I don’t know,’ Beth said. ‘I mean, Ren knows that his cousin is loathsome. That is why he married me. It makes no sense that he would choose that man out of all humanity!’

‘His cousin...’ Jamie spoke softly. She heard him return to his chair and sit. His fingers drummed on the table.

‘You’ve thought of something? It matters that the Duke is his cousin?’

‘Yes.’

‘Why?’

‘I—’ She heard Jamie’s movement from the creaking of the chair. ‘Can’t.’

Jamie had never been able to speak when distressed. Words were never easy for him, particularly if the topic digressed from agricultural matters.

‘But you know something that makes this understandable, or at least more so?’

He grunted.

‘And you can’t tell me?’

‘No.’ Jamie pushed his chair back. It banged against the wall. She heard him rise. She heard the quick, rapid movement of his footsteps across the room. ‘Don’t know anything anyway. Rumour. Best ask your husband.’

With this curt statement, he left. The door swung shut, muting the rapid clatter of his brisk footsteps as he proceeded down the passageway.

‘Bother.’ Beth spoke to the empty room. Jamie would drive a saint to distraction, she was sure of it. His knowledge was usually limited to seedlings and now, when he actually knew something useful, he refused to speak of it.

She half-rose, intent on pressing him further, but that would accomplish nothing. He was right, she supposed. She should talk to Ren. He was her husband, at least in name, and she deserved some form of explanation. Besides, she thought, with a characteristic surge of optimism, the fact that a logical reason existed, however warped the logic, was hopeful. One could argue against a plan rooted in reason and while she lacked any number of skills, fluency in words or argument was not one of them.

Beth stood with sudden purpose. She was not of the personality to give up. She would talk to Ren. She would make him tell her why he was so driven to give away his birthright. She would remind him that, whatever he felt now, he had once loved this land and its people—

That was it!

For a second, she felt transported. The plan flashed across her mind, fully formed and brilliant. She could almost feel those heady, optimistic days of childhood: the sun’s warmth, the splash of water, the smell of moss and dirt mixed with a tang of turpentine and paint.

Grasping her cane, she hurried, counting her steps between her chair and the door and then took the twenty paces along the passageway to the stairs. Of course, she hadn’t been to the nursery in eons, but everything was familiar: the smooth wood of the banister rail, the creak of the third stair under her foot and the whine of the door handle. Everything was reminiscent of childhood. Layered under the dusty scent of a closed room, she even detected a hint of cinnamon left over from long-ago nursery teas.

Beth crossed the hardwood flooring until her cane struck the cupboard. She knelt, swinging open the door and reaching inwards. Papers rustled under her fingertips. She could feel the cool dustiness of chalk, the hardness of the slate boards and the smooth leather covers of books, soft from use.

Then her fingers found the artist’s palette with its hard ovals of dried paint and, beside it, the spiky bristles of brushes. She stretched her fingers from them and, to her delight, felt the dry, smooth texture of rolled canvas. She grinned, pulling eagerly so that the canvasses tumbled on to the floor with a rustling thud.