“Oh good Lord,” sighed Nicholas. “Poor muddle headed little mouse. What you have no way of knowing is that you’ve had a fair escape. Not by marrying me of course, since I’m probably no better. But presumably you’d been dreaming those romantic tales of courtly love and King Arthur and Sir Gawain, and imagined Peter as another Lancelot as soon as my brother was introduced to you. Once wed, you’d have had a nasty shock. And remember this, I was also ordered into a marriage I had no taste for. I imagined – having believed – well, now I’m none too sure. But we’ll somehow have to make the best of it and in the meantime you can sleep in peace. I’m about as incapacitated as a drowned worm and there’ll be no pregnancies just yet, I assure you. I suppose if you say your dalliance with Peter was innocent, I’m prepared to take your word for it. And I can just imagine what delightful stories he told you about me. Some of them may even be true.”
She hiccupped again. “I’m not a mouse,” she said after a long pause.
“More like a rat at the moment,” her husband observed. “If you’ve a predilection for sleeping in ashes and cinders in the future, madam, you can damn well sleep alone.”
“I intend to anyway,” Emeline said, standing abruptly. “I shall now inform my father that I choose to return home to Gloucestershire with him after all.”
“No, you won’t,” grinned Nicholas. “I think I’ll exercise my superior claims and keep you here. I need some sort of diversion while I’m chained to my bed. You’ll do just fine.”
Chapter Seven
“I am not a – commodity,” she said with what dignity she could muster. “You cannot order me here while my father orders me elsewhere and your father wants me somewhere else entirely as if I can be pushed around like a gardener’s barrow. I can make my own choices, and I may – or may not – decide to tell you once I’ve made up my mind. In the meantime, you can just go away. I think you’re horrid.”
Nicholas had not yet stopped grinning. “I can’t go away. I can’t walk without help. Besides, it seems a touch brutal to dismiss me since this is, after all, my home.”
“Well, I shall go away,” said Emeline. “And you can just carry on sitting here until someone comes in and falls over you.”
He laughed. “Since you’re so keen to hurry off, I presume you’re eager to spend more time with your benevolent Papa before he leaves. He is leaving soon, I hope? Good. Unfortunately I can’t banish my own since he still owns the place, but I can revert to ignoring him whenever possible.”
“So it was him you were escaping that time you climbed out of the window in your best frilly pink skirts?” Emeline inquired with hauteur. “Or were you escaping me? Your prospective bride? Completely avoided and ignored, even after being dragged miles and miles in filthy weather just to be introduced to you?”
“Something like that.” Nicholas shifted, wincing as he managed to straighten both legs. “As it happens, my personal collection of gowns is rather a small one, but I needed a quick getaway. Escaping you, I suppose. You see, I’d already had a full description from Peter.”
Emeline flopped back down on the window seat. “Stop talking about Peter like that,” she mumbled. “It’s upsetting. I loved him very much and I still do and I’ve dreamed about him every night for a year and more and he was the kindest, most elegant and courteous man I’ve ever met. And I was so proud – so happy to think I’d be his wife.”
“Should a dutiful wife inform her husband that she’s still in love with his brother?” Nicholas was still grinning.
“I’m no dutiful wife,” Emeline informed him without compunction. “You’ve never given me a chance to behave like one, and besides, if it hadn’t been for that dreadful tragedy, it’s Peter I would have married. It was wicked murder, I’m sure it was. I cried every day and every night for weeks. Then Papa said I had to marry you instead and that made it even worse. Even you ought to understand how awful that felt.”
“Having to marry me? Simply frightful. I sympathise.” He did not look too sympathetic. “But there’s something you don’t understand, my dear. We’re a reprehensible family and there’s not one of us worth marrying. Living alone up here without much access to feminine company except for a few servants and the village girls, has made us neither courtly nor virtuous. My father’s a drunken bully, and anyway he’s usually away at court. Peter and I ran wild most of our lives. My mother died when I was six, and in spite of regular beatings, any education in manners stopped then and there.”
“But Peter was –”
“A saint. Somehow I must have missed that side of him.”
The dream softened expression returned. “As a brother, no doubt you wouldn’t have seen him in the same way. But I knew him better.” Her eyes quickly moistened, catching the candle light. “When I met him the very first time, he knelt at my feet and took my hand, and explained – well, I suppose you will laugh at me. But I’d been a little frightened, you see, when Papa said my marriage was arranged. I’d lived a very quiet life because Papa is so strict.”
Nicholas interrupted her. “The dastardly and ignominious Chatwyns with a strictly Christian Wrotham maiden? A mismatch from the start, my dear.”
“It wouldn’t have been, not with Peter.” Emeline sniffed and began to search for her kerchief, which wasn’t there. “No man had even touched my hand before – not like that. But Peter’s touch was so delicate – so courteous. He told all about how he had asked for me specially, begged for me in fact, because he’d seen me once when he’d come hunting in Gloucestershire, and fallen in love from afar. So he begged your Papa to approve the match. And of course the earl had to be persuaded because he’s an earl and we are inferiors, but Peter managed to talk him around because he thought I was beautiful and was –” she paused. “There’s no need to snigger. I know I‘m not really beautiful.”
Nicholas said, “Your father approached my father, not the other way around. Peter had never seen you in his life before the marriage arrangements were already begun. But he was pleased enough and it had nothing to do with beauty, I assure you. You’re an heiress, my dear.”
Emeline took a deep breath. “You are utterly and completely vile,” she informed her husband. “And I loathe you.”
“Poor benighted little mouse.” Nicholas shook his head. “I suppose I shouldn’t squash your romantic delusions, but if you’re going to have anything to do with my family, you might as well face the truth. Your father wanted the match because he’s ambitious. Has wealth and property but never got anywhere in politics, so wanted to affiliate with someone previously on the Royal Council and powerful in parliament. Simple as that. There was a friendship between your great grandfather and mine, which was the polite excuse used to initiate talks. But basically my father agreed because you’ll be rich as Croesus one day. Not a hard sum. Even with your family as religiously devoted as a cloister of monks and mine as shockingly irreligious as a parcel of barbarian heathens, an alliance was expected to benefit both parties. Your poor little fluttering heart was certainly not taken into consideration, and Peter, being the heir, wanted your money. You might not want me, madam, and who’s to blame you. But Peter – well, Peter – oh, never mind about Peter. I daresay one shouldn’t speak ill of the dead.”
Emeline sat through this speech with growing hauteur, waited a moment, pursed her lips, clasped her hands a little tighter, glared and said, “Did you kill him then?”
Nicholas stared back at her in utter silence. His animation and humour blinked out and a furious and growing anger flashed in his bright blue eyes. Then it gradually faded. His face, tired and still inflamed with the welts and blisters from the fire, seemed suddenly sad. “I won’t dignify that question with an answer,” he said quietly. “Especially coming from my own wife. If you want an annulment, my lady, you can explain the situation to your mother, and no doubt something can be arranged. In the meantime, I think I should prefer to be alone. If you see any of the servants, perhaps you’ll be good enough to tell someone I need help returning to my bed. Now, I am sure your mother is waiting for you.”