“Tell me something, Daniel,” Beth said tiredly. “In the dining room, when Ian laughed at me, you all stared like the ceiling had come down. Why?”
Daniel wrinkled his forehead. “Why? ‘Twas because Ian laughed. I don’t think any of us have ever heard Uncle Ian laugh out loud before. At least not since he got sprung from the asylum.”
Beth progressed on her riding lessons until, by the end of the week, she could ride unassisted as long as Cameron or Ian rode alongside her. She learned to use her legs to guide the horse and not flail or grab the reins to keep her balance. The soreness began to slacken as her muscles became accustomed to the exercise. By the beginning of her second week of lessons, she could climb into bed with only a soft moan of pain. Ian proved amazingly capable at massaging the stiffness out of her. Beth became fond of the old horse she rode. The mare had a mile-long pedigree name, but her nickname among the stable lads was Emmie. While Beth and Emmie plodded across the vast lands of Kilmorgan, Ian and Cameron raced or put their horses over fences. Ian was an excellent rider, but Cameron seemed to become part of his horse. When he wasn’t giving Beth lessons, he worked at training the filly he’d brought, letting her run on a long line he held in competent hands.
“It’s his gift,” Ian said to Beth as they watched him one morning. “He can do anything with horses. They love him.” With people Cameron was harsh and often rude, and his language colored the air. At first he apologized to Beth, but after a while he forgot to. Beth remembered what Isabella had told her, that the Mackenzies had lived as bachelors for so long, they didn’t think to soften their manners around ladies. Beth, used to East End toughs, decided she could bear it. As she’d told Inspector Fellows, she was not a wilting weed.
She learned to treasure Ian’s conversations with her, like this one about Cameron, because she never saw him much outside of bed. Over the next two weeks, he closeted himself with Hart, or the two went riding alone, and neither would say where. Cameron kept on with Beth’s lessons without indicating that anything was unusual. Beth tried to ask Ian once what he and Hart were doing, and Ian answered laconically, “Business,” before looking off into the distance. It maddened her to not understand, but she hated to poke and pry. Hart had been right; she barely knew Ian, and perhaps this was what they always did.
I can’t expect them to change their entire lives for me, she chided herself. Another part of her would respond, But he’s my husband…
Things went on like this until one afternoon when Cameron took her riding beyond the park up into the hills.
It was a beautiful day, with a fine summer breeze dancing through the trees. Patches of snow lingered on the highest peaks of the mountains, the sun never quite warming it enough to melt it.
“There’s a folly in the woods out here,” Cameron said, riding beside her. His own horse was a glossy black stallion. The stable lads were afraid of the beast, but he obeyed Cam without fuss. “My father built it for my mother. There weren’t enough ruined castles in the Highlands for him, so he decided to build a fake one.”
The brothers never spoke much about their mother, or their father either, for that matter. The portrait of their much-bearded father glared at her every day from the top of the second-floor staircase, but she’d never seen a picture of their mother. She nudged Emmie to move faster, interested. Behind her Cameron’s horse stumbled. Beth turned in alarm to find Cameron already dismounted and anxiously examining the stallion’s hoof.
“Is he hurt?”
She spoke to Cameron’s broad back. “No, he’s all right. Threw a shoe, didn’t you, old lad?” He patted the horse’s neck. “Go on up to the folly. Emmie knows the way.” Beth swallowed, never having ventured out by herself, but she decided she had to sometime. She nudged Emmie onward, and the old mare plodded up the path toward the higher hill. The day had turned hot, the air close among the trees. Beth wiped her face as she rode, hoping the folly would hold a cooler breeze.
She saw it before long, a picturesque stone building with moss on it. The flat sides had tiny windows and artfully crumbling brick. She could see why the folly had been built in that particular place, however. The view was breathtaking. Fold after fold of land rolled away toward the flat gray sea far away. A creek gushed in a gorge that dropped from the folly’s front edge.
“You’re certain Fellows has nothing new?” Hart’s voice rolled out of the folly, and Beth froze.
“I’ve said,” Ian answered him.
“You haven’t said anything at all. We have to talk about this. Why didn’t you tell me about Lily Martin?”
“I wanted to keep her safe.” There was a silence. “I didn’t help her at all.”
Lily Martin was the name of the woman killed in Coven Garden, Beth remembered, the night Ian had left for Paris. Fellows was convinced Ian killed her.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Hart repeated.
“To keep her safe,” Ian answered with emphasis.
“From Fellows?”
“Partly.”
“From whoever killed Sally Tate?” Hart asked sharply. There was another silence, while the creek chuckled merrily away below.
“Ian, do you know?” Hart’s voice went quieter, flatter.
“I know what I saw.”
“Which was?” Hart asked impatiently.
“Blood. She was covered in blood; it was all over my hands. I tried to wipe it off on the walls, on the bedding. It was like paint…”
“Ian. Focus on me.”
Ian trailed off, the words dying away. “I know what I saw,” he said quietly.
“But does Fellows know?”
Ian paused again, and when he spoke, his voice was steadier. “No.”
“Then why does he want Beth?”
“I don’t know. But he does, and I won’t let him have her.”
“Very noble of you.” Hart’s voice was dry.
“If she’s married to me, your name protects her, too. The family of the Duke of Kilmorgan is not to be bothered by Lloyd Fellows.”
“I remember.”
“He tried to get her to spy against me,” Ian continued.
Hart’s voice turned sharp. “Did he?”
“Beth refused.” Ian sounded pleased. “She saw him off. My Beth’s not afraid of him.”
“Are you certain she refused him?”
“I was there. But just in case…” Another pause, and Beth held her breath.
“Just in case?” Hart prompted.
“A wife can’t go into the witness box against her husband, can she?”
Hart was silent a moment. “I apologize, Ian. Sometimes I forget how intelligent you are.”
Ian didn’t respond.
Hart continued. “You’re right, Ian. It’s best that she’s on our side. But the moment she makes you unhappy, the marriage is annulled. She can be made to keep quiet for a large enough sum of money. Everyone has their price.”
Beth’s breath hurt, and the world seemed to ripple around her. She turned and blindly nudged Emmie forward, thankful the mare’s hooves made little sound on the damp leaves. Nausea bit her stomach. She clung to Emmie’s red-brown mane, letting the mare find her way back home. Beth barely remembered the ride to Kilmorgan. She knew only that suddenly it was before her, the long mansion crouching in the valley, its windows glittering like watchful eyes. Cameron was nowhere in sight, likely engrossed with his stallion’s lost shoe, which was fine with Beth. A tall, redhaired groom appeared and took Emmie’s reins, and Beth heard herself thanking him politely. The dogs ran up for her attention, but she couldn’t see to pet them, and they turned and trotted back to the stables. Somehow Beth made it into the house and up to the chamber she shared with Ian. She closed the door on the maid who’d hurried to assist her, and then she numbly undressed to her chemise and lay down on the bed.
It was late afternoon, and the sun shone through the windows with all its strength. Beth lay still, her arm across her abdomen, the absence of the corset at last allowing her to breath
e. A few tears trickled down her face, then dried, leaving her eyes burning. She thought she could hear the echo of Mrs. Barrington’s derisive cackle. Beth lay still until she heard Ian coming. Then she closed her eyes, not wanting to look at him.
Chapter Sixteen
Beth lay in the shadow of the canopy, her dark hair tangled across the pillow. Ian’s gaze traced the snakes of her hair, lines of brown silk across the linen. Six strands lay straight, seven intersecting them at odd angles, and three more lay across her pale chemise. He liked the pattern and studied it for a time. The skirt of Beth’s chemise had twisted to bare her calves, muscular now from her riding lessons. He reached down and touched her skin, then started when he found it clammy and cold.
“Beth, are you ill?”
Beth’s eyelids fluttered, but she didn’t look at him. “No.”
Ian stopped, a tiny headache threading through his brain. He always had difficulty deciphering what another person was feeling, but Beth’s distress penetrated even the fog in his brain.
“Did you fall?” He sat down on the bed next to her. “Were you frightened? Tell me.”
Beth sat up, her beautiful hair tumbling across her full breasts. “Ian, please explain to me what happened that night in High Holborn.”
He started shaking his head before she finished. So many people wanted to discuss it—
Fellows, Hart, Beth. Hart had asked again today what Ian had done, had pried open a box in Ian’s memory that he wanted to keep locked forever.
Don’t make me see…
Beth’s fingers bit down on his. “Please. I need to know.”
“You don’t.”
“I do. I need to understand.”
“Leave it alone.” His words rang harshly in the stillness. “I want you to look at me like you did when you first met me, before you knew.”
“How can I? Why can’t I know? I’m your wife.” She let go of his hand. “You were never going to tell me, were you, until Fellows let it out? How long would you have kept silent?”
“As long as I could.”
“Do you trust me so little?”
Ian looked away, his attention caught by the sharp shadow of leaves against the window shade. “With this, I trust no one.”
“Except Hart.”
“Especially not Hart.” The words were grim.
“Do you think I’d tell anyone what you say to me?”
He flicked his gaze to her and then away, but not before he saw her blue eyes full of unshed tears. “Fellows asked you to.”
“And you believe I would? I know you do. But Fellows can’t put me on the witness stand, can he? A wife isn’t considered a credible witness against her husband. I heard you explain this to Hart.”
Ian’s heart raced, his mind going over every single word he’d exchanged with Hart at the folly. She’d been there, she must have been riding by, she’d stopped to listen. “Where was Cam? Was he with you? Did he hear?”
Beth’s eyes widened. “No, his horse threw a shoe. I heard, no one else. I heard you talk about her blood. I heard you tell Hart you married me to keep Fellows from using me against you. Is that true?” She bleated a short laugh. “Of course it’s true. You don’t know how to lie.”
Memories rushed at him, hideous and vivid. Walking back into the room to see Sally’s white body against the sheets, the surprise on her face, the blood soaking her limbs, her dyed red hair snaking across the pillows in patterns similar to Beth’s. “I couldn’t help her. I failed her.” He’d failed Lily Martin, too, the lady who’d been in the hall outside the room, terror in her eyes. She’d seen. She’d known. She couldn’t be allowed to tell the constable. He’d hidden Lily away for five years, but in the end, she’d died. And now Beth. If she knew, she’d be in danger, too. “Help me understand,” Beth pleaded. “Tell me why you’re so afraid, why you’d do this to me.”
“I should have known. I should have stopped it.”
“Stopped what? Known what?”
Ian closed his hands on Beth’s shoulders until she winced. Then he deliberately removed his grip and stood. “Cease asking me.”
“Ian, I’m your wife. I promise I will not run off to Inspector Fellows to tell him everything you say. I told you that the day he asked me.”
“I don’t give a damn about Inspector Fellows.” She laughed, and he couldn’t understand what she thought was funny. “Yet you married me to keep him from pestering me for all your secrets. What other reason would you marry a naive widow long in the tooth?”
He had no idea what she was talking about. “I married you to keep him from you. To keep idiots like Mather from you. Hart’s name protects his family, so I made you family, a Mackenzie. No one touches the Mackenzies.”
“Because the mighty Duke of Kilmorgan has such pull with the Home Office?”
“Yes.”
Her eyes were so blue. Tears made them even more cornflower blue, breathtakingly blue. His headache stabbed him through the temple, and he rubbed at it.
“I want to help you find out what happened,” Beth said. “Help you put it to rest.”
Oh, God. “No, no, no. Leave it be.”
“How can I? It’s tearing you apart; it’s tearing me apart. If you tell me, if we think about it, maybe we can decide what really happened.”
Ian jerked away. “This is not a bloody detective story.”
She bit her lip, white teeth on red, and his desire rose swiftly, inconveniently. But if he made love to her, if he rode her until she couldn’t breathe, she’d stop asking questions, she’d stop thinking, she’d stop looking at him. “I lived in the East End,” she was saying, her voice floating past him. “I knew game girls, and they didn’t resent me—at least, most of them didn’t. Perhaps some of them knew Sally Tate, knew who would follow her and strike her down, perhaps in a jealous rage…”
Ian finally focused on her words. He grabbed her wrists. “No!” He stared into her eyes… so blue, so beautiful, like the skies in the middle of summer… He slammed his eyes closed. “Stay out of it. Leave them out of it. Why do you think Lily Martin died?” Silence. At last Ian opened his eyes to find Beth still in front of him, her lips slightly parted. Her breasts swelled above the chemise, soft and white and inviting his touch. “She died because she saw too much,” he said. “I couldn’t save her. I don’t want to find you like that, too.”
Beth’s eyes widened. “You think he’ll strike again, then?”
Ian’s breath hurt his lungs. He jerked away, fists clenching until his nails creased his palms. “Leave it the hell alone. This has nothing to do with you.”
“You made me your wife. It has everything to do with me.”
“And as my wife, you are to obey me.”
Beth put her hands on her hips, her brows rising. “You don’t know much about marriage, do you?”
“I know nothing about it.”
“It’s sharing burdens. It’s the wife helping her husband, the husband helping his wife…”
“For God’s sake.” Ian spun away, unable to stand still. “I’m not your Thomas, your vicar. I never will be. I know you’ll never look at me the way you looked at him.”
She stared at him, white-faced. “What do you mean?”
He turned back. “You look at me like I’m the Mad Mackenzie. It’s in the back of your mind all the time.” He tapped the side of her head. “You can never forget about my madness, and you pity me for it.”
Beth blinked a few times but remained silent. His Beth, who could chatter on about anything and everything, was robbed of words.
Because Ian spoke the truth. She’d been madly in love with her first husband. Ian understood about love, even if he couldn’t feel it. He’d seen his brothers devastated by love and grief, and he knew Beth had been, too. “I can never give you what he gave you.” Ian’s chest hurt. “You loved him, and I know that can never be between us.”
“You’re wrong,” she whispered. “I love you, Ian.”
He pressed his clenche
d fists to his breastbone. “There’s nothing in here to love. Nothing. I am insane. My father knew it. Hart knows it. You can’t nurse me back to health. I have my father’s rages, and you can never be sure what I’ll do—“ He broke off, his headache beating at him. He rubbed his temple furiously, angry at the pain.
“Ian.”
The rest of his body wanted Beth and couldn’t understand why the anger held him back. He wanted to stop this stupid argument and spread her on the bed. Her agitated breath lifted her breasts high, and her hair straggled across her white shoulders. If he rode her, she’d stop nattering about the murder and love. She’d just be his. She’s not a whore, something whispered in his head. She’s not a thing to be used. She’s Beth.
Ian grabbed her shoulders and dragged her up to him, slanting his mouth over hers. He forced her lips to part, the kiss raw, brutal. Her fists on his chest softened, but she was shaking.
He hungrily took her mouth, wanting to pull her inside him, or himself inside her. If he could be part of her, everything would be all right. He would be well. The horror he kept secret would go away.
Except he knew it wouldn’t. His damned memory would keep it as fresh as if it happened yesterday. And Beth would still look at him as if he were something pathetic in an East End gutter.
Her heat scalded him like the bathwater from his childhood. No one had believed him when he shrieked that it burned—they’d forced him into the water, and he’d screamed until his throat was raw, his voice broken. Ian shoved Beth from him. She gazed up at him, her lips swollen and red, her eyes wide.
He walked away from her.
The world became very specific, the pattern on the rug pointing almost but not quite to the door. It was agony to move his feet toward the door, but he had to. leave the room, and the anger and pain.
He saw Curry in the hall, no doubt having hurried up here when he heard the shouting. They all worried about him, Curry, Beth, Hart, Cam—so protective, hemming him in, his jailers. He passed Curry without a word and walked out.