Her settlement. God damn him! What was it he'd said? Thirty thousand pounds a year as settlement. Money. Her money. Money she would need to win Jack back. Blake had given her the money in one lump sum. Thirty thousand pounds of her money. And it was burning.
Meredith reacted quickly, concern for the burning money her only thought. She leaned forward, thrust her hand into the fire, and closed her fist around the top stack of notes. Pain shot through her arm as the heat of the fire singed the hair from the back of her hand and arm and blistered the delicate skin beneath. She jerked her hand back and dropped the money into her lap.
One stack. And much of it burned beyond use. Meredith watched angrily as the flames continued to eat away at two other stacks of money. Thirty thousand pounds in three bundles. Ten thousand pounds apiece. It was too much to bear. It was all Blake's fault. He had let her burn her settlement. He had smiled at her, knowing what was in the envelope. He had let her toss it in the fire. It was his way of getting back at her. Damn him!
A determined rage filled her as Meredith seized the poker and desperately began to prod the bills. The flames burned brighter with each poke as the money crackled and dissolved in fragile brown ash. She had to get it. She had to.
Using her arms for support, she lifted herself to the edge of her wheelchair and leaning heavily on the brass poker, reached toward the fire in a last attempt to save the money.
The poker skidded across the smooth, polished marble. Meredith lost her precarious balance and fell headlong onto the hearth. Her useless feet struck her chair as she fell and sent it crashing backward into the writing table. The table toppled over and the oil lamp sitting on it crashed to the floor and exploded at her feet in a burst of hot oil and flame that splattered her clothes.
Meredith beat at the flames, unable to feel the heat yet knowing the fire and oil were burning her clothes and blistering her flesh. She tried desperately to drag herself from the hearth, but the pain from her blistered hand hampered her and the fire continued to snake up her skirts toward her loosened mass of black curls and to cling tenaciously to her dress until it spread across the floor in little orange rivers and began to feed upon new fuel in the form of carpets and drapes.
Meredith screamed then. Again and again until the smoke scorched her lungs and her screams became bitter moans lost in the noise of the hungry fire.
Her angry screams carried across the lawn to the stables where Blake waited impatiently for a horse to be saddled. He smiled grimly. Meredith must have followed through on her threat to burn the envelope, discovering too late that it contained her first year's settlement. He supposed the angry screams meant that she was busy venting her wrath on the furnishings in her sitting room. And it didn't matter to him anymore. Willow Wood belonged to her. She was free to vent her spleen in any manner she chose.
Blake ignored the screams and climbed onto the back of his horse. He whirled out of the stable and cantered toward the gates. He was almost through them when he heard someone shouting his name. He reined in his horse and turned back toward Willow Wood.
The stableboy was running down the drive, waving his arms and shouting to gain Blake's attention. Blake trotted his horse back to the breathless boy.
"What is it?" he demanded.
The young boy panted and bent forward in an effort to catch his breath. But his words came in unintelligible gasps and he finally pointed to the house.
Blake looked toward the house.
The stableyard was alive with activity as the household employees scurried from pump to pump, forming a bucket brigade that led to the window of Meredith's sitting room. Orange flames consumed the drapes and thick black smoke darkened the windowpanes, then spewed forth as the heat of the fire shattered the glass.
The fire roared brighter with the gust of oxygen from the shattered windows.
Blake heaved the boy onto the back of his horse and galloped back to the stable.
He dismounted at a run and dropped the reins in the dirt. "Where is Lady Lawrence?" he shouted to the butler who was busy organizing the firefighting effort.
"There, sir," the butler shouted back, directing Blake's attention back to the burning window. "I couldn't reach her."
Blake reacted without thinking. Dashing toward the house, he took the stairs leading to the burning floor two at a time. The door to the sitting room stood partially open, but it was impossible to enter. The room was a raging inferno, the heat unbearable. Blake stripped off his coat and held it over his face. He rushed through the doorway and returned coughing and choking as the wall of fire beat him back. He tried again and failed, then wrapped his coat tighter about his face for the third attempt.
"No, sir," the butler had grabbed his arm, "it's no use. You can't get in. It's too hot!"
Blake looked at the butler, and back at the room. Logic told him Meredith was dead. It was impossible for her to be alive, but decency demanded that he try to save her.
He took a deep breath of air and lunged for the door.
The butler held fast to his arm. "No, sir! Look!"
It was too late. The fire had spread too rapidly. There was nothing left alive and unburned in that room. Blake resigned himself to that fact, then accompanied the butler out of the burning house.
He worked tirelessly through the afternoon trying to save something of Willow Wood, but nightfall found the country house a smoldering ruin of ashes. Only the stables remained.
The exhausted crowd of employees stood in quiet groups awaiting instructions. Blake wearily rubbed at the taut muscles in the back of his neck. The employees filed around him to shake his hand and to offer their sympathies. He listened attentively to each one and when they had finished he stripped off his filthy tattered shirt and washed at the pump alongside the other men. He ruthlessly wiped the exhaustion from his fuzzy brain and made a mental list of the details that must be attended to before he could return to London. When he was reasonably clean, Blake pulled his sweat- and soot-stained shirt back on and instructed several of the men to hitch up the carriages. He resaddled his horse and mounted and walked it to the gates of Willow Wood--gates that guarded a simmering mound of ash. He wailed until the carriages were loaded, then led an assortment of dirty, bone-weary employees, along with their few meager belongings, down the narrow road to the village and refuge.
Blake waited in the village until the ashes of Willow Wood cooled and the men were able to dig through the rubble and recover Meredith's pitiful remains. He ordered a coffin; notified the authorities, Meredith's family, and his own parents of the fire and of Meredith's death; and sent word to his aunt and to Mackie at Lawrence House before he followed the ugly black hearse back to London.
A steady stream of callers poured into Lawrence House on the day of the funeral. Blake's nerves were stretched to the limit as he acknowledged the offerings of food and flowers and sympathy cards filling the house. He had spent most of his time secluded in his study escaping from well-meaning friends and associates. He only wished that he could escape the whole charade. But that was impossible.
Blake absentmindedly picked through the sympathy cards on the silver tray someone had placed in his study. He paid little attention to the bereaved offerings, for his mind was several thousand miles away in New York City with Cristina. He wondered what she was doing and how she was taking his absence. He was late. He had promised the trip wouldn't take any longer than two months and he had missed that deadline by three weeks and four days. And Blake was worried. Had he broken her faith again? How many times could he leave her behind and still have her believe in him?
His mind had warred with his heart until he thought he would explode. God, how he wanted Cristina beside him! How he needed to hear her voice and to feel her arms around him! And how he wanted to tell her he loved her!
Blake impatiently flung out his arm and knocked the tray aside. He wasn't mourning Mered
ith and he didn't want sympathy cards from people who thought he was. Paper fluttered to the floor like snowflakes and Blake cursed aloud as he bent to pick them up. He scooped up a handful of cards and threw them back on the tray but one card slipped through his fingers and fell back to the floor.
He noticed it simply because it was different from the others. It was completely white, lacking the black mourning border of the others. Blake picked it up and discovered it wasn't a card at all, but a note folded over and written in a feminine hand. His heart seemed to somersault in his chest as he tore it open and read:
My darling Blake,
Please don't be angry, but it has been over two months and I was very worried about you. I simply couldn't stand to wait any longer.
Perspiration beaded Blake's upper lip, fear coiled in his belly, and his hand shook from the force of his emotions as he commanded his eyes to read on and learn the truth.
I made my decision weeks ago and stuck to it. Papa fought me every step of the way. But even he was forced to admit defeat and reluctantly saw us off at the docks when Leah and I left New York.
Left? Where had she gone? Why hadn't she waited?
We docked yesterday morning and have reopened Fairhall. Everything is in an uproar, but I can live with a little discomfort. I can't live without you. Come to me, my love. I miss you terribly and I am waiting impatiently. Hurry, my love.
Always, Cristina
Blake read the note a second time and pure unadulterated joy shot through him. He hugged the letter to his chest and laughed aloud for the sheer pleasure of it. His wish had come true. She was in London waiting for him. She had come to him at last. His countess was waiting with open arms and the knowledge that she had traveled across an ocean to be with him made all the difference to Blake. His doubts about their future had been silenced forever and because of that, he could endure a few more final hours of hypocrisy.
Every parting gives a foretaste of death, every coming
together again a foretaste of the resurrection.
--ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER 1788-1860
*Chapter Thirty-one*
August 1880
London
It was raining. Cristina stood near the window of her bedroom at Fairhall watching as thousands of raindrops hurried from the darkened skies to the cold, hard ground below. Wet droplets blew against the windowpanes, dotting the viewing area until the surface of the windowpane resembled a prism. Outside the window, brown stems emerged from the sodden garden like grotesque sculptures, all that remained of the summer's roses.
Cristina pressed her nose against the glass, her warm breath forming clouds on the cool surface. But she wasn't studying the garden. She was looking beyond it, peering out on the gray horizon searching longingly for the shape of a sleek, black carriage. Had he missed her message? Or had he received the note and decided not to come? Of course not. She chided herself for her moment of doubt. Blake would come when he could. He had promised "always" and he wouldn't fail her.
She was tired and nervous. She'd been waiting on pins and needles ever since her arrival from New York the day before. Her father hadn't wanted her to travel and he'd presented a number of sound, logical reasons against it. He had tried to persuade Cristina to be patient--to wait a little longer for Blake to return--but Cristina had been stubbornly determined to sail. And now, even though she knew she shouldn't doubt herself, Cristina couldn't help wondering if she had made the right decision. Would he understand? Would he be upset when he learned of the new wrinkle in their relationship?
She walked over to the mirror and examined herself critically, seeing herself the way Blake would see her, looking for signs of change. The white flannel nightgown concealed the growing fullness of her breasts and the added inches at her waistline. Would his knowing hands feel the difference when the rest of her looked the same? Cristina sighed and grimaced at the mirror. In a very few months she would be huge and distorted and would waddle like a duck when she tried to walk across a room, but today she felt beautiful. And she wanted to be beautiful for Blake a little while longer before the shape of her body caught up with the size of her long, narrow feet and Blake teased her unmercifully about her ungainly appearance.
"Missy, you'll catch your death of cold! It's freezin' in here."
Cristina turned to find Leah standing with arms akimbo in the doorway, gently scolding as usual. "I'm just watching it rain."
"Well, beggin' your pardon, missy, but it's the same as it's always been--cold and wet. And it looked to me like you were busy admirin' your figure in the mirror." Leah draped a shawl over Cristina's shoulders and directed her back to the warm bed. "You can see the window from here. And besides, it will probably be hours before he gets here. At least let the sun come up before you start worrying."
Cristina obediently climbed back into bed, partly out of habit and partly because she was too stubborn to admit she was cold. "You do think he'll come, don't you, Leah?"
"Don't doubt it a bit," Leah replied matter-of-factly. "I didn't come all this way for nothin' and neither did you."
"That's what I keep telling myself, but what if something has happened? What if he didn't get my note? What if she's done something to hurt him and he isn't able to come?" Cristina gave voice to her fears for Blake's safety.
"Try not to worry so much. It ain't good for you or the baby. He'll get here soon as he can."
"I can't help but worry, Leah, I know something terrible has happened," Cristina fretted.
"I think you're just anxious about Lord Blake and the new baby and you're lettin' the bad memories of Vienna worry you," Leah told her.
Cristina shook her mass of copper curls. "It's more than that. It's something I feel. Leah, I'm frightened but I'm not frightened for the baby or myself. I'm afraid for Blake." Cristina tried to block out her memories of the bombing, but Leah's words brought them back and there was nothing she could do except close her eyes and remember von Retterling and the night Nicholas was born. And Blake, with an incredibly gentle look in his eyes and a tender note in his voice talking to her, helping her through the agonizing labor. Blake, who had used those same incredibly gentle hands to place a cool cloth between her bitten and swollen lips and whose voice huskily commanded her to bite down and to push and who praised her while she did as he instructed. She had truly loved him then, more than any human being on earth. And she had continued to love him. Always.
"Missy? Cristina?"
The memories faded. Cristina opened her eyes as the sound of the worry in Leah's voice caught and held her attention.
"Yes?"
"I made your breakfast and brought the mornin' paper." Leah placed the tray on the table next to Cristina's bed and handed Cristina the newspaper.
Cristina took it from her and scanned the headlines. A black bordered column caught her eye and a familiar name leaped out at her.
"No!" Cristina cried out. Her hands trembled so hard, the newsprint danced before her eyes. She struggled to read the words. "A devastating fire destroyed Willow Wood, the country estate of the earl of Lawrence, on Wednesday last. Meredith, Lady Lawrence nee Brownlee of the village of Everleigh in the county of Sussex died in the blaze. Though the stables and outbuilding were saved, all else was lost." Cristina recited the facts of the article in a clipped, cold tone of voice. "It doesn't say anything about anyone else being involved in the fire. Oh, wait, it says here that she is survived by her husband, Blake Ashford, Earl of Lawrence; her parents; and the marquess and marchioness of Everleigh." Cristina leaped from the bed, grabbed hold of Leah, and hugged her tightly. "Thank goodness! Oh, thank goodness he's all right!"
"That explains it," Leah said. "He won't be able to come
right away. He'll have to wait until the funeral. You'll have to be patient a little longer."
Cristina nearly screamed in frustration. Meredith was dead once again and hopefully this time for good, but even in death, she had found another way to thwart them--to delay their marriage. If Blake was forced to endure the standard period of mourning before he could remarry, another Lawrence heir would be born out of wedlock.
The earl of Lawrence stood apart from the mourners. Meredith was dead and he felt nothing beyond surprise--surprise that it was over. And surprise because Meredith had died the way she had lived--in an agony of hatred and bitterness, fighting him, hating him, thwarting him to the very end. And Blake didn't doubt that had she survived the fire, Meredith would have continued to fight him. She was truly dead this time. For good. He had seen the workmen recover her body and had been forced to help identify the pitiful remains. But in many ways, her death was hard for Blake to comprehend. It meant that she was harmless. Harmless. Funny that that particular word should apply to Meredith. She'd cheated death the first time, then used it to her advantage. She'd spent years confined to a wheelchair, constantly traveling, keeping herself hidden away from everyone except her family and Jack and Retterling and other hired henchmen, waiting, always waiting for her opportunity for revenge, feeding on her desire for revenge, and none of those hardships had rendered her harmless.
She had wanted him to hate her and she had done everything in her power to earn his hatred. And she had succeeded. Her attempted murder of Cristina and Nicholas's death had earned her his hatred. But the way Meredith had died had nullified that hatred. He had told her that he never wanted to see her again, but he had never wanted her to die the way she had died, unable to move while the flames and smoke burned and choked the life out of her. Blake had also wanted revenge and he had had it.
It left a bitter taste in his mouth.
The sound of metal scraping earth brought Blake back to the present. He stared dispassionately as the pallbearers lowered Meredith's charred remains into her grave. The mourners watched and waited silently for Blake to do something.
He turned and walked away from the open grave, leaving the crowd of mourners wondering at his unprecedented behavior.
Let them wonder. Let them think what they liked. Meredith was in the past. His future lay with Cristina and Blake didn't intend to waste any more time. Cristina was the important person in his life. Cristina loved him and needed him and he had been delayed by Meredith for far too long. He and Meredith had been tied together for more years than Blake cared to remember and they had finally been rewarded for their suffering. They were free of each other.