Much Ado About You Read online

Draven’s eyes were closed, and he looked as if he were asleep and yet…and yet.

  Then Tess was on her knees next to Imogen and hugging her, and Lucius brought them both to their feet. But Imogen tore herself away and fell down next to Draven again.

  “It can’t be true,” she cried. All of a sudden she heard the sounds of the stable around her, a horse striking his hoof against the wood of his stable, someone walking at the far end of the corridor, the jingle of a bridle. It couldn’t be that these things could continue without Draven.

  “No!” she cried. “No!” She clutched him but he didn’t open his eyes.

  “Draven!” she cried. “Draven, it’s not time, it’s not time. Don’t go, don’t leave me, don’t go!”

  But he had gone. Anyone could see that. The Draven she had loved since the moment she saw him, walking across the courtyard laughing with the pure joy of winning—he was gone. His face was different, changed.

  Tess pulled her into her arms, and whispered, “He’s with God, Imogen. He’s with Papa.”

  “Don’t go!” Imogen cried again, and tried to twist out of Tess’s arms. She felt crazed, as if the stables should crack open at the very sight of it, of Draven dead. “Come back!”

  Then the priest was holding her, and saying something about God and heaven and places that were too far away to know about. But Imogen had gone deaf again; the only thing she could see was Draven’s white face lying on the cot.

  “We must take Draven home,” Tess said to her, and that made sense. That was the only thing that made sense. They couldn’t stay in the stable, around the horses. So she allowed Tess to draw her to her feet. She walked beside the bed and held his hand as they carried it, but his hand was limp, not like Draven’s. Draven was always moving, always talking—

  So she put down his hand, and they carried the bed into the sunshine.

  He didn’t open his eyes.

  And then they went home.

  And Draven came with them, in his own carriage.

  Chapter

  34

  When they reached Lady Clarice’s house, Rafe was there with Annabel and Josie; Lucius had sent a groom ahead to ask Rafe to tell Lady Clarice. Tess would have expected hysteria, tears, screams…. There was nothing. Lady Clarice sat like a statue in the sitting room. Her face was paper white, and she held a handkerchief, but she didn’t use it. She and Imogen sat next to each other, but whereas Imogen kept crumpling sideways into Annabel’s arms, sobbing so hard that she couldn’t breathe, Lady Clarice just patted Imogen’s hand and stared into space.

  Tess sat next to Lucius, feeling as if she must do something, and yet—what was there to do? Rafe wandered around pouring doses of brandy into any unguarded teacup he found. They all sat about, and nothing much was said. And then nothing much was eaten at supper, and they retired. Imogen didn’t feel she could go back to the chambers she had shared with Draven, so Annabel and she went to a room together. Tess woke in the night, sobbing, Imogen’s farewell to Draven somehow entangled in her mind with her own farewell to her father. Lucius kissed her wet cheeks and held her in the dark.

  When Tess entered the drawing room in the morning, Imogen and Annabel were sitting together. Annabel was bending close to Imogen, saying something. Tess ran across the room and sat on Imogen’s other side, winding an arm around her shoulders. “How are you, dearest?” she asked.

  Imogen didn’t look at her, just moved slightly, so that Tess’s arm fell away. “I’m just fine,” she said. She wasn’t wringing her hands or crying.

  “I’ve been telling Imogen that she must eat,” Annabel said, in a rousing tone.

  “Not at the moment,” Imogen said.

  Tess hesitated. There was something slightly…slightly unwelcoming about the way Imogen was leaning against Annabel. She would have thought that Imogen would be in her arms. Not that Annabel wasn’t comforting, but after their mother died, she, Tess, had always—

  Lucius entered the room, and she looked at him in relief, but as she turned back to Imogen, she saw something in her eyes. A flash of pain?

  Of course! Lucius’s very presence must be painful to Imogen, since they married virtually at the same time, and Tess’s husband was still alive. She rose and walked to Lucius. “May I see you privately for a moment?” she asked.

  “Always,” he replied, bowing to her sisters.

  An hour later she returned, trying to ignore the fact that she didn’t want Lucius to be on his way home without her. Yet her first loyalty was to Imogen.

  But the moment she walked back in the room, Imogen looked up. Her face was white but for burning flags of color in her cheeks. “I would prefer to be alone.”

  Tess froze, staring at her.

  “If you don’t mind,” Imogen added, leaning her head on Annabel’s shoulder and closing her eyes.

  Tess felt so shocked that it was as if she couldn’t form words properly. “Of course. May I return with some refreshments?”

  Imogen didn’t look up. “If I wish for anything to eat, Annabel will summon the butler.”

  A moment later Tess was in the hallway, blinking at the wall and trying to remember whether she’d said something that might have offended her sister.

  Rafe came down the stairs. “What’s the matter, Tess?” he asked.

  She looked at him, trying desperately not to cry. “Imogen…she didn’t want me to be with her.”

  He led her away, into Lady Clarice’s library. “She’s grieving,” he said. “Grief strikes everyone in different ways. Some wish to be alone, and others—”

  “But she’s with Annabel! She’s not alone. And I’ve—I’ve—” Tess didn’t even know how to describe the way she felt. “After our mother died, I practically raised all of them. How would Imogen…why?” The thoughts flew about her head like a little confused flock of birds. She wished desperately that she had not sent Lucius away.

  “I’d offer you a drink,” Rafe said with a sigh, “but it’s too early.”

  Morning sun was creeping through the heavy curtains. Tess drew them and looked out at the courtyard. Perhaps Lucius would come riding back and take her with him. There was no sign of him, of course, so she sat on the edge of a chair, clasping her hands together so tightly that they hurt.

  “Grief makes a person bloody-minded,” Rafe said, throwing himself into a chair and stretching a leg so that he could kick a log on the fire, irrespective of the smudges on his boots. “After my brother died, I didn’t say a civil word to anyone for over a year. Cursed the minister after the funeral service; I told him in no uncertain terms that Peter would have hated the whole damned affair. I wasn’t myself.”

  The day continued in the same vein. Tess would enter a room, and Imogen would be shaking in Annabel’s arms. Annabel would give Tess a look that said, unmistakably, no.

  And then Tess would walk down the hallway and seek out Lady Clarice. To all appearances, Clarice had retreated behind a block of ice. She showed almost no reaction to anything said in her presence, and while she asked Tess to read the Bible to her, and appeared most appreciative, Tess didn’t think she heard a word.

  At some point in the afternoon, she found Rafe holding Imogen in a manner that anyone in polite society would find impolite. Imogen didn’t even like Rafe! She was the one who said he was a drunk, and a slob, and lazy to boot. Yet if Tess came near her, Imogen froze and stopped crying. She answered in monosyllables. She looked away. If Tess hugged her, rather than Rafe or Annabel, Imogen’s body was stiff.

  Finally, she found the courage to ask Annabel, late at night, two days after Draven died. “Why?”

  “She blames you,” Annabel said. She was sitting in front of the fire in her bedchamber, sipping a glass of brandy. Annabel had apparently decided that Rafe’s brandy was an excellent idea.

  “Blames me? Blames me?” Tess repeated numbly.

  “I didn’t say it was logical.”

  Annabel looked exhausted. Her beautiful creamy skin was drawn and faintly sallow; her eyes were
ringed with dark circles. Imogen cried all night, every night, and Annabel was always with her.

  “How can she blame me?” Tess cried.

  “Because the two of you were arguing when the race was happening,” Annabel said heavily. “Or so she says. And she thinks that if she had been watching—if she had noticed that her husband was riding that devil of a horse…”

  “She couldn’t have done anything,” Tess said, stunned. “It was already too late. What could she have done?”

  “I know it,” Annabel said, taking another drink. “I’ve told her so. I think”—and she looked up at Tess, her eyes exhausted and sympathetic—“I think she simply can’t bear the guilt of it herself.”

  “What guilt?” Tess whispered. “He chose to ride that horse. She made him promise not to do so!”

  “Didn’t he say that he’d done it all for her?”

  Tess froze. He had said that, in the stables. “He didn’t mean it that way!”

  “She can’t help thinking about it,” Annabel said, turning the glass in her hand so that golden rays of light darted about the room. “Maitland said that he wanted to win so that she would have a house, so that Imogen didn’t have to live with Lady Clarice any longer.” There was a moment broken only by a log falling into two crashing, golden pieces in the fire. “I wish he hadn’t said that,” Annabel added.

  “Oh, the poor sweetheart,” Tess said. “I can’t believe—he didn’t mean that! I was there, I could tell her—”

  “No,” Annabel said sharply. “I’ve only just got her to sleep, and, Tess, she hasn’t slept in two nights. Please don’t wake her!”

  “But I must tell her,” Tess said, tears snaking down her face. “Maitland didn’t mean to cast blame on her, not in any sense. He was just telling her that he loved her more than his horses, that’s all!”

  “I’m sure he was. And her feelings don’t make any sense. But blaming you is all she’s hanging on to right now,” Annabel said wearily. “Please don’t take that away from her.”

  Tess was sobbing now. “How can you ask me such a thing? She’s my sister, my little sister, and I love her! I would do anything for her! I want to be with her, help her.”

  Annabel was beside her then, arms around her, rocking her back and forth, and Tess had a pulse of guilt. The last thing Annabel needed was another person sobbing on her shoulder. “Hush,” Annabel said, just as Tess had heard her say to Imogen, “hush.”

  So Tess wiped her eyes, and said, shakily, “Do you think I should leave?”

  “I think you should go back to your husband,” Annabel said, giving her a kiss. “Imogen will come around. She just can’t face reality at the moment, and you’re an easy target.”

  “I feel so responsible.”

  “Actually, what is probably best for her right now is you,” Annabel said, going back to her chair. “She’s so angry at you—”

  “That angry?” Tess interjected, still disbelieving.

  Annabel nodded. “Because of her rage at you, she hasn’t had to think about life without her husband. And I don’t think she’s ready for that yet.”

  “How can she not want to be with me?” Tess said, a twinge clutching her heart. “How can she? Perhaps she just thinks that she doesn’t want me, but she really does.”

  “She will need you later,” Annabel said. “But right now, she’s clinging to this foolish notion of blaming you, and it’s keeping her sane, Tess. I honestly think you are doing the best thing for her, simply by allowing her to be angry at you.”

  Tess took a deep breath and scrubbed away a tear. “You will—you will send for me if she needs me? If she needs anything? If she changes her mind?”

  Annabel nodded again. “Rafe is surprising me. Yesterday he even forgot to take a drink until well after sundown.”

  “You’re not taking on his habits, are you?” Tess said, looking askance at Annabel’s brandy.

  “No,” Annabel said with a sigh, coming to her feet. “I’d better check on Imogen. Did Lady Clarice emerge from her bedchamber today?”

  “Yes. But I don’t think it’s healthy that she never cries. And she never eats. I read to her all afternoon.”

  “Come to the house before the funeral,” Annabel said, pausing in the door. “Perhaps Imogen will be able to greet you then.”

  Tess went back to her own bedchamber and cried. She thought about bursting into Imogen’s room and demanding that she speak to her, then cried some more. And then—for it was quite the middle of the night, and her fire had burned down—she began to shiver and couldn’t seem to stop.

  Whenever she thought about Imogen, she thought about Lord Maitland. And whenever she thought about Maitland, she thought about Lucius.

  So, in her muddled state, she decided that the only thing to be done was to go see her own husband. He wasn’t far away, after all: he was at their house, a mere hour’s ride.

  She pulled on a pelisse over her nightrail and went downstairs. Somehow it wasn’t very surprising to find Brinkley appearing from behind the baize door, looking tired but immaculate. “I hope I didn’t wake you,” she said, her voice echoing in the empty antechamber.

  “Not in the least,” he said gravely. And then, as if there was nothing odd in the least about a lady dressed in a nightrail and a pelisse, “Would you like me to summon your coach, madam?”

  “Yes. Thank you, Brinkley.”

  She fell asleep waiting for her coach, nestled in her pelisse in the sitting room. She hardly noticed when Brinkley tucked blankets around her, and fell asleep again, jostling over the miles, going to Lucius. She was still asleep when the footmen opened the door of the carriage, peeked inside, and went for the master.

  She began to wake up when strong arms closed around her and began to carry her toward the house. She was fuzzily aware that Lucius was carrying her up the stairs, as if she were featherlight. But she nestled her head against his chest and pretended to be asleep. He put her gently onto the bed, and she let her head fall slightly to one side, as if she were still sleeping. She felt his hand on her cheek for a second, then he went back to the door, and she heard him saying to someone—Mrs. Gabthorne—that they would just let her sleep.

  And then, while Tess held her breath, she heard the door close. Had he stayed with her, or left the room when the servants crept away? For some reason it seemed a terribly important question. Lucius had probably left. He wouldn’t sit around and stare at his wife when he could be sleeping peacefully in his own bedchamber.

  The bed shifted as he sat down. “Are you ready to open your eyes yet, sleeping beauty?” he asked. His voice had that faint strain of amusement that Tess fancied only she could hear. Other people probably thought that he was making colorless conversation.

  She didn’t bother greeting him. She simply sat upright, pulled him against her, and pasted her mouth against his.

  It wasn’t, as kisses go, a very polished effort. She could feel how startled he was, but he did kiss her back, after a second or two.

  But Tess didn’t want just to kiss. She fell backward and pulled him with her so he ended up sprawled half-across her.

  “Tess?” he said.

  “I need you,” she said fiercely. “I need you.”

  That was one thing—well, more than one thing—that she loved about Lucius. He listened to her. His hands tangled in her hair, and he gave her a kiss so passionate, so sweet and so alive that tears came to her eyes.

  She kissed him back so intently that it banished the steely coldness in her chest, the fear that he would die as well, that life was nothing more than a series of farewells.

  His hand swept under her nightgown, and his knee was nudging between her legs. But Tess felt a deep, fierce wish to make love, not to be made love to, and so she managed to push him flat on the bed, pulling away his clothing, throwing his boots across the floor, covering his eyes when he threatened to laugh.

  And then, when she had him before her like a feast, she told him to stay still, with all the comman
d with which she spoke to her horse, Midnight Blossom.

  And stay still he did, watching as she covered his body with kisses, her mouth flickering over every muscle, every sweat-dampened ridge and bone and even—

  And even.

  Lucius allowed it, knowing somehow that his wife needed to drive him half-mad with desire, that she relished each hoarse sound he made, each husky plea, each moan. She drew her hair over his flesh, sending him into near delirium until he judged she’d proved to herself that he was alive, every burning inch of him was alive.

  So he rose with a motion so fluid and fast that she had no time to protest. Before she knew what was happening she was on her back, and he was holding her hips, lifting her, coming to her.

  And again. And yet again, and again, and again.

  There was no slaking for either of them; she thrust toward him as fiercely as he moved toward her. The primal dance of life on the earth’s broad back…

  Later, she collapsed into the bed, into the warmth of his arms, and broke into sobs.

  “Poor sweetheart,” he whispered into her hair. “There have been rather a lot of good-byes recently, haven’t there?”

  Tess woke with a burned-out feeling of clarity in her chest. She was tired of crying. In fact, she didn’t want to cry again for at least a year or seven years, for that matter.

  Lucius was lying on his stomach, great muscled shoulders spread across the pillow. In his sleep he didn’t appear at all disciplined and contained. Instead he looked almost boyish, his hair tossed this way and that instead of ruthlessly swept back. He seemed—happy.

  He needs his family to be truly happy, Tess thought. I’ll approach his mother. She ran a finger down the sun-kissed skin of his neck, onto the honey gold skin of his shoulders. His skin was warm with sleep, all that lovely hard bone and muscle seemed soft, like a baby’s touch. Her fingers wandered over him, over every little curve and ridge, not even knowing that a little hum had started in her throat.

  Lucius knew. Lying utterly still and pretending to sleep—his turn at sleeping beauty—he heard that sweet little wandering hum and felt a bolt of lust that shocked him to the bottom of his toes. It took all his will not to roll over, to allow those small fingers their exploration. She was pulling down the sheet now, and her fingers more hesitantly slid up the ridge of his ass.