The Complete Regency Surrender Collection. Louise Allen
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own household. What a strange idea. While she had experience in managing servants for Mr Montague, she had seen the way they looked at her, half in pity and half in disapproval, as though it pained them to take their instructions from the master’s whore. Now she was to be the lady of a manor and no one would doubt that it was her proper place. If the situation weren’t so dire, she might have been excited at the thought.
Once they were underway, it appeared that William was right about his need to make the move. As she sat in his side in the carriage, she could see his mood lightening with each turn of the wheels. He stared out the window so intently that she almost thought he was avoiding her gaze. At last, he said, ‘It is good to be coming home again. There is much about the current situation that is strange to me. Having to deal with it in my brother’s house made it no easier.’
‘They have been very kind to me, during our stay there,’ she remarked.
‘I would expect nothing less of them,’ he said. ‘But when we married, I am sure it was not our intent to live out the remainder of our lives in someone else’s house.’
‘True,’ she agreed.
‘We are barely out of our honeymoon, are we not?’ It was a perfectly innocent remark and a logical reason to wish to be alone together. But they both fell silent at the thought.
‘We have not known each other long,’ she answered. ‘And it has been a very unusual few months.’
They both fell silent again.
He took a breath and began again. ‘I will be frank with you, since it makes no sense not to be. I do not know you, as a husband should.’
‘Your accident...’ she said, searching for a way to explain the perfectly logical absence of romantic memories.
‘Is in the past,’ he finished for her. ‘I do not remember you. But if we are to be married, it does no good for me to be dwelling on that fact. I... We...’ he amended. ‘We must move forward with what is left. And it will be impossible if we continue to avoid each other, relying on family and friends to fill the gaps and sleeping on opposite sides of a closed door.’ Then he exhaled, as if it had taken an effort to state the obvious.
‘It was you who sent me away,’ she reminded him, careful to keep the censure from her voice. If they had truly been married she likely would have been hurt and angered by his rejection. But the sensible reaction was the one most likely to reveal her lies.
‘I was wrong to do so,’ he replied. ‘If we are married...’
‘If?’ she countered.
‘Now that we are married,’ he corrected, ‘we must accept the fact that the last six months change nothing. I have spoken to my brother and I do not think an annulment is possible.’
How could one dissolve a marriage that did not exist in the first place? She ignored the real question and chose another. ‘Did you wish to cast me off, then?’
She could see the change in his face, as he realised how cruel his words had been. When he spoke again, it was after some thought. ‘If I did, it was unfair of me, just as it was when I sent you from my bedroom. When we arrive at the house, I will instruct the servants to place your things in the room beside mine, for the sake of convenience. But from this point forward, I expect you to share my bed.’
‘As you wish, my lord.’ When Montague had informed her of her future, he had done it with a similar lack of passion. She had been foolish to imagine, after a kiss or two, it would be any different with this man.
Beside her, Lord Felkirk swore under his breath. ‘I did not mean it to sound like a command.’
‘You are my husband,’ she said, with as much confidence as she could manage. ‘I have promised to obey. It shall be just as you wish and I will do my best to give you no reason to be unhappy.’
Apparently, she had failed in that already. He was frowning. Despite his earlier excitement, he looked no happier when they reached the house. ‘My home,’ Will said in a tired voice, and waited for her comment.
She was not sure what she had expected, but it had not been this. It was not the thoroughly modern manor that the duke inhabited, with its large windows and perfectly matched wings. The old manor still held traces of the fortress it had once been. On the left, a square tower ended in wide crenellations. There was nothing left of the right tower but a low wall of grey stone to mark the edge of the kitchen garden. Though a Gothic stone arch remained around the iron-bound front door, the rest of the main building had been rebuilt of brick by some misguided architect of another century.
It was a hodge-podge of styles and Justine could see why the previous duchess had been eager to build a new manor. She understood, but she could not agree. ‘You live in a castle,’ she announced, then scolded herself for stating the obvious.
‘Part of one,’ he said. ‘There is not much of the old building left.’
‘It does not matter.’ She stared up at the tower in front of them. ‘It is magnificent.’
‘You like it?’ He seemed surprised at her enthusiasm.
‘You do not?’ She stared back at him, equally surprised.
‘Well, yes, actually. I do. But I grew up here. Perhaps that is why I am willing to overlook its obvious flaws.’
She stared back at the old manor and could not help smiling at its lopsided grandeur. ‘Well, I see no problems with it. It has character,’ she said, wondering why he could not see it.
‘As you wish,’ he said, giving a dismissive nod of his head and turning away from her again. The servants had lined up at the door, eager to greet the master on his homecoming and to officially welcome the lady of the house. William walked unsteadily before her, smiling more warmly at the butler than he ever had at her, and accepting the arm of a footman to help him up the last steps and into his home. Though he had claimed the trip would be an easy one, it was clear that the activity had tired him. ‘I think, if you have no need of me, that I shall retire to my room for a time.’
‘You must do as you see fit,’ she said. ‘We will have more than enough time to talk, now that we are home.’ The word stuck in her throat, but she forced it out.
He nodded and muttered something to the footman at his side, who took his arm and helped him to climb the stairs to his room.
Which left Justine alone with the servants and the house. She gave a sigh of relief at being free of him, if only for an hour or two. Then she gave instructions for the unpacking of their things and discussed the luncheon menu with the housekeeper. Then she enquired, oh so casually, about the best room to find pen, ink and paper. She wished to write to tell a friend of her move.
The housekeeper, Mrs Bell, directed her to the morning room without further enquiry and left her to pen a hurried note to Mr Smith, the nom de guerre that Montague had chosen for his stay at a nearby inn.
She imagined the way it would travel to him, on the road to the village, which lay equidistant between the two manors. Her father had travelled that road, on the night he died. At the turning, he had gone left and not right, as she’d assumed. She had thought, on her morning walks, that she had been retracing his last footsteps, but she had not gone far enough. His goal had been this house. His death had been on these grounds. Any clue to the murder, or the missing jewels, would be under this very roof.
She had but to find it and then the jewels. Then, she would rescue Margot and they would run away, all without revealing the truth to either William Felkirk or John Montague.
When put that way, it was hard to be optimistic.
Justine was already seated at the luncheon table when Will came down from his nap. He found it faintly annoying. He was unaccustomed to seeing anyone across the table