Parting the Veil by Paulette Kennedy
CHAPTER 14
“You are my wife.” Malcolm kissed Eliza’s bare shoulder and pulled her close. The rains had returned, beating against the gambrel roof of Havenwood Manor, soaking the ground and chilling the air enough that they’d lit a fire in the hearth, illuminating Eliza’s new bedchamber with jumping, coppery light.
“Our secret wedding is bound to cause a stir.”
“We’ll deal with the ridiculous society mess later,” he said, rolling her onto her back. He took her hand and played with the simple pearl ring on her finger before kissing it. “For now, I only want to enjoy the fact that you’re really here, and not some pleasant dream I’m bound to wake from.”
They’d married shortly after midnight, following a frenzied ride to Basingstoke, where one of Malcolm’s old schoolmates worked as a magistrate. The wedding had been hastily done and uneventful, witnessed only by the magistrate’s sleepy wife and Mr. Mason, who had driven them in his farm wagon as they hid in the back. After their covert return through the service gates of Havenwood Manor, Malcolm had carried her up the stairs. They’d spent every hour since in bed, much to Eliza’s delight, even though she was now starving.
“Have you ever wondered how many times a person could make love in a single night before they’re overcome with hunger and exhaustion?” she asked.
“My, but I’d enjoy finding out. Wouldn’t you?”
She ignored the rumble of hunger in her belly and pushed Malcolm onto his back. “I long to do wicked things with you, husband. All over this house.”
“How on earth did I get so lucky? If I didn’t know better, I’d think you’d been trained in a brothel,” he said, laughing. “You’re sinfully eager.”
“We’re well-matched, wasn’t that what you once said?” she whispered, pitching forward to nip at his neck.
“Yes, we are. Twin flames, brightly burning.”
“Such a poet,” she teased.
With a playful roar, he tumbled her into the soft eiderdown and covered her neck with kisses. Sensation raced through her at the feel of his lips on her skin, until her blood sang with the wildness of him. She wound a strand of his dark hair around her finger, her eyes roving over his chest and the lean, solid plane of his belly, memorizing every inch of him. How fine he was, and he was hers. Truly hers. “I never imagined I’d be anyone’s wife. Yet here I am, and I couldn’t be more delighted.”
He smiled down at her, his eyes sparking with gold from the firelight. “My long days of loneliness and chastity are forever gone, my heart, and I’ve never been happier.”
Eliza rubbed the sleep from her eyes and reached for Malcolm. He was gone—his side of the bed empty, the covers drawn back. She sat up and stretched, the mild soreness between her legs a reminder of the pleasures from the night before.
She rose and crossed to the high, arched window. The morning sun lit the tops of the trees and warmed her skin as she unlaced her nightgown and shrugged it over her shoulders. She washed herself in the basin, then went to her armoire to choose a dress from her hastily packed clothes. She’d have to send Turner to fetch her finer garments sometime this week. She hadn’t packed a single dinner gown.
There was a sharp knock on her door.
“Yes, what is it?”
“It’s Turner, m’lady. His lordship is requesting your presence in the morning room.”
“Thank you, Mr. Turner. I’ll be down shortly.”
She shook the wrinkles from her favorite tea gown—a periwinkle-blue frock enhanced with ribbons crossing beneath its bust. She glanced in the mirror over the dressing table and gathered her sex-frazzled hair into a loose braid. There was a rather lascivious gleam in her eye, and her cheeks were flushed more than usual. I’m marriednow. A woman in full.
And soon to be a very rich one.
Eliza glided down the stairs. Just as she’d imagined, the stained glass windows above the landing threw fractured light over her hands as she rested them on the bannister—crimson, violet, and a brilliant blue that reminded her of agate. This was the first time she’d seen her new home in daylight, and it shone as brightly as a kaleidoscope to her eyes. How many hidden delights did it have yet in store? She could hardly wait to explore its seemingly endless warren of rooms. Thoughts of summer socials and lavish galas in the magnificent ballroom made her head spin with giddy anticipation.
Malcolm stood from the breakfast table as she walked into the sun-filled morning room, the windows open to the cheerful sounds of birdsong from the gardens. He was dressed in handsome blue serge, his cravat pierced with the emerald pin he’d worn on the night they’d met.
“Ah, there you are, darling. Did you enjoy your lie-in?” He pressed a dry kiss to her forehead, and Eliza leaned wantonly against him, clasping his hand.
“Yes, although I’d much prefer your company while I’m abed.”
Malcolm pulled away, arching an eyebrow. “I rise each day at six o’clock, on the nose, my dear. Always have done.” He sat, flicking open the newspaper and scanning it.
Eliza took the chair opposite. She poured her tea and flavored it with milk and honey. She sat watching Malcolm for a few moments, studying the way the light played over the angles of his face. Her husband. She could still hardly believe it.
He noticed her staring and gave a tight smile above the leaves of his paper. “I thought we’d take a ride into town this afternoon, see your solicitor to finalize the matter of your estate. Would you have any objections?”
“Not at all. I’d rather have this business with Eastleigh settled as soon as possible.”
Malcolm cleared his throat and turned the page. “Quite ready, myself.”
Eliza smiled over the rim of her teacup. “Perhaps after, we can celebrate by taking our dinner in bed.”
He met her gaze, his dark eyebrows knitting together in a pained expression. “Darling, let’s leave such talk for our chambers, and not where the servants can hear, hmm? You’re a viscountess now. A lady.”
“I couldn’t care less about my silly title. I’m only happy to be your wife.”
“Right. In any case, there are a few matters concerning the house and our marriage we need to discuss.”
“Oh?”
“For one thing, the south wing is to remain locked. It’s far too dangerous to inhabit, and until the necessary structural repairs are made, you’re not to go into that part of the house for any reason. When it comes to the rest of the estate, you are not to go wandering beyond the rear gardens without me—there are traps and snares set in the birchwood, and only I know their locations.” Malcolm cleared his throat again. “And . . . as far as our marital duties, I shall only ever come to your chambers. Please do not be forward about seeking me out at night. My rooms are my own.”
“All right,” Eliza said, wrinkling her brow. Rules. What a strange conversation for the morning after their wedding! She tucked into her breakfast, a potato and leek tart adorned with pastry doves in flight. Mrs. Duncan came bustling out of the kitchen, her friendly, round face a welcome distraction. She laid a platter of fresh fruit between Eliza and Malcolm. “Thank you, Mrs. Duncan. This pie is delicious,” Eliza said. The rotund little housekeeper beamed and curtseyed before going back to the kitchen.
“No need to thank the staff,” Malcolm said curtly. “They’re only doing their jobs.”
“I show gratitude to anyone who extends kindness to me, husband. Especially to servants. It’s how I was raised. Noblesse oblige.”
“As charming as they are, you’ll find that many of your Creole sensibilities will merit polishing here. Speak pleasantries to the staff and they begin to feel as if they’re your equal. We can’t have that, can we?”
“I suppose we can’t.” She hurriedly finished the rest of her breakfast and stood from the table, irritation burning her ears beneath her untamed hair. “I think I’ll go to my rooms now,” she said sharply. “I need to dress for our outing and finish my toilette. I’ll have to send Turner to Sherbourne House to fetch the rest of my clothing, but I do have my daywear.”
“Very good.” Malcolm stood, scanning her bosom. He scowled. “Something a bit more modest would suit you, I think. I’ll come for you at one.”
Their trip into Cheltenbridge was lovely, so long as one was talking about the weather. Malcolm was silent most of the way there. He drove Apollo harder than she would have liked, freely employing his crop. The matter at Mr. Brainerd’s office took most of the afternoon, with Eliza having to watch Malcolm sign endless documents, while Monty lay across her feet, his shaggy head nudging her hand for pets, which she willingly gave.
She asked only one question, when the time came for Malcolm to put his pen to the deed for Sherbourne House. “My sister will be able to stay on, as we discussed. Isn’t that so, husband?”
“Miss Tourant may stay on until she marries, at which time I’ll let out the property to tenants. No need to maintain another household within walking distance, is there?”
Eliza blanched. “I’d hoped she and Clarence might stay at Sherbourne House, even after they marry. I’ve promised the house to them as a wedding gift. That way, I can visit her whenever I’d like. Lydia is the only family I have left. We’ve never been apart for longer than a day.”
Malcolm turned to her. A slight tremor of irritation quivered between his brows. “Look, darling. I’ve agreed to let her stay on for now. She isn’t even betrothed to Fawcett yet. We’ll see, won’t we?”
Eliza bit her lip. A drop of ink plopped onto the parchment from Malcolm’s pen. Mr. Brainerd shot an annoyed look over the top of his spectacles.
Malcolm scratched his name—Malcolm Aaron Winfield, fifth Viscount Havenwood—across the page next to her own, and it was done. Her house and her fortune now belonged to him as much as herself.
He was positively giddy at the sum, chattering about his plans for renovating the manor the entire way home. All the while, Eliza’s head pounded with a sudden, blinding migraine. She did her best to smile and be agreeable, even as a wave of nausea threatened to bring up her breakfast. She skipped the lovely tea Mrs. Duncan had laid out and chased away her headache with a dram of whisky and a nap.
That evening, dressing for dinner, Eliza searched her armoire. She hadn’t packed a single suitable gown. Or had she? She gave a noiseless laugh, remembering the long-forgotten parcel in the bottom of her trunk. Her mourning gown. She’d wrapped the black lace and bengaline atrocity in brown paper and twine and buried it beneath a riot of colorful ball gowns when she packed for England, swearing never to wear it again. It wasn’t ideal, but it would do. She knelt on the floor in front of the high-legged Chippendale armoire and pulled her steamer trunk from beneath. She took the packet out, ripping the twine and paper loose. The gown bloomed like a black orchid in her hands, smelling of stale church incense. She pulled it on over her petticoats and corset. Its ruffled neck came just below her chin, where the stiff lace flared like a Renaissance collar. The puffed, gigot sleeves narrowed to a sharp point, covering the scars at her wrist. She smirked at her reflection. He did say he preferred modesty, didn’t he?
She stood before her dressing table and coaxed her ginger hair into ordered ringlets with bandoline, then piled it atop her head. She finished her ablutions by clipping a pair of jet earrings onto her ears. She looked as tame as she was capable of looking without her full wardrobe.
The gong rang for dinner. Eliza gave herself one more appraising glance and went down, the beaded hem of her gown hissing on the wooden stairs. Malcolm was standing beneath the winged seraph at the base of the staircase, dressed in white tie. He turned, a teasing smile playing at his lips. “My beautiful wife. Looking rather more like a widow than a bride, but lovely all the same.”
Eliza pinched the lace collar between her thumb and forefinger. “Well. I had to work with what I had. And you mentioned you prefer modest dress.”
He ran his fingertips down the row of tiny buttons up the back she’d had to contort herself into fastening with the help of a crocheting hook. “I suppose I did say that, although I may have to resort to scissors later,” he whispered, his breath hot against her cheek. “Your charms are much too hidden for my liking.”
The dining room table was laid out à la russe, the silver gleaming over pressed white linens. Turner pulled out a chair for Eliza at the foot of the table, and Malcolm put a hand on his shoulder. “Thank you, Turner, but I’d have my wife sit close to me at the head. This old table is rather too long as it is.”
Unlike their morning meal, dinner was filled with witty conversation and laughter over Madeira and a sumptuous roasted squab, lightening Eliza’s mood. During dessert, Malcolm’s hand found its way beneath the table and rested on her knee, then moved higher, his fingers brushing where the boning of her corset met the delta of her thighs. Boldly, she held his gaze and opened her legs. Even under a layer of petticoats, he’d be sure to gather her intentions.
“I’m quite full, aren’t you, darling?” he asked.
“I’m not as hungry for dessert as I’d anticipated,” Eliza said, her lips curving into a slow smile. “And I’m suddenly so tired.”
“Perhaps I should see you to your chambers.”
They were hardly over the threshold before Malcolm was clawing at her gown. “You’re wearing far too many clothes,” he teased, biting her earlobe. “It’s driving me mad.”
“Then take me out of them.”
Without hesitation, he spun her around, hooking his fingertips in the back of the gown and ripping the buttons free. They fell and scattered on the floor like black, glistening rain.
“Goodness. I’ll need a lady’s maid if I’m to have any clothing left,” Eliza teased.
“That dress is no great loss, I assure you.” Malcolm loosened her corset with practiced fingers and pulled her petticoats free from her hips. She turned slowly to face the heat flaring in his eyes. “I’ve been thinking about this all day long, wife. Thinking about you.”
Eliza nearly swooned, the memory of his strange words from that morning fading as desire replaced her doubts. His fevered mouth found her throat, where her pulse hammered against her flesh like a bird trapped in a room. “You’re mine now,” he whispered. “Do you know that? Mine.”
They fell together into the welcoming bed, soft and fragrant with lavender. Within moments he was driving her over the edge, and he knew it, damn him—his lips curving into a vulpine grin as he watched her with lamplit eyes. “Tremble for me, my darling,” he rasped. And as if he had command over her very body, Eliza came undone.
After he’d met his own crisis, he wrapped her in his arms. She turned to stroke the fine-boned planes of his face, her eyes closing and opening drowsily. As a deep, satisfied torpor crept into her every muscle, Malcolm gently took her forearm and ran his fingertip over the jagged scars that snaked across her inner wrist. “You’ve been clever—concealing this with your gloves and sleeves—but I saw this mark after that awful incident with the Cook boy. What happened?”
“It’s nothing, my love,” she said, turning from the searching look in his eyes. “An old injury. I scratched it while mending fences on our farm.”
“Eliza, please don’t lie to me. I’m your husband.”
“It’s shameful.”
Malcolm’s pupils darkened, growing large in the dim light. “Tell me, darling. Please.”
“It happened when I was eighteen. For years after Albert died, I had horrible fits of melancholia. My mother was too deep in her cups to comfort me, and Papa was always away because of her drinking. I had little to make me happy besides lessons with my harp teacher, Giselle. Maman thought I was becoming too close to her, so she sent her away. It was heartbreaking. Then Jacob came to work for my father. He was two years older and I was curious what it would be like to be with a man. We soon became lovers. With Jacob, I had some respite from my sadness.”
“Yet you did not marry him?”
Eliza shook her head. “We had talked about running away. When Maman found out about our trysts, she had Papa write his severance that very day. I hated her for that, but I hated myself more for not standing up to her. Without Giselle, then Jacob, I fell into my deepest hysteria, fraught with nightmares and wicked thoughts. I felt unwanted. A burden. One morning, I broke my hand mirror and used a shard to . . .” Eliza ran her thumb over the old marks. “Well. By the time Lydia found me, I was barely conscious.”
“Promise me, my own heart, that you will never do such a thing again.”
“I won’t. I was young and in an awful state then.” Eliza smiled sadly. “If it hadn’t been for Lydia, I wouldn’t be here. I love her, not because we share blood, but because she is the truest of friends. She understands me in ways no one else ever has. She sees all of my flaws and loves me despite them.”
“I see now why she’s so protective of you.”
“And I of her. Which is why I couldn’t bear it if you ever put her out of Sherbourne House.”
Malcolm propped himself up on his elbow, his brows gathering. “Why would you ever think I would do such a thing?”
“We spoke about it at the solicitor’s today, remember? If Lydia marries, you said you’d let out Sherbourne House and she and her husband would need to find another home.”
Malcolm’s eyes narrowed. “Well . . . I’ve changed my mind. Lydia must stay on. I insist. I want our children to grow up surrounded by their cousins. A big, joyful family, spending Christmases and summer holidays together. It’s all I’ve ever wanted.” Malcolm pressed a kiss to her forehead. “Put every thought of being separated from your sister out of your mind. I’ll hear nothing of the sort.”
“You’ve made my heart light again,” Eliza said, her concerns from earlier in the day flying free. “You are the most beautiful and rarest of creatures I’ve ever laid eyes on, do you know that?” She reached out to trace the crisp line of his lips with her finger. “I could have chosen a man with feet of clay, but I reached high into the heavens and brought down an angel.”
Malcolm gave a sad smile. “I’m hardly that, my love.”
Eliza flew awake, gasping and sputtering. Her heart slammed against her rib cage. She disentangled herself from the circle of Malcolm’s arms and breathed in and out, counting in rhythm with the steadiness of his breathing. It had been weeks since she’d last had the nightmare. Weeks of restful, blissful sleep. Doubtless, their conversation the night before had revived her unbidden memories. Memories that would never fully leave her.
She swung her legs over the side of the bed. Her shift clung to her body, soaked with sweat. She rose on unsteady feet and crossed to the dressing table, startling at her reflection in the glass—all haunted eyes and tangled hair. She rummaged through her drawerful of cosmetics until she found her tin of cigarettes. She went through to her sitting room. Moonlight spilled through the mullioned casement, dotting the floor with discs of prismatic light. Eliza cranked open the narrow window, the blast of cool air soothing to her fevered skin.
She lit a cigarette and drew in the rich tobacco, leaning her elbows upon the sill. Within moments, the tremor in her hands had quieted and her pulse had slowed. Downstairs, the clock chimed thrice. Three in the morning. The witching hour, Lydia always called it. The time when the veil between worlds was thinnest. Eliza wondered how her sister was faring, alone in that big house. She needed to visit soon. If for no other reason than to assure Lydia she was well.
A sudden quiver of movement drew Eliza’s eyes downward. Among the birches, a light bobbed between the slender trees, as if someone were wending their way through the woods, carrying a lantern. But who? And why at this hour? The light danced and jumped erratically, like a will-o’-the-wisp. She had often seen these sorts of illusions in the bayous around Lake Pontchartrain. There, it was merely swamp gas. But there was no swamp around Havenwood Manor.
Eliza pitched herself forward to get a closer look, stubbing out her cigarette and tossing it through the window. The lantern stilled, as if whomever was carrying it had seen her at the sash. Her impulse was to call out a greeting, but she didn’t dare wake Malcolm at this hour. Instead, she waved. The light moved nearer, and then stopped again. Eliza drew in a sharp breath. Her eyes strained in the darkness, trying to discern a form within the halo of light.
There was a stirring from the other room, followed by a yawn. “Eliza . . . where are you? Come back to bed.”
Eliza turned at the sound of Malcolm’s voice. “In a moment, love. There’s someone in the forest.”
“What?”
“Yes, I just saw . . .” Eliza turned back to the window, but the light had gone. All was dark. The trees stood tall and silent, keeping their secrets close.