The Husband Plot Page 17

  Adrian stepped outside. Without a final word to Mary. Without a kiss from Lisbeth. Even without his usual sense that he had a mission. He simply walked and hoped he was going in the right direction.

  Twenty Three

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  The day was too fine for bad news. The sun shone brightly on the Berkwell House private garden, and spring flowers bloomed with too much cheer. Mary chatted; Lisbeth couldn’t quite focus on her words, her eyes constantly returning to the garden doors. They looped the gravel path twice, and still no one had interrupted their walk.

  The time lagged such that Lisbeth began to hope she was anticipating the wrong thing. Perhaps instead of merely sharing the news, Adrian had decided to convince Their Graces not to allow the match. Or Their Graces may have refused outright without needing any persuading. It was plain as the spring sun in the sky that Lord Brabourne was not a match for Mary. Perhaps Lisbeth was distracting Mary for nothing.

  She was commenting for the third time on how the yew trees were so cleverly trimmed to resemble a fox chased by hounds when Suzy collected them.

  “Her Grace would like to see you in your apartment, Miss Mary. She said you could come, too, Mrs. Hathorne.”

  In an instant, Mary closed into the Hathorne mask. She had always dropped it more easily than Adrian; Lisbeth hated to see it return. They went inside in silence. As they climbed the great staircase, the house was so quiet that their carpeted footfalls echoed off the walls.

  Lisbeth hoped Adrian had found some sort of compromise on Mary’s behalf.

  The duchess awaited them in Mary’s sitting room. A steaming teapot sat on the table. Lisbeth tucked her hand in Mary’s and pulled them both into the settee.

  As Her Grace shared the news with Mary, Lisbeth couldn’t help but flash back to the day Lord Gresham had offered for her. It had not been a complete shock; she had known his interest, had courted him enough to wonder whether she could learn to find the spray of freckles across his cheeks attractive. And yet, when it actually happened, when Lady Cecilia sat Lisbeth down to explain that the wedding would be New Year’s Day, Lisbeth had felt faint. And nauseous. And helpless.

  Now, watching the color drain from Mary’s face – seeing Suzy sink onto a chair in the corner – Lisbeth felt only fury.

  No one had the right to promise Mary’s hand without so much as consulting her.

  At first, Mary kept saying, “It can’t be true.” Then she demanded to see the letter, which no one could produce since Adrian had thoughtlessly left it locked in his study. It was only when the duchess asked Suzy to bring out a few of her dresses that Mary said, “But I can’t marry him, Grandmama.”

  “Do you have a husband I don’t know about?” the duchess quizzed. “Have you a fatal illness? Are you not truly Mary Hathorne, the girl I have raised since she arrived at my doorstep?”

  Mary mumbled her negative response.

  “Then you not only can marry him, you will.”

  Lisbeth helped Suzy lay the gowns across Mary’s bed for the duchess to evaluate. They were beautiful gowns, the best money could buy, and somehow, that made Lisbeth all the angrier. She swallowed the emotion down.

  “It’s not as bad as all that,” she lied to the room in general. “Lord Brabourne will give you generous pin money, and you can either stay close to your family here in England or visit Adrian at Inglewilde Plantation if he takes you to Jamaica. You’ll be so much more independent, you’ll see.”

  Mary’s eyes reddened with tears. “I shall have no say in that. I shall be expected to live wherever he tells me and to entertain whichever devils he befriends and to act as if every word he says is brilliant. I don’t want to marry him. Why must I marry him?”

  The duchess selected a green dress and directed Suzy to prepare it for the dinner the next night. “You’ll not get a better offer than this, not at your age, and the daughter of a second son. Your father is only looking after you as best he can in the time he has left.”

  Mary tried to keep in a wail, but it keened out from the back of her throat anyway. Lisbeth turned away. How she wished Adrian had been able to do something other than simply deliver the message. How she yearned to meet Mr. Hathorne to tell him plain and loud what she thought of his decisions, no matter that he was on his deathbed.

  The duchess, however, withdrew into a straight, prim line at Mary’s wail. “You’re overtired. I’ll leave you to rest. We’ll discuss the details in the morning.”

  Mary glared at her grandmother’s back, and Lisbeth busied herself with wetting a cloth from the bedside jug of water rather than let her own anger slip through.

  The only thing worse than being furious was not being allowed to express it.

  Once the door closed shut, Mary stalked to the window, arms crossed at her waist. Her apartment in Berkwell House was fit for a princess, with damask wall coverings across three rooms, fires in each hearth, and views of the leafy green square beyond. In her pose at the window, chin lifted to glare at the surroundings, she looked regal, too.

  “There are worse fates, Miss,” Suzy said. “Better a wealthy husband than shivering to death in a hovel.”

  Mary didn’t look at Suzy. “Adrian would have given me an allowance. I know he would have. There’s the cottage at Maidenheath House. We wouldn’t have shivered to death in a hovel.”

  Lisbeth thought of Adrian folded over his desk in despair. He would still give his sister a living, if only the family gave her a choice to refuse Lord Brabourne. If only her father would have asked her opinion before signing her fate away.

  She dared to drape an arm across Mary’s shoulders. “Nothing is final until you have said yes at the altar. I know that well enough. Give us some time. We’ll sort this out.”

  “I can’t marry him, Lisbeth.” Mary said this in a furious, broken whisper against Lisbeth’s arm. “I can’t marry anyone.”

  “I know.” Stroking her hair, Lisbeth looked to Suzy, who had retreated to the corner by the fireplace, standing straight as an arrow even though her eyes betrayed the glazed look of someone thousands of miles away.

  “They don’t understand. They’ll never understand. They’ll make me accept him tomorrow night, and then the banns will be read, and then I’ll have to marry him. Grandmama will scold me for crying, but it’s all I can do. I don’t want to marry him and I don’t want to go back to Jamaica and I don’t want to live my life in fear of some husband.”

  Lisbeth held Mary for a while longer, letting her spill out all her fears. She wished she had a better answer for Mary than to insist that all would be well. “Why don’t you come stay with us for a few days? You and Suzy. You won’t have to argue with Her Grace every minute of the day, and we can come up with a plan.”

  Sniffling, Mary backed away in surprise. “Are you quite sure?”

  “Adrian would love to have you closer,” Lisbeth invented. She turned to Suzy. “What say you, Suzy? Would you like to stay with us at Upper Norton Street?”

  Suzy blanched at being addressed so directly. From the corner of her eye, Lisbeth saw that she had earned a smile from Mary.

  “I go wherever Miss Hathorne goes,” Suzy replied.

  Mary wiped her cheeks and nose with a lace-trimmed handkerchief. “I’m lucky you married my brother.”

  Lisbeth didn’t quite have a response. She opted for the tried-and-true English method of ignoring all sentiment. “I’ll go have a chat with Her Grace to sort out your visit. Suzy, you’ll start the packing?”

  It was only as she shut Mary’s door behind her that Lisbeth let her own cloud of emotions settle. Fury, at the family. Sorrow, for Mary. And then there was a golden thread of gratefulness she wished she could push away, for she had been lucky: she had the luxury of being married to the man she loved.

  The least Lisbeth could do was try to make it possible for other people to live with their loved ones, too.

  Twenty Four

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Adrian couldn’t face hi
s study that afternoon, not when every paper mocked him about Hathorne Shipping. For once, he didn’t want that purpose in his life. He felt dirty from being his father’s messenger. He almost wanted to burn all the records down, as if that could reverse the course of fate.

  Instead, he took refuge in his bedchamber. With the curtains drawn tight against the fading gray daylight and a coal fire burning bright in the hearth, Adrian could almost pretend that the world ended with the plaster walls. From the locked cabinet beside his bed, Adrian regarded the items that anchored him in his mission. The silver locket, which kept safe the lock of his mother’s hair. The worn leather-bound Bible that his mother had gifted him upon her death. Bundled in twine, collected pamphlets from Cowper, Equiano, Sancho, and Wilberforce on the evils of slavery. And a small, framed watercolor of Inglewilde Plantation that featured far too many chains.

  He held each in his hands for a moment, as if touching them would give him strength. He opened his mother’s Bible. It was designed to be carried around every day for consultation, with gossamer-thin pages and a durable cover. Adrian knew it had been his mother’s when she was a girl; he couldn’t remember whether it had belonged to anyone in her family before that, and knowing that he had lost that detail forever always made his heart break. Still, it was the only thing he possessed that retained her wide-looped handwriting. On the title page, she had written her name: Rebecca Graham, with Hathorne added later in a browner ink. Beneath it, she had listed family members:

  Mother – Heather May Graham

  Brother – Henry Graham

  Uncle – Federico

  Grandmother – Calliope/Ife

  Adrian remembered studying this page with his mother when he had just begun to learn to read. She had run the pad of her thumb under each name as he sounded them out, and she added to them with stories. “How my mother hated her name. She always introduced herself as Hattie, but she made sure I knew how she was christened, just in case it ever came up as a question,” and, “Uncle Federico was the handsomest man in town. Even I knew that as a little girl. It’s no wonder he convinced a French woman to marry him and take him to the Continent. That’s what you have to do. Find a nice woman to take you off this island.” When they had gotten to Calliope, his mother had slowed, the fondness replaced in her voice with something more akin to steel. “She has two names, you see. Ife was given her by her people, and the other by the white folk who stole her. You’ll never hear me talk about it again, but don’t you dare forget where you came from. You are our great hope.”

  Now, in the damp cool of London spring, Adrian shut the Bible and returned it carefully to its resting place. He hadn’t forgotten. He came from a people that had been stolen. He also came from the people that had done the stealing. If anyone could make right the wrongs of the Hathornes, it was Adrian.

  Which was why he had to accept Mary’s marriage for what it was: a boon. In one fell swoop, his father had handed Adrian two gifts. First, he had saved ten souls from being marched to Brabourne’s plantation, which meant those were ten more souls Adrian could liberate. Second, he had set up an alliance that Adrian just might be able to turn to his advantage. Brabourne would never free his slaves, no, but with Mary running the household, Adrian just might be able to find a way to offer them hope.

  He locked the bedside cabinet and was just rising when Mr. Adkins stepped into the room. The man blanched. “My apologies, Sir, I didn’t realize you were in here.”

  “I’m not usually at this time.” Adrian noted the starched shirts in his valet’s arms. “In any case, I’ll dress for dinner. A shave, and then I think the yellow waistcoat.”

  Mr. Adkins positioned Adrian in his chair and set a hot towel about his cheeks before fussing about the room, tying open the curtains for better light and assembling the shaving accoutrement. Adrian shut his eyes, willing his thoughts not to turn to Lisbeth.

  Yet he couldn’t help worrying her words again:

  Perhaps I’ll audition my winter lover.

  We’ll be late to dinner.

  I didn’t want to marry you.

  Of all the things she had said, the latter clanged in his head now.

  There was plenty of evidence that Lisbeth enjoyed their marriage. She smiled when he entered the room. She flirted with him throughout the day and slipped into his bed at night. She directed Mrs. Siswell to prepare his favorite meals.

  All this, he had thought, meant that she liked him. Perhaps even loved him. He had begun to daydream – when he dared think about a future unlikely to happen – of showing her Inglewilde Plantation and perhaps keeping her there. She would like the constant sunshine.

  And yet, Adrian knew he had not misheard her. She hadn’t wanted to marry him.

  He didn’t think she could feel about him the way he felt about her and say such a thing to him. No matter if it was true at the time of the wedding. Lisbeth occupied too much of his heart for him to even remember the time before the altar. As far as he was concerned, their marriage had been fated in the stars.

  Lisbeth, apparently, didn’t feel the same way.

  Mr. Adkins whisked away the hot towel, and Adrian shivered. “You’re quiet tonight, Sir, if I may say so.”

  “Family matters on my mind. Distract me with news from the rest of the household.”

  Mr. Adkins launched into his usual chatter. He was an odd duck: sometimes he spoke of his fellow servants as if they were his family, sharing little stories with a fond smile, while other occasions his words dripped superciliously, as if every other person in the household was beneath his notice. Adrian noted that it was one of those latter times as Mr. Adkins sneered through a story of how Mrs. Siswell had sold the remainders of the candles for too little money.

  “If one is going to stoop to padding one’s wallet with household remainders, one should do so with enough knowledge to get the maximum profit, if you ask me, Sir.”

  Adrian kept his eyes closed. “Perhaps she thought her buyer needed the candles more than she needed a few extra pence.”

  Mr. Adkins was saved the trouble of responding by a knock from the connecting door to Lisbeth’s suite.

  Adrian’s heart jumped.

  “Do you mind the interruption?” Lisbeth asked. From his position in the shaving chair facing the window, Adrian couldn’t see her yet; he could only wallow in her drawl, searching each dip for the warmth he wished were there.

  “Not at all.” Adrian gestured her closer with a blind flap of his hand. “How is Mary?”

  He smelled the mix of her perfume and powder as she drew closer, and then she leaned against the windowsill in his view. She wore the same blue dress, but her hair had frizzled out of its coiffure and her hands were bare.

  Sometimes – like now – he needed only see the slender bend of her fingers to feel a spike of desire in his cock.

  “She is distraught,” Lisbeth answered his question. “I invited her to stay here for a few days.”

  The idea hadn’t occurred to him, but Adrian loved it. He and Mary had never lived far from each other; even with her frequent visits to Lisbeth’s drawing room, he had missed his sister.

  “She can stay until the wedding if she wants,” he said.

  Lisbeth’s eyes flicked to Mr. Adkins, then back to Adrian. “I’m not sure there should be a wedding.”

  The shaving knife was close to his skin, so Adrian waited until it had scraped away before responding. “Give her time to think it over. She’ll see. If she were to refuse him, it would cause irreparable damage to the family and her reputation.”

  “Why should she care about the family reputation, when the family doesn’t give a care for her preferences?”

  Adrian knew Lisbeth well enough by now to recognize the particular brand of anger in her voice: she was about to expel a burning rage, and there was no holding it back. He nodded at Mr. Adkins in dismissal. The valet, well-trained man that he was, disappeared almost instantaneously.

  To her credit, Lisbeth waited for the door to c
lick closed before continuing. “It isn’t right. It is one thing to know one must marry, and another entirely to be pledged to a man without so much as a by-your-leave.”

  Adrian leaned forward. “I don’t disagree.”

  “It isn’t as if Mary has never met the man. She has. She dislikes him. She can’t stand the thought of him touching her. How can she be expected to accept his suit? And yet your father has left her no choice, other than scandal.”

  “Perhaps she hasn’t given him a fair chance,” Adrian heard himself say, though he couldn’t forget his own shiver of abhorrence when Brabourne had bowed over Mary in the drawing room the day before. “Is there someone else she would prefer?”

  Lisbeth opened her mouth as if to respond, then closed it again. She swept her eyes across his face; his stomach sucked at the evaluation. He couldn’t tell if he had been found wanting.

  “If there is someone else, then perhaps my grandfather can sort it out,” Adrian pushed. “The man need only press his suit tomorrow, before dinner.”

  Bracing her bare hands against the windowsill, Lisbeth lost the anger from her voice, replacing it with something softer, something harder for Adrian to understand. “Have you noticed that Mary relies on her maid Suzy more than most ladies?”

  Her question was such a pivot that for a moment, Adrian thought he must have misheard Lisbeth. “No, I haven’t.”

  “Ah.” Lisbeth twisted her lips for a moment before continuing. “She does. What’s more, she lights up when Suzy enters the room. Like the sun has come out.”

  Adrian knew Lisbeth was trying to tell him something, but his ears were pounding with his heartbeat and he couldn’t quite figure it out.

  Lisbeth hugged an arm self-consciously across her waist. “Mary looks at Suzy the way that I look at you.”

  His breath caught in his throat. He saw at once the two things Lisbeth was trying to tell him. And he couldn’t help but feel joy for himself before dropping into compassion for his sister.