The Survivors' Club: Only Beloved Part 11

"I draw my comfort from giving it," he said.

She believed him. She had heard much about him from his friends and their wives and from Agnes, and she had experienced his kindness for herself. But the question remained. Who did comfort him? She was aware of a huge dark pool of loneliness in him. He had admitted it to her in Inglebrook when he had come to ask her to marry him, but at the time she had thought of it only as an absence of close friends, and the lack of a wife. She suspected now, though-more than suspected-that his loneliness went far deeper than that.

"Give comfort to me, then." She turned onto her back and opened her arms to him. But she had got beneath the covers when she came here. She drew them back with one hand and opened her arms to him again. "And let me comfort you."

He gazed back into her eyes for a moment and then about the room. "In the d.u.c.h.ess's bedchamber?" he said.

"I am the d.u.c.h.ess," she told him.

"Well," he said softly, "and so you are."

They were both fully clothed. He was even still wearing his Hessian boots. He pushed the covers back farther and climbed onto the bed without removing them or anything else, which might simply mean that he was weary and intended to lie down beside her and sleep.

He intended no such thing-or not yet, anyway. And she had started it. Goodness, she had actually invited him into her own bed. In broad daylight. What sort of a hussy would he think her?

But there was no evidence that he was thinking at all, and very soon rational thought fled Dora's mind too. She had thought last night's embraces impossibly, wonderfully intimate after he had stripped off her nightgown and they were both naked. But today when they were both fully clothed . . . Well, today he fondled her with hard, seeking hands and a demanding, urgent mouth, and she explored him just as boldly despite the barrier of several layers of various garments. And today he lifted her skirts just high enough and knelt between her thighs after spreading them wide with his knees and unb.u.t.toned the fall of his pantaloons at the waist and slid his hands beneath her b.u.t.tocks and came plunging deep inside her-all within moments, it seemed, and all fully visible to them both.

Dora's breath caught in her throat, and her hands went to his fully clothed shoulders as he leaned over her, and her silk-stockinged legs twined about his and her feet came to rest on the warm, supple leather of his boots.

"Am I hurting you?" His eyes were heavy-lidded with desire.

"No."

And oh, my-oh, my!-he withdrew and plunged again and she tightened her hold on his legs and braced her feet and lifted her hips and they rode hard-there were no other words to describe what happened even if her mind had been searching for words. She did not know how long it lasted and would not have known even if there had been a clock within her line of vision, for there was no such thing as time. Her eyes were upon his and his upon hers, yet there was no embarra.s.sment, not even any real awareness that they gazed into each other as they coupled. It might have gone on forever as far as Dora was concerned. But the wonderful, wonderful pleasure turned eventually to a need that was almost painful and yet more pleasurable than pleasure and finally so urgent that everything in her tightened and strained against him and his hands came beneath her again and held her hard while he drove inward and stayed there.

The universe broke apart-which was the silliest thought imaginable, Dora decided seconds or minutes later after she had felt deep within again that lovely gush of his release and he had uncoupled them and lain down beside her, his arm beneath her head. They were warm and rumpled and breathless and-oh, goodness me!-was this how married people behaved? Was this normal?

If it was not, she did not care. Oh, she did not care.

"Thank you, Dora," he murmured against her ear after a long time. "You are indeed an enormous comfort to me."

And sadness returned. For even giving herself to him as she had just done could not really comfort that pain she was sure she had seen in his eyes for one unguarded moment a little while ago. Perhaps, ah, perhaps he would share it when they went to Penderris. Perhaps he would tell her just exactly what the Earl of Eastham's appearance at the church during their wedding had been all about.

It meant more than it had appeared to mean, she was perfectly sure.

"We will go home tomorrow?" she asked him.

"I think I am at home now," he said. "Not here in Stanbrook House necessarily, but here with you in my arms."

For someone who had said there would be no romance in their marriage, he really was not doing badly at all.

"But yes," he said. "We will go home, Dora. Home to Cornwall. Tomorrow."

The journey between Penderris Hall and London was always a long one. The hours spent inside the carriage were tedious, and George had always found that it was almost impossible to read-the book moved too much in his hand despite the fact that his carriage was well sprung. And the pa.s.sing scenery had ceased to charm a long time ago. Toll booths, the need to change horses, the need to eat and sleep at posting inns, the weather, sometimes in the form of torrential rain or, occasionally, even snow that made the roads impa.s.sable-all made the journey seem longer each time he made it.

But this time he did not find the return home either long or tedious. He saw everything through fresh eyes as Dora commented upon pa.s.sing scenes and people. He enjoyed aspects of the journey that he had always taken for granted. It amused her, for example, that they were bowed and sc.r.a.ped to wherever they went, that there was always a private parlor available to them even when they stopped unexpectedly for a meal, that the best chambers were always ready for them and the best food was served in a timely fas.h.i.+on.

"I could grow accustomed to being a d.u.c.h.ess," she said on the first evening as they finished their dinner.

"I hope you can," he said, "since you are stuck with being a d.u.c.h.ess for the rest of your life."

She looked at him blankly for a moment and then dissolved into laughter.

He loved hearing her laugh.

She was not quite laughing one morning after they had been traveling for an hour or so in companionable silence. But she was smiling, and her eyes were bright with merriment.

"What is amusing you?" he asked.

"Oh," she said and looked mortified that he had noticed. "Perhaps it is just that I am happy."

"Happiness makes you smirk?" he asked. But he found that he was smiling now too.

She laughed outright then. "I was feeling dizzy at the realization that I am on my way home with my husband," she said. "I was thinking that perhaps I was dreaming, that I had fallen into a trance while trying not to listen to Miranda Corley plod her painful way through a set piece on the pianoforte and had concocted this lovely imaginary life for myself."

"Miranda Corley was not your star pupil?" he asked.

"Poor Miranda," she said. "I do not doubt she has a dozen sterling qualities. A musical talent is not among them."

"It was a lovely dream?" he asked.

"Well, consider it, George." She turned to look at him, every inch the Miss Debbins he had met last year. "Just a little over a month ago I was sitting in my humble cottage, taking tea and minding my own business, when along came a handsome, wealthy duke to beg for my hand in marriage. It was the stuff of fairy tales. But it does seem that it is real, for I am not waking up to Miranda's sorry efforts to produce music, am I?"

"Wealthy?" he asked her. "Are you sure?"

That gave her pause, and she blushed. "Are you?"

"I am." He took her hand in his and laced their fingers. "And handsome, Dora? The stuff of fairy tales?"

"Well, you are," she said, settling back in her seat. "And it is. Not to you, perhaps. But to me? Yes."

They lapsed into silence again while he thought about what she had said. He was Prince Charming to her Cinderella, was he? She could not know how close to a fairy tale their union seemed to him, though he had spoken of it before their marriage in practical, mundane terms. To have her beside him thus, his companion and lover, his wife, was lovely beyond words. He had said there would be no romance, but he had been thinking of the word in terms of hot, youthful pa.s.sion. There was a romance of middle age too, he was discovering-quieter and less demonstrative, but nevertheless . . . well, romantic.

"George," she asked him, "why did you marry me? I mean, why me?"

He still did not know why and could speak only the truth.

"I don't know." He turned his head to look at her. Her eyes were on their clasped hands on the seat between them. He lifted their hands to his thigh. "I only know that when I thought of marrying as something I wanted to do, it was not marriage in the abstract of which I thought, but of marriage to you. It felt right when I thought it and it felt right when I saw you again. It felt right during the month in London, and it felt very right on our wedding day. It has felt right ever since."

She lifted her head to look into his eyes. She did not reply. She smiled instead. He loved her smile.

The weather was not good as they traveled across Devon and into Cornwall, the sea often in sight to their left. The sky was persistently gray with heavy clouds and the wind buffeted the carriage from the west. The sea, as a result, was rough and a gunmetal gray flecked with foam. At least the rain held off, but it must all look very dreary to someone who had not been there before. Like a boy, he had wanted everything to be perfect for his bride's homecoming.

"I wish I could have brought you here in suns.h.i.+ne," he told her on a late morning when they were within ten miles of home, "but I have no say in what the weather decides to do."

"Oh, but the sun will s.h.i.+ne at some time," she said. She drew breath as though to say something else but did not do so. When she did speak, it was with a smile in her voice. "George, let us talk about our wedding day."

Instinctively he pressed farther back into his seat.

"Three or four minutes do not make a day," she told him. "Let us forget those minutes and remember all the rest. I want to remember it as the most wonderful day of my life."

Ah, Dora.

"And of mine," he agreed, settling his shoulder against hers. "What is your most precious memory?"

"Oh, that is difficult," she said. "I suppose the moment when the bishop told everyone gathered in the church that we were man and wife and no man-I suppose he meant no woman either-was to put us asunder. That was the most precious moment of my life. But there were many other memorable moments."

"Seeing you step into the nave on your father's arm," he said.

"Seeing you waiting for me," she said, "and knowing that you were my bridegroom."

"Sliding the ring onto your finger," he said, "and feeling how perfectly it fit."

"Hearing you vow to love and cherish me."

"Watching you sign the register, using your maiden name for the last time and knowing that the deed was officially done and you were my wife forever."

"Walking back along the nave and seeing so many smiling faces, some familiar, many not. Oh, and the music, George. That must be a magnificent organ."

"I shall take you to see it the next time we are in London," he promised her. "And to play it."

"Would it be allowed?" she asked, her eyes widening.

"All things are allowed a d.u.c.h.ess," he said, and they smiled at each other-no, they grinned.

"The flower petals Flavian and your friends hurled at us when we left the church," she said.

"The metallic decorations attached to the carriage."

"The receiving line in the doorway of Chloe and Ralph's ballroom," she said, "and all that goodwill directed just upon us."

"Hugging our family and friends," he said. "Seeing them happy for us."

"The food and the wedding cake."

"The wine and the toasts."

"My s.h.i.+ny wedding ring," she said. "I kept deliberately raising my hand just so that I could see it." She did it now.

"Our wedding night," he said softly, "though that happened on what was officially the day after our wedding. I am sorry that-"

"No," she said, cutting him off. "We are not to regret anything. Nothing is perfect, George, and our wedding day was no exception. But it was as nearly perfect as any day could be. Let us remember it happily. Let us stop trying to forget it merely because there was that merest flaw in it."

A merest flaw. Ah, Dora.

"A mere speck of dust," he said. "A mere grain of sand. It was the loveliest day of my life too."

"The . . . first time was not that?" she asked.

He drew a slow breath and released it. "No," he said. "Not the first time. Look, we are home."

The carriage had turned onto Penderris land, and the house was coming into sight on Dora's side. It could be seen as a forbidding sort of place, he supposed, especially in this weather. It was a ma.s.sive mansion of gray stone set in cultivated gardens that at least displayed some color at this time of year even if the sun was not s.h.i.+ning. Below the gardens at the front was wild coastland scenery of coa.r.s.e gra.s.s and gorse and heather and rugged rocks and, of course, the high cliffs, which fell away to more rocks and golden sand and the sea below.

"Oh." She sounded awed. "It is so vast. How on earth am I going to learn to be mistress here? Even my father's house would look insignificant if it were set beside it. My cottage would look like a gardener's shed."

He set an arm about her shoulders. "I have a perfectly competent housekeeper, who has been with me forever," he told her. "I married you because I wanted a wife and a friend, not because I needed a mistress for Penderris."

She turned her face away from the window and regarded him with what he thought of as her practical, sensible look. It was laced now with a touch of exasperation.

"What an utterly foolish thing to say," she said. "As though one can marry a duke and expect to get away with being simply his wife and his friend. How all your servants would despise me! And they would speak to other servants and merchants, and they would speak with their employers and customers, and very soon everyone for miles around would look upon me with scorn and contempt. I am not just your wife, George. I am also, heaven help me, your d.u.c.h.ess. And don't you dare grin at me like that, as though I were a mere amus.e.m.e.nt to you. I am going to have to learn to be mistress of this . . . this mansion, and don't try telling me anything to the contrary."

So much for her famous inner serenity. Poor Dora. While he had been looking forward to coming home with her, she had clearly been approaching it with growing agitation. Even though he had not imposed any expectations upon her, she had imposed them upon herself. He squeezed her shoulder and kissed her.

"Just keep in mind," he said, "that there are hearts fluttering with fright within that mansion. It is not because I am coming home. I am a known quant.i.ty. It is because you are coming, the new d.u.c.h.ess of Stanbrook. They would be quite mystified if they knew that you are frightened of them."

She sighed. "I told you about Miranda Corley a couple of days ago," she said. "She is tone deaf, to put it kindly, and there are ten thumbs attached to her hands instead of just two with eight fingers. She is also of an age at which she is experiencing all the sullen rebelliousness of oppressed youth. Yet her parents believe her to be a musical prodigy and employed me to nurture her genius. I tell you this so that you will understand what I mean when I say that I would rather at this moment be facing a triple lesson with Miranda than facing my arrival at Penderris."

He chuckled as the carriage rocked to a halt at the foot of the front steps, and withdrew his arm from about her shoulders.

"We are home."

Just keep in mind that there are hearts fluttering with fright within that mansion . . . because you are coming, the new d.u.c.h.ess of Stanbrook.

Dora kept those words firmly in mind for the rest of the day. She had adjusted to new circ.u.mstances before in her life, and she would do it again. Besides, she was not without experience at being mistress of a home. It was just that Penderris was on such a grand scale. So much grander than any other place she had lived.

At least she was spared here the formal welcome she had received at Stanbrook House on her wedding evening, perhaps because it had been impossible to predict exactly when they would arrive. However, by the time she sat down to a late luncheon with George, she had met the butler, who had greeted them at the front doors upon their arrival, and the housekeeper, a plump, matronly lady who had looked appraisingly at Dora but without any open disapproval. Dora had informed her that she looked forward to a lengthier meeting tomorrow and perhaps a tour of the kitchens.

She met Maisie, the maid who had been appointed her in London, in her dressing room, which was as large as her whole bedchamber in her cottage. She spent an hour or so alone in the d.u.c.h.ess's bedchamber, presumably resting. Instead she sat on the window seat, her knees hugged to her bosom, gazing across the park to the cliffs and the sea in the distance beyond. The stark beauty of it all was going to take some getting used to. George took her for a short walk in the inner park afterward, and then it was time to dress for dinner, which was taken according to country hours, earlier than it had been in London. Dinner was served in a large dining room at a table that seemed to stretch almost its whole length. Fortunately her place had been set beside her husband's at the head of the table, and they were able to converse without having to yell at each other over a vast distance.

It was a bewildering but not an unhappy homecoming. Within a few days, she was sure, she would become familiar with her surroundings and her new duties and would be able to relax and feel at home.

Something had bothered her from the moment of her arrival, however. Or perhaps it was the absence of something. She had expected signs of the first d.u.c.h.ess, however slight. She had not seen very much of the house yet, of course, for George had taken her outside for some air, at her request, when she might have asked for a quick tour of the house instead. But from what she had seen there was nothing to suggest that Penderris had ever been anything but the home of a bachelor until now.

Dora ought to have felt relieved, for she had felt some unease during the days in the carriage over the knowledge that she was the second d.u.c.h.ess, that her predecessor had lived here and ruled here for almost twenty years. She had stepped inside the d.u.c.h.ess's bedchamber, feeling a bit like an interloper, fearing that it would somehow bear the stamp of the other woman. What she found instead was a beautiful room decorated in varying shades of mossy green and gold, but one that was also quite impersonal, like a guest chamber or like a room waiting to take on the personality of its occupant.

There were no signs of a woman's touch anywhere else either-not in the drawing room, not in the dining room, not even in the gardens. There were also no signs that there had been a child here once, a boy, a young man, the son of the house. It all made Dora feel a little uneasy. Of course, both the first d.u.c.h.ess and the son had been gone for more than ten years, and since then Penderris had been used as a hospital and convalescent home. Perhaps orders had been given recently that any remaining signs be stripped away out of deference to her. If that was so, then it had been a tactful move upon someone's part but quite unnecessary. No two people's lives should be so obliterated from the place that had been their home.

It was almost as though they had never been.

But Dora was tired after the long journey. Perhaps tomorrow when she toured the whole house she would see all sorts of evidence of George's first family-perhaps a nursery still filled with books and toys, perhaps a young man's room still kept as it had been, perhaps a portrait of the d.u.c.h.ess. Dora had no idea what she had looked like.

After dinner George drew her hand through his arm and led her from the dining room. But instead of taking her to the drawing room, he took her upstairs to what he described as the d.u.c.h.ess's sitting room. It was between their dressing rooms and the bedchambers beyond each. Dora had not looked into it earlier. It was a cozy room, she thought immediately, furnished with comfortable-looking upholstered furniture. A fire crackled in the hearth and the candles in the two candelabra gave a warm, cheerful light.

Dora's general impression of the room was a fleeting thing, though, for her attention focused almost immediately upon one familiar object-her pianoforte, looking old and battered, looking like home.