Shadows of the Night Page 5

  “How extraordinary!” she said as he reached her side, her eyes wide with exaggerated enthusiasm. “I could hardly think of a construction that could be more out of place.”

  “Indeed,” he said, rather more to be agreeable than because he had any particular opinion. Her display of girlish delight was clearly manufactured, but why she would create such an air of near hilarity was beyond him. He decided to ignore it in hopes that it would simply go away. Most things that irritated him did, if he ignored them long enough.

  She looked at the long building consideringly, the latticed porticoes under delicately fluted columns supporting an absurd fantasy of a roof, all domes and ribbed minarets. “It should be painted fantastic colors. That would fit the architecture better. Or even white. But there is something about that staid, restrained buff that makes it all the more incongruous.”

  To Colin, nothing could improve the appearance of the strange thing sprawled in the middle of a perfectly respectable English town. It wasn’t that he disliked it, exactly. It certainly had a kind of whimsy about it that was attractive in a queer way. But to change its appearance to make it other than what it was seemed like an exercise in pointlessness.

  He just nodded politely. “Ready to enter, mon ange?”

  She shot a smile at him, bright and glassy. “Rather,” she said, and she began to cross the well-groomed lawn, little tendrils of hair flying loose in the wind in defiance of her smart coiffure.

  The Pavilion’s lavish interior was a cacophony of color, red and yellow warring with green and blue. Ladies and gentlemen—and those who were neither—trailed along the gallery between the banqueting room and the music room. He and Fern joined them, Fern finally coming to light on his proffered arm, tense and flighty. She appeared to be riveted by their surroundings, but he knew he was the source of her unease, however ludicrous it was. Her gaze lingered on the fantastic chandeliers.

  “They look like they must be gas. Are they original?” she asked, as if they were the most fascinating things in the world.

  He raised an eyebrow. “The prince had gas laid on by the twenties. The pattern is of lotus blossoms in the Egyptian style.”

  “How appropriate,” Fern murmured.

  He cast her a sideways glance. The lotus was the flower that the ancients claimed would bring forgetfulness when eaten. That it was built into the very lamps that had shone upon the frivolous, excessive entertainments of the then-Prince of Wales was indeed appropriate, a coy reference, however unintentional, to the oblivion of decadence. Could Fern have meant that?

  He stopped just inside the doorway of the music room and cast a look at his wife. Her wide, soft face was open, her lips sweetly good-natured, her eyes clear and bright … but surely not clever. Surely.

  Suddenly she laughed and slipped her arm away, crossing to stand in front of one of the scarlet panels that encircled the room. “It is like the china at the house we’re letting,” she said, nodding at the drooping Oriental trees painted in gold. “And our suite, too, with all that green and gold and red. I do believe that our landlord is an admirer of the last King George!”

  Colin chose to reply in the same inconsequential vein. “At least he did not prefer the chrome yellow,” he said with a nod at the garish medallion that hung over their heads.

  Fern glanced up. “More likely he could not find it.”

  She did not return to his arm but led the way through the rest of the chambers—the bedrooms, the red drawing room, the tearooms, even the great kitchen.

  He followed her because he had no particular desire not to, but he could not stifle a sense of disconsolation. It wasn’t that he minded drifting along a course set by someone else. He’d found that was the easiest way to live, for all anyone would demand of him was that he go through the motions expected of a viscount’s heir, while he watched the world from behind his eyes as his mouth spoke the words it should and his body took the actions that were expected of it. He had no desire for more.

  But following his wife was not the course laid out for him. His wife was meant to fall in behind him, to conform to his life, making the moves he made and smiling at the people he smiled at. She wasn’t meant to go flitting about with her eyes too bright and her laughter too shrill.

  Despite her forced gaiety, she seemed more vibrant and alive, to his jaded eyes, than he thought he’d ever felt. She took the exploration of the Pavilion as a kind of mission, regardless of how trivial the task and how many people had gone before, as if she could find deep meaning even in the palm-leaf pillars of the great kitchen. Colin had never seen her like this before; in all their conversations during tea or waltzes, she had never seemed to have a mission to become possessed of.

  When there was nothing left to explore, she seemed to deflate slightly, the high color leaving her face, the purpose falling out of her step, leaving the curling bits of flyaway hair around her face as the only lingering hint of the energy that had so recently possessed her. She looked at him, a brittle glitter in her eyes.

  “What precisely were you looking for?” Colin asked, driven by an uncharacteristic curiosity.

  Fern blushed and gave her head a shake that would have set her curls atremble in the maidenly coiffure she had worn up until that day. “I don’t know. Anything there was to find, I suppose. I forget that none of this is new to you. I hope that you haven’t found it too terribly tedious.”

  “I’ve been everywhere in Brighton,” Colin said, his indifference returning. “You should think of the entire trip as a wedding present and enjoy it as such.”

  “Thank you, Colin.” Her words were delivered simply, but there was something in her sideways glance that disturbed him. Not hostility, exactly, but maybe just a hint of resentment.

  “What is it, mon ange?” he asked automatically, knowing from experience that it was more pleasant to swiftly allay a woman’s feelings of dissatisfaction than to allow them to fester. He offered his arm and she took it, but her expression was abstracted as she allowed herself to be led back through the curious crowds toward the entrance.

  “Nothing,” she said, her tone utterly unconvincing. He cast her a skeptical look, and she ducked his gaze, turning her attention to the golden designs in the carpet in front of them. “I just wondered if everything that I ever spend a farthing on from today forward should be considered a gift from you.”

  There was an edge in her voice he did not understand. He curved his lips in a display of indulgent reassurance. “I do hope your expenditures won’t be too extravagant, but I suppose you could consider everything to be my gift, if you’d like.”

  The small frown bowing her plump lips deepened; that was clearly not what she wanted to hear. Colin sighed mentally. He had never enjoyed the games that the more temperamental of her sex seemed to thrive on, and he hoped this was not evidence of a side of her he had not yet seen.

  He tried another tack. “Your parents did settle a certain sum on you when you married. Apart from your dowry.”

  Her expression cleared a little. “Yes. Three hundred per annum should be more than enough to keep me in gloves and lace.”

  Colin nodded, pleased that she had been so neatly mollified. “I should hope so.”

  They stepped into glaring daylight and crossed the lawn toward the gate. There, Colin paused and pulled out his pocket watch. Still two hours before noon. What did one do with a wife all day long? He was already weary of this honeymoon, ready to return to his usual routine, in which their spheres would decidedly separate, to intersect only in the evenings. Somehow, he had a feeling that matters would not resolve so easily. First Wrexmere and now Fern. It seemed like his life, which had been so pleasantly predictable before, was taking a decidedly nastier turn.

  “Let us walk over to the Old Steine,” he said, nodding to the broad triangle of grass bisected by a walk. “It may not be as fashionable as it once was, but it has historical appeal.”

  “That sounds lovely,” Fern said, but he could tell that her gaze, no longer cau
ght by the strange delights of the Pavilion, was being dragged out to sea.

  Yet she voiced no protest as she followed him to the fountain that dominated the Old Steine. Jets of water leapt out of the basin as it tossed a sparkling spray into the air. The wind caught the shining droplets and blew them across her walking dress.

  “It shall be ruined!” Fern said, but she moved out of the way leisurely, belying her declaration of concern.

  While Fern pulled off her glove and held her hand out toward the spray, Colin surveyed the tourists that stood in clumps along the walks crisscrossing the triangle of grass. Most were strangers, wearing awkward suits and cheap dresses—the rail had made Brighton almost startlingly democratic, and despite the conveniences of the train, Colin missed the refinement of the company that had been the rule in his childhood.

  Colin did recognize a few of the people, but he made no attempt to hail them. While he was by no means averse to society, he felt that as newlyweds, they should conduct themselves with tasteful retirement. Which was why he had chosen Clifton Terrace for their temporary domicile, even though there were far more houses to let along the fashionable Adelaide Circle of Kemp Town. While being eminently respectable, Clifton Terrace was slightly removed from the whirl of entertainments, and with their having taken a house there, society would expect little entertaining of them.

  “Let’s go down to the water,” he said to Fern, extending his arm. “Soon there will be an unbearable crush.”

  “I would like that,” said Fern, putting on her glove once more.

  As they descended the road leading down along the tall seawall, the beach itself came into view, and Fern made a small sound of surprise. “There are so many people!”

  Colin looked across the expanse between the wall and the water. Yesterday, it had stretched out like a pebbled highway, spotted with groups of early evening walkers. Today, however, only patches of gray were visible among the teeming crowd below. A thousand children dodged among pedestrians at the edge of the waves, ignoring the cries of their mothers and nurses. Two thousand belled skirts swayed in the breeze beside their gentlemen escorts, upright and unruffled by the wind. A hundred boats for hire rocked on the waves, the occasional higher billow causing the passengers to shriek with glee or terror as their rower expertly and stoically guided them through.

  “I thought …” Fern began, and then she shook her head and smiled. “Never mind. It was silly of me.”

  “You thought that yesterday evening was typical?” Colin furnished.

  She opened her mouth to say something, but just then, a familiar voice rang out.

  “Why, I do say! It’s Radcliffe!”

  Colin turned around to meet the slightly reddened face of Algernon Morel, with Jack Wakefield, Lord Gifford, looming over his shoulder.

  “Gifford, Algy,” he said slightly stiffly. He didn’t dislike either man, and Gifford in particular was welcome in all levels of society because of his smooth manners and his impeccable pedigree. But together, they could be up to no good, for Gifford’s morals were notably malleable, and Algy’s reputation eclipsed any activities that his wife might even dream of. Colin thought, distantly, that he should perhaps be disconcerted at meeting his mistress’s husband, especially so soon after leaving her bed for his new wife’s, but he could not work up enough feeling to care much about it one way or the other.

  “Ah, so this would be your little woman,” Algy observed, as oblivious to hints as always. He waggled a bushy blond brow. “And how are you taking to married life, madame?”

  Colin winced at Fern’s sharp intake of breath and looked over, expecting to see shock written across her face. To his amazement, though, she was trying not to laugh. She extended her free hand to Algy, and he pressed it eagerly.

  “One day of marriage is hardly enough to tell,” she said, her voice bland.

  Algy let out a guffaw, and if he had been close enough, Colin knew the man would have tried to nudge him in the ribs. Delicacy and propriety were utterly unknown to Algy. Whether he knew about Emma’s liaisons, Colin had no idea, and Colin was even less sure about whether the man would care.

  “Quite a charmer you have there, Radcliffe!” Algy chortled. “She’ll make an impression in this afternoon’s parade.”

  “Parade?” Fern turned large eyes on Colin.

  “Every afternoon, Brighton society—and those who wish they were—gather at the north end of town and ride their carriages to the south end,” Colin supplied.

  “Why?”

  “Why do people promenade in Hyde Park? Because it’s done. I was going to wait a day or two before going out into society, but”—he gave a small bow to Gifford and Algy—“it seems that society has found us.”

  “It sounds interesting,” Fern said, but her expression lacked enthusiasm.

  “Not half as interesting as the dance that I am hosting tonight, if you consent to come, Mrs. Radcliffe.” Gifford’s dark, rich voice came out unexpectedly, and to Colin’s irritation, Fern pinkened.

  “I don’t think that we shall be able to make it,” Colin answered before she could speak.

  “Ha!” Algy exclaimed. “Look at him, Gifford; he’s gone prudish on us. Not to worry, old chap; it’s no bachelor affair. Gifford’s mama has come to commiserate with him on his most recent expulsion from the family bosom. Jolly straight, and all that rot.”

  That was marginally better, but even so, Colin disliked the hungry gaze Gifford gave Fern and the motives that it hinted. Friend or no, the earl’s heir was notorious for his interest in any woman who was claimed by another man. An innocent new wife would be his ideal prey, and Fern … she could be trusted as much as any woman, he supposed, but women were notoriously weak-minded about flattery.

  “I’m sure I would love to see Lady Rushworth again,” Fern said before he could react. “It’s such a shame she’s been staying away from London for her health, for we all missed her at the wedding.”

  For a moment, Colin was so taken aback by her rebelliousness that he could not speak. His world was truly going mad. Giving her a narrow look, he pulled her more firmly against his side. “I’m sure that Lady Rushworth would not expect you to go out in society so soon. We can call on her tomorrow when she is at home.”

  “Oh, rubbish,” Fern said, with a good deal more spirit than he had ever seen from her. “Tomorrow, she will be swarmed with all the guests from tonight’s ball. And I would like to dance. It’s been ever so long.”

  It’s been one week, thought Colin, but he did not say it aloud in front of Algy and Gifford, who were watching their exchange with a little too much interest. And far too much amusement.

  He swallowed his irritation and decided to play the line of the indulgent husband—for now. There was no need for them to know how intolerable he found the situation. “Well, my dear, if you are so eager, we’ll see.” He smiled benignly at all three. “Now, if you will excuse us, gentlemen, we will continue our stroll.” He turned his back to the men, pulling Fern with him, and walked away before the two could offer to join them.

  Fern felt giddy as she walked along on Colin’s arm. She had defied that stamp she felt embedded in her flesh, Colin’s mark of ownership over her, and the sky had not come crashing down. I am my own person, she thought. Discrete, whole within myself. She kept her silence for fear that she would begin laughing even as she felt Colin lowering like a storm cloud beside her. She would pay for her actions, but at that moment, the fierce, dissatisfied corner of her mind was uppermost, and she could not care.

  They reached the promenade, but Colin did not guide them onto the beach. Instead, he raised his free hand to hail a carriage—not a little open fly but one of the black closed carriages that invalids rode in—keeping her pinned mercilessly against him. The coach stopped, and Colin opened the door, guiding her inside with a hard grip on her arm that chilled her bones, smothering her sense of victory with a wave of dread.

  She knew then that the payment for her rebellion would be far more tha
n she had bargained for.

  Chapter Five

  The air in the closed black carriage was dank and stifling. Fern’s clothes chafed at her sweat-damp skin as soon as she stepped inside. Still gripping her arm, Colin spoke a word to the driver before stepping in behind her. He brought a breath of cooler air with him, but he shut the door with a snap before most of the heat could escape. Sweat sprang up on her forehead and upper lip as she blinked to adjust her eyes to the oppressive darkness that was relieved only by a sliver of light that slid between the velvet curtains.

  Colin’s face, impassive at the best of times, was unreadable in the dimness. His eyes were black holes surrounded by a rim of pale green, the void behind them pitiless and disdainful. Fern’s stomach clenched, her blood pounding in her ears as fear and defiance warred within her.

  “Where are we going?” Fern asked. She meant to make it a demand, but her voice trembled slightly, and she flushed at that self-betrayal.

  Colin did not answer, only tightening his grip on her arm until it hurt. Fern pressed her lips together, determined not to say anything. He pushed her onto the bench and sat beside her. The carriage lurched into motion.

  “You are not to contradict me,” Colin said finally, each word sharp-edged, precise. His face was a blank. “You are not to make decisions that will affect both of us. And you are never to voice a definite opinion on any subject of importance that may differ from my own.”

  “Never?” She blurted the question, the heat in her cheeks flaring hotter.

  “Not ever,” he agreed flatly. He tightened his grip on her arm, and she winced. “Not in private, and certainly never in public. I chose you to be my wife because you seemed modest and reserved, able to add to my comfort by creating a pleasant, harmonious household as you fulfill your duties as hostess and mother. You did not behave in a manner in keeping with those expectations a moment ago, and I do not expect a repetition of such an event.”