quarrel with you. You have my gratitude.”
The earl snorted. “Never tell a man he has given you too much. He might believe you.” He glanced at Sebastian. “Now, as to Beatrice’s dower property, I think a jointure would be proper.”
Sebastian raised his eyebrows. Give control of Benbury into Beatrice’s hands if she outlived him? “No, my lord.”
“No? After I have given Herron for her dowry?”
For a moment Sebastian was tempted to tell the earl to keep Herron if that was its price. Another idea occurred to him. “Let her have Herron for her dower. No less, since it is such a rich property. And no more, so that my son can manage his lands even as she lives.”
The earl opened his mouth as if to argue and then grinned. “Herron it is.” He leaned forward, the grin deepening until he looked like a small boy contemplating a raid on the buttery. “Let us see if we can come to blows over the details.”
Three hours later, wrung out from the effort of keeping his wits sharp enough to bargain with the wily earl and then to keep the lawyers from further entangling a tangled agreement, Sebastian signed his name to his marriage contract. The settlement was not as bad as it might have been, had the earl been inclined to take advantage of the situation Sebastian found himself in. If the terms did nothing to ease his worries, at least they did nothing to worsen them.
“All that remains are the banns and the wedding,” the earl said in a satisfied voice. “Afterward—will you keep your post at Court? Shall I see what I may do to obtain some favors for Beatrice?”
Beatrice at Court, where she could attract admirers as venal as Conyers? No, Beatrice would spend the rest of her life safely locked away at Benbury, no matter how she wept and pled. As for him, if he never returned to Court he would die a happy man. His father had insisted the only way a man could make his fortune was to orbit the king as the sun orbited the earth. Perhaps that was true, but it was also true, that there were few swifter ways to lose a fortune. Had he loved the intrigue and glamour of Court, he would still leave it; he could not afford its demands.
“No, my lord. We shall live at Benbury.”
“You will lose many chances at preferment,” the earl said, his brows drawing together over his nose.
Sebastian looked down at his hands. The earl was right; Court was the only place to dip into the largesse that flowed from the king like a river. Perhaps with time, Beatrice…
…Beatrice, a honey pot that attracted the worst kind of flies.
He raised his head and met the earl’s eyes. “Court life eats up everything my lands produce. I cannot afford it.”
The earl’s eyebrows rose. “Not even now, when you will have Herron…”
“Every year it costs more to live. You called my father a fool for selling his land. He sold his land because his expenses were greater than his income. I will not make the same mistake.”
“So be it. For myself, I shall be glad to have a man of your good sense in the county.” The earl rose. “And I have no doubt that my lady wife will be pleased to have Beatrice so close. Come, let us find them both and give them the happy news.”
In the hall a servant told them the countess, her daughters and their women had gone into the garden to enjoy a break in the morning’s rain. At the end of the passageway that led to the garden, the door stood open, a rectangle of blue-and-green light that dazzled after the dimness of the hall and passage. Following the earl, Sebastian passed under the lintel into the damp, bright garden.
The wet leaves glittered and the stones of the pathway steamed gently in the sunshine. The smell of earth, brown and rich, rose to his nostrils. To his left, Ceci walked arm-in-arm with her mother, their maids trailing behind. On his right, Beatrice walked alone, twirling a rose in her hands, her head bent. He wished he might turn toward Ceci; after last night’s puzzling and difficult encounter with Beatrice, he was not sure he was ready to face her again.
He rolled his shoulders to loosen them and straightened his back. Only a coward would run from a woman and surely he could rein in his anger enough not to berate her again. He turned to the earl and asked leave to go to Beatrice. A wave of the earl’s hand dismissed him. Moving quickly to outstrip his worries, he strode down the path toward Beatrice.
She looked up as he approached, the rose in her hand no longer spinning. He stopped five feet away from her, halted by her wary, somber look. Violet smudges underneath her eyes turned them gray, the marks dark against her pale skin. She looked like a woman who had not slept in a year.
His jaw tightened and unnamable emotion moved in his chest. Did she hate the thought of marrying him so much? He smoothed the furred collar of his gown. Her happiness with the match did not, could not, matter. They were married, and had no choice but to make the best of it.
He said, “It is done.”
“How long?” she asked.
He frowned. “How long?” How long had it taken to come to an agreement? How long until they married? She could mean anything.
“How long until I must live with you as your wife?” she asked. In her hand, the rose shook and a petal dropped off, drifting against her skirt. He stepped closer.
“Two months. The wedding will be at Michaelmas.”
She nodded. “Ceci said it would be so.”
“She knew?”
“I do not believe she knew. I think she guessed or reasoned it out. I must show I do not bear Thomas Manners’s child.”
“Do you?” he asked. For the first time he wondered. What would befall them if she was with child?
“I carry no child, of that I am certain,” she replied, staring past him. Her tone was flat, yet full of meaning, meaning he could not begin to interpret.
More than any other woman he knew, she was a mystery to him. “What do you mean?”
Her eyes met his, a question in their depths. He held his breath until she found her answer. He could see, as clearly as if she spoke the words aloud, the moment when she decided not to tell him what she knew.
“I know as any woman does. My courses have not failed me.” She blushed as she spoke, but whether it was because she lied or because she was embarrassed to speak of such intimate matters to him, he could not tell. “But the truth does not matter. It is what men believe is the truth that counts.”
He thought of what he had once believed of her, and what he had learned. Conyers’s arms around her, Conyers’s hands on her breast… In defiance of his good intentions, his mingled hurt and anger spoke. “So a woman may betray her promises and it counts for nothing if no one knows.”
“Or a man,” she said sharply, anger flashing like lightning. And, like lightning, it was gone almost more quickly than his eye could see. She sighed and lowered her head. “Is this how you intend to use me? To remind me at every turn of my sins?” Her voice was weary and her mouth, half hidden by the turn of her head, curled down at the corner.
“No,” he said. “It is not what I intend.”
“Can we not
