The Heir - Catherine Coulter [45]
She hugged him again, kissed the cleft once again, then left the breakfast parlor.
The earl returned to his breakfast. He tried to concentrate on his rare sirloin instead of the exquisite pleasure he knew awaited him on their wedding night.
He planned a regimen designed to keep body and mind thoroughly occupied for the remainder of the day. He met with Blackwater in the morning, shared luncheon with Lady Ann and Dr. Branyon, whom, the earl observed, was now almost a daily visitor to Evesham Abbey, and made the rounds of several of his tenants throughout the afternoon. It was late in the day when he returned to the abbey and stabled his horse. Since there was still sufficient daylight, he decided to make a brief inspection of the farmyard. The cows had not yet been brought back for their evening milking, and only a few desultory chickens pecked lazily about their graveled pen. He neared the large two-story barn, and stopped for a moment to inhale the sweet smell of hay. To his surprise and delight, he saw Arabella come around the side of the barn, slowly pull open the front doors, and disappear inside.
He stood struggling with himself for several minutes, his body very much demanding to follow her, and his mind quickly reviewing all the pitfalls of such an action. “Oh, the devil,” he said to a goat who was eyeing his boot. He could see Arabella on her back, lying on a thick pile of hay. He could see himself over her, stroking her, kissing every white inch of her. What did two days matter? She would be his wife.
He stepped toward the barn, only to stop dead in his tracks. He saw a movement from the corner of his eyes. He turned and saw the Comte de Trécassis striding toward the barn, his natty cloak billowing out behind him.
A deep foreboding, something he could not explain, swept over him. The earl did not call out to the comte. He didn’t move forward to greet him. Instead he remained firmly planted where he was, his eyes fixed on the elegant young man whom he hadn’t hated until this moment, only despised because he didn’t trust him.
The comte paused a moment before the barn door, glanced quickly around him, tugged at the handle, and as Arabella had done, disappeared into the dim interior.
In a swift military motion the earl clapped his hand to his side where his deadly sword had hung for so many years. His hand balled into a fist at finding nothing more deadly than his pocket. He drew a deep breath and remained standing stiffly, his eyes never leaving the barn door. Arabella was in the barn. The comte had gone into the barn.
No, he wouldn’t believe what he had seen. There was an explanation. One that would make him laugh at himself. But even as he sought for any explanation at all, he felt a black, numbing misery building in his belly. He felt he was losing a part of himself, a precious part, one not yet fully understood or explored. But no, that didn’t have to be true.
Time passed, but he had no sense of it. From the meadow just beyond the farmyard came the insistent mooing of cows. The sun was fast fading, bathing the barn in gentle golden rays of dusk. The day was coming to a close much the same as any other day, yet he felt no part of it.
Even as his eyes probed the barn door, it opened and the comte quickly emerged. Again he looked about him with the air of one who does not wish to be discovered. In a gesture that left the earl shuddering with black rage, the comte swiftly adjusted the buttons of his breeches, brushed lingering straws from his legs and cloak, and strode with a swaggering gait back to Evesham Abbey.
Still the earl did not move, his eyes fastened to the closed barn door. He had not long to wait, for just as the last light of day flickered into darkness, the door opened, and Arabella, her hair disheveled and tumbling wildly about her shoulders, ventured out, stood for a moment executing a languorous stretch, then turned toward the abbey, humming softly to herself. Every few steps she