The Heir - Catherine Coulter [56]
“I see,” Lady Ann said slowly, her eyes taking in the dried bloodstains on top of the bedcover, the red-tinged water and the blood-flecked towel on the washbasin. She felt sick with apprehension. No use in putting more questions to Grace. She would protect Arabella. She was out of the bedchamber before Grace could offer her a curtsy.
Lady Ann walked more and more slowly as she neared her daughter’s bedchamber. She could not help remembering her own wedding night, filled with pain and humiliation. She shook her head even as her steps slowed further. No, it could not have been like that. Justin was so very different from her late husband.
Still, her hands were damp when she knocked lightly on Arabella’s door. There was no answer. Not that she expected one. She knocked again. Would Arabella refuse to let her come in? Then she heard, “Enter.”
Lady Ann was not certain what she expected to find, but when she walked into the bedchamber, she looked at her very normal daughter of yesterday. Arabella calmly rose to greet her, dressed in her black riding habit, her velvet hat set high above smoothly arranged curls, the black ostrich feather curving over the brim, nearly brushing her cheek.
“Good morning, Mother. Whatever has you up and about so very early? Is Dr. Branyon coming?”
She sounded calm. Laced with that calm was centuries of arrogance that dared Lady Ann to say anything. Had she not seen Justin, not visited the earl’s bedchamber, she would have felt the complete fool.
“You ride as usual?”
“Of course, Mother. Is there any reason why I should not? I always ride early in the morning. Is there something you would like me to do?”
There was more arrogance, so much Lady Ann felt she would drown in it. Lady Ann found that she could not rise to the challenge. If Arabella did not wish to confide in her, she could not press her. She realized then that Arabella had rarely taken her into her confidence over the years. Only her father had shared her thoughts, her dreams, her fears, if, that is, she’d ever had any.
“No, my dear, if you wish to ride, it is certainly your affair. I simply could not sleep and thought to bid you good morning. That is all. Well, I did see Justin in the breakfast parlor. He did not look quite well rested. He looked a bit tense, even, perhaps despondent for some very odd reason, well—”
An arched black brow shot up in suspicious inquiry. “I suggest that if you are concerned for Justin, you simply ask him how he fares. Now, I fear you will grow overtired if you do not get your rest, Mother. If you will excuse me—” Arabella drew on her gloves, tipped her hat to a more jaunty angle, and walked to where her mother stood. She kissed her lightly on the cheek, her expression softening almost imperceptibly, and walked quickly out of the room.
Lady Ann stood staring after her daughter. Damnation, what had happened?
As Arabella guided Lucifer past the old abbey ruins to the country lane that led to Bury St. Edmunds, her eyes were clear and straight, her gloved hands steady on Lucifer’s reins, her chin raised high.
Poor Mother, she thought, feeling suddenly guilty. She hadn’t treated her well. How had her mother known that something was wrong? And she had known. It was a mystery. So Justin hadn’t looked well rested, had he? He had looked despondent? Damn him to hell! Arabella rather hoped that he would rot, in addition to hell. He deserved to rot. He deserved every bad thing that could happen to him did happen.
Still, how had her mother guessed that something was wrong? Oh dear, had she seen the shambles in the master’s bedchamber? Had Grace not had enough time to burn her nightgown and the sheets? She would ask her when she returned to the abbey.
She flicked Lucifer lightly with the reins on the neck, urging him into a gallop. If only she could leave behind her all the ugliness, the pain, the hatred of the night before. And that horrible cream that had eased her, but