When Sebastian, accompanied by servants and guards, rode out of the lane leading to his uncle Henry Isham’s house outside Canterbury three days later, he found the family gathered before the great door, prepared for his coming by the man he had sent ahead. Gilded by the late afternoon sun, Henry stood at the top of the shallow steps before the door. His son Kit stood beside him, his daughter Anne behind them. Henry’s expression was neither welcoming nor forbidding, a mask designed to reveal as little as possible.
Sebastian halted his horse before the steps. He swung down from the saddle and, pulling his gloves off, climbed the steps to the waiting Ishams. Kit bowed, Anne curtsied, but Henry stood straight as a poplar, his brilliant blue eyes warm despite their wariness. He spread his arms; Sebastian moved into his hard grip.
“Why are you here?” Henry asked, softly enough not to be overheard.
“You will know soon enough,” Sebastian replied, and stepped back to be welcomed by his cousins.
“That is a fine doublet for riding,” Kit said, his gray eyes shining. “Do you wish to awe us, Cousin?”
“Sebastian was at Court,” Anne said. “All his things must be very fine.”
Henry said, “Anne, hush.”
Anne ducked her head before lifting it to stare at Sebastian. Kit stared, too, the two pairs of eyes fixed on him with ravenous interest. What did they want him to say? Yes, they are fine. Very fine indeed. And far too expensive for my purse, but I was at Court and had no choice.
He made himself smile once more. “What, Cousin, would you have me arrive shabby as a beggar?”
“Let us not stand about chattering like magpies,” Henry said. “Go within. My men will tend to your horses and my steward to your men.”
With Henry leading the way and his children trailing Sebastian, they went to the parlor above the hall, a snug room that faced west and was filled, at this hour, with golden light. Henry insisted that Sebastian sit in his great chair, an honor that seemed faintly edged with mockery. Though Henry respected the difference between his rank and Sebastian’s, he was not overawed by it and the honor he paid Sebastian as a nobleman was leavened by the knowledge that Sebastian needed his counsel.
When they were settled, he asked, “So, Nephew, what news?”
“I am betrothed to the Earl of Wednesfield’s elder daughter, Lady Manners.”
Anne gasped and clasped her hands. Kit sat back, mouth slightly agape.
“Does she not have a husband? From Norfolk?” Henry asked, brows drawn together.
Sebastian shook his head. “No. She is widowed.”
“When was this? I had dealings with her husband nigh unto Midsummer’s Day.”
“A fortnight ago.”
Henry’s frown deepened. “She changes her estate quickly.”
Sebastian narrowed his eyes. Was this one of Henry’s subtle criticisms or was it no more than it seemed? “What do you mean by that, Uncle?”
Surprise sparked in Henry’s eyes as if he had not expected that Sebastian would need to ask. “No more than I said. This is speedy work.”
“Only a fool lets a good match slip through his fingers,” Sebastian replied, discreet before his wide-eyed cousins. “I had it in mind to marry and had begun to look about me for a wife. I can imagine no better family to ally myself with than Wednesfield’s.”
“He is short on kinsman.”
“Then he will be all the more glad of me. Although, through Beatrice’s mother, there is a connection to the Nevilles.”
“Who are not the family they used to be.” Henry sighed and gripped his knees. “I am not sure you could not do better.”
The memory of Beatrice outfacing him in the Coleville House garden rose in his mind’s eye. With her face flushed and her eyes bright, she had looked like a woman consumed with desire. And though he had known her heat was anger, his body had responded as if she radiated passion. Since then, whatever his mind and heart said, his body had insisted marrying her was far from disastrous.
“It cannot matter, Uncle. I have signed the contract.”
“Did not Lady Wednesfield’s grandsire marry a Benbury daughter?”
“Lady Wednesfield’s grandsire’s grandsire. Lady Manners and I are not within the forbidden degree of consanguinity.” He and Beatrice had known that since childhood. Their common ancestors were further back than four generations, so far back they were nearly lost to memory.
“Humph.” Henry shifted his weight and rearranged the folds of his long gown. “I expect you did not ask your mother about this.”
“No, Uncle, I did not.” He considered adding that his mother lived too far away to consult, but discarded the idea. Henry knew where his mother was as well as he did.
“When do you marry?”
“Michaelmas,” Sebastian said.
“So long?” Anne asked wistfully.
“She is newly widowed,” Henry said. “Do not interrupt your betters, girl.”
Uncomfortable silence followed Henry’s untoward sharpness. To ease it, Sebastian said, “You must be at the wedding as my guests.”
Henry nodded. “You will need witnesses of your own.”
“I should wish for your attendance in any case,” Sebastian added. He looked at Henry. “An it please you, Uncle, I should like to speak to you of business when you have the time.”
If his Uncle was surprised, he hid it, merely nodding as if he had expected the request. As perhaps he had—very little escaped him.
“Why not now? Come with me to my counting room.”
The counting room was a tiny chamber behind the hall, so full of tables piled high with ledgers that there was barely room to move. After lighting a few tallow candles, Henry dropped onto a stool set before the largest table and motioned with his hand for Sebastian to sit on the stool in the corner. Sebastian pulled the stool forward until it was within five feet of Henry’s and sat, facing his uncle.
Henry waited without speaking. His patience reminded Sebastian of the earl and all the earl’s tricks. How not? Between them, Wednesfield and Isham had raised him to honorable manhood. It was fitting that they should be alike.
“You will call me fool, Uncle, when I am done with my tale.”
“Perhaps. What have you done that I should name you so?”
“There is more to my betrothal than the wish to capture a rich prize.”
“Your mother wrote me that you intended to pursue the younger Wednesfield daughter. Is the elder so much richer?”
Sebastian sighed, unwilling for just a moment to speak his sorry tale. Let him put off for a minute or two his uncle’s inevitable displeasure and censure. “No, but it does not matter. I pledged myself to Lady Manners five years ago.”
All the expression left his uncle’s face, the warmth gone from his eyes. The silence in the room was as heavy as lead.
After a long moment his uncle asked, “Was the pledge binding?”
“Binding enough.”
Henry’s eyes narrowed. “Then it was not unbreakable. Can you still get out of it?”
“I do not wish to.”
Henry stared at him, his eyes hard and probing. “You cannot befool me. You do not desire this betrothal.”
“No, I do not. If I had not made a binding promise, I would not be here now. But I did make a binding vow and I will not be forsworn.”
Henry’s gaze wandered away from Sebastian’s face, traveling around the room as if he might find wisdom in his stacked ledgers, in the dusty corners of the floor. His gaze returned to Sebastian. “Why does this betrothal not please you?”
Sebastian rubbed his palms on his thighs. “I do not trust her.”
Henry waited, patient as time.
“She dishonored her marriage vows.”
“How did she betray her vows? Was she disobedient? Or did she—”
The truth lodged in his throat as if he betrayed her by speaking it. “She took a lover.”
Henry’s brows rose in surprise. “Are you sure?”
“I discovered them in such a way that I could not be mistaken.” Conyers’s arm around her waist, his hand on her breast... Sebastian shoved the memory aside with the ease of long practice.
“I must confess I do not understand your determination to marry this woman.” Henry’s eyes were shrewd and worried, his mouth tight. “If she has so little sense of honor, surely you cannot continue with this.”
“I am married to her.” Sebastian sighed, groping for the words that would explain his reluctance to repudiate Beatrice, his desire to preserve what honor he had. “I cannot change that by lying.”
“You are a fool.”
“I know, but I am not a dishonorable one.”
“What value is honor if it costs you a son of your loins? Do you want another man’s get to inherit Benbury? Put her aside,” Henry said sharply.
“I cannot,” Sebastian said. “Believe me when I tell you if I could, I would. However, I will not lie and I cannot get out of this marriage else. As you love me, accept that Beatrice Manners is my wife.”
Henry sighed, a heavy gust of exasperation. “Very well. I will do as you ask because I love you and because I will not deprive myself of the pleasure of saying I told you so later. In the meantime, how do you intend to keep her from straying?”
“I have not thought so far ahead,” Sebastian said.
Henry snorted. “If I had a farthing for every time you did not think ahead, I should be rich as Croesus. This is the true reason you are here, is it not? You wish for me to think for you.”
“I do wish for your counsel and I will endure your calumnies to get it.”
A smile flickered, quick as lightning, over Henry’s face before he answered. “The answer is simple enough. You must bind her to you with love.”
“What?”
“Woo her to love, win her heart. Look you to your aunt. When she wed your uncle, she was as willful a girl as I have ever seen. Edward won her heart and through her heart her willing obedience.”
“A wife owes her husband obedience.”
“And a dog owes his master obedience, but without proper training will not offer it. You can beat submission into a wife, as you can a dog, but when you have done, you are left with a dog or a wife who cringes and whines when you come near. No, as you train your dogs with sweet words and rewards, well mixed with chastisement, so must you train your wife. Woo her. Blind her to the blandishments of other men.”
“I do not wish to love her,” Sebastian said stiffly.
“Pish-tush! I am not talking of you. I am talking of a woman, who is weaker and more easily tempted than a man. Fix her eyes and heart on you, and you need not worry her flesh will stray.”
“You make it sound simple, Uncle, but I doubt me it is as easy as that.”
“How not? You are well made, clever, smooth-spoken. Surely you have won women to your bed—the only difference here is that this one you will not turn off when you tire of her.”
Somehow it did not seem the same, seducing Beatrice as he had once seduced light-minded, light-skirted Court ladies. Court ladies felt no more love than Court gentlemen; it had always been a game of lust and boredom. Whatever her sins, Beatrice was not a Court doxy.
“Women are fickle, Uncle. I may win her love and it may last through the winter, but what of spring?”
“By then she will be heavy with your son and no man will desire her. If no man hunts, shall the hart fall?”
“There is one difficulty that you cannot overcome. I despise the lady.” Despised her, desired her, could not stop thinking of her. It all churned in his mind, dangerous and alluring.
“I’ll wager that is not all,” his uncle said gently.
“What of it? I cannot play this game.”
“Is it a game? Or do you reform an errant woman and make of her a good wife?”
“I do not think she can be a good wife.”
His uncle shook his head. “I long ago gave up the hope that women would behave as I expected, Sebastian. They will always surprise you. Lady Manners might make an excellent wife.” He hesitated, glanced at Sebastian as if gauging his trustworthiness, and added, “I dealt with Lord Manners for many years. He was no steadier than a weathercock, turning to follow the prevailing wind, and had an excess of choler. A man like that might drive a beautiful, high-spirited wife to another man’s arms, if that other man spoke to her sweetly enough.”
“You excuse her.”
“No, I do not. I simply offer understanding. I have found that understanding why another man behaves as he does aids me in my business. As for Lady Manners, if I had my way, you would be free of your entanglement with her. Since you will not choose that path, I must help you make the most of the path you have chosen.”
“You need not.”
“We are kin. What you do must concern me.” Henry paused. “There is another matter which you must consider. Earlier I spoke of another man’s child inheriting Benbury. I am more concerned that none will. Lady Manners was four years wed with no sign of quickening once. You may have taken a wife of barren stock. If so, naught will come of this marriage.”
“She is not barren. Old bulls do not get calves, even on fertile cows. She will bear a child.”
“You cannot know that.”
Sebastian sighed. “I know. But I can pray.”
“Lie with her.”
“What?”
“Lie with her before you are wed. If she does not get with child, repudiate her.”
“I cannot do that!”
“Does not Benbury come before your qualms? Do you want everything your forebears built to revert to the Crown because you could not stomach bedding a woman you claim as your wife?”
“I can stomach bedding her.” He could more than stomach it; the thought made his flesh stir. The stirring discomposed him, suggesting that he might be led where Beatrice willed by the tether of his lust. “What I cannot do is cast her aside.”
“You must be ruthless to protect what is yours.”
“But not dishonorable.”
“I do not urge you to dishonor, only to consider what you owe your estate.”
His service to Benbury had earned Henry the right to speak of its future. If it had not been for him, Benbury would have sunk beneath the weight of debt Sebastian’s father had accrued. Patiently, steadily, Henry had taught him how to manage his income so that it might cover his expenses as well as mitigate the burdens he had inherited. If Sebastian threw away his patrimony, he also threw away Henry’s unremitting and selfless work.
What a damnable coil this was, a tangle he could not smooth. Whatever he did, whatever action he took, he would betray someone. To whom did he owe loyalty? His uncle? Himself? Benbury?
“I make you no promises, but I will not forget Benbury.”
“I can ask no more,” his uncle said.
“There is one other matter I wish your help with,” Sebastian said.
“What is it?”
“The late Lord Manners gave gauds to his wife, Lady Manners. Her stepson refuses to return them to her.”
“You wish me to get them for you.”
“You could persuade the sky to give up the sun,” Sebastian said.
His uncle snorted. “I have no use for flattery.”
Sebastian grinned.
His uncle sighed. “Very well, I will handle this for you.” He rose. “Come, let us return to the family. In the morning, you will write to your mother of this betrothal and I will send the letter to her.”
As they left the counting room, it occurred to Sebastian that if he wooed Beatrice he ran the risk of being caught once more in the web of her beauty. She still moved him, as much as he wished she did not. Unless he kept very much on his guard, he ran the risk of being trapped in love, rather than trapping Beatrice.
He would have to be very careful.