Gifts of Love Read online

  “I know another truth, Toni.” His voice was as implacable as it had been the night before. “You could not feel desire—if you didn’t feel love as well. You don’t hate me. You might wish to hate me, but you can’t.”

  It was like being kicked in the stomach, and for a moment Antonia could not breathe. The last of her defenses collapsed into painful rubble. She felt horribly powerless, and her heart ached with its every beat. To love a man she could not trust was bad enough; to know that he was certain of her love was even worse. It was what she had struggled to hide from him—all for naught. Lying now was something she hadn’t the strength or will to do.

  Finally, in little more than a whisper, she said, “Then it appears your revenge is complete, doesn’t it?”

  His free hand lifted to touch her face, and his voice softened to a deep, husky note. “I don’t want revenge, I want you to be my wife. We belong together, Toni, don’t you see? Can’t you feel that as surely as I do? Give me your love as well as your passion. We can put the past behind us and start again.”

  She realized then that the stormy gray of his eyes was a sign of determination rather than anger; he really did want to marry her. But that knowledge did little to ease her pain. She loved him, and she wanted him, but she did not trust him not to hurt her again.

  She dared not trust him.

  “Thank you for the honor,” she said politely, “but I must refuse.”

  The softened expression left his face, replaced by a hard mask of resolve. His big hands gripped her shoulders, the fingers almost painful as they held her. “Why? This time I mean to get the answer, Toni, and I won’t give up until I do. Why won’t you marry me?”

  She was too tired to avoid the answer, even to spare herself the pain of his lies. “Perhaps it really did mean nothing to you; that is always the defense I hear of gentlemen. But it meant something to me. And even more than that betrayal, you destroyed my trust in you with your lies. How could I marry a man I no longer trusted?”

  A swift frown drew his brows together, and she could have sworn his voice was sincerely bewildered when he said, “Lies? What are you talking about?”

  “Mrs. Dalton,” she replied flatly.

  Three

  “Claire Dalton?” His frown deepened. “What do you know of her?”

  “More than you intended for me to know, I should say.” Antonia smiled thinly. “She was—and perhaps still is—your mistress.”

  Richard released her shoulders and stepped back. His eyes narrowed, and he spoke very deliberately. “She was. However, since my—arrangement with her ended before I asked you to be my wife, I hardly see why it would concern you.”

  “If it had ended, you are quite right. But it didn’t end.”

  “Toni, I am telling you it did.”

  Antonia had known it would hurt to hear him lie, and she had not been wrong. It hurt dreadfully. She half-turned away from him, her back to the fire, and she could feel her face harden with aversion. “Of course it did,” she said tonelessly. “After all, no lady must ever acknowledge the existence of such a creature. She turns her head away, or makes herself blind to that—unbearable reality.”

  “Toni—”

  “Please, no more lies.”

  “I am not lying to you.”

  “No?” She looked at him. “Can you tell me you haven’t seen her since our engagement was announced?”

  He hesitated, then cursed roughly under his breath. “No, I can’t tell you that. If you must have the truth, our relationship resumed briefly—after you ended the engagement. But I swear to you, I didn’t see her while you were promised to me, nor would I have gone to her after our marriage. I wanted no mistress, Toni, only you.”

  “I don’t believe you.” Her lips curved in a painful little smile. “You see? You swear to me, and I can’t believe it. You tell me you speak the truth, and I hear lies. I don’t trust you, Richard. Imagine the hell you would live in with a wife who called you a liar.”

  He shook his head slowly, a muscle leaping in his tight jaw. “Why can’t you believe me? Who told you about Claire?”

  “She did.”

  “What?” He took a step and grasped her shoulders again, turning her fully to face him. “How came you even to speak to her?”

  “Worried about my ladylike sensibilities?” She laughed without amusement. “I must admit, my mother would have considered my visitor—quite shocking. But Mrs. Dalton found me alone when she came to see me that morning. I was waiting for you, already in the parlor. A housemaid answered the door, and I am afraid she had no idea that the very fashionable lady who wished to see me was nothing of the kind.”

  His hands tightened on her shoulders. “What did she say to you?”

  “What do you think? She congratulated me on our forthcoming marriage. I needn’t concern myself with her, she said. She would take up very little of your time. Just as she had during the past months.”

  “And you believed her? Toni, how could you take the word of a spiteful woman over mine?”

  Antonia jerked away from him. She went to her dressing table and opened the jewelry case atop it. Finding what she sought, she returned to Richard and held out her hand. The firelight reflected off the object she held, glinting brightly gold.

  “Because she had proof,” Antonia said raggedly.

  He lifted the object from her trembling hand. It was a watch fob, made quite simply; its only decoration was a golden button engraved with the letters AW.

  “You have reminded me so often of that day in the stable,” she said, her voice still unsteady. “Do you remember? Do you remember how…in our haste…a button was torn off my riding habit? We laughed about it later. You said you would keep it, as a treasured memento of our first time together. You had this fob made, and you wore it often. Your mistress was kind enough to return it to me.”

  “She had this?” His face was curiously pale. “She told you I had given it to her? Toni, she lied, I swear to you. She must have…My house was robbed while we were at the theater together the night before; she must have hired the thief—”

  “Please, don’t! I have heard enough lies.”

  His hand closed hard over the fob, and his eyes darkened almost to black. “I am telling you the truth. If you had not left London so quickly, you would surely have heard of the robbery—the news was all over town.”

  “And was it all over town that we were lovers?” Tears burned her eyes, and she struggled not to shed them. “She told me that, as well. How the two of you laughed at my—my innocence. How you compared me to her…and found me sadly lacking.”

  “No.” He lifted his hand jerkily toward her face. “My God, Toni, I would never have done such a thing! You have to believe me.”

  She backed away, her movements as jerky as his. “I wish I could. I—I really do. But I can’t. Please, just leave me alone.”

  His hand fell to his side, and he stared at her for a long time in silence. “You won’t believe me no matter what I say, will you? She poisoned you completely against me.”

  Antonia’s eyes flicked to the watch fob he still held in his hand, then returned to his face. “Good night, Richard.”

  He must have realized she was a whisper away from breaking down, or perhaps, as he had said, knew that she was simply unable to listen to any more, at least for the moment. Still holding the fob, he went to the open door. He hesitated there briefly, looking back at her with a grim expression, then went out of the room and closed the door quietly behind him.

  Antonia’s control lasted no longer than that. She found her way to the bed, though it was impossible to see through the flood of tears, and sat down before her legs could no longer support her. She felt that she had turned her back on something infinitely precious, and the grief and pain tore at her as if they were living creatures with talons.

  But she couldn’t have acted in any other way; she knew that. Without trust, there was no possibility of happiness; eventually, her love would be destroyed by mi
strust, and a marriage with Richard would end up worse even than the hollow relationships that passed so often for marriages.

  She had no idea how long she sat there, but gradually the tears slowed to a trickle and then ceased. The fire was dying, the room growing chilly—or perhaps that was only a miserable coldness caused by the emptiness inside her. Either way, she realized vaguely that she should go to bed, and tried to summon the energy to do so.

  She raised her bowed head, and then went very still as she stared across the room. She was so numb that all she felt was faint surprise and a remote curiosity.

  This young woman ghost was neither the fiery-haired enchantress nor the malevolent darker woman. She somewhat resembled the man, with her brunette hair and thin, sensitive face, but her style of clothing seemed to indicate she had lived at least a score of years after him: her gown was simpler in design, with a fuller shorter skirt, which did not trail along behind her, and she wore no cap. She stood in the center of the room, and her gentle, tragic eyes were fixed on Antonia.

  “You know I am here,” Antonia said slowly, a tiny chill of fright feathering up her spine. “You are…aware of me.”

  The woman smiled and nodded, then stepped back and made a beckoning gesture.

  Antonia wanted to refuse, but found herself unable to do so; again, she seemed to be in the grip of a compulsion. She rose and followed as the woman led her out of the room and a little way down the hall. Turning to look at her, the woman gestured again, toward Lyonshall’s door. It was a simple gesture, an invitation to enter.

  The urge to obey—combined with Antonia’s own longings—was so strong she actually took a step in that direction. But then she stopped and shook her head. “I can’t,” she said in a voice hardly louder than a whisper. “I can’t go to him.”

  The woman gestured again insistently, clearly much distressed, her sorrowful eyes almost pleading.

  Though she had thought herself emptied of tears, Antonia felt them stinging her eyes again. “No, I can’t. It hurt so much when he lied to me—I am afraid to trust him again.”

  After a moment of obvious indecision, the woman’s hand fell to her side. She moved away from the duke’s door and beckoned again.

  With a feeling of unreality, Antonia followed. She didn’t know where she was being led; though she had explored the castle a few times during her childhood, that had been many years ago when the South wing had been shut up, and she had made no attempt to explore the wing on this visit. The wide corridors were utterly silent, the stone floor chilly beneath her slippered feet, but she kept her gaze fixed on the slightly hazy form of her guide.

  Sconces lined only the main corridor where Antonia and the duke were quartered; the numerous other hallways and galleries, unoccupied, were dark. When her guide left the main corridor behind, Antonia had the eerie feeling of being swallowed up by darkness and silence.

  “Wait! I can’t see you!” She took several hurried steps, more by instinct than sight, then slowed in relief as she saw her guide waiting for her.

  The woman had paused at the head of a short hallway leading to a window, and gestured toward a table against the wall. Gratefully, Antonia lit the oil lamp there, then walked a bit quicker to keep her guide safely within the circle of yellow light as they continued down the hallway. The woman stopped about halfway, and turned to indicate a large portrait hanging between two doors.

  Antonia stepped closer, holding the lamp high, and gasped aloud. One of the lovers was beautifully represented, her fiery hair brilliant and her delicate face glowing with life. Formally dressed with her hair piled high atop her small head, she looked almost regal. Her gown was green velvet, the color bringing out faint flecks of green in her big eyes. There was a quantity of lace at her wrists and throat, a heart-shaped patch at one corner of her smiling lips, and an enormous emerald ring glowed on the index finger of her right hand.

  Antonia could see the resemblance to herself more clearly in the painting, and for a moment she had the eerie thought that she was the reincarnation of this fragile, doomed creature.

  There was a brass nameplate on the frame, and she read it aloud. “Linette Dubois Wingate.” She looked up at the face again, then turned to find her guide pointing at another painting directly across the hall. When Antonia moved a few steps in that direction, the lamplight revealed a portrait of the man.

  Like Linette, he was dressed formally though his dark hair was unpowdered. His coat was a heavy brocade shot through with gold thread, and both his cuffs and cravat were lace-edged. There was strength in his thin face, honesty in the level gaze of his eyes, and the sensuality Antonia knew him capable of was evident in the curve of his lips. According to the nameplate, his name had been Parker Wingate.

  After a moment, she followed her beckoning guide a little further down the hall, and found herself gazing at a portrait of the guide herself. It had obviously been painted when she was a girl on the brink of womanhood, yet the eyes in that gentle face were already shadowed with sorrow.

  “Mercy Wingate,” Antonia read aloud. She studied the portrait for several minutes, then turned to look at Mercy’s hazy form just a few steps away. “You were—their daughter?”

  Mercy nodded. She beckoned again, turning back the way they had come, and Antonia followed obediently. When they reached the head of the corridor, she kept the lamp, partly because Mercy went on without pausing. It appeared she was bound for the central part of the castle. Antonia was led to the library on the ground floor, and to a certain area of the shelves.

  Her guide pointed to a particular book, then retreated as Antonia went to the shelf and set her lamp on a nearby table. She had to reach above her head, but managed to get the book.

  It was a thick volume bound in fine leather and stamped with gold. A book that had been privately printed in the very year of Antonia’s birth. She touched the title stamped simply into the cover. “Wingate Family History. But—” She turned to speak to her guide, and found herself alone in the huge, silent room.

  For a few moments, Antonia stood there questioning herself. It had been real, not a dream, she was sure of it. She felt it. She had not walked in her sleep; she had been unaware of the book’s existence, so why—and how—would she have dreamed of it? Nor had she known of the portraits, since she had never seen them before; they must have been in storage in the South wing, or else had hung on the walls all the time the wing had been closed off.

  No, Mercy had been as real as the ghostly representations of her parents that Antonia—and Richard—had seen during the past two nights. Eerie and strangely compelling in her sorrow and gentleness, she had stepped out of the past because…Why? Different from the others, she had been fully aware of Antonia, even communicating with her, however silently. She had been obviously distressed by Antonia’s refusal to go into Richard’s room, and Antonia had to believe that Mercy had been in some way trying to help them.

  Antonia had many questions; she only hoped that the book would provide at least a few answers. She picked up the lamp and, carrying the heavy volume, made her way slowly back to the South wing and her bedchamber.

  Weary though she was, the disturbing events and her chaotic emotions made sleep impossible, so she took the book with her to bed and began reading. The writer who had been commissioned to write the history knew his job well; with dry facts gleaned from family records, letters, and journals, he wove together a straightforward narrative that proved to be interesting, often entertaining, and sometimes tragic as he explored centuries of one family’s existence.

  There was even a family tree, and Antonia studied it for a long time before she went further. She found two shocks there. The date of a death was one. The other was her own lineage: she was a direct descendent of the sad guide—and the lovers. With a better understanding now of her resemblance to Linette, Antonia turned past the family tree and began reading.

  Finding herself caught up in the story of the earliest Wingates, she found it difficult to force herself to s
kip ahead to the previous century, but her curiosity and unease about the young couple was too powerful to deny. She located the correct section dealing with the parents of Parker Wingate, and began reading there.

  Theirs was an interesting time, full of historical events as well as the usual details of family life. Antonia enjoyed reading about all of it. As it had been the night before, she remained awake until nearly dawn, finally giving in to sleep still half-sitting up against the pillows with the heavy book across her knees.

  Physical and emotional exhaustion had taken their toll; she slept deeply.

  Antonia slept through the morning and well into afternoon, waking finally to see her maid sitting peacefully before the fire with a pile of mending in her lap.

  “Good heavens,” Antonia murmured, sitting up. “What time is it? I feel as if I have slept for days.”

  “No, milady, only for hours. It is after three.”

  While Antonia was coping with that slight shock, Plimpton went to the door, opening it just a crack and speaking to someone outside. The conversation was brief, and Plimpton soon returned to the bed. “One of the girls was so obliging as to wait until you should awaken, milady, since I did not wish to leave you. She will bring up your coffee, and you shall have it in bed.”

  “I have been in bed long enough,” Antonia protested.

  “Milady, you were worn down yesterday, and spent the better part of the night, I believe, reading that huge book. Her ladyship has been here, and she agrees with me that you should not get up before dinner.”

  “But—”

  “She insists, milady. As do I.” Briskly, Plimpton helped Antonia to bank her pillows and offered a damp cloth to wash her face and hands. By the time the coffee arrived, Antonia was more wide awake, and looked presentable enough to receive visitors, should any arrive.

  Plimpton, always good company, served her mistress coffee and then returned to her mending, willing to remain silent unless Antonia desired conversation.