Page 33 of The Marriage Wager

Constance went with him out the side door of the church and into the old graveyard behind. The cemetery was green and cool, shaded by oaks and ancient yew trees, and there was a charmingly unkempt look to it. Aged tombstones were covered with lichen, and some of them listed in one direction or another, often leaning comfortably against another marker. Ivy covered much of the iron bars of the fence and grew over the curved roof of the lych-gate. Flowers were bursts of color in stone urns, and here and there a rose bush had grown wild over a low fence enclosing a few graves.

They strolled along companionably, not talking much, winding through the old graves and monuments, looking at the statuary that marked them, pausing now and then to read an inscription. Some were so old and covered with lichen that they were almost impossible to read. Some were poignant, even heartbreaking, such as a cherub watching over the tiny grave of a child, while others provided wry commentary on life or death.

Constance felt easy and comfortable with Dominic. They talked about the graves and the occupants whose names he recognized. They talked about the church, the village, about Redfields itself. He asked about her parents, and she found herself telling him about her mother, whose death and life she could not remember, and about the father who had raised her, the bond they had shared.

“You sound as if you loved him very much,” he commented.

“Yes. I miss him still. We spent many hours together, talking or reading. I know the vicar’s wife often despaired of him. She felt he ought to have made more of a push to get me settled in life. I heard her once scold him for being selfish. But he could not know that if he delayed a year or two taking me to London for a Season, he would fall ill and be unable to do so. And once he fell ill, I could not have left him.”

“It must have been painful,” Leighton said sympathetically, taking her arm to help her over a rough patch of ground.

She felt a small thrill at his touch, her heart picking up its beat. His gesture was nothing more than polite, yet still it affected her. Constance glanced up at him, wondering if he, too, had felt anything. It was impossible to tell. There was warmth in his eyes, but she could not be sure what that meant about his feelings for her.

“Still,” he went on, releasing her arm and looking back in front of him, “it must be a wonderful thing to have that sort of bond with your father.”

“You and your father are not close?” Constance asked carefully. She had yet to see Dominic talking with the Earl since she had been at Redfields, and it was clear from what he had said that he was unfamiliar with such closeness himself.

He shook his head, a wry smile quirking up the corner of his mouth. “No, we are not close. That would be a…tactful way to describe it.”

They reached a plot marked off from the others by a low stone wall. Carefully tended, it was centered by a large stone vault resembling a miniature Parthenon. Across the top, carvings of angels flanked a coat of arms in the middle. Below the coat of arms was carved the name FitzAlan. Around the central mausoleum were other graves, each with its marble marker.

“The family plot,” Leighton told her as they strolled around the low wall bordering it. “The lesser-known members, as well as the more recent ones. We seem to be concerned about not being remembered.”

Constance followed him, reading the names and dates on the markers. Dominic stopped at the rear of the plot and stood for a moment, gazing down at one of the graves. For the first time since Constance had known him, his face was somber, his blue eyes dark with sorrow.

She looked at the name on the tombstone: Lady Ivy FitzAlan, Beloved Daughter. Lady Ivy had died twelve years earlier, in the cold of January, and Constance could see from the birth and death dates that she had been young, only sixteen years of age.

“She was my sister,” Dominic said in a soft voice. “The youngest of us.”

Instinctively, Constance took his hand in sympathy, covering it with her other hand. “I am so sorry. Were you close?”

“Not as close as I should have been,” he replied, his tone tinged with bitterness.

Constance glanced at him in some surprise, wondering what he meant. But she could not pry into something so private. She merely squeezed his hand gently. He glanced at her and smiled, returning the pressure of her hand.

“Thank you,” he murmured.

Voices carried across the cemetery, and they glanced toward the church. The other members of their party were wending their way through the gravestones. Muriel Rutherford, the long train of her riding habit looped up over her arm, was walking beside Mr. Willoughby, but she was looking all around the graveyard.

Constance had a fleeting impulse to duck behind the large mausoleum of the FitzAlan family so that Miss Rutherford would not see her, but she sternly suppressed the notion. She glanced up at Leighton and thought she saw the corner of his mouth twitch in irritation. Or was she merely imputing to him what she herself felt?

“I suppose we cannot escape any longer,” he told her, releasing her hand.

They strolled back toward the others. Muriel saw them, and Constance was quite certain it was irritation, or worse, that she saw cross that woman’s features. Her hand firmly around Mr. Willoughby’s arm, Muriel stalked toward them.

“Leighton,” she said as they grew closer. “Whatever are you doing pottering about here in the graveyard?”

Her gaze swept over Constance dismissively. She released Mr. Willoughby’s arm and moved over to stand beside Lord Leighton, linking her hand possessively through his arm. “You must have been desperate to escape the rector’s lecture to have allowed yourself to be dragged out here to look at your ancestors. Deadly dull, I should say. But then, I suppose the graves of important families are interesting to others.”

She cast a look down her nose at Constance. Her implication was clear: Constance was a person of lesser stature who would be awed by families such as the FitzAlans, though Muriel, of course, would not, being of the same group as Leighton. Constance’s hand tightened around the grip of her parasol, and she was aware of a great urge to whack it over the other woman’s head.

“But my family is, of course, not important to you, Miss Rutherford?” Leighton asked, his eyebrows raised and his voice faintly ironic.

“What?” Muriel looked surprised, then color bloomed in her cheeks, and Constance was pleased to see that she looked rather disconcerted. “Well, no, of course, I did not mean that I…”

She trailed off, searching for some way to salvage what she had said. Constance regarded her silently, not eager to step in and help the woman out. But after a moment the silence became too strained, and Constance gave in to her better nature.

“No doubt Miss Rutherford knows you and your family too well to be curious about them, my lord,” Constance offered. “It is those of us who are strangers who want to learn more about them.”