Susan Carroll by Masquerade Page B

wedding
night, Phaedra had wondered how she could contain herself much
longer if Ewan did not hasten to her side. It was then that she had
first noticed the dove-colored cloak. With a shriek of feminine
joy, she had bounded out of bed, snatching up the garment. Then the
door to the bedchamber had crashed open and Ewan had staggered
inside. She had turned to him, glowing with pleasure.
    "Oh, my love. What a splendid wedding gift. I
thank you, oh, a hundred times."
    But instead of the urbane smile she had come
to expect, Ewan flashed her a look of anger and hatred. He yanked
the cloak from her hands, nearly spinning her off-balance.
    "Don't you ever touch this again," he had
slurred. He reeked of whiskey. Phaedra shrank back, the smile
withering upon her lips. "I-I am most dreadfully sorry. I thought
it was meant for me."
    "You?" He gave a vicious bark of laughter.
"This little cloak for a great horse like you?" He shoved the
fabric in her face, and she stepped back, wincing.
    "Then whose is it?" she had whispered.
    "This, my little Irish bitch, belonged to the
woman I loved."
    Hugging the cloak as if he embraced a lover,
Ewan wove his way across the room. He attempted to seat himself in
the wing-backed chair, missed, and sank into a heap by the
fire.
    Phaedra had tried to reach out to him, but he
waved her away, shaking his fist. "You stay away from me. Don't
want you. Never did." He buried his face in the cloak. "Oh, Anne,
my lovely Anne."
    Phaedra's hand fell limp to her side. She
quavered. "Is she your mistress?"
    Ewan had raised his head long enough to roar
at her. "No! She would have been my wife! My true wife!" His voice
grew thick with weeping and his entire frame shook with sobs.
Numbly, Phaedra had retreated to her own bedchamber, but the heavy
oak door could not block out the sound of his dreadful sobs, which
continued far into the night. It was then that Phaedra had fled to
the top of the house and found the abandoned attic chamber that
would become her retreat-a place to shed quiet tears of her own for
a love lost, for a love that she had never truly had.
    The memory of that night faded as Phaedra
folded up the cloak her husband had wept over so long ago. She had
never asked Ewan what had become of his Anne, whether the woman had
died or married someone else. The manner in which Ewan had
cherished that cloak had told Phaedra all she cared to know. She
could see now what a fool she had been, becoming infatuated by a
handsome face. How many times had she met Ewan before their wedding
day? Perhaps thrice. She had been nothing but a pawn, caught
between two ruthless men: her ambitious grandfather, who wished to
marry a member of his family into the nobility, and Ewan Grantham,
in need of Weylin's money to settle his debts. Never, Phaedra
vowed, would she permit herself to be so used again.
    She resolutely put the garment from her. She
had had to endure Ewan's keeping the cloak about, but now that he
was dead, she was not going to be haunted by it anymore. She
regarded the fireplace grate, longing for the courage to stuff the
cloak in and watch it burn to ashes. After all these years, the
dove-colored wool still seemed to exercise a spell upon her. But,
at least, she would have it boxed up, sent someplace where she
never had to lay eyes upon it again.
    Stuffing Anne's cloak under her arm, she
retreated down the stairs to the hall below, directing her steps
toward that wing of Sawyer Weylin's mansion that she had shared
with her late husband. The carpeted floors seemed unnaturally quiet
now without the constant stream of tradesmen, barbers, and other
servants who had ceaselessly attended upon Ewan's demands.
    Although Sawyer Weylin was generous about
paying Grantham's debts, there had been conditions attached. The
one that had irked Ewan the most was her grandfather's' insistence
that the newlywed couple live under his roof, where Sawyer could
maintain control over her spendthrift husband. Too weak to defy the
old man,