Читать книгу Regency Society - Хелен Диксон, Ann Lethbridge, Хелен Диксон - Страница 77

Emily waited until she was sure that her husband was well on his way before moving from the doorway. As it was, she hoped he had not known that she watched him climb into the carriage to make sure he got to it safely. He was not a child. He did not need her help. And it would hurt him even more if she showed a final lack of confidence.

There was some relief in knowing that she had had her trunks moved to the bedroom of this apartment. At least she would not be forced to creep back to the Eston town house and risk revealing to her brother David the depths of her foolishness.

But she felt she must share some small part of the truth with someone if she was to keep from going mad. So she signalled the footman who had just helped Adrian out the door that she wished to speak with Mr Hendricks, and to go with haste to the rooms to retrieve him, before Lord Folbroke had returned to them.

Then she went to her bedchamber and summoned her maid, requesting that all evidence of her tryst with Adrian be removed from the sitting room and that she be dressed in a way more appropriate for a visitor.

But a part of her, newly awake and alive, did not want to dress. It wanted to recline upon the bed and revel in the touch of silk on skin, and the memory of her husband’s hands on her body.

This had been both the best and the worst night of her life. For most of it, he had been everything she had imagined he could be. Gentle one moment, forceful the next. But ever aware of her needs, eager to please her before he took pleasure.

And the pleasure he had given … She hugged her arms close to her body, feeling the silk shift over her aching breasts. Lord have mercy upon her, she still wanted him. Her skin was hot from his touches, and her body cried out that she had been a fool to let pride stand in the way of a more complete union between them.

Until he had produced his little sheath, she had all but forgotten how his neglect had hurt her, or how far she was from forgiving him. She had not thought further than the immediate need for intimate contact with his body, unhindered passion, and for even the smallest possibility that she might bear his child.

That was what she had come here for, after all.

And once the idea had planted itself in her mind, it had grown there, not unlike the baby she was seeking. If she could not have Adrian, then perhaps she could have some small part of him to raise and to love.

But now it appeared that this had been the precise reason he had left her. In his present state of mind, even if he went back to Derbyshire for a time to appease his cousin, he would refuse to touch her. He would die recklessly as his father had and leave her alone, just as she feared.

Even pretending that she was not his wife—it had not been as she had expected. She’d imagined the separation to be a personal thing. He was avoiding her in particular, but giving himself with abandon, body and soul, to any other woman that struck his fancy. In anonymity, she might have some share in what others had received from him. But it seemed the act was only a gratification of a physical urge, and that there had never been trust from his side at all. He kept himself apart both from her and any other woman he might lie with.

A footman tapped upon her door to signal that Hendricks awaited her in the sitting room. Her maid, Hannah, gave a final tug upon the sash to her dress and pronounced her respectable, and she went to greet the secretary. But entering the sitting room brought on a flood of embarrassing memories and she hurried to take a seat upon the couch before the fire, gesturing him to a chair opposite.

‘My lady?’ From the way he looked at her, she wondered if some clue remained in the room or about her person that might indicate what had gone little more than an hour before. He watched her too closely as she entered, lingering on her dress, her body and her face in a way that was most inappropriate.

‘You wish to know what occurred, I suppose?’ she said, trying not to let her failure be too obvious.

‘Of course not.’ The poor man must have realised that he had been staring. He looked away quickly and then went quite pink, probably afraid that he had been dragged out of bed to receive some all-too-personal revelation on her part.

‘You have nothing to fear.’ Emily scowled back at him. ‘The evening was without incident.’

‘Without …’ He looked back at her and pushed his spectacles up the bridge of his nose as he sometimes did when surprised. But behind the lenses, his eyes narrowed as though he doubted her word.

‘Well, very nearly,’ she said, trying to find an appropriate way to explain. ‘The situation is much more complicated than I feared. When I came to London, I had assumed for years that Adrian had a distaste of me, and that that was why he abandoned me in the country. Since I knew he did not like me, I thought there was little future for us, beyond the arrangement we have come to. One cannot change one’s nature, after all.

‘But our estrangement is not about me at all. He avoids me because he actively seeks to die without issue. He thinks by doing so, and letting Rupert take the title, that he can stamp out the weakness in his family … which is utter nonsense. But it means that I am the last woman in the world he wishes to know.’

‘But his idea is not without merit,’ Hendricks said sensibly. ‘It is logical that he would want a healthy heir, and to believe that his own child might share his problems.’

She glared at him. ‘I do not care to hear about the logic. I am sure, if we get out the family history and examine it, we will see some of the earls from this very line lived long and successful lives, fully sighted to their last day. As have many of the second sons and daughters. And it is quite possible, if we examine Rupert’s branch of the family, that we will find similar problems with blindness there. His own father was nearly sightless upon death, was he not?’

Hendricks nodded. ‘But nothing was made of it, because he was not Folbroke.’

‘Then Adrian’s plans are quite—Lord forgive me the expression—short sighted. It is only a medical anomaly that has caused the weakness in the last three earls, and not some dire curse upon the heir to Folbroke.’

‘The line would need new blood entirely to solve the problem,’ Hendricks admitted.

‘How democratic,’ she said drily. ‘Next you will suggest that I be bred like a mare to someone healthy, for the good of the succession.’ She shuddered in revulsion. ‘I believe I should have some choice in the matter. And like it or not, I choose the husband I already have. Perhaps Adrian thinks our marriage was forced upon him. But from the first moment I can remember, I have wanted no other man, nor is that likely to change now that I have seen his situation.’ She sat up straight and reached into a pocket for a handkerchief to wipe away the mote that was making her eyes tear. ‘We do not always want the person who is best for us, I am afraid.’

‘The poets never claim that the path of true love is an easy one,’ Hendricks added in a dejected tone.

‘No poetry was necessary to prove that for myself tonight.’

‘Then you told him who you were?’

‘I most certainly did not,’ she said, and was annoyed to notice the hole in her own logic. Her current understanding of her husband did not negate her previous one. While he had been most attentive to her when he thought her a stranger, he had not mentioned his feelings for his wife at all. ‘Things were difficult enough, without bringing my identity into the conversation. If he’d known I was his wife, we’d have …’ she shrugged, embarrassed ‘… we’d have got much less close to the thing he was avoiding than we already have.’

Hendricks was looking at her with a kind of horrified curiosity. She had spoken too much, she was sure. With a hurried wave of her hand, as though she could wipe the words from the air, she said, ‘I am sure, if I’d told him who I was, he’d have been quite angry at being tricked. It would be better, I think, to wait until I can find some other way to explain. And a time when he is in an exceptionally good mood.’ And let Hendricks wonder as much as he liked what might cause an improvement in her husband’s disposition.

She went on. ‘But tonight, he left angry. And it was my fault. We argued over … something. And when I turned him out, I had forgotten that he could not see to find his own way to the door. To see him standing there, proud, and yet helpless?’ And now, when she raised her handkerchief, she could not deny that it was to wipe away a tear. ‘He needs me.’

‘That he does, my lady.’ Hendricks seemed to relax in his seat, like a man who had found a patch of solid ground after getting lost in a bog.

‘I need you to deliver another letter to him, similar to the one you did this morning. Lord knows if he will welcome it, for I am sure he is very cross after the way I behaved tonight. But I mean to try again, tomorrow night, to gain his trust.’

When Adrian awoke the next morning, the lack of headache made the feelings of regret more sharp. He had come back to his rooms, ready to rave at Hendricks about the vagaries of the female mind. But the man, who seemed to have no life at all outside of his work, had chosen that evening to be away from the house.

And then he’d thought to find a bottle and a more sensible woman. Liquor would lift his spirits and a whore would not refuse the predilections of any man with the money to buy her time. In fact, the ladies of that profession were often somewhat relieved that a client would take the time to protect himself.

But a gentlewoman would have no such understanding. To her it was a grave insult to even mention such a thing. To imply that she was not clean enough, and to do it to a woman that had already felt the sting of rejection?

Any frustration that he felt after tonight was his own fault. And his own discomfort was probably a deserved punishment for leading the woman to believe he was worthy of her, and then leaving her disappointed and insulted. In the end, he had called for a single glass of brandy and taken it with him to his own large and empty bed.

This morning, the rattle of the curtains came as usual, but the daylight following it seemed more of a gradual glow than a rush of fire. ‘Hendricks.’

‘Yes, my lord.’

‘It is still morning, is it not?’

‘Half past ten. You retired early.’

‘Earlier than you, it seems.’

‘Yes, my lord.’ His secretary showed no interest in sharing his activities of the previous evening, and Adrian regretted the loss of the easy camaraderie they’d shared while fighting together in Portugal. At one time, they’d have gone out together, or shared the stories of their exploits over breakfast the next morning.

‘Lady Folbroke required my services.’

And that was the true reason for the breach, more than their inequality of rank, or his growing helplessness. And for a moment, Adrian wondered if there was a reason for the timing of the visit. When better to go to her, than when one could be sure that her husband would be occupied elsewhere? ‘She is well, I trust.’

‘When I left her, yes.’

Did that imply that she was the better for Hendricks’s company? They would make a handsome couple, similar in colouring and disposition, taciturn but intelligent. And yet the idea disturbed him, and he rushed to replace the image of them together that formed in his mind. ‘I congratulate you on your success. Would that my own evening had gone as well. It seems I am no longer fit company for a lady, for I could not manage a few hours in the presence of one without offering insult.’

Hendricks requested no details, nor did he offer to correct any misconceptions about his own activities. Adrian heard the nervous rattling of the morning paper against the post. ‘Do you wish me to read the news, my lord? Or shall I begin with the mail?’

‘The mail, I think.’ If he did not intend to attend Parliament when it was in session, then hearing the news of the day only made him feel helpless.

‘There is only one letter here. And it is similar to the one you received yesterday.’

‘Similar in what way?’ He doubted it would be in content, after the way they had parted.

‘In handwriting, and lack of a return direction. The wax is the same, but unmarked. I have not opened it.’ Hendricks gave a delicate pause. ‘I thought it better to wait upon your instructions.’

The embarrassment from last evening was still fresh, and a part of him wanted to throw the missive in the fire, unread. What would she have sent, so soon after parting from him? An angry diatribe? A curt dismissal? Florid words of love or a description of their activities on the couch were unlikely. But they would be particularly awkward today, delivered in Hendricks’s pleasant baritone as Adrian tried not to imagine the man doing similar things with his Emily.

He steeled his nerves and said, as casually as possible, ‘Best read it, I suppose, for the sake of curiosity if nothing else.’

There was a crackling of paper as the wax seal was released, and Hendricks unfolded the note.

‘I am sorry. If you would accept this apology, return tonight.’

So even after last night, she still wanted to see him. He felt both relief and shame that she should think she was the one who needed to apologise—and damned lucky that he would have a chance to set her straight.

But was it worth the risk of another rejection? If she meant to toy with him, then so be it. Even after the disasters of the previous two nights, he felt a singing in his blood at the thought that he might kiss her again, and that she might let him take more liberties than he had as yet achieved.

He grinned up at his secretary, who said benignly, ‘Will there be a reply?’

The things he wished to say to her came and passed in a rush, as he realised that they would need to be filtered through poor Hendricks, who would be feeling as uncomfortable as he. He had never before forced the man into a position of writing a billet-doux, nor would he today. ‘Normally, I would wish to send something immediately. But she has given no address. And after several hours in her company, I still have no idea what to call her, for she would not even give me her first name. If she wishes to shroud herself in mystery, I have no objection. But for punishment, she may wait in ignorance of my feelings until I see her tonight.’