Читать книгу The Viscount's Runaway Wife - Laura Martin - Страница 13

Chapter Three

Oliver stood stiffly by the window, regarding the comings and goings of the street below as he waited for his wife. She was late, but that was hardly unexpected, probably trying to work out a way to swap identities with the maid and escape the house that way.

As the door opened Oliver felt his heart skip a beat in his chest. Gone was the worn, brown woollen dress, gone was the sensible bun and slightly grubby visage, and in their place the Viscountess he remembered.

‘Sorry to keep you waiting,’ Lucy said, her voice not containing even a hint of remorse.

Oliver had to suppress an unexpected smile. Nearly two years ago he’d asked his mother to find him a suitable bride. With his father and two older brothers dead from a particularly virulent fever, Oliver had unexpectedly inherited the title, land and responsibilities he’d never imagined would be his. Aware his career in the army wasn’t normal for a viscount, he’d realised he would need to start fathering some heirs just in case he, too, was taken from earth before his time. Too busy, and often a continent away, to search for himself, he’d asked his mother to make a list of suitable candidates. Lucy had been at the top. His mother had described her as respectable, docile and amiable. Looking at her now, he thought she might look respectable once again, but certainly not docile or amiable.

‘Shall we eat?’ Oliver asked, holding out his arm.

She hesitated before taking it, but eventually placed her gloved hand on his jacket.

As they walked through to the dining room, Oliver glanced at his estranged wife out of the corner of his eye. She’d always been pretty, in an unassuming way, but when they’d married she’d been young, only nineteen. The girl who’d walked down the aisle had blossomed into a beautiful young woman and Oliver was remembering why he had dreamed about her every night of their separation for the first few months.

‘We need to talk about the future,’ Lucy said quietly but firmly as she took a spoonful of soup.

‘And the past.’

‘Why dwell on it?’

He levelled her with a cool stare, only relenting when she hastily diverted her eyes and focused once again on the bowl in front of her.

‘We haven’t lived as husband and wife for a whole year. It seems silly to take up the pretence again.’

‘But we are married, so not living as husband and wife would be more unnatural,’ Oliver shot back.

‘I’m sure we’ve both moved on with our lives...’

‘I haven’t,’ Oliver said bluntly. ‘A year ago you left and an entire year I’ve been searching for you.’

This at least made Lucy look up and meet his eye. He kept his expression neutral, determined not to let his wife see just how much her abandonment had hurt him.

‘I’m sorry,’ Lucy said softly and this time Oliver could see she genuinely meant it.

They sat in silence for some minutes, waiting as the next course was served. Then Lucy pushed on.

‘What did you tell everyone about me?’ she asked, lifting her head to look him in the eye.

‘What do you think I said?’ he asked.

‘I thought perhaps you’d tell everyone I’d died in childbirth.’

‘That would have been too easy.’

She nodded. ‘So what does everyone think?’

He shrugged. ‘Most people don’t ask. They whisper in corners about my mysterious wife, wonder if I have you locked in a tower in deepest Sussex or if you are too mad or melancholic to be allowed out into society.’

‘And those that do ask?’

‘I tell them that you have been unwell.’

‘Even after all this time?’

Oliver fixed her with a stony stare. ‘I knew I would find you, Lucy, even if it took ten years.’

Her cheeks flushed and she looked hurriedly away.

‘We could...’ She paused as if summoning up the courage to continue. ‘We could get divorced.’

Trying to suppress the snort of laughter, Oliver grimaced. ‘Why would we want to do that?’

Divorce was uncommon and scandalous, requiring the husband to make an application to Parliament and for a private act to be passed. It was extremely costly and, if Oliver wasn’t very much mistaken, required the husband to prove his wife had been adulterous. He’d only known one person to get divorced in his entire life and the woman’s reputation had been completely ruined by the ensuing scandal. The gentleman in question had been left free to remarry, but Oliver had often wondered if the palaver had been worthwhile for the man.

‘I know it is unheard of and damages reputations, but it is possible. It would allow you to remarry, get on with your life, start afresh.’

‘I don’t need to remarry. I already have a wife, Lucy.’ He said it sternly.

‘You truly mean for us to pick up where we left off a year ago.’

He nodded gravely. ‘It will take time. I’m aware of that. The trust between us has been broken and it will need to be built up again, but I am willing to put in the work.’

‘And what about me?’ Lucy asked quietly.

‘I’m not a monster, Lucy,’ Oliver said. ‘It won’t be that terrible living with me as your husband.’

‘I didn’t mean...’ She rallied. ‘I have a life, responsibilities.’

‘Ah, your Foundation.’

‘It’s important to me.’ She bristled.

‘Then I’m sure we can find some acceptable compromise.’

‘I don’t want a compromise,’ she muttered, but Oliver chose to pretend he hadn’t heard the mutinous comment.

‘We are married, Lucy, and we shall be until one of us dies. It is best you accept things are going to change.’ The words sounded harsh even to his own ears, but he wasn’t about to pander to the whims of a woman who’d abandoned him a year ago and prevented him from ever knowing his firstborn son. ‘I am your husband and you are my wife. That’s the end of it.’

She studied him for over a minute in silence and Oliver could see his quiet perseverance was getting his point across. They were married, no matter how they felt about one another, and he didn’t want to hear any more ridiculous suggestions about divorce or separation. He didn’t plan on letting Lucy slip away, even if the next few weeks of adjustment were awkward and uncomfortable.

* * *

Lucy’s eyes narrowed. It was hard to tell exactly what her husband was thinking. He always spoke in that same calm, infuriating voice, his words carefully considered and chosen. She had to admit she felt a little suspicious. An entire year she’d kept him in the dark as to her whereabouts, her safety, and now he was talking about compromise. Although in the short time they’d spent together after their wedding he had always appeared courteous and kind, if a little distant, Lucy had expected something different when he’d manhandled her into the carriage bound for St James’s Square. Perhaps to be locked in a room and physically punished; perhaps to be denied her freedom to walk in the fresh air ever again. Instead he was suggesting they resume their roles as husband and wife, as if nothing much had happened in the intervening time.

‘We barely know each other,’ Lucy said quietly.

‘Luckily we are not alone among married couples of the ton—many of them have spent less time together than us.’

She knew it was true. Many marriages were made for reasons of money or titles, with the husband and wife meeting only on important occasions. Theirs had always been a marriage of convenience, allowing Lucy to escape from an overbearing family and Oliver to gain a wife to give him heirs.

She swallowed, trying to suppress the heat in her cheeks despite knowing it was an uncontrollable reaction to what she was about to ask. ‘What do you expect of me?’

His eyes met hers and she fancied she saw a flicker of amusement behind the serious façade. Surely he couldn’t be enjoying this.

‘I expect you to be my wife,’ he said, his voice low.

A shiver ran down her spine, not of fear or dread, but anticipation. In the month after their marriage they had been intimate a number of times, as was expected of a husband and wife. Far from the painful, awkward encounters her married friends had whispered about, Lucy had found to her embarrassment she looked forward to the nights Oliver had quietly knocked on her door and slipped into her room.

‘We will attend functions together, entertain here and at our home in Sussex, you will oversee the household...’ he shrugged ‘...all the duties of a wife.’

Lucy felt the blush on her cheeks deepen. He wasn’t even thinking about intimacy in the bedroom. She lifted her eyes to find he was looking intently at her, not even the hint of a smile present on his lips.

‘And the Foundation?’ Lucy asked, forcing herself to focus on what was important.

‘You may visit, of course. Properly chaperoned.’

‘Visit?’

‘Yes, advise them on their books, play with the street children, whatever it is you do,’ Oliver said with a dismissive wave of his hand.

‘We keep dozens of families alive,’ Lucy said, the pitch of her voice rising. ‘Provide shelter and food and education to those who truly have nowhere else to turn.’

‘I’m sure they managed perfectly well before you became involved—they will survive if you take a step back now you have other responsibilities.’

‘I won’t do it,’ she said quietly.

‘Won’t do what?’

‘Attend your parties, organise your household. Not if I can’t continue with my work.’

Oliver sighed, rubbing his forehead with the fingertips of one hand as if he had a headache coming on.

‘There will be changes to both our lives, Lucy,’ he said quietly, his reasonable words and measured tone inflaming her spirit even further. ‘We shall have to compromise.’ Again he paused before pushing on, holding her gaze as he delivered his next words. ‘And if you can’t compromise, then I am your husband and you need to remember the obey part of your vows.’

She supposed she’d pushed too far, but his words inflamed her anger and reminded her why she’d stayed away for so long.

‘They need me,’ she said, forcing herself to be reasonable.

‘Then you will have to find a way to make them need you less.’ He held up his hands in a placating gesture as she pushed her chair away from the table. ‘Do not take offence, Lucy. All I mean is the kindest thing to do for any person or organisation is to make it more self-sufficient.’

Forcing herself to calm down, she settled back into her chair. He wasn’t saying she couldn’t go, not exactly, although it was clear he meant for her to step back from her responsibilities at the Foundation and focus more on those at home. She probably should be thankful. She’d feared he might keep her under lock and key to ensure she didn’t disappear again. Perhaps he would send a footman to accompany her for the first few days, but once he realised she wasn’t going to run away she doubted her husband would interfere too much in her life. After all, he had his own life to lead. Just over a year they’d been separated; surely he would have built his own life for himself in that time. Friends, a mistress, regular social engagements. He wouldn’t want to disrupt his routine too much either, she was sure of it.

Pausing for a second, Lucy glanced again at the composed profile of her husband. Surely he had moved on, built a life for himself. He’d told her he’d been searching for her this entire time, but she wasn’t quite sure she believed that. It wasn’t as though theirs had been a union of love. They’d barely known one another, not enough to inspire that sort of devotion.

‘That’s settled, then,’ Oliver said, laying down his cutlery. ‘I shall arrange for you to have a schedule of our social engagements over the coming weeks and mark in a few suitable dates for you to visit the dressmakers. I brought some of your clothes from Sussex, but it is by no means a full wardrobe.’ He paused and Lucy wondered what it must be like to have such an ordered way of thinking. ‘We shall refuse all visitors this first week and I shall reintroduce you to society at the Hickams’ ball next week.’

Involuntarily Lucy’s hand rose to her throat, rubbing the skin of her neck as she tried to control the urge to flee.

‘After that, I expect acquaintances will be very curious—we may be inundated with well-wishers for quite a while—but I shall leave it up to you to decide how to deal with them.’ He waved his hand dismissively as if not wanting to be concerned with the minutiae of running a household and maintaining a social calendar.

Lucy didn’t plan to be at home to visitors; she had much more pressing things to occupy her time than to sit sipping tea with nosy old women.

‘At the end of the Season we shall host our own ball, to confirm to the world you are back for good.’

All she could do was nod.

‘Good,’ Oliver said, as if he had just concluded a business meeting.

They ate dessert in silence, the clinking of the spoons heightening Lucy’s feeling of confinement. She wanted to be loose on the streets, free to go wherever she desired, not trapped here with a man who seemed determined to carve her into the perfect society wife.

Oliver stood as Lucy finished eating, offering his arm and escorting her to the hallway.

‘I am going to retire for the night,’ he said softly.

With a sharp inhale Lucy glanced up at her husband, wondering if he was suggesting she joined him, but there was nothing but his usual, unreadable expression on his face.

‘I hope you sleep well,’ he said. ‘Don’t leave in the night.’ It was a command more than a request, but Lucy found herself nodding none the less.

He turned and made his way quickly up the stairs, leaving her to stare after him in the flickering candlelight.