Читать книгу Regency Surrender: Passion And Rebellion - Энни Берроуз, Louise Allen - Страница 24

Chapter Fourteen

‘Whatever has gone wrong? Has he been cruel to you?’

Mary shook her head. ‘No. He has been very k-kind.’ How could she have forgotten the way he’d gone to fetch coal during the night, shirtless, just so she wouldn’t get cold? Or the way he’d praised her cooking? And told her she was an angel for putting up with his failings?

‘And g-generous,’ she wailed, suddenly remembering he’d promised her free rein to decorate this house, to buy as many clothes as she liked and not worry about the bills because he’d pay them all.

‘Th-that’s why I f-fell in love with him,’ she sobbed into her aunt’s shoulder.

‘But...so...why have you left him then, if he is so wonderful? And you’ve fallen in love with him?’

‘Because he doesn’t love me,’ she wailed.

‘Of course he does. Why, I’ve never seen a man so smitten. He couldn’t wait to get you to the altar....’

‘It wasn’t because he fell in love with me. It was because he was so sure he wouldn’t! He only wanted to marry me so quickly because of...because of...’

‘What do you mean, sure he wouldn’t?’

‘He wanted a certain sort of wife. A woman who wouldn’t give him a m-moment’s bother. He warned me not to expect affection from marriage. I’m the one who changed my mind about what marriage means to me. I’m the only one who wants more.’

‘Well, if that is true, running away isn’t going to endear him to you,’ said her aunt tartly, though she was still patting Mary’s shoulder in a comforting sort of way. ‘If you don’t believe he can ever love you, you must surely want him to respect you, don’t you? It would have been far better to stay with him and show him what a wonderful wife you can be. That your love needn’t make him uncomfortable.’

‘I know!’ Mary sat up and scrubbed angrily at the tears she couldn’t check. ‘I know that now. Only for a while I completely lost my head. Said things and did things he will never, ever, forgive. I’ve ruined everything!’

While her aunt had been soaking up Mary’s tears, Lotty had poured her a cup of tea and now pressed it into her hands.

‘Here. Drink this. And we’ll help you come up with a plan to win him round.’

Well, if anyone could, Dotty and Lotty could. They were such adept flirts they could probably make a living giving lessons in it.

‘I’m so sorry,’ said Mary, wiping her eyes with the handkerchief Dotty gave her. ‘I can’t think why I’ve become such a watering pot. I’m not usually prone to tears.’

Aunt Pargetter sat bolt upright.

‘Is it possible you are increasing?’

‘What?’

‘Well, every time I have been in the family way, I became a touch unstable. And this sort of behaviour is most unlike you. I always took you for a very sensible, down-to-earth sort of girl.’

‘Increasing...’ Mary laid her hand flat on her stomach, and did a few sums. ‘It...it might be the case. I haven’t...’

Aunt Pargetter nodded sagely. ‘Well, then. That is a sure way to win him round. Every time I got in the family way Leonard was so pleased with me he couldn’t do enough for me. You have only to write and tell your own husband and I’m sure he will come post-haste to your side.’

‘No.’ A cold, sick feeling knotted Mary’s stomach. ‘No, that really would be the end. We agreed, you see, that once I was expecting, he would no longer need to...need to—’ She broke off, blushing fierily. ‘He said that as soon as I gave him an heir, we could go our separate ways.’ She buried her face in her hands. ‘If I am increasing, he won’t think there’s any need to see me again. I’ll never get him back.’

‘Well, then, don’t tell him.’

Mary’s head flew up. ‘But I promised him an heir. Wouldn’t it be dishonest to keep him in the dark about something he finds so important?’

‘Pish,’ said her aunt, making a dismissive gesture with her hand. ‘The man clearly needs to be brought to his senses. And you’re not going to be able to do it unless you can get him here. Unless you would rather go crawling back to him and beg him to love you?’

Since she’d already vowed never to do such a craven, spineless thing, Mary shook her head vehemently.

‘I thought not. But anyway, it won’t be exactly dishonest. It is far too soon for you to be absolutely sure you are increasing. I know I detected more than a hint of uncertainty in your voice when I brought it up.’

‘Yes. I mean, no. I’m not sure...’ Although it was far too early to tell, now that her aunt had mentioned it, it did explain her tendency to weep and her ungovernable bursts of temper. And why she’d been feeling alternately nauseous, or ravenous. And it was better than going on believing she’d become physically ill simply because she’d fallen in love and had no hope of her feelings being returned.

Besides, there was the matter of a missing monthly flow. And her husband had been so very amorous, at least to start with. Hadn’t she always thought how very virile he was? Yes—it must be true. She was going to have a baby.

‘He sets great store by getting an heir, you say?’

Blushing hotly, Mary nodded her head. Then she glanced at Lotty and Dotty, wondering how much she could confide in her aunt, with them listening. Both of them were staring at her, wide-eyed, with a mixture of concern and curiosity.

‘He said that he wanted to get me with child as soon as he possibly could,’ she admitted.

‘Then it’s likely, if you keep him in the dark about your suspicions, that he will have a good excuse to come to town and keep trying.’

Mary shifted uncomfortably in her seat.

‘I can’t... It must seem odd, but somehow I can’t bear the thought of him steeling himself to visit my bed....’

Her cousins giggled.

‘Mary. You are such an innocent.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Hush, girls,’ said her aunt repressively. Then turned to Mary. ‘I do not think it is his feelings about the act that trouble you, but your own. Now that you have fallen in love with him, you shrink from permitting an act that has probably up till recently been only carnal in nature.’

The words struck to her very core. She hadn’t been in love with him that first night, had she? When she’d been so hot for him she’d practically ripped off his shirt.

‘You are right. I want more than just...enjoyment. Is that very selfish of me?’

‘Not in the least. I think most women want much more from their husbands than they ever receive, in emotional terms. Men are just not given to deep feelings.’

‘Then what am I to do? How can I learn to settle for...for the little he is prepared to give?’

Her aunt patted her hand. ‘Perhaps coming to London without him was the best thing you could have done. If he wants a calm, sensible sort of wife, then you can give yourself the time to calm down. And when he does come after you, which believe me, my dear, he will do, then you must show him you can be sensible. Be the kind of wife he wants. And you will regain the respect you believe you have forfeited.’

Mary twisted the handkerchief between her fingers. What Aunt Pargetter was saying was only what she’d thought herself. And what’s more, she did know exactly the sort of wife he wanted. He’d written it all down on that list.

At least, he’d written what he thought he wanted. She’d soon discovered he didn’t really want a modest wife. He enjoyed her eager response to his inventiveness.

The delicate handkerchief ripped.

She could tie herself in knots trying to conform to the things he said he wanted and be totally wasting her time. And anyway, she couldn’t—no, actually, she simply wouldn’t try to be something she was not, just to keep him sweet. She’d watched her mother do that and look where it had got her!

‘No,’ she said firmly. ‘I am not going to start plotting and planning, and embarking on a campaign to alter the terms of our marriage. After all, I agreed to all those terms, didn’t I? I told him I wanted a practical, loveless marriage. It’s not his fault I went and fell in love with him, is it?’

‘I don’t see how you could have helped it,’ said Dotty. ‘He’s remarkably handsome and was so attentive to you.’

‘And at a time when you must have felt so alone,’ added Lotty.

‘Yes,’ said Dotty indignantly. ‘He practically pounced on you when you were at your most vulnerable.’

Like a predator with a mouse.

But she wasn’t a mouse.

It was heartening to have the girls blame him for everything, the way she’d been doing up till now. But was it fair to say he was a predator and she’d been his victim? Was it even true? She’d just told her aunt she’d agreed to marry him for practical reasons. And at the time, she had seen it as a way to help her aunt and cousins. To help Julia. But had she just used that as an excuse to get close to him? To belong to him?

Oh, lord, she thought, perhaps she had. That was why she’d been so devastated when she’d discovered and read that list. He’d already told her he didn’t want a woman who would be looking for affection within marriage. But it hadn’t really struck home until she’d read it in black and white.

She’d married him under false pretences. Oh, perhaps not deliberately. And she’d been deceiving herself more than him.

‘It’s not his fault,’ she said with resolution. ‘I cannot blame him for being what he is. And sticking to the terms we agreed. I shall...I shall just have to pull myself together.’

‘We’ll help you,’ vowed Dotty.

‘Yes. We’ll keep you so busy you won’t have time to mope over the stupid man.’

And every day she would grow more accustomed to her lot. She would.

‘It looks as though there’s enough for you to do in this house to keep you occupied until well after the baby arrives,’ added her aunt. ‘You did say, in your letter, you needed the names of reliable plumbers, and plasterers, and painters, and upholsterers, didn’t you?’

‘Yes,’ said Mary. She was also going to need the name of a doctor she could trust. And a midwife. And she’d certainly have to buy all those clothes she’d used as an excuse to come up to London without him, or she really would look pathetic.

‘Do you know which modiste the most fashionable, wealthiest ladies of the ton patronise? If I’m going to live apart from my husband, there’s no sense in looking as though I mind.’

‘That’s the spirit,’ said her aunt with a smile. ‘Spend his money making yourself all the rage and he’ll soon sit up and take notice.’

Would he?

Well, whether he did, or didn’t, she was going to get on with her life. She was going to start by making Durant House into a comfortable home for herself and her baby. And she had the confidence she could do it, too, with her family, to wit, these women in the room with her right now, on her side.

Yes. By the time Julia was ready to make her come-out, she would have transformed this place.

She didn’t know what had come over her at Mayfield. She didn’t know why she’d got so low she even thought she had nothing to offer Julia. She had something very wonderful to offer Julia. An introduction to these three women. Her warm, witty and wise aunt Pargetter and her bubbly, generous-natured cousins. They might not be out of the top drawer like Lady Peverell, but they had something that lady lacked. They would never look down their noses at Julia and would accept her just as she was, the way they’d accepted Mary. They’d make friends with her. Go shopping with her. Giggle with her over her conquests and give her tons of practical advice about how to charm men.

Not only would she make Durant House the envy of every other society lady, but she was going to ensure that Julia enjoyed every moment of her first Season.

And only married for love.

* * *

Lord Havelock handed his horse over to a young groom he didn’t recognise, wondering where Gilbey had got to. He would have felt better if he could have had a few words with him before he went inside. Found out how Mary was, in a casual sort of manner, without making it obvious he was at his wit’s end.

He glowered up at the gloomy façade of Durant House as he strode across the stable yard to one of the rear doors. He’d sworn he’d never spend another night under its roof, but what else was he to do? Mary was here.

And he couldn’t stay away from her another moment. He’d got to the stage where he’d rather have her rant and rage at him, or even skewer him right through the heart with a hatpin, than spend one more dreary day without the chance of getting so much as a glimpse of her. Or endure one more restless night, reaching out for her after finally succeeding in dozing off, only to jerk wide awake on finding the space at his side cold and empty.

He paused, with his hand on the door latch. He had no more idea now what to say to her, how he could make things right with her, than he’d had the first minute after he’d read her farewell note. He hadn’t come here with a firm plan, but...

Hell, when had he ever made plans? Only the once. And look how that had turned out.

With a sense of impending doom, he pushed open the door and went in.

The corridor was deserted, but he could hear some sort of activity going on towards the front of the house. A strange clattering, rattling sound, interspersed with what sounded like shouts of encouragement. And the smell of paint hung in the air.

No matter what she thought of him, Mary was obviously keeping her word about doing up Durant House. The noises were probably that of workmen, doing something in the hall. It certainly needed it. There couldn’t be a gloomier entrance hall anywhere in town. What had his grandparents been thinking when they agreed to its design?

‘The deuce!’

The words escaped his lips involuntarily as he opened the door from the servants’ quarters and stepped into a space that he barely recognised.

It was the light that struck him first. He looked up, astonished to see there were so many windows.

But before he could register what other changes Mary had made, he saw two little boys go thundering up each of the lower staircases that rose to the gallery. When they got to their respective half landings, they flung themselves down on to what looked like little sleds.

‘Three,’ shouted a footman who was stationed at a midway point of the upper landing. ‘Two! One! Go!’

The boys launched themselves down their staircases with blood-curdling yells. Explaining what the odd clattering, rattling sound had been that he’d been able to hear from the stable yard.

Seconds after they landed on piles of what looked like bundled-up holland covers, money changed hands between his footman and a stranger in brown overalls. They’d clearly been taking bets on which boy would reach the ground first.

‘Strike me down, it’s ’is lordship,’ cried one of the boys—whose face looked vaguely familiar—struggling to free his legs from the swathes of material that had cushioned his landing. He rather thought it was Jem, although the pickpocket looked vastly different with a clean face and wearing the Durant livery.

He thought he recognised the other boy, too. He only had to imagine him coated in flour and he would swear it was the youngest Pargetter.

While he was eyeing the boys with something that felt very much like jealousy—because he’d never seen the grand staircases put to better use and only wished he’d thought of tea-tray races down them when he’d been their age—the footman sprang guiltily apart from the workman and came dashing forward, buttoning up his jacket.

‘May I take your hat, my lord?’ he said, red-faced and perspiring nervously. ‘Your coat?’

He handed them over.

‘Is my wife at home?’

‘Yes, my lord. In the ballroom.’

‘I will take you up myself, my lord,’ put in the butler, who just then came wheezing out of one of the reception rooms. He was swathed in an enormous sacking apron and had cobwebs in his hair. ‘I do apologise for not being here to admit you. I did not hear the door knocker over the noise....’

‘Didn’t use it, since I didn’t come in the front way,’ said Lord Havelock dryly. ‘And I think I can find the way to my own ballroom.’ Indeed, now that the boys weren’t making such a racket, he could hear the sound of piano music echoing down the stairs.

‘Will you be staying here?’ The butler regarded him anxiously.

What the devil was going on? Why shouldn’t he stay here?

‘Where the hell else would I stay?’

‘I beg your pardon, my lord. Only it is not usually your habit to... I mean, that is, not that I would question your movements. Only it won’t be easy to find a room that doesn’t have some kind of workman attending to it. As you can see...’ he waved his hand to encompass the workman in brown overalls ‘...her ladyship has us busy on various projects.’

He was damned if he would slink off, simply because it didn’t suit his wife to have him here.

‘Of course I am going to stay here. In the same room as my wife, if there really is nowhere else fit,’ he snapped.

Having staked his claim on his house, and his wife, he stepped over the holland covers and stalked up the stairs.

Only to come to a halt in the doorway to the ballroom. Or the rear half of the ballroom, anyway. Mary had left one section screened off by the huge double doors, which could be moved aside entirely to double the area of the dance floor.

There was an elderly woman he would swear he’d never seen before in his life sitting at the piano, playing a country dance tune with some gusto. Mary’s cousins were skipping up and down the room with two young men he’d also never seen before in his life. A stringy little man—no doubt a dance teacher—was shouting the figures as he capered alongside them to demonstrate how it should be done.

And Mary was sitting on a sofa, by a cheerfully crackling fire, the low table in front of her almost entirely hidden under mounds of various coloured materials, notebooks and charts. Her aunt Pargetter was sitting next to her. They had their heads bent over a length of stripy stuff, running it through their fingers and murmuring to each other.

The pain of her leaving was nothing compared to what struck him now. Here she was, cheerfully getting on with her life as though she hadn’t a care in the world. She didn’t need him. She wasn’t showing even the slightest sign of missing him. On the contrary, the atmosphere in here was positively festive.

Here he’d been, tying himself in knots trying to think how he could make it up to her, and she’d gone and got over him all by herself.

He must have made some sound, or movement, or something, because her head suddenly flew up and she saw him standing in the doorway.

For a moment her face lit up. She made as if to rise.

And the pain vanished. He wanted nothing more than to go to her, sweep her into his arms and tell her he couldn’t bear being apart from her one moment longer. But the room was full of people.

And anyway, her smile had faded now. She’d sat back in the seat, and lifted her chin.

‘This is a surprise,’ she flung at him.

‘Not you, as well,’ he growled, stalking across the room, snagging a chair on the way so he could sit down beside her. ‘I’ve already had Simmons complaining about me coming here without giving him fair warning.’ He sat down and folded his arms across his chest. ‘I don’t see why I should have to give an account of my movements to all and sundry.’

‘No. You wouldn’t,’ she responded tartly.

‘And what is that supposed to mean?’

‘Only that you don’t think about the work it takes to prepare a room, or order in extra food...’

‘You seem to have a house full of guests eating and drinking their heads off,’ he said, pointing to a table under the window that was littered with the remains of what looked like a substantial nuncheon. ‘One more isn’t going to make much difference. And as for preparing a room, what is wrong with us sharing? That won’t give the servants any extra work, will it, if that is what is bothering you?’

He’d barely coped with having her turn him away from her room at Mayfield, but he wasn’t going to let her think she could get away with coldly rebuffing him any longer. He hadn’t come all the way to London to...to...

Dammit—now he’d made her blush. He hadn’t meant to embarrass her. He’d meant to tell her he wanted to put an end to this nonsensical separation and try to find a way back to what they’d had those first few heady days of their marriage. But as usual, his temper had grabbed him by the throat and shaken out all the wrong words.

‘Girls!’ Mary’s aunt got to her feet and clapped her hands. ‘Come and pay your respects to his lordship.’

‘He’s here?’ The younger and more forward of the two whirled towards him, leaving her partner grasping for empty air after his own turn.

‘So soon?’ Lotty was making towards him as well, a huge smile on her face. ‘Why, that’s wonderful! Isn’t it, Mary?’

‘I...well, I... Yes, of course it is,’ she agreed, looking rather harassed.

His hackles rose. He’d seen girls in the throes of a conspiracy to manage their menfolk often enough to recognise something of the sort was in train.

‘What have you been plotting?’

‘Nothing,’ said Dotty with convincing indignation. At the same time as Lotty, unfortunately, admitted, ‘We were hoping you would throw a ball.’

‘And of course,’ put in the aunt smoothly, while Mary looked as if she wanted to slide under the heap of materials and vanish, ‘we could not even consider it while you were not here.’

‘Absolutely not,’ he said, wondering what they’d really been plotting. Mary couldn’t dissemble to save her life. And it was clear that this was the very first she’d heard anything about a ball.

The other girls pouted, however, and started to complain.

‘Oh, but surely you want everyone to meet your wife. Isn’t that what people do when they get married in your set? Throw parties, and such?’

‘Not until she’s made her curtsy in the Queen’s drawing room,’ he said firmly. And then inspiration struck him. She might not think she needed him, but there was one sure way he could make it seem perfectly natural for them to spend time together. Which would give him time to win her round. Somehow.

‘That’s one of the reasons I’ve come up to town,’ he said airily. ‘Need to see to Mary’s presentation. Besides, it’s not the thing for a wife to come up to town alone, you know. At least not the first time. I shall have to squire you about a bit, Mary,’ he said, turning to her fully, so that he could gauge her reaction. ‘Introduce you to the right sort of people and warn you off the wrong ’uns.’

‘I’m sure I never meant to be so much bother,’ she said in a flat, subdued little voice. ‘You don’t need to...squire me about.’

She couldn’t have made it plainer she didn’t want him here.

‘It’s no bother,’ he insisted icily. ‘It’s just one of those things I should have remembered I’d have to do when I took a wife.’

Her shoulders slumped still further.

‘Think I’ll take myself off to my club until dinner,’ he said, getting to feet that were itching to get out of here.

‘Will you be dining here?’

She had no need to look as though he’d threatened her with a visit to the dentist.

‘Of course I d—dashed well will!’ He wasn’t going to fall at the first hurdle. He’d just wait till he could get her alone, so that they could thrash things out properly. Get her to see sense.

Although, he reflected moodily as he left the ballroom, perhaps what he really needed was for her not to have so much. Sense, that is. For no sensible woman would give him what he wanted.

Not when she’d already agreed to something very different.