She quickly went into the next room and put on the nightgown. The silk was so fine it slid down her body. Tiny pleats gathered the scooped neck fully over her breasts while the wide sleeves gathered in ruffles at her wrists. She tiptoed back into the room, stomach tensing with anticipation. Jonathan had removed his waistcoat and tie and undone the top three buttons of his shirt. He lay on the bed, propped up on one elbow, but when he saw Aurelia he swung his legs over the edge of the bed and stood to face her. His eyes widened and he let out a long, low breath.
‘I was right to choose that colour. You look absolutely beautiful.’
Aurelia put her arms out wide and turned a slow circle, enjoying the thrill that came with displaying herself. Though it was loose, the silk clung to her legs and breasts with a sensuousness that made her pulse race. She stepped into Jonathan’s waiting arms, sliding her hands slowly up to his chest and resting her fingers on the first still-fastened button. He took her hand and kissed her wrist, then guided it back to his shirt. His own hands began to move slowly over her shoulders and down her back, fingers tracing her spine through the silk. She stopped undoing his buttons and moved closer to him, pressing her breasts against his chest and undulating.
‘Silk feels so nice,’ she murmured.
Jonathan scooped her up and carried her to the bed. She wrapped her arms around his neck to pull him down, but halfway he stiffened and pulled away. She felt his shoulders tense and tightened her grip, but he loosened her arms and stepped out of her embrace.
‘This feels wrong,’ he said. His face was solemn and he held himself awkwardly.
‘Wrong?’ Aurelia tugged at his shirt, but he resisted.
‘I could hurt you,’ he said.
‘No, you won’t,’ she said. ‘I feel much better now. Come lie with me. Nothing bad is going to happen.’
He walked to the door. Aurelia climbed from the bed and ran to him, unable to believe he really meant to leave.
‘I’ll leave you to sleep. Another night, perhaps.’
‘Stop!’
‘No. I can’t do this.’ He took her face in his hands and looked into her eyes. His expression was drawn. ‘I can’t let it happen again.’
‘Let what happen?’ Aurelia asked. But she knew the answer already and didn’t need him to confirm it. Another pregnancy resulting in a loss.
‘I can’t risk it. The thought that... The blood...’ He shuddered and pulled his hands away, clenching them into fists.
He left without another word and walked to his own room with his head bowed and without looking back.
* * *
St Valentine’s Day was a fortnight away. Usually a date that Aurelia laid no significance on, but now she was married and she wanted to mark the day. She had agonised over what to sew onto a card for Jonathan. Any reference to love would feel wrong. Even though she was finding that words slid into her mind at odd moments, she had to remind herself that Jonathan did not return the sentiment. He still did not come to her bed. She had opened her heart before and had no intention of letting another man hold that power over her. She settled in the end for sewing a card from scraps of silk that Edward gave her. Jonathan would receive his own product worked into a touching scene of two hands side by side on piano keys. The message would require more thought.
As soon as Jonathan had left the dining room, Aurelia took her coffee and moved to the window seat. She had discovered that it was the most pleasant place to do her needlework in the morning as the light was brightest there. The door opened once more and she hid her workbasket under the table. Jonathan had returned and held out a letter to Aurelia. He furrowed his brow as if he realised he had caught her in a covert act and she felt a flush of guilt, even though her secrecy was innocent.
‘This was just delivered to the door.’
She took it from his outstretched hand and recognised the handwriting.
‘It’s from Dora. How curious. I wonder why she’s writing to me when I will see her today? She could have brought it herself.’
Dora and Cassandra were coming for afternoon tea as they now did twice weekly. Another ritual that had developed at Jonathan’s suggestion and one Aurelia looked forward to.
She turned the envelope over. It was quite thick, suggesting multiple sheets were enclosed. She laid it to one side and smiled at Jonathan.
‘Aren’t you going to read it?’ Jonathan asked.
‘It can wait until I have finished my cup of coffee,’ Aurelia said. ‘I can’t imagine it is anything particularly urgent.’
It was probably yet another pamphlet that Dora had found arguing women should be allowed to train in the medical profession alongside men. Good luck to her if that was the case as Dora would have to convince their father to let her attend a university. That would be a harder task than persuading all the dons at Oxford.
Jonathan leaned over and kissed her cheek, then left. His cologne lingered in the air and Aurelia inhaled it, her insides fluttering.
* * *
When she had finished the morning’s work, she gathered all her scraps of silk and put them in her workbag, slipping the letter in with them. She had nothing to complain about. A husband who paid her attention, sisters who loved her and a full life. She should be grateful for what she had and not grumble about a lack of intimacy. Jonathan would come around eventually. If he wanted an heir, he would have to.
It was only when Aurelia had changed into her afternoon dress that she remembered the letter from Dora. She rummaged among her needles and thread and opened it. It was not a pamphlet at all, but sheets of paper which been ripped into four or five pieces, some of which were scorched around the edge. Dora had written a note in her sprawling careless script.
This came for you two days ago. Father tried to destroy it, but I thought you had a right to know of its existence.
Aurelia picked up the top piece. Her heart almost stopped beating and the heat drained from her body. Slowly she placed the fragments down and withdrew a trembling hand. It was little wonder Sir Robert had been determined to destroy this. And Dora had been right to try to save it for her.
Only half of the letterhead was there, but she would have recognised the family crest and handwriting of Arthur Carver, presumptive Seventh Baron Helsby, anywhere.
Aurelia’s first instinct was to finish what Sir Robert had started and destroy the letter without even reading it. There was nothing Arthur could say that would make up for what he had put her through. If she did that, however, she knew she would spend the rest of her days wondering what it had said and was not strong enough to live with that torture.
She knelt and spread the scraps of paper out on sofa, piecing together what she could. Dora had obviously not managed to salvage the whole thing as the start of the letter was almost intact, but segments were missing. Even so, it told her all she might want to know.
Aurelia read it three times, each time becoming more distressed.
My dearest Aurelia...
...no right to call you that, nor to address you in any terms at all, yet I find I cannot stop thinking of you as such. You are the dearest being...
...ine is dead. The illness which tormented her for so long finally...
...ffering is mercifully at an end. I am free, my dearest one...
...be yours. If there was any hope at all that you...is then a single word would make me the...
And that was where the letter ended. Aurelia clutched the pieces in her hand, screwing them tight.
‘How dare he?’ she exclaimed aloud.
Even without the entire letter, the meaning was clear. The woman Arthur had been secretly engaged to throughout his courtship of Aurelia had, according to him, been frail since childhood. Now Emmeline Carver had died a few short months after their marriage and Arthur thought Aurelia might be willing to overlook the grave deception he had carried out.
The
monstrousness of such an arrogant, unfeeling presumption made her want to retch. Tears welled in her eyes and she felt a rush of anger and revulsion, but underneath was a feeling that was even more unwelcome. Affection for Arthur.
She had loved him so deeply. She had fought with that love and had spent the time since her discovery of his deception working hard to make sure all her emotions towards Arthur were placed firmly inside a locked box where they could not hurt her. Now even the sight of his handwriting threatened to split the box open and let all emotions burst out uncontrollably. She felt giddy with sickness that she thought had abated. She stumbled through to her bedroom where she threw herself on to the bed, still clutching the pieces of Arthur’s letter to her chest. It was only then, as she lay on her bed, that something occurred to her.
Arthur had written to her at her father’s home. He did not know she was married. Aurelia buried her face in her pillows and moaned. Whether or not she could forgive Arthur, whether or not she could bring herself to believe the words he had sworn to her, whether or not she loved him, none of that mattered. She was married now and beyond his reach. Her last reserves of strength gave out and she lay there sobbing until Annie knocked at the door and announced Cassandra and Dora had arrived and were waiting in the parlour.
Aurelia quickly washed her face and checked her appearance. Her eyes were red and her face was puffy, but she decided it didn’t matter. Her sisters would understand why. She gathered the pieces of Arthur’s letter that had been salvaged and locked them in her writing desk along with her Greek dictionaries, then made her way downstairs.
‘You read the letter, didn’t you?’ Dora said upon taking one look at Aurelia.
Annie was still lingering at the bottom of the staircase. Aurelia shot a warning look in her direction. The maid must have been aware of the scandal that had almost enveloped her mistress, but Aurelia did not want her reminded of it now she was living in a house with other servants who knew nothing of it.
‘I didn’t know you had a piano,’ Cassandra said quickly.
Aurelia nodded, grateful for the change of subject. ‘Jonathan bought it for me as a Christmas gift.’
She had been presented with it when she had emerged from her convalescence, still grieving for the child she might have lost. Jonathan asked her to begin teaching him and night after night since her illness they sat side by side while Aurelia instructed her pupil and Jonathan painstakingly learned to play. It had been such a considerate gift and one of the ways they had grown closer.
‘I did read Arthur’s letter, but I wish I hadn’t,’ Aurelia admitted when the three women were settled in the parlour and alone.
‘Might you reply to him?’ Cassandra asked.
‘Do you think I would demean myself in such a way?’ Aurelia said sharply. The fact that she had considered it, if only for a moment, made the question even more intolerable. She was ashamed of herself.
‘But you and Arthur loved each other so deeply,’ Cassandra said. ‘You would have married him if he had been free and he loved you deeply enough to lie.’
Aurelia poured the tea out. Her hand shook terribly.
‘Let me do that,’ Dora said. Aurelia smiled gratefully. Dora was always sensible.
‘If Arthur had been honest about his circumstances from the start, I might have forgiven him,’ Aurelia said. ‘If he had told me when we met that he had been promised to Emmeline, but did not love his fiancée, I could have borne it. I would have pitied him. But instead he lied to me and did her a grave injustice. Why would I ever trust a man who could behave in such a way and how could I humiliate myself by allowing myself to love him once more?’
‘So you allow that you might love him?’ Cassandra said, a hint of victory in her voice. ‘Doesn’t love conquer all faults?’
Aurelia turned away. Only in stories. In real life it was better not to dwell on past happiness, but instead concentrate on the present.
‘I told Arthur I wanted nothing else to do with him and I meant it. Besides,’ Aurelia said, sitting back in her chair, ‘I am married now.’
Married to someone who doesn’t love you, her inner self whispered. Someone who can’t bring himself to touch you.
‘But what if you weren’t married?’ Cassandra asked. ‘You aren’t with child, are you? You could procure a divorce.’
Aurelia stared at her sister in horror. She didn’t know about the possible miscarriage on Christmas Day, so her insensitivity was excusable, but the morality was not.
‘You don’t love Mr Harcourt and you only married him because Father wanted you to,’ Cassandra continued. Aurelia looked at the cup in her hands. She couldn’t honestly agree with Cassandra’s verdict. Not the part about love.
‘What sort of woman do you think I am that I would consider breaking off my marriage under such a pretext?’ she said coldly. ‘I would be as bad as Arthur. Worse even, because he was not actually married when he began to court me.’
‘You could claim you were coerced,’ Dora supplied.
‘What is wrong with you both?’ Aurelia exclaimed. ‘Has something happened to make you lose all your scruples? I made vows to Mr Harcourt. My husband is a good man. He’s kind and generous. He works hard to make his business prosper and cares for his workers. What has he done to deserve such base treatment when he has been only good to me?’
Dora looked chastened. ‘Are you fond of him after all?’ she asked.
Aurelia took her time before answering. The frustrating state of affairs regarding the lack of lovemaking had continued, but while the intimacy Aurelia had enjoyed and desperately craved had vanished, it had been replaced by a different sort of intimacy and one that was equally enjoyable. As well as the piano lessons, the habit of reading aloud had continued and they sat together in front of the fire taking turns to read. The dark nights of January had passed in a rush and Aurelia’s mind had been kept too busy to dwell on her loss. She found herself waiting for Jonathan’s return home each evening with more and more eagerness, genuinely enjoying his company. Far from being the businesslike transaction she had agreed to, her marriage had become a friendship. And though it pained her to admit it, her own feelings had grown into something deeper.
Aurelia looked down at her hands. ‘I am fonder of him than I expected to be.’
She loved Jonathan. In admitting it to her sisters she finally admitted the depths of her feelings to herself. But what use was knowing that if Jonathan saw their marriage as a business arrangement? It was obvious that he enjoyed her company, even if his feelings stopped short of love, but since the horrible night when he had given her the beautiful silk nightdress, then run from her, he had not come to her bed. He would not—or could not—bring himself to make love to her. He had said he didn’t want to hurt her again. The fear of a repetition of the nightmare of Christmas was stopping him, but what if there was also a sense of revulsion brought on by what her body had done and what he had witnessed? He had talked about the blood with such horror.
What if Jonathan might prefer to take another wife who could give him what he needed? What if he regretted not pressing harder for Cassandra’s hand, for instance?
Chapter Sixteen
When Jonathan returned home that evening Aurelia’s eyes were brighter than they had been for a while. Clearly an afternoon in the company of her sisters had done her some good. It made a change from seeing her placidly sitting and sewing or reading, as she walked around the room purposefully as they waited to eat. A warm glow settled on Jonathan’s chest until he realised there was a mania behind her movements and her smile was fixed and brittle.
She was too happy. Too lively. It worried him, in fact.
‘How are you this evening?’ he asked.
‘Very well,’ she answered. Her smile widened further as she brought Jonathan a tumbler of whisky, but her hand was unsteady. Jonathan took the drink, but held on to her wrist. Her pulse wa
s rapid and sent his skin fluttering.
‘Did anything happen to excite you today?’ he asked cautiously. ‘You seem a little agitated.’
‘No,’ she answered, tossing her head. ‘Nothing out of the ordinary. Cassandra spoke of gossip. Dora intends to join the Young Ladies’ Subscription Library women in an effort to provide clothing for destitute mothers and their children. I think perhaps I may join her. It will give me something to do.’
She began rearranging flowers in a vase so viciously that she broke off one of the heads and gave an exasperated sigh. Jonathan set down his whisky and walked to her side. He put his hands on her shoulders and turned her to face him. It pained him that she resisted a little at first.
‘You seem unhappy today,’ he said gently. ‘What can I do to help you?’
She glanced at him and then quickly looked away. In that flash Jonathan had seen an expression he had so often relished. The hunger and desire that burned also in him. He knew what she wanted because it was the same thing that he did. He wanted to make love to her so much it hurt. Even the feel of her arms tensing under the palms of his hands was enough to cause blood to rush and begin strengthening him. But how could he bring himself to possibly inflict a pregnancy on her again after seeing the harm it had done before? Every time he thought of approaching her, the image of Aurelia’s face twisted in pain caused him such fear of losing her.
Until the memory faded of her lying weak and in pain while he stood by helplessly, he could not bring himself to make love to her. He wondered if that was why his father had found his mother so repellent that they only had one child together. What had caused his parents to become distant to the point of hatred?
He took the broken rose from Aurelia’s hand and tucked it into the curl of hair above her left ear.
‘There. It won’t go to waste now.’
She gave him a slight smile, but the longing was still there.
‘Will you play something for me?’ Jonathan asked. ‘Something cheering.’
The Silk Merchant's Convenient Wife Page 17
