The Ideal Wife

by Mary Balogh

  She swallowed awkwardly. “I know,” she said.

  He smiled at her. “It really is very pretty, you know,” he said, “your hair.”

  “Oh, don’t mention it,” she said, “or I shall start to bawl.”

  He laughed. “Abby,” he said, “did you give yourself even a moment to consider?”

  “I planned it,” she said, “for all of three hours. It was not an impulsive thing at all.”

  He laughed again and drew her into his arms. “I like it,” he said. “Promise me that you will not braid it tonight.”

  She giggled a little nervously.

  He lowered his head and kissed her, opening his mouth over hers and rubbing the tip of his tongue across the seam of her lips until she drew back her head and looked up at him a little uncertainly.

  He kissed her again more briefly and firmly, and reluctantly let her go. He did not want to ruin a very precarious peace between them by committing the faux pas of trying to make love to her during the day.

  Although at that particular moment he would have liked nothing better.

  12

  YOU AREN’T FOXED, ARE YOU, GER?” The Earl of Severn stepped past his friend’s manservant into his somewhat untidy parlor. “This early in the day?”

  “Foxed?” Sir Gerald Stapleton said indignantly and nasally. “I have the devil of a cold and have been sprawled here all day feeling sorry for myself. Have a seat.”

  “Thank you,” the earl said, seating himself as his friend blew his nose loudly. “I thought perhaps you had taken yourself out of the country. Haven’t seen you for almost three days.”

  “That is hardly surprising,” Sir Gerald said, “when you have been tied to your wife’s apron strings all that time.”

  “Jealousy, jealousy,” Lord Severn said. “You should set your face over a bowl of steaming water, Ger, and throw a towel over your head.”

  “I’ve tried it,” the other said. “It doesn’t work. It did once when I had a chill and went to Priss. But this time it doesn’t.”

  The earl grinned. “Still missing her?” he said. “Is that why you are like a bear at a stake?”

  “Talking about getting foxed,” Sir Gerald said, “there are no drinks in here. I’ll ring.” He lurched to his feet.

  “Not on my account,” the earl said, raising a hand. “I can’t stay, Ger. I am just a messenger boy this afternoon. Abby wants you to join us in a picnic to Richmond. Miss Seymour will be there too, of course. You had better come. Perhaps she will take your mind off Prissy.” He grinned.

  “Absolutely and definitely no,” the other said irritably. “You might as well have married Frances Meighan, Miles. This wife has you just as firmly in tow. And Frances would have been prettier to look at.” He frowned at the fraying tassel that he had just pulled.

  “Careful,” the earl said.

  “And this one is like to be many times more expensive,”Sir Gerald said. “You need to take her in hand from the start, Miles, before you find that it is too . . . Oof!” His shoulder glanced off the mantel and he went crashing and sprawling across the hearth and among the fire irons. He pushed himself up into a sitting position and felt the left side of his jaw gingerly. “What the devil was that for?”

  The Earl of Severn stood over him, fists clenched at his sides. “You know very well what it was for,” he said through his teeth. “You were speaking of my wife, Gerald.”

  “So she is going to destroy our friendship too, is she?” Sir Gerald said, flexing his jaw and wincing. “I hope you haven’t broken it, Miles. How am I supposed to explain the bruise?”

  The earl reached down a hand to help him to his feet. “If it is the new clothes and the diamonds and the pearls that have you fearing for my financial ruin,” he said, “they were all my idea, Ger. And the clothes and the jewels I buy my wife are none of your damned business. And neither is her beauty or the amount of time I choose to spend with her. If our friendship is ruined, it will be nothing to do with Abby—or with me either.”

  “You should not come here quarreling with me when I have a head the size of a hot-air balloon,” Sir Gerald said, sinking into his chair again and prodding at his jaw with his fingertips. When the door opened, he directed his manservant to bring the brandy decanter and glasses. “I didn’t mean to insult Lady Severn, Miles. I’m sorry. But you yourself said you had chosen her because she was plain and would not intrude into your life. Devil take it, but I feel wretched.”

  “A word of advice,” Lord Severn said. “Don’t drink any brandy, Ger. Your head will explode into the blue yonder just like a burst balloon. What did you mean when you said that Abby would be expensive?”

  “Nothing,” his friend said. “Forget it.”

  “What did you mean?”

  “Look, Miles,” Sir Gerald said, first sniffing and then blowing his nose again, “I felt deuced miserable enough before you decided to practice one of Jackson’s best punches on my jaw. Go home to your wife, will you, and leave me alone to die? God, I wish Priss were still in town.”

  “I’m leaving.” The earl got to his feet. “But tell me first what you meant.”

  “Did you know she was at Mrs. Harper’s yesterday?”Sir Gerald asked.

  “At Mrs. Harper’s?” The earl frowned.

  “Fox saw her there,” Sir Gerald said. “Sudden wealth must have gone to her head, Miles. She will gamble your fortune away if you don’t be careful. You will be fortunate if she doesn’t start asking you for large sums of money any day. But, sorry.” He held up a hand. “You don’t need any comment from me, do you? Perhaps it was Lady Severn’s double. Or perhaps it was a social call. Maybe Mrs. Harper is her maiden aunt or something—though she would not be a maiden aunt, would she? Who knows? It’s none of my business. But Fox was sniggering over it. And you must know that Lady Severn’s reputation does not stand on very firm ground as it is.”

  “There will be a good explanation,” Lord Severn said quietly. “Abby’s brother has been doing some gambling, I gather. Abby is probably trying to save him from the sharks. I’m on my way. Try that steaming bowl again, Ger. And leave the brandy alone. You won’t come to Richmond, then?”

  “Oh, yes, I’ll come,” Sir Gerald said irritably. “You are my friend, Miles, and I had better start liking your wife, hadn’t I? I think you are growing fond of her.”

  “Abby will be happy,” the earl said with a grin. “Though if she could just see beyond the end of her nose, she would have noticed a few evenings ago that her brother and Miss Seymour were exchanging more than a few appreciative glances. You may have competition for the fair little redhead, Ger.”

  Sir Gerald Stapleton blew his nose loudly as his friend laughed and let himself out of the room.

  His smile faded as he ran down the stairs and walked out onto the street. Abby at Mrs. Harper’s? And not a mention to him of having been there, though she had given him an exhaustive account during dinner the evening before and during their drive to the opera of all she had done during the day.

  And Abby had asked him for six thousand pounds, a year’s allowance in advance.

  For her brother? Had his guess been right? Or was she too gambling to try to pay off the family debts? It would be quite like her to try it and lose six thousand pounds at a sitting. Though of course, if she had asked him for the money three days before and called on Mrs. Harper yesterday, then she might have made more than one visit to the tables.

  Her father must have been a gambler too. He had guessed that several days before. Was it a family weakness?

  He knew so little about his wife, he thought in some frustration. In some ways it was almost impossible to believe that they had been married for only a week. In other ways it seemed that they were still total strangers, though they had been together and on intimate terms physically for a week.

  And of course a week had been quite a long-enough time in which to fall in love.

  ABIGAIL HAD had a quite happy day. She had spent part of the morning planning he
r picnic in Richmond and part with her husband on Bond Street, choosing a sapphire-and-diamond ring as a gift for their first anniversary.

  “One week,” he had explained to her when she had looked at him in incomprehension. “We have been married for a week, Abby. Had you forgotten?”

  And he had insisted on buying her the ring though she had assured him that it was a quite pointless extravagance and had reminded him that he had already given her a diamond necklace and her pearls.

  “But I cannot let our first anniversary go by unheralded,”he had said with a smile.

  Even after a week his smile was still turning her weak at the knees. And she still wished that he had brown or hazel eyes.

  It had ended up with her buying him a matching sapphire-and-diamond pin.

  “A combined wedding and anniversary gift,” she had told him.

  And so a considerable dent had been made in her remaining thousand pounds, all that she had to last her for a year—or fifty-one weeks, to be exact.

  She had begun the afternoon calling upon Lady Beauchamp and strolling with her in the park, having sent her husband on his way to invite Sir Gerald Stapleton to the picnic. If she threw them together often enough, perhaps he and Laura would be betrothed even before the summer came. They were very obviously perfect for each other.

  In the park, they had met Lord and Lady Chartleigh and their young son, who was racing along ahead of them when he was not falling flat on the grass. The four adults strolled together for a while.

  The Chartleighs must have been very young when they married, Abigail guessed. The earl in particular looked far too young to be a father. And yet despite his extreme quietness and his wife’s vivacity, there was clearly a strong bond of affection between them.

  Perhaps there was hope for her, she thought. And yet the Countess of Chartleigh was very pretty. And perhaps the earl had not expected her to be quiet and to disappear into the background of his life. Perhaps he had loved her and her vivacity when he married her.

  But she would not think of her problems, she had decided. Soon Rachel would be on her way to the Continent, and soon Boris would be out of his difficulties. Miles had promised to help him, and she had had an idea of how it might be done so that Boris would never know that he had been helped. By the time spring turned to summer, she would be at Severn Park with her sisters and perhaps she would be with child too. Certainly Miles must be very eager for it to happen without delay. In the week of their marriage he had coupled with her twice each night except for that one night when she had been upset at learning the brutal truth of their marriage.

  She had accepted that truth. And really it was not so very dreadful. He had married her and saved her from a nasty situation, and he had not been unkind since except when he had reprimanded her over their dinner party. If she was to be taken to Severn Park and left there when he returned to town, well, then, so be it. She would think of that when the time came.

  “I have been married for longer than a year,” Lady Beauchamp was telling her, “and I wept at the end of each month for eleven months before the miracle happened. I am afraid I have been a sore trial to Roger, Lady Severn. He has been foolishly assuring me that it will not wreck his life to remain childless and that of course he does not regret marrying me. And I can’t tell you how envious I have been of Georgie and Ralph, who had to wait no time at all after their marriage. But it has been worth the wait. The sun seems a little brighter each day now that I know I have new life inside me.” She squeezed Abigail’s arm. “You will know what I mean soon enough.”

  “I hope so,” Abigail said.

  “I am afraid you will find me a dreadful bore this spring,” her friend said contritely. “I can think of nothing but babies, Lady Severn. Roger laughs at the fact that in private I talk of nothing else, whereas in public I become very flustered if it is so much as mentioned.”

  “I believe I would feel compelled to stand up and make the announcement myself at the very next social function I attended after finding out,” Abigail said, “whether it was a ball or the theater.”

  Lady Beauchamp looked startled, and laughed. “You sound just like Georgie,” she said. “I do hope I have a son this first time, though Roger laughs at me when I say that, and becomes quite outrageous.” She laughed again. “He says he will tolerate daughters for the first six times, provided I get serious the seventh time and present him with his heir. I used to dislike Roger quite intensely, you know, when we were first acquainted, because he used to delight in outraging me. He still does.”

  Abigail was feeling quite cheerful by the time she arrived home. The day had been pleasant, and there was another ball to attend that evening—her second.

  But there was a note awaiting her. Her heart sank as she took it from the butler’s hand and made her way straight toward her sitting room. Everything had been settled the day before. What else could Rachel possibly want?

  It seemed that there was a further problem. Abigail was to call at Rachel’s house the following day.

  But she did not wish to go. Even though the house was in a respectable neighborhood, there was something about it that made her uneasy. And she had not gone unseen the day before. Although Rachel had taken her directly to an office, they had passed the open door of a salon, and there had been a group of gentlemen and one lady inside. One of them had called to Rachel as she passed.

  There could be only one reason for Rachel’s wishing to see her again. She wanted more money. Abigail had feared it, but hoped that her stepmother was still basically decent. It seemed that perhaps she was not.

  But she had very little more money to give.

  And even if she had plenty, she would not give it, she decided. She would not give in to perpetual blackmail. If Rachel was not content with the five thousand pounds, well, then, they would have to see. Abigail did not believe that her stepmother had any real intention of taking her daughters into her own home.

  She folded the letter hastily and slid it beneath a cushion as there was a tap on the door and her husband came inside.

  “Am I in time for tea?” he asked. “Hello, Abby.”

  She smiled at him and her stomach lurched in the way that was becoming quite customary with her. His dark hair was tousled from the outdoors and his hat.

  “I was about to ring,” she said.

  “Gerald will come to your picnic,” he said. “I’m afraid he was like a lion in a cage this afternoon. He has a bad cold.”

  “I should call on him and take him some powders,” she said, “and make sure that he stays in bed and drinks plenty of hot lemon. And I should get him to set his head beneath a towel and over a bowl of steaming water. That would do wonders for him.”

  He laughed. “You would too, wouldn’t you?” he said. “You would march into a bachelor’s rooms close to St. James’s, rout the manservant, and proceed to take charge.”

  She looked at him warily. “I had the charge of my father and brother and two sisters for several years,” she said. “I am afraid I had to become a managing female, Miles, or we might not have survived. As it was, Papa did not. I suppose Sir Gerald is sitting in a stuffy room sniffing and running a fever and drinking liquor.”

  “I told him about the bowl and towel,” he said. “I tell you what, Abby. If I have caught the chill from him, you may coddle me to your heart’s content and I shall not utter a word of complaint.”

  “You are laughing at me,” she said. “I know you did not want a managing wife, Miles. I should have confessed during the first day and told you what I was really like.”

  She had sat on the settee. He came to sit beside her, and took her hand in his.

  “Tell me about your life at home,” he said. “You really did play mother, didn’t you? For how long? When did your stepmother die?”

  It struck her suddenly that she could tell him the truth. Nothing could be simpler. She could tell him everything, even about the five thousand pounds, and they could go together to Rachel’s the next day. H
e would help her. He would frighten Rachel off if she were planning further blackmail.

  But if she told the truth, he would know what a ramshackle family she came from. He would know that Rachel had run off with another man, leaving behind her two daughters, because she was being beaten and abused at home. He would know that her father had been a drunken, brutal man and a heavy gambler, so that they had all lived more by their wits than by honest money for the last few years. He would know that Mrs. Harper, gambling hell owner and courtesan, was her stepmother.

  And he would know that the marriage he had made was even more of a disaster than he already realized. She would see that knowledge in his face.

  But she was growing to love that face and the person to whom it belonged.

  “Six years ago,” she said. “Clara was two and Beatrice four. Boris was sixteen.”

  “And you eighteen,” he said. “And so at a time when there should have been parties and balls for you and suitors, there was an ailing and grieving father to tend to and two small children to bring up. What was wrong with your father?”

  “He had stomach problems,” she said vaguely. “He was bedridden for the last year.”

  “He had a nurse?” he asked.

  She smiled fleetingly. “Me,” she said.

  He squeezed her hand.

  “Your brother,” he said. “Did he go to university or want to do so?”

  She shook her head. “He wanted passionately to go into the army,” she said. “But he could not. Papa . . . Papa needed him at home.”

  But talking of Boris reminded her. Her face lit up.

  “I have thought of how we may help him,” she said. “Boris, I mean. You do want to help him too, don’t you, Miles, even though he is just my brother and really you scarcely know him at all? But, of course, he is your relative even apart from our connection, isn’t he? I wish I could help him myself, but of course I cannot, partly because I do not have the means, and partly because he would not knowingly accept help from a living soul, even me. He is so very proud, you know. And I am afraid that unless he has help soon, he will go to his grave as an old man with Papa’s debts unpaid and nothing whatsoever made of his own life.”