Wager for a Wife

by Karen Tuft

  Louisa nodded, trying to figure out what his demeanor and tone meant. He was still unreadable, but there was an edge to his voice now that he was unable to completely hide from her.

  He showed her the dining room, which held a fine oak table and chairs with an elaborate chandelier hanging above them. Next was a man’s study with a connecting door into a decently stocked library.

  Louisa wandered through each room, surprised at the level of prosperity she saw. But there was nothing personal, no pictures of family, nothing that helped her understand what William’s father had been like. Even the books in the library seemed to be more for show than anything—shelves of tomes in similar bindings that appeared never to have had their covers opened or their pages read.

  They returned to the hallway. “Down those steps at the back of the house is the kitchen. There is a small apartment beyond it where the housekeeper, Mrs. Gideon, lives. According to her, when my father was here, her nephew acted as his valet. I have not employed his services—something she wasn’t particularly happy about when I first arrived.”

  “Was she your father’s housekeeper here for many years? May I meet her?”

  “Ten years, give or take. Assuredly, you may meet her, but it will have to happen at another time; Sunday is her day off, and she’s not here. She also gets half days on Wednesday.” He led her back to the front entry. “These stairs, as you might surmise, lead up to the bedrooms and guest rooms, but they can wait for another time, as they are essentially much the same as you see down here. Bachelor lodgings for a man who was not a bachelor. Besides, it’s past time that I take you home.”

  They returned to the carriage, and Louisa pondered what she’d seen. He’d given her a piece of the puzzle, a bit of clarity, to be sure, but she couldn’t see the entire picture yet.

  When they were back on their way to Ashworth House, William turned slightly, angling himself toward her on the carriage seat. “Did you learn anything on our little tour?” he asked blandly.

  Louisa gazed at his face. There were no crinkles at the corners of his eyes, no smile lurking behind his lips. His face was as impassive as it had been the first time they’d met, save the dark circles under his eyes were more pronounced. “Yes,” she said at last. “I have learned that if your father left the estate in tatters, it was due to selfishness. The house here in London is in excellent condition, which means that he lived well, and I must, therefore, presume that he did so beyond his means.

  “There was no portrait of your mother, no mementos of any kind, nothing of sentimental value anywhere that I could see. I doubt it is because you cleared away anything of his, although I suppose you may have instructed Mrs. Gideon to remove them. I am sorry, William.”

  William stared out the window beyond her, but she suspected he saw nothing but shadows from his past. He was far away. “When one is reared by such a person and it is all one knows, it is difficult to change.”

  Louisa wanted to reach for him, to take his hand in hers and comfort him, but she did not. He had shown her a glimpse into his life but only a glimpse, and it was not enough. Not yet. Not when he still wore a mask he kept so firmly in place. Not when he still had so many secrets. He was making the attempt to keep his promise to her, but she wasn’t sure it would be enough, that he could open himself enough to address her concerns and give her the reassurances she desired.

  A week from today, the last of the banns would be read, and then there would be no excuse to delay the marriage further. She had asked him for three weeks, and he would have given them to her.

  She must have her answers before she was out of time.

  * * *

  When William and Louisa returned to Ashworth House, they found her family in the drawing room, with a sleepy Halford also in attendance. Conversation was polite and amiable. Halford and Lord Anthony were rather serious in their questions toward him and prodded him further about his time at Oxford and his years in Scotland.

  “But why Scotland, Farleigh?” Halford asked him. “No offense, but it seems to me there is plenty to see and do here, by comparison, and with somewhat better weather . . . although, arguably, not by much.”

  “There is an extraordinary group of academics and innovators in Edinburgh,” William replied. “And I discovered not long after I arrived that I enjoyed their association and, therefore, decided to stay. I confess that I had little to contribute to the group but found it humbling—and enlightening—to be a part of that society.” The fact that it was several hundred miles from Buckinghamshire had only added to its appeal.

  His answer seemed to carry some weight with Louisa’s parents, who doubtless suspected he was a reprobate like his father had been. Lord Ashworth gave the slightest of nods at his words, and Lady Ashworth looked up from her needlework.

  Even with William seated on an elegant sofa with Louisa next to him, he was unsettled by the experience, which, today, felt more like he was standing before a magistrate than contributing to a casual conversation.

  After luncheon, Alex and Anthony invited him to join them in a game of billiards, which William agreed to after a quick glance at Louisa since he’d promised her they would get better acquainted this afternoon. Her smile seemed to indicate that she would be fine with him spending an hour or so with her brothers.

  Playing billiards was usually intended to be an enjoyable pastime, but William quickly discovered he was facing more interrogation. He was a decent player—one had to be to survive Eton and Oxford—but wasn’t nearly in the league of either Halford or his brother, he immediately discerned as they took shots to warm up. They had obviously spent many hours bent over this very table, hitting balls into pockets.

  “Scotland. And academia,” Halford drawled, leaning against the wall, while Lord Anthony prepared to take his first shot. They had decided amongst themselves that Lord Anthony would challenge William to the first game. “I confess, I was only too glad to put Cambridge behind me when I completed university. But you chose to go to Edinburgh to study further. Are you a glutton for punishment, Farleigh?”

  “He must be; he wants to marry Weezy, after all,” Lord Anthony said. He took his shot, sending his ball across the table, short of its mark. “Blast it, Alex. Stop speaking when I’m trying to concentrate.”

  “Edinburgh is an amiable city, full of history and interesting people,” William said. Definitely more interrogation disguised as small talk.

  “I knew you weren’t going to put that ball in the pocket; your angle was completely wrong,” Halford remarked to Lord Anthony. “Amiable, eh?” he asked while William studied the table for his next shot. “Amiable as in long-winded lectures on mechanics and philosophy, or amiable as in assemblies and balls and flirtations, by any chance?”

  William hadn’t been entirely virtuous since arriving at his majority, but the few liaisons he’d had as a very young man had left him feeling empty inside. His father had hurt his mother with his own infidelities. Even as a boy, William had understood that something had been amiss between the two of them, and it hadn’t taken much time after arriving at Eton for him to put two and two together. Boys will be boys, after all, and boys will talk about such things with crassness and bravado.

  “Edinburgh is amiable in all those ways,” William replied as obliquely as possible to Halford’s question before shooting his ball into the corner pocket.

  Lord Anthony eventually won the first game, and Halford had just challenged William to the next when a footman arrived to tell them Lord Ashworth requested a few minutes of Lord Farleigh’s time.

  “That’s too bad,” Halford said, “as I’m quite certain I could have won a bit of money from Tony over who would beat you by the most points. Well, we shall have to give it a go another time.”

  “Another time,” William replied. He had no plan to return to the billiards room after his meeting with Lord Ashworth, especially not if there was to be wagering involved. Besides, it would be past time to be with Louisa.

  The footman knocked
on the door to Lord Ashworth’s study.

  “Enter,” the marquess replied.

  “Lord Farleigh,” John said.

  “Thank you, John. Come in, Farleigh; have a seat. We have unfinished business to attend to.” He gestured to the seat across from his own, next to the fireplace. William had expected the marquess to be seated at his desk in a position of power, with William on the opposite side. Instead, they were seated informally. William’s mind began to scramble: did the marquess intend their meeting to be informal and open, then? Or was it a strategy to catch William off guard? Read the clues; look for the tells.

  “For a man intent on wooing my daughter, you have been remarkably absent this week,” the marquess said, getting right to the point. “Or have you decided you need not bother since she has chosen to act with honor and marry you regardless?”

  “I am here today to woo your daughter,” William replied as coolly as possible. “But it would seem the men in her family think time with me and asking pointed questions, which I am willing to answer, by the way, are part of that wooing.”

  “She is our diamond and our delight. You will forgive us if we are protective of her and entirely suspicious of you until proven otherwise.”

  “I understand completely, Lord Ashworth, and would expect nothing less.”

  The marquess did not appear convinced. “I shan’t keep you long, so you may go about this so-called wooing. I wanted to inform you, however, that the marriage contracts are drawn up. If you haven’t heard this from Heslop yet, you may presume it is because you have been off in the countryside doing who knows what. Don’t be surprised to hear from him tomorrow.”

  “Thank you, your lordship. For the record, I was seeing to matters at Farleigh Manor that needed my personal attention.”

  “As you say. Well, that is something, at least.” The marquess gestured with his head toward a stack of documents atop his desk. “The marriage contracts are there, awaiting our signatures. We could sign them today and have it done . . .” He paused, drumming his fingers lightly on the arm of his chair. “However, I am not pleased at your absences this past week, even if you claim to have had good reason. I have watched my daughter closely, you see, and she has been unhappy. She would never say so, but as her father, I can tell that this is the case. I will not elaborate on it further, for that is for you as her future husband”—he nearly spat the words—“to discover for yourself. And I expect you to do so to my satisfaction.” He leaned forward and said in a low, threatening tone, “For, you see, Viscount Farleigh, I will not put my signature to these marriage contracts until I am thoroughly convinced Louisa is willing to subject herself to this vowel you hold over her. Do we understand each other?”

  Don’t let him get a read on you. “Clearly, your lordship.”

  “Excellent.” The marquess stood, indicating that he had said what he’d intended to say to William and now wished for the conversation to be done.

  William rose to his feet, bowed formally, and took his leave.

  * * *

  Louisa had excused herself from sitting with Mama in the drawing room and had wandered into the music room, something she seemed to have done a lot over the past week or two. Not because she was what anyone would call a musical proficient but because reading the notes gave her something to concentrate on beyond her present concerns, and the melodies soothed her in spite of the occasional wrong note or two or several.

  She had asked her brothers to learn what they could about William, so she should hardly have been surprised when they’d dragged him off to play billiards, but she had been nonetheless. She’d expected them to be a bit more covert about the whole business. She should have known better.

  Her fingers stumbled over a passage in the Mozart sonata she was attempting to play. She stopped and worked out an agreeable fingering and then played the passage several times until her fingers began to go where she willed them. Herr Mozart’s music was a bit more challenging than the pieces she usually attempted to master, but today, she needed something that required her complete concentration.

  Except she wasn’t concentrating on the sonata at all. She was reminding herself of all the reasons she needed to concentrate on something else—which meant she was really concentrating on all the reasons why she needed to concentrate on something else.

  Goodness, she was babbling inside her own head now. She might well go mad if she wasn’t careful.

  The sound of the door shutting behind her made her jump. She twisted around on the piano bench to see who it was, hoping it was William come to spend time with her at last.

  It was. He stood silently by the door, his hands behind him. “May I come in?” he asked.

  “It looks to me as if you already have,” she said.

  “Touché,” he replied. He didn’t move any farther into the room, however. “Will you play for me?” he asked.

  “Play for you?” she asked stupidly. She’d performed piano pieces at parties before—what young lady of quality wasn’t required to do such a thing, or something similar?—but William asking for a private performance flustered her.

  It was silly, she told herself.

  “I would appreciate it above all things,” he said.

  She took a deep breath and ordered her fingers not to tremble. “Very well, but not the Mozart.” She wouldn’t be able to hit a single correct note in the passage she’d just practiced with William standing by listening to her. She set it aside and thumbed through the small stack of music on the music stand, choosing a more tranquil—in other words, slow—movement from a Bach suite.

  He crossed the room quietly after she began to play. She could hear his steps and see him out of the corner of her eye as he seated himself in a chair not far away. And then she turned her attention to the music. He, she noticed after she finished the piece, sat without moving, his eyes closed, so she chose another piece and played it and then another.

  After the fourth piece of music, she stopped, folded her hands in her lap, and watched him. He gradually opened his eyes. They were dark and soulful and, Louisa realized with a start, utterly bleak. And then he blinked, and the window into his soul closed once again.

  But Louisa had seen what she’d seen.

  “Thank you,” he said.

  “May I ask you a question?” she asked.

  “You may.”

  “Will you tell me more about the tree? The tree in the painting you gave me?”

  “It’s a tree at Farleigh Manor that I painted from memory while at Oxford.”

  “You painted it?” she asked, surprised by this new revelation. She’d not been able to decipher the signature on the canvas. “You’re a painter?”

  “No, not at all, but what young boy or girl hasn’t had some tutoring in it as part of his or her education? I enjoy painting on occasion, and on one such occasion, I chose to paint the tree.”

  “Why did you give it to me?” she asked.

  He shrugged. “Perhaps I wanted to show you some of the beauty of the place since it is to become your future home.”

  He’d painted the tree, and even if he claimed to be an amateur, he’d managed to create an image Louisa found appealing, one that offered sunshine and shade . . . and peace. He’d given it to her in a less-than-peaceful time, and yet she’d sensed what was within the painting.

  “Tell me about your mother,” Louisa said.

  * * *

  “Tell me about your mother,” Louisa had said. She was waiting for him to reply.

  William was no musician, but Louisa’s performance had moved him. He’d had to fight back the desire to weep. He hadn’t wept in years—not that he’d succumbed this time either, fortunately. He attributed this unusual swell of emotion to the music and to the vision of Louisa at the piano, her face, even in profile, a work of beauty. His mother had been such a beauty when he was a boy; back before his father’s choices had exacted their toll on her.

  “I’ll race you to the oak tree, Mama,” five-year-old Will shri
eked and then took off running. When he stopped briefly to catch his breath, he saw Mama, her skirts clutched in her hands, running to catch him, smiling and full of sunshine. He waited for her to catch up to him, and then they ran and collapsed at the foot of the tree, laughing and hugging and enjoying the shade in a glorious, free afternoon.

  Louisa’s request caused a tumult within his soul. What words could possibly explain everything his mother had been to him? She had been gentle and kind and beautiful, at least to the young boy who’d adored her. She had been his world, his safe place. And then he had been sent to Eton and had been allowed home only on school holidays. And she’d changed during those years while he was at school, withdrawing into herself, intent on her needlework and interested in little else. And then she’d died.

  Words were wholly inadequate.

  And what words would the specter of his father even allow him to say?

  Louisa was watching him closely, waiting for him to speak.

  “She was . . .” His mind flailed about. “She was everything to a small boy.”

  Pathetic.

  Louisa looked at him as if she thought so too.

  He heaved a sigh. “What specifically do you wish to know?”

  “What did she look like?” Louisa asked. “Who were her people? Where was she from? Do you look like her or your father? Did she play with you when you were a boy? Did she read you stories? What are your favorite memories with her? I want to know her, William. In knowing her—and even your father—I can get to know you better too.”

  William had promised her he would be forthcoming, so he tried again. “My coloring is more like my father’s. In fact, I’m afraid I look more like him than I do her. She was fair and blue-eyed.” There. He’d said something about both of his parents.

  He loathed dredging up anything that had to do with the past, but he forged onward. “She was Margaret Strickland before marrying my father and becoming Viscountess Farleigh. She was an only child, brought up near the Lake District to genteel but poor people, from what I know. She moved to London when she was offered a governess position, and it was in that capacity that she became acquainted with my father, who was—at the time—a friend of the family with whom she was employed.