by Mary Balogh
She had looked forward to the physical side of marriage and had hoped that it would at least be pleasant. It was far more than pleasant. It bound them together in a tie deeper than mere friendship. She could not put a word to the bond. But after three days she felt very much his wife. And she hugged the feeling to herself as perhaps her most precious possession, even if it was intangible.
She called on Lady Brill first and the two of them made a round of calls. Her uncle told her that he had been pleased to discover that, after all, she had a wise and sensible head on her shoulders in choosing a husband with a superior title and seventy thousand a year. Her lady friends hugged her and lamented the fact that she would be gone for the rest of the Season and wished her well. Some of them looked faintly envious. One of them—though she had never been a close friend—remarked apropos of nothing, or so it seemed, that it was a pity the richest men never seemed to be also the handsomest men.
“Not that I was insinuating—” she said, looking at Samantha in dismay, one hand flying to her mouth.
Samantha merely smiled.
Lady Sophia, her newly mended leg elevated on a satin pouf, looked Samantha over from head to foot and nodded in satisfaction.
“She is looking like the cat that got locked in with the cream pot, Aggy,” she said. “Carew must have done his job on her and done it well.” She cackled at her own joke and Samantha’s hot blush.
“You are in need of exercise and fresh air, Sophie,” Lady Brill said briskly.
And so they drove in the park, the three of them. The weather was warm and sunny again after yesterday’s rain. The ton was out in force. The barouche in which they rode moved at snail’s pace, when it was moving at all. People came to inquire after Lady Sophia’s health. Friends came to greet and chat with Lady Brill. And Samantha drew quite as much attention as she had ever done. Perhaps more today. She fancied that everyone was looking at her with curiosity and interest. It was doubtless her imagination, she told herself, but the knowledge of how she had been spending her nights—and her afternoons—since the ton saw her last set her to blushing a great deal of the time.
Lord Francis, dashing in puce riding coat and skintight black leather pantaloons and hessians, rode up to her side of the carriage, distracting her attention from the conversation the other two ladies were holding with a couple at the other side. He leaned one arm on the door of the carriage and looked at her closely and appreciatively.
“Well, Samantha,” he said quietly, “never let it be said that marriage disagrees with you.”
“I certainly would begin no such rumor, Francis,” she said. But she could not prevent the telltale blush.
“Lucky dog,” he said, more to himself than to her. “You love him, then, Sam?”
It was the first time he had used Jenny’s name for her. But his question jolted her. There must be something in her face. But what could show in her face apart from her blush?
“Why else would I have married him, Francis?” she asked. She had meant the question to be lightly, teasingly phrased. She heard too late the earnestness in her voice. She wanted him to believe that she had married for love, she realized. Hartley deserved that. “Of course I love him.”
“Yes, Sam,” he said, his smile slow in coming. “It is there in your eyes for all to see, my dear. And so I must begin the search for another incomparable to inspire my devotion. You will be hard to replace.”
“Oh, nonsense, Francis,” she said, but fortunately Lord Hawthorne rode up at that moment and the couple who had been talking with her aunt and Lady Sophia drove away. The privateness of the moment was gone.
Was there really something about her eyes? Samantha wondered in some alarm as they drove from the park a short while later. She could not think what it could be, except perhaps a certain vacantness occasioned by the fact that her mind kept wandering to Hartley, wondering how he was spending his day, wondering if he would be home when she returned, hoping that he would be, longing to see him again, dreaming about the past three days—and nights.
She must not start daydreaming. It had never been one of her shortcomings. And it was very ungenteel to daydream in the presence of others about her husband.
Finally her own carriage set her down outside Carew House and she hurried inside with eager steps. It was after six already. The day was gone. She hoped he would be home. She hoped some of his friends had not persuaded him to dine at one of the clubs on his last evening in town. How dreary it would be to have to dine alone and wait until perhaps late into the night for his return. And then perhaps he would be foxed, though she had never known him to drink to excess. Or else he would sleep in his own bed because of the lateness of the hour and his reluctance to wake her.
Her foolish fears fled faster than they had crowded in upon her as soon as she stepped into the hall. He was standing at the far side of it, his left arm behind his back, his feet braced slightly apart. He looked—handsome, she thought, smiling. The library door was open behind him. He must have heard the carriage and come out to greet her. But he had not hurried toward her. And so, just in time, she checked her impulse to rush toward him and offer her mouth to be kissed. There were two footmen in the hall, and despite what they must know, all open signs of affection must be reserved until he and she were behind closed doors.
“Hartley,” she said, untying the strings of her bonnet, pulling it off, and shaking out her flattened curls, “did you have a good day?”
Tell me you missed me. No, wait until we are alone.
“Thank you, yes,” he said. “Will you join me in the library?”
So that we can close the door and put our arms about each other and bemoan the waste of a day apart?
She pulled off her gloves. “Give me time to wash my hands and comb my hair?” she asked, still smiling. So that I can be beautiful for you.
He inclined his head to her.
“Will you order tea?” she asked, hurrying toward the staircase. “I am parched.”
She turned her head to look down at him as she climbed the stairs. And stopped for a moment. What was it? He looked his usual self, neat and tidy, but not in the first stare of fashion. He was watching her with no particular expression on his face.
What is wrong? she was about to ask. But there were the servants. She would wait until she came back down and they were in the library.
Her steps quickened. She would be as fast as she could. She did not even bother to ring for her maid. She washed her hands and face in cold water and brushed quickly at her curls to bring the spring back into them. The need to hurry, to waste not one more moment than was necessary, was strong on her.
But the brush paused as she caught herself feeling the urgency. The need to be with him. In his arms.
What was happening?
She peered suspiciously at her eyes in the looking glass. Were they different from usual? They looked like the same old eyes to her. She grinned at herself.
And went hurrying from the room and running lightly down the stairs. A footman crossed to the library door and held it open for her. She smiled at him in passing.
HE WENT TO WHITE’S with Bridgwater for luncheon, and they were joined by Gerson and a few other acquaintances. It was a very pleasant way to spend his last day in town, even though he had missed Samantha from the moment of handing her into his carriage and waving her on the way to Lady Brill’s.
He endured a great deal of teasing, much of it decidedly ribald. It was all good-natured, he knew, and perhaps fueled by a degree of envy. Besides, he admitted to himself that he really was feeling rather smug. No one else, after all, had just married the loveliest lady in London. No one else was loved by her. And, truth to tell, he had been every bit as randy during the past three days as his friends accused him of being, though he had been more respectful of his wife’s body than a few of them dared to suggest.
They were enjoying a few drinks after luncheon, and he was trying to calculate in his mind the earliest hour he could expect to find
Samantha at home, when Lionel appeared in the doorway of the dining room, paused there, and came inside.
“Hart,” he said, walking toward him, right hand extended, his smile warm. “How is the new bridegroom? Retreated to your club to recuperate from certain, ah, exertions, have you?”
He squeezed the marquess’s right hand rather painfully while the others chuckled and offered their own answers to the question. Friends, it seemed, never tired of reminding a newly married man of how his nights had suddenly changed for the better, even if they had become more sleepless.
The marquess got to his feet and drew his cousin a little apart from the crowd. The noise there was getting louder in direct proportion to the amount of alcohol that was being consumed. He swallowed his dislike of Lionel and smiled back at him. Perhaps it was time. They were grown men. The stupidities of boyhood and the excesses of young manhood were behind them. At least he must believe so. He was rather ashamed of his reaction to Samantha’s wedding gift.
“I have to thank you, Lionel,” he said. “It was a kind and generous gesture.”
Lionel’s handsome brows rose. There was some amusement in his eyes, the marquess thought.
“The brooch,” the marquess said. “You must know that it is more precious to me than just its market value. Mother always wore it and it is somehow associated with my fondest memories of her. I suppose Father gave it to you as a memento after her death, not realizing that she had intended … But it does not matter. It was a precious wedding gift you gave us. I thank you.”
“Perhaps you misunderstood, Hart.” There was definite amusement in Lionel’s eyes now. “It was a gift for your bride alone. A gift from me to her. In appreciative memory of times past. Did you not know about us?”
The very thought of Lionel and Samantha’s being referred to as “us” was somehow nauseating.
“We were an item six years ago,” Lionel said. “Indeed we were indiscreet enough to be a partial cause of the breakup of my betrothal to her cousin—Lady Thornhill, you know, your neighbor. We were what you might call in love, Hart. Deeply, head over ears in love. I had to abandon her because Papa had the notion that my absence was more desirable than my presence, and I would not embroil her in my disgrace. She was still an innocent, you see. I am sure you found her satisfyingly virgin on your wedding night?”
He raised his eyebrows but did not wait long for an answer.
“I do believe I broke her heart,” he said. “I rather fancy that she blamed me. And perhaps she was right. It is a shameful thing for a man to be responsible for breaking his own engagement, is it not? She would have nothing to do with me when I returned this spring. And yet she was frightened by the power of the feelings she still had for me. Strange, is it not, Hart, that a woman of such exquisite beauty was still unmarried at her age? You came along at the right moment, old chap. She ran to your arms, where I daresay she feels safe. Rightfully so, I would imagine. You are looking after her well, I presume? But of course you would.”
Regrettably it was not a story he could brush off as a product of a malicious imagination. Though the intent in telling it was utterly malicious, of course.
“Yes, I am looking after her well, Lionel,” he said quietly. “You will, of course, leave what is past in the past from this moment on.”
“Why, Hart,” Lionel said, chuckling, “if I did not know you better, I could almost imagine that that was a threat.”
“You were doubtless on your way somewhere when you spotted me through the doorway,” the marquess said. “I will not delay you any longer, Lionel. Thank you for your good wishes.”
“Ah, yes,” Lionel said. “You remind me of my manners, Hart. My good wishes for your continued happiness.”
He smiled warmly at his cousin and at the noisy group of men still gathered about the table, then left the room.
“It is time for me to leave, too,” the marquess said to his friends, dredging up a smile from somewhere inside.
“The bride must not be left to pine alone for one moment longer than necessary,” a tipsy voice said from the midst of the throng. “A toast to you, Carew. A toast to your continued stamina. Still able to get to your feet after three days. Jolly good show, my good fellow.”
“But flat on his stomach again as soon as he has raced home,” someone else said, raising his glass in acknowledgment of the toast.
“I’ll come with you, Hart,” the Duke of Bridgwater said, getting to his feet.
“There is no need,” the marquess said. “I am going directly home.”
But his friend clapped a hand on his shoulder and accompanied him downstairs, where they retrieved their hats and canes, and out onto the pavement.
“I overheard,” he said. “I did not mean to eavesdrop, Hart. At first I did not realize it was a private conversation.”
“Hardly a conversation,” the marquess said.
“He was always a scoundrel,” the duke said, falling into step beside him and adjusting his stride to the more halting one of his friend. “And for what he did to Lady Thornhill—and to Thornhill, too—he deserved to be shot. Thornhill showed great but lamentable restraint in not calling him out. The lady had been put through enough distress already, of course. I have been glad to see since then, whenever they have been in town, that the two of them seem contented enough with each other.”
“More than that,” the marquess said. “I never did know quite what happened, Bridge. And I do not want to know now. It was a long time in the past.”
“Except that the scoundrel has managed to bring it into the present,” the duke said. “There was never a breath of scandal surrounding Lady Carew’s name, Hart. I would advise you not to give any credence to anything he said. He obviously fancied her himself this year and was annoyed when she chose you—London is full of men who are annoyed about exactly the same thing. Fortunately all the others are honorable men. Kneller, for example. He has been wearing his heart on his sleeve for more than one Season. She chose you, Hart. She might have chosen any of a dozen others, all almost as well set up as you.”
The marquess smiled. “You do not have to plead my wife’s case, Bridge,” he said. “I am married to the lady. I know why she married me. I respect her and trust her. And I do not choose to discuss the matter further with you. Marriage is a private business between two people.”
“And I would not intrude,” his friend said unhappily. “But if you could see your face, Hart.”
“I am going home,” the marquess said. “I would take you out of your way if you came any farther, Bridge.”
His grace stopped walking. “And I would not be invited inside if I did come farther,” he said ruefully. “Well, Hart.” He extended his left hand. “Have a safe journey and a good summer. Give Lady Carew my regards.”
They shook hands before the marquess turned and limped away.
He tried not to think. He had known from the age of six on that Lionel was not worth one moment of suffering. For some reason—he supposed the reasons were pretty obvious—Lionel had marked him as a victim ever since they were young children together. Nothing had changed. Lionel would do anything and everything in his power to hurt him or belittle him. But Lionel could have that power only if it was given him. The Marquess of Carew had done no giving since the vicious “accident” that had left him partly crippled.
He was not going to reverse the lesson of a lifetime now. It was as Bridge had said. Lionel had returned to London, set his sights on Samantha—whether for marriage or mere dalliance only he knew—and had been severely humiliated when she would have none of him. Humiliation had turned to spite and the vicious need for revenge when she had married his far less personable cousin, the apparent weakling who had always been his victim.
But thought could not be kept at bay. He retired to his library as soon as he reached home, with the instruction to the footmen on duty that Lady Carew was to be asked to join him there on her return. He paced as he waited for her. But it was a wait of three hours.
/> She had been hurt in the past. He had known that. He had even spoken of it to her. Six years ago she would have been eighteen. Probably in her first Season. A ripe age for a romance with a man of Lionel’s looks and practiced charms. And of course she would have met him on a number of occasions. He had been betrothed to her cousin at the time. And she had been living with her uncle, Lady Thornhill’s father.
She had been hurt so deeply that in six years she had not married, though he knew that she had spent each Season in London, and since his arrival this year he had seen that she had a following unrivaled by any other young lady of ton. He had seen, too, that a number of those followers—yes, Lord Francis Kneller was among them—had a serious attachment to her. But she had not married.
It must have been a far worse than ordinary heartbreak. If she had been partly responsible for the breakup of her cousin’s engagement … She loved her cousin. And it seemed from the little he knew that the incident had brought terrible and painful scandal to Lady Thornhill. And if then, after it all, the object of her love had left the country, abandoned her … Yes, for someone as sweet and sensitive as his wife, such events might keep her from love and marriage for six years.
And inexplicably this year she had fallen headlong in love with him. With a man who was apparently no more than a traveling landscape gardener. With a man about whose looks the kindest thing that could be said was that he was not quite ugly. With a man who limped so badly that sometimes people turned their heads away in embarrassment. With a man with a claw for a right hand.
