Marriage of Inconvenience

by Cheryl Bolen

  So his valet had known John was leaving Dunton before she knew. Her opinion was not to have been considered. He had already made up his mind.

  The valet stepped into the chamber. “Your valise is ready, my lord.”

  Rebecca leaped to her feet. “Oh, my dearest, I must have Cook send along a basket for you!”

  “Now see,” he said, shooting her a crooked grin, “a wife is a very useful thing to have. I hadn’t even thought of food, but two or three hours from now I would likely be starving.”

  While Cook was gathering food into a basket, Rebecca saw that the children were summoned to say farewell to their father.

  Minutes later, when Aynsley began to stride toward the carriage, only Chuckie seemed as upset as she. He began to cry. Rebecca picked him up and comforted him. “As soon as Papa goes, I will let you ride in the carriage with me to get Mrs. Cotton.”

  As his tears evaporated, she and John exchanged amused glances. “Take care of yourself,” she said. She took one last, long look at her husband as if to impress his vision upon her memory. His slightly long, casually styled hair was the same light brown as his soft leather boots. In spite of the stern face he put on, his patrician features could not conceal his natural congeniality.

  His gaze fanned over the children. “I’m expecting all of you to be on your best behavior for Rebecca.”

  “Yes, my lord,” the boys said in unison.

  “And I’m counting on you lads to show the new housekeeper that the Compton family respects and values her.” He drilled Alex and Spencer with a ferocious glare.

  Their heads hung, they nodded.

  Even though she felt like crying, she flashed what she hoped was a radiant smile upon him when he came close, one hand clasping at her waist as he leaned into her and brushed his lips over hers.

  “I shall miss you most dreadfully,” she said.

  “And I shall miss all of you,” he said, a grim set to his mouth.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Her first day without John was so full she had not been able to dwell on him. It wasn’t until after dinner, after she had read the lads a chapter of Ivanhoe, that her spirits began to sink.

  From habit, she went from the boys’ chamber to the library. Though a robust fire blazed, and the room was always most comforting, now—without John—the room seemed unfamiliar. She went to his desk and ran a loving hand over it. How lonely the chamber was without him. How she wished he were here to speak of Parliament with her. She never tired of discussing his important work in Lords, never tired of discussing the reforms they both endorsed, never tired of discussing political theory.

  What she and John shared went much deeper than common interests, though. The children had given a new purpose to her life, and her mutual affection for them bonded her even closer to the man she had married.

  She stood in the middle of the library, her gaze sweeping over its dark, mellow wood, the faded red leather bindings on row after row of books, many of which had been in the Compton family for generations. As much as she loved this room, she did not want to be there tonight without him. Without John. Her husband.

  She trudged up the stairs and to her bedchamber. She had much to impart to her husband. Tossing off her shoes, she went to the writing desk, Dorothy’s desk, and took up pen and paper, while vowing to replace the opulent desk at the earliest opportunity.

  Dearest,

  As Chuckie and I drove in the carriage to Birmingham, my thoughts were with you. I found myself wondering how far you had gone, where you would be, when you would arrive in London. It was a lovely day for a drive, was it not? Chuckie adored looking out the window. He’s most enamored of sheep. He was quite the little lamb himself, and I am happy to report he did not have a single accident.

  As to Mrs. Cotton, I found her most agreeable. She told me she will be fifty next year, and if she were not possessed of silver hair, she would appear much younger. Her figure is trim, and her hair is neatly arranged. She is most energetic, brushing off the coachman’s efforts to carry her valise, declaring that she was perfectly capable of carrying her own things.

  When we got to Dunton, I showed her to her rooms—she was most happy with her accommodations—and told her that she needed to rest after the wearying travel, that I would show her the house tomorrow, but she declared she wasn’t a bit tired and was ready to jump right in!

  You will be happy to know she thought Dunton a lovely home—much less fussy than Lord Bermondsey’s, she said—and she added that the Shropshire landscape suited her quite well. She pointed out that all our chandeliers needed a good cleaning. She seemed courteous to the staff she will head, and she complimented Cook on the menu, even telling her she would be happy to seek Cook’s input as well as mine when drawing up the menus.

  I have just realized one of my duties is to work with Mrs. Cotton on the menus, therefore I need to know all your favorite foods. Besides buttered lobster and plum pudding—which I am very well aware of.

  Mrs. Cotton asked about our entertaining, and I confessed that we were positive hermits when in the country. After meeting all her staff and interviewing with them, she has determined we need one more chambermaid, so I authorized her to seek one. Do you object?

  After dinner the children began to build sets for Emily’s play. She has decided she will sew costumes for everyone in The Play. Everything should be ready for production when you come home. I confess I am most anxious to see it. The children are very excited about being actors. As clever as he is, dear Alex told me, “I would wager Papa won’t recognize me in my costume!” It was all I could do not to laugh.

  By the time you return, our new governess should be installed at Dunton.

  The library without you makes your wife most forlorn, especially when the children are in their beds and I wish to share a quiet time in that comforting room with their father. How I longed to have you there! It was so wretchedly lonely, I came to my bedchamber to write this letter.

  I am eager to learn how your work in Parliament progresses. Pray, keep me well informed. I assure you, I hunger for all the details.

  I worry that you won’t take proper care of yourself. When you are excessively busy, you often forget to eat. Remember all of us at Dunton who care about you. I shall be a most morose woman until you return.

  Most affectionately,

  R.

  The following day Rebecca continued to ease Mrs. Cotton’s transition by going over the household accounts with her. It wouldn’t do at all for Mrs. Cotton to learn what a short time Rebecca herself had been there. It was imperative to Rebecca that Mrs. Cotton see her as the competent mistress of Dunton.

  Would John ever come to think of her in that manner?

  Rebecca continued to feel melancholy. She could not understand why she was so very blue deviled. The sun favored them. The children were all well. The new housekeeper could not be better qualified and was also possessed of an agreeable personality. Tomorrow Miss Seton would arrive.

  John’s absence accounted for most of her sorrow, she knew, but her moroseness went even deeper. She was wounded that he had not considered taking his bride with him when he returned to London. She tried to console herself with the recollection of her own persuasive argument to him for marrying her. He needed a competent, intelligent, well-organized woman to oversee the running of his home and the upbringing of his children.

  Now that he had wed such a woman—in a marriage that was not a complete marriage—why should he not wish to leave his family in her care?

  She should not feel so hurt. But she did.

  And because of the urgency of his trip to the Capital, he had forgotten about his promise to remove Dorothy’s portrait.

  Rebecca had never allowed herself to stare at the portrait because others were always present when she was in the dining room. Now that John was gone and all the others busy, she felt beckoned to the dining room, beckoned to peer at the portrait of John’s dead wife.

  The dining room’s gold silken
draperies had been opened, and the room filled with light. Rebecca came to stand before Dorothy’s portrait. A Gainsborough.

  Did Gainsborough never paint a woman who was not a beauty? The painting was executed about twenty years previously. Were Dorothy still alive, she would be a middle-aged woman. Rebecca took a most perverse—and she hated to admit, mean-spirited—satisfaction in hoping that Dorothy’s lovely face had begun to sag and wrinkle, that the hair that was powdered in this portrait would have turned gray.

  The resemblance between Dorothy and Emily was strong, but Emily was prettier than her mother. Despite Dorothy’s fair blond, blue-eyed beauty, there was a quality about her that was more formidable than feminine. It took no great perception to understand that this self-assured-looking woman was a duke’s daughter. There was an aura of privilege as well as arrogance about her aristocratic face.

  Dear God, please rid me of these feelings of such intense jealousy.

  While Rebecca stood rooted to the Turkey carpet staring at her predecessor and feeling wretchedly inadequate, Emily stopped in the doorway, malice on her face. “What are you doing?”

  Rebecca felt like a thief snatching alms from the poor box. “I...I was noting how very much you look like your mother.”

  “Yes, I’m often told that.”

  “I have a question to ask you,” Rebecca said, turning away from the portrait, her face flaming. “It’s about the writing desk in my bedchamber—I presume it was your mother’s—and I wondered if you would like to have it. The gilt is a bit too formal for my tastes. I saw one of a more simple design in the Yellow Room when I was showing Mrs. Cotton around this morning, and I believe I would prefer to have that one in my chamber.”

  Emily glared. “Then, yes, of course, I should like to have my mother’s desk.” She continued on down the corridor.

  Rebecca started after her. “There’s one more question I’d like to ask.”

  Emily spun around. “What?”

  “Was your mother older than your father?” Now why had she gone and asked such an irrelevant, ridiculous question? What had prompted such a question in the first place?

  Iciness stung Emily’s voice. “As a matter of fact, she was. She was three years older.” Emily turned away and left Rebecca staring after her.

  If John was now three and forty, and his eldest child was nineteen, he must have become a father at four and twenty and married at three and twenty. Therefore, Dorothy would have been six and twenty when they wed. On the shelf.

  Like Rebecca had been.

  There was one question that only John could answer, one question she would never ask, yet it was the question that had begun to plague her every moment.

  Had John been terribly in love with Dorothy?

  And even more painful...did he regret marrying Rebecca?

  * * *

  It seemed so strange to Aynsley after a lifetime of loneliness to be sharing a bond with someone. With a woman. Throughout his first day back in London, he kept finding himself saying, “I must share this with Rebecca” or “I must tell Rebecca that.”

  By the time he came to his bedchamber well past midnight that first night, he had no desire to go to bed even though he was bone weary. He could not allow himself to lie down until he imparted to his wife all that had occurred that day.

  He removed his coat and boots, then went to the desk in his bedchamber where he began to pen the letter.

  My Dearest Rebecca,

  I came to Lord Sethbridge upon my arrival in London, and he apprised me of the fact we need eighteen more votes to pass the tax bill. He had drawn up a list of those lords still in opposition to the measure, and he asked which ones I thought I could influence. While I believe he is possessed of an inflated sense of my consequence, I told him which men I would try to persuade to our way of thinking. Because the list was longer than I had anticipated, I may remain in London longer than I had planned.

  I made it clear from the outset my efforts would be contingent on his support of my franchise bill, and he gave me his word to go against his personal convictions and vote for the proposal when the time comes.

  I started my conquest tonight by attending a dinner at Lord and Lady Holland’s. While they are decidedly Whig, Lady Holland assembles a good mix from all quarters. I counted twelve Members of Parliament at the (very large) table. I found myself wondering if you’d ever taken dinner there. It was just the sort of gathering I fancy you’d enjoy.

  I actually introduced the matter of the tax increase, and the ensuing discussion was most lively. In fact, the remainder of the evening, each man, and many women, present weighed in on the matter. Lord Holland favors it, and I believe he and I managed to coax two fence straddlers to our way of thinking, and there are three more we will work on. So, whittle that list down to sixteen. For now.

  When your sister found out I was in town (she was gravely disappointed you did not accompany me), she insisted on having me—and many others who hold government positions—to dinner tomorrow. I expect there will be many Tories there. Hopefully some can be persuaded to support the tax increase. For the good of England.

  I have not been so tired in a very long time, but I could not even think of going to bed until I wrote you, as promised. I miss being at Dunton more than words can say.

  Yours,

  Aynsley

  She folded up the letter and pressed it to her heart. It was the kind of silly gesture a schoolgirl might do. What was coming over her? The former Miss Rebecca Peabody was becoming ruled by emotions—and profound feelings like nothing she had ever before experienced.

  How dear was this letter to her! His letter. In his neat hand. That he had thought of her even though he was bone weary made her feel as if her chest were expanding with joy.

  At the same time she missed him so acutely, it was almost painful.

  * * *

  Two days after Aynsley left, Miss Seton arrived. She was so highly valued by the Devere family, for whom she had been employed many years, that Lord Devere sent her all the way to Shropshire in the Devere carriage, which also carried all her worldly goods.

  It made Rebecca sad that a woman who had lived more than four decades possessed no more than could fit into one valise and one portmanteau. How sad not to have a family of her own. Rebecca vowed to endeavor to make both Miss Seton and Mrs. Cotton feel valued as if they were an integral part of the Compton family.

  Rebecca told Miss Seton her duties would not begin until her first full day. On the day of her arrival, Rebecca invited her for tea in front of the fire in the drawing room.

  “How many years were you with the Devere family?” Rebecca asked, to make her feel comfortable by talking about the familiar.

  “For fifteen years. It was a privilege to have instructed all eight of the Devere children.”

  “And the youngest one is?” Rebecca studied Miss Seton so she could write an accurate description of her in tonight’s letter to her husband.

  “That would be Lady Sarah, who is now seventeen.”

  “I am acquainted with Lady Sophia, who would bring credit to anyone.”

  Miss Seton’s plump face broke into a broad smile. “Indeed she would. She is as kind and intelligent as she is beautiful.”

  “I hope you will find our lads intelligent.”

  “Our? Lady Sophia told me you have just married Lord Aynsley.”

  Rebecca frowned. Just married? It seemed as if she had been married for a considerable period of time. And it did seem as if the lads should be hers. She certainly wanted them to be. “While it’s true that I’ve not been married long, I think of my husband’s dear children as my own.”

  “What are their ages?”

  “While he has seven children, four of them are past the age of needing a governess. We have three lads at home still. Spencer is eight, and Alex is six. Chuckie’s a bit too young for a governess. He’s three.”

  “Very good. I had several offers of employment, but the reason I chose to come to Shropshire
—besides the kind words Lady Sophia spoke about you—was the knowledge that you and Lord Aynsley are bound to have more children, so I will be able to make my home here for many years. I do not like being uprooted.”

  Heat began to sting Rebecca’s cheeks. For someone who had never blushed until her twenty-eighth year, she was squeezing a lifetime’s worth into the past several weeks.

  What an incredibly intimate topic for the governess to introduce! Rebecca herself had not even thought on that subject recently. Miss Seton’s comment left her momentarily mute. “Your desire to make your home with us, hopefully for the rest of your life, is just the very thing we have hoped for. I will do everything in my power to see that you will be happy here at Dunton.”

  “Thank you. Now what can you tell me about the lads?” For a woman who’d been an authority figure over others for more than two decades, Miss Seton was surprisingly soft-spoken, and her countenance was meek.

  “I believe Spencer and Alex are both very intelligent. They are being tutored in Greek, Latin and mathematics by Mr. Witherstrum in the afternoons. They will come to you in the mornings. You will help with their French, penmanship, reading and music.”

  “How do the lads get on with each other?”

  Rebecca smiled. “The fact that you ask that question tells me you must have experience with squabbling brothers.”