Rival Desires

by Annabel Joseph

  “I suppose, although it didn’t mean much to me then. My friends and I preferred the gardens and woods for our childhood games. You met them at the wedding, if you’ll remember, Lord Augustine and Lord Marlow? And Lord Townsend,” he added in afterthought.

  Lord Townsend was the gentleman who’d lost his head over her. She’d never forget their fight the day of her betrothal. “You grew up together?” she asked.

  “We were closest in age, all the oldest sons.” He chuckled. “But there were many more of us, all our younger brothers and sisters and their friends, tearing about the Oxfordshire countryside when our tutors would let us. We were usually granted freedom on pretty days.”

  “Your sisters too?”

  “Oh yes, they followed us everywhere, even when we begged them to stay away.”

  He said this with good humor, but Ophelia was shocked by the idea of young girls roaming the countryside. She’d been strictly supervised her entire childhood and put to womanly pursuits when she was old enough. Embroidery, letter writing, dancing lessons. She’d been allowed to read the occasional novel, if approved by her Mama. And music lessons, of course.

  “It is a beautiful property,” she said. “Is that the pond I see from my window?”

  “Yes. There are several in the area. Do you enjoy swimming?”

  “Swimming? In a pond?” Was he teasing her? “I...I don’t know. I’ve never tried it.”

  He said something under his breath, something like “Why am I not surprised?” She regarded the pond with suspicion, wondering how deep it was.

  They skirted around the rippling shoreline and across another lawn surrounded by manicured hedgerows. He shortened his long stride so she could keep up, especially as she couldn’t resist looking around at the expert gardening and stone follies, including a detailed replica of a Greek temple at the edge of the woods.

  “Who created all this?” she asked. “The monks?”

  “Oh, no. My mother planted many of these gardens when she ran out of space at the other house. You may change them around as you wish. She wouldn’t mind.”

  Gardens, ponds, an old, medieval-looking house. She ought to be excited about such things. A proper woman would be honored to be Lord Wescott’s wife, and mother to his children. One day she would be a duchess. It ought to make her happy, but she mostly felt lonely and lost.

  “Shall we stop here?” he asked.

  For a moment she thought he spoke of their marriage. Yes, let’s stop here. Then I could stop worrying. But no, he spoke of their picnic lunch in the sun, so she helped him spread the blanket and take the food from the basket.

  His servants had wrapped up cold roast beef and chicken, with fresh bread and pickled salads, as well as an assortment of cakes. It was the first meal they’d eaten together since their wedding breakfast, and that hardly counted, since so many other people had been milling around. She felt achingly self-conscious as she picked at the food on her plate.

  “The fare isn’t to your liking?” he asked, studying her.

  “No, it’s very good.”

  “You don’t like the sun, then? I thought the fresh air and light might help you sleep more soundly when you retire.”

  “I’m sorry about the nightmares.” She tucked her feet more closely beneath her. “If I could stop them, I would.”

  “I don’t blame you for them, I only wish you’d feel better. My mother has always been a great believer in the power of sunshine. She’s Welsh, you know, and believes in all sorts of whimsical things.”

  Ophelia blinked at him. Her own mother couldn’t be farther from whimsical. Both her parents were the strait-laced sort.

  “She seems a fine lady,” she said. “Your mother.”

  “Oh, she’s the best lady and everyone loves her, most of all my father.” He looked away from her. Did he realize how his careless words stung?

  “They married for love, then?” she asked.

  “Goodness, no. They hardly knew one another when they wed, but they ended up suiting in the end.” He shrugged. “I suppose it happens if you’re lucky. Would you like to take off your bonnet?”

  She touched the wide brim. “I’d better not. I might freckle.”

  “They never sunned you at your school?” He frowned. “All of you pale and wan, and musically talented.”

  Whenever he spoke of her school, he made it sound like a joke. Her whole life, her dreams, her voice, her goals, all of them were meaningless to him. She was nothing more than a woman he’d seduced—in error—and been forced to marry. Perhaps she ought to sing for him, to show what he’d taken away from her.

  No. She would not sing for him, not ever. She wouldn’t let him enjoy the voice he’d stifled.

  They passed the rest of the picnic with small talk, and lengthy silences neither of them tried to fill. When they finished, they repacked the dishes, and she stood so he could fold the blanket. “Why is that temple here?” she asked, pointing at the Greek folly in the distance. “I thought this was an abbey before, a Christian place.”

  “It was an abbey, long, long ago. The gardens and follies were installed later, when this became a residence. My great-great-grandfather built that particular folly in the early 1700’s, after he traveled to Athens and toured the Greek ruins. He was a historian of sorts.” He set the basket on a nearby bench and gestured toward the temple. “Would you like to go see it?”

  “I’m not sure.” She eyed the marble structure. “It looks so desolate among the trees, as if it might harbor ghosts.”

  “It’s not haunted. No, it’s far more interesting than that.”

  His expression puzzled her, moving between gravity and laughter. She replaced her gloves and pursed her lips. “Are there snakes inside it? Rats and badgers?”

  He did laugh then. “No, it’s kept locked tight, so no animals can get in. It’s a place for erotic punishment.” He said these stunning words and continued on, even as Ophelia flushed in shock. “My parents forbade me from exploring it when I was a boy, but my friends and I broke our way in as soon as we were old enough to meddle the lock.”

  “What do you mean by...by that thing you said?” she asked. “Erotic punishment? Punishment of wh-whom?”

  Wescott raised a brow. “In my great-great grandfather’s case, I don’t know. Perhaps it was fitted out later. I know my father made use of it, because he erected an exact copy in the gardens of his town house, and my parents visited it often when they thought we didn’t know.”

  “Oh goodness. Your parents?”

  “And their friends, sometimes. You look shocked, Ophelia. I’m certain they all enjoyed themselves. Shall I explain the particulars of erotic punishment?”

  “I don’t want to know.” She put her hands to her eyes, then her ears, daunted by his smile. “Do you...have you...?” She couldn’t finish the question.

  “Have I engaged in erotic punishment in that temple?”

  She nodded. “Whatever that is.”

  He was guiding her toward the folly, not that she wanted to go.

  “I have, in the past,” he said. “When my friends and I found this place, we didn’t know what it was for. When I got a bit older and wiser, I made use of it during the wilder house parties of my bachelorhood. It’s quite fun to imagine you’re in ancient times, doing perverse sorts of things.”

  She couldn’t picture these “perverse things,” could hardly believe what he said was true. When they reached the temple, he looked behind a rock at the edge of the foundation and extracted a long, narrow key. This opened the lock handily.

  “You see,” he said, pushing open the door. “No snakes or badgers.”

  She could see at a glance that the room was indeed created for the business of punishment. There was an imposing pole in the center that made her draw in a breath. On closer inspection, she saw it was a polished whipping post with cuffs attached. She turned about and noticed a pair of shining chains hanging from a corner. There was a rack on the opposite side with more leather cuffs
, and several platforms and benches arranged along the smooth, stone walls. The only light for the room issued from the doorway, as well as four small windows at each side.

  She did not dare step inside to inspect anything more closely. What if he closed the door and rolled up his sleeves, and said I believe I shall punish you right now, Lady Wescott, in his lofty, lackadaisical way? What if he locked her in there and bound her into one of those sets of cuffs? And then he...

  No. She couldn’t imagine it. Erotic punishment? She didn’t want to imagine it.

  “Were they frightened?” she asked, backing away. “The women you brought here to punish, were they terrified?”

  “Dear girl, they were willing. It was all in fun, for excitement and pleasure.”

  “Pleasure? I don’t understand.”

  He sighed. “You wouldn’t.” He took a last look inside, a longing look that unsettled her, and shut the door.

  “You shouldn’t have married me,” she said. “If these are the things you like, then I…I will never make you happy.”

  “I didn’t have a choice, remember?”

  She watched as he locked the secret room away. “I cannot imagine enjoying anything like...” She waved a hand at the door. “Like that.”

  “Nor can I, when you’ve such an attitude of aversion.” He placed the key in its former hiding place and returned to her. “It doesn’t matter. I’ll only require one thing of you in our day to day life, and it will happen soon.” His piercing eyes held hers. “I’ve given you time, Ophelia, but a honeymoon is a honeymoon. You can’t push me away forever, especially when I’m sleeping next to you each night. It’s not easy for me, you know. My control can only stretch so far.”

  Her chest constricted, her body quailing away from his, even though he didn’t touch her. She must stop having the nightmares, so he wouldn’t need to lie in her bed. It gave him the excuse to come to her, to touch her. Soon, he would take full possession of her body again, come inside her as he’d done the first night she met him. He’d had so much power over her then.

  “I’m tired,” she said, walking away from her husband and his profane Greek temple. “I think I ought to go inside.”

  “Yes, and rest, so you can come down and join me for a proper dinner tonight. Eight o’clock. The servants must see us dining together as husband and wife, or gossip will soon reach London.”

  “Good servants don’t gossip.”

  “All servants gossip,” he said. “I’ll send a footman to fetch you, so you won’t have any trouble finding the dining room.”

  He was giving her an order to join him for dinner, and as the temple reminded her, he was only too happy to dole out punishments for poor behavior, erotic or otherwise. He’d given her two spankings so far for displeasing him. She didn’t care to receive another.

  “As you wish,” she said, walking with him back toward the manor. She kept her expression neutral beneath her bonnet’s brim, but her blood beat in her veins, frenzied as her panicking heart.

  * * * * *

  When she met him at dinner, she was still unsettled, her mind turning on the alien concept of pleasurable punishment. She supposed she’d been too sheltered, for she could not imagine such a thing, but he admitted the vice with no embarrassment whatsoever.

  She found herself watching his movements more closely, trying to imagine him in that temple doing scandalous things to ladies. Punishing them because they wanted it. She stared at his hands as they rested on his wineglass or slid along the table, and thought of all the perverse things he might do with them. He’d touched her with those hands, touched her very intimately.

  And she’d been swept away by his touch, transported to earth-shaking ecstasies. She remembered that, even if she couldn’t admit it out loud.

  “You’re quiet tonight,” he said, as the servants removed the main courses. “What troubles you, Lady Wescott?”

  She let out a breath. “I wonder if our walk exhausted me. Perhaps I should retire.”

  “You shall not retire, not until you’ve tried some of the cook’s berry trifle.”

  A bowing footman offered a choice of blackberry or elderberry, the shiny fruit covered with toasted biscuit crumbles and cream. She selected the blackberry and stared at it. It was better than staring at his hands.

  “Go on then,” he said. “Take a bite, for God’s sake. You’ll enjoy it. This moping and withering of yours has got to stop.”

  “Moping and withering? My lord, I’m tired.”

  “You’re not tired. You merely wish to discourage me from seeking your bed, as you do every night. Eat that blasted dessert before I feed it to you myself.”

  She stiffened her spine and tried a bite, and found she enjoyed it in spite of herself. The berries were the sweetest and juiciest she’d had in a while, not that she would tell him that.

  “It’s quite good,” she said in a dull tone, hiding her delight. She knew she sounded shrewish. He would grow to hate her past the point of bearing, and then he’d leave her. Perhaps that was what she wanted.

  No, she didn’t want it.

  She didn’t know what she wanted anymore, or how to fix things when they’d gone so very wrong. The next bite stuck in her throat, as her eyes filled with tears. Crying over blackberries? She tried to will the tears away, but it was useless. She swallowed the berries and looked away from him. She’d been trying so hard to resist her roiling emotions that they exploded in a rather dramatic way, her tears soaking her cheeks.

  When she looked for a napkin, he reached within his coat and produced a handkerchief instead. She took it and pressed it to her eyes, and realized that it smelled like him, like his earthy, spicy cologne. She knew his smell and his voice, and was coming to know his expressions. Why, she knew everything about him. Mostly, she knew how disappointed he was in their marriage.

  “I wish I could go home.” That was what she said aloud, but inside her mind the words tumbled, I’m afraid, I’m afraid, I’m afraid. I’m afraid of you touching me. I’m afraid of you hating me. I’m afraid to be your wife.

  “You can’t go home, Ophelia. Your home is here now.” He took her plate away as she stabbed blindly at blackberries. “Come, leave that. I’ve something to show you.”

  He led her from the dining room into the hallway, then turned her toward the other side of the house. They passed the formal parlors and receiving rooms, him drawing her along so quickly that she didn’t think to resist. She swabbed at her tears as he opened a door to a salon at the end of the hallway. A pair of footmen materialized with lamps to light the darkened room.

  She looked about as the lamps illuminated luxuriously papered walls. They were in a gallery filled with dozens of grand family portraits, some with a single subject and others with a posed arrangement of parents, children, and pets. The sumptuous paintings drew the viewer back through time, the subjects’ clothing and hairstyles recalling earlier eras. On the oldest, faded paintings, the eyes seemed to move as the lamplight guttered and rose.

  “This is why you can’t go home,” he said. “These are generations of my family, dukes and marquesses, earls and knights and barons who’ve lived upon the land and the land around it.” He watched her as she stood immobile, wringing her hands. “You’ve doubtless got family portraits as well, and a proud Halsey history. Now our families have joined together, through us.”

  “I know.” She turned about, feeling judged by every face, every smile and staunch expression. Then she noticed a portrait of his parents, both of them smiling in marital bliss, and thought of the temple out in the garden. “I know that. I know I’ve not been a proper wife.” She turned back to him. “I did not imagine my life going this way. I wanted to sing for a bit longer.”

  “You wanted to sing? You won’t even sing for me.”

  “I wanted to do more than marry,” she said in a burst of bravado. “I wanted to go beyond Vienna and music lessons. My mother promised I could see Italy and Spain, perhaps even Greece.” Her voice trailed off.
She wished she hadn’t mentioned Greece, the place that had inspired the folly in the garden.

  One of his brows rose. “I didn’t realize you had such an affection for travel.”

  “I don’t. I haven’t. I mean, I haven’t gone anywhere yet, and now...”

  “Now you are married to me and imprisoned here in my pile of rocks in the country. I see how that could dampen a lady’s mood.”

  “You mock me. Nothing in your life has changed, but I have lost... I’ve lost everything.” Her tears came back, and she wiped them away angrily. “I’m very cross about it all, not that you care.”

  He came to stand beside her, his arm coming around her waist when she moved to evade him. “Come here, little crosspatch. Kiss me.”

  “I don’t want to.”

  “Indeed, I see that. I’ve never had a young lady speak to me as you have, with such drama and emotion. You’re not onstage anymore.”

  She pushed at him. “I don’t want to be.”

  “You don’t want anything, do you, except to flail and complain and bemoan this miserable marriage?”

  It was true. She was flailing and making a scene, pushing him away, resisting everything she must submit to. His body felt hard against hers, and overwhelming. He took her face in his hands and made her look into his eyes. How green they were, how intent, like chips of jade.

  “For all that you don’t like me,” he said in his fine, haughty voice, “I like you very much. I want to have children with you, children with your beauty and spirit, and your cursed stubbornness.”

  “I’m not stubborn.”

  He laughed. “Not when you get your way. But the rest of the time, you’re a stubborn, annoying pain in my arse.” She gasped at the insult, but he laughed. “No matter, little crosspatch. We’re a pair now, a couple, whatever we wished for before.”

  He indicated his handsome, formal ancestors, looking at them from the portraits on the walls. “I know you don’t want to be married into my august family, but you are. We’re husband and wife forevermore, and we’ll come to know each other and put up with one another’s quirks, like your utter fear of intimacy. I’ll break you of that eventually.”