Rival Desires

by Annabel Joseph

“Afraid? Of you?” August tsked.

  Marlow shook his head. “How strange for her to be afraid. Do you take a haughty tone with her?” he asked. “Do you make her call you ‘my lord,’ even in the bedroom?”

  “Of course I don’t.”

  “Do you make her curtsey when you enter?” August asked. “And insist she speak to you with proper deference?”

  Wescott felt his cheeks redden. He might have spanked her for speaking crossly on at least one occasion.

  “I’m a perfectly reasonable husband,” he said. “I don’t know why she fears me, and fights me.”

  “Does she know your favorite color?” asked Marlow.

  August stifled a laugh. “Do you know his favorite color?”

  “Well, I’m not married to the man, am I?” Marlow turned back to Wescott. “Have you told her you’re a swordsman? She’d swoon over that. Have you told her your favorite dishes to eat? The cities you visited when we toured Europe? Have you told her why you wear your hair so long?”

  “Why do you wear your hair so long?” asked August. “I’ve always wondered that.”

  Marlow affected a pose. “Because Wescott’s hair is too thick and lustrous to wear short. Can you imagine him with short hair? It’d be sticking out all over the place.”

  Wescott returned to the window, looking out at the busy London thoroughfare. What did Ophelia know of him? Nothing. But that was her fault, because she didn’t want to know anything. And if he’d been overly lofty or authoritative in disciplining her, well, women needed guidance, didn’t they? Otherwise, she’d be leading him around by the stones, strong willed as she was.

  “What do you know about her?”

  August’s question brought him back to their conversation. He turned, ready to tell him off. “I know plenty about her. I know she’s a singer. I know she studied in Vienna.”

  “We all know that,” said August. “What kind of personal things do you know?”

  His lips flattened in a line. “I know she’s the Earl of Halsey’s youngest, and that she has a brother and a sister.”

  “Again, those are things anyone would know.”

  “I know her favorite color. Daffodil yellow. She told me the night we married.”

  “What else did you ask her that night?”

  He glared at August. “What do you mean? It was our wedding night. I wasn’t out to learn her life’s story. I spent most of the time trying to convince her to let me bed her.” And spanking her when she did not. He chose not to admit that fact under his friend’s judgmental line of questioning. “But I did ask her favorite color, because I thought I should know something of her.”

  “Something. One thing. And have you bought her any yellow things since?”

  “Damn you, August. What kind of yellow things? What are you talking about?”

  “He’s trying to help.” Marlow stood from his chair, stretching his arms before him and cracking his knuckles. “I think he’s saying you could try more friendly conversation with your wife, and less demands for sex.”

  “If I was demanding sex—” He lowered his voice, trying to hold his temper. “If I was demanding sex, I would have gotten it by now, I assure you.”

  “You should buy her a yellow frock while you’re in town,” August said. “Or a hat, if you don’t know her dressmaker. I guess you haven’t memorized her measurements?”

  “Since when are you such a scion of courtship?” Wescott asked.

  “I’ve thought on it a little,” he said, his own cheeks reddening. When the silence lengthened, he shrugged. “Why wouldn’t I? I’d like to make a decent marriage one day.”

  Poor August, and his unrequited love for Felicity. It had been so long ago, the rest of them had been young and oblivious to the depth of his feelings. August probably knew a hundred more things about Felicity than Wescott knew about his wife. If he asked him, they’d probably pour out, like Townsend’s pronouncements of love for Ophelia.

  “Maybe I don’t know how to love.” The words spilled from his mouth before he even thought to say them. They embarrassed him. “I mean, I don’t think I’ve ever loved anyone in a romantic way, the way my parents love each other. The way you...you cared for Felicity.”

  August said nothing. Marlow looked uncomfortable.

  Wescott felt bereft.

  Maybe that was the real problem...that love wasn’t inside him the way it was for other people. Was there a cure for that? He was nothing like August, carrying around deep, long-held emotion, or Townsend, entranced to the point of obsession with a woman he’d never met.

  What did he feel for Ophelia?

  Mainly, he felt frustration that she didn’t like him, much less love him. He felt embarrassment and anger because his marriage was such a disaster. Those weren’t the emotions of a man who knew how to love. They were selfish emotions.

  Fuck and bother. He was doomed, then. Their marriage was doomed. Maybe he ought to go out with his friends to the brothels for the evening, and work out those frustrations between some other woman’s thighs. Ophelia would never know.

  But that would be giving up, wouldn’t it? He wasn’t to that point yet. There was more to learn about his wife than the damned color yellow.

  “Why are women so complicated?” he muttered.

  His friends stared back at him, confused as he was. Weren’t they a sorry lot? He’d made himself an expert in swordplay, but forgot about the chivalry, which might have been why all the dummy’s limbs were strewn across the floor.

  * * * * *

  Ophelia received a letter from her husband the fourth day after he’d left, which was, incidentally, the first day that his mother hadn’t needed to come rushing to her bed to wake her from a nightmare.

  It was pointedly short, and not very sweet.

  Dear Ophelia,

  All is well in London. I’ve spent some time with August and Marlow, and attended to some business. Almost all the theaters have reopened since the fire. We saw a comic opera last night, The Barber of Seville. I could not imagine you singing it, but perhaps you have.

  I trust all is in order at the Abbey, and that you have not endured too much rain. Be sure to direct the servants if you should need anything.

  Yours,

  Wescott

  What did that mean, that he had attended to business? Why could he not imagine her singing The Barber of Seville? Was it an insult? A jest? Just a general comment? She had not sung the opera, as it had no soprano role for a performer her age, which he would very well know if he’d actually seen it.

  She put down his letter and paced the room that had begun to feel like a prison. Oh, his family was all that was kind. His mother comforted her with cold compresses and hot milk when she woke from one of her nightmares, and his sisters Hazel and Elizabeth kept her company during the day, enticing her to cards or needlepoint, or charades with his parents. One afternoon his sisters brought her on a walk, and when they passed by the Greek temple in the garden, commenting on its beauty, all Ophelia wanted was to run away from the structure and never think about Wescott again.

  Another day passed, and another. She threw herself into planning menus, but got distracted petting the cats in the kitchen because she felt so lonely. When she walked the halls, she watched out for ghosts, but they seemed as anxious to avoid her as her husband.

  What was he up to in London? Dining at his clubs? Engaging in swordplay with his friends to impress all the women who’d wanted to marry him before he was saddled with her? She tried not to think how dashing someone like Wescott would look in a sword fight. According to Elizabeth, there was a secret armory somewhere in the Abbey. Ophelia wanted to find it to irritate her husband. She could disarrange his sword collection, or hide the most lovely, shining ones. She’d do it to punish him for running away from her, probably into the arms of some harlot or mistress.

  When would he come home?

  When the sixth day arrived with no more letters and no sign of her husband, she searched in earnest for sec
ret panels and hidden corridors, but found nothing. Where would an entire room be hiding in this old pile of rocks? After breakfast the following morning, she sought out a room she’d found early on, one of the largest rooms on the first floor—the Abbey’s library.

  She opened the heavy door and walked into the high-ceilinged chamber. She had always loved the smell of books and paper. She’d been scolded at her music academy for sniffing every cantata and opera, but it had been printed on such fine, smooth paper, she couldn’t resist.

  She wasn’t looking for music now. She was looking for—

  “Good morning, Ophelia.”

  She spun at the sound of the deep voice. At first she thought it was her husband, and wondered why she hadn’t been informed of his arrival. But it was her father-in-law, the Duke of Arlington, who looked very much like his son, only older and more refined. He sat at a table amidst a few disordered stacks of books, spectacles perched at the end of his nose.

  “Your Grace.” She started to back from the room. “I’m sorry I’ve disturbed you.”

  “You haven’t disturbed me, and you mustn’t call me ‘Your Grace’ now that we’re family.”

  She blinked at him. “What would I call you, sir?”

  “Sir is no better, child. Why not Father or Papa as my own daughters do? You’re my daughter now, since you’ve married my son.”

  She’d as soon be able to call the imposing duke “Papa” as she could go up onto the rooftop and fly, but she didn’t say so.

  “Come in.” He beckoned her forward. “It’s so quiet in here. Have you come to find a book to read? There are hundreds to choose from.”

  “Well, n-no.” She stood frozen in place. “Not a book.”

  He must think her an imbecile, standing and stammering. The duke’s eyes were blue, not green like his son’s, and at the moment, those eyes looked patient and somewhat amused, so she screwed up her courage and told him the truth.

  “I’ve come to see if there are any house plans here in the library.” She scanned the tall mahogany shelves. “Plans of the Abbey. I suppose there aren’t, since it was built so long ago, but I hoped someone might have made some newer records of the layout...in the ensuing years...”

  “House plans.” He pushed the book he was reading away, leaned forward, and steepled his fingers beneath his chin. “Dear Ophelia, you want to find the secret room, don’t you? Wescott’s secret armory?”

  Her cheeks heated as she picked at her dress’s sheer organza overlay. “I thought I might attempt it. Elizabeth told me it existed, but she doesn’t know where it is.”

  “Few people know.” He raised a brow. “I know, but I won’t tell you where it is.”

  “Oh.” She threaded her fingers together in disappointment.

  “Because, of course, it would be far more fun for you to try to find it yourself. You might as well amuse yourself, since my son ran off so soon after you were married.” His lips formed an intimidating frown as he shook his head. “It wasn’t well done of him. I’ve sent a letter telling him so.”

  This rather shocked her—first, that he would bring it up with her, and second, that he would chide Wescott on her behalf. “Has he written back?”

  “Not yet.”

  Her throat tightened as she dropped her gaze to the table’s varnished surface. “He probably won’t.” She could feel her father-in-law’s eyes on her, and still perceive his frown in her peripheral vision. “I don’t think he likes me. At all.”

  “Why would you say that?”

  He left silence for her to fill, though she dreaded to answer. How had things gone so wrong? The more she thought over it, the more she feared it wasn’t his fault, but hers.

  “I suppose it’s because I’ve been awful,” she said, and it felt almost a relief to admit it. “I’ve been the most unbearable wife, which is why he left me. I’ve been a shrew and a crosspatch, even when he’s tried to be kind.”

  “A shrew and a crosspatch?” The duke gave a soft laugh that sounded almost like her husband’s. “I can hardly believe that. You’ve been nothing but gracious in my family’s company, even after we intruded on your honeymoon.”

  “We’ve hardly had a honeymoon, unfortunately. All we do is fight.”

  “Fight?” He leaned closer. “My son hasn’t hurt you, has he? Physically?”

  She hesitated, then shook her head. Wescott had spanked her on a few occasions, but she didn’t wish to admit that. No, the fights she meant were the emotional ones, the words they snapped at each other.

  “You argue then?” the duke asked. “Well, all married couples do so on occasion.”

  His kind reassurance made tears rise in her eyes. “It’s not as simple as that. I’ve said so many bad things to him. I’ve said that I didn’t want to marry him, that I didn’t want this life, this house, his love. I’ve said that I don’t want him to touch me.” She could barely get out the last words. “I’ve said that I...that I hate him.” When she stole a look at the duke’s face, she expected to see anger. Instead, she saw sympathy.

  “That does sound bad.” He clasped his hands upon the table, considering. “I wonder, did you mean all those things when you said them?”

  The tears in her eyes spilled over. “No, I didn’t. I don’t. I think I’m only trying to tell him something else. Maybe that I’m...that I’m afraid.”

  “Afraid of Wescott?”

  She nodded, then shook her head. “I think… I think I am afraid of everything.” She shuddered, hugging herself beneath the duke’s intent gaze. “Since the fire, since everything changed, I have terrible nightmares and I’m afraid all the time. And now I have... I have...”

  She sniveled, trembling all over. She shook so violently, the duke reached for her and took her arm.

  “I have ruined everything and made him hate me,” she cried, “and all my fears have come to pass. I wish that fire had never happened. I’m so tired of feeling troubled all the time.”

  She hadn’t realized until now how much her fears had changed her. She’d been so afraid since the fire, so unsettled and anxious, that she’d pushed away her husband and refused to feel anything for him, even though she desperately needed a friend.

  “What will I do?” she sobbed, the words coming out in stutters. “I think I’ll be afraid forever. I feel too tired to be brave.”

  She did feel, suddenly, so very tired and helpless. When the duke guided her against his shoulder, she clung to him blindly, crying into his fine woolen coat. He produced a handkerchief with the same easy grace as his son, and she pressed it to her eyes. “I’m so sorry, Your Grace.”

  “You mustn’t be sorry. Cry it out, my dear. You’ll feel better afterward. I know, because I’ve raised several daughters, all with their mother’s stormy Welsh blood. There now.” When she stopped shuddering so violently, he released her, but kept hold of her hand.

  “May I tell you something?” he asked. He waited for her to wipe her eyes and meet his gaze. “As bleak as things seem now, Ophelia, I have great hopes for you and my son. Your relationship was forged in fire, literally, which can’t have been easy, but it shows you’re both strong, that you can survive things with each other’s help.”

  “I don’t know.” She hid her face in her hands, then looked up again. “In some ways, I feel I didn’t survive.”

  “Oh, dear child, things will get better. You’ve had a traumatizing experience, and you haven’t fully recovered yet. Not only the fire, but what happened afterward. My son’s trespass, the hasty wedding. And the terror of that night, of the fire, has likely become mixed up in your marriage, complicating matters further.”

  “It may be so,” she said.

  “In time, though, you’ll begin to heal. It’s been a matter of days, really. Barely a fortnight. Things will get better between you and Wescott.”

  “But how?” She dabbed away the last of her tears, still clutching his handkerchief. “They can’t get better when I’ve ruined everything and acted like such an unlovabl
e fool.”

  “Let me share some wisdom that comes with age.” He released her hand and patted it in a fatherly manner. “Nothing is irreparable. Most of the time, missteps can be fixed.”

  “No, I’ve driven him away. He hates me. He’s left me.”

  “Wescott is merely taking a break, Ophelia. He’s taking time to breathe and gather his thoughts, as you must, too. It’s like the matches at his club, when they spar with swords. When the action gets too heated, the fight master calls a break to the action, so the rivals can recollect their heads.”

  Perhaps her father-in-law was right. Their marriage had felt like a sword fight to this point, with no one to step between them and make them calm down.

  “It’s likely my son left to prevent things breaking down further, and to think of a plan to improve matters when he returns. That’s his way. He’ll come back soon, because you’re his. You’re his wife.” He leaned close to hold her gaze. “And if the two of you can open your hearts to each other, you’ll soon be as happily married as his mother and me.”

  Because you’re his. Wescott had used the same type of phrase when he upset her so. You’re mine, you know. I like that you belong to me. In her fear, she’d interpreted his words as overbearing and evil, but maybe he’d meant them affectionately. Protectively. He’d done so much to protect her, from the fire, from her nightmares, and all she’d done in return was malign him and push him away. Tears fell again, more pitiful this time than sorrowful.

  “There, child,” said the duke, so patiently. “All will be well.”

  “You must think I’m the silliest, weakest woman in Christendom.” She waved his handkerchief with a self-deprecating sigh.

  “No. I think you’re a very strong person. So is my son.” He thought a moment. “Whatever you have lost in marrying Jack—and I’m sure there are many things—you must look at it this way. You shall not want in safety or security for the rest of your life. A good marriage, with both hearts in order, will bring happiness beyond measure, because you’ll always be there for one another, no matter the ups and downs. He will be back, and soon. He is far too stubborn to give up on you.”