by Louisa Trent
One last kiss on his florid cheek, and she straightened. “I trust you, Papa, and I abide by your decision in this. In regard to Mr. Bowdoin’s background, I really could not care less. I shall make him the best wife I know how, no questions asked.”
Chapter Nine
Talbot faced his new bride across the table, an intimate dinner for two at Linwood, his country home at Pride’s Crossing on the North Shore. His bride still wore her dark brown traveling suit, the short coat revealing a stark white blouse and a black ribbon tie at the throat. If not for her removing her Gibson girl straw boater hat after their train ride out from the city, he would have thought her stay temporary, for a wake, maybe. She looked tensed to flee and not remotely festive.
To her mind, Talbot supposed, the occasion warranted no celebration. Their wedding ceremony that day, if one could call the rushed affair that, amounted to a minister mumbling a few words in haste in the front parlor of her Beacon Hill home, her father in attendance, servants doubling as witnesses, no guests, and not even a slice of plum cake eaten afterward. The groom—that would be him—was in attendance, naturally, but only as an unwanted afterthought.
No, Talbot supposed, from his bride’s perspective, she had no reason to rejoice. But from his perspective, there was everything to celebrate.
He had never experienced the profound feelings others attributed to falling in love and had doubted the existence of such a notion. Then he read her book. Now he knew for sure. Love did exist and it was a powerful force.
Unfortunately, not even the power of love could make him a different man.
He was who he was, and that was a standoffish man not comfortable around people. The challenge lay in snapping his melancholy bride out of her sad cocoon while remaining firmly lodged in his own.
Wallowing in sadness would never get her second book written, the work of literary erotica he intended to publish someday. The challenge lay in getting her involved in life again while he remained deeply entrenched in his own remoteness.
Talbot fingered the stem of his Waterford crystal. The goblet’s diamond-cut edges looked sharp and angular, yet felt smooth to the touch. Was this how his bride’s face would feel within his cupped palm, or would her brittleness nick him?
Alas, having never touched her face, there was no way for him to know.
Certainly, she had suffered. Misery had stolen the former girlish roundness at her jaw, sharpening the roundness to a crystal’s angularity, especially when in profile as she was now. Her loss of weight was particularly apparent across the cheekbone, the high-sculpted contours more pronounced than before. Though she looked as delicate as Waterford, he sincerely doubted she had the fragility of glass. This was a woman not easily broken. Misfortune might etch a crack here and there on the surface, but nothing life threw at her would wound her at the core.
By all rights, he should have done this at the outset of their dinner, and with flutes of nose-tickling Laurent-Perrier champagne rather than this classic nineteenth-century Bordeaux, but better late than never, and better a substitute than nothing.
He raised his glass for a toast. “To you, Mrs. Bowdoin, and to the beginning of a mutually beneficial relationship.”
There. That should suffice. The benign acknowledgment marked the date and lent weight to their altered circumstances.
In return, his bride sent him a look of weary resignation and said nothing, which made him vow to break out the bubbly on their first wedding anniversary, a date that would hopefully coincide with the release of her next novel. Then later, much later, perhaps on their fiftieth, he vowed to apologize for the part he had played in her look of entrapment now.
“I know you see me as a cripple, your husband only by token of filial duty. Believing you let down your beloved father, you entered this marriage in recompense.”
“I could not have put it better myself.”
Talbot grimaced. “Not terribly appealing or complimentary to be seen as an act of contrition, as a hair shirt, but the truth is the truth, I suppose. Do your penance and itch all you like, but the vows we exchanged this afternoon bound us together for life.”
“Some expiations take longer than others.”
Not using his wife’s first name in the toast had been deliberate, a ploy to allay her fears over their approaching wedding night. Her miscarriage was a fairly recent event. A body might recover physically from a trauma in the space of four months, but the mind was a different matter entirely. It could take years for emotions to heal. Her stiff upper lip, her stalwart refusal to acknowledge the loss, delayed the repair.
Best give her a push.
Sex would rouse her from her lethargy quick enough. And besides, delaying the inevitable would do her no kindness. He was a man; they were duly wed, which meant she would need to satisfy his prurient desires at some place in time. Why torture her by leaving an ax hanging above her neck indefinitely? Better to let her know at the outset what she could anticipate from him.
He got the ball rolling. “The staff outdid themselves this evening. I finished every morsel of quail and asparagus on the plate.”
“Thank them for me, please. Everything was excellent, sir.”
As he sipped the excellent vintage, he watched his bride over the rim, then placed the glass beside his plate. The rolling ball had done gone far enough.
Time for another kick.
“You found dinner favorable, yet you sampled neither your meal nor the wine,” he goaded. “A lie to commend food not tasted. Rude not to drink a toast meant for oneself. I can only assume you find the company objectionable.”
“Not at all. Here.” She daintily forked a tiny piece of vegetable and carried the morsel to her mouth. “Scrumptious, as fine as our cook, Mrs. Long, prepares at home.”
“Let me be clear, madam. This is your home now. And Mrs. Roberts is your cook as well as mine.”
She raised a hand from her lap, slid the narrowness of a wrist across the damask tablecloth, lifted the glass, and downed the liquor in a gulp, choking at the end. “I apologize. Learning from my errors has become a recent pastime of mine, and I shan’t make that mistake again.”
Pity stirred him. She was such a child.
Time would remedy that. Would he miss her air of naïvete when she became as jaded as he? Or would his pleasure make up for her loss of innocence?
“Do you care for anything else to eat before we retire for the evening, Mrs. Bowdoin?”
“No, thank you, Mr. Bowdoin.”
Spoken like a polite little girl. To rid her of that tiring tendency, he refilled her wine glass.
With a hoist, she brought the crystal to her lips, a drop of burgundy spilling in transit, and drained the contents.
You have a just cause for anger, my tight flower bud. Let your rage out.
“Perhaps dessert, then? The lemon pie Cook baked is particularly exquisite.”
Though not nearly as exquisite as his new bride. All atremble and trying not to show it. Her intellect making her curious, her sex drive hopefully making her wet.
Alas, not wet for him.
She was like a sponge, collecting all her experiences and then squeezing them back into her writing.
Soon. She would write again soon. Unless she did, she would never be happy. And he very much wanted her happy. To make it happen, he intended to give her experiences aplenty about which to write, all of them decadent, many of them of them depraved.
His bride dabbed the napkin to her lips. “Thank you, but no. I never touch sweets.”
I am sour, my bride, but neither will you touch me. I cannot permit you to draw near. My flesh still burns from trying to staunch your blood. Yes, the touching was done clinically, but a touch is a touch is a touch, and I seldom allow myself any of those.
“A plate of fruits and cheeses, then.” He made to ring the servant bell.
She reached across the table and covered his hand. “Really, I could not.”
He dropped his eyes while he recovered from the
fleeting brush of her cool fingers on his hot skin and then returned his gaze to her face. “Madam, you will never regain your stamina without eating. You have obviously lost weight and a great deal of blood.”
She gasped. “How could you know such a private thing about me?”
Caught.
It was his understanding that his bride recalled nothing of the night she had miscarried, and that was how he wished it to remain. Misguided filial guilt was a bad enough reason for marriage without adding wifely gratitude to the mix. Luckily, he had the very excuse at the ready to explain away his prior knowledge.
“Naturally, madam, upon our marriage today, as was my right, I contacted your attending physician for a full accounting of your health to fill me in on any pertinent information your father would have no knowledge of or be to squeamish to relate.”
“What sort of information?” she asked suspiciously.
“Pertinent information,” he repeated.
“I cannot have children. My father did not withhold that pertinent information from you. You knew that to be the physician’s prognosis before we wed.”
“Madam, to explain, you will have to forgive my candor. Will you allow me to be frank here?”
“Please do.”
“I had to know how long to wait before our play begins. I had to know the condition of your vagina, tears and such, to gauge my—er—level of enthusiasm, shall we say. Your physician was so kind as to assure me, full penetration was possible tonight. That there was no need to delay the consummation of our marriage. That intercourse could go on as it would for any newlyweds. That we might even indulge ourselves and be more adventuresome than most due to your prior experience.”
“That is correct,” she said primly. “Everything is as it should be.”
“Do not trivialize the event. You lost a child.”
“What I lost was an opportunity.”
“An opportunity to bear a child, to be a mother. You insult humanity by giving childbirth the same significance as closing a business deal.”
“I missed two menstruation cycles. Not horribly far along. Miscarriage was the optimal solution to my dilemma. What chance would a nameless bastard have had in this world?”
“Some bastards, like myself, for instance, would say the sky is the limit.”
“I applaud your success, Mr. Bowdoin. And I am glad you hold childbirth in such high esteem. The fact remains, however, that I can never conceive again,” she said listlessly.
“And that is very much not as it should be.”
“I should have been more specific. Everything is as it should be with me down below. You may proceed with the wedding night. Hump me all you like. Hump me upside down and backward while swinging from one these gaudy chandeliers. It is all the same to me.”
“You are not as cavalier as you pretend about your tragedy.” He flung an ink-stained palm outward. “And all that is beside the point. I hardly married you for breeding purposes.”
He walked a tightrope. Push her too much, and she would pull in on herself, retreating deeper into her hurt. Stand back and do nothing, and she might never reemerge from her shell, never write again. He needed something to get her blood flowing hot.
Anger. Sexual hunger. Both would break through her present apathy.
“I am glad we can be so open about this, Mrs. Bowdoin, even if the conversation is done over dinner.”
“Dinner is over, sir. And I have done more shocking things, as you very well understand.”
“Yes, I do understand. Like everyone else, I know of the account in Around Town and in the Know, and I am far from shocked.”
“Well, I cannot say the same about you. Your prior assertion does shock me.”
“Which assertion is that?”
“The one about not wedding me for breeding purposes. To create a dynasty, political or only in terms of a family’s sphere of influence, a man must have children, a large number of children. I can never give you a child.”
“I did not spring from a family, and I never wished to sire a dynasty, political or otherwise. I am a self-made man.”
“But surely you must long for a child. A son to bear your name.”
He shrugged. “The name is false. I made it up. And there are many ways to leave a legacy. A book is one.”
“You write?”
“No, but you do.”
“I did,” she corrected. “Once.”
“And you will again.” At the resistant set of her shoulders, he let that go.
“Mr. Bowdoin, are you saying this would only be a marriage of convenience, then?”
“Not precisely.”
“Then what are you saying?”
“That I am a man with a different set of needs.”
Coupling had never proven satisfying to him. A fuck never seemed worth all the trouble and fanfare. Ah, but looking. Looking was eminently satisfying.
Some might say, his reticence to intercourse had everything to do with getting naked and exposing his twisted leg. His mangled leg was not his weakness, not his vulnerability. Exposing his thwarted search for romantic love was his real weakness, his real vulnerability.
He poured her wine glass to the rim once more. “Drink it all down. There is a good girl.”
And she was a good girl. A very good girl. Whores rarely get caught, rarely conceive children. And the bloodied results of those who did usually ended up circling some back-alley drain. He was one of a few exceptions. His prostitute mother had died bringing him into the world, which, in essence, made him a killer before drawing his first breath.
He spoke the truth. He wanted no children off his bride, off any woman. Veronica had very nearly died after her miscarriage, and he was very happy she would never have to go through that ordeal again.
Not that he intended to get close enough to her cunt to make that a possibility.
“No intercourse tonight, madam,” he said softly. “I shan’t come to your bed.”
The tension left her frame like air from a balloon. Whoosh!
“Oh, thank you, Mr. Bowdoin, thank you—”
He cut her off. Her gratitude was not what he sought.
“You are not off the hook. No intercourse does not equal no sex.” He pushed back from the table. “Strip off.”
Chapter Ten
Strip off.
The sharp directive pierced the thick cotton wool that had encased Veronica’s mind since her miscarriage, and she gasped, “I recognize you.”
“Not a terribly convincing assertion. I doubt you recognize yourself these days.”
His facility in turning a phrase was remarkable. Once, she too had been facile with words. Once, whole pages had flowed from her pen with fluency and ease. Now her thoughts were twisted and tangled, knotted up inside her, and try as she would, they would not come unraveled. Her inability to write frustrated her so.
In her irritation at herself, she snapped at him, “Drop your defensiveness—”
“Me? Defensive?” He rolled his very nearly black eyes.
She was not the most dexterous of individuals, but his lashes were so incredibly long and thick, she would have no problem whatsoever plucking each one out individually and setting them on fire. Puff! There they went. Up in flames. Leaving his naked eyes not nearly so seductive.
Vindictive?
Yes, and she reveled in her flight of dark fantasy. Lovely castrating thoughts bounced around inside her head, and she gave them license, as they gave her the necessary fortitude to hold her ground.
“Yes, sir. You. You are as defended as a medieval fortress. Hear me, sir. I know you. You were present at the book reading given in my honor by the mystery writer, Mr. Roger Rogers.”
“A red herring if I ever I heard one,” he quipped. “Not significant in and of itself, but when used along with the clichéd medieval-fortress analogy, I must ask myself if this is a tactic to avoid being found out.”
“Found out. About what? My life is literally an open book.”
“Found about your uncooperativeness. You do not wish to strip for your husband, Mrs. Bowdoin. Such a small thing to ask, too, on a wedding night…”
“If anyone is using evasion, it is you, sir. Papa told me you read my book but never mentioned that you and I, that we, had met at the reading.”
“Hardly met. Passed by one another like ghost ships on the sea, more like.”
“Admit to standing at the rear of the room that evening staring at me. You and your beardless cheeks and your conservative dark clothes and your red cane…”
“Walking stick,” he corrected, rising from his chair at the table, and standing before her. Staring, always staring at her. “Ruby detests the other name.”
She could easily take his present walking stick, the crown a shade of sparkling blue, and break it over his dark head. Her thoughts toward him were murderous at best.
“By the way, this walking stick is called Sapphire,” her husband said. “I have an entire wardrobe full of ’em. I am lame, you see.”
She smirked, said bitingly, “I am a fallen woman, you see. Why harp on the obvious?”
Veronica blinked as another once dim memory flickered in her mind, a faltering candle at first and then a bright flame. “Why, it all comes back to me now. You were there, waiting in the hallway of my father’s house, the night I lost…I lost… Oh, never mind! I now understand what this is all about, the marriage, your efforts to get me medical attention, all of it. Yes, I do remember now. All of it is still a bit fuzzy, but I recall you stepping in and taking charge before I could bleed to death. And I understand what you are doing now.”
“I know where this is leading, madam, so let me interrupt. I shall be brief and well mannered. Here goes. Please do not say I have a savior complex. I can assure you, I do not.”
“Nothing of the sort. You simply enjoy manipulating people.”
“Wrong. I enjoy nothing whatsoever about people.” He stuck both thumbs in his ears and wiggled his fingers at her. “Nananana,” he said in singsong fashion before dropping his hands back down to his sides. “So there. And none of my motives are as simple as you betray. I am a complicated man with eccentric foibles. And have no fear, I shall continue to remind you of my complexity from time to time, lest you forget and underestimate me once again. Now, enough about me. As conceited as I am, I would prefer this to be about you.”
