by Cheryl Bolen
George tossed his head back and gave a hearty laugh. "Then my son is not adverse to generously breasted women!"
Sally could not remember George ever before calling Sam his son. It was usually "my children" or "the boy." Never "my son." She glowed. "I shall become extremely jealous of Miss Primble for Sam is sure to prefer her bosom over mine—which is nearly nonexistent."
Color rose to Sally's cheeks when she found George's gaze sliding to the little nubs which barely stuck out beneath her night shift.
"Not all males are enamored of a large-chested woman," he said. "I never particularly fancied buxom women."
He used the past tense. Did that mean he no longer fancied women of any type? That it was Diana or no one? Sally had no right to ask him, but . . . "George?" She gazed at the stubble on his cheeks and felt the heat of his body. She felt so utterly close to him. "Have you . . . " she cleared her throat. "Have you had a woman since Diana?"
His eyes flared, and a look of fury came over his face. "My sexual activities are none of your business!" He lunged from the bed—completely naked—and slipped his breeches over his bare limbs.
Sally's voice cracked when she answered him. "I'm your wife, George."
He glared at her. "You're Lady Sedgewick. You're mother to my children. But you're not my wife." Then he stormed from the room.
So he had finally put to words what Sally already knew. She would never truly be George's wife.
Chapter 14
In the morning room Sally found her husband, a cup of coffee in one hand, the morning newspaper in his other. She walked to the table where the pot of coffee had been placed and poured herself a cup. Then she came to sit near him. She wanted to beg his forgiveness for daring to ask him so personal a question, but she was too embarrassed to bring up the subject again. And too humiliated over his brash—though accurate—retort. To dispel the tension between them, she inquired on the news. "I trust you will tell me if a great global upheaval is being reported upon."
He slid a warm glance to her over the top of the paper. Good. He was no longer angry.
She stood again and went back to the table and fixed herself a plate of breakfast from the offerings there. "Should you like some cod, George?"
"No, thank you."
She had learned that he was never hungry the morning after a night of drinking. Like discarded invitations after a ball, the lingering signs of her husband's overindulging were all too familiar to Sally. "While you're at the race meeting today, I thought I'd tidy your desk some more."
His newspaper dropped enough to reveal a pair of scowling eyes. "What makes you think I'm going to the races?"
She laughed. "I haven't known you half my life without learning a few things about you, George Pembroke, Viscount Sedgewick, and I know that as long as you can put weight to your feet you'll not miss a horse race." She leveled a pensive gaze at him. "Pray, how much do you have riding on today's meet?"
His mouth slid into a grin. "Fifteen quid."
Her lips puckered. "Do you know that fifteen pounds would pay the butler's and housekeeper's wages for two whole quarters? They would find fifteen pounds a veritable fortune."
"Servants' salaries are your business, my dear. I didn't marry the smartest girl from Miss Worth's School for Young Ladies for nothing. I've found you an excellent manager of my household."
"Then you don't object to me tidying your desk?"
He put down the paper. "I've nothing to hide from you, and my desk could use a good clean-out."
After he left, Sally went to the library and sat behind the large cherry desk that was nearly as masculine as the man she had married. She smiled as her glance wiped over his messy desk. She loved to do little things for him, whether it was fastening the buttons on his shirt or sorting through his heaps of mail and periodicals.
She began with the periodicals. Most of them she pitched, saving only the most recent editions. These she placed in a stack on the far left corner of his desk.
Next, she tackled the burgeoning mound of crumpled posts. Few of these were dated, so she did not know whether it was safe to throw them out. She decided to sort them into subject matter. One section for tradesmen's bills. Another for personal letters and notes. On second thought, she deemed none of the personal correspondences worthy of saving. That they had been opened indicated George had already read them, and she knew her husband was blessed with an outstanding memory. Once he had read something, it was committed to his indelible memory. Before tossing them, though, she glanced at each to see if there was anything of importance. There was a very old note from Felicity written during her last visit to London. Another was from a school chum from York, who wrote to inform George his wife had just delivered him his first son. None of the correspondences seemed worthy of keeping. Save one.
There was a letter written by one Mr. Andrew Willingham, who described himself as George's steward at Hornsby Manor. Her brows lowered as she read it. The letter was to apply to his lordship for the sum of five and seventy pounds for a new piece of farm machinery that would increase crops, thereby increasing profits. The letter was dated some six weeks earlier.
She hastened to remove the accounts ledger from the top drawer of George's desk, and her eyes swept over the columns of figures. There was no expenditure for five and seventy pounds. In fact, no sum on the entire page surpassed four pounds.
She closed the book with disgust. Her husband apparently could not afford to pay debts in excess of four pounds, yet he would likely lose fifteen on the horse races today.
As angry as she was, she knew she had no right to judge him. He was only living in the style in which he had been raised. He spent money exactly as did his friends, none of whom had the social standing of her husband. And he really wasn't extravagant. He no longer kept a gig, and the wagers he made were not half as large as Blanks's.
Though she tried to be understanding, she was angered by her husband's failure to send Mr. Willingham the five and seventy pounds. That was money that would increase next year's income. She got up from the desk and began to pace the room, her worried thoughts trying to find a way to get the five-and-seventy pounds to Mr. Willingham. Obviously, George could not spare so large a sum.
She sputtered to a stop, her face brightening. There was a way! She had almost forgotten the eighty-a-year settlement she received from her grandmother. Sally had barely touched this year's since all her needs had been taken care of by George or his family.
She went back to the desk and penned a letter to her solicitor, a self-satisfied smile on her face. As she sat there writing, Adams came in with the day's post. "An urchin just delivered this missive for you, my lady."
She reached for it and the other posts. "Thank you, Adams."
Though an urchin had delivered the note, it was written on high-quality paper. When she opened it, she was shocked to see letters cut out of newspapers forming the message. Even before she read it, it looked menacing. She trembled as she began to read it. Your husband lost four-and-twenty pounds at Mrs. Glenwick's Gaming Establishment last night. Also, he has no desire for you. He was in another woman's bed.
As she read the last, her stomach tumbled. Sally didn't give a fig about the lost money. It was the other woman who upset her. Greatly. Could she be the reason why George had behaved so angrily this morning when she had asked about his celibacy? Was Sally getting too close to the truth of his inconstancy?
Her head cradled in her hands, she wept bitterly. She had been better off not knowing. It was bad enough that she had fallen in love with a man whose heart was long buried. It was even more painful to learn that same husband preferred to assuage his manly needs with another woman. A woman who likely meant nothing to him.
Why not me? she asked with a convulsive sob. No woman could ever offer her husband a more willing body than the woman he had married. Sally knew that if only given the chance, she would pleasure him as no other.
She viciously tore up the menacing note and added it to the pil
e of periodicals and letters to throw on the fire.
* * *
As she did every morning, Sally awoke before her husband. And as she did every morning, she drank in the blatant masculinity of his bare chest and hulking shoulders. Her heart was still horribly bruised over the knowledge he found his sexual release in another woman's bed. She was better off before when she had thought he desired no one save Diana. But now . . . now she knew of his virility. And now she knew that her physical self was so repugnant to him, he could lie beside her every night and never be tempted to slake his need with her.
She had tortured herself with speculation on the identity of the woman who had lain with her husband. For the past two days she had been unable to see a pretty woman and not wonder if she were the one.
Her heart caught as his lashes lifted, and he languidly turned toward her, his mouth hitched into a lazy smile.
"Good morning, George. Did Lady Luck smile upon you last night?"
That lazy smile hitched into a big grin. "I'm twenty pounds richer."
She fought the urge to fling her arms around him in celebration. "Speaking of riches, do you remember me telling you about the modest legacy I receive from my grandmother?" She peered into his eyes and for the first time realized they were the same color as English ivy.
His bored glance raked over the ceiling. "A hundred pounds or some such figure."
Her poor, dear husband, she thought, a smile breaking across her face. To him, one hundred pounds was much the same as eighty. "Eighty, actually."
"I don't want your eighty pounds, Sally. Do with it whatever you wish."
"I wish to send it to Mr. Willingham."
He snapped up to a sitting position and glared at her. "What do you know about Willingham?"
Clutching her thin shift to her chest, she pulled up to sit beside him, her back to the headboard. "I know he's your steward, and Glee says he's a very fine one, indeed."
"I wouldn't have him if he wasn't, but how is it you know of him and his need of money?"
She shrugged. "You said I could clean off your desk."
"You saw the letter." He did not sound happy.
"You told me you had nothing to hide."
"I don't. It's just that I don't wish to burden you with financial matters, either."
"My dear husband, it's no burden whatsoever. Since you no longer have a secretary, I propose to perform those duties. I'm rather good at ledgers."
"You're too bloody good at everything," he barked.
Her chin tilted upward. "I shall pretend you said that in flattering tones." She really hated being so overbearing, but her husband—having been born to nobility—had never learned to be practical. His secretary had always taken care of his accounting matters, but the small house in Bath was not large enough to accommodate the large staff George had once employed at Hornsby Manor.
"My dearest husband," she cooed, "you have married a most practical woman, and it's my hope you will allow me to help get you out of debt."
He muttered an oath under his breath. "I don't want your grandmother's bloody money."
"It's not my grandmother's, dearest," she said sweetly. "It's ours. You've seen to it I want for nothing. Therefore, all I want is to make the lands at Hornsby more productive." She painfully recalled that a few years earlier that's what George had wanted, too. He had removed himself from the distractions of Bath and applied himself to turning around the Hornsby fortunes. And he'd been extremely successful. Until Diana died.
He swung his legs over the side of the bed. "Very well, Sally, order my life for me."
As had become her custom, she turned so she would not see his nakedness. "If you don't care for yourself, think of the children, George. Do you not want them to be proud to bear the name of Sedgewick? Do you not desire that Hornsby be a source of pride to them?"
He swallowed as he stepped into his breeches. "Of course you're right, Sensible Sal." He straightened up and began to put on his shirt.
She moved to him and wordlessly began to fasten his buttons, as she did each morning. Her daily thrill. She was so close she could feel his warm breath and the rise and fall of his powerful chest.
As she drew close to him, she remembered the horrid letter, and she could not bear to think of George lying with another woman. Her eyes moistened, and she quickly turned away from him as she fastened the last button. Impatient to flee their chamber, George did not notice her distress.
Chapter 15
Every day now, after her husband left the house, another of those wretched notes would be delivered, each time by a different street urchin and each time addressed to Lady Sedgewick. Every letter would be composed of words cut from the newspaper. And each time, the letter would apprise Sally of her husband's movements of the night before. Wednesday night, it was the announcement of a lost ten pounds at a cockfight. Last night, the letter confirmed her husband had won twenty pounds at Mrs. Glenwick's establishment. It seemed whoever the vicious person was sending the letters knew every move her husband made. Today's letter revealed that George had again bedded his lover. "Would you not wish to know who your husband's lady love is?" The letter made Sally sick.
The first few days Sally had racked her brain trying to imagine who could be so mean-spirited as to be sending her such vile letters. By the third day, though, Sally wondered no longer. She knew only one person who was that vicious. Betsy Johnson.
Sally grew to hate Bath and everything there that was destroying her family, especially her husband. If only she could get him away from here.
Barely a day passed when he did not lose what seemed to Sally large sums of money, and never a night passed when George did not drink to excess.
By God, she was getting angry! If she had to wait up until dawn she would have it out with George.
He was gone all day and did not come home for dinner. She wondered where he was. Tomorrow's sinister letter would tell her every move her husband had made. With each passing hour, she waited . . . and wondered. Was he at Mrs. Glenwick's or at the card room at the Upper Assembly Rooms? Had he and his rowdy companions found another cockfight to wager on? Her stomach clenched when she recalled the letter that told her George and his friends had enjoyed several hours at Miss Avery's. All of Bath knew Miss Avery's was a house of prostitution. Sally was disappointed in George. Not only was he bedding another woman, but he was also visiting establishments where he could contract unimaginably horrible diseases. Her brother David had told her about these things.
Oh, George, she lamented, Why? Why not me?
She had barely touched her dinner and had been unable to concentrate on her embroidery. She got up and went to the piano where she banged out a passionate piece, hoping she was not waking the children or the servants who had long been in bed. When she finished, she sat and watched the ormolu clock on the mantel. It was past midnight. Early yet for George.
When he still had not come at one, she moved to the library and examined a pile of unpaid tradesmen's bills.
Because of her shuffling of papers and the crackle of the fire, she had not heard George enter the house, but she soon heard the library door open and looked up to face her glassy-eyed husband. It was rare that she actually saw him in his cups. Usually she only smelled the evidence the next morning and had come to associate the smell of stale liquor with George's unquestionable manliness.
His eyes ran over the length of her evening dress. "What are you doing up still?"
"I wanted to talk to you," she said, snagging him with a contentious gaze.
"Is something wrong with the children?"
She shook her head but continued to glare at him. "They're fine."
"Then what's the matter?" he asked in a concerned voice as he moved toward her.
"If you must know, I'm out of charity with you."
"Oh, that," he said, stopping in his stride. Then he turned and walked to the table where the wine decanter was and poured himself another drink.
"Don't, George," she said
through gritted teeth.
He spun around to peruse the source of the angrily uttered words. His mouth slid into a lazy smile, and his eyes sparkled as he met her impatient gaze. "It's taken you long enough."
"Yes. I've been a fool these first seven weeks of our marriage, but not any longer. I'm heartily sick of your immature behavior and lack of concern over your children's futures."
"I am concerned over my children's futures. Why else would I have married you?"
Tears sprang to her eyes. The cat was out of the bag. She had always known why he had married her. In the past, though, he'd been too much the gentleman to tell her. But not when he was in his cups.
Seeing the pain in her face, he moved slowly toward her. "Forgive me, Sally. I didn't mean . . . "
"I'm not blind to your reasons for marrying me, George, but I am growing weary of being made a laughingstock."
"You're not a laughingstock."
"I'm just the woman whose husband avoids her company at all costs—and the costs, I might add, have been heavy. Instead of quiet dinner parties and trips to the Upper Assembly Rooms with your wife, you'd rather be throwing away your children's inheritance at gaming establishments and whorehouses."
His face grew red. She had only seen him this angry once before: the afternoon at the Pump Room when Betsy Johnson had ignited his rage. "What makes you think I've ever stepped foot in a whorehouse?"
"I have a very reliable spy." She handed him today's letter that had obviously come courtesy of Miss Johnson, whose pockets were certainly deep enough to hire a Bow Street runner to follow George every night. Sally wondered if Miss Johnson had invented another lie about George in an effort to convince the runner that George was a scoundrel of some sort.
He quickly glanced over it. "What the deuce is this?"
Sally shrugged. "I get one of those charming letters every day."
"Vile creature!" he uttered. "I'll ruin her."
"So you, too, have a good idea of who is sending these to me."
"Betsy Johnson. I am so sorry, Sally. If you'd never married me, you wouldn't have to put up with this woman's filth."
