by Julia London
“Will my chamber look like this?”
“I’ve no idea,” Ava admitted. “Never mind that—thank God you’ve come, Sally.”
“Oh?” Sally asked as she wandered about, her hands trailing across the smooth finish of the furniture. “What’s happened, then? Hasn’t your handsome man done his duty by you?”
Ava’s blush made Sally laugh as she paused in front of a mirror to check her hair. “I don’t believe it!” she exclaimed as she fussed with a curl. “He’s not yet come to your bed?”
“Yes, of course he has!” Ava said adamantly, but instantly softened. “Only once, the first night. And then he went to London. And when he returned he said he had correspondence. And now he is in Marshbridge to buy a cow or some such thing.”
Sally stopped her nosing about and looked at Ava over her shoulder, her brow furrowed. “He’s left his bride to buy a cow? Hmm. I’d think a marquis would have someone to see to buying his cows.”
She was missing the point. “I think, Sally, there is a bit of a…problem,” Ava clarified.
“Oh,” Sally said. She glided to the chaise before the hearth, and fell onto it. She pressed the tips of her fingers together and studied Ava thoughtfully over the tops of them. “You weren’t missish, were you? A lot of crying and carrying on?”
“No!” Ava exclaimed.
“Are you quite certain?” Sally asked, her eyes squinting suspiciously at Ava. “You don’t look as if you could bear hardship very well.”
“I don’t know what you mean by that,” Ava said, offended, “but I swear it, I didn’t cry. I…I rather liked it.”
That earned a howl of laughter from Sally. “By God, I’ve never heard of a woman who liked her first time in a man’s bed!”
“Sssh!” Ava hissed at her, and slapped her feet off the end of the chaise. She sat down, her face flaming—which Sally seemed to enjoy—and worked up her courage to ask Sally for her help. “You can tell me what to do, can’t you?”
Sally thought about it a moment and then nodded. “Indeed, I can help you, mu’um. But you must do exactly as I say. And I won’t abide a lot of speculation as to where I might have learned this or that. Agreed?”
“Agreed,” Ava said earnestly.
Sally suddenly sat up, leaned forward, and took Ava’s hands in hers. “Above all else, you must never—”
The knock at the door startled them both, and Sally quickly scrambled to her feet, inadvertently kicking Ava as she did.
Ava jumped up, too, and whirled around to the door just as it opened and Miss Hillier came sailing through. She looked at Ava, then at Sally. “My lady?” she asked, her voice belying the look of displeasure on her face. “I understand your lady’s maid has come.”
“Yes, of course,” Ava said. “Allow me to introduce Sally Pierce. Sally, this is Miss Hillier, the housekeeper.” She said a silent prayer of thanks that Sally actually curtsied as she ought to have done.
“Good to make your acquaintance, Miss Pierce. Now, then, if you will come with me,” she said, gesturing for Sally to come along, and then proceeded to do precisely what Ava suspected she would do—she took Sally to her chamber and to meet the other staff. With a roll of her eyes behind Miss Hillier’s back, Sally dutifully followed along.
That evening, Miss Hillier came to tend Ava before supper. When Ava asked about Sally, she was told that she was settling in and learning the routine of the house. “She’ll start her duties on the morrow,” Miss Hillier said with a bit of a sniff.
“Very well,” Ava said, disappointed.
“My lady,” Miss Hillier said, clasping her hands at her waist. “If I may?” The woman looked very uncomfortable.
“Yes?” Ava said.
“It would not do to have a great lady befriend her lady’s maid,” she said, lifting her chin a tiny bit. “That is not to say a great lady wouldn’t be kind to her lady’s maid, and treat her well. But to befriend her—well it’s just not done,” she said with an adamant nod of her head. “It’s not what is expected of a woman who will one day be a duchess.”
This business of being a “great lady” was beginning to annoy Ava on many fronts, not the least of which was being constantly lectured by the housekeeper. “Thank you, Miss Hillier,” she said stiffly, and turned her back to the housekeeper until she had left the room. Honestly, she despised the attitude that servants were somehow lesser beings, unworthy of her attention or esteem.
And really, if Miss Hillier knew where Ava had found Sally…Well. That was something Miss Hillier must never discover, or else she and Sally might both be booted out the front door.
Because of the rigid view of the world in that dreary house, Ava had a solitary supper in the dining room instead of in her rooms with Sally as she would have liked. After supper, she amused herself by wandering about the main floor of the house. She’d only seen the public rooms and was curious about what was behind so many closed doors.
With the candelabrum Dawson had offered her, she went from room to room, opening the doors, walking inside, peering at the lavish furnishings and velvet drapes and massive portraits. Really, the rooms all began to look somewhat alike. She imagined changing them up a bit, perhaps putting more comfortable furnishings in one, painting another a cheery color.
But it wasn’t until she reached what was obviously Middleton’s private study that she took a keen interest. This was where Middleton worked, she realized, and she stepped inside, closed the door, and holding her candelabrum high, wandered around.
She studied his collection of books. Most seemed to concern agriculture and banking. There was a smattering of fiction, but nothing that interested her. And there were several history tomes, most notably of the British Royal Navy, which she thought rather interesting.
Next to his desk was a silver tazza, a platter on a pedestal that held a collection of whiskey tots that looked to be quite old. On the desk was an ivory pen and inkwell, and a crystal paperweight with a small gold coin embedded in it. There was a tobacco box and another wooden box that held a stack of high-quality vellum. And there, on the edge of his desk, was a heavy silver tray that held the post.
There were a few unopened letters in the tray, which, she assumed, Dawson had placed there today.
Ava sat down in the tall-backed leather chair and put the candelabrum aside. She spread her hands on the desk, imagined him sitting here, engaged in any number of important business dealings. Her eye fell to the post again, and she picked up the small stack of letters and flipped through them.
They were all of a business nature, judging by their wax seals. But the last one was different. It was a woman’s handwriting, the script of it heartbreakingly familiar.
The Honorable Lord Middleton, Esq., it read on the front. Ava slowly turned it over and looked at the seal. There, embedded in the red wax, were three letters. A large W in the center, with a smaller M and P on either side of it.
Lady Waterstone.
Ava dropped the letter in the tray as if it were poisonous, and carelessly tossed the other letters on top of it. First Lady Kettle. Now this.
On second thought, she dug through the post, fished the letter out, and stuffed it in her pocket. It was a horrid breach of privacy—but then again, Lady Waterstone had breached her privacy.
Ava stood up, arranged Middleton’s desk just so, and then picked up the candelabrum and walked out, her heart pounding in her chest. She was not a thief. At least not until tonight, not until she realized that whatever she might have thought marriage would be, whatever she might have made of it, she could never accept another woman in her husband’s bed. At his breakfast table, perhaps. But in his bed? Never.
Now she had to convince him of it.
The next morning, Sally woke Ava by throwing open the drapes and slapping the bottom of her exposed foot, which had escaped the bedcovers.
“Up with you,” she said sternly when Ava whimpered. “They’ll have my head if you sleep too long. Bloody rigid here, they are,” she said, h
ands on hips as Ava tried to sit up. “Expecting me to clean and whatnot in addition to tending you!”
“Do they?” Ava asked sleepily. “I can speak to Miss Hillier—”
“Don’t bother. She’ll undoubtedly have me sent away before the day is gone—we had words this morning.”
“Sally!” Ava cried, fully awake now. “Miss Hillier was his lordship’s nursemaid! You can’t go round angering her!”
Sally tossed her head and clucked her tongue as she dropped Ava’s dressing gown on her lap. “Don’t fret so! I’ll be good.”
Ava hoped that was a vow. She slipped into her dressing gown and stood up, stretched her arms high in the air, then walked to the basin, threw water on her face, and reached for a brush.
“Ach, but you don’t look as if you’ve slept a wink!” Sally observed. “God help you if your bed is as hard as mine. Like sleeping on river rocks, it is.”
“My bed is fine,” Ava muttered. “It’s not that.”
Sally stopped in the making of the bed and glanced up. “What?”
Ava sighed, pulled open her bureau, removed Lady Waterstone’s letter, and held it up between two fingers.
Sally quickly crossed the room to have a look. “What’s it say?” she asked Ava.
“It’s addressed to Middleton. The seal is that of Lady Waterstone.” When Sally was clearly unaware of who that was, Ava felt tears welling up. “She is his mistress…yet. And perhaps not the only one!”
“Ooh,” Sally said, nodding sagely. “Come on, then, let’s have a look at it,” she said, gesturing for Ava to open it.
“Read it? I can’t break a seal on a letter addressed to him!”
“Would you share him with a whore?” Sally asked flatly.
Ava shook her head.
“Open it,” she said again.
Ava reluctantly took the letter and broke the seal and began to read.
“Aloud, if you please,” an exasperated Sally insisted.
Ava drew a breath. “My darling,” she read aloud, and felt her belly clutch. She closed her eyes until Sally lightly punched her arm. She looked at the letter again and turned partially away from Sally. “My darling,” she repeated. “I live in agony, counting the hours until I see you again. Every day extends unbearably long into the next—you know my disposition too well to not be aware how desperate I am without you nearby. The only pleasure I can seem to derive is to dream of what Providence will bring me when you are in London again. I have sacrificed for you, darling, and never will I be happy in this world if I cannot be with you. Please hurry back to me so that I will suffer no more. Faithfully yours, M.”
Ava angrily crumpled the letter. But Sally peeled it from her fingers and looked at the writing on the page. “Very well done,” she said, and looked up, assessing Ava closely. “She’s right cunning, this one—she knows how to speak to a man’s ego. You must be just as cunning, mu’um.”
“But I don’t know how to be cunning!” Ava moaned, falling helplessly onto a chaise. “It’s hopeless, isn’t it? I shall lose my husband before I’ve even known him!”
“For the love of God!” Sally cried. “Will you give in so easily! You may as well deliver him to her with a pretty bow tied round him. Will you not at least attempt to have him?”
“I don’t know how,” Ava said morosely.
“Well I do,” Sally said, and sat on the chaise next to Ava. She put one hand on her shoulder, forcing Ava to look up. “Now, mu’um…have you heard of the harem?”
“The what?” Ava asked dully.
“The harem,” Sally said, leaning forward. “They’ve a way of moving that drives a man to madness,” she whispered, and began to describe—in very graphic detail—how a woman in a harem conducts herself in the presence of a man.
Ava gasped, covered her hand with her mouth, and made sounds of shock as Sally talked. How Sally knew such things Ava did not want to know.
But she hung on to every blessed word.
Twenty-one
J ared returned to Broderick Abbey at dusk the next day, having cut short his trip to Marshbridge for reasons he wasn’t entirely certain.
He asked for his wife, but Dawson told him she was engaged and, incidentally, would not be available to dine with him at supper, either, as her lady’s maid had arrived, and there was some work that could not wait.
“Work?” Jared asked skeptically. “What sort of work?”
Dawson’s face pinched slightly. “I wouldn’t rightly know, my lord, but were I to venture a guess…I would note that quite a lot of trunks arrived along with the lady’s maid.”
“Ah,” Jared said, and nodded sagely, knowing full well a woman’s love of her things. “Well, then…did she say when I might be allowed the pleasure of her company?” he asked wryly.
“She did not, my lord. I could inquire—”
“No, thank you,” Jared said with a small smile. “I shall inquire personally.”
He retreated to his study and reviewed the post, but finding nothing remarkable, he adjourned to his rooms to change for supper. In his suite, however, he heard the faint laughter of women filtering in through the hearth. He paused to listen, but heard nothing more. He started to move again, but heard the distinct sound of laughter again.
He sighed. Apparently, he would have to speak with her. He had hoped that Ava had come around to the reality of their marriage and harbor no fantastic illusions about it, but he hadn’t realized that she’d be traipsing off to Broderick on foot, or splashing about the lake, or carrying on with her lady’s maid. Another burst of laughter, however, made him curious. He left his suite again and walked the length of corridor to the main door of Ava’s suite.
There it was again, the laughter of two women. But when he rapped on the door, the laughter abruptly stopped. In fact, there was no sound at all coming from the room. He frowned and rapped harder. He then heard some muted sounds of movement, and had the distinct impression that someone was running in circles about the room.
He was just about to rap again when the door opened a crack. “Oh! Good evening! I beg your pardon, I was resting,” Ava said, her eyes full of something that was most definitely not sleep.
“Were you?” he asked skeptically. “I swear I heard laughter.”
“From me?” she asked, blinking innocently. “Oh yes—I was reading a book that is quite humorous.”
“Oh?” he asked, knowing full well that she was lying. “What is the title? Perhaps I’ve read it.”
“I rather doubt you have,” she said as her fingers curled tightly around the door.
“Perhaps I have,” he politely insisted. “What is the title?”
“Hmm. It’s interesting,” she said, her brows dipping into a slight V, “that a book so cleverly done should have such a difficult title to recall.” She flashed a fleeting smile at him. “I trust that your journey was safe?”
He nodded.
“Very good. I hope you will forgive my absence at supper, my lord. I’ve read so much today that I’ve something of a headache.”
“You’ve read as much as that?” he asked, smiling wryly. “Then perhaps you might join me later? There is something I’d like to discuss with you.”
“Hmm…well. I had thought to retire early,” she said, as if the thought had just occurred to her. “That is—if that’s acceptable to you.”
His eyes narrowed suspiciously. “Whatever you desire, Lady Middleton,” he said, inclining his head. “Perhaps, then, on the morrow, we might have that riding lesson. Provided, of course, you’ve recovered from your headache.”
“Yes,” she said, her eyes lighting up. “That is…depending, on how I’m feeling.”
“Naturally.”
“All right. Well, then. Good day, my lord.” She smiled and shut the door.
He was surprised, he realized, and disappointed there wasn’t more.
He stood there a moment longer, listening for the laughter, but heard nothing. With a shrug, he walked back to his suite of ro
oms. But when he reached them, he heard a shout of laughter coming from Ava’s rooms and shook his head.
He dined alone in the small dining room. As he ate, he saw a footman go by with a large tray and two silver-domed plates. “Where’s he off to?” he idly inquired of Dawson.
“To her ladyship’s suite, my lord. She is taking supper in her rooms with her lady’s maid.”
So much for her headache. Or retiring early. Apparently, he’d been relegated to dining alone. His father, for as long as he could remember, dined apart from his mother, unless there were guests. That irked him. It irked him that his wife was obviously avoiding him. Whatever their arrangement, she had no call to avoid him.
He finished his meal, then stepped outside to have a smoke. He liked the feel of cold on his face, and walked to the edge of the terrace that overlooked a small river that fed the lake. But when he turned back to the abbey, he noticed a movement at the far end of the wing where the master suites were housed. He paused and looked up at Ava’s window. There was the glow of a fire and candlelight, but what caught his attention was a shadow on the wall that seemed to be dancing.
His gaze narrowed. Not only was she avoiding him, she was apparently having a grand time without him.
The feeling of disappointment surprised and confounded him. This was precisely what he wanted. That it should disappoint him in the least seemed ridiculous and hypocritical.
He shrugged it off and returned indoors, had a bit of brandy, and read awhile, and at a quarter to midnight, he decided to turn in.
He walked up the grand, curving staircase and headed down the long corridor to his suite, untying his neckcloth and opening his waistcoat. When he passed Ava’s suite, he paused only briefly, heard nothing, and walked on.
In his rooms, he had barely divested himself of his coat and waistcoat, had pulled his neckcloth from his collar and his shirt from his trousers, when there was a knock at the door. He sighed wearily—Dawson was nothing if not a very attentive butler, sometimes to the point of vexation. The man was probably apoplectic that Jared had retired before he could offer his services.
