The Famous Heroine/The Plumed Bonnet

by Mary Balogh

  “I was not shown to the wrong room that night, was I?” she said. “It was the right room. I was to share it with you.”

  “Yes,” he said.

  “I was to share the bed with you too,” she said. “You were going to do to me what you did last night.”

  “Yes,” he said.

  He heard her draw a sharp breath and hold it. It shuddered out of her after a while.

  “Why did you not?” she asked. “Two nights in a row it happened, then. I had narrow escapes twice. Why did you let me escape?”

  “For the reason I mentioned a short while ago,” he said. “I thought you had outmaneuvered me, and I chose to humor you.”

  “It was not simply because I had said no?” she asked. Her voice was so soft that he could scarcely hear her.

  He thought for a moment. “Yes,” he said, “for that reason too. I would never force myself on a woman who had said no.”

  “Does your wife qualify as a woman?” she asked.

  Oh, good Lord! He thought about it. “Yes,” he said at last, as softly as she. “Are you going to say no tonight? And tomorrow night?”

  She said nothing for so long that he thought perhaps she intended never to speak to him again. But she spoke at last.

  “I suppose,” she said, “I must be thankful for that bonnet and that cloak. If I had been my usual gray self—gray like my name—you would not have afforded me even a second glance. You would not have stopped to take me up. I would have starved and perhaps died. I would probably have been ravished. Your error saved me.” Bitterness was heavy in her voice. “But despite that, I need no longer feel beholden to you. I believe, when I have recovered from my shock, I may find that fact enormously freeing. Why did you tell me? You might have kept it secret for the rest of our lives. I would never have suspected. I would have been your willing slave for a lifetime.”

  His own voice too was bitter when he spoke, though he knew he had no cause for bitterness. “Perhaps I do not want a slave,” he said. “Perhaps I want a wife.”

  “Oh, you have that,” she said. “I married you yesterday, if you will recall. We shared a marriage bed last night. I tried so very hard to please you, because I thought you were like a god. I might have better spent the time pleasing myself.”

  “By sending me away?” he said. “By saying no?”

  “No,” she said and laughed harshly. “Oh, no, not that.”

  They must be nearing the inn where they were to spend the night. He looked out through the window for familiar landmarks. He had traveled this road hundreds of times. Neither of them had spoken for several minutes. He wondered why he was feeling strangely calm. And he realized with a grim smile that it was because he now for the first time had a real relationship with her. A disastrous relationship, perhaps—no, probably. But real, nonetheless. It was better than what he had had with her before.

  He would rather live without her than have her as a slave. It was a surprising and quite bleak realization.

  “We will be at the inn soon,” he said. “I have had a suite of rooms reserved. You will have your own bedchamber. You will be under no compulsion to receive me there. You will not be relegating me to a distant attic if you say no.”

  She said nothing. She was sitting straighter than before. She was less relaxed.

  “May I come to your bed tonight?” he asked.

  “No,” she said after a slight hesitation. “Not tonight, Alistair. Maybe not tomorrow night either. I do not know. I need some time.”

  He nodded. “I will ask again tomorrow,” he said.

  His carriage was making the turn into the large stable yard of the Bull and Horn, and ostlers and grooms were converging on his familiar carriage.

  15

  T WAS A RELIEF TO ARRIVE AT WIGHTWICK HALL, PRINCIPAL residence of the Duke of Bridgwater in Gloucesterhire. If they had arrived just this time yesterday, Stephanie thought, it might have been no relief at all. If she had been amazed at the sight and size of Sindon Park a little over a month ago, she would have been awed to incoherence by Wightwick with its massive stone gateposts and wrought iron gates, its twin gatehouses, which seemed almost small mansions in their own right, by the seemingly endless curved driveway flanked by oak trees, by the three-arched stone bridge over a river or stream, and by the long, sloping lawns and groves and flower arbors leading past the large stone stable block up to the stately Palladian house.

  She would have been awed by the sight of grooms in livery lined up on the terrace—far more than would be needed to tend the four horses and the carriage, and by the almost regal figures, dressed all in black, of the butler and housekeeper, standing at the foot of the marble steps leading to the main entrance doors. She would have been overwhelmed by the high domed grand hall and by the sight of two motionless lines of house servants awaiting her inspection.

  She was not awed—only relieved. Relieved to be away from the oppressive silence of her husband’s presence. Not away exactly, of course. He walked slightly behind her right shoulder, presenting her to his head groom, who had handed her down from the carriage, and then to the butler and housekeeper. He followed her along the lines of servants and spoke quietly to a few of them as she had a word and a smile for each one.

  He and his wife had scarcely spoken all day. After she had assured him that yes, she had slept very well, thank you—she had not—and that yes, the sky did look overcast but no, it did not look quite as if it would rain, there had been no further conversation at breakfast. Through the day in the carriage he had tried a few times to draw her into conversation, but her monosyllabic answers had discouraged him each time.

  It was not that she was being deliberately sullen. It was just that she was totally bewildered. All the worlds she had ever known, and now this new one into which she had tried so hard to fit—all of them had crumbled. She no longer knew who she was or where she belonged.

  “You will wish to see your apartment, Your Grace,” the housekeeper murmured when the inspection had been completed, “and freshen up. I will have tea served in the drawing room in half an hour’s time.”

  Stephanie smiled at her.

  “Her Grace has had a tiring journey, Mrs. Griffiths,” her husband said. “She will take tea in her private sitting room. Parker will bring something more appropriate to me in the library.”

  Stephanie expected that he would remain downstairs. But he stayed just behind her as Mrs. Griffiths led her up four flights of marble stairs and along a wide carpeted corridor toward what must be the ducal suite at the front of the house. He followed her while the housekeeper showed her the large, luxuriously appointed sitting room, which was, it seemed, exclusively hers, and the spacious dressing room in which Patty and two other maids were already busy opening trunks, and the bedchamber, the largest, most luxurious room of all.

  “I shall leave you to your maid’s care, then, Your Grace,” Mrs. Griffiths said, inclining her head with gracious respect. “I shall have tea sent up.”

  “Thank you.” Stephanie smiled and watched the housekeeper leave the room. Her husband remained behind.

  She turned to look at him, her chin raised, her hands clasped loosely before her. He looked so very handsome, as he always did. She was very aware of the large canopied bed behind him. What would happen now that they were—home? She was, after all, his wife. She had vowed to be obedient to him. She would not break her vows. Would he break his?

  “Welcome home, my dear,” he said softly.

  The words took her by surprise and almost took away her control. She had not realized until that moment how close to the edge of control she had been living for the past twenty-four hours.

  “Thank you.” She drew a slow breath and smiled at him. “It is magnificent, Alistair. More so even than I expected.”

  “It is my pride and joy,” he said.

  The old cliché touched her in some strange way. But she did not want to be touched in any way. Not yet. She needed to think. But so far even her mind had deserted
her. She had been unable to think for a night and a day. She lowered her gaze and said nothing.

  “Stephanie,” he said, “will you answer one question before I leave you to rest alone?”

  “Yes.” She looked up at him again.

  “If I had told you,” he said, “on that day in Sindon Park, would you have married me?”

  No, of course not. But she held back the words. Would she? The arguments in favor of their marriage would have been just the same. Her options would have been just as limited. How could she know what her answer would have been? The point was, he had not told her. He had allowed her to believe in his kindness and gallantry—in his self-sacrifice.

  “I do not know,” she said. But she had to be honest with him. Only through honesty now could she hope to regain herself. “Yes. I believe I probably would have. I had tasted something better than what I had known for six years, you see, but to keep it I had to marry soon. It is difficult deliberately to give up something desirable once one has tasted it. I wanted wealth. I wanted Sindon Park.”

  He nodded.

  “I would probably have married you anyway,” she said, “but perhaps I would not have sold my soul if you had told me everything at the start.”

  “What do you mean by that?” he asked.

  She lifted her chin. “I wanted to be worthy of my savior,” she said. “I have spent the past month changing myself into someone worthy to be your duchess. There was nothing equal in our union, Alistair. All the giving, all the stooping, all the condescension were on your part. I was totally inferior—in every conceivable way. It did not need to be that way. I could and should have been your equal in everything except rank. You took that away from me.”

  “I did not want to humiliate you by telling the truth,” he said.

  She smiled. “Or yourself?”

  He hesitated. “Or myself,” he admitted.

  They stood looking at each other. She wondered if she still loved him. Or if she ever had. How could one love a god? One could only serve a god. But he was not a god at all. She did not know what or who he was. He was a stranger to her. She touched her wedding ring with the thumb of her left hand. And her mind touched on the brief and secret pleasure she had known in her marriage bed. He had been inside her body.

  But he was a stranger.

  “Where do we go from here?” he asked. “Is this the end, Stephanie? Is there no chance for our marriage?”

  She had not faced such a stark question yet. It frightened her to hear it thus put into words. Surely, it was not this they were facing? Two days ago had been their wedding day.

  “I do not know,” she said. “Alistair, I do not know you. I know only a few things about you, and not even many of those. I do not know you at all. You have told me nothing. You are a stranger to me.”

  “And do you wish to know me?” he asked. “Or is it too late?”

  She wanted to know him, she realized suddenly. Now that he was no longer a god, he was knowable. Despite his impressive title and his wealth and his enormous dignity, he was a man. A man just as she was a woman. She wanted to know him. She wanted to know whom she would reject—or accept. But was it too late to make such a decision after their marriage? He was standing still and quiet, waiting for her reply.

  “I want to know you,” she said.

  She could see him draw breath. “Then you will know me,” he said. “For the next days and weeks, Stephanie, I will do the talking. It will not come easily to me. I have been accustomed to self-containment, you see. It was part of my upbringing. It has been the dominating fact of my adulthood. But for you I will talk. I will try to teach you who I am.”

  “Is this marriage so important to you, then?” she asked.

  “Yes.”

  He answered without hesitation, but he did not explain in what way it was important, though she waited. It would be humiliating for him to have a broken marriage almost before it had begun. It would be dreary for him to be locked for life into a non-marriage. It would be disastrous for him to be in a marriage that offered no possibility of an heir—unless he intended to break his promise. Or perhaps the marriage was important to him in some other way, some more personal way. She did not know. She did not know him.

  She would not wait for him to ask the one remaining question, she decided. “Alistair,” she said, “you may come to me tonight if you wish.” No matter what happened, no matter what her final decision, she realized, she would give him his son if she was physically capable of doing so.

  “Thank you,” he said. “You are tired, my dear. I shall leave you to rest. I shall come to your dressing room to escort you down to dinner.”

  “Yes,” she said.

  He took a couple of steps toward her, took her right hand in both of his, and raised it to his lips.

  Then he was gone.

  She understood one thing during the couple of minutes she stood where she was before going to her dressing room. It was the first really clear thought that had formed since his staggering revelation of the day before. She was glad he had told her. A great deal had been destroyed. She was not sure if anything could be rebuilt. She was not sure of anything—except one realization. She was glad he was no god. She was glad he was merely a man.

  She brushed the fingers of her left hand absently over the back of her right hand, where his lips had just been.

  CONVERSATION CAME EASILY to him. It was a necessary accomplishment for any lady or gentleman of ton. It was an art, perhaps, but one he had practiced for so long that he no longer had to give it conscious thought. He knew almost by instinct to whom he should speak about books or ideas or politics or economics or fashion or gossip. By the same instinct he knew with whom he must lead the conversation and with whom he could merely follow.

  He had never feared silences. Sometimes silence could be comfortable and companionable. And when it was not, he always knew how to fill it.

  The silence throughout this day had suffocated him. It had been something loud and accusing, something painful and impenetrable.

  Conversation at the dinner table, though there was scarcely a moment of silence, was equally uncomfortable. One topic had never been part of his conversations, he realized now that he had committed himself to it for the coming days and even weeks. He was quite unaccustomed to talking about himself. It was as if, in becoming reconciled to the very public nature his life must take as the Duke of Bridgwater, he had shut away the private part of himself, hidden it away so that no one would take that too away from him.

  “George was my dearest friend and my worst enemy,” he told her, beginning abruptly without stopping to consider exactly where he should start. He could hardly begin with his birth, after all, though in more ways than one that had been the most significant event in his life. “I loved him and I hated him.”

  “It is something I have always found perplexing,” she said, “but it is something that seems quite natural. I longed and longed to have sisters and brothers. Yet it seems that those who do, spend their childhoods fighting with them.”

  “I resented him quite bitterly,” he said. “He was born barely eleven months after me. I never forgave him for waiting so long. If only he had been born eleven months before me. I am not sure I still do not resent him.”

  Her place had been set at the foot of the long table in the dining room. They would have had to raise their voices to converse. He had had her moved beside him.

  Her knife and fork remained poised over her plate for a moment. “Is it not usually the other way around?” she asked. “Is it not the younger son who is supposed to resent the elder? Eleven months cut your brother out of the title and the fortune and Wightwick Hall.”

  “Even as a child,” he said, “I felt the bars about my cage and knew that for George there were no bars, no cage. Ungrateful wretch that I was, I raged against my bars. Yet strange as it may seem, I do not believe that my brother ever raged against me or the fate that made him the younger.”

  He knew that he had s
tarted in the right place. If he had told her all the facts of a happy, carefree childhood—and the facts were there in abundance—he would not have told the essential truth. He would not be enabling her ever to know him.

  She leaned a little toward him, her food forgotten for the moment. “I cannot picture it,” she said. “You and your title and position seem to be one and indivisible.”

  “They are now,” he said. “I am talking about my childhood—my rebellious childhood. I knew very early that life would offer me no choices, you see. Now who would complain about that when he could be secure in this for a future?” He indicated with one hand the room about them. “Only a foolish child, of course. A man learns to accept his fate, especially when it is a fate that brings along with it such luxury and such security and such power.”

  “But who can blame a child,” she said, “for wanting to be free? For wanting to dream.”

  Ah, she understood. No one else ever had. No one. Not that he had talked about such things for eleven years. No, longer than that. Not since boyhood. He had never really entrusted himself to anyone. He felt suddenly vulnerable, almost frightened. He concentrated on his food for a while.

  “Very few people are free,” he said. “Almost no one is, in fact. It is something one learns as one matures. Something one comes to accept. Yet many people’s cages are poverty or ill health or—other miserable factors. My father was right to call me an ungrateful cur and to squash my rebellion as ruthlessly as he did. He must have been bewildered by me. We must hope that our eldest son will not be so perverse.”

  “If he is,” she said, “we must hope that his father will give him the benefit of his understanding.”

  He smiled at her. They spoke as if there were a future. Was there? The future was in his hands, he suspected. He had to help her to get to know him. He had to hope that she would like him, that she would wish to spend the rest of her life with him. She must already know that he would never force her either to live with him in the intimacy of marriage or to remain with him in the facade of an empty marriage. She was independently wealthy, with a sizable home of her own.