Hector looked at Adam with suspicion. ‘And so it went, until she went off to Scotland in a huff, and came back with you. You will find, once you get to know her, that no fortune will make up for deficiencies of the mind.’ His smile twisted with cruelty. ‘Or do you claim some sudden deep affection for the girl that caused you to sweep her from her feet?’
Once again, Adam was trapped between the truth and the appearance of the thing. ‘I can say in all honesty that I did not know of her fortune when I married her. And as far as my deep and abiding affection for her…’ the words stuck in his throat ‘…you will never hear me claim otherwise, in public or private.’
Hector smiled and nodded. ‘Spoken like a politician. It is not a lie, but it tells me nothing of what really happened.’
Adam stared at him without answering.
‘Very well.’ Hector tapped the invitation on the desk. ‘You will not explain. But as a politician, you must be conscious of how her behaviour will reflect on you. It might be best to cut your losses, before she exposes herself, as she is most sure to do, and brings scandal down upon you.’
Adam drew in a breath. ‘Cut my losses. And how, exactly, do you propose I do that?’
Hector smiled. ‘You may think it is too late to seek an annulment. But you can hardly be expected to remain married, if there is any question as to the mental soundness of one of the parties involved. Think of the children, after all.’
‘And if I cast her off?’
‘I would take her back, and make sure she had the care she needed.’
When hell freezes. ‘And you will take her money as well, I suppose.’ Adam made a gesture, as if washing his hands. ‘You are right, Winthorpe. I am growing worried about what a child of this union may be like. Suppose my heir should take after you? If that is not reason to remain childless, I cannot think of a better one. And as for any balls or entertainments we might choose to have? Such things are between myself and my wife and none of your affair.’ But he felt less confident than he had before.
Hector threw his hands in the air. ‘Very well, then. On your head be it if the poor girl drops on the dance floor in a fit of nervous prostration. Do not say you were not warned. The wilfulness of marrying was her doing. But you, sir, must take credit for the damage from now on.’ And with that, he collected his hat and left the house.
Adam stared across the hall and felt a wave of protectiveness for the woman behind the closed door. Her brother was even more repellent than Adam had imagined, and he understood why she might have been willing to risk a stranger over another moment with Hector.
His accusation was a ploy to regain control of her fortune, of course. But suppose his wife was as frightened of society as her brother claimed? It explained much of Penny’s behaviour, since they had been married. She was obviously happier alone with her books. It would be terribly unfair of him to expect her to stand before his friends as hostess.
Unfair, but necessary. People would talk, of course. There was no stopping it when Clarissa was egging them on. The longer his wife hid behind her studies, the louder the voices would become, and the crueller the speculations. A single evening’s entertainment would do much to settle wagging tongues.
But the sight of her, frozen in terror in front of a hundred guests, would do nothing to help and much to hurt. Hector was right in that, at least. He must avoid that, at all costs.
He rose, crossed the hall and knocked upon her door, opening it before she could deny him.
She was seated in a chair at the tiny writing desk in the corner, attired in a pale blue gown that must have been one of the purchases he had forced upon her. He doubted it would win favour to tell her that the colour and style suited her well, although, in truth, they did. She looked quite lovely in the morning sunlight, surrounded by books.
She set down the volume she had been reading, pushed her glasses up her nose and looked up at him with cool uninterest. ‘Is there something that I can help you with?’
How best to broach the question? ‘I was wondering— are preparations for the ball progressing well?’
She nodded, and he felt the tension in the air as she stiffened. ‘As well as can be expected. The invitations have been sent, and replies are returning. The hall is cleaned, the food is ordered.’
‘I thought…perhaps we could cancel the plans, if it is being too much trouble.’
She was looking at him as though he had lost his mind. ‘After all the trouble of choosing the food, decorating the hall, and sending the invitations, you now wish me to spend even more time in sending retractions?’
‘No. Really, I—’
‘Because if you think, at this date, it is possible to stop what you wished to set in progress, you are quite mad.’
He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, vowing to remain calm in the face of her temper, no matter what might occur. ‘I do not wish to make more work for you, or to take you from your studies. I swear, that was never my goal. My decision to hold the ball was made in haste, and without any thought to your feelings or needs. It pains me greatly that you heard of it from someone other than myself, for it further displayed my carelessness in not coming to you immediately to explain.’
‘Apology accepted.’ She turned back to her books, as though to dismiss him.
‘Your brother was here. In my study, just now.’
That had her attention. She looked up at him in surprise. ‘Whatever did he want?’
‘He came to throw my invitation back in my face and tell me that you were unfit to attend such an event, much less be the hostess. And that I was a brute for forcing you into it.’
She laughed with little confidence and no mirth. ‘It is a pity I was not there to thank him, his faith in my emotional stability has always meant so much to me.’
‘What happened when you had your Season to give him such ideas?’
‘It was nothing, really.’
‘I do not believe you.’
She shook her head. ‘I was a foolish girl…’
He stepped farther into the room, moving toward her without thinking. ‘You might have been impetuous. But I cannot imagine you a fool. Tell me the story, and we will never speak of it again.’
‘Very well.’ She sighed. ‘The truth about my come-out—and then you will see what a ninny you have married. I have always been awkward in crowds, more comfortable with books than with people. But my father admired my studiousness and did nothing to encourage me to mix with others my age. It was not until I was seventeen, and he sought to give me a Season, that the problems of this strategy became apparent.’
Adam pulled a chair close to hers, sat down beside her, and nodded encouragingly.
‘Mother was long past, and there was little my father or brother could do to help me prepare for my entrance into society. Father engaged a companion for the sake of propriety, but the woman was a fifty-year-old spinster. She knew little of fashion and nothing of the ways of young ladies, other than that they needed to be prevented from them. I was more than a little frightened of her. I suspect she increased the problems, rather than diminishing them.’
She paused and he wondered if she meant to leave the story at that. He said, ‘So you had your come-out, and no one offered. Or were you unable to find someone to suit yourself?’
She shook her head. ‘Neither is the case, I’m afraid. Any young girl with a dowry the size of mine could not help but draw interest. Father dispensed with the fortune hunters, and encouraged the rest. And at the end of the summer, there was a young man who seemed to suit. He was a lord of no particular fortune, but he seemed genuine in his affection for me.’ She looked up at him, puzzled. ‘It was so easy, when I was with him, to behave as the other girls did. The crowds were not so daunting. I grew to look to the parties and balls with anticipation, not dread. And I did quite enjoy the dancing…’ Her voice trailed away again.
She had been in love. Adam felt a bolt of longing at the idea that his wife had known happiness, before she
had known him.
She came back into the present and smiled at him, bright and false. ‘And then I overheard my beloved explaining to a girl I thought a friend that, while he loved this other girl above all things, he would marry me for my money, and that was that.
‘A sensible girl might have ignored the fact and continued with what would have been a perfectly acceptable union. Or broken it off quietly and returned to try again the next Season. But not I. I returned to the room and told the couple, and all within earshot, that I thought them as two-faced as Janus for denying their hearts with their actions, and that I would rather die than yoke myself to a man that only pretended to love me for the sake of my money. Then I turned on my heel, left the assembly rooms and refused all further invitations. My mortification at what I had done was beyond bearing. I had not wanted to draw attention to myself. I only hoped to find someone who would want me for who I was. Was it so much to ask? But my brother assured me that I had shamed the family. No one would have me, now I’d made such a cake of myself.’ She smiled, wistfully. ‘The last thing I should have done, to achieve my ends, was behave in a way that, I’m sorry to say, is very much in my character.’
Adam felt the rage boiling in his heart and wished that he could find the man who had been so callous to her, and give him what he deserved. Then he would pay a visit to her brother, and give Hector a dose of the same.
She swallowed and lifted her chin. ‘Of course, you can see that I have learned my lesson. I expected no such foolishness when I married you. If we must hold a ball and make nice in front of your friends, so be it. As long as there is no pretence between us that the event means something more than it truly does.’ She lowered her eyes and he thought for a moment he could see tears shining in them, although it might have been the reflection of the afternoon light on her spectacles.
And he reached out spontaneously and seized her hand, squeezing the fingers in his until she looked up at him. ‘I would take it all back if I could. Throw the invitations on the fire before they could be sent. You must know that I have no desire to force you into behaviours that will only bring back unpleasant memories. It was never my intention to make you uncomfortable or unhappy. And if there is anything I can do to help…’
Perhaps he sounded too earnest, and she doubted his sincerity. For when she looked at him, her face was blank and guarded. ‘Really, Adam. You have done more than enough. Let it be.’
But damn it all, he did not want to let it be. He wanted to fix it. ‘The ball will go on. There is no stopping it, I suppose. But in exchange, I will do something for you.’
She was staring at him as though the only thing she wished was that he leave her alone. What could he possibly do? It was not as if he could promise her a trip to the shops. She had made it clear enough what she thought of them, when he had forced her to go the first time. And if her mind had changed and she wished such things, she could afford to purchase them for herself.
And then, the idea struck him. ‘At the ball, we will announce that it is our farewell from society, for a time. We will be repairing to our country home. There, you will have all the solitude you could wish for. It is Wales, for heaven’s sake. Beautiful country, and the place where my heart resides, but very much out of the way of London society. Your books can be sent on ahead, to greet you in the library when we arrive. Between the house and the grounds, there is so much space that you can go for days without seeing a soul. Dead silence and no company but your books, for as long as you like.’
Her eyes sparkled at the sound of the word ‘library’. And she seemed to relax a bit. ‘This will be our only party, then?’
‘For quite some time. I will make no more rash pronouncements in public without consulting you first.’
‘And we may go the very next day?’ She seemed far more excited by the prospect of rustication, than she did by the impending ball.
‘If you wish it.’ He smiled. ‘And we will see if you prefer it to London. But I warn you, it is frightfully dull at Felkirk. Nothing to do but sit at home of an evening, reading before the fire.’
She was smiling in earnest now. And at him. ‘Nothing to do but read. Really, your Grace. You are doing it far too brown.’
‘You would not be so eager if I told you about the holes in the roof. The repairs are not complete, as of yet. But the library is safe and dry,’ he assured her. ‘And the bedrooms.’
And suddenly, her cheeks turned a shade of pink that, while very fetching, clashed with the silk on the walls. To hide her confusion, she muttered, ‘That is good to know. The damage was confined, then, to some unimportant part of the house?’
And it was his turn to feel awkward. ‘Actually, it was to the ballroom. When I left, it was quite unusable.’
And her blush dissolved into a fit of suppressed giggles. ‘It devastates me to hear it, your Grace.’
‘I thought it might. I will leave you to your work, then. But if you need help in the matter of the upcoming event, you will call upon me?’
She smiled again. ‘Of course.’
‘Because I am just across the hall.’ He pointed.
‘I know.’ She had forgiven him. At least for now. He turned to leave her, and glanced with puzzlement at a lone remaining Meissen figurine, turned face to the wall and occupying valuable space on his wife’s bookshelf. He shook his head at the carelessness of the servants, and turned it around, so that it faced properly into the room. ‘I will send someone to have this removed, if it annoys you.’
She shook her head. ‘Do not bother. I have grown quite used to it.’
Chapter Thirteen
The night of the ball had finally arrived, and Adam hoped that his wife was not too overwrought by the prospect. He had nerves enough for both of them.
Clarissa would be there, of course. He combed his hair with more force than was necessary. Another meeting with her was unavoidable. He could not hold a party and invite his friend, only to exclude his wife. There was very little to do about Clarissa without cutting Tim out of his social circle entirely. And he could hardly do that. They had been friends since childhood. Tim’s unfortunate marriage to the shrew, and Adam’s regrettable behaviour over her, had done nothing to change it, although Adam almost wished it had. It would have been so much easier had Tim called him out and shamed him in public, or at least cut him dead. But the veneer of civility, when they were together at a social gathering, was a torture much harder to endure.
He hoped that the presence of Penny, and success of the evening, would cool the look in Clarissa’s eye.
There was a change in the light that fell upon the table, and a discreet clearing of a throat.
He looked up into the mirror to see his wife standing in the connecting doorway behind him.
He didn’t realise he had been holding his breath until he felt it expel from his lungs in a long, slow sigh. It was his wife, most certainly. But transformed. The gown was a pale green, and with her light hair and fair skin, she seemed almost transparent. As she came towards him, he imagined he was seeing a spirit, a ghost that belonged to the house, that had been there long before he had come.
And then the light from his lamp touched the gown and the sarsenet fabric shifted in colour from silver to green again, and the silver sequins sparkled on the drape of netting that fell from her shoulder to the floor.
Even her glasses, which had seemed so inappropriate and unfeminine when he first met her, completed the image as the lenses caught the light and threw it back at him, making her eyes shimmer.
His friends would not call her a beauty, certainly. She was most unlike all the other women who were lauded as such. But suddenly it did not matter what his friends might say. It only mattered what he knew in his heart to be true—she looked as she was meant to look. And now that he had removed her from whatever magic realm she had inhabited, he was overcome with the desire to protect her from the coarse harshness of the world around them.
She had reached his side, and tipped her head quiz
zically to the side. ‘Is it all right?’
He nodded and smiled. ‘Very much so. You are lovely.’
‘And you are a liar.’ But he could see the faint blush on her cheek as she said it.
‘You’re welcome. It is a most unusual gown. Vaguely Greek, I think, and reminiscent of the Penelope of legend. And therefore, most suitable for you. Are you ready to greet our guests?’
‘Yes.’ But he saw the look in her eyes.
‘And now you are the one who is lying.’
‘I am as ready as I am ever likely to be.’
‘Not quite. There is something missing. I meant to deal with it earlier, but I quite forgot.’
He removed the jewel box from where he had left it in the drawer of his dresser. ‘It seems, in the hurry to marry, that we forgot something. You have no ring.’
‘It is hardly necessary.’
‘I beg to differ. A marriage is not a marriage without a ring. Although the solicitors and banks did not comment, my friends must have noticed.’
She sighed. ‘You do not remember, do you? You gave me a ring, when we were in Gretna. I carry it with me sometimes. For luck.’ She pulled a bent horse nail from her fine silk skirts and slipped it on to her finger. ‘Although perhaps I need the whole shoe for it to be truly lucky. I do not know.’
He stared down at it in horror. ‘Take that from your finger, immediately.’
‘I had not planned to wear it, if that is your concern. It is uncomfortably heavy, and hardly practical.’
He held out his hand. ‘Give it here, this instant. I will dispose of it.’
She closed her hand possessively over it. ‘You will do nothing of the kind.’
‘It is dross.’ He shook his head. ‘No, worse than that. Dross would be better. That is a thing. An object. An abomination.’
‘It is a gift,’ she responded. ‘And, more so, it is mine. You cannot give it me, and then take it back.’
Miss Winthorpe's Elopement Page 13
