by Grace Burrowes, Shana Galen, Miranda Neville, Carolyn Jewel
And it meant nothing to her. Not one little thing.
Chapter Two
‡
Linton came down to dinner chastened. He’d extracted Newton’s memorandum from his document portfolio and read it three times; each time it read the same way. The duchess to Chimneys the 4th of July. Not the fourteenth, the fourth. He’d misread it, and Newton had tried to warn him. He had no one to blame but himself for the awkward situation.
He must be meticulously polite and get through the evening without inciting conflict, or allowing her to set off his temper with her verbal pinpricks. And tomorrow he’d leave for Berkshire. The estate there had decent fishing too. He didn’t need to be at The Chimneys. Except for that one matter with Sedgemere, which he didn’t like to leave unsettled. He could ride over first thing, speak to Sedgemere, and be on the road by noon.
At first all went well. They conversed about uncontentious matters: the affairs of The Chimneys estate (avoiding the vexed question of washing), news of ducal neighbors (Sedgemere’s bride, a banker’s daughter), and the prospect of summer entertainments.
“And there’s the Dukeries Cup,” she said.
Linton nodded. Once upon a time, the annual rowing race had been the summit of his summer. All the mansions in the vicinity would be alive with whispers about the fancied competitors, and the betting was fast and furious. The rival houses took the race seriously, and the handsome prize added spice to the contest. But no one needed the money, and the real incentive was the right to crow over the other dukes. And to have fun. But he didn’t have time for fun. Life wasn’t supposed to be fun. He bit his tongue on the suggestion that he should return to The Chimneys for the contest.
“The new Duchess of Sedgemere has invited a large party and intends to give a ball,” Althea said, while the servants removed the covers and brought in the second course.
“You’ll enjoy the company.” He definitely wouldn’t return this summer. They’d managed to get through half an hour amicably, but more time together would be tempting fortune.
She still looked different from the London Althea; from his vantage point at the other end of the table, he could objectively admire her unspoiled appearance. He even had to admit that the darkened brows and lashes added emphasis to her lovely but pallid coloring. Accepting a serving from the footman, she said nothing, then looked up through her dark lashes in a blend of apology and defiance.
“I’ll have Nick to entertain me. I expect him in a few days.”
Linton took a drink of wine to calm the instinctive irritation. There was no reason Althea shouldn’t invite her twin brother, wastrel though he might be and a major cause of dissension between them. “Anyone else?” Nicholas was one thing, Nicholas’s friends quite another. A more worthless set of parasites…
“I haven’t invited anyone else,” she said.
All right then. “How is Nicholas?”
“Well.” He let it go at that since further questions might lead to a request for money to pull the young scoundrel out of yet another pickle. Linton had made it clear in the past that if Althea wanted to waste her very generous allowance on her brother, she could do so, but he wouldn’t contribute another penny.
“I’m glad to hear it.” And glad to hear she wasn’t planning to fill his house with every budding rakehell in London. He ate a spoonful of syllabub.
She broke the uneasy silence. “What do you think of the unrest in the north of England?”
“The activities of the Radicals cause considerable concern in Westminster. What do you know about it?”
“Don’t sound so astonished. I read the newspapers.”
That was news to him. In the days when they’d been in the habit of conversing, she’d talked of nothing but gowns and parties. Her eyes would glaze with boredom when he tried to explain the business that occupied him in Parliament.
“What do you think?” He expected his challenge to be met with a retreat into frippery.
“I think low wages and the high cost of food create hardship for the poor. Children are starving, and the government should help them.”
“I wish I could snap my fingers and create an ideal world. Political economy is a difficult subject.” She was looking at him in a way that confused him. She seemed genuinely interested, but it was equally possible she wanted to goad him into an argument. “The ministry is more concerned with quelling unrest than examining its causes.”
“And I suppose you agree with them.”
He declined to be goaded. “Not all the Tories march in lock-step. In my opinion, neglecting the problem is asking for trouble. The streets of London are teeming with misery and discontent, and it’s even worse in the north.”
She wrinkled her forehead. “Do you mean you wish to help the poor to prevent unrest, not because you think it’s right to relieve misery?”
The question made him uncomfortable because he wasn’t sure of the answer. His wife was a lot subtler in her ideas than he had ever suspected. “Does it matter? Doesn’t it come to the same thing?”
“In practical terms, yes. But intentions are important. I would prefer you to leave Mrs. Trumbull’s laundry alone because you see the justice of her need to dry her children’s clothes, not because you don’t wish to quarrel with me and spoil your dinner.”
“I wondered when we’d get back to this.” Her artful twisting of the argument amused him, but he kept his expression impassive. “Will it spoil my dinner if I insist on the removal of the washing? Will you throw your napkin across the room and storm out?”
Once such provocation would have resulted in her doing that very thing. Now she retained her composure and smiled sweetly. “No. After you leave, I will tell Mrs. Trumbull to keep her washing line.”
“In that case, let her keep it with my good will. I shall rejoice in my magnanimity and the knowledge that I have contributed to the cleanliness of the little Trumbulls.”
“Perhaps you’d like to go over and scrub their shirts.”
“Touché. I don’t have to concern myself with the practicalities of housewifery, and I am grateful for it.”
This was the most bizarre discussion he’d ever had. The closest he’d come to the indignity of labor was learning to groom his pony as a child. The idea of a duke washing his own clothes, let alone anyone else’s, was too ridiculous to contemplate. And yet he was enjoying himself.
She was intelligent, his wife, and far more mature than the flouncing eighteen-year-old who had come to London and run wild, thumbing her nose at the ton and her older husband. She had been, it occurred to him, like a child dressed in her mother’s clothes. Now she had grown into them and, incidentally, looked very fine. Ignoring her studiously for over four years, he hadn’t noticed she’d become a woman.
A very beautiful woman.
Stirrings of desire teased him. She was his wife, and they were under the same roof. He could knock on the door of her room, go to her bed, hold her delectable, fragrant body against his… But pride, if no other reason, required that he fight off lust for a female who had turned him away from her bed.
*
Althea went to the drawing room, leaving Linton to his wine, without an exchange of harsh words. The only tense moment had come when she told him Nick was expected, and perhaps she shouldn’t have brought it up. But whatever Linton said, and he’d favored her with long harangues in the past, she would never feel bad about supporting her twin. Nick was the only person in her life who had loved her without reservation. Since the day of their birth, they’d formed a united front against an unkind world. It wasn’t Nick’s fault their father had hated him, hated them both, but being a boy, Nick had borne the brunt of Sir George Maxfield’s revenge against his erring second wife. On the day of her wedding, their elder half brother, Geoffrey, the new baronet, had given her away to Linton and washed his hands of them both. “Nicholas is your responsibility now,” he’d said coldly. She had taken him at his word, not out of duty but from love.
Hoping Linto
n wouldn’t join her—she wasn’t sure they could maintain the façade of politeness without servants in the room—she sat at the piano and picked her way through a waltz. Her playing had never been better than acceptable because her father and brother refused to pay the salary required by a superior governess. Neither did any of the faded gentlewomen entrusted with her education stay long. The Maxfields, father and son, were disagreeable employers, as well as miserly ones.
During her third and improved attempt, she became aware that Linton had come in and was watching from behind her. Making no comment when she botched a tempo change and gave up in a discordant clatter, he leaned over her shoulder and leafed through the sheet music on the piano. The brush of starched linen against the skin of her upper back, the heat of his breath on her neck, made her feel prickly. It was years since they’d been at such close quarters.
He selected a Mozart duet and spread it open on the stand. “Shall we try this?” He used to be a fair pianist. They’d played for each other during their honeymoon, though never together.
“Only if you will take the high part. It’s too difficult for me without a lot of practice.”
“Move over.”
She slid left to make room for him on the padded bench, keenly aware that only an inch or two of space lay between their respective thighs, and pretended not to notice him as she studied the first page of music.
“Shall I count?” he said, and her attention slipped to his hands, large and shapely, flexing over the keys.
She gulped. “Please take it slowly.”
“For now. One, two, three.”
She came in half a second behind, but caught up when he got to the first complicated passage. Concentrating fiercely, she managed not to make a complete fool of herself and started to enjoy it when she realized his performance was no better than hers. She kept playing when her arm knocked against his. “Sorry!” she cried when their hands crashed together. “Don’t stop,” he called back and made a particularly tricky flourish sound like broken china. Occasionally in harmony, more often out of step, they limped to the end of the movement. By a miracle, they finished almost together and looked at each other. He was smiling. The creases in his cheeks, so rarely seen, transformed his austerely handsome face.
“My fingers are rusty,” he said, waving them at her.
She almost blurted that they were still strong and very capable. Once, they’d touched her, quite intimately. Turning back to the piano to hide her blush, she leafed back to the beginning. “Shall we try it again?”
They did better this time, both of them, though his improvement was greater than hers. She managed to keep pace, and the final chords came in satisfying concert.
“Bravo!” he said. “We should congratulate ourselves.”
“You should. Do you play much nowadays? I never hear you.”
“That’s because we are seldom at home together.” Was that a veiled barb? “The answer is, not often. I don’t have time to practice.”
“And I have all the time in the world, yet my skill is far less than yours.” He demurred modestly, but they both knew she was right. “You do everything better than I do. It makes me feel inferior.”
“Why?” He looked startled, and she felt the same way. Not because of the sentiment, but because she had dared to express it. It might be the first honest thing she’d said to him without having her tongue loosened by anger.
“You’re good at everything. You run your estates, you earn the respect of people in the government, you excel at sports. You even play the piano better than I, though you hardly ever practice.”
“I wasn’t aware we were in competition.”
“Of course we aren’t. I would lose every time.”
“Do you wish to pit yourself against me?” In a sense, she had. She’d never bowed down under his constant criticism. Nothing she did ever satisfied him, but she refused to be cowed.
She shook her head. “No. I don’t enjoy competing.”
“Except at cards.” A note of iron entered his voice. One of their worst rows had resulted from a gaming debt. She hadn’t admitted that it was Nick’s debt that she’d taken on herself because Linton had refused to bail out his brother-in-law again.
“I don’t play cards much anymore. Another thing I don’t do well.”
Politeness demanded he contradict her, praise her for some virtue, invent one if he had to. “Ladies are not expected to excel,” was all he could manage.
Except as mothers. The thought must be in his head, as it was in hers. During six months of relations, she’d never got with child, and now, she supposed, she never would. Apparently, he was resigned to letting his cousin eventually inherit. He’d surely have divorced her had he not been horrified by the idea of a scandal. That was why he’d never sought a full separation.
“Most ladies boast of their accomplishments, like speaking French and Italian, painting in watercolors, or embroidery. My only skill is the piano, and you have seen how well I do that.” She’d own up to her many inadequacies, but she was not to blame for her barren state. She had stood the constant carping on her extravagance and wild behavior, but she’d drawn the line when she learned he maintained his mistress after their marriage.
*
Althea tossed beneath the covers, unable to forget the occupant of the adjoining chamber. Whether from his damp shirt or the forced contact on the piano bench, he’d unsettled her, made her aware of yearnings in her body she normally suppressed. Naturally, she had indulged in flirtations, another cause of complaint from Linton. All women of fashion did, as she had discovered as a wide-eyed young bride let loose in society for the first time. It had meant nothing, and he ought to have known it. He could have flirted with her himself, kissed her hand, laughed at her witticisms, whispered extravagant compliments in dark corners. Instead, she had to submit to his constant disapproval. A month after their honeymoon, she was certain she could do nothing to please him. Not even in bed.
At first he was gentle and considerate, and she felt cherished in his arms. But when they returned to London, he visited her room less frequently. He often had evening engagements that excluded her and came home after she was asleep. Once she and Nick made friends of their own, among the younger fashionable set, it was she who yawned her way through the front door of Linton House in the small hours.
There had been just one time. They had attended a dinner at his sister’s house. Althea had been on her best behavior and managed to ignore the stinging darts of Lady Mary Poole, who had made no secret of opposing their marriage. Linton told her, over a glass of wine in the library, that she had pleased him and kissed her when she withdrew to bed. Glowing at his unusual praise, she eagerly anticipated his arrival in her room. For once, all the undefined expectations of the physical side of marriage were met. As she trembled in his arms, his caresses made her vibrate with a strange longing. She reveled in the weight of his body on hers and the heft of his member when he entered her. She sensed the climb to an unknown pinnacle that both frightened and thrilled her. Though he finished before she crested the summit, she nevertheless felt a rare delight. Daring to wind her arms about him, she fell asleep with her head on his chest, happier than she’d ever been in her life.
She woke up alone, and the sunny morning was ruined by a blazing row over a dressmaker’s bill she couldn’t pay because she’d given most of her quarter’s pin money to Nick. A few days later, one of her new, sophisticated friends told her about his mistress.
“I know about Mrs. Veney,” she told him, hoping he would deny it.
He reddened with anger. “Mrs. Veney is none of your concern. It is grossly improper for her to be mentioned between us.”
“You pay for her house in Molyneux Street and her servants’ wages and no doubt all her bills,” she stormed in the face of his affronted serenity.
“That is my affair.”
“So I have heard,” she retorted. “Keep her if you insist, but don’t expect to share my bed again.”
He took her at her word and left her alone for a few days. When he finally came to her room, she told him she expected to suffer from headaches every night for the foreseeable future. Funnily enough, it turned out to be true. The final disintegration of their relationship drove her to an orgy of dissipation, marked by wild escapades and the imbibing of a great deal of wine. Tired of waking with a dry mouth and pounding brain, she eventually moderated her behavior and achieved a kind of serenity in the suspended state of her marriage.
Now, confound him, he’d shattered her hard-won poise by invading her haven. His very presence had her thinking of the ecstasy that she’d heard about from married ladies of her fast set and had never experienced. Never would experience. Her healthy twenty-three-year-old body ached to be kissed and caressed and loved, and she could weep with frustration for the bliss that would never be hers unless she broke her vows and risked the scandal of pregnancy.
Since the only husband she would ever have lay a few yards away and didn’t do her the least bit of good, perhaps she would succumb to one of the many lures thrown out to her by the rakes of London. And that was something more to weep about.
Chapter Three
‡
Waking late, as listless as though she’d drained a bottle of champagne at dinner instead of one glass of wine, she read the note delivered with her chocolate.
Madam.
I must see Sedgemere this afternoon, so I will trouble you for another night at The Chimneys. Meanwhile, I have gone fishing.
Your etc.
Linton.
Althea didn’t know whether to be glad or sorry. They’d managed to spend the evening with civility. But could they repeat the feat? Past history indicated that a second dinner alone together would end in strife.
After breakfast, she dealt with correspondence forwarded from London and went outside to consult the head gardener. A long, soothing discussion about the control of aphids left her in a more optimistic frame of mind. On her way back to the house, she spotted the approach of a familiar vehicle, a glossy curricle with spanking yellow wheels. Nick had arrived early, but he was not alone. The sight of his companion sent a pool of bile to her stomach.
