When the footman who brought the tray had left, she shoved the vase behind a wardrobe, where it could not stray into her line of sight. Five minutes later she moved it into the wardrobe. After another three minutes she yanked it out of the wardrobe and opened the window to defenestrate the whole thing.
She recovered her self-control just in time—the vase was costly, the tulips probably just as costly this time of the year, and the gossip generated by such a wanton gesture of rage would dog her for years to come. Taking a few deep breaths, she walked out of her room, marched the tulips to a room at the end of the corridor, and left them on the mantelpiece.
Coming back into the corridor, she stopped. Lord Wrenworth stood outside his door, watching her. He would have seen the exile of his flowers—the exile of his sentiments.
She returned to her room without another glance at him.
CHAPTER 17
Felix returned to Huntington alone.
Louisa had left London the day after she ran into Miss Edwards, but he had several appointments to keep—and she’d made it all too plain that she wished to be left alone.
The last time he had traveled by himself in the private rail coach had been before the wedding. He’d had Messier’s Catalogue on his person, and a smile on his face, thinking of the laugh she’d get from the dress dummies on the belvedere.
Now all he had were her words burning in his ears.
Hideous. Cheater. Common cardsharp. When have you ever thought about me, except so that you may better gratify yourself?
There was a part of him that squirmed at the reiteration of these accusations. It wanted to defend him by pointing out that she was far better off than she had ever been—or would have ever been had she married anyone else. Now she possessed a fortune of her own, never needed to worry about the welfare of her family again, and could deploy the finest private telescope in all of England anytime she wanted.
But he could not deny the truth of the charges she’d leveled at him. Until now, whatever he had done for her, he had done for himself, whether it was to give her five thousand pounds a year—for his vanity—or to allow her access to his telescope—for his heart, in the hope that she would reciprocate his sentiments.
The entire aim of his adult life had been getting what he wanted, exactly the way he wanted it; so it was hardly surprising that his character would be marked by a keen attentiveness to himself. But what made his soul recoil was a dawning understanding that his love, so important and fearsome for him, was actually a remarkably shallow thing, little more than a will to possess.
Or at least so it would seem, viewed through her eyes, through the prism of all his lies and distortions.
He fought against successive waves of despair. He would not give up. He would make her understand. He would use every advantage at his disposal and he would—
It was only as the train approached its next stop that he realized what he was doing. He was still trying to turn the situation to his benefit, when what he ought to do was first become the kind of man who deserved her.
In his prior transformation from a young, orphaned boy to The Ideal Gentleman, his entire aim had been strength—strength enough to bend the will of others and strength enough to always hold the upper hand.
But now he would need to acquire humility. Or, if not that, at least the ability to truly put her needs above his own.
This brought a new surge of uncertainty. What if he became that better man, but she could not see it? What if she would only ever perceive him through the prism of his prior lies and distortions?
He pressed his fingers into his temples. He would simply have to accept failure as a possibility, that whatever he did might be futile. That her heart might always remain closed to him.
Now, given all that—or perhaps despite that—what could he do for her?
• • •
The day after his return to Huntington, Louisa received a note from her husband, informing her that the schoolroom was completely ready and he awaited only her pleasure to begin the lessons.
She tossed the note into an empty drawer.
At dinner that night—the only time they were in the same room, and with so many epergnes and vases between them that she was in little danger of actually seeing him—he asked whether she’d received his note.
“Yes, I have,” she answered.
Iterations of the same note, however, kept arriving. She kept shoving each day’s rendition into the drawer.
But after a week or so, she found herself going up to the renovated schoolroom. She could not recognize the place. The walls were now a pale celery green, the curtains a daffodil yellow. The ceiling, which had seemed so oppressively low before, had been repainted into a trompe l’oeil image of library shelves going up and up, reaching toward an oculus from which pink-cheeked cherubs peered down, as if they, too, were interested in quadratic equations.
Now there were two sets of a desk and chair, one set the same as before, except repainted and refinished. The other set—larger, more ornate, a professor’s perch—she recognized as having been moved from the library. On this desk there were a stack of notebooks with dark blue covers and a rectangle of white space in the middle—like all his other notebooks.
The one on top was labeled, Lecture Notes: Fundamentals of Algebra. She opened it to his familiar, handsome penmanship. His lecture plan was lucid and easy to follow, illustrated with plenty of examples. The notes were already halfway through lecture twenty-three.
The next notebook was Homework. For each lecture, there would be two full pages of homework. She would need to copy the problems into a notebook of her own, as he had not left room for her to work on the page.
She did not look into a third notebook, Tests and Examinations, but only rubbed her fingers along its spine and corners.
She remembered what it was like to be covered in his notebooks, notebooks still neat and clean, but with the pages having been ever so slightly warped by dried ink. Such a luxurious sensation to be surrounded by all that learning, all that data, all that him.
It was only when she looked up from the notebooks that she saw the tulips on the bookshelves. Golden tulips, freshly come to bloom.
I am hopelessly in love with you.
She was out the door the next moment, as if a ghost had breathed on her neck.
• • •
December was upon them all of a sudden.
Mrs. Pratt had barrels of dried currants and candied peels at the ready, to undertake the huge quantity of Christmas cakes her stillroom manufactured and dispensed each yuletide to all tenants on behalf of the marquessate. Mr. Sturgess oversaw the production of ginger brandy and lemon gin. M. Boulanger muttered of not only chestnut-stuffed geese, but of capons, herons, and pheasants in the tradition of his native Poitou; a roasted suckling pig with pineapples, as was served in the Sandwich Islands; or perhaps even a boar’s head in the manner of Oxford.
Louisa carried with her a large notebook filled with lists and determinedly saw to one item after another.
One morning, she and Mrs. Pratt, who employed an even more impressive notebook, sat down with the guest list for the Christmas house party and discussed the needs of each person on the list in order to begin the assignment of rooms.
Most of the guests had stayed at Huntington before, and Mrs. Pratt already had dossiers on their habits and requirements. The notable exception was Louisa’s family.
Louisa turned to the page in her own notebook on which she’d jotted down those particulars that needed to be mentioned. But before she could start, Mrs. Pratt said, “Here are my notes on the Cantwell ladies. The lamp wicks in Mrs. Cantwell’s room must be trimmed each evening, before she retires, as she needs a light on the entire night—either that, or she should be supplied with a long-burning taper. Miss Cecilia cannot sleep on a feather mattress, as it makes her sneeze impossibly. Being a la
te riser and generally irritable in the morning, Miss Julia would prefer to have her room not face east. Miss Matilda needs to room with one of her sisters in case she has a sudden attack, but not with Miss Julia, as the latter has never had the responsibility of handling a seizure of Miss Matilda’s by herself.”
Astonished, Louisa looked down at the identical items on her list. “Did . . .”
She meant to ask whether she had somehow spoken to Mrs. Pratt and then entirely forgotten about it. Mrs. Pratt answered, “Yes, ma’am, his lordship did give me these instructions.”
His visit to her family had lasted little more than a week. How did he know so much?
“Was that all the instruction his lordship gave?”
“No, ma’am. I also have here that Miss Cantwell is allergic to all shellfish, that Mrs. Cantwell will not eat anything orange in color, that Miss Cecilia and Miss Julia should preferably not be seated close to each other, as they have a tendency to quarrel.”
Louisa fidgeted in her seat.
“Is there anything you’d like to add, ma’am?” asked Mrs. Pratt.
Louisa looked down at her list. “Just that Miss Julia must have porridge for breakfast every morning. And that my mother does not mind her food being orange if the hue comes from saffron. She quite admires saffron and the distinction it confers.”
When Mrs. Pratt had left, Louisa found herself climbing the stairs up to the schoolroom again. It was a clear day, and sunlight streamed in from the south-facing windows. The room very nearly sparkled.
And there again, on the bookshelf, a bouquet of golden tulips, as fresh and lovely as a breath of spring.
She realized, only after she’d been at it for a while, that she was standing before the bookshelf, stroking the cool, smooth petals.
• • •
Felix found her in the gallery, before a portrait of his mother. She cast one swift look in his direction, as his footsteps echoed in the long, cavernous space, but offered no greeting when he came to stand next to her.
She had become thinner, paler, her cheekbones prominent, her eyes almost too large. The only dimension on her person that hadn’t shrunk, at least not while she was fully clothed, was that of her bosom, as full and buoyant as ever, cantilevered by those bust improvers for which he harbored such a great fondness.
He felt a completely inappropriate desire to smile, accompanied by a sharp pinch in his chest.
“I understand you have been making guest room assignments with Mrs. Pratt,” he said. “In case you haven’t done so, I’d like Lady Tremaine placed on the top floor, away from the other guests. I’d promised her a house full of handsome men. Should she choose to take a lover, a room wedged in between the Denbighs and the Hollisters would not offer enough privacy.”
She made no response. His heart felt as if it had been made into a pincushion.
“I can speak to Mrs. Pratt directly, if you do not wish to concern yourself with the matter.”
“Do you—” She stopped, as if shocked that she was speaking to him. “Do you count yourself among the handsome men on offer?”
“No,” he said. “I only want you.”
Her throat moved. “I will speak to Mrs. Pratt about it.”
“Thank you.”
Silence expanded to fill all available space, making the gallery feel closed and stifling. He watched her unsmiling profile, then followed her line of sight to his mother’s equally unsmiling face. Something clanked inside him: the realization that like his father, he, too, was now married to a woman who wanted nothing to do with him.
He let the initial panic pass. It was what it was; the only thing that mattered now was what he could do for her.
“She was not happy here,” he heard himself say.
Surprise flickered at the corner of her lips.
“She was in love with someone else, a poor man,” he went on, relating the story that had come to him so long ago, and which, in the twenty years since, he’d never repeated to a single soul. “But her father kept her under house arrest until she acquiesced to marrying my father. My father loved her greatly, but her pain and anger were so great she could not see past it to any possibility of joy ever again.
“I don’t believe she realized that, in her wrath, she was punishing herself as well. But she did, for years upon years, till the day she died.”
Don’t do that to yourself; don’t let go of your capacity for joy, was what he could not quite bring himself to say.
She moved to a nearby globe and touched the lapis ocean. Slowly she spun the globe.
“I’m sure you find my daily notes repetitive, but I’d like to see you at something you love. If you do not wish for me to instruct you, we can find you a tutor.”
She kept spinning the globe; continents flew by under her palm.
“If we were in London, we could probably have someone of impeccable credentials by the end of the week.” Was he rambling? He could not tell. “It will take longer to find a qualified person willing to rusticate eight months out of the year at Huntington, but I will make it happen if that’s what you want.”
The globe went around a good dozen times before she said, “I am not in the habit of spending money for a tutor when I have a husband who can instruct me free of charge.”
If she had left the connecting door open at night, he could not be more thrilled. “When should we start?”
“After the guests depart. And after you have removed those tulips from the schoolroom.”
With one finger, she stopped the spinning globe. And then she turned and walked away.
CHAPTER 18
When the Christmas guests arrived, The Ideal Gentleman returned.
On the first night of the yuletide house party, Louisa stood at the edge of a fully populated room and watched her husband with a pang in her chest. It unsettled her to realize that part of what she felt was nostalgia—for her spring and summer, for those days and months when his smiles would send her lurching from arousal to panic and back again.
When life had been so much simpler and easier, and she’d suspected him of nothing more than arrogance and sexual deviance.
Or so it felt. A glorious, lost era of being enthralled by his frank wickedness. Of not seeing that when he broke the rules, he broke all the rules. And of not yet knowing that when he schemed for her, he also schemed against her.
Could he tell, with his occasional glances at her, that she’d been second-guessing the wisdom of agreeing to the lessons? Could he understand how it had shocked her to the core that it wasn’t just conventional sexual mores he eschewed, but fundamental principles of fairness and sportsmanship? It would never have occurred to her to disparage another debutante for her own competitive advantage, not even with an epileptic sister as an excuse.
I love you, he’d said. Once upon a time there had been no words she wanted to hear more. Yet his action had made her feel stripped of all humanity and individuality—reduced to a trophy, something for him to hoist aloft in triumph.
She did not want to be loved like that, with her heart an objective to be captured for his satisfaction.
And yet she’d said yes to the lessons that would put them in close proximity day after day, allow him to dazzle her, and lead her to mistake the pleasure she derived from learning for pleasure she derived from his company.
Even with all her illusions gone, there was a part of her—a forceful, potent part of her—that longed to return to his side. To touch and kiss him, and make love endlessly. To let the delights of his bed tip her into forgetfulness, perhaps even oblivion.
He chose that moment to look again in her direction. Their gazes held. She looked away, flushing hotly.
Half an hour later, as the ladies bade good-bye to the gentlemen and made ready to retire, for the first time since she slapped him, he set his hand on her person and kissed her on her cheek.
> “Good night, Lady Wrenworth.”
Her cheek tingled until well past midnight.
• • •
A week before Christmas Eve, a freezing rain fell. Louisa’s husband strongly cautioned all the guests to remain indoors, to minimize the risk of unpleasant spills.
With the usual shooting crowd and the usual walking crowd all stuck inside, Louisa couldn’t seem to take a step outside her own rooms without running into someone with whom she must make pleasant small talk.
Late in the morning she found herself climbing up to the schoolroom. At least there she could be sure of being alone. Or so she thought, only to see Felix standing before the window, his hands in the pockets of his trousers, looking down.
He turned around.
Several of the wall sconces had been lit, but it was the kind of overwhelmingly dreary day that seemed to sap all warmth and brightness from such minor flames. The room felt grey and anemic, and yet he . . . he seemed to be illuminated by mysterious sources, bright and vivid against a receding backdrop.
She should have uttered an apology and made herself scarce; instead, she entered and closed the door behind her.
“Anything I can do for you, my dear?” he asked.
She cast about for something to say that wouldn’t make it seem as if she had been drawn in despite her better judgment. “I understand Mr. Weston and Mr. Harris have gone out, against your advice.”
“And taken two of my best horses with them, those young hooligans.”
“Will they be all right?”
“I certainly hope so. It would be hazardous to send out a search party in this weather.” He moved to the desk and closed a notebook that had been lying open. “If you’d like to use the schoolroom, I will be glad to see myself out.”
She chose not to give a direct answer, but pointed her chin at the notebook. “Were you in the middle of something?”
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