There was a horrible silence.
“But he was dreadfully in love with me,” she said, laboring onward. “Not because of my looks, of course. I think it must have been my cheerfulness and laughter and my willingness to be with him. He was so very ill and weak. If he had been robust and healthy, I daresay he would not have loved me at all even though he had always been my friend. He would have fallen in love with someone who was prettier.”
Still he said nothing, and she had stopped looking up at him. She gazed at her hands, which were now tingling with pins and needles.
“You are big and strong and healthy,” she said. “What happened between us was ... well. I have never enjoyed anything so much in all my life. And then afterward, when we had returned to the main house and I had learned about Crispin and realized how dreadfully unhappy Meg must be and then you were gone for the afternoon and I was alone and it was raining—well, then I remembered Hedley. And I remembered that I had pushed his portrait down the side of my trunk when I left Warren Hall and I went and got it. I thought of him and I mourned his early death and the fact that I had never loved him in the way he thought I did. I felt guilty for having enjoyed myself so much with you when I had never really enjoyed myself with him. And then I felt guilty for feeling guilty—for I ought not to feel guilty at enjoying myself with my new husband, ought I? Indeed, I ought to try to enjoy myself. And here I am getting tied up in words again just when I so much want to explain myself clearly to you.”
She stopped—and listened to him inhale deeply and then exhale.
“I am no good at dealing with Cheltenham tragedies, I am afraid, Vanessa,” he said. “I am to feel gratified, am I, that you were not in love with Dew though you loved him? There is a difference, I take it? I am to be doubly gratified that you felt such eager lust for me during the three days following our marriage—such eager satisfied lust—that you completely forgot the man you loved, but with whom you were never in love?”
He had succeeded in making her confession seem trivial. She had bared her soul to him, and it had left him cold.
She raised her eyes to his. He was looking steadily back.
“You are not, it is to be hoped, in love with me, are you?” he asked her.
She hated him at that moment.
“No, of course not,” she said. “I married you in order to help my sisters gain an entrée into society, just as you married me to solve the problem the three of us posed for you and to beget your heirs. But even a marriage of convenience need not be an unhappy marriage, Elliott, or a marriage in which the partners rarely speak or spend time alone together. I want us to have a workable marriage. I know you might have chosen someone far lovelier and more suitable than me if you had waited, but it was you who chose not to wait. What else was I to do when you came to offer for Meg but offer myself instead?”
He regarded her with narrowed eyes.
“It is probably as well that we are not in love with each other,” she said. “Then we might not even try to be happy. We might rely upon the feeling of euphoria that being in love doubtless brings and not bother to work at building any sort of lasting and amicable relationship. But we can be happy again if we try.”
“Again?” He raised his eyebrows. “And what does this trying involve, Vanessa? If you expect me to bare my feelings at every turn, you are doomed to disappointment. That is something strictly for females.”
“Well, for a start,” she said, “surely you do not need to be from home all day every day. Neither do I. Sometimes we could do something together that will bring us both pleasure.”
“Like going to bed?” he asked.
She would not look away from his eyes though she felt her cheeks grow hot again.
“For longer than five minutes at a time?” she said. “That would be something. Though a workable relationship must rely upon more than just that. There is to be tomorrow night’s ball, of course, but that is only one thing, and it is sure to be dreadfully formal. But every day there is a pile of invitations that I look through with your mother. May we perhaps decide together upon a few that would suit us both?”
He inclined his head, though he did not say anything.
“Marriage is not easy to accustom oneself to,” she said. “And I think it is often worse for the man. Women are used to being dependent, to thinking of others as well as themselves. Men are not.”
“We are selfish bastards, then?” he asked her.
She was horribly shocked. She was not sure she had ever heard that word spoken aloud before now.
She smiled slowly.
“If the cap fits . . .” she said.
For a moment there was a gleam in his eyes that might possibly have been amusement.
“Have you seen the Towneley collection at the British Museum?” he asked her.
“No,” she said.
“They are classical sculptures brought from the ancient world,” he said. “Some ladies will not go to see them, and some men will not take them even if they wish to go. They have not been provided with clothes, you see, and are shockingly naked. They provide a marvelous glimpse into one of the world’s greatest civilizations, though. Do you wish to go?”
She stared at him.
“Now?”
“I suppose,” he said, his eyes moving over her, “you will wish to have breakfast first and change into something more suitable.”
She jumped to her feet.
“How soon do you want me to be ready?” she asked him.
“In one hour’s time?” he suggested.
“I will be ready in fifty-five minutes,” she promised, and she flashed him a bright smile before turning to hurry from the room and dash up the stairs.
She was going to go out with Elliott!
He was taking her to see the Towneley collection, whatever that was. She did not care. She would look at a field of mud if that was where he chose to take her—and delight in it too.
She paused when she was inside her dressing room and had rung for her maid.
He had asked her if she was in love with him—adding that he hoped she was not.
Was she?
It would add an unfortunate complication to a life that was already proving difficult.
Was she in love? With Elliott?
She could not answer the question. Or would not.
But suddenly she felt the ache of tears at the back of her throat and behind her eyes.
“I have sorted through the post,” George Bowen said when Elliott returned to the study. “The invitations for the ladies to look at are in this pile. The letters I can deal with myself are here. The ones that need your attention are there. The one on top—”
“—will have to wait,” Elliott said without glancing at the pile—or at his secretary. “I will be spending the morning with her ladyship.”
There was a short pause.
“Ah, quite so,” George said, making a great to-do of straightening the third, small pile.
“I will be taking her to see the Towneley collection at the British Museum,” Elliott said. Later, he wished he had not added the next words. “It is her wish that we do some things together.”
“Some wives are funny that way,” George said as he mended a pen though there was no sign that he intended to put it to any immediate use. “Or so I have heard.”
“I need to go upstairs and change,” Elliott said.
“You do.” His friend looked him critically up and down. “A suggestion, Elliott, if I may?”
Elliott had already turned toward the door. He sighed and looked back over his shoulder.
“I suppose the museum and the collection was your idea,” George said. “And a fine one it was too. But take her to Gunter’s afterward. I daresay she has never tasted an ice. It will please her. She will see it as a romantic gesture on your part.”
Elliott turned fully to face his secretary again.
“And you are suddenly an expert in romantic gestures, George?” he asked.
His secretary cleared his throat.
“One does not need to be,” he said. “One has only to observe ladies to understand what pleases them. And your lady is easy to please, I would wager. She is a cheerful little thing—even when there is not much to be cheerful about.”
“You are wishful of making a point, George?” his employer asked with ominous calm.
“The trouble with you,” George said, “is that you do not have a romantic bone in your body, Elliott. The only thing you have ever known to do with a woman you fancied is to bed her. Not that I blame you. I have often envied you, if the truth were known. But the fact is that ladies need more than that or at least—Well, never mind. But they are romantically inclined and it behooves us to give them what they want at least occasionally—if they belong to us, that is, and are not merely mistresses.”
Elliott stared at him.
“Good God!” he said. “What the devil have I been harboring beneath my own roof in the guise of a secretary?”
George had the grace to look apologetic, though he did not remain mute.
“The sculptures first, if you really must, Elliott,” he said. “I believe your lady has the fortitude not to need smelling salts there. I believe she will even enjoy them. But take her to Gunter’s afterward, old chap.”
“This early in the year?” Elliott asked.
“Even if it were January,” George assured him. “And especially after she has been all alone for four days—except for the other ladies, of course. And married for only a little over a week.”
“You are impertinent,” Elliott said, his eyes narrowing.
“Only observant,” his friend said. “You had better go up and change before breakfast.”
Elliott went.
He was not in the best of moods as he climbed the stairs to his room—though he had not been in the best of moods for six days. Not when he was at home, anyway. He had been happy enough at his clubs, at Tattersall’s, at Jackson’s boxing saloon, mingling with his friends and acquaintances, talking on congenial topics like the government and the wars and the upcoming races and boxing mills.
He was convinced that he had made the biggest mistake of his life when he had allowed Vanessa Dew to talk him into marrying her.
Though if it had not been her, it would have been someone else soon. And if he had not married either her or her sister, then the Huxtable ladies would still be like a millstone hanging about his neck.
She had loved Dew, for the love of God, but had not been in love with him. What the deuce was that supposed to mean? She had not enjoyed her sexual encounters with Dew, though the poor devil had probably been too ill to give her a good time. On the contrary, she had enjoyed her beddings with him—until she had remembered her dead husband and got herself caught up in a web of grief and guilt so tangled that his head spun at the thought of even trying to unravel it—not that he intended to try.
He wondered if there could be a more muddle-headed female in existence than his wife and seriously doubted it.
But she had thought the three days and four nights following their wedding the most wonderful of her life.
That was mildly gratifying, he supposed.
Good Lord, did she expect him to talk about every small problem that might arise in their marriage for the rest of their lives? Were they going to analyze everything to death?
Was life going to become hopelessly complicated?
Of course it was. He was married, was he not? And to Vanessa, of all people.
And now he was to give up a perfectly decent morning of reading the papers and conversing at White’s Club in order to take her to enjoy a cultural experience. And that was to be followed by ices at Gunter’s.
Not that he had to take her there. He was not about to allow his secretary to dictate his every move, was he? And scold him for neglecting his wife?
But it appeared that taking Vanessa to Gunter’s was the romantic thing to do.
Good Lord!
Had she not at one time promised to make him comfortable?
Thus far he was finding marriage the most uncomfortable thing he had ever experienced or dreamed possible.
Though those first few days had been somewhat enjoyable, he had to admit. More than somewhat, in fact.
Either way he was in this marriage for life.
It seemed like a damnably long time.
He rang the bell for his valet.
17
VANESSA enjoyed looking at the sculptures. She spent a great deal of time gazing at them all one at a time, quite unabashed by their nakedness and undeterred by the fact that most of them were mere fragments.
“I cannot believe,” she said at one point, “that I am actually looking at objects created during such ancient civilizations. It all quite takes one’s breath away, does it not?”
But she did not fill the time with chatter, Elliott was interested to find. She gave her undivided attention to the collection. Until, that was, he became aware that she looked at him from time to time rather as she was looking at the exhibits—with a steady, critical gaze. He noticed because he was looking at her as much as he was viewing the pieces—he had seen them before, after all.
She was wearing pink, a color that ought to have looked dreadful on her but did not. It made her look delicate and feminine. It made her complexion look rosy and vibrant. It made her look really quite pretty.
Of course the clothes were all expertly styled and her absurd little bonnet was in the height of fashion.
He intercepted one of her looks and raised his eyebrows.
“They are all very white or gray,” she explained, “as if the ancient Greeks and other Mediterranean races were pale. But they could not have been in real life, could they? I suppose these were all painted once upon a time in vibrant colors. They must have looked like you. They must have been dark-complexioned like you only more so because they lived under the hot sun all the time. They must have been even more beautiful than they look here.”
Was that a compliment? he wondered. And was she calling him beautiful ?
“All of that is your heritage,” she said later, as they left the museum. “Do you feel a tug at your heart-strings, Elliott?”
“I believe,” he said, “it is an organ that comes without strings attached.”
He was rewarded for his sorry attempt at a joke with a wide, delighted smile.
“But yes,” he said, “I am always aware of my Greek heritage.”
“Have you ever been to Greece?” she asked.
“Once as an infant,” he told her. “My mother took Jessica and me to visit our grandfather and numerous other relatives. I remember little except large, noisy family gatherings and bright sunshine and deep blue water and getting lost in the Parthenon because I would not obey instructions to stay at my mother’s side.”
“Do you never think of going back?” she asked as he helped her into the carriage.
“Yes,” he said. “But I did not do it when I could. Now, since my father’s death, I am too busy here. Besides, Greece is a very volatile part of the world politically.”
“You ought to go anyway,” she said. “You still have family members there, do you?”
“Too numerous to count,” he said.
“We ought to go,” she said. “It would be like a honey-moon again.”
“Honeymoon?” It was a word that had always made him cringe. “Again?”
“Like the three days at the dower house,” she said. “They were good, were they not?”
That had been a honeymoon?
“I have estates to run,” he said. “And I have just become guardian to a seventeen-year-old boy who has much to learn before he can assume the full exercise of his duties.”
“And it is the beginning of the Season,” she said as the carriage moved off down Great Russell Street, “and Meg and Kate need to be introduced to society.”
“Yes,” he agreed.
“And you need to set up your nursery without further delay.”
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“Yes.”
He glanced at her sidelong. She was looking ahead and smiling.
“They are not good enough excuses,” she said.
“Excuses?” He raised his eyebrows again.
“Your family members are growing older over there,” she said. “Is your grandfather still alive?”
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