The Marriage Act

by Alyssa Everett

  He reached over and snuffed out the candle between his fingers. “No.”

  “Good. Because I just want to sleep.”

  In the darkness, she could sense him still sitting up, thinking.

  “Don’t women become more sleepy when they’re increasing?” he asked.

  Sighing, she turned over onto her other side, facing away from him. “They also become more sleepy when their husbands keep them awake at night. I promise you, if I discover I’m going to have a baby, you’ll be the first person I tell.”

  “I’m glad to hear it, because I would want to know.”

  It stung that he imagined she would keep such a thing from him, as if she were some evil harpy determined to deprive him of good news. “Well, naturally.”

  But he was still sitting up when she drifted off to sleep, still evidently lost in thought, as if the possibility of fatherhood was working on his nerves like strong coffee.

  * * *

  When Caro awoke the next morning, she was alone in bed.

  She rang the bell, and Sophia’s abigail arrived to help her dress. Caro chose one of her favorite gowns, a rose-colored walking dress trimmed in black braid—not the pink pelisse John remembered from the first time he’d seen her, but reminiscent of it. Caro told herself her choice had nothing to do with the story John had told on their first night at the Priory, though she had the faintly unsettling sense it did. Something about the glowing way he’d spoken of seeing her for the first time made her want to live up to the picture he’d painted.

  When she went down to breakfast, she discovered her aunt and uncle, but no sign of John, Ronnie or her father.

  “I’m afraid I slept later than usual,” she said as she went to the sideboard. “Where is everyone?”

  “Your papa is working on church business in the library, where he can rest on the sofa if it’s too taxing,” Aunt Ella said. “Young Mr. Welford wanted to see the village, so Sophia offered to show him the sights, and Lord Welford went with them.”

  “To make sure they stay out of trouble?”

  “I suspect so.”

  Her uncle looked up from his newspaper. “Er...Mr. Welford isn’t likely to get into trouble, is he?”

  “No, not really.”

  He lowered his paper. “‘Not really’?”

  She sighed and took a seat at the table. “He’s a sweet boy, without a vicious bone in his body, but he sometimes drinks more than he should.” She was about to add It’s Welford’s fault, for keeping him on such a tight leash, but then she remembered she was supposed to be firmly in John’s corner.

  Besides, she wasn’t as sure as she’d once been that living under John’s strict guardianship really was the cause of Ronnie’s drinking. It was one thing for Ronnie to kick over the traces when John was keeping him confined at Halewick, forcing him to pass his days studying with an exacting tutor. But that didn’t explain the drinking Ronnie had done at the hunting box—or the failure to apply himself that had led to his being sent down from Oxford in the first place.

  “What does he mean to do in the future?” her uncle asked. “Is he interested in the Church, the military, the government...?”

  “To be honest, I’m not sure. He still has to pass his responsions when he goes back to Oxford, but I’ve never talked with him about what he means to do after he takes his degree.” There’d been little point in discussing Ronnie’s ambitions when John held all the control. For that matter, she’d avoided mentioning John to Ronnie any more than necessary when they were at Halewick together, for fear the conversation might degenerate into a litany of her complaints.

  “Has Lord Welford?”

  Caro thought a moment. “I don’t know. I imagine so, but we were in Vienna...”

  Did John know what Ronnie wished to do with his future? John had said he wanted Ronnie to make something of himself, but was Ronnie rebelling against John’s wishes, or simply being irresponsible?

  She would ask John about it. Surely one part of playing the role of a good wife was being a good sister-in-law.

  In the meantime, she worried about John spending the morning with her cousin. What if Sophia let on that she knew their marriage wasn’t as happy as they were pretending? If John discovered the cat was already halfway out of the bag, he might decide to confess everything, and then—

  Caro shuddered. As worried as she was about the shock to her father, that wasn’t her only fear. Here at Stanling Priory with her protective, outspoken uncle and his family, she realized how humiliating—how mortifying—it would be if they discovered she’d ruined her marriage from the very first night, and that she’d been making up stories of her stay in Vienna ever since. Telling a fib or two was one thing, but creating an elaborate network of lies about every detail of her daily life, and then spinning those lies for five years?

  And that wasn’t all she’d done. No, she’d also come here and insisted on acting the part of a contented wife when she and John had been living apart. She’d had the gall to deceive her family under their very noses.

  They would all despise her.

  * * *

  Barrow’s was one of the larger shops in Kegworth and one which catered to a genteel clientele, selling everything from silks and muslins to fans, scents, jewelry and even ormolu and porcelain knickknacks. Though Miss Fleetwood had promised to show Ronnie the village sights, she chose to visit this highly feminine establishment first. She’d been wandering back and forth through the shop, perusing the merchandise at great length while Ronnie and John looked on. John found it dull going, though Ronnie seemed content enough to gawk at Miss Fleetwood.

  “Look,” she said, showing them a glazed pottery cat reclining on a green pottery pillow. She held it up to her face, so that she and the cat were cheek to cheek. “Isn’t it the most darling thing you’ve ever seen? I adore it!”

  “Completely darling,” Ronnie said without a trace of irony.

  John shot him a doubtful look.

  “If this were a real cat, I would call him Mr. Whiskers,” Miss Fleetwood rhapsodized, the green feathers in her bonnet bobbing. “I would put his pillow beside my bed and I would never make him sleep in the kitchens.”

  “I’ve never seen the sense of keeping a cat and then banishing it to the kitchens,” Ronnie agreed. “Might as well not keep one at all, no?”

  “Exactly!” Miss Fleetwood smiled at him, her dark curls framing her dimpled face beneath her bonnet.

  “They do keep down the mice,” John said, and then was glad Caro wasn’t there to hear him. Could there be anything more stuffy and tiresome than injecting practicality into such a conversation?

  Miss Fleetwood set the pottery cat back on its shelf and breezed ahead to the next piece of darling merchandise that she adored. First it was a satin sachet, then a small birdcage painted blue and red.

  “Jupiter,” Ronnie whispered to John. “She’s awfully pretty, don’t you think?”

  “She’s quite pretty.” She was also very young, so much so that she was making him feel a hundred years old.

  At the counter, three corked bottles of scent were arranged on a silver tray. A small placard beside the display read Customers Are Invited To Sample Our Fine Perfumes. Miss Fleetwood uncorked one of the bottles, unbuttoned the glove on her left hand and applied the scent to her bare wrist. She did the same on her right with a second bottle.

  “Which do you prefer, Lord Welford?” She waved first one bared wrist and then the other past his face.

  “They’re both pleasant enough.”

  “Yes, but which is better? This one...” She repeated the procedure, holding each wrist to his nose for a longer interval. “Or this one?”

  “May I have a whiff?” Ronnie said.

  She turned to Ronnie with a faint trace of impatience. “This one, or this one?” she asked
with considerably less ceremony.

  “I like the second one,” he said.

  “The oil of verbena?” She glanced at John. “What do you think, Lord Welford? Do you agree?”

  “I think they’re both charming. Perhaps you’d do better to seek a lady’s opinion. Why don’t you ask my wife about them when we return?”

  Miss Fleetwood stuck out her lower lip in a faint pout but moved on to the next item to catch her fancy. This time it was a topaz cross on a slender gold chain, resting on a velvet easel behind the counter. She pointed at it. “May I have a closer look at that?” she asked the bored-looking youth who was minding the shop.

  “Of course, miss.” He handed the necklace to her.

  She studied it a moment, lifting it to the light that streamed through the shop windows. Then she held it out to John. “Would you help me try it on?” Without waiting for his answer, she presented her back to him, sweeping the ringlets clustered at the back of her head away from her neck with one hand.

  It was becoming clearer by the second that she was angling for his attention. He wasn’t sure what she was about, unless perhaps she was trying to spark Ronnie’s interest by playing hard to get. John doubted she was really flirting with him. As flattering as that might be, if he was too old for Caro, he was definitely too old for her cousin. More important, he was married.

  He was about to slip the chain about Miss Fleetwood’s neck when he reconsidered and handed the necklace to Ronnie. If she was trying to strike up a flirtation with his brother, John would prefer that she cut out the middleman, and if her wiles were aimed at him, the less encouragement she received, the better. “Why don’t you do the honors, Ronnie?”

  Ronnie stepped up eagerly to fasten the gold chain about Miss Fleetwood’s slender neck.

  “I’ve always thought it strange that we should wear crosses,” she mused, tilting her head to one side and then the other as she admired her reflection in the small mirror above the counter. “If I were Jesus, the last thing I should ever wish to see is another cross. Too many unpleasant memories.”

  “That’s a novel way of looking at it,” John said.

  “What we should really wear is a little loaf of bread or a cup of wine, or perhaps a leper. Something Jesus liked.”

  “I’m not so sure he liked lepers,” Ronnie said. “It’s not as if he left them that way.”

  “True,” John said, struggling to keep a straight face, “though they would make for interesting jewelry.”

  Miss Fleetwood sighed. “I don’t think this suits me. Would you help me take it off, Lord Welford?”

  “I’ll do it.” Ronnie jumped to assist her. “When it comes to fiddling little things like that, John is all thumbs.”

  “He does have large, manly hands,” Miss Fleetwood said.

  It was another fifteen minutes before they left the shop. John waited for his brother to give Miss Fleetwood his arm, but Ronnie was too dilatory. When the girl hovered at John’s elbow, looking up at him with an expression of pointed expectation, he had little choice but to offer his.

  “Shall we go to the confectioner’s?” Miss Fleetwood asked, clinging to his biceps.

  That sounded safe enough. “If you like.”

  The shop was on the other side of the high street. Though Kegworth hardly rivaled London or Vienna for variety, it was a bustling village with a healthy share of the coaching trade, and the scents of cinnamon and toasted almonds that wafted from the shop were enough to draw in all but the most resistant passerby.

  “Mind if I step away for a minute or two?” Ronnie asked John. “There’s something I need to take care of.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “I’ll catch up to you,” Ronnie promised before hurrying away.

  Miss Fleetwood smiled up at John. “It’s good of you to look after me today, Lord Welford.”

  “I presume your father did the same for my wife, when she stayed with your family as a girl.” He held open the door of the confectioner’s for her and followed her inside.

  Miss Fleetwood frowned at his mention of Caro, or perhaps at his comparing himself to her father rather than casting himself in the role of beau. He’d chosen his words advisedly, but the remark left him thinking about his conversation with Caro the night before. It was hard to believe that fatherhood might actually be a possibility for him now. He’d always wanted a family, so much so that in order to fall asleep the night before, he’d had to put the notion completely from his head. Hoping was the surest route to disappointment.

  Besides, he wasn’t sure how fair it was to hope. He’d grown up in a household made inhospitable by his stepmother’s dislike, and he had no intention of raising a child in an equally fractured family. Before he had a son or a daughter of his own, he hoped he and Caro could learn to rub along a little better.

  Miss Fleetwood examined a table of sugared fruits stacked in artful pyramids on matching plates. “Yes, Papa and Mama just adore Caro. They think butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth.”

  She ended the sentence on a curiously unfinished note, as if there were more she wanted to say but had held back—though if you ask me, she’s no better than the rest of us or though we both know that isn’t true.

  “I’m sure Bishop Fleetwood thinks just as highly of you,” he said, since the remark had a harmless enough ring to it.

  She sighed. “Uncle Matthew thinks highly of everyone.” She trailed a hand over the counter. “But I find it rather funny that everyone makes Caro out to be such an angel when she and my sister were both the most dreadful flirts. Making up to all the neighborhood boys, sneaking out after dark...”

  John shrugged. “She can’t have been much more than a schoolgirl at the time. I’m sure there was no harm in it.” Caro was his wife, and not only was he supposed to be pretending they were happily married, but defending her was the gentlemanly thing to do. Still, was that how he really felt?

  Caro’s father had referred to her as a good girl withal. Was it possible the maddening things she said and did—the way she’d run hot and cold in the hunting box, made eyes at that lout in The George on the first night of their journey, even accepted his marriage proposal when she was in love with another man—were little more than the snowballing effects of an impetuous nature? Why could he dismiss such behavior so readily in conversation, yet find it so hard to forgive Caro in the flesh?

  “I suppose you would know that better than I would,” Miss Fleetwood replied doubtfully. “Though I think she enjoyed the attention. She and Anne used to treat me like a troublesome little sister, while they monopolized all the boys.” She peered at an array of boiled sweets. “Anyone can see Caro is beautiful, and people think she’s prettily behaved, because Uncle Matthew is her papa and she takes care never to set a foot wrong around him. And now she has the perfect husband, and the perfect marriage.” Miss Fleetwood glanced sidelong at him, smiling coyly. “But I wouldn’t be at all shocked to hear she isn’t as perfect as she appears.”

  “She seems perfect in my eyes.” If Miss Fleetwood was hoping to enlist his aid in some jealous rivalry with Caro, he wasn’t about to oblige her—though he was struck by her contention that Caro took care never to set a foot wrong around her father. It reminded him of what Leitner had said, about how it must have been a trial for Caro to grow up as the bishop’s daughter.

  Miss Fleetwood looked faintly disappointed. “It’s very loyal of you to say so—but then, I would expect no less from you, Lord Welford.”

  John wondered how loyal he really was, when even Leitner had been able to see something about Caro he’d missed.

  “My point is, I hope Caro really is as modest and amiable as everyone says.” Miss Fleetwood glanced up at him from under her lashes. “A gentleman like you deserves a girl who makes him happy.”

  “Would you care for any sweets?” he asked in a bid t
o change the subject. “My treat, of course.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  A wise man will make haste to forgive, because he knows the true value of time, and will not suffer it to pass away in unnecessary pain.

  —Samuel Johnson

  When they arrived back at Stanling Priory, John went looking for his wife. Between the taxing experience of spending all morning with Ronnie and Miss Fleetwood and his own reflections on his marriage, he was eager to talk with her again.

  He found her seated on the sofa in the drawing room, reading aloud to her father. She had her back to the open door, and John paused in the doorway, listening to her read and admiring the way her upswept hair bared the elegant nape of her neck. Her voice was low and musical, and the love she felt for her father was evident in every line she read.

  He must not have made much noise when he came in, for she jumped when he bent to drop a kiss on the spot where the curve of her neck met her shoulder. This time, though, she seemed merely startled rather than displeased, for she turned a smile on him in the same instant.

  “John! I didn’t realize you were back from the village.”

  Very nice—she’d infused the words with convincing affection even though her father appeared to have nodded off, and was dozing in his chair by the fire. “I just came in. I hope you don’t mind my having gone without you, but Ronnie and your cousin were eager to be on their way, and I thought you could use the sleep. I’ll take you some other time if you like.”

  “I don’t mind. Did you enjoy yourself?” She was wearing a rose-colored gown, and she’d threaded a matching ribbon through her dark curls. The color suited her, highlighting the delicate color in her cheeks.

  “Not as much as Ronnie did, gazing at your cousin, but it’s a fine autumn day and I was happy to be out in this weather.” He lowered his voice. “At the risk of sounding full of myself, I had the strange impression Miss Fleetwood was flirting with me.”

  “Oh, dear—I shouldn’t take it too seriously, John. She’s always been a trifle...” She hesitated, and John made guesses at the words she was reluctant to say. Empty-headed? Fast? Instead she changed course and finished, “She’s at an age that thrives on attention. But I’ll have a word with her, if you’d like.”