The Marriage Act

by Alyssa Everett

  “And have you kept that vow?”

  “I keep all my vows,” he said with a wistful smile. “But there’s an actual point to this story, beyond impressing you with my debauchery, and that’s that I regret having judged you so harshly after our wedding night. I should’ve known better than anyone that drink and sound decision-making rarely go hand in hand.”

  “Thank you. I do regret that night, John, more than I can say.”

  “So do I.” John hesitated. “Caro...”

  She looked expectantly at him.

  “It doesn’t sit well with me, lying to your father about our marriage. Lying to everyone. I was raised to believe that honor and honesty matter. Now that we’ve come to a better understanding, why not confess the truth? Your father might be a trifle disappointed that you only pretended to be living with me in Vienna, but I doubt he’ll be especially shocked or unhappy, given that you can tell him quite honestly that...” He wasn’t sure how to finish. I’ve realized what a fool I was to treat you so coldly? I never stopped loving you? Only days before, he and Caro had been at each other’s throats. Now they’d moved past the hostility, and certainly the night before had been a revelation, but how much of Caro’s newfound affection was real, and how much was merely feigned for her family’s sake?

  He finished simply, “That we’re on better terms.”

  “Tell my father?” she said, going pale. “But I can’t. You don’t understand how disappointed he would be. And he’s been so happy since we arrived.” Her fingers tightened on John’s sleeve. “You promised. You promised you would help me convince him we’re happily married.”

  Was this about her father’s peace of mind, or hers? He would’ve pressed the point, but she looked so alarmed, and he was so hesitant to explore the implications of You promised you would help me convince him we’re happily married—phrasing that certainly sounded as if such happiness was mere pretense—that he let the matter drop. “Very well.”

  They walked in silence for the space of nearly a minute before he broke the silence. “Now that I’ve satisfied your curiosity about my twenty-first birthday, perhaps you’ll satisfy mine about something.”

  She gave him a wary look. “About what?”

  “You said last night that at the time your Mr. Ryland neglected to kiss you, you’d never been kissed before—which begs the question, who gave you your first kiss? Was it Lieutenant Howe?”

  * * *

  John was looking at her with a sharply inquisitive expression. She rather wished he would forget Lawrence’s name. “No, he was the third.”

  “The third? I suppose he must have been better than the first two.”

  “Yes, much better.”

  “Hmm,” John said, looking not at all happy to hear her answer. “How old were you?”

  “When I received my first kiss? Sixteen, nearly seventeen. Boys weren’t at all anxious to kiss me, believe me. I was beginning to think there must be something wrong with me, though my friends kindly assured me it was only that I was the daughter of a bishop, and gentlemen were afraid that kissing me would be a sure passport to eternal torment.”

  “They may have been right on that score,” John said under his breath. He leveled a frankly curious look at her. “Who was this mysterious Lothario who wasn’t afraid to tempt damnation?”

  “His name was Mr. Rees-Stone. He was my age, very tall and skinny, and I met him at a ball at Ayersley House. He danced two sets with me that night but he didn’t kiss me until a few days later. We attended the same picnic, and he led me behind a tree and gave me a kiss that was such a surprise, I was turning my head away and his lips landed here.” She pointed to a spot to one side of her mouth. “Then he grew embarrassed and was afraid to try it a second time.”

  John laughed. “That makes my own first kiss seem downright suave in comparison.”

  “My second was a great improvement. I attended a party with Lady Mary Fitzclarence, and when I lost at a game of Courtiers, I had to pay a forfeit called Le Baiser à la Capucine. Do you know it?”

  “I know it’s a kissing game.”

  She liked the way he said it—simultaneously shocked and pretending to be more blasé than he really was. She’d thought she liked him best when he was rumpled and imperfect, but now she found even John’s stuffiness endearing. He tried so hard to be proper and virtuous, there was something delicious about being naughty around him, and something even more delicious about luring him into naughtiness of his own.

  “Yes, it’s dreadfully improper,” she said. “A boy and a girl kneel on the floor, back to back, then look over their shoulders at each other, turning their heads far enough to manage a kiss. It wasn’t at all passionate, and I was nervous the whole time about how very fast I must look, but I didn’t want to be a spoilsport. Despite the contortions the game required, Mr. Fox managed to land a kiss on my lips even when Mr. Rees-Stone hadn’t.”

  John darted a glance at her. “And then there was Lieutenant Howe.”

  She couldn’t help it—her cheeks heated. She looked down, hoping John hadn’t noticed.

  “I suppose this is the haunted bridge?” he said.

  She lifted her head and saw with relief that they’d reached the Soar and the red brick span across it. “Yes.”

  * * *

  John hadn’t missed Caro’s blush, though her past amours weren’t a tenth as bad as he’d been imagining. While he supposed he ought to be jealous of Mr. Rees-Stone and Mr. Fox and especially Lieutenant Howe, all he could feel was a ridiculous masculine pride that he’d made love to her the night before, while those enterprising young gentlemen had had to content themselves with awkwardly stolen kisses and a futile squeeze or two. “If it weren’t so cold today...”

  She looked inquiringly at him. “If it weren’t so cold today, then what?”

  He stopped and pulled her into his arms. “I’d take you, right over there,” he said with a tilt of his head. “Under that bridge.”

  A gleam of excitement lit her eyes. “Outdoors? In the daytime?”

  “Who has patience enough to wait until dark? I’d bend you over a rock, flip your skirts up, and take you from behind, hard and fast.”

  “It’s possible to do it that way? With the man behind?”

  All it took was a hint of naughtiness, coupled with being told instead of asked so as to make that naughtiness excusable, and she was gazing at him with flushed cheeks and parted lips. “Entirely possible. And standing up leaves the hands free for—” he smiled “—other things.”

  She gulped. “It’s a pity it’s so cold.”

  He released her, amused and more than a little aroused by her evident willingness. “Yes. But then, what if the ghost of Richard III really should haunt that bridge? Think how shocked he would be to see me taking my delicately reared wife in such an uncivilized fashion.”

  She peered up at him from under dark lashes. “Do you think he would be shocked? He did some rather dreadful things himself, if Shakespeare is any authority.”

  God, she was pretty, so pretty that looking at her was like looking at the sun—he couldn’t do it too long or it blinded him to everything else. “Perhaps you’re right, and he would merely float about in a ghostly mist, enviously gnashing his teeth and thinking, ‘So that’s what heaven feels like.’”

  “How very poetic!”

  “I’m not a diplomat for nothing.”

  She laughed. “Tell me about your first kiss. Or your first—time. You know what I mean.”

  “I don’t think that would be very gentlemanly of me.” Refusing her request was probably another instance of irritating rectitude on his part, but...”It’s one thing for a lady to divulge such things, but another for a man to reveal details that could damage a lady’s reputation.”

  “So she was a lady, not a lightskirt.”

&n
bsp; “I didn’t say that.”

  “No, you didn’t say anything.” She looked faintly annoyed with him. “Surely there’s something you can tell me.”

  “I can tell you that I wasn’t anywhere near Halewick at the time, so you’ve no need to fear you might have crossed paths with her in the country.”

  “Goodness, I hadn’t even thought of that. How old were you?”

  “Sixteen.”

  “Really?”

  “You sound surprised.”

  “I am. I would’ve guessed older.” At his quizzical glance, she explained, “You said yourself that when your friends took you to a brothel on your birthday, it wasn’t normal behavior for you. And Papa said you sang in Chapel at Winchester.”

  “I hate to puncture your illusions, but hymn-singing and a healthy interest in the opposite sex are not mutually exclusive.”

  “They always seemed so to me.”

  There was no mistaking the tart note in her voice. “What does that mean?”

  “Just that before I married you, would-be matchmakers were always attempting to pair me up with devout, thoroughly well-intentioned gentlemen—”

  “The sort who were too afraid of eternal torment to risk kissing you.”

  “Exactly. They were more interested in currying favor with my father than in courting me. I never felt the least spark with any of them.”

  “I suppose that explains Lieutenant Howe,” John said, more to himself than to her. “Perhaps you brought all that misguided matchmaking on yourself.”

  Walking arm in arm, he sensed her stiffen in indignation. “Why would you say that?”

  “Because for all your vexation with my principles and my rectitude, you want people to see you as the quintessential good girl, so much so that you’d sooner lie to your father than disappoint him.” He stopped again and turned her to face him, hoping his smile took the sting out of the words. “When you’re careless with the truth—and however irresistible you may be, my dear Lady Welford, you didn’t precisely begin our married life pledged to scrupulous honesty—how can you expect anyone to know what you really want?”

  The flash of resentment that briefly lit her eyes quickly faded to a wounded look. “I suppose I deserve that.”

  He shook his head. “I didn’t say it to hurt you, or to hold myself up as better in any way, but rather because you do yourself a disservice when you don’t allow people to see the real you. I spent five years in Vienna wondering if there was anything I could’ve done to make you care for me, but I didn’t have the first idea how to make you happy. That’s why it’s so important to me that there be no more secrets in our marriage.”

  “I see your point,” she said, nodding slowly. “And I mean to keep my promise. No more secrets.”

  “Then I’d like to make you a promise in return—that when we disagree, I’ll do my best to stop behaving like a stern parent, and instead strive to be an understanding husband. More discussion, fewer disapproving edicts.”

  She gazed up at him, her eyes bright. “I’d like that.”

  He wanted to kiss her again, but it seemed the wrong time. He didn’t want her thinking he’d made his promise merely to get something in return.

  Instead he turned to stroll with her back to the house, thinking about the bridge and the river behind them and wishing he’d seized his chance to shock King Richard’s ghost. He’d already let two opportunities go to waste that day, and it wasn’t yet the middle of the afternoon.

  Chapter Twenty

  There are...many incitements to forsake truth: the need of palliating our own faults and the convenience of imposing on the ignorance or credulity of others so frequently occur; so many immediate evils are to be avoided, and so many present gratifications obtained, by craft and delusion, that very few...have spirit and constancy sufficient to support them in the steady practice of open veracity.

  —Samuel Johnson

  Walking back to Stanling Priory with John, Caro turned their conversation over in her head. Though at first it had vexed her that he’d refused to reveal more of his sexual history after exploring her own romantic past in such detail, the more she thought about it, the better she felt. She had to say one thing for John. He was excellent at keeping secrets.

  Not in the way she kept secrets—or had kept secrets, for she meant to honor her promise to him. No, when she kept secrets they were from people, while he kept secrets for them. He hadn’t kissed and told about his sexual conquests because it wasn’t the gentlemanly thing to do, and despite his anger at her following their wedding night, as far as she could tell he’d never breathed a word about her misconduct or the problems in their marriage to anyone, his brother and his valet included. How could she help but be grateful for that?

  And while she might not have learned much about his first sexual encounter, she knew something about her own, something she’d never admitted to herself before. As much as she’d believed at the time that she was in love with Lawrence Howe and thought John too old and a near-stranger—as muddled as all that champagne had left her—she’d felt something for him. Not love, nothing that fanciful, but after they’d consummated their marriage she’d felt connected to him in a way that had made his anger afterward that much harder to bear.

  For five years she’d refused to admit such a thing to herself, but it was true. Though her memories of that night were sketchy and incomplete, she was certain he’d been patient with her that first time, and that his kindness had touched her. For that matter, the act itself had been far different than she’d expected, closer and more tender, leaving her curiously moved.

  Perhaps that was why it had hurt so much and shaken her so badly when he’d refused to forgive her after she’d made the mistake of running away to Lawrence. Not that her own manner had been any better.

  On the morning after her misbegotten attempt to flee, the second day of their marriage, John hadn’t spoken a word to her. Not one word. She’d begun the day offering justifications and apologies, alternately insisting she hadn’t done anything wrong and then pleading for his forgiveness, but by dinner she’d given up and left him to spend the meal and the evening in frosty silence. She wasn’t sure where he’d slept, in his dressing room or in one of the smaller bedrooms, but he certainly hadn’t slept with her.

  * * *

  The third day, the eve of their departure for Vienna, he’d appeared in their bedroom at an early hour, perfectly dressed, ramrod-straight and with a face like marble. He’d coldly informed her she wouldn’t be accompanying him when he left to take up his diplomatic post.

  Her heart had plummeted. She’d hoped she’d be able to talk him around once his anger cooled, but obviously that wasn’t going to happen. “Are you sending me back to Papa?”

  “No. Like it or not, you’re still my wife. You’ll stay here at Halewick. But I can’t take you to Austria with me, not when you can’t be trusted.”

  His voice was so cold, her relief that she wasn’t being sent home in disgrace had quickly given way to a feeling of insult. And she—being seventeen and as angry at herself as she was at him—had flared, “Good! I think I’d vomit if you were to touch me again!”

  He’d gone white about the nostrils. After a brief pause he’d said, “I suppose it’s fortunate, then, that there’s no danger of that.”

  He’d bowed, turned on his heel and started for the door.

  “Are you going to tell my father we hate each other now?” she’d called as he reached for the doorknob.

  He’d stopped, but he hadn’t turned around to face her. Instead he’d merely said, his back to her, “You tell him.”

  In the days and weeks and years that followed she hadn’t told her father, but neither had John. Now she realized what a dreadful botch she’d made of things, not merely attempting to run away to Lawrence Howe, but then compounding h
er error by behaving like a spoiled child. John had been cold and angry, but she’d given him good reason to be, and good reason to think she couldn’t be trusted after the way she’d kept changing her story again and again. And still he’d kept her secret.

  Walking arm in arm with him now, she looked up at his face and said impulsively, “I’m glad we’re sharing a bed again.”

  His brows flashed higher in a look of surprise. “So am I.”

  Her heart felt lighter than it had in a long time. Perhaps that strange German word—Torschlusspanik—no longer applied, and the gate wasn’t going to close on her chance for happiness after all. Surely John must be feeling at least of little of what she was. She knew he was a good actor, but there was no one to see them here—not her father, not her aunt and uncle, not even Ronnie or Sophia—and even so, he was looking at her with a warmth in his dark eyes that made her senses tingle.

  She leaned her head on his shoulder and gave his arm a squeeze. “I’m very glad.”

  * * *

  When they reached Stanling Priory, no servant was manning the front door. John helped Caro off with her cloak, then shucked off his greatcoat. He looked back and forth. No one else was nearby.

  “Come with me,” he said in an undertone, grinning. He took Caro by the elbow and steered her into the cloakroom, a small, oak-paneled room with boots and pattens lined up at one end and coat hooks ringing the walls. “I can’t take it anymore. I have to have you, right now.”

  She gave him a startled look. “What—here?”

  Would she turn him down? As much as he might want her, they’d come to Stanling Priory to convince her father they were happy together, and rogering her in secret wasn’t going to further that aim. “Yes, here. Now.”

  Despite her evident surprise, she appeared to find the idea exciting. Her eyes shone, and unless he was much mistaken, her nipples had gone hard beneath her gown. “Why not go upstairs?”