The Obedient Bride

by Mary Balogh

  But Frances had drawn back in some alarm. "I think we should not, sir," she had said. "I have no chaperone."

  "Am I not chaperon enough?" he had asked. "Do you not trust me?"

  "Of course I trust you," she had said. "But Lord Astor would be angry if I went off alone with you."

  He had not argued the point. They had walked on, and soon met the other four. And once again she had been irritated to see Theodore with Lady Harriet on his arm. Not that she resented his being interested in other ladies, of course. But not Lady Harriet. She was not even pretty! She had taken Lady Harriet's arm herself and led the way back with her.

  And now she did not know quite how to feel. Theodore had stepped out of the box to talk with Lord Astor and Lord Farraday, while Sir John sat close to her. What would have happened if she had stepped off the path with Sir John? Would he have kissed her? Proposed to her? Had she lost her chance with him by being missish and refusing to go?

  Theodore caught her eye and smiled for the first time that evening. Or was he smiling at Lady Harriet next to her?

  Arabella sat in Lord Farraday's box eating a bread roll and the thin slices of ham for which Vauxhall Gardens was so renowned. She might as well have been eating paper, she thought as she swallowed one mouthful. She was listening to Mr. Hubbard, who had begun by apologizing profusely for his boneless legs, and who had then proceeded to tell her with rather slurred speech about his marriage.

  "I never was a wealthy man," he said. "Not poor, mind. And Sonia always seemed contented enough until we met that damned Bibby at Brighton. The man is a Croesus."

  Arabella bit her lip and continued to look at him in polite sympathy.

  "She took our son when she left," he continued. "Did you know that, Lady Astor? Did you know my wife had left me? It wasn't fair to take the boy, though, was it? My only son, you know."

  "I am very sorry," Arabella said. The words seemed inadequate, but deep sympathy shone from her eyes.

  "I don't know where they are," he said. "I could find out, I suppose. Hire Bow Street Runners or something. I could get my son back perhaps. Do you think I should, ma'am? Or is it better for a child to be with his mother even if she is a slut and the man she is with a damned cit?"

  "Perhaps your son and your wife will both come back," Arabella said, reaching out and patting his sleeve. "Perhaps Mrs. Hubbard will realize what she has given up."

  He laughed and reached out for his glass, realized it was empty, and set it back down with exaggerated care. "Wouldn't take her back," he said. "Out of the question. Unthinkable. No man would do such a thing and keep his self-respect."

  "I suppose not," Arabella said.

  Mr. Hubbard lurched suddenly to his feet. "Fresh air," he said. "Must go for a walk. Wish I could feel my legs."

  Arabella looked around her as he stepped from the box. She had almost forgotten her own troubles for a few minutes. Sometimes it did one good to realize that others suffered even more than one did oneself. She felt desperately sorry for Mr. Hubbard. From her few conversations with him, she guessed that before his wife had deserted him, he had been a gentle and good-humored man. Now he was bitter and cynical and unforgiving.

  Sir John Charlton was talking with Mrs. Pritchard and Lady Harriet's sister and brother-in-law quite close beside her, while Theodore stood outside the box with Lord Farraday and her husband. Her sister was deep in conversation with Lady Harriet. Frances seemed quite unconcerned with either Sir John or Theodore. It seemed strange to see her seemingly quite unaware of the handsome gentlemen surrounding her.

  Arabella focused her gaze on her husband as he stood talking, half-turned away from her. She was mortified to remember just how eagerly she had hurled herself into his arms and felt safe and happy. She had hugged him and poured out her tale of fright into his ears as if he were her best friend in all the world. And she had allowed him to hold her and soothe her.

  She had let him kiss her!

  It was humiliating too to recall how she had stood in terror on the dark side path, unable for a whole minute to persuade herself to move, wanting and wanting him, almost crying for him. Not for Lord Farraday or Theodore, either of whom was more likely to be close enough to rescue her. Not even for her mother, on whom she had relied all her life for protection. But for her faithless husband, who did not want her at all, who would not dream of calling on her to satisfy any of his needs.

  It really was quite demeaning to be a helpless female, Arabella decided. She did not like the feeling at all. She wanted to teach herself courage and independence. It was amazing how in less than one month she had come to rely so heavily on his lordship. It must not continue. She must harden her heart against him. If she continued to need him, she would end up forgiving him before she knew what she was about and accepting his interpretation of what marriage was all about. And she must never do that. What he had done was unforgivable, and his way of life was unacceptable.

  She must hold firm. She had felt downright ill all of the previous day, imagining that he had gone to his mistress and was consoling himself in her arms for their quarrel. And all of this day she had felt no better. He had made it so very clear that morning that he had no intention of changing his ways and that he did not feel shame at what she had discovered. Of course, it all really did not matter to her at all. It was no concern of hers any longer how he spent his time or with whom. She had divorced herself from him emotionally even if she could not do so in fact.

  But it still hurt, for all her determined efforts not to care, to look at him now, to see his handsome person, so familiar after three weeks of marriage, and to think of him holding another woman as he had held her a short while before, murmuring soothing words into her hair. Kissing her. Doing those things with his mistress that she, Arabella, had come to enjoy.

  Lord Astor came to sit next to his wife before the fireworks display began. He set his chair a little behind hers so that his presence would not inhibit her pleasure and so that he might watch her delight without feeling obliged to make conversation with her.

  And Arabella truly was entranced. She did not think she had seen anything quite so enchanting in her life. She sat rapt in her seat, leaning forward, totally unaware of her surroundings, as light and sound flashed and roared around her. If only Mama and Jemima could be there to see it too! Frances, Lady Harriet, and her sister were applauding and exclaiming with delight, but Arabella did not hear them.

  She felt as disappointed as a small child when the treat was over and the night around her fell relatively quiet and dark again. And she was disoriented. She did not know where she was for a moment. She felt an instant's panic that she was alone again. There was no one on either side of her. She leaned back in her seat and turned with a little cry of alarm.

  "I am here, Arabella."

  And truly she was comforted by the low, steady voice and the warm hand rubbing against the back of her neck. She stared into her husband's eyes and felt all the despair of being married to a man she could not—and must not—forgive.

  "I never saw anything so splendid in all my life," she said brightly to the occupants of the box. "I do thank you for inviting us, my lord." She smiled at Lord Farraday.

  "I think you have me to thank, Bella," Theodore said with a grin. "Lord Farraday wished to make sure that I saw as much as possible of London while I am here."

  "Then thank you, Theodore," she said, smiling gaily back at him.

  Lord Astor was shaken. During the brief seconds when Arabella's eyes had looked into his, they had been raw with pain. And he knew, without the comfort of the defenses he had put up earlier that day and the day before, that he had put that pain there and that it would remain there as long as he continued with his chosen way of life. The rawness would disappear with time. Perhaps even the pain. But something would die with them.

  It lay within his power to kill the gentleness and brightness in Arabella as surely as he had already killed her innocence.

  He did not want that responsibility
. He did not want the introspection and the soul-searching his marriage was bringing him.

  She had felt very small and precious in his arms earlier. He had wanted to fold her into himself, to protect her against all the evil of the world. He had wanted to kiss away all her fears, swear that he would not allow anything to harm her for the rest of her life.

  Yet he was the evil in her life. How could he protect her when he was her worst enemy?

  He wished he had known a month before what he now knew about marriage. He would have turned all his fortune over to Arabella's family and taken himself off to the farthest corner of the earth sooner than be tempted to enter the respectable state of matrimony.

  Lord Astor handed his hat and cane to Ginny's butler the following afternoon and showed himself into the sitting room while the servant went to inform her of his arrival. He must get his life back to normal, he had decided that morning. Arabella would grow up and learn to accept what could not be changed. She was out visiting with her sister and his aunt that afternoon.

  "Geoffrey!" Ginny always made a theatrical entrance. She came through the door now, both hands extended. She looked as beautiful as ever. Her very distinctive perfume reached him before she did. "How lovely to see you again. I was just thinking about you and longing for you."

  He took her hands and jerked her roughly into his arms. "Have you?" he said, his mouth already seeking hers. "I will have to find out just how much, Ginny."

  "Ah," she said, wriggling in his arms in a way that she knew from experience heightened his desire to fever pitch, "I love you when you are hungry, Geoffrey. Will you come straight to my bedchamber?"

  She was as beautiful, as voluptuous, as skillfully enticing as she had ever been. She lay naked on her bed, touching him, caressing him, crooning to him, moving her body against his, offering herself with an abandon that went beyond the desire to earn her generous salary. She used every skill and trick that experience had taught her would render him mindless with the need to drive out his passion in her.

  Lord Astor sat up on the side of the bed and put his head in his hands. "Not today, Ginny," he said at last. "It is not your fault. I am just not in the mood."

  "Are you ill?" she asked, her own voice still heavy with desire. She sat up behind him and put her arms around his naked shoulders and chest. "What is it, Geoffrey? Come and lie down beside me and I will make you feel better." She began to nuzzle his earlobe.

  He shook her off none too gently. "Not today, I said, Ginny," he repeated, getting to his feet and reaching for his clothes.

  "I don't understand," she said. "I have never failed to arouse you before. There is no one else, is there?"

  "I have told you," he said, "that it is not your fault. It is me. I think perhaps you would be happier with another protector. I know of several men who would kill for you, Gin. Let me give you the house and arrange for a settlement on you. It will be best." He pushed his shirt inside his pantaloons and buttoned them up.

  "What!" She was out of the bed and standing before him, unselfconsciously naked. "You are turning me off, Geoffrey? For failing to arouse you? It is her, is it not? What power does she have over you and those other men who hang about her? I wish I knew her secret. She is not beautiful. She does not have a good figure. She is a mere dab of a thing. Yet you give me up for her, when you could have us both? She will never satisfy you, you know."

  "She is my wife," he said, tying his cravat with impatient fingers.

  She laughed. "And since when has that relationship ever guaranteed a man satisfaction?" she said. "You do not have a tendre for her, do you, Geoffrey? You are not in love with her?"

  He pulled on his Hessian boots. "She is my wife," he said.

  Ginny threw back her head and laughed. "Lord Astor is in love with his child bride," she said. "How famous! And the child has discovered that men may be enticed and is beginning to enjoy the feeling of power. And Lord Astor is jealous. How delicious! I shall make you the laughingstock, Geoffrey."

  He drew on his coat. "I shall send my man of business to settle with you, Ginny," he said.

  "Is he handsome, Geoffrey?" she asked. "And is he is love with Lady Astor also? Has she rendered him impotent too?"

  Lord Astor closed the door of her bedchamber behind him.

  14

  Arabella arrived home from her walk with George two mornings later to find Lord Astor still in the breakfast room. She would have retreated if she could. She found being in his company difficult at the best of times. It was almost insupportable when there was no one else present. However, he rose to his feet, smiling, when he saw her, and held out a package to her.

  "This will please you, Arabella," he said.

  At first she thought it was a letter from home, but when she took the envelope and drew out the cards, she knew immediately what they were.

  "Vouchers for Almack's!" she said. "Aunt Hermione really has been busy on our behalf. Frances will be very excited. I should go and tell her immediately."

  "Is it not a few hours too early to waken Sleeping Beauty?" he asked. "Sit down and have your breakfast, Arabella."

  "The next ball at Almack's is only two evenings away," Arabella said, nodding to the butler to put a muffin on her plate and taking her place reluctantly at the breakfast table.

  Lord Astor indicated to the servant that he could leave. "I shall accompany you myself," he said. "Your first visit to Almack's is too grand an occasion for you to go alone or with only my aunt for company. Will you wear your blue silk, Arabella?"

  "If you wish it, my lord," she said primly.

  "Yes, I do wish it," he said. "I have noticed in the last few days that you are looking thin and almost ill. It is not my imagination, is it?"

  "I am quite well, I thank you, my lord," Arabella said. "I do believe I am slimmer than I was a month ago."

  "Slimmer?" he said. "I would say 'thinner.' Am I responsible, Arabella? Is this what unhappiness and disillusionment are doing to you?"

  "You need take no blame, my lord," she said, looking coolly up into his face. "I have been deliberately losing weight so that I might look less childish. I wish to look more like a woman. I can do nothing about my height, but I can control my weight."

  "That is strange," he said, leaning back in his chair and looking thoughtfully at her. "Yes, when I first knew you, Arabella, I thought you younger than your years. But not since we have been married. You had a pretty figure. Very feminine. And certainly not fat. Nowhere near, in fact. I liked you better as you were. I take it that you do like ices and butter and apple tart?"

  Arabella concentrated her attention on her muffin.

  "Will you put the weight back on again?" he asked. "I was about to add 'for me.' But that would be no inducement, would it? And even a request you will interpret as a command and obey because you are determined to be a dutiful wife. Will you accept my advice, then, Arabella, as a gentleman who appreciates the female form? You looked prettier as you were."

  "I am not pretty," she said, hearing with some dismay the petulance in her voice.

  " 'Pretty' is a very relative term," he said. "To me you are very lovely, Arabella—even as you are. I will leave you now, as I can see that my presence makes you uncomfortable. And now that you have learned the steps of the waltz, will you reserve the first one for me at Almack's on Wednesday?"

  "If you wish it, my lord," she said as he rose to his feet.

  He smiled fleetingly. "Yes, I do wish it," he said.

  He paused behind her chair, hesitated, and laid a hand lightly on her shoulder. "Arabella," he said, "Ginny is no longer in my life. Neither is any other woman. Only you. Perhaps you can make of me a model husband after all."

  She neither moved nor replied. He continued on his way from the room.

  Frances was indeed excited by the news that at last they would be able to attend the weekly ball at Almack's. Her particular friend, Lucinda Jennings, would be there too, she said. Theodore would not. Only that fact clouded her mood somewhat.
Not that she would miss his presence, of course, she explained to Arabella, when there were so many other gentlemen eager to dance with her. But it was sad to think that he had come all the way to town to enjoy the Season, yet was not to be in attendance at the most fashionable assembly of all.

  Sir John Charlton would be there, of course. He had asked her to reserve the opening set and a waltz for him, she told Arabella when they were both in her dressing room an hour before they were to leave for the ball. Frances was still not sure that she had made the right decision in choosing her pink satin gown.

  "Though it is still new," she said, more to her reflection in the mirror than to her sister. "At least no one will have seen it before. But is pink the wrong color for me, Bella? Is it too pale when I am blond? Both Lady Berry and his lordship approved the color, but I am not sure. What do you think?"

  "I think it is quite perfect," Arabella said. "If it were a paler shade, perhaps you would be right, Frances. But it is such a rich color. And your hair is not dull, you know, as blond sometimes is. Yours gleams."

  "Perhaps you are right," Frances said. "Do I have too many ringlets bunched at the sides of my head, do you think? Lady Berry said that the style is very fashionable, and indeed I have noticed that it is so. What do you think, Bella?"

  "I think," Arabella said, "that if I do not return to my own room soon, I shall be forced to leave for Almack's in this dressing gown. There is no arriving there late, you know. The doors close at eleven o'clock."

  "I do hope Sir John arrives on time," Frances said. "How dreadful it would be, Bella, to have no partner for the opening set."

  Arabella was frowning as she hurried back to her own room. Frances had told her what Sir John had said to her at Vauxhall. And whereas Frances seemed quite convinced that the man had a tenure for her and was about to offer for her, Arabella was far more sure that he was involved merely in dalliance. Frances had not told her how he had tried to lure her from the main path, but Arabella had been able to put her own interpretation on the fact that he had left the box when the others were already far ahead and when Mr. Hubbard was too foxed to join them.