A Marriage of Inconvenience (28 page)

“James, please—”

He overrode her. “I will purchase a suitable house at whatever such spot you choose. You will of course retain the pin-money that is yours by our marriage settlements, and you may apply to my steward should any unusual need arise. If you are now with child—”

“I am not. This morning—” She met the dark ice of his eyes and checked herself. She no longer wished to share such intimate details with him. “I am certain that I am not.”

He nodded shortly. “Very well.”

She hated what she was about to say, but she must let him know she was willing to fulfill her duty. “I’m sorry. I know you need an heir, so…” She let her voice trail off, hoping he would understand her offer.

He shook his head. “I don’t need an heir. That’s the benefit of a new title. I don’t have the ghosts of centuries of ancestors to haunt me for ending the line, and I wouldn’t weep to see the property go to Anna’s children or my cousins. However,” he said, still coolly, “I don’t wish to leave my title to another man’s son. I do not require you to remain celibate for life, but if you find yourself with child, I ask that you go away somewhere discreet to have it.”

Lucy gasped. How could he think that she would betray her marriage vows, even now?

“I don’t ask that you give up your child,” he said, misinterpreting her shock, “only that you maintain a decent fiction. Send it to a wet-nurse for a few months, then bring it into your household and call it an orphaned cousin or somesuch.”

“There will not be a child,” she said resolutely.

“A lifetime is a long time. Do not make promises you cannot be sure of keeping.” His eyes flashed momentarily to life, furious life.

Now she could not hold back her tears, though she managed to check her sobs and stay silent. Had she really allowed this cold, angry stranger to bind and blindfold her only three nights before?

He stood and handed her a handkerchief. It was a thoroughly impersonal gesture. “You may claim an indisposition for the next few days,” he said. “I’ll avoid your bedchamber, your sitting room and the gallery, so you may be sure of not meeting me there. I shall inform you as soon as I’ve made plans to remove to London.”

She scrubbed her eyes dry, stood and backed away from him. “Very well.” She wished she could say more, ask if he might forgive her someday, but his remoteness silenced her. Instead she hurried back to her room and tried to prepare herself for a life in exile.

“You do not wish to accompany me?” Anna asked her husband, not certain she’d heard correctly. Sebastian had not permitted her to so much as pay a call without his presence since their marriage, and now he meant to let her go to Orchard Park all alone to spend almost the entire day saying farewell to James and Lucy and organizing such of her possessions as remained there.

He shrugged. “I do not suppose
he
was your own brother,” he said, with an air of reluctant concession. “And the coachman will tell me if you stop elsewhere.”

“Sebastian, I swear to you, there is no
he.
” It was the litany she had repeated again and again since their wedding night, and she could not stop asserting her innocence despite how clear it was becoming that nothing would make him listen and
believe.

As usual, he shot her a look full of contempt. “I know what I saw—and didn’t see.”

What he hadn’t seen was blood on the sheets. For reasons Anna couldn’t fathom, she had not bled upon the loss of her virginity, and that fact, coupled with what Sebastian had declared to be an unladylike display of eagerness and enthusiasm for the act, had convinced him that she had not been a maiden at all. So he had struck her and demanded the name of her lover—a name she could not give him because there was no such person.

She had tried so hard to make him see that a woman intent upon deceiving him would have made more of an effort at trickery, which she in her innocence had not. But he had scoffed at this argument and said that now he understood why she had been so eager to marry a man of lower rank and fortune—her lover would not or could not wed her, so she had chosen someone beneath her, thinking he would be too awed by her wealth and breeding to complain of her stained character.

Today she would at least have a respite from his presence. One of the Almont carriages was sent for—she and Sebastian were still living in purported honeymoon bliss in the Almont dower house—and she rode off in it, alone, while Sebastian settled in to spend his day visiting his sister Portia and making arrangements for their journey to Portsmouth the day after tomorrow.

She looked forward to James and Lucy’s more congenial company. While they had not struck her as wildly, blissfully in love, she had been impressed by the air of content and harmony between them when the two couples had dined together. Her brother and sister-in-law had seemed to almost divine each other’s thoughts just as Aunt Lilias and Uncle Robert did, and Anna found profound consolation in the thought that her brother at least was happy.

She wished she could confide in James and ask his help and advice, but she knew it was impossible. First of all, Sebastian had ordered her not to, saying that no one would believe her, and that therefore if she spoke of it she would only bring public shame upon them both. That on its own would not have been enough to keep her from telling James. But she knew him well, how loyal and passionate he was, and she feared the consequences of telling him just how badly her marriage had gone wrong and why. If he knew, he would rush off to challenge Sebastian to a duel, and Sebastian would choose pistols—what had
possessed
her to laugh with him about James’s poor aim? She must remain silent to protect James.

But she wished she could talk to
someone,
someone who might be able to explain what had happened to her. Could a woman simply be born without a maidenhead, a defect like a harelip or a sixth finger, only much less evident except at one critical moment? It seemed the only explanation, assuming, of course, that she was sane and her memory intact. Sebastian was so insistent that she could not be innocent, that she must have had a lover, that she had begun to doubt herself. Might she have taken a lover once, allowing herself to be tempted by some London dandy or perhaps a strapping shepherd near Dunmalcolm, only to feel so guilty in the aftermath that she had blocked all memory of the tryst? Or could she have been violated at some point in her youth and been so terrified by the experience that she made herself forget what was too painful to remember?

All she knew with certainty was that her life had gone horridly wrong in a way she could never have imagined. Her world, which just a fortnight past had seemed full of joy and adventure, had constricted into a choice between two dreadful options: she could tell James some version of what had happened, asking him for sanctuary and help planning a separation, or she could stay with Sebastian and try to redeem their marriage despite its misbegotten beginning.

Confused and terrified as she was by her wedding night and its aftermath, she still felt it was far too soon to seek a separation. She had always wanted marriage—the love of a husband, children, a household of her own—but if she walked away from Sebastian now, that life could never be hers. She would have to live quietly at Dunmalcolm, accepted by her affectionate family but too scandalous to move freely within society. She would never have children of her own to love and protect, and she would never know the sort of easy intimate affection with a husband that her aunt and uncle had and that James and Lucy seemed to be developing.

But if she stayed with Sebastian, there was still a chance. Surely if he saw her day in and day out behaving in a modest, ladylike fashion, giving him wifely devotion and never acting fast or flirtatious, eventually he must realize that he had been wrong. When he did, surely he would apologize and revert to the deliberate, gravely affectionate man she had fallen in love with, and they could begin to be happy. It would, of course, never quite be the same. Anna could forgive, but she did not think she could ever forget that he had struck her, or all the insults he had heaped upon her since that night.

Still, this was the only marriage she had. James had been right, and she had been ten thousand kinds of a fool to marry in such haste. But there was no undoing it now, and she must either make the best of it or live a dried-up shadow of an existence at Dunmalcolm. She would not give up after less than a fortnight. She would go to the Peninsula and follow the drum, and she would show Sebastian how faithful, devoted, brave and uncomplaining she could be. If he still despised her when the campaign ended, that would be soon enough to think of separations.

As the carriage rolled to a halt in front of Orchard Park, Anna steeled herself to be strong in front of James and Lucy. She supposed it was unrealistic to hope they would not worry about her at all. Even if they hadn’t had reason to suspect her marriage was unhappy, she couldn’t expect her family to feel completely calm about her going to war. Still, she must minimize their concern, and above all give James no reason to challenge Sebastian to a duel.

So she smiled as she accepted a footman’s assistance to descend from the carriage, just in case James or Lucy was watching from one of the windows, and she maintained the expression as she ascended the steps.

Thirkettle, the butler, waited at the open door. “Why, Miss Wright-Gordon!” he said. “Ah, I beg your pardon. Mrs. Arrington. Do forgive me.”

“That’s quite all right, Thirkettle,” she said as she stepped through the entrance. If only her name still were Wright-Gordon. “Is my brother at home?”

“He has not yet returned from his morning ride,” Thirkettle said, smooth butler dignity restored.

Anna frowned. The sun was already high in the sky. James usually finished his ride much earlier, and he knew she was coming. “Is Lady Selsley in?” she asked.

“I believe her ladyship is a trifle indisposed.” Was that a flicker of dismay on Thirkettle’s correct façade?

Anna had certainly hoped for more of a welcome than this on her last visit to the house of her birth. “I should like to see her before I sail,” she said simply. “Perhaps she would be willing to receive me in her rooms?”

Thirkettle considered. “I shall ask her, ma’am.”

She waited in the entry while he sent a footman upstairs. Within five minutes, he returned, bowed and said, “Mrs. Arrington, Lady Selsley will receive you in the yellow sitting room.”

Lucy awaited Anna’s arrival with some trepidation. She wasn’t sure James wanted her to receive any guests at all, especially not the sister whose life Lucy had helped ruin, and in her guilt she dreaded seeing Anna in her own right. But Anna was going so far away, and for who knew how long, so Lucy didn’t think it right to refuse to see her.

Lucy had had no contact at all with her husband the day before. She had pleaded an indisposition, claiming to suffer from monthly cramps, which in reality had never particularly troubled her, and Molly had fussed over her like a hen with one chick, obliging her to submit to a foul-tasting tea that Cook swore by and to having hot compresses applied to her back—hardly a pleasant remedy on a hot July afternoon. But she knew all the servants must be aware that something had gone seriously awry between her and James, and that all her maid’s fussing over her physical condition was merely a polite front for more intimate worries she was too correct to express.

Today Lucy had abandoned the pretense that she was so ill she must keep to her bed, and she was in her sitting room sketching when the footman came to announce that Anna had arrived and wished to see her. Hurriedly she closed her sketchbook—perversely, she had been unable to concentrate on any of the landscapes or still lifes she had attempted and had taken to producing studies of James in several states of dress and undress, drawn from memory.

The footman knocked softly and opened the door. “Mrs. Arrington,” he announced.

Lucy stood, and Anna hurried into the room as the footman stepped out and closed the door behind him. “My dear Lucy.” She caught her in an impetuous embrace, looking almost like her old spirited self. “I hope you are quite well.”

“I am,” Lucy replied, momentarily forgetting her supposed illness.

“Are you certain? Thirkettle told me you were indisposed.”

Lucy blushed in confusion. “As to that—the merest trifle, I assure you.”

“I’m glad.”

“Do sit down,” Lucy said, indicating the chair opposite hers as she resumed her own seat. “I hope
you’re
well.”

“Oh, yes.” Anna pressed her lips together and turned her head to gaze out the window. “I’m well. There’s so much to do, and I know so little of what to expect once we reach Portugal, but…I’m sure I shall do very well.”

“Are you sure this is what you want?” Lucy asked, feeling obscurely that she had a duty to do whatever she could to separate Anna and Sebastian.

“It’s what I must do,” Anna said, turning back to meet Lucy’s eyes again. “But I didn’t come here to talk about myself. I wanted to say my farewells, and how glad I am that you and James—” Suddenly her eyes narrowed. “You’ve quarreled, haven’t you?”

Too surprised to dissemble, Lucy could only say, “How did you know?”

Anna shrugged, then leaned forward to grasp Lucy’s hands. “A lucky guess. You hidden away up here, him out riding so late in the morning…and now that I happen to think of it, the servants all seem rather tense. It’s in the very atmosphere of the place, and I suppose I’m becoming—that is, one can’t help noticing such things.”

So Anna could recognize an unhappy marriage because of her own intimate experience with such things. Lucy longed to weep for them all. “Yes, we quarreled.”

“May I ask why?” Anna said, her eyes alight with curiosity and concern.

“I’d really rather not say.” She certainly couldn’t tell Anna, of all people, what had happened.

“Of course not,” Anna said smoothly. “Only, if I may offer you a little sisterly advice, I don’t think hiding is the best way to resolve anything with James. He likes to have his bluster out, and he can’t do that if he doesn’t see you.”

Lucy shook her head and blinked back tears. “He—he’s made it quite clear he has no wish to see me.”

Anna frowned. “He did? That’s so odd—but still, you mustn’t heed him.
Make
him see you.
Make
him listen to you. That’s the only way to break him out of this.”

“I don’t know if it would do any good.”

“I think it would. I know my brother.” Her eyebrows flew up as if a new idea had just struck her. “Lucy. I said I wasn’t going to talk of my troubles, but…Sebastian was much like a brother to you, I suppose.”

“He was,” Lucy allowed cautiously, “though I was quite young when he joined his regiment.”

“Perhaps you might advise me.” Anna studied her hands, her eyes deeply downcast. “What would you do if Sebastian had…had completely misunderstood you? If he believed something false? How would you convince him you were telling the truth?”

Was Anna about to tell her what had gone wrong? “What—” she began.

“I’d rather not say, either,” Anna said quickly, her face crimsoning.

Lucy nodded. She must respect that, though she would ask James if he had any notion—no, she wouldn’t. She could never tell James anything again, for they would live separate lives. She didn’t truly believe she could repair their relationship by following Anna’s advice and confronting him.

“But,” Anna continued, “how would you change Sebastian’s mind?”

Lucy pondered for a moment. “I’m not sure. I can’t think of any case where I
needed
to change his mind, offhand, but I do know he can be very…stubborn. Fixed in his ways. I’m sorry I can’t offer better advice than that.”

“Well,” Anna said, “it’s as I expected, then. I suppose I must be patient and persistent.”

“I’m so sorry!” Lucy cried impulsively, unable to bear Anna’s unhappiness and her share in it.

“Sorry for what?”

She couldn’t tell the whole truth; it wouldn’t be just or kind, but perhaps if she told some part of it. “I should’ve known you and Sebastian wouldn’t suit. I should’ve spoken—”

“How could you possibly have known any such thing? You hardly knew me.”

“I knew Sebastian,” Lucy said miserably. She took a deep breath and tried to determine what she could and couldn’t say. “I knew that he could be cold, and that he sometimes…puts his self-interest before his principles.”