A Prudent Match (6 page)

"You'll want to redecorate it, no doubt," he said, "for it's rather old-fashioned. But I'm much inclined to keep the intregrity of the rooms themselves as they are an original part of the building. The furnishings and hangings, carpets and draperies—all those can be replaced."

"Perhaps in time," she said. "First I need to learn my way around and gain a sense of Salston."

Mrs. Collins paused before a heavy oak door on the left of the hall. "This will be your suite, my lady. Lord Ledbetter's suite is directly across the hall."

Prudence experienced a small spasm of nerves at this announcement, but she smiled bravely as the housekeeper pushed open the door. "Oh, how delightful."

The room was enormous, and on three surfaces there were unseasonable flowers which must have come from the estate succession houses. Candles were already lit in the sconces and the canopied bed was draped with wine velvet hangings. The furniture was of a heavy dark wood, and the carpet a pattern of wine and rose shades.

Prudence walked the length of the room to the windows and drew aside the cream-colored curtains. She could just see a vast rolling lawn in the last of the daylight.

"If I might show your ladyship the rest of the suite," Mrs. Collins suggested.

"Of course." Prudence followed her through two smaller, though no less elegant, chambers, one serving as a dressing room and the other as a private sitting room. Prudence made appropriate remarks on how lovely they were, aware that Ledbetter was watching her reactions with interest. And indeed they were sumptuous rooms, far and away more elegant than anything she had experienced at home.

Ledbetter stepped forward then and said, "Thank you, Mrs. Collins. I'll show my wife the rest of the East Wing if you will arrange for us to dine in an hour."

"Certainly, my lord." Mrs. Collins looked a little surprised at this dismissal, but she turned to leave, adding only that hot water would be brought to my lady's room directly. Prudence watched her go with some alarm. She was not best pleased to be left alone with Ledbetter.

He tucked her hand in his arm and led her back into the corridor. "Mrs. Collins won't breech the inner sanctum of my suite, so I thought I'd best show it to you myself," he said. He reached down to open the door with his free hand, maintaining his link with her arm. There were candles lit in the sconces in his room as well, and the man who had been introduced as his valet, a small Frenchman called Balliot, was already unpacking Ledbetter's trunk.

"If you will excuse us, Balliot," he drawled, "I'll ring for you when I need you."

"Very good, my lord," the man said without glancing in Prudence's direction. He bowed slightly before disappearing through the far door.

"One of the reasons I objected to your hiring the Granger girl," Ledbetter remarked, "was because of Balliot."

Prudence raised her brows questioningly, and Ledbetter shrugged. "They'll be on equal footing in the household hierarchy, being our personal servants. And yet your Tessie doesn't know the first thing about serving as an abigail, let alone a dresser. Balliot will be offended, I can promise."

"I'm sorry for it, but I don't believe that objection holds any more sway with me than Tessie's inexperience, Ledbetter. I would be most surprised if she weren't perfectly capable of doing an excellent job in any capacity she filled."

"Perhaps." Though he looked unconvinced, Ledbetter was apparently willing to allow the subject to drop for the present. He motioned around him with a careless hand. "My bedroom, as you see. I haven't found any reason to change it much since I moved in here, but then I haven't spent much time at Salston." He looked about himself as though he were seeing it for the first time and a slight frown formed on his brow.

"Everything is servicable, but perhaps the trappings are a bit worn. It's probably been more than thirty years since a major renovation was undertaken."

"It's a strikingly handsome room," Prudence allowed. A very masculine room, with little ornamentation, and a richness to the hangings and carpeting that spoke of lack of concern for expense. The ceilings were especially high, with fine moldings and two ancient beams that brought to mind an earlier age.

Ledbetter strolled to the windows and drew back the curtains, but darkness had set in firmly now and little could be seen. "My view is toward the carriage drive and the stables off to the east. In the distance you can see the village church spire." He allowed the draperies to fall and turned his gaze on her.

"My mother died a little over a year ago," he said. "She died in her bed, as I suppose we all would wish to do. And yet . . ." He paused, looking for the right words. "In a house this age, generations have come and gone, they've lived and died in most rooms of the house, I daresay. I don't mean to be sentimental, or maudlin, and I most certainly want you to have her suite of rooms."

"But . . ."

"But I should prefer our . . . marital relations to occur here," he said firmly, nodding to the substantial bed. "I realize that is unusual, and I want you to understand the reason. In time, I imagine, I will grow accustomed to your being in the room which was my mother's, and to our . . . joining in the bed where she died, but for the present, I hope you will accommodate my whimsy."

Prudence swallowed hard and forced herself to nod.

"Excellent." Ledbetter waved a hand toward the door at the far end of the room. "My suite is much like yours, actually, with a dressing room and a sitting room beyond. Unless you are inclined to see them now, I will allow you to return to your own. You'll be wishing to change before we dine."

There was very little Prudence wanted more than to escape him. "Yes, indeed," she murmured, backing away from him.

* * * *

During dinner, and while she waited for Ledbetter to join her in the blue drawing room, and even after he sat down beside her on the sofa, Prudence couldn't help but wonder how this was supposed to work, this "marital relations" endeavor. Was she expected to change into her nightdress and scurry across the hall to his room? And it didn't make her any too happy to think of his mother having died in that bed, either, poor woman.

Ledbetter observed her closely when he had taken his seat on the sofa only a few feet from her. "You look well. I trust you are feeling none of the discomfort you suffered from last night."

"I am in perfect health," she assured him. "It was a passing indisposition."

"I'm pleased to hear it." He studied the contents of his brandy glass for a moment before lifting his gaze once more to her face. "I daresay you may have suffered from a bout of nerves last night, my dear Prudence. That would not have been at all surprising. This decision of ours to marry has been rather abrupt. You haven't had much time to accustom yourself to the idea."

Since he seemed to awaiting her reply, Prudence said, "No, I haven't. But then neither have you."

Ledbetter laughed. "It's hardly the same thing for me." He reached across and clasped her hands in his. Her fingers were both icy and slightly trembling; he could not fail to notice either. His brows rose but he did no more than purse his lips. "Do you think you could be frank with me about this, Prudence?"

"F-F-Frank?"

Keeping her fingers tightly clasped in his own, he offered a long, frustrated sigh. "I suppose not. And yet, one of the things I most admire in you, my dear, is your very ability to speak your mind."

Prudence surprised herself by saying, "I doubt very much you would appreciate my speaking my mind on this subject."

"Ah, so you
do
have an opinion. And one which I won't like, eh?" Ledbetter hesitated before he shrugged and said, "Tell me."

But Prudence's innate avoidance of the subject matter would not allow her to continue.

Ledbetter frowned. "How am I to know how to proceed if you won't speak up, Prudence? What is it you fear?"

She could do no more than shake her head.

"Very well. Let me see if I can straighten things out." He resisted her attempt to extract her hands from his grip. In fact, he shifted a little closer to her on the sofa so they would both be more comfortable with her hands in his. As he spoke, he absently rubbed her fingers. "Marriage. A man and a woman joining together to form a family. That would be my definition. Do you find that a satisfactory one?"

"Yes."

"Is there something you would add to it?"

Her shoulders lifted slightly. "I suppose not."

He regarded her with curious dark eyes. "When you were engaged to the young man in India . . ."

"Allen Porlonsby," she supplied.

"Right, Porlonsby. Perhaps then your definition would have included some statement of affection on the part of the participants, but that is scarcely a requirement in our society, is it?"

"No. I . . . no."

"So," he pushed on, "we have a man and a woman. Joining. I trust you understand how a man and a woman join together to produce children."

Prudence's throat felt dry, but she managed to say, "Yes, more or less."

"Ah, more or less. Would you like me to explain it to you?"

"No!"

"Would that be embarrassing?"

She tried again to retrieve her hands but he held tightly to them. "Yes," she finally admitted.

"But you and I are wife and husband now," he protested.

"That doesn't make it any less embarrassing . . . or frightening."

"It should."

"How? Because a few words are spoken in front of us? Because we said 'I do'?" Prudence scoffed. "I scarcely know you, and yet I am to allow you to . . . to do with my body what you wish."

"Well, that's a part of marriage, that joining. That's how we will accomplish making a family." He regarded her with alarm. "You do wish to have children, don't you?"

"Of course I do!"

He smiled ruefully. "But there's no other way to create them, my dear. Trust me to be considerate of your sensibilities."

"My sensibilities! Oh, you don't understand at all."

Ledbetter was losing his patience. "What is it I don't understand, then? If you won't tell me, how shall I know?"

"How can you not know?" she declared indignantly. "How can you think that I would be so sanguine as to think nothing of having my body exposed to another, to a man I scarcely know? To have him touch it, to have him force his way into it? Oh, how can you not understand that?"

Her voice rang with despair, and Prudence fought to regain control. He was right, of course. This was what marriage was. He had every right to expect her to offer herself to him willingly. That is basically what she had promised when she married him, was it not?

She raised her head and met his astonished look. "Never mind," she said. "I understand my duty, and I'm prepared to do it."

"I daresay I should be grateful for that," he retorted. "You needn't be alarmed. I have no intention of forcing myself on you, Prudence."

Chapter Six

Before he could say anything further, she hastened to interject an exclamation of alarm. “Oh, no, I know you would not! Please, Ledbetter, pay no heed to my missishness. It's just the nervousness of a woman who has achieved the age of two and twenty without marrying. I know what is expected of me! Oh, I knew it wasn't a good idea for me to say anything.”

“I'm afraid it's a little late to take your words back, ma'am.” Ledbetter rose and looked down on her. “Perhaps you could give me some idea of how long it will take you to accustom yourself to the idea of sharing a bed with me. Or have you taken me in such aversion that I am never to look forward to that husbandly situation?”

Prudence rose with all the dignity she could muster. “I would not have married you had I taken you in aversion, Ledbetter. What I have been trying to tell you is,” she said, forcing the words through a constricted throat, “that I am a little shy where my . . . my body is concerned. Perhaps more than a little. And I am sorry for it, truly I am. All I ask is that you allow me a few days to . . . to steady my nerves.”

“And how do you intend to do that?”

She could see that he was still angry, and she could not meet his gaze. “I will work at it,” she promised.

“Nonsense.” He gave an exasperated sigh and crossed to the mantel, where he stopped and regarded his wife for fully five minutes. At length he said, “It's like anything else one fears, Prudence. Avoiding the source of the fear only manages to increase it, to build it up in your mind. Last night you weren't sick, were you?”

“No.” Her voice was so low that she wasn't sure if he could hear her. She cleared her throat and said a little louder, “No.”

“And tonight you are even more fearful, aren't you?”

Tears glittered in her eyes but she kept her voice steady. “Perhaps a little.”

“And tomorrow night it will be that much worse,” he told her, scowling fearsomely. “Until you will be truly terrified and if I want to have an heir I'll have to kill you off and marry someone else.”

Prudence, who had been sinking lower and lower into despair, realized that he was teasing and was able to laugh. “I hope the case may not become so desperate,” she said, the tears gone from her eyes.

“That's better.” He crossed the room and lifted her chin with a finger. “Here's what we'll do, if you can trust me a little. You'll share my bed, or I yours, as one of your sisters might. You understand?”

“Y-Yes.”

“It is not my habit to wear anything to bed, but you needn't concern yourself with that.”

“And I can wear a night dress?”

“Certainly. I trust you have some charming ones in your trunks.”

“Several,” she admitted.

“Very well.” He tilted his head, his eyes questioning. “Do you think you can manage under those conditions?”

“Yes, but . . .”

“But?”

“How long can they last? How long are you prepared to wait?”

Ledbetter shrugged. “God knows. I am not a particularly patient man.”

“I've notice that,” she said, a mischievous smile playing around her lips.

“Have you? And I have noticed that you are a rather headstrong woman. Not an especially felicitous combination, perhaps, but certainly a challenging one.” He ran a finger along her cheek. “I'm going to kiss you now, Prudence.”