An Infamous Marriage (9 page)

“One of us must speak,” he ground out between gritted teeth.

“And now you have.” Was that a flicker of amusement, evanescent in those marvelous eyes? “Pray continue,” she added.

“Have you nothing to say, madam?”

“On the contrary. There is much I could say. But I am eager to hear what you have to say for yourself.”

One would almost think she was the aggrieved party. “You began this.”

“Indeed? Began what, sir?”

“That—that letter you wrote when Mama died.” He hadn’t meant to blurt out his grievance so abruptly, but Elizabeth’s icy calm threw him off balance.

She raised her eyebrows. “What of it? I informed you as quickly as I could.”

“
Informed
is the right word! I have never read a colder letter in my life. I would think it shameful to write so paltry a letter of condolence to the family of an officer who died under my command if I’d known him for but a single day and taken him into instant dislike. And to get such a letter from my own wife
informing
me of the loss of my own mother! I thought you must’ve been busy that day and grieving yourself—but nothing more for months, and then only a report on the income from the Grange?”

She didn’t look at him as he paced back and forth before the fire, instead staring fixedly at the flickering flames. “Shall I tell you whom I saw, and what I learned, on the morning your mother died?”

Her voice was careful, controlled, as if she was holding her memories and emotions back with a curb rein. Whatever she was about to tell him, it had left a scar. “Please do,” he said, though he was certain he would mislike what he heard.

“Lady Dryden had come to call,” she said in that same voice. “You remember her, I suppose.”

He nodded. How could he possibly forget? He’d never liked her, never forgiven her for how she’d cut his mother and how she and her daughters had treated him when he was
little
Jack Armstrong.

“You may not be aware that she has a correspondent in Montreal, a cousin who married a merchant there.”

He shook his head. He’d never troubled himself over Selina Dryden’s relations. But he had a bad feeling he knew where this was going now.

“She was most anxious that I should know the latest
on-dit,
the scandal of all Canada, that a certain Colonel Armstrong had made off with another man’s wife. Helen Mannering, I believe her name was.”

“Yes.”

“You do not deny it, then.” Her voice remained level, but Jack sensed her temper was beginning to rise from the flush building in her cheeks and the fact that now she looked at him. Why hadn’t he noticed, five years ago, the subtle grace and elegance of his wife’s features?

“No. But I cannot think it possible that Lady Dryden’s cousin knew the whole truth of the matter.”

“Oh?
I
cannot think it possible that anything could justify so reprehensible a course.”

Oh, yes, she had been anticipating this meeting and rehearsing her lines. But Elizabeth had it all wrong about Helen. “He beat her,” Jack said.

“Her husband?”

“Yes, the damned brute.”

“He beat her because she made a cuckold of him.” It was more a statement than a question.

“Would that make it acceptable?” he snapped. “If I had come home and found you in the arms of some strapping stable lad and blacked your eyes or bloodied your back for it, would you say, ‘I cannot complain. He was within his rights’?”

She blinked. “Such a thing would not have happened. I have kept
my
vows.”

So she wasn’t ready to yield an inch, was she? “So had Helen.”

Elizabeth snorted.

Now Jack’s anger rose. He understood now how the gossip must have wounded her, and why she had been furious enough to write such a dreadful excuse for a condolence letter. But was she this willing to doubt everything he said? “I have never been a liar. The man was a brute. He slapped her if she wore a dress he didn’t care for. He blacked her eyes for daring to dispute him over the merest trifles. She asked me for help after he almost choked her. She was afraid if she didn’t escape soon, he would kill her. Was I to leave her to her fate, simply because he was her husband and I had a wife in England?”

“But you stole her out of her house and had her in your keeping. If it was truly so innocent, was there not another way?”

“She trusted me. She wasn’t so sure about any of the respectable couples of our set. And she was only under my roof for three nights. Then—well, it’s a long story, but Mannering agreed to a separation, if she went back to England to live with her family and avoided future notoriety.”

Elizabeth bit her lip. “Did you take her to bed those three nights?”

He still didn’t like to think of that first night and what had almost happened. He had wanted Helen and, viewing himself as a gallant knight who had rescued a fair lady and earned her favors as a reward, assumed she wanted him, too. Now he shuddered at the memory and shook his head. “No.”

“You lie.” Her words were certain, implacable.

“As I already said, madam, I do not lie,” he said in the deadly quiet voice that had always terrified incompetent quartermasters and devil-may-care soldiers into submission.

His wife remained distinctly uncowed. “You had a beautiful woman in your house, one you’d rescued from mortal danger, and you expect me to believe you didn’t touch her?”

“I expect you to believe the truth. Would you like more of it? I did want her. I would have taken her to bed, but she didn’t wish it.” He had tried, sweeping her into his arms and kissing her the instant they’d reached his quarters safely. She had responded, kissing him back and winding her arms around his neck, but something had felt off. He’d broken the kiss, looked into her eyes and seen only fear and resignation where he’d expected desire. So he’d stopped, assured her she had nothing to fear from him, and given her his bed while he slept on the floor. “After what her husband did, she was terrified to have a man come near her,” he said. “So no, I didn’t bed her. You see, I am no more a rapist than I am a liar.”

Elizabeth blinked, digesting this. The faintest hint of an inward-turned smile flickered across her face. Jack would’ve missed it if he hadn’t been watching her so intently. He’d seen that look before, on card players who knew they’d been dealt an unbeatable hand. What the devil?

Her calm mask resumed. “Very well. Now that we are speaking the truth, what of your other women?”

“What do you know of them?” he asked nervously. Surely Selina Dryden’s cousin didn’t know all that had passed in Canada, and it was impossible she could know anything of Bella Liddicott.

“A great deal.”

“But...how?”

She shook her head. “Lady Dryden’s Cousin Kitty is a marvelous correspondent when she has gossip to share. I know all about how you were nursed back to health from your dreadful wounds by the most beautiful half-breed woman in all Upper Canada, and how everyone whispered you might have returned to the fray far sooner had it not been for the charms of the lovely Mrs. Boyd—”

“That’s a lie!”

“There was no Mrs. Boyd?” Elizabeth asked sweetly.

Jack ground his teeth. Sarah Boyd had indeed kept him entertained during his long convalescence after Hannah Mackenzie had left him to marry a trapper who’d caught her fancy, but the idea that he’d shirked his duty simply to stay in her bed! “There was,” he admitted. “But from the day I could walk and sit a horse again, I tried to go back. There were those who didn’t want me to return, lest I take away
their
commands, and I wouldn’t put it past some of them to have encouraged the rumor that I was malingering.”

She sighed. “Do you think it matters to me, whether you were fit for duty or not, when you were cavorting with that woman?”

“It matters a great deal to me. I have always done my duty. I am a soldier, not a voluptuary. And I am never a coward.”

“No. You’re merely an adulterer.”

“What do you want?” he cried, exasperated at last beyond bearing. “Did you expect me to be celibate for the past five years?”

Her eyes flashed.
“
I
have.” Before he could point out it was different for a woman—which would undoubtedly have been the wrong thing to say—she spoke again. “No, I didn’t expect celibacy. I only expected decency. Respect. A measure of discretion, enough to avoid making yourself fodder for common gossip.”

“I didn’t know.”

She stood and walked away from him, staring out the window. A new dusting of snow was beginning to fall. “Everywhere I go, I am the object of pity and mockery.”

He approached her and dared to lay a hand on her shoulder. “That cannot be so.”

She spun about like an unbroken colt and shoved his hand away. “It is. Even on Sundays at church I’ve heard the titters of the cruel and seen the pity in the eyes of the kind. I’m not sure which pains me more.”

She blinked and swallowed hard. Jack all at once saw how much misery lay beneath her cool, brittle exterior, and how much he had to answer for in her eyes. He hadn’t thought he behaved differently from other men in his position, but now that he saw it from her perspective, he realized he was more extravagant and prone to public display than most. He had been proud to have a woman of Hannah’s beauty and vivacity in his keeping, and bewitched by Sarah and willing to go along with all her games and flirtations, because at least she alleviated the boredom of his extended convalescence.

“I am sorry,” he said slowly. “If I could undo any of it... But I cannot.” He couldn’t quite wish he had never known his mistresses, but he could wish himself more discreet.

She sidestepped and edged away, putting more distance between them. “No,” she agreed. “You cannot.”

“But we are married,” he pointed out. “That cannot be undone, either.”

“No.” She folded her arms and watched him expectantly.

“So...what shall we do?”

Her brows drew together in a faint frown; apparently he hadn’t said what she wanted to hear. “What did you come home expecting to do?”

“Now that I’m home again,” he began, “it seems time to think of an heir for the Grange.”

Her splendid eyes widened. “Oh? What if I do not feel disposed to give you one?”

“You are my wife.”

“Mm.” She took another step back, but arched her eyebrows in a credible mimicry of mild curiosity. “I just heard you say, not five minutes ago, that you are no rapist.”

“You are
my wife,
” he repeated. Damn it, he had rights to her body.

“Yes,” she agreed. “But that doesn’t mean I’ll come to your bed willingly. It doesn’t mean I won’t scream or fight you. You condemned this Mannering fellow for laying violent hands upon his wife. Are you prepared to do the same?”

Of course he wasn’t. But how dare she? He was no brute like Mannering. “Why?” The word felt ripped from his gut.

“Because of the last five years. Because of every titter, every pitying look. Because I have been all alone here and you have not.” Her voice rose at last, raw anger slipping free of her careful control.

He’d also been in mortal danger while she had been safe, wounded while she had been whole, and cold and wet or broiled alive under a blazing sun while she had dwelled in temperate English comfort. But he had learned wisdom enough to hold his peace. “I’m sorry,” he said. He hadn’t meant to wound her. It had never occurred to him that his actions so far from England’s shores would touch her life.

“It isn’t enough.”

“Is anything?” he asked. “Are you saying never, that you wish for a separation?”

She didn’t speak for a long moment. Jack wished he knew how to interpret the emotions chasing one another across her face—nothing so obvious as forgiveness or implacable hatred.

“Perhaps. I just don’t know, Jack.”

He took a deep breath. He couldn’t let the fullness of his anger show, for lashing out would only hurt his cause. “You don’t know,” he echoed.

She sighed and shook her head. “I’m sorry, but I don’t. Today, when I look at you all I can think of is those women in Canada, and the gossip, and the pity, and Lady Dryden’s sneers.”

Damn Selina Dryden for the horrible old gossip she was! What did he and Elizabeth matter to her now that his mother was dead?

“Oh,” he said. “But will you let me try?”

“Try what?”

“To earn your forgiveness. To make you see something else when you look at me.”

She bit her lip, then nodded. “You may try.”

“Thank you,” he said solemnly.

It wouldn’t be the work of an instant, driving away those years of unhappiness. But it must be done, and not only so there would be an heir for Westerby Grange. No, sometime in the last half hour he’d gone quite mad with desire for his own wife. After all, he had always admired women who had the courage to stand up for themselves in impossible circumstances.

He couldn’t tell her that. She’d never believe it. He couldn’t laugh at himself, for fear she’d think he was mocking
her.
More words of apology wouldn’t sway her, not yet. “Perhaps you’ll dine with me tonight,” he said, careful to keep any hint of
surely you owe me that much
out of his voice.

She let out a breath, visibly relaxing. “Certainly. I’ll speak to the cook. We have no fatted calf for the return of the prodigal, not in February, but perhaps a ham?”

“A fatted ham will more than suffice,” he assured her.

She sniffed, refusing to show any amusement at what he acknowledged was a feeble attempt at a joke.

“I’ll see to it,” she promised. “Once the snow stops, perhaps you’d like to walk the estate with me. You should see the sheep, and we’ve a yearling filly I believe you’ll like the look of.”

“Yes, certainly.”

“I’ll have the servants make your room ready.”

Would they always sleep in separate rooms? “I suppose you’re in Mama’s old room now.”

She shook her head. “No, I left it as it was. I’d made the yellow room mine, and...I thought you might like to see hers as it was, before I made any changes.”

“Thank you. That was very kind of you.”

Their eyes met and held for a moment. She bit her lip, shrugged, turned away and walked back to the hearth. “Perhaps you’d like a bath before dinner? I can have water heated.”