What a Lady Requires (7 page)

“In the end, you decide how this marriage plays out. You can have it soft and easy or hard and harsh. The choice is yours.”

Quite apparently, he did not intend for her to make that choice tonight, for he turned on his heel and stalked toward the door.

Rowan woke up with a throbbing in his skull and an even harder throbbing in his groin. Damnable organ. And if it had cooperated last night, he wouldn’t be in such a state. For the moment he opened his eyes to the strange ceiling, every last embarrassing recollection of his wedding night came flooding back.

He’d failed.

What’s more he’d failed at the very duty for which he’d been hired. He held no illusions on that account. This marriage was little better than paid stud service. He may as well be a male courtesan, and for the first time in his life, his body had refused to cooperate.

Good God, why? He couldn’t lay the blame at Emma’s feet, certainly. Society might not cast her as a diamond of the first water, but that wasn’t to say the girl had nothing to recommend her. The mere thought of baring her breasts, of filling his hands with her bosom, of tweaking the nipples to hardened peaks made his cock ache all the more.

He could do it now. He could enter her chamber and finish what they’d started last night. But at that notion, his spirits flagged along with other parts of his anatomy. It was that cursed room. No one could expect him to perform in the place where he’d betrayed a close friend in the worst imaginable way.

He’d simply have to explain.

No, he couldn’t do that. He barely knew his wife—he could hardly approach her over the breakfast table and discuss such a shortcoming between a remark on the weather and a polite request for the jam. Last night, he’d managed to pick a fight with her rather than admit to his inability.

But somehow he’d have to find an excuse for his failings or change the setting. If she expected him to consummate this marriage, they’d have to use his bedchamber.

Or perhaps he’d find another venue entirely in which to seduce her. The carriage seemed likely. No, that wouldn’t do at all. Not when the young lady was still a virgin. He couldn’t deflower her in a manner that required speed. He’d need a spot where they could go slowly, where he could properly awaken her desire, as well as his own. All the more reason to propose a honeymoon in Italy.

But he couldn’t propose anything to an empty room, so he’d best rise and face the day. He clambered from his bed and staggered toward the table where a bowl of water stood at the ready. He splashed his face, and took up his razor. Soon he’d be able to afford a valet like a proper gentleman. Perhaps Dysart would unearth Higgins’s man.

The angle of the sun told him the morning was already advanced. No doubt his wife was already busy doing whatever ladies of her station did in the mornings—directing the servants or selecting the menus or some such. In any case, he needed to get to his club.

He buttoned his waistcoat and eased into his topcoat. His marriage may have landed him a windfall, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t investigate what had happened to the last of his funds. He could ask around about Higgins, certainly, discover who else he’d fleeced. And if he and several of the other victims put their heads together, they might find a solution.

Crawley. He’d been the one to inform Rowan of the loss. He’d start there and follow the trail wherever it led. With that thought in mind, he headed down the stairs. The breakfast room stood at the back of the house, but he didn’t bother turning in that direction. He didn’t think he could stomach a meal at this point. He only wanted to get out of this house and take in the wintry air.

But at the door, the butler loomed out of nowhere. “Sir, the mistress of the house has asked me to fetch you when you put in an appearance.”

Damn. “Might it not wait? I have pressing business.”

“She’s asked me to convey the pressing nature of her own request, if you don’t mind.”

Not a day married, and he was already at her beck and call. Doubtless she expected it when she was the one holding the purse strings. “Let’s get this over with, then,” he muttered, more to himself than the butler.

The man led him not to a morning room, as he expected, but to the study. Piles of books covered every available surface. Emma sat behind Jennings’s massive desk, her spectacles perched on the end of her nose. A strand of hair had worked itself loose from her coiffure to straggle down her forehead. As she ran her finger down a page, she blew a stream of air at the offending tress.

Rowan cleared his throat. “You sent for me?”

Eyes narrowing, she looked up. “I wished to see you, yes.” She put undue emphasis on the phrasing. Good. She’d caught his hint that she was treating him as an employee. “I thought I might as well begin as I mean to continue, and that means going over your finances in detail.”

“I suppose now would be a bad time to inquire after my pin money.”

She raised her brows. “Pin money? What sort of comment is that?”

He might have known she didn’t possess a sense of humor, but he hadn’t been able to help himself. Standing before her, while she glared at him from behind that desk, reminded him of too many occasions at school when he’d been called in to face one of the masters. “A mere observation on the reversed nature of our relationship. Normally the husband supplies the funds and the wife spends them.”

She scowled. “Yes, well, that’s one of the things I’d like to talk to you about, but in a moment. First I’d like to know something.” She ran a forefinger along a column of numbers. From his vantage point, that was all he could see. Closer to, the ledger made little more sense to him. “These books are in a dreadful state, but from what I can make out, you still had a few funds to your name last summer. What happened to them?”

“Perhaps I wasted them all on horses and courtesans.” After all, based on her reaction, it was what she expected him to say. He may as well give her her money’s worth.

A light flush rose to her cheekbones. Damned inconvenient, that flush. It reminded him of the lovely wash of pink that had overcome her face the previous night when he’d first kissed her. That soft, enticing kiss he’d used to melt her reserve. Successfully, at that. If his body had only managed to cooperate, he’d have performed his duty.

He’d have satisfied them both and perhaps even coaxed her to beg for another bout of bed-sport this morning. The activity would have been a far more pleasant one than this.

“And you dare require me to be faithful.”

Damn. The temptation to needle her had outrun his common sense again. He shrugged. “I was only giving you the answer you expected.”

She rubbed a thumb and forefinger along the bridge of her nose beneath her spectacles. The gesture reminded him of a particular thorn in his side at Eton, his mathematics tutor. “If we are to get anywhere, I’d like the truth from you.”

The truth, yes. That would stand them both on better footing if they were to make a go of this marriage.

“An investment scheme gone sour.” He could give her this much. “I lost everything I had left. Got the word, ironically enough, the same day your father offered me your hand. You can understand why I jumped at the chance to marry you.”

Her eyes narrowed. “That aside, how did you manage to lose everything in one go?”

“It was a last-ditch effort to maintain some form of solvency. A gamble, if you will.”

“Let that be your first lesson, then. Diversify. You never sink all your funds into one scheme.”

“An acquaintance offered me the chance. Said it couldn’t fail. I trusted him.” And he deserved this outcome, given the way he’d betrayed a friend’s trust.

“There is no such thing as a scheme that cannot fail. The moment someone tells you otherwise, you ought to run in the opposite direction.”

“Where were you last year when I needed all this wonderful advice?” Damn, but that sounded overly sarcastic.

He couldn’t help it, though. It rankled that a female was better at this than he was. Females were meant to be pleasant to look at and, when required, display appropriate genteel accomplishments. Business acumen most definitely did not fall into the category of genteel accomplishment.

Emma pressed her lips together and turned a page in the ledger. “Yes, let’s talk about last year, when you had all of one hundred and forty-seven pounds to your name, as near as I can make it. But the year before, you were worth five times that much. How does that happen?”

A former friend had set out to ruin him, but he was not about to divulge that little secret, not when she might well ask for the reasons behind said ruination. “I’ve no head for business. I thought we’d established that.”

She slammed the ledger shut. “Then it’s time you developed one.”

“How do you reckon I’ll do that when it hasn’t occurred naturally in the past fifteen or so years?”

“You can learn. Do you think I was born with the ability to balance the books?”

He’d begun to suspect that very thing, the way she had a ready answer to all his troubles.

“Yours,” she went on, “are in a sorry state. Entire columns not ciphered properly. Sums gone missing from one week to the next with no notation as to where they disappeared. They haven’t even been kept up-to-date.”

“Yes, it’s no wonder I’m beggared.” God help him, he’d nearly used a stronger term. Better that than revealing where the missing sums had gone.

“You’re not even taking this seriously.” Good Lord, but she sounded like his old schoolmasters.

“I thought that was your job now.”

“Eventually,” she bit out, “you will be responsible for an entire estate. You will have tenants, people dependent on you. You need to learn to go over the accounts yourself or else someone unscrupulous could easily fleece you.
I
could, for that matter.”

“Only you already hold the purse strings, so where would that get you? At any rate, I’ve already been well fleeced, as you’ve seen.”

She shook her head. “Why my father thought I could reform you, of all people, I’ve no idea. You don’t even wish to try.”

That wasn’t true, but he couldn’t let on. The moment anyone started discussing finances, a mild sense of panic set in. He simply didn’t possess the head for this sort of thing. He knew it, because he’d tried in his younger days. Present him with columns of figures all neatly arranged and his heart began to race. The numbers on the page would swim until they resembled a jumbled muddle.

How much easier was it to hide behind a façade of insouciance, an easy wit, and a free hand at the card table? Not that he let himself play often. His luck at piquet wasn’t much better than his ability to choose a sound investment.

But then he’d always been the handsome one, known first and foremost for his looks and charm. Given his brother’s nature, no one expected much out of Rowan, either. No one required much of anything from him, for that matter. Emma was the first to do so since his school days.

So he brushed his fingernails against his waistcoat. “There’s little point in my trying. I’ve proven myself inadequate.”

The man was insufferable, completely insufferable. Emma fought to keep a rein on her temper, but the leather strap had long since frayed. “Someone ought to have boxed your ears when you were growing up.”

He laughed, the nerve of him. “And who would have done that? Sparks? It would have taken him all day to decide I needed it, and then he’d have to work up the gumption.”

The flippant reply only irritated her further. “Sparks? You call your own brother that?”

“Everyone calls him that.”

He had her to rights, because she did as well, at least in her thoughts. But this wasn’t about her. It was about the respect Battencliffe owed to—well, everyone, but especially to his older brother, the earl. “Does he not have a proper Christian name?”

The sound of a throat clearing discreetly stopped Emma cold. She tore her glare away from her husband to focus on the butler hovering on the threshold. He looked singularly hesitant to cross that invisible line into a war zone.

“Pardon the interruption, ma’am.”

“Is it another invitation?” She nodded toward the pile that had been growing steadily over the course of the morning. It was beginning to resemble a healthy snowdrift. “You can put it with the others.”

“No, ma’am, you have callers.”

Her mouth dropped open of its own accord, but she snapped it shut on an expression of surprise. Who in heaven’s name had come to pass a quarter hour sipping tepid tea and making awkward remarks on the weather? And on the day after her wedding, at that. Certainly no one had deigned to call on her in the past, despite her aunt’s efforts, but now that she was closer to a title, she’d suddenly become acceptable, it seemed. In demand, if the invitations to various routs, soirees, and masquerades were any indication.

It was almost as if the color of her blood had changed overnight.

“I’ve shown them to the morning room, if it please you.”

Grundy’s words were clearly a prompt, one Battencliffe took immediately. “I’ll be off, then.”

She leveled her gaze on her husband. “Where are you going?”

“I have business. I thought I’d start at the tailor’s, and once I’ve finished renewing my wardrobe, I thought I’d drop in at my club. That is, if you have no objections.” His tone very much conveyed he expected her to object.

Which she did. “We are not finished discussing your financial situation. You may have some money now, but you ought to look into spending it more judiciously. I haven’t even started on your extravagances.”

“Rest assured, I will pay my outstanding debts.”

“You mean if you have anything left over—” She cut herself off. The morning room was close enough for her guests to overhear, if she spoke loudly enough, and she felt like shouting. It seemed the only efficient means of penetrating her husband’s thick skull.

She followed the insufferable man from the room, but not before he snatched a pair of calling cards from the butler’s salver and handed them to her without so much as a glance. She blinked at the names. Mrs. Henrietta Sanford and Lady Cecelia Lindenhurst.

She’d never even been introduced to either one, but the second name—or, rather, title—gave her pause. That very title was embossed on the journal in her bedchamber. So there was a new viscountess, but why would she come to call? To ask for the former viscountess’s journal? But why wait so many years?