An Infamous Marriage (10 page)

She seemed enough at ease that he dared to approach the fire himself, though he stood at the opposite corner. “I see. You’re saying I smell of horse, and a week on the road in inns so cold the most fastidious man in the world would not have ventured more than the minimum splash of water from the washbasin.”

She rolled her eyes. “You twist my words. I only meant that when one is cold to the bone, there is nothing so warming as a hot bath before a hot fire.”

He pictured her then, coming in cold and shivering from a vigil at lambing or foaling time, stripping off her cold, wet things and lowering herself into a steaming tub her maid had thoughtfully prepared against her return. His cock stirred at the image. If only he hadn’t made such a muddle of things, he could suggest that the bath might be made to fit two.

Something of his thoughts must have shown in his eyes, for she colored and backed away, wiping her hands on her skirts with a dismissive air. “I’ll go and speak to the servants.”

With that she hurried out of the room. Jack sagged back against the mantel. “You,” he told himself, “have cocked it up good and proper this time.”

* * *

Elizabeth shut the door to her yellow room behind her and collapsed onto her bed.

Curse Jack for not sending word of his coming! She’d been all set to meet him wearing one of the new dresses she’d bought on her last trip to York, after she’d heard the American war was ending and deduced that her husband most likely would be obliged to come home at last.

She’d visited the dressmaker not out of any delusion that a few new gowns would transform her into some kind of beauty, or that Jack would take one look at her, fall in love and repent of his flagrantly public philandering. She’d only wanted to look the part of a knight’s lady, a woman of rank and dignity, and not one who’d spent the past five years toiling on a farm, for her leisure only dining with the few friends she trusted not to make her feel her husband’s desertion.

Her intent had been to meet Jack in her new blue kerseymere, cut to the exact pattern of a day dress from the most recent edition of the
Ladies’ Monthly Museum.
She would’ve waited to receive him in the parlor—cool, composed, fashionable and dignified.

Instead, she’d woken that morning without the slightest suspicion her husband might return that day. It had snowed heavily just to the south, so surely if he
was
on his way home rather than securing a new mistress for himself in London, he would be obliged to wait until the roads cleared to complete his journey. So she’d donned one of her oldest dresses, a warm brown wool, and prepared for a quiet day of planning the spring plantings.

Then she had spotted him from her window. She’d recognized him instantly. He still sat a horse magnificently. Whatever damage his wounds had done to him, they hadn’t taken that away.

There was no question of changing into a more flattering dress. By the time she’d called for her maid Hodgson’s assistance and got herself laced and buttoned into the kerseymere, he’d be inside the house, either cooling his heels and growing impatient as he waited for his wife to come to him or, worse still, barging in on her as she dressed. He had the right, after all. The Grange was his house and she was his wife.

No, the most important thing had been to surprise him, to catch him off balance and make her demands clear before he had time to understand what was happening. So she’d set her quill aside and scrambled downstairs, pausing only long enough to seize her old scarlet cloak from its hook near the door. After that, it had all gone according to plan. More or less. She’d taken him to task, as he deserved, for all the humiliation he had dealt her in his absence. And she’d had the courage, assisted by his emphatic declaration that he was no rapist, to go through with her vow to keep him out of her bed until he had
paid.

She had won her point. So why was she shaking now, when she had got everything she wanted?

She’d either forgotten how much sheer
presence
her husband had, or it was something he’d acquired during their separation. He hadn’t been exerting himself to charm her. Far from it—he’d ridden up, tired from his long, cold journey and almost as angry with her as she was with him. But he still managed to carry off such an air of command, of expecting instant obedience, that it was no easy task to stand against him.

And what business had he being even more handsome than before? Those little wings of graying hair above his ears gave him a dignified, distinguished look, and his lined, sun-browned skin only made her think of his service, of the battles he’d fought and places he’d seen. Even his barely discernable limp made her feel a tenderness toward him almost in spite of herself.

Only she didn’t want to admire him, nor even like him, not yet. He needed to do far more than say he was sorry to earn his way back into her good graces. But being in his thoroughly male presence made her aware just how starved she was for any kind of physical contact. All these years. She’d had one week with Giles before he fell ill, just enough to whet her appetite for the pleasures of the flesh. Before she’d learned of Jack’s adultery, she’d begun to imagine what it would feel like to lie with him, but she hadn’t allowed herself such a fantasy in three years. Instead, night after night she’d raged against fate for being so cruel, so unfair, as to give her only one week of bliss when other women had years and years of happiness. And now already some traitorous part of her called out,
See how handsome Jack is! And he wants
you.

He wants an heir,
her wiser self told her foolish body.
He wouldn’t want one from you if he had any other choice.

She didn’t know what to do next. She had made him listen to her, she thought, made him see her as an actual person with pains and desires of her own. But she couldn’t make him love her, nor undo those scandalous affairs and the gossip they had caused.

One day at a time. For today, that meant getting through dinner. So she spoke to the cook to augment the simple dinner she’d planned, called for a bath of her own and then had Hodgson dress her in her new green merino. It wasn’t quite the finest of the four gowns she’d had made for evening wear, but the wine-colored kerseymere must be saved for grander occasions, should any arise. In any case, she liked the look of the merino best of all. She fancied that somehow it made her eyes look brighter and her skin creamier, almost as if she was pretty.

Hodgson arranged Elizabeth’s hair as best she could manage. They had long since discarded curling tongs as useless, for her hair was so extremely straight it wouldn’t hold artificial curls for longer than half an hour. But Hodgson coiled and pinned it neatly and wove a satin ribbon through the braids that matched the blond lace trimming the gown.

When, filled with trepidation, Elizabeth opened the door, her husband was waiting for her. He wore the same coat as before, though it bore the marks of a hasty brushing, with fresh linen, and his clean male scent blended agreeably with that of the plain soap her cook, Mrs. Pollard, made for the shepherd and stable hands.

He greeted her with a bow. Elizabeth looked for irony or mockery in the gesture but found none. “You look lovely, my dear,” he said, his voice pitched loudly enough to carry to Hodgson’s eager ears where she stood straightening Elizabeth’s dressing table. “I wish I were better dressed to match you, but all my trunks are with the chaise back in York. My new man will be bringing them once the roads clear.”

Suddenly Elizabeth felt overdressed. “I should have saved this for when we dine in company, I suppose.”

He looked her up and down, slowly enough to take in every detail. “No,” he said at last. “You shouldn’t have. It’s a beautiful dress.” He offered her his arm. “Shall we go down to dinner?”

She took it, gathering her skirts with her free hand to descend the stairs. She didn’t quite believe this courtesy of his, but what could she say against it?

They didn’t speak beyond the basic pleasantries until they were seated across from each other over bowls of cock-a-leekie soup.

“The house and lands look well,” he said, “not that I expected otherwise, from your letters.” His eyebrows climbed a fraction of an inch, his only acknowledgment that there was anything unusual about their correspondence.

“I did my best,” she said. “I’ll be glad to show you more—the sheepfolds, the new horses. That is, if you’re interested.”

“Of course I am.” He actually sounded stung. “Why would I not be?”

He’d shown precious little sign of it in all this time. “You never struck me as a farmer at heart.” Not that she was, either. Yet she’d had no choice but to learn.

“Well, no, I’m not. But I do love horses, and these lands are my responsibility, even if all I’m fit to do is pass their management into more competent hands and keep my eyes open to make sure whomever I choose truly is competent and honest.”

“Good. I wasn’t sure...” She pushed her spoon around the bowl. “That is, you’ve been away more than you’ve been home since you were grown.”

“Yes, I have. But that, too, was my responsibility.”

She frowned across the table at him, searching for the right words of complaint. Few senior officers had stayed away as long as he had, and those women of his had not been responsibilities. But just then Molly arrived bearing the ham, and the moment of tension passed. Jack turned the subject to dinners he’d eaten in Canada, and the general challenges of dining on campaign when one was expected to keep up appearances and give fine dinners to one’s officers. Elizabeth felt she could contribute almost nothing to the conversation. She had never been anywhere, after all, so what could she say on how best to prepare venison or the challenges of serving dinner for twenty in a campaign tent?

Despite her envy, she couldn’t deny her interest in her husband’s experiences, and the rest of the dinner passed smoothly until they were picking over the last bites of seed cake. “I was thinking,” he said, “I should come to your room tonight after—”

“You will
not,
” she said. “Did you hear nothing I said before? I’ll scream. I’ll fight—”

He held up a staying hand. “Pray let me finish my sentence, ma’am. I heard everything you said, and—good God—I have no intentions of forcing you. The very thought—” He shook his head and shuddered. “I only thought—the servants have been hovering over me since I arrived, and I’m sure they’re as good and honest people as may be found, but do you truly trust them not to gossip if we keep separate beds from the night I return home?”

“It would serve you right if they did,” she said sweetly.

“I daresay. But how do you know their gossip would harm me more than you?”

Oh, God, he was right. If all Selyhaugh knew they were keeping separate beds, no one would think she was having her revenge, they would only pity her for being so mousy and plain her husband couldn’t even bear to lie with her for the sake of an heir. Would her humiliation never end? She felt her face heat and her eyes sting, and she bit her lip and swallowed hard.

“Elizabeth, please. I didn’t mean... I only thought...”

She looked up and met his eyes, brown and troubled and...kind?

“Just let me come to your room for an hour or so every night, or come to me in mine, if you’d rather. We’ll talk, that’s all. I promise on my honor as an officer. Then the servants will have nothing to gossip about.”

She considered, but only for a moment. She might not like him much, but she thought she trusted him to keep his word—their wedding itself had proved he held his word nothing short of sacred—and she’d had more than enough gossip and humiliation for a lifetime. “Very well.”

Chapter Eight

Jack briefly considered going to his wife’s room clad in nothing but a nightshirt. He wouldn’t have a banyan to wear over it until his trunks caught up with him. If any servants caught sight of him, his mostly unclad state would certainly give credence to the idea that he and his wife were making their marriage a normal one at last.

On the other hand, she was still furious with him, and more than a little skittish in his company. He didn’t want to give the impression of ignoring her wishes or, for that matter, make his more tender parts vulnerable to an angry kick. She was far too unhappy with him to find anything appealing about the sight of his naked legs in proximity to her bed. No, so much bare-skinned intimacy would be too precipitate by half. So he settled for removing his coat, waistcoat, cravat and boots, leaving himself, he hoped, clothed enough in shirt, stockings and pantaloons to avoid startling his wife’s delicate sensibilities. After a moment’s consideration, he took the gifts he had selected in London with him. If nothing else, they would give him subjects for conversation.

He padded down the corridor to Elizabeth’s room. Knock, or just walk in? Surely the former, since he was here to assure her he could keep his word and respect her wishes. He tapped on the door, endeavoring to neither sound tentative nor peremptory and demanding. He couldn’t help but smile ruefully. That he had come to this, worrying over whether he was knocking properly. All unwittingly, he had married a woman like no other.

He heard footsteps from the other side, and his wife opened the door herself. Jack had half expected to find her fully clothed, but she had made sufficient concessions to appearances to allow her maid to undress her for bed.

Yet her appearance was severely unsensual. Over her long white nightdress she wore a plain wrapper of blue wool, fastened tight and high to prevent any inviting gaps that might reveal a glimpse of her lovely figure. He missed the dress from dinner. While he had seen far more daring gowns in his time—Sarah Boyd had worn several that only just avoided baring the roses of her nipples—Elizabeth’s dress had still put a tantalizing expanse of soft creamy bosom on distracting display.

Perhaps it was just as well. It would be distracting enough merely to be in the same room with her, a room with a wide warm bed at its center.

“Good evening,” he said. “May I come in?”

She raised a sardonic eyebrow. “You may.”

She stepped back, and he followed her inside, shutting the door softly. She perched on the stool at her dressing table and waved him to the slightly sturdier chair that sat before a small table she had evidently made into a reading and writing desk. He took it without protest. Best to ignore the presence of the bed for now.

“I’ve brought you gifts.” He held out the two paper-wrapped packages.

She took them gingerly. “Thank you,” she said, her voice wary.

“Go on, open them,” he said when she did not immediately do so. As dissimilar as the women in his life had been, he had never before met one who did not open a present on the spot.

She bit her lip and started with the smaller one. She took the sapphire ring out of its box and held it up to the candlelight. “It’s lovely,” she said reluctantly.

“If it doesn’t fit, any jeweler should be able to adjust it,” he said, for she had not yet tried to put it on.

“It must have been expensive,” she said, slipping it tentatively down the first finger of her left hand, stopping at the middle knuckle.

“Not more than I could afford,” he assured her. “You should have more. You’re Lady Armstrong now.”

“I don’t feel like it.”

“Nor do I, most days.”

She smiled, her eyes dancing. “I shouldn’t think you would ever feel like a lady.”

He rolled his eyes but failed to suppress a chuckle. “You know that isn’t what I meant.”

“Yes. It is, however, what you said.”

He waved a hand in helpless acknowledgment of her hit. He hadn’t meant for it to come from a joke at his own expense, but he had at least succeeded in his primary goal for the night—he had made his wife smile.

She relaxed a little, too, condescending to try the ring on her other fingers before settling it onto the third finger of her right hand.

“Emeralds,” he said.

“What’s that?”

“You should have emeralds. A necklace, I think. They’ll match the green in your eyes.”

“Stop trying to flatter me.”

“It’s not flattery. Look in your mirror. Your eyes are shot through with green.”

She shook her head. “But not emerald. They would outshine me.”

“I don’t think so.”

She closed her lovely eyes and turned her head aside. “You needn’t buy me jewelry. I’m not some—you cannot buy your way into my good graces.”

“That wasn’t my intent,” he said, conveniently ignoring the degree to which it had been when he picked out the ring and the book. “I only mean to give you everything in keeping with our new station in life.”

“Oh.” She looked at him again. “I’ve just been going on as before. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know how to be.”

“Neither do I. We’ll work it out, together, but we needn’t do it all tonight.”

Her expression grew wary. “
If
we’re together.”

He hid a sigh. He didn’t want to even consider the possibility of a separation, but pushing her on that point tonight would be rushing his fences. “Well, that cannot be decided immediately either, can it?”

She shook her head and twisted the ring. “Open the other,” he urged, the better to turn the subject.

She ran her hands across the package before untying the string that held it together. “A book.”

“I hope you like it. You may already have it, but I tried to find the newest one I could.” There were several books stacked on her table, though all were novels.

She carefully unfolded the paper wrapping.
“‘Travels in the Ionian Isles, Albania, Thessaly, Macedonia, &c.,’”
she read aloud.

“I remembered you were fond of travels,” he said, albeit uncertainly, since she hadn’t gone into transports of joy. “At least, you brought several here with you, when you first came.”

She blinked at him. “I never dreamed that you’d noticed.”

But she didn’t sound delighted that he had. “You don’t like it, do you? Are you not interested in Greece?”

She set the book down with a sigh. “Of course I am. Who wouldn’t be? And I used to read every book of travels I could get my hands upon. But I haven’t opened one in, oh, at least three years.”

In other words, she’d stopped reading them around the time she had turned cold to him. “Whyever not?” he asked.

“Because I have never, in all my life, been more than ten miles south of York. I have been to Scotland exactly twice—to Coldstream for our wedding and to Blainslie Keep when your uncle invited me for a visit the summer before last. I had never seen the sea until three years ago, when the Ildertons took me with them on a visit to Bamburgh Castle.”

She sounded every bit as angry about her limited travel as she had about his affairs. Jack rubbed his forehead. It made no sense. They lived perhaps twenty miles from the sea. “But why not?” he asked.

“What do you mean,
why not?
” Her voice climbed so much Jack glanced involuntarily toward the door. No one would think they were having a tender reunion if they heard them fighting.

“What was stopping you?” he elaborated.

“What was
stopping
me? Why, Papa never had time for such frivolities, as he called them. And after he died, I was always poor and dependent. What was I to do? Beg my great-uncle for a season in London, when he wouldn’t even allow me to go to an assembly just a few streets away in York? Leave your mother alone while I took a course of sea bathing?”

“You haven’t been poor and dependent or had anyone dependent on your care for
three years,
” he pointed out, anger driving out his intent to charm. “At any point after Mama died, you could have gone anywhere in the kingdom. Why didn’t you, if you were so full of longing to travel? It isn’t the Ionian Islands, I grant you, but you could’ve seen as much of London and Brighton and Bath and the Lakes as anyone could wish.”

“What was I to do? Go by myself?”

“Of course not. You could’ve hired a companion.”

“The expense...”

“Would not be so great. You aren’t poor anymore, Elizabeth. Do you not realize that? But I daresay you needn’t have hired someone after all. Miss Rafferty would’ve been glad to go, and don’t the Ildertons have several daughters? One of them must be of a suitable age to accompany a trusted family friend for a few weeks’ travel.”

Her eyes widened. “I suppose I could have...” Then she blinked and shook her head. “No. The mockery was bad enough here. I couldn’t have borne being laughed at in Bath or London.”

She was so prickly, so sensitive. She reminded Jack of himself as he’d been fifteen or twenty years earlier, so used to being alternately ignored and mocked that he would’ve given anything to hide in his quarters and never come out. What would he have become if he hadn’t had the demands of his profession to force him to engage with the world, and an Uncle Richard to be ambitious on his behalf before he’d believed himself capable of rising high? Was it too late for her to overcome her fears? Surely not. The woman who had faced him down earlier in the day did not entirely lack confidence.

“I doubt you would’ve been laughed at there,” he said slowly. “In a great city like London, no one pays as much attention to any one person’s troubles or foibles as in a little village like this.”

“I don’t know. I’m sure there would’ve been gossip.”

He shrugged. “Perhaps. I doubt anyone who hasn’t been there pays much mind to what passes in Canada. But if you’d appeared as you did today, defiant and proud, I believe any gossip there was would’ve been in your favor. Everyone would’ve said what a fool I was, and you would have had your share of chances to take your revenge by putting a cuckold’s horns on me.”

“Impossible!” Her voice rose in incredulity. “I’m not—no one would have wanted—I’m not beautiful.”

“There’s more than one kind of beauty,” he said. “I wish you’d gone. I never meant for you to make such a martyr of yourself.”

“You wouldn’t have liked to be a cuckold, would you?”

“No,” he admitted, “though I suppose it would be only fair, after how I’ve lived. But I do wish someone had tried, just so you would’ve realized how desirable you are.”

She huffed out an annoyed breath. “I have a mirror.”

Jack shook his head. “Mirrors are liars. They tell us what we expect to see.”

“That’s not true—wait, I suppose it is, but how would
you
know? You’re a man.” She leaned forward a little, looking almost unguarded for the first time since the brief interplay over his inability to feel like a lady.

“You think men never worry over our appearance?” She hadn’t been around many men if she thought that. Giles had been very handsome, of course, but he’d had neither the money nor the inclination to take pains over his clothing or grooming. As for Jack, it had taken him at least a year of being six feet tall and clear-skinned to not see himself as a spotty runt, no matter what the mirror or the fit of his clothing had told him. “Surely you’ve met a gentleman or two who still dresses like a beau even though he last had the face and form for it several decades ago.”

At that, she actually smiled a little. “My great-uncle was that sort.”

“I’m sure he saw a fine, handsome figure when he looked in his glass.”

The smile reached her eyes. “I don’t doubt it.”

Jack ran a hand through his hair just above the ears, where it was grayest. “And I still don’t believe I have all this gray hair. In my mind, I look as I did, oh, around the time I met you, no matter what the mirror says to the contrary.”

“So it isn’t the mirrors that lie, but we who cannot believe their evidence, then.”

“Exactly.”

They studied each other in thoughtful silence for a moment. Jack dared to hope Elizabeth wasn’t angry with him at this instant. He was sure her anger would come back before she was ready to forgive him permanently. If she ever did. He mustn’t allow himself to hope too soon.

“You shouldn’t trouble yourself over a little gray,” she said earnestly. “It makes you look distinguished, as a general ought.”

“It’s nothing to do with my rank. It all came after Queenston Heights, when I was so badly hurt and then so ill.”

“Still, it looks well on you...and really, I can’t believe you pay it so much mind. You don’t really, do you?” Her eyes narrowed with renewed suspicion. “You’re just pretending, to try to make me feel better.”

“No, I truly do. It happened so suddenly, and I cannot become accustomed to myself as I am now.”

She actually laughed a little. “I believe you’re quite vain.”

“It isn’t vanity. It’s only—I’m starting to see my father look back at me from the glass, and I’m still five or six years younger than he was when I was born. It makes me feel so very mortal.”

“And going into battle and being severely injured did not?”

“It’s a different kind of mortality.” The prospect of a quick death in battle had never troubled him. The idea that he might, like his mother, slowly lose his mind, and with it his memory of everyone and everything he had ever loved, could keep him awake at night in sheer shuddering horror.

Jack didn’t want to talk about death, not tonight when he was home at last and trying to win his way back into his wife’s good graces, so he changed the subject back to where it had begun. “In any case, there’s nothing to stop you from traveling wherever you like now.”

She blinked, then her eyes widened and her cheeks grew flushed. Elizabeth might not be a beauty in any conventional sense, but whenever her spirit animated her features she was lovely to look upon. But the moment passed quickly, and her eyes shuttered behind a frown. “Of course there is. You want me to bear you an heir.”

“If you can ever forgive me enough to allow me, indeed I do.” He rubbed furtively at his right leg, which was beginning to ache from his old injury. Should he tell her he would want her in his bed even if he had no line to continue and no land to pass on, or would that alarm her more at this stage?