Married to the Viscount (16 page)

“Was he indeed?” Blakely exchanged a glance with his wife. “Ravenswood, you old devil. I’ll have to ply you with drink more often.”

Abby blushed furiously, but Spencer shot Evelina a searching glance. “How did you know about that?”

Evelina shrugged. “Nathaniel told me.”

“You’ve spoken to Nathaniel?”

A look of panic flashed over Evelina’s face that was gone so quickly Spencer wasn’t sure if he’d seen it at all. “Of course. When he first came back from America. He told me about the night you were intoxicated.”

How strange. What else had Spencer told his brother that night to make it memorable enough for Nat to mention it to Evelina? A gentleman never talked about another gentleman’s inebriation to a lady. It wasn’t done.

Then again, since when had Nat followed any rules?

“Well, he shouldn’t have told you,” Spencer said. “Some things are private.”

Abby’s face grew solemn. “Everything seems to be private with you, Spencer. Maybe if it weren’t, you wouldn’t be so serious all the time.”

Beleaguered on all fronts, Spencer stiffened, then turned to his friend and changed the subject. “By the way, have you told your brother the good news yet? What does Templemore think?”

“He’s delighted, of course.” Blakely slid his arm about his wife’s waist and stared fondly down at her. “He likes acquiring nieces and nephews almost as much as he likes siring sons and daughters.”

Devil take it, he’d meant the news about the pistol design. But before he could correct Blakely, Evelina said brightly, “Oh, Lady Clara, are you enceinte?”

Lady Clara blushed. “Yes.”

Abby broke into a smile. “Is it your first?”

“Our second,” Blakely put in with the beaming smile of an expectant father. “We’ve got a little girl, Lydia. She’s nearly a year old.”

Just what Spencer didn’t need tonight—talk of children.

“That’s wonderful,” Abby breathed. “I adore babies. I’d love to see her.” The rapt envy on her face was like a punch to Spencer’s gut.

“I’ll bring her to visit sometime,” Lady Clara said, then caught sight of Spencer’s pained expression. She gave a weak smile. “When your husband’s not around. Lord Ravenswood isn’t terribly fond of children.”

“Hogwash.” Abby cast him a questioning look. “How could anybody not like children?”

“Oh, bachelors and newly married men never do,” Lady Clara said dismissively. “But that’s because they don’t have any. They don’t know what to do with them. You should have
seen his lordship the first time I tried to hand Lydia to him. He recoiled as if she were a snake.”

“I was afraid I’d drop her or something,” Spencer lied through his teeth.

Lady Clara laughed, unaware of the torture she inflicted on him with every word. “Or you were worried she’d get spittle on your fine coat. That’s a man for you—Morgan was much the same until he had his own child.”

“I was not!” Blakely protested. “I liked children well enough. More than Ravenswood, at any rate.”

“Well, you’re less conscious of spittle on your coat, I suppose,” Lady Clara said soothingly. “But I seem to remember some comment you made about squalling brats. Before you had any.”

“All right, perhaps once,” Blakely muttered.

“So are you hoping for a boy this time?” Abby asked, her face full of a woman’s usual eagerness about anything concerning babies.

Spencer could take no more. “Come along, Blakely, let’s fetch our wives some punch. That’ll give them something better to do with their mouths than talk about children.”

“Good idea,” Blakely said as he left his wife’s side. “Although I can think of even better things they could do with their mouths than drinking punch.”

“Morgan, for shame!” Lady Clara said.

But Blakely merely laughed. Then Abby asked a breathless question about Lydia, and as Spencer walked off with Blakely, the women were happily discussing babies again.

He cursed under his breath.

Blakely laughed. “She’s driving you mad, isn’t she?”

Spencer strode purposefully ahead. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“That fetching American wife of yours. The one with the brilliant smile and laughing eyes and interest in babies.”

Unaccountably disturbed that his friend had noticed
Abby’s “brilliant smile and laughing eyes,” Spencer glowered at Blakely. “I take it you no longer believe her to be a fortune hunter?”

“Any woman who’d tease the dignified Lord Ravenswood in front of his friends is no fortune hunter. Because a fortune hunter would assume that flattering you would gain her more than poking fun at you.”

“Poking fun at me is Abby’s favorite pastime,” Spencer grumbled. “It’s her way of paying me back for forcing her into this.”

“You offered her twice her dowry. I don’t call that force.”

“All she wanted was a little of the money Nat took from her. And I refused to give it to her because I wanted to prevent a scandal.”

Blakely cut Spencer an assessing glance. “That’s not the only reason you refused, I suspect. You’re keeping her here because you want her, don’t you?”

Like I want air and food and water
. But that had nothing to do with it. “If you’re asking if I desire her, the answer should be obvious. What man in his right mind wouldn’t? She’s quite attractive.”

“But not attractive enough for you to make her your real wife. I suppose a viscount does require someone more…appropriate in birth and station.”

Spencer glared at Blakely. “You, too? Does everyone think me the most pompous man in England?”

Blakely looked unusually somber as they stopped beside the punch tables. “If you don’t care about that, why not make the marriage a real one? God knows she’d be amenable. Every time she looks at you, her face lights up.”

Spencer turned to the punch table, needing to do something, anything, to banish the intriguing idea of Abby’s face lighting up when she looked at him. But his hands shook as he poured two glasses of punch. “I have no desire to marry, Blakely—it’s as simple as that. It has nothing to do with her
in particular. It’s just that I wouldn’t make any woman a good husband.”

“That’s absurd. Besides, eventually you have to marry somebody—if not your pretty American, then some other woman. You have to bear an heir. Even I know that’s expected of you.”

“I don’t have to do anything I don’t want. And unlike you I lack the urge to sire a lot of ‘squalling brats.’ I’m the one who doesn’t like children, remember?”

“Clara’s right—that will change once you have your own. So you needn’t—”

“I do not want to discuss this.” Good God, he couldn’t even escape talk of children with his bloody friends. Spencer picked up the glasses and faced Blakely, staring him down. “My personal affairs are none of your concern, so stay out of it.”

Blakely flinched. Then his face hardened. “Very well. I’ll be sure to remember that in the future.”

“See that you do.”

Spencer walked off without waiting for Blakely to follow, before he said something else he regretted. He was tired of evading everyone’s questions and tired of listening to their expectations for him. Let them think him officious or arrogant or unfeeling. It was better than having them know the truth, which would only garner their pity. He hadn’t endured pity from anyone since his mother’s death, and he wasn’t about to endure it now, especially from his friends.

Even if it did leave him all alone in his torment.

Sometime later, Abby was feeling more hopeful about her ability to navigate the treacherous waters of London society. Lady Clara and Evelina had kindly given her a quick course in English titles. While it would take more than that to make her comfortable, she thought she could master the title business eventually.

Even Spencer’s surliness when he’d returned to ask her to stand up with him for a country dance hadn’t dampened her hopes. Especially since the dance had seemed to relax him and wipe some of the anger from his eyes.

Fortunately, he’d been perfectly cordial by the time the dance ended. He even managed a smile when Captain Blakely asked her to dance the Scotch reel, so she promptly accepted.

Captain Blakely led her to join the promenading couples. “You seem to be holding up your end of the charade very well.”

Abby felt a moment’s panic before she remembered that he knew the truth. “I’m trying. Though I’m not sure it was a good idea.”

“Then why did you do it?”

She gazed stiffly ahead as they circled the room. “He gave me no choice. It was either play his wife or be thrust into the street penniless.”

“He was bluffing. Surely you realized that. He would never leave a woman destitute. Especially one he likes.”

She cast Captain Blakely an arch glance. “Spencer doesn’t like me—he tolerates me. And he also…well, never mind that. Whatever else he feels, he keeps hidden.”

“I still say he wouldn’t have thrown you into the street.”

She sighed. “I suppose that’s true. But he offered to double my dowry. And to be honest, I felt I owed him something for trusting his brother. None of it would have happened if I’d been more skeptical of Nathaniel’s claims.”

“Why weren’t you? You seem like an intelligent woman.”

“Thank you.” She flashed him a smile. “Spencer thinks I’m naive and overly optimistic. He thinks that’s why I believed Nathaniel.”

“Why
did
you believe him?”

Captain Blakely’s kind manner encouraged her to be truthful. “I suppose because I liked Spencer more than I should have. I wanted Nathaniel’s tales to be true.”

“I can’t imagine why. Ravenswood is a good man, but he’s very sober-minded. Whereas you seem too spirited a sort for him.”

She shook her head. “In America, he was different.”

By then, they’d reached their positions, and the Scotch reel was too lively a dance to continue their conversation.

It was certainly too lively for brooding about Spencer. Besides, Captain Blakely danced creditably and she adored Scotch reels with their skips and sheer exuberance. The heady scent of the primrose and lilacs used for decor in the ballroom only enhanced her pleasure until she forgot all her troubles in the dance. By the time it finished, they were both laughing.

But after he led her from the floor, Captain Blakely drew her aside instead of bringing her back to their companions. Then he picked up their conversation where they’d left off. “How was Ravenswood different in America?”

She wished she hadn’t mentioned that. She wasn’t even sure if Spencer’s behavior there had been real or feigned. “It’s hard to explain. I mean, he’s always been more serious than most men I’ve met.” Staring down at her hapless fichu, she thought back to that time. “You must understand—the gentlemen I knew in America were either friends of my father’s and much too old for me or men whose activities I considered frivolous.”

“Certainly no one could call Ravenswood’s activities frivolous.”

“Exactly. And I found that vastly appealing. He was so earnest when he spoke about England, so passionate about his opinions. And he showed sincere interest in my mother’s people. He never judged their practices and never disapproved of their culture.”

“Their culture?” he echoed.

Oh, dear. She probably shouldn’t have mentioned that, but now that she had, he might as well know the whole of it. “Al
though I grew up among my father’s people in Philadelphia, my mother was from the Seneca tribe, the daughter of their chief.” She gazed proudly at him, daring him to show some sign of contempt. “She had as much to do with my upbringing as Papa.”

He flashed her a smile. “Ah. Then you had an advantage over me. Despite being a baron’s son, I had only my mother to raise me. And since she had difficulties of her own, I ended up a pickpocket in the streets of Geneva until my uncle brought me back to England.”

His words surprised her so much she couldn’t muster a response.

He didn’t seem to require one. “But you were explaining how Ravenswood was different in America.”

“Yes.” She ducked her head. “You see, though he was serious-minded, he was also kind and amiable and—”

“‘Amiable’ isn’t quite the word I’d use for Ravenswood.”

“Yet that’s exactly how he was. And he made me think…” She trailed off, not wanting to reveal the full extent of her own idiocy.

“Are you saying that he led you to believe an offer from him was forthcoming?” Captain Blakely asked in a clearly disapproving tone.

“No, no, nothing like that. He was never anything but the perfect gentleman. But we were friends, don’t you see? That’s why I was so eager to marry him. In America, I could talk to him about anything. He encouraged it. Even when he didn’t agree with my opinions, he listened earnestly.”

“And here?”

She stiffened. “Here he is arrogant and controlling and determined to have his own way no matter what I say.”

“Ah, now that sounds like the Ravenswood I know.”

“It’s maddening, especially when I’m the one having to obey all his dictates.”

“Not quite what you expected marriage to him would be.”

“No, I thought it would be…” She glanced away. “Whatever I thought, I was wrong.” Setting her shoulders, she managed to meet his gaze. “Not that it matters anyway. This is all a sham. Spencer has no interest in marriage just now, and certainly not to me.”

“I wouldn’t be too sure of that if I were you.”

Before she could question what he meant, a low murmur in the room made her look up to see Spencer walk in with a stunning woman in a scandalously revealing gown. When the woman laid her hand on his arm and leaned in close to whisper something that he bent low to hear, Abby’s heart constricted. “Who’s that woman Spencer is talking to?” she whispered.

Captain Blakely was already staring at the two, his jaw tight. “Nobody of consequence. Come, let’s join my wife and Lady Evelina.”

As Captain Blakely led her back toward their companions, her heart sank. His reticence told her worlds. “She’s his mistress, isn’t she?”

“Of course not.” When Abby raised one eyebrow, he sighed. “All right, Genevieve used to be, but she hasn’t been for two years at least. They’re merely friends now.”

Very good friends, judging from how familiarly the woman touched him and how intently Spencer listened. Genevieve—the woman even had a mistress’s name.