School For Heiresses 2- Only a Duke Will Do (35 page)

”

Swallowing her tears, she headed for the door.

“Louisa,” he said behind her. “You said you love me.”

“I do,” she whispered.

“Then stay. Please.”

Simon had never begged her for anything outside the bedchamber. He had demanded, commanded, coerced. And she was tempted, oh so tempted, to give in.

But though he might be able to accept compromise after compromise with comparative ease, she could not. “I can’t right now. I’m sorry. I have matters to take care of that I just can’t when I’m with you.”

He snorted. “Who’s hiding from the truth now? The only reason you’re scurrying off to Regina’s is because I admitted that I am incapable of loving you back. And that angers you.”

“Angers me? No. Because you’re not incapable of love, Simon. You’re afraid of it. And that doesn’t anger me—it just makes me sad.”

He didn’t leave his study while she packed a small bag beneath Raji’s watchful eye, then released the monkey from their bedchamber. He didn’t step into the hall when she called for a carriage, and he didn’t call out a good-bye when she walked out the door, with Raji fighting the footmen in a vain attempt to go with her.

But just as the carriage drove away in the early dawn light, she looked back to see him standing in the window of his study, watching her, stoic, distant. And that broke her heart most of all.
Chapter Twenty-Six

Dear Charlotte,

Govern you? I would not attempt it. I happen to like having my head attached to my body. But is it true that your friend the Duchess of Foxmoor may be resigning from the London Ladies Society? Your curious cousin,

Michael

A fter his wife’s departure, Simon paced his study restlessly. Raji shadowed his every move with a sullen scowl, behaving as if he’d lost his closest friend.

The way Simon felt.

Simon glowered at his pet. “Don’t give me that look, damn you. She abandoned us, old chap. It is not my fault that she trotted off to Regina’s. She’s just sulking because she’s lost her cursed hold over me.”

Exactly. He had won their ongoing battle. He had actually persuaded Louisa to resign from the London Ladies Society.

So why didn’t this feel like a victory? Why wasn’t he toasting his success? He had finally put his career in the proper perspective. Why wasn’t he ecstatic to finally, finally have gained control over his passions? Because of some foolish nonsense his wife had said about passions and feelings? He muttered a curse under his breath. She did not understand. She was a woman—they thought everything was about “caring” and “feelings.” But some things transcended that. Politics, for one.

“‘Nothing is ever only politics,’” he muttered. “What rot!”

What did she know about it? She had never been forced to compromise, never had a reason. Except when he had given her one. Except when he had made demands. He gritted his teeth. He doubted very seriously that any other statesman had to deal with such impudence from a wife. He was probably the only one who would even tolerate it. He was probably the only one who even bothered to listen to his wife’s opinions.

She had forced him into this position. It was not his fault if she refused to recognize political necessities. That was why women were not statesmen—because they did not understand the nasty nature of politics. As Grandfather Monteith always said, Women—

Simon groaned. He was not becoming his grandfather. God forbid!

Yes, he had learned a great deal from the man and did occasionally recall his advice, but that did not mean Simon was turning into him. Absolutely not. He would never be his grandfather, never. She was making him insane. He had to escape this place, and escape her ridiculous accusations. But where was he to go? The session didn’t begin until later, and he was not sure he could stand looking at Sidmouth and Castlereagh today anyway. What he needed was something physical to drive her voice from his brain. A good hard ride. Yes, to clear his head before the rest of London society awakened. He hurried upstairs to change into riding breeches, but as soon as he entered his bedchamber, he cursed. The bed made him think instantly of her, and her lilac scent lingered in the room. Raji jumped atop her dressing table, then chattered angrily at him.

“Get off there, you besotted fool!” Grabbing Raji, he tossed him onto the bed, where his pet promptly began to swing from the hangings and shriek.

“Do you think I like her being gone any more than you do?” Simon snarled. His mind was flooded by images of her making love to him in his study, like some fearless Valkyrie determined to wipe out the past. He had never reached so fierce a climax. Or hated himself so much for it.

Because after foolishly thinking that one more time together would sate his need for her, he’d discovered that it merely increased his guilt.

Deuce take it, he had nothing to feel guilty about! He had done what he had to. It was better this way. She needed to see what was required of a statesman’s wife, no matter how painful acknowledging the truth was for her.

No matter how much she loved him.

With a groan, he dropped into the chair beside her dressing table and buried his face in his hands. I love you. Those had been her cruelest words. He had never guessed how sweet they would sound on her lips until she spoke them. Until she dangled before him the one thing he craved, the one thing he had yearned all his life to have.

The one thing he had no right to, since he could never say the words back. But romantic fool that she was, she didn’t think him incapable. She thought him afraid. A coward. It made her “sad.”

Sad, damn her! She pitied him! How dare she pity him?

His temper exploding, he swiped his hand across the dressing table, sending perfume bottles and rouge pots and brushes flying. Raji abruptly stopped swinging to hang whimpering from the bedstead. Simon’s head felt like it would explode, so of course his grandfather’s voice came to torment him and egg him on. That’s it—show your wife who’s in charge. Be a man. She’s just a woman like any other. Except that she wasn’t.

“I have to get out of here,” Simon said as the stench of perfume threatened to choke him and the voice of his grandfather plagued him.

Jerking to his feet, he hastily changed his clothes, then plucked Raji from the bedstead. “Come, scamp. We’re going for a ride.” Someplace where nothing reminded him of Grandfather Monteith. Or her. He spent the rest of the day trying to accomplish that. He rode in Brompton Vale, blessedly empty at that early hour. It should not have made him think of her, since he had never been near there with her. Yet the sheltering oaks and yew hedges reminded him of the woods where he’d first kissed her after his return from India. And when Raji took a sudden leap into the boughs, he couldn’t help remembering how he’d tricked her into kissing him the second time…and letting him caress and suck her sweet, scented flesh—

Brompton Vale was not a good choice for forgetting her.

Unfortunately, it took him a good two hours to coax Raji down so he could head for his second choice: his solicitor, who had found Grandmother Monteith’s letters. Simon had intended to have them sent over, but he might as well fetch them himself. Nothing at the solicitor’s office could possibly remind him of Louisa.

Unfortunately, seeing his grandmother’s spidery script on the outside of the box stirred other painful memories. Of his grandfather bullying his wife, calling her a silly fool and ordering her about. The way Simon had tried to bully Louisa.

He gritted his teeth. That was not true; he had not bullied her. He had made perfectly reasonable demands. It was she who was unreasonable, she who could not see why he must act as he did. The solicitor’s office was clearly another bad choice for forgetting her. His third choice proved better. After dropping Raji and the letters off at Foxmoor House, he headed for White’s. Not only was it devoid of memories of Louisa, but it provided the perfect solution to his pain—

he could drink himself into oblivion.

Simon wasn’t much of a drinker. He didn’t like losing control of his senses. But some occasions called for burying one’s sorrows in a bottle, and this just happened to be one. Unfortunately, he had barely embarked upon his quest for oblivion at White’s when a familiar voice hailed him.

“Foxmoor?”

He glanced up. “Ah, Trusbut. Good evening.” He lifted a bottle. “Port?”

With a nod, Trusbut lowered himself carefully into a chair across from Simon, settling his cane between his spindly legs. “I didn’t see you in sessions, so I wasn’t certain if you had remembered our engagement.

”

Their engagement? Christ, he had forgotten all about it. “Did I miss anything interesting at Westminster?”

Simon asked as he filled a glass for Trusbut.

“Not in the session.” Trusbut leaned forward to take it. “But I did hear some interesting gossip. A friend in the Commons told me that Thomas Fielden received a note from your wife yesterday, saying that you and the London Ladies Society mean to support him in the by-election.”

Simon’s fingers tightened on his glass. Damn, he had forgotten that Louisa had already informed Fielden of their choice. For the by-election she would now have to abandon. But he could not tell Trusbut that. He owed it to Louisa not to reveal anything until she’d had her talk with Fielden and the London Ladies.

Trusbut sipped his port. “I must say I was pleased to hear it. There had been talk of the Society supporting Godwin, and that would have been very bad.”

With a nod, Simon took a gulp of his port. He did not want to have this conversation. But he also did not want to alienate Trusbut by dismissing him.

“Fielden’s a good man, very sensible,” Trusbut went on. “And very interested in reform.”

“So I gather,” Simon said noncommittally.

They were silent a moment. Then Trusbut cleared his throat. “Actually, the news of Fielden has emboldened me to broach a matter of some delicacy.”

The last thing Simon needed right now was to discuss matters of delicacy. But before he could put the man off, Trusbut said, “It concerns Liverpool. And his cabinet.”

Taken by surprise, Simon searched Trusbut’s face, but could read nothing in the older man’s rheumy eyes. “That is indeed a delicate subject.”

“Some of us…that is…you probably are aware of the explosive situation that has arisen in England in the past few years.”

“Yes.” More aware than he’d like, given the havoc it wreaked in his marriage.

“A number of us think it’s time for a change in government.”

Simon blinked. Had Sidmouth and Castlereagh already started marshaling their forces? “I quite agree,”

he said evasively.

“Not the prime minister, you understand. Liverpool has his faults, but he is not a bad leader. The people would support him if not for Sidmouth and Castlereagh. They’re who the masses blame for the recent troubles, and rightly so.”

Gulping a generous measure of port, Simon sat back in his chair. This was not what he had expected. “

So what exactly are you and your friends proposing?”

“We have spoken to Liverpool, discreetly, of course. And he seems to agree that those two ministers need to step down. He is even willing to let himself be guided by more moderate individuals in choosing new ones.”

“Is he?” Simon said, his mind awhirl. How had he missed this particular bit of masterful machination going on around him?

That was easy to answer: he’d been distracted by his wife and by the king and Sidmouth. They seemed to believe that Liverpool was entirely under siege by the Commons and the Lords, but the truth was apparently not so clear-cut. “What new ministers do you and your friends have in mind?”

“Robert Peel for Home Secretary, of course.” Trusbut tilted his glass toward Simon. “You and your wife should approve, given his support of prison reform.”

“Yes, Peel would be my own choice.”

“George Canning for Foreign Secretary,” Trusbut went on.

“Canning!” Simon exclaimed. “The king will not like that.”

“No, but we don’t mean to consult him. Liverpool intends to present this as a fait accompli. The king will have little choice but to accept it once he is shown the wisdom of it.”

“I see.” This new turn of events set Simon back on his heels.

“Canning is a brilliant statesman.”

“Indeed he is,” Simon admitted. Although Canning had once turned down the position as prime minister, he might accept a position as Foreign Secretary. The man was unfortunately against parliamentary reform, but perhaps he could be persuaded to change his stand. At least he supported other reforms. Trusbut surprised him by taking a large gulp of port. “And…er…we’ve been thinking that you might consider a position, as well.”

Simon’s heart hammered in his chest. “Oh?”

“Secretary of War. Given your experience in India, we thought you would be an asset in that area.”

Trusbut held him with a piercing gaze. “Since your aspiration is to one day become prime minister, that position would provide you an excellent start. For the day when Liverpool is willing to step down. Which, given the current turmoil in the country, we hope won’t be too soon.”

Simon wondered if Trusbut knew that Sidmouth and Castlereagh wanted to unseat Liverpool. Surely not, or he would never be talking about this to the man they wanted to put in Liverpool’s place. But perhaps they had known that this was in the wind. That was why they’d made their offer, to trump the others by putting Simon in their court. In exchange for his selling his soul and grinding his wife under his thumb.

He swallowed some port, dizzy from having his world shifted on its axis. Because if Trusbut and his companions were successful…“Can you really bring this change to pass? Gain the resignations of both Castlereagh and Sidmouth?”

“We can. Especially if you join us. When you first returned, we weren’t sure where your alliances lay, given your past friendship with the king. That day at my house you made it clear you opposed radical candidates, but I couldn’t tell if you supported the other extreme. Particularly in light of your connection to Monteith.”

“My grandfather?”

“He always championed Sidmouth in the early days.”