The Bride Insists (19 page)

“Has she heard from her husband?” Martha asked, her eyes bright with curiosity.

Their hostess knew everything that occurred in her household. She would be aware that no letters had been delivered. “No. That's one reason why I—”

“If they're quarreling, she shouldn't give in. She must show him that she will not be tyrannized!”

The remark, and the militant glance that went with it, made Selina wonder about Martha's marriage. She'd never met the late Mr. Howland. Martha had been a widow for years.

“Take it from me, the lines of demarcation must be established early on. Before bad habits take root. What are they quarreling about, precisely?”

“I don't… they aren't, Martha.” It was a lie. She hated to lie. Selina wished she'd never begun this conversation.

“They don't care a fig for each other, you mean?” Martha had a habit of lobbing outrageous statements into a conversation, like wild throws at a cricket match, to see what sort of response she could provoke.

“No. That is not what I mean,” Selina said firmly. “Don't you think newly married couples should take ample time to get to know each other?”

“Well, if they're complete strangers…” Martha waited to see if the phrase elicited any further details. When they weren't forthcoming, she surged on. “I think the habits of a lifetime together are established in the first year of marriage. And Clare is doing just the thing to get the upper hand.” Her eyes narrowed, then she smiled like a gourmand at a lavish buffet table. “You should write Lord Trehearth and tell him how much his wife is admired here in town. Light a fire under that young man.”

To her own chagrin, Selina was tempted. It would be a gross interference, yet there could be no resolution if Clare and her husband didn't communicate. The longer the silence, the more portentous it became. Clare clearly was not happy with the current situation. If she could help resolve it… At this point, Selina was forced to acknowledge that Clare's happiness was not her sole consideration. She wanted to go back to Cornwall for her own reasons. A letter had come from Edward, declaring how much he missed her. He had not precisely complained about her absence, but he had wondered a trifle plaintively when she would return. She wanted it as much as he did.

“
I
would write Lord Trehearth,” Martha went on, “but we are not acquainted.”

“No!” Thoughts of what their hostess might say galvanized Selina. “That would not be a good idea. Please do not.”

“Of course, my dear.” Martha's smile made it clear that she understood Selina's reaction perfectly. “Only tell me if there is anything I can do. I'm quite clever about these matters, you know.”

Blessedly, more callers were announced, ending the exchange. Under the cover of light conversation, Selina's mind raced. But nothing like a plan emerged.

Upstairs, Clare adjusted her shawl in the mirror and once again appreciated the transformation Martha Howland's recommendations had made in her appearance. She could see why they called it “town polish.” She felt almost like a piece of silver that had been buffed to a marvelous sheen. The idea made her smile. Then she watched the smile fade from her reflected face.

She deserved a bit of frivolity after the years of scrimping and self-effacement, she thought. And when they were gadding about town or receiving callers, she was sometimes almost content. But as soon as she was alone, her thoughts turned to Jamie. What was he doing? Why had he sent no response to her note? She hadn't written either, of course. But she had nothing to apologize for! She hadn't promised him things she never intended to perform. Did he not even care that she was gone? She imagined walking back into the house she'd come to love as her own. What would he say? How would he look at her? Would he apologize or accuse?

It was worst at night, when she lay in bed and remembered the feel of his arms, his lips on hers. When they'd been together in the bedchamber at Trehearth, he'd spoken to her as if she meant everything to him. They'd been completely open to each other, with no possibility of deceit. Or, at least, so she'd believed. Apparently, she was a fool.

Jamie sat in his estate office late into the night, the brandy bottle at his elbow. His satisfaction in seeing new tenant cottages rising and repairs made on other buildings seemed to have lost its savor. Still, how could he simply abandon the work? He'd waited years—nearly all his life—to see it begin. So despite what he'd said to the twins, he lingered in Cornwall. His mood swung between sadness and anger, and only a good dose of brandy managed to drown both.

It was all Clare's fault. Her ridiculous flight was an insult and an embarrassment. She didn't care, apparently, that the twins missed her, that neighbors were asking where she was, that the vicar seemed positively pugnacious about the situation. What people thought when told she was in London he didn't know, because he always made sure the conversation ended there. Her responsibilities clearly meant nothing to her. He—her husband!—didn't even know where she was staying. It was an outrage. Savagely, Jamie refilled his glass. And if she thought such behavior would bring him back under her thumb, she was sadly mistaken. On the contrary, it was clear evidence that she needed his guidance. She must be taught how to behave!

On top of it all, his sisters were driving him mad. They went about with long faces, now and then intoning, like a dashed Greek chorus, that Clare would never come home. He regretted shouting at them. But what was a man to do, beset on all sides by infuriating females? He drank, and he welcomed the fog that thickened about his endlessly circling thoughts. One thing at least he could count on—the oblivion of the bottle.

It was after a night such as this, and the wretched morning that followed, that the letter from Andrew Tate arrived. Jamie squinted at the lines through a pounding headache and tried to decipher his friend's meaning. Andrew seemed to imagine that he was being tactful, but his hints and careful wording struck just the wrong note with Jamie. How dare his friend stick his nose into his affairs, he thought with furious humiliation, and why the devil had he taken so long to send word? Clare was rousing “a good deal of interest” among the
ton
? What the devil was he to make of that phrase? Who was interested? In what? His mind supplied several unwelcome answers, and the paper crackled as his fist closed around it. Did she think he would stand for this? Would she taunt him with the kind of behavior that fueled the gossip mill? This was it. He'd had enough.

Calling for a mug of ale to ease his pounding head, Jamie gave the order for his valise to be packed and his horse readied. The servants scurried to do his bidding. They'd learned in recent days that their master had a temper. For Jamie's part, now that he'd made his decision to leave, nothing could be done quickly enough, and every question about arrangements seemed idiotic.

The twins observed this flurry from the sidelines, careful to keep out of their brother's way. With Randolph seated between them, his head level with their shoulders, they watched Gwen rush by with a pile of freshly pressed shirts, and John carry up a pair of boots polished to a high sheen. “Do you think he'll get her back?” Tamsyn said quietly.

“He'll shout at her,” Tegan replied. “You know how he shouts.”

“She won't like that.”

“How could anybody?”

“Perhaps he won't. Perhaps they'll make it up. They're
married
.”

Tegan considered this. “Married people are supposed to be together,” she agreed finally.

“But they don't have to be here.”

Tamsyn's expression showed that she too was remembering all the times they'd been left at Trehearth while their brother stayed in London. “Reverend Carew said he was sure the ladies would be back very soon.”

“But he didn't really sound sure.”

“He sounded annoyed,” admitted Tamsyn.

“Which was odd.”

“He likes Mrs. Newton,” her sister informed her.

“I know but—”

“He
likes
her.”

“Oh. Does she…?”

“Yes, Tegan.”

“Oh.” She pondered this information. “That's good, isn't it? Mrs. Newton must want to come back.”

“She'll do what Clare says.” Tamsyn sounded distracted. Jamie was tossing terse orders over his shoulder as he went down to his waiting mount. None of his remarks were addressed to them. The sisters looked at each other, then away.

Jamie didn't notice two forlorn little figures standing in an upper window, watching him ride away. Or he didn't allow himself to notice. They'd done it before, so many times. He had no remedy for their mood, and what couldn't be remedied was better off blotted from consciousness.

Unlike his past journeys, Jamie could have afforded a post chaise, but he hated being driven, bouncing around in the close confines of a carriage like a dried pea in its pod. On horseback, there was no getting a wheel stuck in the spring mud and spending an hour hauling it out. They'd take a chaise on the way back. Next week.

He'd ridden this road so many times. As the familiar landscape passed by, it reminded him of the days when it seemed his only problem was money. He'd been desperate then, true, but that desperation appeared pure and simple compared to his current predicament. He spent hours in the saddle silently arguing with Clare, rehearsing what he would say to her. In his mind, she was first amazed and then quickly overborne by his telling points. Tearful and apologetic, she threw herself into his arms and begged for his forgiveness, which led to quite another kind of fantasy, and left him aching for the nights they'd spent together. How could she have welcomed him so sweetly then and be so obdurate now? It made no sense.

Jamie arrived at Andrew Tate's rooms tired from days on the road and liberally spattered with mud. He was cordially offered his old bed there, even though he'd come without warning. When Harry stopped by later that evening, and they cracked a convivial bottle, it was almost as if his marriage had never happened. The thought irritated Jamie no end. “You might have sent her home, I think.”

It was not the first time Andrew had heard this complaint, and he was losing patience with his old friend's morose intransigence. “Precisely how would we have done that, Jamie? When it was none of our affair?”

“We only met her at your wedding,” Harry chimed in. “Not as if we were well acquainted.”

“Well enough to be calling on her at this old biddy's where she's staying,” Jamie growled. He saw the exasperated look his friends exchanged and caught himself up. None of this was Harry's or Andrew's fault. They had at least known Clare's current address. And he'd been relieved to hear she was putting up at the house of a respectable older woman. “Never mind, I'll go and see her and end this farce.” He shoved his chair back from the table, now littered with selections from Andrew's excellent wine cellar.

“You're not going out like that?” his host said.

“Why not?” Jamie frowned at him.

“Want to put on evening dress,” said Harry, who wore an elegant ensemble himself.

“No I don't.”

“It's London, my dear fellow,” Andrew pointed out. “You can't go visiting in filthy riding breeches.” He didn't add that it was no proper time for a call, and still less that he knew Clare would already be at the Condons' ball. He'd had his head bitten off quite enough for one evening. Nor was he about to say that Martha Howland was far from an old biddy, and that Jamie was most likely diving headlong into trouble. Let him go to her house, and find no one home, and come back and cool off. Far better for him to see his wife when he was calmer. And soberer.

Jamie stalked out. Andrew and Harry listened for a moment, and realized with relief that he'd headed upstairs to change. “You still going to the Condons'?” Harry asked quietly.

“I don't know.” Andrew was conscious of a craven desire to stay home this evening and avoid all possibility of a scene.

“I have to.” Harry looked grumpy at the prospect. “Promised Lily a dance. She's still afraid no one will ask her to stand up.” The big guardsman shook his head. It was endearing, of course, that his little sister didn't notice the admiration she was attracting. But that didn't make it any easier to watch men whose habits he'd never before thought to deplore flocking around her.

“Of course you must go.”

“Shall I tell her Jamie's here?”

Andrew knew he wasn't referring to his sister. He looked up at his old friend and sighed. “I simply don't know, Harry. Can't say I like being in the middle this way.”

“I flat out hate it myself.”

Andrew nodded. “You must use your own judgment. I believe I'll stay home tonight.”

“Coward.”

“Nothing like it. I'll be here to hear how he feels and what he means to do when he can't find her.”

“Ah.” Harry gave him a mock salute.

***

In a crowded, overheated ballroom not too far away, Clare had just come face to face with her cousin Simon. It had never occurred to her that she might encounter the man who had shattered her family, who had callously let her mother die, in the midst of the London season. She'd not only had many other things on her mind, but she never thought of Simon if she could help it. Now she was paying for her own lapse.

As always when she saw her cousin, she was struck to the heart by his resemblance to her dead brother. Tall, with blond hair more golden than Clare's and the male Greenoughs' hawkish cast of countenance, Simon looked down at her with raised brows, his lips curved in a sneer. Her brother's features had been softened by a ready smile and a constant twinkle in his light blue eyes. Simon's gaze was invariably sardonic. His manner always hovered on the edge of mockery. Now, he looked her up and down as if she were a piece of defective merchandise that would need to go back to the shop. “Cousin.” He gave her a very small bow. “I heard you were in town. Without your new husband, too. So very… fashionable of you.”

Clare nearly choked on her dislike of the man and of the disdainful way he spoke to her. “Hello, Simon,” she managed.

One corner of his mouth quirked up. “Still holding a grudge, are we? But you won the last round so handily, my dear cousin, raking in Uncle Sebastian's money. Surely we're all even now?” His tone implied that she was petty and unreasonable. His gaze taunted.

He hoped to provoke her into an outburst, Clare realized. He wanted her to lose her temper in public and make a spectacle of herself. How her despicable cousin would love it if people began whispering about her. He would revel in spreading old stories even as he proclaimed his bewilderment at her enmity.

And who was he to talk of grudges? Clare had asked him once why he hated them so much. It had been a cry from the heart when her mother was dying. Her cousin had replied that he did no such thing, and when she pointed out that he was acting as if he hated them, he replied that she gave herself far too much credit. He didn't think about them enough to hate. She hadn't believed him. She remained convinced that some twist in their family history, some bitterness his parents had instilled in him, made him relish their suffering. But he would never tell her what it was. She wondered if he even knew the details.

Clare suspected that even if he could explain, it might seem like no great thing to her. Once, a school friend had confided the story of a childhood wound, from which she swore she would never recover. To Clare, the incident had sounded more like a mistake than an attack, but when she tried to explain this alternate perspective, she'd nearly lost the friendship. Simon's eternal grievance was probably made up of a whole sequence of such occurrences. It would never be assuaged. Quite the contrary, she was certain her rage and grief fed the vendetta and his malicious soul.

“Something wrong, cuz?” He smirked at her.

He was, rightly, taking her silence for upset. Not giving Simon what he wanted was far more important than venting her feelings.
Refuse
to
go
along, don't give him the satisfaction
, Clare thought. The idea of thwarting him helped cool her tone to iciness. “No, why should there be?” She thought, hoped, that he looked a bit disappointed.

“Are you enjoying being a baroness? Uncle Sebastian's money did buy you a title, if a rather moth-eaten one. Lovely gown by the way.”

It was like being hit by random shots, each trying a new angle and hoping to hit a vulnerable spot. Clare gritted her teeth. “Are you up in town for the season?” she responded. She prayed he would say it was just a flying visit.

“Oh yes. A bit later than I meant to arrive. I had a few things to take care of at the house.” He emphasized the final word, a wholly unnecessary reminder that her former home was now his. “Finally got around to demolishing that old wreck of a pavilion.”

The pavilion! It had been a favorite refuge of her childhood. Clare had loved curling up on the frayed cushions and reading through long, hot afternoons, shaded by the oaks and willows that leaned over the airy structure. From the spiteful glint in his eyes, she was sure Simon knew that. For a moment, she wanted to ask him again why he had to be so unpleasant, after all this time. But she knew he would simply raise those pale brows and wonder what she could possibly mean. She hadn't seen a crack in his smooth facade since he was eleven years old and had thrown a tantrum at being denied a ride on a spirited new horse in their stables. His father, her uncle, had responded with cold indifference to his upset, she remembered. No doubt that was part of what had made Simon such an odious person. But after what had happened with her mother, she didn't really care.

He was waiting for a response. The longer she was silent, the more certain he'd be that he had hurt her. “Pavilion?” said Clare. “I don't quite recall… Oh, you mean the place down by the stream?”

“The very one.” His sly smile said he wasn't fooled by her show of indifference.