The Marriage Act (15 page)

Caro let her cousin do most of the talking, not just because it kept her from having to invent too many details about Vienna, but also because she was genuinely interested in Anne’s life. Anne was obviously more than content with her husband and her children. She was glowingly happy.

She was telling Caro about her brother-in-law the squire—”He lives in Strelley Hall, on the other side of the church, and it’s
haunted
”—when footsteps announced a new arrival.

“Ah, here’s my husband now,” Anne said, her face lighting up.

Caro turned to the door, expecting a strapping young Adonis to appear. Surely only a paragon of all the manly virtues could leave Anne looking so pleased with life in the Strelley parsonage.

Mr. Edge wasn’t at all what Caro expected. He was pleasant enough in appearance—Caro liked his kind, genial face, and his love for Anne was evident in the adoring way he looked at her—but he was of only average height and build, and at least a decade older than she’d imagined him. Certainly he was older than John. There were crow’s-feet at the corners of his eyes, and even a touch of gray at his temples.

How strange. No one—not Anne, not Aunt Ella, not even disgruntled Sophia—had even thought to mention that Anne had married an older man. He was far from
ancient
, of course, but still...

Mr. Edge looked rather bemused to find his drawing room full of his wife’s family, more than half of whom he’d never met before. Though he joined them readily enough, he remained quiet through most of their conversation—at least, until John asked him about All Saints.

“The architectural style of your church is most interesting, Mr. Edge. Is it fourteenth century?”

“Much of it.” There was a note of pride in Mr. Edge’s voice. “The tower is even older. Twelfth century.”

“At that age, I suppose it must contain some interesting monuments.”

A spark of enthusiasm kindled in Mr. Edge’s kind gray eyes. “Indeed it does. The effigies of a knight and his lady are particularly fine examples of medieval armor and costuming.”

“And rather a touching sight too,” Anne added. “They’re holding hands.”

“Would you like to see them?” Mr. Edge asked John. “I’d be happy to show you the church interior.”

Caro had grown up touring country churches, dutifully taking pains to affect polite interest and to say
ooh
and
ah
at the expected times, and the experience had left her doubting John could have any great desire to view Mr. Edge’s quiet little sanctuary. But apparently her husband was a diplomat in more than name only, for he smiled with every appearance of pleasure and said, “I should like that very much, if the ladies would be good enough to excuse us.”

“As if I could hold Mr. Edge back when someone wishes to view his church!” Anne said, laughing. “Do go ahead, gentlemen, with my blessing.”

“Are you coming, Ronnie?” John asked.

“Yes, of course.” Ronnie jumped up, clearly gratified he’d been asked to join the older men.

They’d no sooner taken their leave than Anne turned to Caro with a look of approval. “Caro, where did you find him? What a prize!”

“Welford?” Caro said in confusion. “He was one of Papa’s protégés. You know my father—he’s never forgotten his old school ties, and likes to encourage promising young Wykehamists and Oxonians. They’ve known each other since Welford’s public school days.”

“Well, my dear, I applaud your father’s eye! Lord Welford is both handsome and amiable, and that’s a rare combination.”

“It’s not as if Papa picked him out for me,” Caro said, laughing. It was true enough—proposing marriage had been John’s idea. Still, she
had
always grouped him in much the same category as the many worthy, unexciting gentlemen her matchmaking friends and family had recommended as suitors her father might approve.

Not that Anne had ever tried to push such dull, plodding candidates on her. Anne had always been Caro’s confidante, the one girlhood companion who’d shared her love for dashing young gentlemen with naughty twinkles in their eyes. More than once they’d laughed together about self-righteous Mr. Ball’s determination to convert the natives of the Amazon, and stodgy Mr. Thayer’s disapproval of young ladies who allowed themselves to be driven about in open carriages. So how had Anne ended up married to a soft-spoken clergyman, and heaping praise on Welford? More than that, how did she seem so
happy?

It was a mystery, one Caro pondered all the way back to Stanling Priory.

* * *

“Really, Papa, should you be eating such a hearty meal?” Caro asked during dinner that night, eyeing her father’s plate with a worried frown.

“Why ever not?”

“Well...your heart. Shouldn’t you be eating something easier to digest? Some broth or some milk toast, perhaps?”

“Caro, my love, I trust Welford didn’t bring you all this way so you could talk about my digestion.”

“And at the dinner table, no less,” her uncle said with a wink.

Caro turned to him in appeal. “Uncle Geoffrey, what do you think? It’s no use trying to make Papa worry on his own account, but your letter made matters sound most serious. Did you speak to his doctor at all?”

“You must leave me out of this, Caro, my dear,” her uncle said. “A doctor’s counsel is a man’s private business. Besides, I’ve never had the least bit of control over your father, for all that he’s my younger brother.”

“But your letter frightened me half out of my wits.”

“Forgive me if I alarmed you. I knew you would want to see your father, but at the time I wrote that letter, I wasn’t sure when or even if it would reach you. I’d heard you were back in England, but I wasn’t sure whether you were in London or in the country.”

“How did you hear I was back in England?” Caro asked, and then wondered if she should have said
we
were back
.

“It was in your father’s
Gazette
. ‘Lord Welford, late First Attaché to His Majesty’s Embassy at Vienna, has returned to England after an absence of five years.’ But it didn’t say whether Lord Welford had returned to his country seat or to his house in North Audley Street.”

Her father laughed. “Yes, a most unsatisfactory notice. It didn’t mention you at all, Caro.”

Caro smiled and schooled herself not to throw a guilty glance in John’s direction. “We were in Town,” she said, since she had a vague memory of telling her father they’d begun their journey in London. Recalling that she’d received her uncle’s letter at Halewick, she had to add, “Welford’s steward sent Uncle Geoffrey’s letter on to us.”

“And were you planning to remain in London until the start of the Season?” her aunt asked.

“We hadn’t quite decided yet—though Halewick is certainly lovely enough.”

“I confess I’ve always thought of Halewick as home, and the town house as merely temporary lodgings,” John said.

Caro was surprised at the wistful note in his voice. If John thought of Halewick as home, then why hadn’t he come there upon his return to England? Did her banishment
to
Halewick amount to a banishment
from
the house for John? “It’s certainly a beautiful old house. It would be a fine place to raise a child, when we’re fortunate enough to welcome a baby of our own.”

Now why had she said
when
, not
if
? John’s brows came together in a thoughtful look, and she could almost see the wheels turning in his head. He was wondering about the hunting box, and the encounter they’d had there. He gave her a small, private, rather uncertain smile, and she smiled back.

Of course John must know as well as she did that it was too soon to tell whether she was already increasing, but what if she was? It felt strange and a little exhilarating to realize it could be possible.

Sophia glanced at John. “It’s odd how some couples have more children than they can handle, and others have no children at all, isn’t it?”

“Not so very odd,” her mother said. “In any case, it’s not the kind of thing an unmarried girl ought to remark upon.”

“Caro brought it up.”

“Caro is married.”

Sophia darted a resentful look in Caro’s direction, and Caro had the disquieting feeling that it was going to be very difficult indeed to remain in her cousin’s good graces.

Chapter Fourteen

Actions are visible
,
though motives are secret
.

—Samuel Johnson

That night, in the bedroom she shared with John, Caro paused with her hand on the bellpull. “Shall I ring for Sophia’s abigail?”

John shrugged. “I don’t mind helping you undress, if my assistance will do.”

“I would appreciate it.” She wasn’t sure why she didn’t mind his helping her now when four nights before she’d considered sleeping in her gown rather than disrobe with him in the same room, but then again, what was the point in affecting modesty after what they’d done in the hunting box? She went to stand in front of him so he could unfasten her buttons and unlace her stays.

As soon as he finished, he politely turned his back.

“Oh, for heaven’s sake, you might as well look,” Caro said, realizing how ridiculous the arrangement was. “I doubt the sight of me in my chemise is really going to inflame your passions.”

He turned to face her again, unbuttoning his waistcoat. “I’ll strive mightily to control myself if it does.” The remark was his usual brand of sarcasm, but he’d no sooner said it than he looked suddenly self-conscious. “Caro, what you said tonight, about having a baby...”

“Yes?”

“What if it turns out you’re increasing? It’s possible, you know. That night in the hunting box, when I—”

“Yes, I understand how it works.”

“Would you be sorry?”

She’d never seen him wear a look of such anxious concern before—no, that wasn’t true. On the morning he proposed, as he’d waited for her answer he’d searched her face with the same keen air of expectancy.

“Sorry? Of course not. What a question.” Then she realized perhaps it meant he would be, however indulgent he’d been with Anne’s twins. “What about you?”

He shook his head with every appearance of certainty. “I’d like to be a father.”

“Oh. Good.”

“But it would complicate matters.” One side of his mouth twisted in a wry curve. “Boy or girl, I’d want to be involved in my child’s life.”

She tensed. “I suppose now you’re going to remind me that the children of a marriage are the legal property of the husband, and that you could take my child from me if I should displease you in some fashion.”

His jaw went slack with shock. “God, no. What do you take me for? Children need a mother, and the child would be yours every bit as much as mine.”

Instantly she regretted having accused him with no justification. It was just that she was so used to his doing his utmost to punish her...But she should never have spoken out of fear and insecurity, especially when he’d been on his best behavior all day. “Then what did you mean, ‘it would complicate matters’?”

“Only that I have no intention of being an absentee father. If you were to have a child, I’d be at Halewick a good deal more than I have been, not merely between diplomatic postings but also during trips home. You’d have to get used to seeing more of me.” He stripped off his trousers.

“Halewick is your house.”

“Yes, but you’ve had it to yourself for five years now. Perhaps you’d feel crowded if I were there. And we’d be expected to spend at least some time in each other’s company, for example if we were to entertain guests. We couldn’t keep our distance from each other in quite the same way.”

Only a few days before, she’d believed maintaining a healthy distance was best for both of them. Now she wasn’t so sure.

They were both silent as they got into bed, Caro keeping carefully to her half. She lay on her side, facing John so there was no question of their spooning together, but he sat up, his back against the headboard.

He looked over at her. “You would want separate bedrooms, I assume?” Dark eyes searched her face.

“Wouldn’t you?”

He hesitated. “It’s probably a moot point. The odds are there’s no baby on the way. It was only the one time.”

“That’s true. Though the odds would go up if it were to happen again.”

“Well, yes.” He reflected a moment. “Do you think that’s likely?”

“Not tonight,” she said with an uneasy laugh, in case she was giving him the wrong idea.

“I didn’t mean
tonight
.”

She sighed. “I don’t know, Welford. Do I have to decide that now?”

He reached over and snuffed out the candle between his fingers. “No.”

“Good. Because I just want to sleep.”

In the darkness, she could sense him still sitting up, thinking.

“Don’t women become more sleepy when they’re increasing?” he asked.

Sighing, she turned over onto her other side, facing away from him. “They also become more sleepy when their husbands keep them awake at night. I promise you, if I discover I’m going to have a baby, you’ll be the first person I tell.”

“I’m glad to hear it, because I would want to know.”

It stung that he imagined she would keep such a thing from him, as if she were some evil harpy determined to deprive him of good news. “Well, naturally.”

But he was still sitting up when she drifted off to sleep, still evidently lost in thought, as if the possibility of fatherhood was working on his nerves like strong coffee.

* * *

When Caro awoke the next morning, she was alone in bed.

She rang the bell, and Sophia’s abigail arrived to help her dress. Caro chose one of her favorite gowns, a rose-colored walking dress trimmed in black braid—not the pink pelisse John remembered from the first time he’d seen her, but reminiscent of it. Caro told herself her choice had nothing to do with the story John had told on their first night at the Priory, though she had the faintly unsettling sense it did. Something about the glowing way he’d spoken of seeing her for the first time made her want to live up to the picture he’d painted.

When she went down to breakfast, she discovered her aunt and uncle, but no sign of John, Ronnie or her father.

“I’m afraid I slept later than usual,” she said as she went to the sideboard. “Where is everyone?”

“Your papa is working on church business in the library, where he can rest on the sofa if it’s too taxing,” Aunt Ella said. “Young Mr. Welford wanted to see the village, so Sophia offered to show him the sights, and Lord Welford went with them.”

“To make sure they stay out of trouble?”

“I suspect so.”

Her uncle looked up from his newspaper. “Er...Mr. Welford isn’t likely to get into trouble, is he?”

“No, not really.”

He lowered his paper. “‘Not really’?”

She sighed and took a seat at the table. “He’s a sweet boy, without a vicious bone in his body, but he sometimes drinks more than he should.” She was about to add
It’s Welford’s fault
,
for keeping him on such a tight leash
, but then she remembered she was supposed to be firmly in John’s corner.

Besides, she wasn’t as sure as she’d once been that living under John’s strict guardianship really was the cause of Ronnie’s drinking. It was one thing for Ronnie to kick over the traces when John was keeping him confined at Halewick, forcing him to pass his days studying with an exacting tutor. But that didn’t explain the drinking Ronnie had done at the hunting box—or the failure to apply himself that had led to his being sent down from Oxford in the first place.

“What does he mean to do in the future?” her uncle asked. “Is he interested in the Church, the military, the government...?”

“To be honest, I’m not sure. He still has to pass his responsions when he goes back to Oxford, but I’ve never talked with him about what he means to do after he takes his degree.” There’d been little point in discussing Ronnie’s ambitions when John held all the control. For that matter, she’d avoided mentioning John to Ronnie any more than necessary when they were at Halewick together, for fear the conversation might degenerate into a litany of her complaints.

“Has Lord Welford?”

Caro thought a moment. “I don’t know. I imagine so, but we were in Vienna...”

Did
John know what Ronnie wished to do with his future? John had said he wanted Ronnie to make something of himself, but was Ronnie rebelling against John’s wishes, or simply being irresponsible?

She would ask John about it. Surely one part of playing the role of a good wife was being a good sister-in-law.

In the meantime, she worried about John spending the morning with her cousin. What if Sophia let on that she knew their marriage wasn’t as happy as they were pretending? If John discovered the cat was already halfway out of the bag, he might decide to confess everything, and then—

Caro shuddered. As worried as she was about the shock to her father, that wasn’t her only fear. Here at Stanling Priory with her protective, outspoken uncle and his family, she realized how humiliating—how
mortifying
—it would be if they discovered she’d ruined her marriage from the very first night, and that she’d been making up stories of her stay in Vienna ever since. Telling a fib or two was one thing, but creating an elaborate network of lies about every detail of her daily life, and then spinning those lies for
five years
?

And that wasn’t all she’d done. No, she’d also come here and insisted on acting the part of a contented wife when she and John had been living apart. She’d had the gall to deceive her family under their very noses.

They would all despise her.

* * *

Barrow’s was one of the larger shops in Kegworth and one which catered to a genteel clientele, selling everything from silks and muslins to fans, scents, jewelry and even ormolu and porcelain knickknacks. Though Miss Fleetwood had promised to show Ronnie the village sights, she chose to visit this highly feminine establishment first. She’d been wandering back and forth through the shop, perusing the merchandise at great length while Ronnie and John looked on. John found it dull going, though Ronnie seemed content enough to gawk at Miss Fleetwood.

“Look,” she said, showing them a glazed pottery cat reclining on a green pottery pillow. She held it up to her face, so that she and the cat were cheek to cheek. “Isn’t it the most darling thing you’ve ever seen? I adore it!”

“Completely darling,” Ronnie said without a trace of irony.

John shot him a doubtful look.

“If this were a real cat, I would call him Mr. Whiskers,” Miss Fleetwood rhapsodized, the green feathers in her bonnet bobbing. “I would put his pillow beside my bed and I would never make him sleep in the kitchens.”

“I’ve never seen the sense of keeping a cat and then banishing it to the kitchens,” Ronnie agreed. “Might as well not keep one at all, no?”

“Exactly!” Miss Fleetwood smiled at him, her dark curls framing her dimpled face beneath her bonnet.

“They do keep down the mice,” John said, and then was glad Caro wasn’t there to hear him. Could there be anything more stuffy and tiresome than injecting practicality into such a conversation?

Miss Fleetwood set the pottery cat back on its shelf and breezed ahead to the next piece of darling merchandise that she adored. First it was a satin sachet, then a small birdcage painted blue and red.

“Jupiter,” Ronnie whispered to John. “She’s awfully pretty, don’t you think?”

“She’s quite pretty.” She was also very young, so much so that she was making him feel a hundred years old.

At the counter, three corked bottles of scent were arranged on a silver tray. A small placard beside the display read Customers Are Invited To Sample Our Fine Perfumes. Miss Fleetwood uncorked one of the bottles, unbuttoned the glove on her left hand and applied the scent to her bare wrist. She did the same on her right with a second bottle.

“Which do you prefer, Lord Welford?” She waved first one bared wrist and then the other past his face.

“They’re both pleasant enough.”

“Yes, but which is better? This one...” She repeated the procedure, holding each wrist to his nose for a longer interval. “Or this one?”

“May I have a whiff?” Ronnie said.

She turned to Ronnie with a faint trace of impatience. “This one, or this one?” she asked with considerably less ceremony.

“I like the second one,” he said.

“The oil of verbena?” She glanced at John. “What do you think, Lord Welford? Do you agree?”

“I think they’re both charming. Perhaps you’d do better to seek a lady’s opinion. Why don’t you ask my wife about them when we return?”

Miss Fleetwood stuck out her lower lip in a faint pout but moved on to the next item to catch her fancy. This time it was a topaz cross on a slender gold chain, resting on a velvet easel behind the counter. She pointed at it. “May I have a closer look at that?” she asked the bored-looking youth who was minding the shop.

“Of course, miss.” He handed the necklace to her.

She studied it a moment, lifting it to the light that streamed through the shop windows. Then she held it out to John. “Would you help me try it on?” Without waiting for his answer, she presented her back to him, sweeping the ringlets clustered at the back of her head away from her neck with one hand.

It was becoming clearer by the second that she was angling for his attention. He wasn’t sure what she was about, unless perhaps she was trying to spark Ronnie’s interest by playing hard to get. John doubted she was really flirting with him. As flattering as that might be, if he was too old for Caro, he was definitely too old for her cousin. More important, he was married.

He was about to slip the chain about Miss Fleetwood’s neck when he reconsidered and handed the necklace to Ronnie. If she was trying to strike up a flirtation with his brother, John would prefer that she cut out the middleman, and if her wiles were aimed at him, the less encouragement she received, the better. “Why don’t you do the honors, Ronnie?”

Ronnie stepped up eagerly to fasten the gold chain about Miss Fleetwood’s slender neck.

“I’ve always thought it strange that we should wear crosses,” she mused, tilting her head to one side and then the other as she admired her reflection in the small mirror above the counter. “If I were Jesus, the last thing I should ever wish to see is another cross. Too many unpleasant memories.”

“That’s a novel way of looking at it,” John said.

“What we should really wear is a little loaf of bread or a cup of wine, or perhaps a leper. Something Jesus
liked
.”