The Unintended Bride (22 page)

No, she chided herself, don't think that way. Content yourself with what you have, not with some fairytale dream of a man who loves you. After all, his actions showed that he did not disdain her. He simply did not desire her. Their marriage would be one of friends. Free of physical passions.

She sighed. A marriage such as her sister Miranda had with the duke was rare indeed. She must accept what life had given her, or she would drive herself mad. She sank into the bath and allowed Ellen to wash her hair. At last, she felt free of the dirty patina one always acquired while traveling.

So this was Camelot? It was sheer heaven.

Three days of living in Camelot was wearing Hero's nerves raw. She continued to get lost daily. The housekeeper had reluctantly allowed her to go over menus — after Arthur's grandmother had given her tacit permission, and then she had changed everything back to "the old way," as she said when pressed.

Arthur had been nowhere to be seen. She knew that he had to attend to the business of running the estates, but there was certainly no need to retire each night well past midnight, without even a goodnight kiss for his wife. She could not interpret his actions in any other way than as a clear indication he thought of her as a friend rather than as a wife.

She glanced at him, sitting down the length of the table from her at this impromptu welcome dinner that his grandmother had arranged so that she might be introduced to the "dear" neighbors.

He was deep in conversation with the elderly gentleman sitting next to him. Apparently, he was oblivious to what his grandmother was saying. Hero wished she could be so unconcerned, as well.

"Who would dream that it is proper to sit two gentlemen together?" Grandmama asked the guests closest to her in shocked tones.

Hero felt almost as if she should raise her hand and confess. But the conversation was a general one, and she would not show her ignorance now. The harridan would only use it to tear her apart for the amusement of the other guests, who presumably knew that one did not seat two gentlemen together at a table.

There was time enough for showing her ignorance when it was unavoidable. She had no need to volunteer for humiliation at the hands of dear Grandmama.

"Only poor Hattie Gower," the guest on Grandmama's right answered with high amusement. "But to be fair, she was not born to the manor, and she did try to do her husband right."

Arthur's grandmother scorned such charitable excuses. "He was a fool to marry her. A man must have a wife who shows him to best advantage, not one who needs to be kept away from the good crystal."

Hero wanted to protest that she had not meant to drop her glass and shatter it; she had simply been very tired that first night. Although no one seemed to be looking her way an inordinate amount, she suspected that any guest could guess that the comments were directed to her.

She tensed as Grandmama sighed once again and said, "But who can impart wisdom to any young man whose head has been turned by infatuation?"

Infatuation. If only that were true. But that twist made the truth in Grandmama's words sting more.

Ignore her, Hero told herself. She is angry about the marriage now, but she will come around. Great-grandchildren would soften her . . . that thought was more upsetting than anything said at the table tonight. How could there be children when he would not touch her?

Hero turned her attention away from that painful thought, when a burst of laughter came from Grandmama's end of the table, where Arthur's grandmother reigned supreme. How dare she? Or, more to the point, what had she been thinking when she made out the guest list?

Gwen was at the dinner. Fenwell had come as well, which was astonishing to Hero. If Gwen had retired from London because she was embarrassed over the lost prospect of marriage to Arthur, why would she — or her father for that matter — accept a dinner invitation in which the unexpected couple would be present?

The girl herself didn't seem like such an awful person. She even blushed once or twice at some of Grandmama's more pointed comments. Once she even roused herself to defend Hero, in a way. "Not everyone can coax a rose to bloom, Mrs. Watterly. My own mother was known to have her gardens turn brown and dry up even in the wettest of springs."

Gwen's father replied sternly, "But she was excellent at running our home, Gwen. And she taught you well. You have no need to hide your light under a bushel."

"I am not, Papa. I simply meant — "

"Never mind, my dear. You were being kind. It is truly admirable for a woman to have a good heart and a kind word for those who may not be blessed with her gifts — or those who have given her cause for sorrow."

Hero sighed silently. Should she take part in this conversation? Should she stand up and announce that she knew she was not adequate to the task? Give up and go home? Arthur, at last, seemed to be aware of the undercurrents of the conversation. It had to have been the last comment that made him realize what his grandmother was doing.

To be fair, he had not escaped his grandmother's wrath any more than she had. As host, he had striven to be polite to both Gwen and her father, despite the fact that neither deigned to address him. Each time he spoke, it was if the room went suddenly still, and then a flurry of conversation would occur — not one remark in response to his statement.

Her own forays into the conversation had been treated more civilly, although not to say warmly. Before dinner, as they stood in the drawing room, she had asked Gwen if her trip home from London had been pleasant. She had been told that it was "tolerable." And nothing more — from a girl who had taken ten minutes to describe the trip from her estate for the dinner invitation to Grandmama.

She could only hope the evening would end early. With a sympathetic glance toward Arthur, she spooned up a bite of the strawberries and cream in front of her. But she tasted nothing.

She repressed a sigh, not wanting Grandmama to see that the evening was indeed wearing, as was intended.

"Are you ill?"

She looked up, startled, into the eyes of an elderly man whose name she had forgotten. "No, thank you, I am well enough."

"You have not eaten all your strawberries," he pointed out, his eyes upon her dish, still half full.

"I am not hungry," she admitted, wondering why he was questioning her eating habits. She glanced up to the end of the table. "I have had enough strawberries and cream." Had Grandmama set him there to spy upon her? She dismissed the foolish notion as soon as she had it.

"And you are not ill? Illness often makes one lose their appetite. I should know."

She placed his anxiety now; he was one of those who enjoyed talking about illness more than any other subject. No wonder she had been seated next to him. Grandmama was punishing her yet again for not being the right kind of wife for Arthur.

She tried to stop the train of the conversation by saying firmly, "No, I am certain I am not ill."

He did not seem to understand her reluctance to carry on with the topic. "Dyspepsia, you know, that is an illness. I know a great deal about dyspepsia."

"Do you?" She suppressed a sigh, knowing that a good hostess would indulge her guest up to a certain point.

"Yes." He bobbed his head. "Strawberries help." He looked down at his own dish and sighed audibly. "But, as you can see, I've eaten all mine."

Feeling as if she had been seated next to one of her younger sisters, Hero quickly switched her bowl with his empty one while Grandmama was making a request of the footman hovering near the table. "Here, you should have mine then as I will not be able to eat them."

"Thank you." He beamed. "You are too kind."

She wanted to cry at the comment, for it was the kindest she had heard all evening. Instinct told her to flee the room — plead a headache, or make some other excuse. No. She was a wife now. Her responsibility was to stay and make it clear she was the mistress here.

She knew the battle with Grandmama, even with all the skills she had learned watching her sister Miranda deal with the duke's sharp-tongued mother, would not be won in one evening. And it would never be won if she fled from every skirmish, no matter how nasty.

As they retired from the table, the men to a silent, frosty smoke, and the women to chat, Hero wondered to what further tortures she would be subjected.

To her surprise, Gwen spoke to her. "How are you finding Camelot, Hero?" she asked. Her smile held no sign she was speaking to a woman who had stolen away the man she loved.

"Magnificent," she answered truthfully.

"When she can find wherever it is she wants to go," Arthur's grandmother interjected dryly.

Gwen looked puzzled.

"I have a tendency to get lost sometimes when going from room to room," Hero confessed with a laugh, as if she thought nothing of the fact.

Gwen nodded. "Oh, yes, I have done that myself sometimes."

An expression of annoyance passed swiftly across Grandmama's features. "Nonsense, child, you practically grew up here. You know the place like the back of your hand."

With a face of angelic innocence, Gwen said evenly, "I have still gotten lost at times, Mrs. Watterly." She smiled, as if to soften the blow of her defection. "Camelot has all those lovely rooms within rooms. Whoever designed it could have done well making mazes."

Personally, Hero agreed completely, but she dared not say so aloud for fear of offending Arthur's grandmother. After all, her husband had built the house especially for her. Diplomatically, she said, "I am certain I will come to know where every room is, in time."

"Oh, yes, I am certain you will," Gwen agreed.

"How agreeable you are tonight, my dear." To Hero's surprise, Grandmama was not speaking to Hero but to Gwen. Her displeasure was palpable.

"Papa says it is a woman's place to be agreeable," Gwen said sweetly, but Hero could have sworn she saw a glint of rebellion in the pale blue eyes.

"Certainly not to everyone, I should hope. You'll be carried off by the first fortune hunter to come along."

"Papa need not worry about that." There was something in Gwen's expression that conveyed her conviction. "I will only marry a man who I am certain is as perfect as can be."

"No one is perfect."

Gwen blushed. "I did not mean perfect in that sense, Mrs. Watterly. I meant perfect for me."

Grandmama asked sharply, "And what would your perfect man be? I confess I am curious to see what a girl of twenty knows of such things." Hero was ashamed of her relief at having the attention taken from herself for a while.

Again, Gwen blushed, but she did not back away from the challenge. "He would be strong, and brave, and handsome."

Arthur's grandmother allowed a longer than polite pause, then raised an eyebrow and said dryly, "My dear, there are no men who are strong and brave and handsome."

"Arthur is all those things," Hero protested before she realized what she had said. She hastily sent an apologetic look to Gwen.

Gwen, however, not only did not show any distress at the conversation, she also agreed with her. "Yes. Arthur is an example of such a man."

"Indeed?" Grandmama looked from one to the other with no hint of irritation or annoyance, though undoubtedly she must be feeling a certain amount of both. "Unfortunately, he was not wise enough to avoid a hasty marriage."

Hero felt her face flame. "I apologize." She deserved the set-down for speaking out so unthinkingly. "I had not meant to imply that Arthur is perfect, of course. I'm truly sorry if I sounded as though I were." No doubt Gwen's sensibilities were still tender over her disappointment.

"As well you should be." Grandmama's supercilious attitude at last shredded Hero's patience. She said, barely holding on to her temper, "I merely meant to point out that if Arthur exists, then there must be many other men who also would meet Miss Delagrace's specifications."

Gwen's head bobbed in a ladylike nod Hero wished she could learn to emulate. "I agree." There was a gleam of surety in her eye that had not been there until this discussion. The way she spoke told Hero something she had not known before. She wondered if Arthur was aware that Gwen Delagrace was not suffering a broken heart because Arthur had married another.

No. The girl showed every sign of being in love. The question was, with whom? And why had she not told her father?

Fortunately, Arthur's grandmother seemed oblivious to the fact. Hero shuddered to think what the woman would do if she knew. She had not yet accepted the fact that Arthur was not ever to marry Gwen. How would she feel to know that Gwen was glad of the fact?

As if she realized that she had unwittingly let Hero in on her secret, Gwen blushed and said softly, "I am afraid I must retire."

"Nonsense, the night is still young," Arthur's grandmother argued.

"I'm afraid I'm developing a bit of a headache," Gwen said firmly.

Hero, to divert the older woman's attention, quickly said, "I've no headache, shall we play whist, then?" She glanced around at the other women and raised an eyebrow in question. There was an excited murmur of agreement, and Gwen managed to escape, with a grateful smile at Hero.

At first Hero considered herself a fool, but then as she and Grandmama engaged in a pitched game of whist, Hero tried to find the opening that would allow her to make an overture of friendship with Arthur's grandmother. After all, they would be living in the same household for many years if the woman's health remained as strong as it was currently.

Surely, she had learned something that would allow her to build a trust, an alliance with this woman who had raised Arthur since his parents died.

Hand after hand she probed for a spot of common ground upon which they could strike a tentative friendship. It helped somewhat that she concentrated so hard on winning Arthur's grandmother over, that she lost almost every match.

She had hopes of eventual success, by evening's end, when the older woman did not purse her lips after Hero took two hands in a row at the game.

She questioned her own optimism the next morning, when a maid arrived as she was dressing, to deliver a summons to Grandmama's study. As it said nothing of Arthur, Hero wondered whether she was being wise as she knocked quickly on the dressing room door to inform him. She could not help hoping that she would catch him in the state of casual morning undress that she had become accustomed to while they were traveling. There was something disarming about the man when his hair had not yet been properly brushed back, and his shirt collar hung unfastened around his neck.