Bluestocking Bride (20 page)

"I daresay," Catherine managed to reply, feeling that it was incumbent on her to say something.

"Thought myself he might offer for
Burland's
daughter—what's her name? Lady Harriet? She certainly set her cap at him, but he cried off. Would have been a good match too—good-looking gel, plenty of blue blood, and an heiress to boot. Never can predict what Richard will do, though!"

Catherine felt the heat of her fury almost choke her, and she was ready to burst into tears. Only her bruised pride kept her in check, and she rose in earnest now and took a hasty leave of the startled duchess.

On her return to Berkeley Square, she informed George curtly that she would not be at home to visitors that afternoon, no matter
who
, and hurrying to her room, she threw herself down on the bed and burst into tears of mortification. She had imagined that
Rutherston
had married her out of love, setting aside what must have seemed to him all the disadvantages of an inferior connection, but his sister's confidences now made her see his actions in a new light.

He had married out of duty, and he had chosen her to spite his family because of that foolish promise. They had expected him to offer for Lady Harriet, but it was just like him to do the unexpected. His family might force him to do his duty, but he would do it in such a way that he was still master in his own house.

"Odious, odious man," Catherine cried into her pillow. The thought that she might be pregnant only added to her fury and sense of injustice. She remembered the husky-voiced Isabel whom she had overheard in the cloakroom at Lady
Castlereagh's
ball—"His wife will be expected to breed every year— an unenviable fate," and she winced as if struck. She wanted to teach, her proud, aristocrat husband a lesson he would never forget, but no plan came to her mind, and she wept the harder in frustrated anger, muttering in Greek the vilest epithets she could remember, which sounded far more appropriate than the mild "odious."

It was shortly after the dinner hour when
Rutherston
came home that evening, excusing his tardiness by saying that he had met some acquaintances at White's and could not escape them without appearing boorish. He was in a hurry to change his clothes, for he said that he had to put in an appearance at some Court function at Carlton House, and Catherine, who pretended to be engrossed in a book, managed to speak to him with tolerable composure.

"What is it now, my love?" He glanced at the slim volume in her hands, an appreciative gleam in his eyes.
" '
Medea
'
? Believe me, Catherine, I would rather stay home with you and argue the merits of the vengeful
Medea
, but noblesse oblige demands that I attend this dull affair."

Catherine made no comment, and
Rutherston
, who was becoming used to his wife's look of preoccupation when she was reading, thought little of it and went off calling for his valet to help him. He returned half an hour later to find Catherine in the same pose as before.

"Do you stay at home tonight, Catherine, or do you go out with Lucy?"

Catherine willed herself to look at him, "I'm staying home, Richard. I have been dashing around town ever since we came back; one night at home won't hurt my reputation. I shall read for a while and go to bed early." Even Catherine could hear the brittle edge to her voice; and she was sure that it would not be lost on
Rutherston
.

He looked at her thoughtfully for a moment or two, then came to kneel beside her chair, and, removing the book from her hands, cupped her face in his long fingers.

"What is it, darling? Shall I make my excuses and stay home with you tonight?" The gentleness in his tone was almost more than she could bear. She longed to confide her unhappy thoughts to someone, but not to him—the cause of all her misery.

She tried feebly to pull his hands away, shaking her head, afraid her voice would betray her emotion.

"Let me go, Richard." She dropped her eyes, and found to her horror that her cheeks had become wet with tears. In a moment he had his arms around her and was drying her wet cheeks with his white linen handkerchief.

"I . . . I'm not myself tonight. I have a headache. It will pass."

"My dear girl!"
He gathered her in his arms and sat down in the chair cradling her.

"Tell me about it," he said at last.

"There's nothing to tell. Don't fuss over me, Richard. I don't like it." She tried desperately to pull away, but he held her fast.

"What is it, Catherine? No, don't push me away. Can't you tell me what troubles you?" He pulled her face round to look steadily into her tawny eyes, and it was as much as Catherine could do to conceal the anger that was bringing a faint flush to her cheeks.

Rutherston
saw the flush and misread its meaning. He stroked her hair. "I have a fair idea of what is troubling you, my love." The gentle tone held a suggestion of mockery, and Catherine bristled.

"Do you indeed, my lord?" she asked with icy hauteur.

"Oh, indeed, I do!" He was laughing openly at her now, and Catherine's ire boiled over.

"You insufferable . . . man," she pursed her lips, her eyes glinting dangerously.

"My dear, what is upsetting you so? You must have known I would know. I have been coming to your bed nigh on every night for six weeks now. How could I not know? What has happened is nothing extraordinary!"

She broke away from him at that, flouncing out of his grasp.

"Extraordinary!" she replied vehemently. "No, it is certainly not that. It is common—so common as to be laughable. Shall you post round to your mama and sister, my lord, to convey the marvelous, vulgar tidings to them?"

Rutherston
removed himself gracefully from the chair and came to stand beside her, his hands resting lightly on her shoulders.

"Catherine, forget my family. Forget everything but us. Is it not what you want?" He was watching her warily, intently.

"What I want! When have you cared for what I want? This is what you married me for, isn't it, so that you could have your heir." She felt his grip tighten on her shoulder^ .shaking her gently.

"Catherine!" His lips brushed her hair. "What foolishness is this? I owe it to my name, my house, to beget an heir. But surely you know it is more than that. I want the woman I love to bear the children of my body."

"Do you, my lord, do you indeed? Am I to breed every year, like my sister Mary, and think myself lucky to be so ill-used?"

He dropped his hands from her shoulders, a cold mask of indifference settling on his face.

"What are you saying, ma'am?"

Catherine hardly knew what she was saying. The disclosure of his promise to his mother and the memory of Isabel's silky voice in the cloakroom were robbing her of rational thought. She was goaded into saying things she did not mean.

"
I
 
won't
. . . I won't. . . ." She could not say it.

"Pray continue, ma'am. You won't?" His voice had become the affected drawl he customarily assumed when he felt it necessary to depress the pretensions of underlings, and Catherine's cheeks flamed redder still.

"I won't be like my sister Mary," she managed to say with some composure. She felt the tension between them unbearable and picked up her book for something to do.

"And I was not aware that Lady Mary found the matrimonial state so little to her liking." He had moved to a side table to pour himself a shot of brandy, and stood watching her closely as he sipped it.

"Her case is not the same as mine."

"Indeed? You must instruct me, Catherine, for I find I am unable to follow your reasoning." His drawl was grating on her ears, making her nerves raw.

"You know perfectly well what I mean," she snapped at him. "I have no intentions of breeding every year to gratify the pride of the great House of
Fotherville
." It was the closest she could come to telling him that she knew about his promise to his family, for she could not bear him to know how much she had been wounded by it. She saw his hand flick back as he drained his glass in one gulp. He replaced it carefully on the table and moved toward her with unhurried ease, and when she looked into his glittering, cold stare, she began to tremble.

"You will have to speak plainer than that, ma'am." He waited for her to reply, but Catherine looked at him helplessly, unable to go on. She hung her head in embarrassment, and
Rutherston's
eyes softened to see her confusion.

"Are you denying me my conjugal rights?" His voice sounded amused and disbelieving.

"Yes . . .
no . . .
I don't know." She could hear the petulance in her own voice, and she squirmed.

He reached out his hand and caressed her cheek. "Wouldn't you say,
Catherine, that
your logic is a trifle awry? What sense is there in forbidding me your bed now?" He possessed himself of her hands and drew her into the circle of his arms. She stood unresisting, her eyes cast down, unwilling to meet his gaze. "Catherine," he coaxed, his voice husky with sudden desire, "you are carrying our child. If you are afraid . . ."

"No! Not our child, but your heir! There is a difference, my lord." Her words made no sense to him, but the curl of her lip and the angry sparkle in her eyes jolted him. She was on the crest of a wave of anger and continued remorselessly. "There is nothing wrong with my logic, sir. Let me tell you that I am beginning the way I mean to go on—a maxim I learned from you. You shall have your heir, but nothing more from me. Is that plain enough speaking for you, or would you like me to go on?"

"Don't trouble, my dear," he bit back, goaded to a fury as great as her own. "A husband can always find consolation when he finds himself mated with an ungenerous wife."

She was stung into a retort. "Oh, a mistress, I know, does not have the burden of breeding every year!"

His voice was like ice. "You are misinformed, ma'am. Some do." And he left abruptly, shutting the door firmly behind him on a seething, tearful Catherine.

But she did not stay at home that night. Shortly after
Rutherston
left, a noisy happy party, including Lucy, Norton, Henderson, and her brother Tom, who had posted all the way from Breckenridge, was shown in to Catherine's drawing room.

"The little devil has finally put in an appearance, Kate! Mary's third boy was born last Tuesday morning," Tom cried exultantly.

"And how is our sister Mary?"

"Not so well this time, but Ma is with her, so you're not to worry. I was sent to bring the glad tidings, but I stay for only a day or two."

Tom's news troubled Catherine. Her sister, Lady Mary, was only one year older than she, and until her marriage to Viscount Haughton, had been her closest confidante. In four years of marriage, this was her third child. She remembered briefly Mary's happiness when she had seen her last in Breckenridge, and longed to be with her now. She questioned Tom closely, but his uncertain replies did nothing to satisfy her.

"Lady
Rutherston
?" She heard Henderson's voice address her and she brought her thoughts back to the present. "We are engaged to go to the theater tonight. If you care to join us, I would deem it a great honor."

His voice was warm and inviting, and as she looked into his eyes, Catherine saw the understanding reflected in them. It seemed to her that he had sensed her unhappiness and was reaching out to comfort her. When she thought of
Rutherston's
cold sneer as he had left her alone to her misery, her mind was made up. She did not want to be left alone with her unhappy thoughts, and with forced gaiety, she set out with her friends in Henderson's carriage to see the great Kemble in Shakespeare's "Macbeth."

Henderson's family was well connected, and although he had little money of his own, barring what he made as a portrait painter, he never seemed to want for anything. The box that they occupied that evening belonged to his aunt, Lady
Blakney
, but since she was rarely in town, Henderson had it for his own use.

Catherine found herself in the front row, seated between Tom and Henderson, Lucy and Norton sitting directly behind them. It was in the first interval, when she was left alone with Henderson while the others promenaded in the corridors or visited acquaintances in their boxes that she caught sight of
Rutherston
, and the smile on her lips froze. He had just entered the box opposite, in which a beautiful woman was holding court surrounded by a group of admiring gallants. As he looked across the theater idly, his glance came to rest on Catherine, and she saw the shock register on his handsome face. She bowed to him with a slight nod of her head and turned her attention back to Henderson, forcing herself not to look in
Rutherston's
direction again. She flicked open her fan with a flutter to half cover her face, and asked her escort the identity of the lady in the opposite box who was attracting so much masculine attention. She knew by his knowing expression that Henderson had seen everything that had passed between
Rutherston
and herself and had guessed the significance of their stiff little bows to each other.