Bluestocking Bride (28 page)

"To
spite his mama?"
Norton asked in astonishment.
"That he would never do!
He dotes on her; leastways, he did till he got shackled to you."

Catherine burst out, "Don't tease me! Why did he choose
me?"

"He was ailing," Norton intoned solemnly.

"Sick," Lucy added mournfully.

"Struck down with a terrible, wasting disease."

"Love!" completed Lucy, with a sage nod of her head.

"Of course!" observed Norton, reaching up and squeezing Catherine's hands in his.

"Thank you," Catherine replied. "But how can I believe you? Where is this lovesick swain now? He's in town, with those very wenches who know how to ensnare a man."
          

Lucy and Norton looked thunderstruck.

"How can you even believe it, Catherine?" Norton burst out. "Who has been telling you such lies?"

Catherine shook her head miserably, wishing that she had never opened her mouth to unburden herself to her friends. "Just rumors, Charles. Things I've overhead in conversation. Women I've seen him with—at the theater, at the park—you've seen them, too."

"Catherine!" Norton drew his hand distractedly through his hair. "How can I explain it to you? If you were up to snuff, you would understand such things. There isn't a man alive who doesn't have such women in his past." He could see that she was far from convinced and went on purposefully, "I know for a fact that Richard has long since given up his, well . . . all that sort of thing." He waved his hand vaguely in the air.

Catherine looked toward the house and saw that her carriage was waiting with her groom, Simpson, to convey her home to Branley Park. She rose and assumed a carefree pose as she turned to take her leave.

"Thank you for putting up with my fit of the
sullens
. I expect, when Richard arrives in person, I shall pull out of them. You see, I miss him so." And she was surprised at how much she meant it.

They watched Catherine walk with head erect in the direction of the house, and when she was out of earshot, Lucy turned back to Norton.

"Every man, Charles?" she asked plaintively.

Norton did not even pretend not to understand her. He
glowered
her down. "Lucy, my pet, on that subject I will not be drawn."

"No?" she coaxed softly, as she fingered the lapels of his dark coat.

"No, my love, I will not!" And with masterful aplomb, Norton folded his arms tightly around his betrothed and kissed her soundly.

"Humbug!"

"Flummery!"

"What
twaddle!
"

Richard Fotherville, the sixth Marquis of Rutherston, paused, one hand on the doorknob of the Branley Park library, arrested by the exasperated accents of his beloved's voice on the other side of the door.

He was dressed in a many-caped driving coat, and his mud-spattered boots and dusty, disheveled appearance indicated that he had at that moment arrived from an arduous journey.

"Fustian!"

"What rubbish!"

"I don't believe it!"

The marquis raised his brows, highly diverted, and gently pushed open the door. He entered silently, throwing his coat over the nearest chair, and gazed in the late summer light at the love and bane of his life
who
at that moment was curled up in a deep armchair engrossed in a book. He approached in a few rapid strides, but the lady gave no sign that she was aware of his presence, and he heard the growl deep in her throat as she continued to read what evidently afforded her no pleasure at all.

He moved to obscure her light, casting a deep shadow across the page she was reading, but the effect that this produced was not the one that his lordship desired. Catherine shifted her position to catch a better light. The shadow moved with her, and Catherine looked up. Amber eyes widened and gazed into gray, and for an infinitesimal moment,
Rutherston
discerned a welcome in them, before his lady had the presence of mind to guard her expression.

"My dear," said Catherine's husband in a light and bantering tone, pulling the book from her unresisting fingers, "what in the world is giving you so much offense?" He glanced at the title and let out a laugh, which startled his bristling wife.
" 'Andromache'
? Oh God, no, Catherine! I absolutely forbid it!" and he tossed Euripides's offending play carelessly to the other side of the room.

The lady, a deep scowl marring the beauty of her face, attempted to scramble to her feet, but her lord pushed her back and leaned his two hands on either arm of the chair, effectively imprisoning her. She scowled up at him. "I thought you would approve, my lord," she began primly, her lips pursing in anger. "The insipid Andromache is a model of docility, and just the sort of woman that you idealize!"

"Really?" said his lordship with galling levity, at least to the lady's ears. "I hope you don't mean to emulate that pattern of passivity, Catherine, for an Andromache wouldn't suit me at all!"

She regarded him with uncertainty, conscious of something in his demeanor, a confidence or a boldness that had been absent in the last number of weeks. "Indeed? And when did you form that opinion, for it is not how you expressed yourself to me."

His lordship took his time in answering, for he had discovered at that moment that he was getting a crick in his neck, and without so much as a by your leave, he gathered his lady into his arms and sat down in
her
chair, holding her fast in his lap. Catherine decided that this was the outside of enough and made a gallant effort to remove herself from his clasp, but as his only response was to tighten his grip and laugh at her struggles, she gave up the attempt and remained stiffly in his arms.

"Quite settled, sweetheart?" the odious man asked, with disarming amiability. "No, really my love, did I say I wanted a docile wife? It seems to me that in the last number of weeks we have both talked a good deal of nonsense, wouldn't you say?" He was tracing the outline of her scowling brows with his fingers, and Catherine was hard put to concentrate on their conversation.

"You don't want a docile wife, my lord?"

"I want you, Catherine, and only you, as I have told you on numerous occasions. Why don't you believe me?" The heartless man now began to nuzzle her ladyship's ear, and when she would have pulled away, his hand moved to her neck to still her movements. She could bear it no longer.

"How dare you?" How dare you come from her to me with your artful lovemaking? You . . . you rake! You cad!
Kakiste
!
Echthiste
!!" she continued, breaking into Greek, which seemed to relieve the ferocity of her emotions.

"Catherine!" said his lordship sternly. "The only
thing
I have come from is a cold bed, and believe me, I am damned tired of that! Now who is this lady whom you seem to think I am enamored of?"

Catherine's eyes blazed anger at him. "You know who it is! Lady Pamela Symington!"

"Was, Catherine," he said emphatically, "
was
my mistress!"

"I don't believe you! Do you forget, sir, that with my own eyes I saw you dancing attendance on the divine Pamela at Covent Garden when you had only an hour before left my side, reluctantly, so you said, to attend the prince at Carlton House?"

The marquis kept his voice sweet and reasonable as he replied to his outraged wife. "And did I not see Henderson dancing attendance on you on the very same evening when you had intimated to
me
that nothing could drag you from the house?"

Catherine played her trump card. "I have incontrovertible proof of your knavery, sir! You cannot deny it!"

The marquis kept his calm countenance. "And what is this incontrovertible proof, pray?" He smiled in a knowing way and absently curled a wisp of his beloved's locks around one finger. "Won't you tell me, Catherine?" he coaxed. The lady shook her head sourly. "Then I shall tell you. Henderson came to see me last night and confessed all!"

"He confessed?" Catherine asked in a very small voice.

"Oh yes! I know that you discovered the diamond necklace in the secret drawer of my desk."

"Oh!" was all that Catherine could say as she sat frozen with chagrin on his lordship's lap.

"I don't blame you, love. How could I? It was crass stupidity on my part to leave it there for anyone to find. But what's done is done, and I see that I owe you an explanation."

Catherine rallied her anger which had been on the point of dissipation, for with his lordship's arms folded around
her,
she was finding it hard to remember the cause of all her spleen.

"You don't deny then that you gave that woman such a gift, and
after
you had wed me? And before you say anything in rebuttal, sir, let me tell you that I saw the necklace on her throat the night we went to Carlton House!"

"I had thought as much, my love. I've done a good deal of reflecting since Henderson came to see me." His lordship secured his clasp more firmly around his beloved's waist before clearing his throat to explain his indiscretion.

"I had hoped that you would never know the sordid details of my past, but I see that I must tell you the whole, for these half-truths have wreaked a terrible vengeance on our life together. You won't like what I am about to say, Catherine, and it will give you an even poorer opinion of my character than you hold at present." He regarded her with a troubled expression, and she shook her head and would have protested that for the most part she had formed an excellent opinion of his character, but Rutherston pushed on, determined that she should know the whole.

"When I first came here, when I met you right here in this very room, I had left in London my
two
mistresses." Catherine gave a gasp and Rutherston tightened his grip. "Even before I met you, Catherine, I had decided to give these ladies their conge, for I had promised my mother that I would marry in my thirtieth year. Did I tell you about that promise, my love? No, matter! It had no bearing on what happened between us. Catherine, will you believe me when I say that when I met you, I wished I had been the Hippolytus you dreamed about? But I could not, cannot turn the clock back!" He tried to read the expression in Catherine's eyes, but she was giving nothing away, and Rutherston went on resolutely.

"When I returned to town, before I paid my addresses to you, I sought out my mistresses to pension them off." Catherine turned her head away and Rutherston read disgust in her gesture.
"No, ma'am!
Do not avert your head from me! You wanted the truth, and you will have it all!" She turned to look at him, surprised at his harsh tone and wondering why he should be
more angry
than she.

"My dear, to cut a long story short, you saw my parting gift to one of these Cyprians. It was the phaeton and pair I drove when you saw us in Hyde Park. The other lady was not in town at that time. I had purchased the diamonds for her, but I had no way of getting them to her until after I was wed. You witnessed that scene also, Catherine, when you went with Henderson to Covent Garden. So you see," he said bitterly, "the Fates have been against me from the start."

At that moment there was a discreet knock at the door, but before it could open, Rutherston thundered, "Go away, damn you!" and the shuffling of footsteps could be heard receding.

Catherine was indignant. "It was only Mrs. Bates with my tea. You need not bring your arrogant manners down here with you, my lord, for I won't have it!"

"Have you forgotten Andromache so soon, my sweet?" purred Rutherston.

"I never said I would emulate Andromache, for you know perfectly well that I never could."

"Shall we say adieu forever to Hippolytus and Andromache both? I shall think myself well rid of them."

His beloved seemed not to hear, but was regarding him with frank curiosity.

"Two mistresses?" asked Catherine at last. "And did they know about each other, Richard?"

He had always been sensitive to Catherine's use of his first name, and he breathed more easily, aware that his position in her affections was still secure.

"I don't know! I don't care!"

"And could you not even be faithful to your mistress?"

His lordship groaned. "Catherine, this is not a fit subject between husband and wife."

"You began it, my lord," she retorted hotly.

"Only because I had no choice!"
He picked his words carefully before continuing. "I told
you
once that mistresses are paid to please. But I was beyond pleasing. It
was . . .
an empty ritual." He seemed to see a speck on Catherine's chin and rubbed at it with his thumb as if to remove it, but his eyes were watchful. He saw her pensive expression. "Catherine, will you not believe me when I tell you that I have never met a woman whom I love and admire more than you!"

"Yet you gave
her
diamonds," Catherine expostulated, "while to me you gave only pearls!"