Ravishing the Heiress (12 page)

“Yes, they have.”

“I’m sure you’ve been to see Mrs. Englewood again. What does she think of the six-month wait? I dare say she hates being made to wait.”

“You are my wife, Millie, and you step aside for no one. Mrs. Englewood understands this.”

Something in his tone made her heart skip two beats. She looked away. “I will gladly step aside for her.”

He rose from the opposite seat and sat down next to her. As spouses, it was perfectly proper for them to share a carriage seat. But when they were alone in a conveyance, he always took the backward-facing seat, an acknowledgment that he was not truly her husband.

He draped an arm over her shoulder. His nearness, which she had never become accustomed to, was now almost impossible to endure. She wanted to throw open the door of the carriage and leap out. Her agreeing to honor their pact did not give him the right to touch her before it was time.

“Don’t look so put out, Millie. Something wonderful might come of this: We can have a child.” His other hand settled on her arm, the warmth of his palm branding her across the thin fabric of her sleeve. “I’ve never asked you, would you like a boy or a girl?”

“I don’t know.”

“You’d make a wonderful mother, kind but firm, attentive but not smothering. Any child of yours would be a fortunate child indeed.”

There had been a part of her, however small, however circumspect, that had always hoped perhaps when they at last consummated their marriage, their lovemaking would be the final alchemical ingredient to give wings to their friendship. But now it would serve only a biological function. Their friendship would remain earthbound—never to take flight.

The carriage came to a stop before the Fitzhugh town house. She pushed him away and leaped out.

Alice

1888

T
he death of Fitz’s brother-in-law, Mr. Townsend, turned out to be quite a messy business.

Millie had met him only twice, at her engagement dinner and at the wedding breakfast. Both times her insides had been in turmoil and she’d gleaned only the most superficial impressions of the handsome, proud man.

It was a shock to learn of his death, but a greater one to find out the manner of it: He’d killed himself with an overdose of chloral. Even worse, unbeknownst to his wife, he had become bankrupt. It had necessitated the sale of his entire estate, along with the liquidation of a plot of land Mrs. Townsend had inherited from her parents, to appease his creditors.

Millie had believed that beauty like her sister-in-law’s must act as a powerful talisman, protecting one so blessed against storms and monsters, so that she sailed smoothly
through life upon the twin currents of love and laughter. But it was not true. Misfortune hesitated for no one, not even a woman as lovely as Aphrodite herself.

As Mrs. Townsend drifted through the aftermath of her husband’s death, staggered and dazed, Millie, alongside Miss Fitzhugh, did her best to be useful. They made sure Mrs. Townsend ate enough, took her for drives so she wasn’t always sitting in a sunless parlor, and sometimes, sat in that sunless parlor with her, Miss Fitzhugh holding her sister’s hand, Millie in a nearby chair, finishing frames upon frames of embroidery.

Throughout the ordeal, Lord Fitzhugh was a rock. Gone was the disconsolate drunk. Daily he was at his sister’s side as they settled Mr. Townsend’s affairs, the epitome of consideration and sense—and forcefulness, when needed. An inquest had very nearly taken place, which would have turned a private death into a public spectacle. His uncompromising stance before a police inspector made the difference; in the end the police accepted the explanation that Mr. Townsend must have suffered from an unexpected hemorrhaging of the brain.

They stayed in London for six weeks before matters relating to Mr. Townsend’s estate were resolved. It was a largely somber time, but there were moments Millie treasured. Miss Fitzhugh imitating Lord Hastings and making her sister laugh, however briefly. Lord Fitzhugh and Mrs. Townsend sitting together, his arm around her, her head on his shoulder. Mrs. Townsend taking hold of Millie’s hand one day and telling her, “You are a wonderful girl, my dear.”

The day before they left London, the women took tea together. Miss Fitzhugh was to begin her classes at Lady
Margaret Hall. Mrs. Townsend, after accompanying her sister to the women’s college at Oxford, would go to Hampton House, their childhood home in the same shire, which Lord Fitzhugh had put at her disposal.

“Are you sure you wouldn’t wish to come to Henley Park with us, Mrs. Townsend?” Millie asked one last time. She and Lord Fitzhugh had been trying to persuade Mrs. Townsend to stay with them at the estate he’d inherited alongside his title—to no avail.

“I have troubled you and Fitz enough,” said Mrs. Townsend. “But thank you, Millie—may I call you Millie?”

“Yes, of course.” Millie was aflutter that Mrs. Townsend wished to use the more familiar address of her given name.

“You will call me Venetia, won’t you?”

“And call me Helena,” said Miss Fitzhugh. “We are sisters now.”

Millie looked down at her hands to compose herself. She’d been brought up not to expect such intimacy from her in-laws, who were sure to sniff at being related to the Sardine Heiress. But Mrs. Townsend and Miss Fitzhugh—Venetia and Helena—had been helpful and accepting from the very beginning.

“I’ve…never had sisters,” she said, afraid she sounded too gauche. “Or any siblings.”

“Ha, lucky you. This means you never had anyone tell you that you were actually found in a bassinet under an apple tree when your parents went for a walk in the country.” Helena raised an eyebrow at Venetia. “Or that if you ate black-colored food, you’d have black hair like everyone else.”

Venetia shook her head. “No, that was Fitz. He wanted you to eat the blackberries so he’d have more raspberries to
himself. It never occurred to any of us that you’d try squid ink.”

Millie listened with a sense of wonder at the oddity and camaraderie of children growing up in the same household. The warmth of that conversation still lingered as she and Lord Fitzhugh traveled in her parents’ private rail coach to Henley Park.

This time it was he who read—Edward Gibbon’s
The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
, Volume IV—and she who stared out of the window. Most of the time. The rest of the time she studied him surrepti-tiously.

He had not regained all the weight he’d lost during his three weeks of strenuous inebriation—his clothes still hung slightly loose, his eyes were set deeper, and his cheekbones more prominent. But he no longer looked unwell, only lean and grave. His hair, cut short, lent a further austerity to his aspect, a solemnity beyond his years.

He set down his book, dug his hand into his pocket, and pulled out a—

“Is that a dormouse?”

He nodded. “This is Alice.”

Alice was tiny, with lovely golden brown fur and curious black eyes. He gave her a piece of hazelnut, which she nibbled with great enthusiasm.

“She’s getting chubby,” he said. “Probably will start hibernating within the week.”

“Is she yours? I haven’t seen her before.”

“I’ve had her for three years. Hastings has been taking care of her recently. I just got her back.”

Millie was enchanted. “Did you find her yourself?”

“No, she was a present from Miss Pelham.”

Isabelle Pelham. Millie’s smile froze. Fortunately he was not looking at her, his attention wholly occupied by Alice.

No wonder he had not brought Alice on their honeymoon
.

“She looks darling,” Millie managed.

He stroked the fur atop Alice’s head. “She’s perfect.”

He did not offer Alice for Millie to hold. And she did not ask.

I
t was not easy, remaining sober.

Some nights, when he could not sleep, when he missed Isabelle so much he could scarcely breathe, Fitz thought of things that might help him: whisky, laudanum, morphia. He thought especially hard of morphia, of the lovely torpor it would bring, the long forgetfulness.

The house had such things—he’d seen them when he’d first inspected Henley Park. So he left the house, to walk and run—mostly run—until he was overcome with exhaustion.

He also, once he put his mind to it, realized that there was an easier way of alleviating his loneliness: naked women. He took up with one of his new neighbors, a widow five or six years older than him, who was more than glad to have him service her repeatedly.

Alice began her hibernation. He kept her in a padded, ventilated box and checked on her twice a day. Everything had changed. Alice remained the one familiar touchstone, a link to life as he’d known it.

Two weeks after they arrived at Henley Park, his wife sent him a message, wishing to see him in the library.
Except at dinner each night, he hardly saw her at all, though he knew she kept herself busy during the day, as he did, with matters concerning the house and the estate.

The library, dour and smelly, was in the north wing, the worst part of the house. She was examining books for damage. He was surprised to see her in a day dress of russet silk. Since Mr. Townsend’s death, she’d worn mourning colors, a silent, somber ghost at the periphery of his awareness. But today the vibrant, autumnal hue of her dress made her the brightest object in the room.

“Good morning,” he said.

She turned around. “Good morning.”

For a moment he was struck by how young she looked without a dark, drab garment to age her. Had he passed her on the street, he might have thought her fifteen.

Had the Graves lied about her age? “Excuse me, but how old are you again?”

“Seventeen.”

“
Seventeen
? Since when?”

She lowered her gaze, as if embarrassed. “Since today.”

Now he was equally embarrassed. He’d had no idea. “Happy birthday.”

“Thank you.”

An awkward silence fell. He cleared his throat. “I don’t have a present for you. Is there anything you’d like—and can be found in the village?”

She waved a dismissive hand. “A birthday is just another day. I think it’s terribly silly that people make such a to-do about it. Besides, your sisters have already sent books and a pretty box of new handkerchiefs.”

“If Venetia, with all her troubles, can remember, then I have no excuse—except that I didn’t know the date at all.”

“Please don’t worry about it—there’s always next year. Now, would you mind looking at some of the rooms with me?”

He’d already seen all the rooms, but since it was her birthday…“Lead the way,” he said.

She’d obviously examined each room multiple times, and had taken copious notes of all the damages. It was a guided tour of the north wing’s failings. As they walked on, she reported an ever rising estimate of how much it would cost to repair everything.

They were only on the third room of the next floor when he said, “We should dynamite this entire house.”

“That would be rather an extreme course of action,” said his wife. “But I would have no objection to getting rid of this wing.”

He stopped cold. “What did you say?”

“According to the ledgers and the plans, this wing was an addition undertaken at the beginning of the century—the original house’s wall, if I’m not mistaken, would have been right there. From what I can tell, there was no particular reason for the addition, except that the then-earl was jealous of his cousin’s newer, better house and wished to compete.”

And the family had been in debt ever since.

“I know you were jesting when you said to dynamite the house, but I’d like to submit for your sober consideration the idea of not renovating the north wing. It was poorly conceived and even more poorly built. Even if we patch everything today, we’d still need to be constantly vigilant against new leaks, rots, and cracks.”

The north wing was two-fifths of the manor. He stared at her a moment—she was perfectly serious. The girl had
audacity. But of course she did: She’d singlehandedly pulled him back from the brink of a precipice.

“All right. Let’s do it.”

At his assent, she was the one who was taken aback. “Do you think we might need to petition parliament for something like this?”

He thought for a moment. “One doesn’t petition parliament before an accident takes place, does one?”

She smiled. “No, indeed one doesn’t. And our discussion never happened.”

He smiled back.

She dipped her head. “Now if you will excuse me, I must decide whether any of the books are worth keeping.”

It was only later in his room, gazing at a peacefully slumbering Alice, that Fitz realized he and his wife had just made their first joint decision as a married couple.

T
hat evening Millie dined alone. Lord Fitzhugh sent a note saying he would take his supper at the village pub. Supper was probably a euphemism for a woman. Not that she begrudged him a little pleasurable distraction, but she wished—

No, she did not wish that he’d come to her instead. She did not want to be used for only that purpose. But she could not help envying his lovers. She, too, would like to know what it was like to be touched and kissed by him—when he was sober. There was a physical grace to him, a manner of movement that was swift and easy. She could not help imagining what it would be like, someday, for him to suddenly notice her not merely as his wife, but as a woman, a desirable one.