The Famous Heroine/The Plumed Bonnet (22 page)

He was laughing softly. What had she said wrong?

“Cora,” he said, “you are not about to go into battle, dear. You need not look quite so determinedly belligerent. And what about me? Will your busy schedule allow you to grant me any of your time?”

“When you wish it, of course,” she said. “But I shall not expect to live in your pocket, you may rest assured. I know that ladies are not expected to cling to their husbands. Even in
my
world that is so. Men think they have to spend their time about the important things in this world. They are quite misguided, of course. They look after only the mundane matters, like the making of money, while the women look after the really important
things, like the well-being of people. But women have learned to pamper men and make them feel important even when they are not particularly so. I will not interfere with your life.”

He was shaking with laughter now.

“Cora,” he said, “you never fail me. What a delight you are. You have just dealt me the most excruciatingly cutting set-down of my life, and you do not even realize you have done so, do you?”

The trouble was that she did not think of him as an ordinary man. But she had just implied that she would leave him alone to his useless, self-important life of business while she looked after the truly important things.

She bit her lip and looked at him—and exploded into laughter. They leaned against each other’s shoulder and indulged their amusement far longer than was necessary.

If she had said such a thing to Edgar—and she sometimes did, when goaded—she would have had a blistering argument on her hands. There would have been no glimmering of humor in the matter.

“Will I have to plead for some of your time?” Lord Francis asked.

“No,” she said, her laughter fading. “But what I meant to say is that you must not feel obliged to entertain me. I will soon learn to entertain myself. I am not a cowering, helpless person.”

“Only when you are in the presence of princes and dukes,” he said.

“That was unkind,” she told him. “You would too if you had never met any before in your life. But really you must feel no responsibility toward me. I know this marriage was not of your choosing. I know that left to yourself, you would not have chosen marriage at all. Well, if you
had
to marry, perhaps it is as well you married me. I will be quite happy to allow you to be free, you see. I will be quite happy to be free myself.”

She felt more miserable saying so than she cared to admit to herself. Was that what she had undertaken by marrying Lord Francis? Was she going to lead a lonely life?

He clasped her hand a little more tightly. There was no laughter in his face now, she saw when she glanced at him. “What are you saying, Cora?” he asked. “Are you saying that you married me because you saw the necessity of doing so, but that you would rather it be a marriage in name only? That perhaps it would even be better for us to live apart?”

Oh, no, she would not
rather
it be any such thing. And live apart? She had not expected this. Oh, not quite this. They were going to live apart? Panic made the air in her nostrils feel icy.

“If you wish it,” she said.

“I do not wish it.” His words were curt. There was coldness, even anger, in his voice. “And I will tell you now, Cora, that if it is what you wish, if it is what you think to insist upon, then you may find yourself in for a shock. I may not be the husband of your choice and you may not be the wife of mine—I will pay you the respect of being honest with you, you see—but we are husband and wife. I intend that we remain so—for the rest of our lives. Fight me if you wish. I promise you it will be a fight you cannot and will not win.”

She should be feeling outrage at this blatant evidence that even Lord Francis Kneller could play at being lord and master when he thought he was being challenged. She waited for the familiar fury against
those males
. But all she could feel was something quite unfamiliar. Not anger. Certainly not meekness or fear. Desire? If that was really what she was feeling, she had better squash it without further ado. She could not possibly feel desire for Lord Francis. It would be emotional suicide to feel any such thing.

But what did he mean?
What did he mean?

“Capitulation, Cora?” he asked. “Without a shot fired? You disappoint me.” The anger—if that was what it had been—had gone from his voice. “Come, talk to me.”

“I really did not want us to live apart,” she said. “That was not what I meant. I merely meant … Oh, it does not matter.”

“I know what you meant,” he said. The familiar amusement was back. “You meant that you did not want me to feel the burden of having been forced into offering for you and marrying you. You were being
noble
, Cora. You were being
gallant
. You do like to turn our roles upside down and inside out, do you not, dear? I am supposed to be the noble one. I am supposed to be the one reassuring
you
. Instead of which I have been ripping up at you. I
never
rip up at people. You see what an effect you have on me?”

She looked at him sideways. His eyes were smiling.

“I suspect that after a week of marriage to you, I will not know whether I am on my head or my feet,” he said. “And I will predict now, Cora, that life with you is not going to be dull.”

“I do hope not, Lord Francis,” she said. “I cannot abide a dull life.”

“Cora,” he said, “since you live in terror of lordships, would it be wise to drop mine? Shall I be plain Francis?”

“I am not terrified,” she said indignantly. “Merely—”

“—terrified,” he said when she was unwise enough to pause to seek for the best word. “Call me Francis.”

“Francis,” she said.

They lapsed into silence. He wriggled a little lower on the seat and set one foot on the opposite seat. Before many minutes had passed, she knew that he was sleeping. He was breathing deeply and evenly. Her fingers were still laced firmly with his.

What had he meant? The question turned itself over and over in her mind without bringing any answers along behind it. What had he meant when he said that they were husband and wife and would remain so for the rest of their lives?

What had he meant?

HE STARED OUT INTO DARKNESS, THOUGH IN HER
mind’s eye she could see the cobbled terrace below her window and the sharply sloping terraced bank of shrubs and flowers beyond it. At the foot of the slope there were formal gardens with grass, low box hedges, and gravel arranged into immaculately kept geometric shapes. There was a fountain at the center, with jets of water spouting from the mouth of a winged cherub.

She had fallen in love with the park and the gardens even before noticing the house, neat and solid and classical in design. She was so very glad he did not intend that they live apart. Her heart had gone out to her new home from the start. Though he had told her he did not spend a great deal of time here. Perhaps she could change that now that she was with him to give him some companionship.

Would they be able to rub along together tolerably well? he had asked her in the carriage. Oh, she really thought they might. After all the fuss of their arrival and her presentation to the staff, who had been lined up rather dauntingly in the hall, and after the housekeeper had shown her to her apartments and she had bathed and changed and had her hair dressed—after it all they had sat down together for dinner and then had gone together to the drawing room. They had not stopped
talking except when the need to laugh had given them pause. They had laughed a great deal. She had told him some stories from her childhood and he had reciprocated with tales from his. They had both chosen amusing stories that they knew would tickle the other.

He
did
like her, she thought, as she liked him. She liked him exceedingly well. She drew her single braid over her shoulder and ran her fingers absently along it. He had been very kind to marry her. She was going to make sure that he never regretted doing so. He did not dislike her—else he would have jumped at the chance for near-freedom she had offered him in the carriage. Instead he had appeared quite offended.

And would she ever regret it? She drew a slow breath and let it out just as slowly. She thought of all her dreams of marriage and of the men she had refused because none of them had fit the dream. She thought of what the Duchess of Bridgwater had told her yesterday, expecting that she was putting fear into Cora, assuring her that it was really not so fearsome after all, that once she grew accustomed to it she might even come to like it. Cora had always expected to like it—in her dream marriage. And she thought of today and the way she had deliberately tried to enjoy her wedding day. She
had
enjoyed it. Right up until the moment when Lord Francis—she must remember to drop the
Lord
—had escorted her upstairs and paused outside her dressing room to kiss her hand and open the door for her.

She had felt lonely since then. There was no reason to feel lonely. Every night since her infancy she had gone to bed alone, and she had frequently stayed alone in strange houses. There was nothing different from usual about tonight. Except that it was her wedding night and it should—if this had been a normal marriage—have been gloriously different from any other that had gone before it.

She wondered if companionship was going to be enough. Not that she had any choice in the matter now. The deed, as Francis had put it, was done.

And then there was a tap on the door of her bedchamber and the door opened almost before she could spin about and long before she could think of calling to whoever it was to come in.

It was Francis, looking very gorgeous indeed in a scarlet silk dressing gown.

“Oh, Francis,” she said, smiling brightly, wondering why she sounded breathless, “did you want something?”

He paused with his hand still on the knob of the door after closing it. He looked at her with raised eyebrows. “Cora, my dear,” he said, “you leave me near speechless, as usual.” He relinquished his hold of the knob and came toward her. “Now what could I possibly want with my wife on my wedding night?”

Her knees almost buckled. Certainly her stomach performed a headstand and then rolled into a tumble toss.

“Oh,” she said, gripping her braid as if only by doing so could she keep herself upright. “Oh, Francis, how kind of you. But there is really no need, you know. You must not feel you
have
to, just for my sake. I shall be quite content …” She swallowed. He had come close and had set his hands on her shoulders. He was looking into her eyes.

“Kind?” he said. “I must not feel I have to? That is remarkably generous of you, Cora. Are you frightened, by any chance?”

“Frightened? Me?” she said. “No, of course not.” They were going to have a
wedding night
? “I just meant that you must not feel obliged to do this if it is distasteful to you. I will understand. I did not expect it.” She should not be too persuasive, she thought. She did not want him to go away. If she could experience this—even just once in her life—she would be content. Even if it
must be with a man she did not love. She
liked
him enormously. That would suffice.

One of his hands was cupping her cheek. His eyes really were decidedly blue, she thought. They were not the sort of gray that wishful thinking pretended was blue. “Because we married in haste and under some compulsion?” he said. “You expected I would think all my obligations to you fulfilled once I had given you the protection of my name, Cora? No, dear, we will be man and wife in more than just name.”

Her knees really did go then and he had to catch her in his arms.

“Oops,” she said and laughed. Suddenly she really did feel both nervous and self-conscious. She was so very unattractive. She was so very large. He was both elegant and graceful. And she had not thought of wearing a dressing gown over her nightgown. She had
braided
her hair. She must look like an overgrown twelve-year-old.

“Cora.” His voice was very low. “It is just me, dear. We have talked and laughed and been comfortable together all afternoon and evening. And I am not one of those nasty princes or dukes or marquesses to terrify you.”

“I am not terrified of them,” she said, “or of you. I am not, Francis.”

He smiled and loosened his hold of her. “Unbraid your hair for me, if you please,” he said. “I have always wondered what it looks like down.”

“Just as unruly as it looks when it is up,” she said, lifting her arms to comply with his request. “I should have had it cut. I know short hair is all the crack. But I keep thinking that if I do not like it short I will have to wait years before it is long again. Besides, Papa thinks there is something rather sinful about short hair on women. If God had wanted them with short hair, he always says, he would have made it so that it would not
grow. But he never thinks that the same argument could be used of men. And of men’s beards, too.”

She was prattling. She wished now she had not persuaded herself that he would not come. She wished she had prepared her mind, planned what she would say.