The Ideal Wife (14 page)

“I was about to ring,” she said.

“Gerald will come to your picnic,” he said. “I’m afraid he was like a lion in a cage this afternoon. He has a bad cold.”

“I should call on him and take him some powders,” she said, “and make sure that he stays in bed and drinks plenty of hot lemon. And I should get him to set his head beneath a towel and over a bowl of steaming water. That would do wonders for him.”

He laughed. “You would too, wouldn’t you?” he said. “You would march into a bachelor’s rooms close to St. James’s, rout the manservant, and proceed to take charge.”

She looked at him warily. “I had the charge of my father and brother and two sisters for several years,” she said. “I am afraid I had to become a managing female, Miles, or we might not have survived. As it was, Papa did not. I suppose Sir Gerald is sitting in a stuffy room sniffing and running a fever and drinking liquor.”

“I told him about the bowl and towel,” he said. “I tell you what, Abby. If I have caught the chill from him, you may coddle me to your heart’s content and I shall not utter a word of complaint.”

“You are laughing at me,” she said. “I know you did not want a managing wife, Miles. I should have confessed during the first day and told you what I was really like.”

She had sat on the settee. He came to sit beside her, and took her hand in his.

“Tell me about your life at home,” he said. “You really did play mother, didn’t you? For how long? When did your stepmother die?”

It struck her suddenly that she could tell him the truth. Nothing could be simpler. She could tell him everything, even about the five thousand pounds, and they could go together to Rachel’s the next day. He would help her. He would frighten Rachel off if she were planning further blackmail.

But if she told the truth, he would know what a ramshackle family she came from. He would know that Rachel had run off with another man, leaving behind her two daughters, because she was being beaten and abused at home. He would know that her father had been a drunken, brutal man and a heavy gambler, so that they had all lived more by their wits than by honest money for the last few years. He would know that Mrs. Harper, gambling hell owner and courtesan, was her stepmother.

And he would know that the marriage he had made was even more of a disaster than he already realized. She would see that knowledge in his face.

But she was growing to love that face and the person to whom it belonged.

“Six years ago,” she said. “Clara was two and Beatrice four. Boris was sixteen.”

“And you eighteen,” he said. “And so at a time when there should have been parties and balls for you and suitors, there was an ailing and grieving father to tend to and two small children to bring up. What was wrong with your father?”

“He had stomach problems,” she said vaguely. “He was bedridden for the last year.”

“He had a nurse?” he asked.

She smiled fleetingly. “Me,” she said.

He squeezed her hand.

“Your brother,” he said. “Did he go to university or want to do so?”

She shook her head. “He wanted passionately to go into the army,” she said. “But he could not. Papa . . . Papa needed him at home.”

But talking of Boris reminded her. Her face lit up.

“I have thought of how we may help him,” she said. “Boris, I mean. You do want to help him too, don’t you, Miles, even though he is just my brother and really you scarcely know him at all? But, of course, he is your relative even apart from our connection, isn’t he? I wish I could help him myself, but of course I cannot, partly because I do not have the means, and partly because he would not knowingly accept help from a living soul, even me. He is so very proud, you know. And I am afraid that unless he has help soon, he will go to his grave as an old man with Papa’s debts unpaid and nothing whatsoever made of his own life.”

“Abby,” he said, taking her free hand into his and squeezing them both. “Tell me your plan, dear. I confess, I am at my wits’ end.”

“We must find out where he goes to do his gambling,”she said. “I am sure he gambles, though he was never addicted to it at home. Indeed, he had something of an aversion to it. But he is desperate for money now, and a great deal of it too, so I believe he must gamble.”

“And then what?” he said.

“You must find someone who cheats,” she said. “It might be difficult to find such a person, but there are men who cheat and make a handsome living from doing so, are there not? Would you know how to find such a person, Miles?”

“I daresay it might be done,” he said, his lips twitching. “But why?”

“He must be persuaded to allow Boris to win a large sum,” she said. “And then Boris will pay off all Papa’s debts and perhaps have some left over to begin a decent life on his own account. And he will never know that he does not owe his good fortune to his own efforts and to luck. Don’t you think it a splendid idea?”

He looked at her for a long while in silence. “People who play cards regularly can usually spot a cheat without much effort,” he said.

“But someone who is cheating to lose?” she said. “Who would ever suspect?”

“I shall have to think about it,” he said. “It is an interesting idea, Abby.”

She beamed at him. “Do you think so?” she said. “People usually think my ideas quite shatterbrained, though they always make perfect sense to me.”

“Abby,” he said, “you have so much love in you. Your family was fortunate indeed to have you to see to their well-being. You have not heard from Bath yet?”

She shook her head. “But it is easy to be generous with someone else’s money,” she said. “You do not know how much money Boris needs, Miles.”

He raised one of her hands to his lips. “You shall tell me some other time,” he said. “The sum is quite unimportant. The tray arrived five minutes ago. Are you going to pour?”

“Oh,” she said, looking blankly at the tea tray. “I had not noticed.”

“Y
OU ENJOYED YOURSELF,
Abby?”

The Earl of Severn turned his head to look down on his wife’s tousled curls. She was seated beside him in his carriage, her arm linked through his, their fingers laced together, her head resting against his shoulder. Both of her slippered feet were resting on the seat opposite, an inelegant but quite endearing pose. She was humming tunelessly.

“Mm,” she said, and paused in order to yawn. “I love dancing. I have realized that it is the only musical accomplishment that I can boast about in even the most modest of ways. I cannot hold a tune, and my fingers develop a will of their own when I try to marshal them on a keyboard. But I can dance tolerably well.”

He laughed and rubbed his cheek against her curls. “What typical feminine accomplishments do you have?” he asked. “What hidden talents have I not discovered yet?”

“Oh, dear,” she said, turning her toes out and wiggling them, “I am afraid I have none, Miles. I embroider tolerably well, though the silk has a habit of tangling itself hopelessly just as I am drawing it through the cloth. I have tried knotting, but it seems that only my brain will tie itself into knots. I am tolerably good at watercolors, but I think I must keep my brush too wet, because the colors will keep running down the paper.”

“I have married a woman without accomplishments?”he said.

“I am afraid so,” she said apologetically. “But I know how to treat chills and headaches and stomachaches and bruises and cuts and bleeding noses. And I know how to put an end to fights and quarrels and tears. And I know how to tell stories without having to have a book open before me. And I know how to—”

“Abby,” he said, squeezing her hand, “I believe you, dear. I will have to give you a dozen children so that you can enjoy using your skills.”

She turned her face into his shoulder.

I love you,
he wanted to tell her as he kissed her curls.
I love you,
he had thought all evening as he had watched her dance with other men and glow with vitality and enjoyment.
I love you,
he had wanted to tell her when he had waltzed with her and she had turned her face up to him and talked without stopping, telling him all the details of her other partners’ lives that they had confided to her.

It was absurd. He had known her for a little longer than a week, and he was still fully aware that he knew her scarcely at all. He had married her so that he could have all the advantages of having a wife with none of the inconveniences and obligations that would have come with marrying a socially prominent young lady like Frances.

And yet he found that he had to force himself away from Abigail for a few hours each day. He was becoming quite alarmingly besotted with her.

He closed his eyes for a few moments to gather together his resolution. He had gone home to tea in order to confront her with his knowledge that she had been to Mrs. Harper’s the day before. And yet he had said nothing after their conversation had moved to her family and her brother.

He had meant to talk with her about it at dinner before they left for the ball, or in the carriage on the way. But she had looked so pretty dressed in a gold-colored gown, which had arrived just that day, and with her bouncing curls, and she had been so absurdly excited at the prospect of dancing again that he had not found the right moment to speak.

And now she was tired and happy. She was humming again. He smiled, realizing that her claim to be unmusical was no false modesty. He could not think of the words to begin what he wanted to say.

“Everyone was kind, Miles, don’t you think?” she said.

“I think they have all recovered from the shock of knowing that you once earned your own living, yes,” he said with a smile. “And I don’t believe that any gentlemen ever were displeased with your candid way of speaking, Abby.”

“I ought not to have said what I did to Mr. Shelton at supper, ought I?” she said doubtfully. “I should have kept my mouth shut.”

“But he was the one who mentioned the embarrassment of being almost as bald as an egg before the age of thirty,” he said.

“I merely wanted him to feel better,” she said. “But when I told him that I would prefer to see him bald than to see him wear a wig and watch it sail away in the middle of a country dance, I did not realize that Lord Cardigan was wearing a wig. I should have done so. When one looks closely, or even not so closely for that matter, it is quite obvious that it is not his own hair. It is too perfect and shows no part. But I did not realize until Miss Quail began to titter. I really should have held my peace then, shouldn’t I?”

He laughed.

“Cardigan took it as a joke,” he said. “He has a good sense of humor.”

“I meant it as a joke,” she said. “But Miss Quail looked so shocked. How could she have thought I was serious when I asked him if he ties it beneath his chin in a stiff breeze?”

The earl laughed more loudly.

Abigail giggled too. “I really meant it as a joke,” she said, “to relieve the discomfort of the moment. But I ought to have buttoned my lips together, oughtn’t I?”

He continued to laugh.

13

H
E WOULD TALK WITH HER AS SOON as she came through from her dressing room, the Earl of Severn decided. He would do it before they went to bed. There would be no need to make a grand issue of it—merely a mention that someone had commented on seeing her go into Mrs. Harper’s house.

Perhaps she did not know that Mrs. Harper was not considered quite respectable, he would suggest to her. Or perhaps she had gone there to try to help her brother? But of course now that she had thought of a definite plan of how to release him from the burden of their father’s debts, she would see that there was no need to return to Mrs. Harper’s or any other gambling hell—ever. That was what he would say to her.

If she claimed that she had been there on her own account, then he would have to think on the spur of the moment.

Her plan for her brother would not work, of course. There were too many factors that made it a quite impracticable scheme. But he had not told her that. She had been so very pleased with her idea. There was, in fact, only one plan that might work, and he was not at all sure of that.

He turned resolutely when he heard the door of her dressing room open, and waited for her to cross his and appear in the open doorway.

But when she did so, he knew that the moment was not right even then. She had the sides of her nightgown grasped in her hands so that her bare feet and ankles showed beneath, and she was waltzing and humming again.

He smiled at her.

“Waltz with me,” she said. “The night is young. There is not even a glimmering of dawn yet. But you had better provide the music.”

“Abby,” he said, laughing, “I thought you would have worn your feet down to the bone already tonight. You did not sit out one set, did you?”

“This is called second wind,” she said, coming into his arms and resting one hand on his shoulder. “Dance with me, sir, or you are no gentleman.”

He danced and hummed the first waltz tune that came to his mind.

“Are you always this mad?” he asked after a while. “Am I likely to find myself waltzing at dawn for the rest of my life?”

“At dawn, yes,” she said. “Are there some lovely vistas at Severn Park, Miles? Are there hilltops or lakesides where we can dance at sunrise?”

“If not,” he said, “I shall have the hills built and the lakes dug.”

“And we can leave the sunrise to God,” she said. “Why have we stopped?”

“Because I cannot dance without music,” he said, “and I cannot hum and talk at the same time.”

“Then stop talking,” she said.

She was light on her bare feet and soft and warm through the cotton fabric of her nightgown. She was smiling, her face lifted to his, though her eyes were closed.

“Are you happy?” he asked her softly, the music coming to an abrupt halt again.

“Happy?” She opened her eyes and looked up at him, a little dazed. “Yes, I am.”

“And so am I,” he said, cupping her face with his hands and rubbing his thumbs lightly over her cheeks. “Happy anniversary, Abby.”She smiled and her eyes dropped to his chin and lifted to his again.

He felt a surging of desire for her and knew that the moment for talking had gone for that night. It would have to wait until the morning. He lowered his head and kissed her, coaxing her lips apart with his own and with his tongue, waiting for her to relax and open her mouth before sliding his tongue deep inside and stroking the warm, wet flesh there.

“Is that a common way of kissing?” she asked when he moved his mouth down to her throat.

“Yes, I suppose so,” he said. “Do you mind?”

“No,” she said. “Oh, no. I would have thought it would be repulsive if anyone had described it to me, but it is not.”

He undid the buttons of her nightgown while her head was thrown back and her eyes closed. And he lifted it off her shoulders and slid it down her arms and let it fall to the floor.

“Oh,” she said, her head jerking up and her eyes snapping open. “Oh.”

“Don’t be embarrassed,” he said, holding her by the shoulders, looking at her. “You are my wife, Abby. And you are beautiful. And don’t,” he said firmly, drawing her against him and lowering his mouth to hers as she drew breath to speak, “tell me that that is a bouncer. You are beautiful.”

She was not voluptuous. But she was slim and youthfully firm and pleasingly proportioned. She was beautiful. And he was on fire for her.

“I am going to leave the candles burning,” he told her as he moved her back to the bed behind her. “Do you mind?”

“It would be foolish to say yes, wouldn’t it?” she said. “What happens happens whether it is dark or light, and you have seen just about all of me there is to see. Of course,” she said, flushing suddenly, “I have not seen . . .”

“Me,” he said, smiling down at her as he removed first his dressing gown and then his nightshirt. “But now you have, and appear to be still alive and not noticeably suffering from a heart seizure.”

“I cared for my father for a year,” she said as he lay down beside her and slid an arm beneath her neck. “But I did not know a man could be quite so beautiful, Miles. Except in the pictures of Greek gods and heroes, of course.”

He kissed her again, and she opened her mouth eagerly to his tongue, circling it with her own, sucking on it, wrapping her arms up about his shoulders. And he felt her temperature soar with his own.

He explored her with his hands and his fingertips and his mouth, using the expertise of years to arouse her further, to have her twisting and moaning on the bed. And her hands moved over him, at first tentatively exploring his chest and the upper part of his back, at last touching him everywhere with seeking fingers, demanding palms.

“Abby,” he said, lowering himself onto her and between her thighs when he felt close to madness. “Abby,” he said, lifting her with his hands, steadying her, easing into her. “Abby.”

She moved with him, rotating her hips against his hands in rhythm with his thrusts and withdrawals, gasping with him, moaning with him.

“Abby,” he said, almost beyond madness at last, unfamiliar with her climax, not sure how close it was, holding back his own by sheer determination.

“Yes.” Her voice was a whisper, her body still with tension. “Yes. Yes.”

He moved in her.

And he slipped his arms about her and held her tightly as she shouted out his name and jerked against him. He held her tightly as she shuddered beneath him and whispered his name. And then he let go of his control and drove inward, releasing his seed deep in her.

“Abby . . .” he said, resting his cheek against a soft cluster of curls above her ear, letting all his weight down on her trembling body as her arms came up about him, relaxing as he had never before relaxed.

And he slept.

E
VERYTHING WAS DIFFERENT,
and the world was a wonderful, wonderful place. Abigail was surprised to discover when she passed through her own bedchamber on the way down to breakfast from her dressing room that it was raining outside. But the sun was shining just beyond those clouds, she thought, peering upward through the window and smiling.

She ran lightly down the stairs. She was late. She had overslept despite herself.

“There is no point in sleeping now,” she had told her husband after their third loving, when it was already light outside. “We should get up and go for a gallop in the park, Miles. We would have it all to ourselves, I think.”

“I think so too,” he had said, “but I would prefer to leave it to the birds until a later hour. Much later. Go to sleep, Abby.”

And he had hitched up the blankets with one foot, grasped them with one hand, and pulled them up over her. She had been lying on top of him, where he had positioned her for the loving, her legs spread comfortably on either side of his.

She had called him a poor sport, burrowed her head to find the cozy hollow between his shoulder and neck that had become her regular resting place, and fallen promptly asleep.

She did not know how he had got out from beneath her and up from the bed later without waking her, since she had always considered herself a light sleeper, but he had. She had woken on her side, her face on one hand, the blankets bunched untidily about her, her person very naked beneath them. She had blushed for the benefit of the empty room.

And the breakfast room was empty too, she discovered when Alistair opened the doors for her, though the food was still on the sideboard.

“His lordship?” she asked.

“In the study, my lady,” he said, and strode smartly across the hallway to open the door for her.

He was standing at the desk looking through his mail. And she was suddenly shy, remembering the night before, when he had looked at her unclothed body and called her beautiful, and when she had believed him. When she had given up the remaining secrets of her body to him and explored the secrets of his. When they had loved and slept and loved and slept and loved and slept through what had remained of the night and on into the dawn.

When she had discovered that there was indeed something beyond the aches and excitement that had always led to disappointment and a nameless dissatisfaction during the first week of her marriage. When she had let go of any inhibitions she had clung to during that week.

When she had lost the last remaining corners of her heart to her husband.

She loved him with all the passion she had not expected ever to be able to focus on any man.

And yet, standing at his desk, dressed as immaculately as usual, looking quite as handsome as ever, he seemed again remote, unknown, not the man who had shared hours of naked passion with her in the bed upstairs a few hours before.

She felt shy.

“Did we stun the cuckoo last night?” he asked her, setting down his letters and turning to smile at her. “I was forced to read my newspaper at the breakfast table, having only it for company.”

She hurried into the arms he held out for her and lifted her mouth for his kiss.

“How could you have got out from under me without waking me?” she asked, and felt the blood rush to her face.

“Very slowly,” he said, “and to the accompaniment of many muttered grumblings—from you. There are enough invitations here to keep us running for forty-eight hours a day all spring, Abby. I will leave you to choose. Pick the ones you would like to accept.”

“Oh,” she said, “but I would like to attend everything. How do I know that in attending one event we will not be missing something at another?”

He picked a card from the top of the pile. “Do you fancy a literary evening at Mrs. Roedean’s?” he asked.

She pulled a face. “No, not particularly.”

He tossed it into the basket beside the desk. “That is how it is done,” he said, grinning at her. “Abby, I need to talk with you.”

She did not trust his expression. She did not want to be talked to. She wanted to be in love. She wanted to be loved. The night before, he had called her beautiful—not plain, but beautiful. And he had made her feel beautiful in what he had done to her and with her in the next several hours. He had made her feel that he had come into her because it gave him pleasure to do so, because he needed to be in her, not just because he was planting his seed in her. And he had made her feel that a marriage, a love commitment, was beginning, not just a pregnancy so that she could be taken to Severn Park in the summer and left there.

She did not want to talk.

“I don’t want to talk,” she said warily.

“What?” he said, smiling and reaching out one hand to set flat against her forehead. “You do not want to talk? You must be sickening for something.”

She said nothing. She knew him well enough to know that despite the lightness of his tone and his teasing manner, he had something serious to say to her. He was going to send her early to Severn Park? Last night had been an ending, a farewell, instead of a beginning? She had misunderstood in her naïveté.

He took both her hands in his and held them warmly. “Abby,” he said, “I don’t want you to misinterpret what I am going to say. I have no intention of being a tyrant, dictating what you do and where you go and with whom you associate. You are an adult who has known considerable responsibility in your lifetime. But I do feel a duty to protect you from people and dangers you may not know about.”

He knew about Rachel, she thought.

“I have heard mention of the fact that you called on Mrs. Harper the day before yesterday,” he said.

“Yes,” she said. “I did.”

“I suggested to you at Lady Trevor’s ball that she is perhaps not a suitable associate,” he said.

“Yes,” she said. “You did.”

“Yet you visited her, Abby?”

“Yes, I did.”

He searched her eyes with his own. “Are you able to tell me why?” he asked.

It would be easy. In fact, it was unavoidable. She would tell him everything, and he would be able to advise her on how best to see to it that she would have the bringing up of Bea and Clara. It would be a great load off her mind to confide in him. And he would go with her to Rachel’s that afternoon.

But he would know. He would know whom he had loved the night before, whom he had called beautiful. He would know on whom she had spent five of the six thousand pounds he had placed at her disposal.