“I suppose they can’t see why they should. They’re getting what they want. Parnham behaved that way about any number of things, and I accepted it because I was his wife. I was raised to obey my husband, not to question him.”
“That’s not good enough for me,” Jane retorted. “If I’d wanted to be frustrated, I could have done it by myself.”
“Jane!”
“I’m shocking you.” Jane laughed, a mischievous light in her eyes. “It’s just that I have gone very much my own way for so many years that I have no intention of crippling myself to adjust to Rossmere. And I see no reason at all why I should. We’ve made a fair bargain in entering into matrimony; it’s no time to start bowing down before all the senseless conventions that would rob either of us of our spirit.”
“But his manly pride will be in question.”
“Hogwash! What’s so remarkable and manly about being able to mate with a defenseless woman? I can see no more merit in it than a woman lying about like a sack of flour while he enters her. If that is what he wants, he shall have it very rarely indeed, for I know a great deal more than some innocent maid who’s been brought up on the old wives’ tales of doing one’s duty.”
“You won’t make him very happy, Jane.”
Jane had a sinking feeling in her stomach. “No, I suppose not, but I can’t have less than I had with Richard and still feel right about Stephen as my husband.”
It was Nancy who turned aside now. She straightened the ruffled collar of her walking dress with nervous fingers as she asked, “Are you still so attached to Richard that there is no room for a new love in your heart?”
“No. Rossmere has become very important to me.” Jane wouldn’t admit, even to herself, how important. “But Richard taught me something that I won’t ever forget. He said that I must respect myself before I could respect anyone else, and that no one had the right to ask me to give up that self-respect. Not my husband, not my father, not my family. No one.”
“But is it asking you to give up your self-respect in just going along with what Rossmere wants?”
“Of course it is.” Jane regarded her sister with indignant eyes. “Didn’t Parnham try to destroy your self-respect by making you believe he was right and you were wrong?”
“Well, yes, but that’s an entirely different matter.”
“There are a few similarities,” Jane insisted. “Parnham was trying to destroy you; Rossmere is trying to make me deny myself in a different way. I realize he doesn’t see it that way, Nancy. That doesn’t really matter. I’ll keep trying to make him understand. But if he doesn’t..." She shrugged her shoulders. “Even for him, I won’t give up my self-respect.”
Nancy’s fingers had stilled at her throat. “It seems so little to ask.”
“I know. That’s why most women would agree to it. And keep agreeing to each of the ‘little’ things their husbands ask, and their families, and the society in which they live. They will put up with not being educated, with being confined to the house instead of riding about as a man would. So many ‘little’ things. And in the name of being compliant and good-natured. Well, I, for one, am not interested in being compliant, and I will be good-natured in a way that suits me.”
“You have a great deal more courage than I do, Jane.”
She smiled then. “I doubt it. At the moment I have more conviction. You’ll have enough courage to see you through this. troubled time. And I’ll be there to help you."
Nancy’s jerky movements had smoothed out and her distraction had diminished, but Jane knew she was far from strong. This was no time to show any sign of weakness for her sister to emulate. Having left her husband, Nancy was not going to have an easy life; every level of their country society would frown on her behavior, not knowing what had caused the separation.
“You must indicate by your actions that you had a perfect right to do what you did, whether your neighbors understand or not. You know it, I know it, and a few others will know it. But most of the world won’t, and you won’t be able to explain to them. You’re going to need a great deal of both courage and conviction if you’re going to make a reasonably comfortable life for yourself. You’ll have to believe that you’re worthy of it, that you and William deserve to be happy, no matter what has happened.”
“Yes, I can see that.” Nancy straightened her shoulders. “Thank heaven I have you as an example. I can hardly bear to think what kind of counsel I would get from Aunt Mabel.”
“Never mind. I just tell myself she means well, and then go my own way."
Nancy grasped her sister’s hands and squeezed them. “Thank you. I must go now and take William for his outing. Did I tell you we found the most adorable perambulator in the attics? It must have been Richard’s.”
* * * *
Richard, Richard, Richard. Rossmere thought that if he heard the name once more he would throttle whoever dared to utter it. So the man had been a saint! Everyone found it convenient to forget that he was a mad saint. The viscount had no intention whatsoever of becoming a saint and he didn’t wish to hear about anyone who had. Richard’s shadow, if not his ghost, hung over Graywood like muggy weather.
His servants still worked there, his books were on the shelves, his plans for the crop rotation were still in effect. In the library there was a portrait of him as a lad of ten. Surrounded by dogs, cats, goats, horses, he wore a devilish grin and rumpled buckskin breeches. Even then Richard hadn’t put up with the standard dressed-up little-boy portraits that were painted in those days.
The hell with him! He was dead. Rossmere was tired of being compared with him by everyone from his wife to the servants. He would be damned it he would let Jane hint at how Richard had pleased her physically. They hadn’t even been married! How dare she even allude to such behavior? It he’d known about it, he wouldn’t have married her.
In his more reasonable moments he knew that wasn’t true. But the reasonable moments dwindled as he stayed on at Graywood. For a few nights Jane allowed him to “take” her, remaining cool and distant. Then a night came when even that changed. She had preceded him upstairs, and he came into their bedchamber smiling his manly reassurance, only to find the bed empty.
Really, it was too much. He stalked to the door of her sitting room and knocked loudly. She called to him to enter. Rossmere found her in her nightdress, sitting up on a daybed that had been squeezed into one corner of the room. “What’s the meaning of this?” he demanded. “Why aren’t you in our bed?”
“I feel slightly indisposed. Nothing to alarm you, just enough to not feel up to obliging you with my presence this evening.”
That damned reasonable tone of hers was enough to drive a man to distraction. Didn’t she have any conception of a wife’s proper duties? “I would count it a favor if you would join me,” he said shortly.
“It’s a favor I can’t grant you. Perhaps another night.”
Now she really had shocked him. “Surely you don’t intend to make a habit of holing up in here,” he protested, running a hand roughly through his dark hair. “You’re my wife.”
“Yes.” Her voice was thoughtful. She drew a brush through her hair, regarding him closely as she spoke. “I have no intention of denying you your conjugal privileges. However, every night does seem a bit excessive, when you refuse to honor my wishes in the matter. Someday soon we should discuss the subject and come to some mutually satisfactory decision."
“Someday soon! The devil you say! We will discuss it this minute.”
“I think not.” Jane rubbed her forehead with those long, thin fingers of hers. “My head is aching abominably, I fear. Perhaps I’m coming down with something.”
“You’re the healthiest woman I’ve ever met.” He glared at her, but she merely closed her eyes and allowed a pained expression to gather on her face. “Tomorrow. We will discuss the matter tomorrow.”
“If I’m well enough,” she said feebly.
* * * *
Two things happened the next morning to prevent Rossmere from pursuing his intention of confronting Jane. A messenger arrived with information about John Parnham that would be useful in keeping Parnham from any threats of removing his wife and son from Graywood. Rossmere had directed his investigation, at Lord Barlow’s expense, toward Parnham’s previous neighborhood. It had taken more digging than Lord Barlow’s original, casual inquiry had set in motion to turn up damaging information about Parnham’s reputation and financial dealings.
Without consulting his wife, because he was not in charity with her, Rossmere wrote a note to Nancy’s husband that informed him of the outcome of the investigation and strongly suggested that he neither put in an appearance at Graywood, nor trouble his wife further in any way. “Lady Nancy will live with us on a permanent basis,” he wrote, “and any interference from you would be most unwelcome and, indeed, most unwise."
Just the proper amount of threat there, he decided as he sealed the single sheet and rang for a messenger to convey it. Jane wouldn’t even know, until he deigned to tell her, that he had accomplished this mission. It was, surely, one of the obligations he had undertaken when he married her. She would do well to think again about fulfilling her own obligations in this marriage, he thought with a surge of self-righteousness.
Within the hour a different messenger arrived, with a draft for the agreed-upon marriage-settlement sum. It had not taken Lord Barlow as long as he expected to arrange. Rossmere stared at the check for some time, hardly able to conceive that he would now be able to restore Longborough Park to its former beauty and comfort. It was a project he desired to set in motion at the earliest possible moment, but having been married less than a week...
The notion of departing for Longborough Park suddenly took strong possession of his mind. Aside from giving him a chance to start the desired renovations, such a trip would provide the opportunity of teaching his wife a much-needed lesson. If he were to desert her so soon after their nuptials, she would surely regret her incomprehensible behavior and soften her stance toward him.
Rossmere called for his recently acquired valet and directed him to pack for the trip. When the viscount informed his wife, rather stiffly, that he was leaving, she smiled serenely and said, “Have a pleasant journey, Stephen. Don’t hurry back on my account. Nancy and I will be very comfortable here together.”
Chapter 19
Jane wasn’t nearly as sanguine about Rossmere’s leaving as she had let on. With him away, there was no hope of their working out their disagreement. And any separation at this juncture, so early in their marriage, threatened to develop into a permanent estrangement. She would have liked to talk to Nancy about these matters, but she felt Nancy had more than enough problems of her own.
Only with Rossmere’s absence did Jane fully realize how attached she had become to him. She missed the deep sound of his voice and the intimacy of his occasional smile. Her fingers itched to lose themselves in his wiry, thick hair and to run boldly over the rough skin of his arms and his chest. Without their battles of wills she felt lethargic, as though only his challenge could fully stimulate her to her best efforts. How perverse of her to miss him because she had no one with whom to argue!
Her Aunt Mabel arrived in the best Willow End carriage two days after Rossmere had departed for his ancestral home. When Mabel was informed of this circumstance, she clasped at her heart. “Surely you haven’t driven him off already. I knew I should have spoken with you. It was just that I was sure you knew as much as you needed because of your... friendship with Richard. Really, Jane, I cannot believe that you would have the least difficulty adjusting yourself to your marital duties.”
“He’s gone off to see to the renovation of Longborough Park,” her niece protested.
“Nonsense. No man leaves his wife so shortly after their vows have been exchanged unless he is dissatisfied with her physical compliance. You have alienated him, I feel certain of it. Otherwise he would have taken you with him.”
Jane shook her head in a rueful gesture that did not reassure her aunt one bit. “Now, where did you come across this important fact about newly wedded gentlemen, I wonder?”
“It won’t do the least good to mock my knowledge, young lady. I’ll have to think of an excuse to fob off the parish ladies. They’ll know just what has happened, you may be sure. I shall say you had to stay here to see to Graywood, since it’s been occupied by tenants for the last year. That will help. They’ll all know just what tenants can do to a place.”
“The poor Browns. How unfair to damage their reputation merely to save mine,” Jane teased. “I can’t think how you will explain that not a stick of furniture was scratched, not a window broken, and yet they left the place in such abominable condition that I had to deny myself the pleasure of accompanying my husband just to care for the place.”
“You’ve always had such a sharp tongue.” Mabel scowled and reached for one of the scones the Graywood cook did so well. Just as she was about to bite into it, her head came up sharply. “It’s not because of Richard, is it? You haven’t... You didn’t... No purpose would possibly be served by letting Lord Rossmere know of the extent of your contact with Richard.”
“Good heavens! What do you know of the extent of my contact with Richard?”
Mabel lifted her shoulders in an exaggeratedly casual movement. “Nothing of significance. I know that you spent a great deal of time with him and that you were far too intelligent to allow things to go, ah, too far.” She considered Jane with worried eyes. “It would be most unwise to allude to Richard at all, my dear girl. It’s bad enough that you are staying here at Graywood. Of course, Rossmere might very well have inherited it himself. You might point that out. Subtly, of course.”
“Sublety is lost on Rossmere, Aunt Mabel.”
“Well, when do you expect him back?”
“I haven’t the first idea. He didn’t mention coming back at all.”
A little squeak escaped Mabel. “Don’t say such a thing, even in jest. I know what we will do. Yes, yes. The perfect solution. He cannot possibly object and I will arrange everything. What do you say to that?”