Her Convenient Husband's Return

by Eleanor Webster

  ‘I believe you forget yourself and what is considered appropriate to discuss in front of a lady. I suggest you keep it in mind,’ Ren said.

  For a moment, the Duke met his gaze. His pale blue eyes were fringed with sandy lashes and they blinked slowly, the movement almost furtive as though it served to prevent his expression from being discerned.

  ‘Of course,’ he said. ‘I hope to spend considerable time in dear Lady Graham’s company and would not want to offend.’

  Ren heard Beth’s exhalation and felt her fingers tighten on his arm.

  ‘If you will excuse us,’ Ren said. ‘We must leave and we do not wish to monopolise your time.’

  ‘Absolutely. Delightful to see you both again. Hopefully, the pleasure will be frequently repeated. Goodbye, dear Lady Graham.’ The Duke made his bow and, accompanied by Ren’s mother, stepped towards the exit.

  Chapter Eleven

  ‘He really is quite vile,’ Beth said, with a soft exhale.

  By mutual consent, they waited for a few moments before walking through the warmth of the lobby and into the cooler air outside. She again felt that nervous apprehension, the uncertainty of a world not yet explored. Her fingers tightened on his sleeve as she attempted to differentiate the details within the onslaught of sound: horses’ hooves, jangling reins, laughter, conversation, a newsboy shouting. She forced herself to breathe and to focus on a single sound. This kept her nervousness at bay, although she was still thankful when his carriage arrived, the door swinging open.

  It felt safer within its confines. She liked the thought of being closeted from the world—from the Duke—with a warm brick at her feet and the reassurance of Ren’s hand on her own under the thick travel blanket.

  She exhaled, thankful as the carriage moved, the rhythm restful.

  ‘I am sorry you had to encounter him,’ Ren said. ‘I didn’t anticipate that he would be there.’

  ‘He is nothing. I am foolish to let him distress me.’

  Yet she was...uneasy. Tonight had again reminded her of the soft silkiness of his menace. It was worse than the noisy, rough boys who had scared her as a child or even the bull that had almost trampled over her when she fell into his paddock. Those threats had been loud, tangible, understandable—not this quiet, secret menace.

  She shifted, squeezing Ren’s hand. ‘Let us forget him. We are much too serious for a holiday. If theatre is not your favourite pastime, what do you enjoy?’

  ‘I—’ He paused. ‘It appears there is little I enjoy.’

  ‘Or little you can speak about without shocking my sensibilities.’

  He gave a low chuckle that was almost genuine. ‘No, I rather doubt you are easily shocked. When you asked yesterday, that was my reasoning. Now it is not. It is just that I’ve realised I largely pursue activity for distraction as opposed to enjoyment.’

  The words hung in the silent carriage.

  ‘Perhaps you won’t allow yourself to enjoy. It’s as though you are punishing yourself. None of us asks to be born or can control the way we come into this world.’

  She expected a quick biting retort, but he said nothing. Instead, his fingers tightened on her own. Without conscious decision, she leaned against him. She closed her eyes, the tension easing with the carriage’s movement and the comforting thud of his heart.

  She didn’t know quite when the sense of comfort changed, but gradually solace morphed into tingling, growing awakening. She became aware of the hard, angular muscles of his chest. She felt the quickening of his breath and the movement of his thumb against her palm. He traced circles against her skin, his touch igniting a warm, growing, heated need. Sensation flickered and grew.

  Gently, with his other hand, he tilted her chin upwards. She felt the tingling graze of his fingers and his movement so that he was no longer beside her but angled over her. Sensation built into eager anticipation. His lips touched her own. She heard herself gasp. The tingling heat grew into a raw, yearning need. She reached up for him. She traced the lines which bracketed his mouth, the scar on his chin and a tiny, puckered mark by his left eyebrow.

  He groaned at her touch. His kiss deepened. She felt herself arch against him, the action instinctual. His body was hard, his chest and shoulders muscled under the fine cloth. His hands caressed her back. She felt the movement of his fingers pushing her gown off her shoulders. It slid down. The cool air touched her bare skin and she felt the instant pucker of her nipples.

  And then the carriage stopped.

  Beth jolted awake as if from a trance. Her dress had slipped so that one breast was almost exposed. Her breath came in hurried pants and a confused mix of emotion flooded and engulfed her.

  Tugging at her gown, she shifted from him. Heat washed into her face. He caught her hand, stilling it. ‘Beth,’ he muttered. ‘I’ve wanted—I’ve always wanted...stay with me tonight.’

  He’d always wanted...? A joy, a need, a jubilation filled her, a pulsing happiness. He’d always wanted...

  ‘Ren,’ she whispered.

  She had never expected this. She’d never known that she wanted it—him—so much.

  His hands touched her cheeks, cupping her chin and sending a tingling, needy fire that started from his fingers and filled her.

  He kissed her again. She allowed herself to melt into him and feel the muscled movement of his arms. She felt the thrust of his tongue between her lips—promising...

  She pulled from him.

  ‘I can’t,’ she said.

  * * *

  Ren stood in his dressing room. He poured himself a drink and swallowed. He stared into the darkness outside, punctuated only by the intermittent flicker of the gas lamps, their weak shimmer reflected on the puddles and damp cobblestones. Behind him, he could hear his valet as he folded his clothes, brushing away lint with his usual meticulous movements.

  ‘May I enquire, my lord, as to your plans for tomorrow?’ his man asked.

  Ren took another sip. He had no plans. Beth’s arrival had seemingly divided his life. Everything he had done previously now seemed unimportant, merely the filling of time.

  Clouds passed over the moon like mist. For a brief moment, he’d indulged in childish fantasy, a life where he belonged, with a family...with Beth. His fingers tightened against the tumbler.

  I can’t.

  What had he expected? She was pure and sweet and good. She had come here on behalf of the tenants, not to breathe life into a platonic marriage that had only ever been forged through necessity.

  Of course she would not want him. She’d never had any interest in marriage. She’d made that clear enough even as a child. She valued independence, above all. She had married him out of duress. She’d married him to save the land and Jamie.

  She’d married him because he was better than the Duke.

  Except, if he forced himself on her or if he manipulated her or seduced her, he would be no better. He was a rake. He knew a thousand wiles to make a woman want him.

  But not a single way to make a woman love him.

  He would not seduce Beth. He was better than that. He had made a promise eighteen months earlier. Theirs was a marriage in name only and so it would remain. Good Lord, if he was not good enough on the day of their wedding, he was even less worthy now.

  He could not offer her the life she deserved at Allington or Graham Hill. And what could London offer her? Occasional entertainment, maybe, but what was that in comparison to the loss of independence?

  Outside, a carriage passed through a puddle. It was raining again, a heavy, drumming rain. It pattered against the window pane and dripped from the foliage outside. He could go, he supposed, to Celeste. He could bury himself in her and forget about this woman who was from his past, from another world, another life. Celeste would welcome him. She would treat him like a hero because he was rich and she liked trinkets. She would not ar
gue about the rights of tenants. She would not tell him to go on wet picnics. She would not make his emotions surge like a boat tossed in deep waters.

  She would not make him feel so wonderfully alive. Or fill him with this mix of joy and pain and lust and need all stirred together in a confused, complex muddle. With her, sex would be, as it had always been, an escape, a dulling of emotion.

  Except he didn’t want Celeste. He had no interest in Celeste. There was only Beth.

  * * *

  Allie would not stop asking questions. She wanted to know about the theatre. She wanted to know if Beth had met the Prince Regent, if she had had wine and if the dancers were well known. She wanted to know about the ballet’s plot and with whom Beth had talked and whether she had heard any gossip.

  Beth let the girl’s words flow over her, hardly attending. Occasionally she answered. The music had been nice, she said. The orchestra was talented and, no, the Prince Regent had not been in attendance. All the while she felt a confused longing...

  She wanted to be with Ren. She wanted it with every fibre of her being. She had always loved him, but now that love had matured. It was no longer childish affection. When she’d said that she didn’t want marriage and all that it entailed, she did not know...she hadn’t understood. She didn’t realise that she would or could feel this deep, insatiable, painful yearning.

  She didn’t know that she could feel a desire which dwarfed all else to triviality. She wanted to press herself to him, to inhale his scent, to taste him, to feel the hard, sinewy movement of his muscles sliding under his skin and to run her fingers across his face. She wanted to discern his expressions, the twist of his lips and the strong line of his chin. She wanted to help him to laugh and to share his sorrow.

  She wanted to be one with him, part of him, fused with him.

  Her refusal to sleep with him was not due to any lack of desire or maidenly fear. It was not that he had married her and then hurried off to London. Or that he had mistresses. Or drank. Or gambled.

  In that moment within the carriage, all of that had dwindled to unimportance.

  Was still unimportant.

  ‘Lord Graham is very handsome,’ Allie said, interrupting Beth’s thoughts as she took out the hair ribbons she had carefully tied earlier.

  Beth nodded.

  ‘Sorry,’ Allie said. ‘I forgot. I mean, I guess you wouldn’t know.’

  ‘I know,’ Beth said. She might not be able to see, but she could feel—the contours of his chin, his cheekbones, his lips and his arms tightening about her.

  Her hand went to her cheek, recalling the touch of his fingers and the way they made her feel goose pimples while also invoking a sizzling fire.

  ‘I was, you know, um...wondering if you two might...um?’

  Beth smiled wearily. ‘Gracious Allie, you are not normally so tongue tied.’

  She heard the rustle of cloth as her maid shrugged. Then she felt the brush on her scalp as Allie combed her hair. Her strokes were rhythmic.

  ‘You know,’ Allie said. ‘Be like a real husband and wife.’

  ‘You know why I can’t.’

  ‘You do not want anyone to have to look after you.’

  Beth nodded. ‘I will not be a burden.’

  ‘You do realise you have been running Allington since your father’s death and Graham Hill since Master Edmund left and don’t you be saying as how Master Jamie is doing it because he is too busy with his seeds to do owt useful.’

  ‘He helps. He reads things to me. Besides, I may move well enough around Allington, but that is because I have its layout memorised. Here I am less able. You know it is so.’

  ‘And I also know human beings can learn.’

  ‘And if I miscount the stairs before I have learned? I will not have anyone looking after me as my father had to do with my mother.’

  ‘Except,’ Allie said more gently with a final brush to Beth’s hair, ‘he wanted to look after her. Isn’t that what love is all about?’

  Beth made no answer but stood, carefully feeling her way to the bed and slipping under the covers.

  ‘Goodnight,’ she said.

  She closed her eyes. Hopefully Allie would leave soon. Her head ached.

  But Allie did not go. Instead, Beth heard the continued rustle of clothes and the clink of glassware. She tossed in her bed, squeezing her eyes more tightly as though that would stop her circling thoughts.

  When had she known that she could not have a life as a wife and mother? When had she first worried that she could somehow transmit her own blindness? When had the fear begun? When she learned about her great-aunt? When Jamie had brought that bull from halfway across the county?

  ‘You do realise that they have a perfectly adequate bull at Graham Hill,’ she’d said.

  ‘Mediocre at best. This one is remarkable. Besides, he is part of a scientific study. He will prove that strength begets strength, that a stronger animal sires a stronger animal.’

  Strength begat strength. Weakness begat weakness.

  A bottle dropped. Beth groaned. ‘Allie, can’t you do this in the morning?’

  ‘Um, yes, I suppose,’ her maid said, but Beth heard no footsteps towards the door. ‘Um...you know, miss, I mean, my lady, that I—um... I hears all sorts in the servants’ hall. Stuff which no proper lady should hear.’

  ‘Yes, I am sure.’ Beth did not want to be rude, but she was tired and had no desire to play true confessions. ‘No one judges you for that.’

  ‘I mean,’ Allie continued as though Beth had not spoken, ‘some of it is useful stuff like how to get out wine stains.’

  ‘I got wine on my dress?’

  ‘No, I—No, I was just wanting to give you an example of some of the information what I get in the servants’ hall.’

  ‘Thank you, but I am tired and I cannot even see stains so cannot possibly remove them.’

  ‘No, my lady, I mean, I would always remove your stains only it’s not only about stains, I mean that we talk.’

  Beth allowed herself a smile. ‘I am relieved. Otherwise I would worry about the dearth of entertainment or decent conversation in the servants’ quarters.’

  ‘I...um... I also heard from Miss Pollard as how she used to work for a lady what didn’t want any more children on account of her and her husband having half a dozen in round numbers. Apparently she said that at certain times of the monthly cycle, a woman can’t get pregnant, plus she can’t get pregnant on the first time neither. Not that the latter applied to the woman in question, of course.’

  The final phrases were said in such a garbled rush that Beth required several seconds to make sense of the words. Then, once she had fully understood their meaning, they reverberated in her mind—distinct and with added clarity. Heat warmed her cheeks.

  Perhaps in an excess of nervousness, her maid again knocked something off the counter. It clattered on to the floor, breaking and briefly silencing the flow of words.

  ‘I’ll—I’ll just clean this up, like,’ Allie said.

  Beth heard her hurried movements and the grazing sound of a towel moving over the floor. Then, as if unable to bear the silence, Allie began a complex and convoluted narrative about dog breeds, only pausing for breath after a detailed description of a French poodle with digestive issues.

  ‘Right,’ Beth said into the sudden silence and speaking with greater authority than was usual. ‘Thank you for the edifying conversation. I will be certain to avoid obtaining a French poodle, but I am exhausted so I will bid you goodnight.’

  ‘Yes, my lady. And let me know if you’ll be needing anything.’

  ‘I will,’ Beth said, still firmly. ‘Right now, all I need is peace and quiet.’

  ‘Yes, my lady. And—um—his lordship is just across the hall. If there is any emergency.’

  ‘An emergency?’

  �
��Like—like a house fire or something.’

  Beth gave a low chuckle, her good humour overcoming her irritation. Could the girl be any more obvious?

  ‘I assure you there will no house fire. And, for goodness sake, do not play cards.’

  * * *

  Two hours later, Beth still lay awake. She could hear the house around her. She could hear the tapping of branches against the window, the whisper of wind, the steady drumming of rain and the smouldering sizzle from the fire dying in the hearth. The house must be old, she thought. Old houses resembled living entities, the creak of floorboards like irregular breaths and the whistling draughts through ill-fitting window frames but whispers. She shifted. The sheet rustled. It was late. She should be able to sleep. She should be exhausted.

  Yet she could not calm her mind. She felt discomforted. Images of Ren made her heart pound faster, while memories of the Duke made her blood run cold, as though on a seesaw. That brief, seemingly innocuous meeting had upset her much more than could be considered rational. It was that sneering callous tone of his voice. It was the way he had stepped too close and how she had felt naked despite her black gown and petticoats.

  It was the childhood memories he evoked, that feeling of being watched on her own property, the lingering wisps of that peculiar sweet smell that seemed a part of his persona.

  Then there had been that day he had followed her into the woods between the two properties.

  ‘I thought you might like some company,’ he’d said. ‘A cane is little use on such a rugged path.’

  ‘I am used to it.’

  He’d taken her arm. Her sleeves had been short. She’d felt his fingers, firm and clammy against her wrist. ‘Let me help.’

  She’d said nothing; it had been as though her words had been swallowed, disappearing into this balloon of fear which had grown huge within her gut.

  ‘You have become quite beautiful. I think young girls of twelve or thirteen years have the greatest beauty. There is a purity that is lost as they age.’ The hand that was not on her arm had reached up to touch her face.

  She’d flinched at the touch. ‘I—I really must go,’ she’d stammered.