“Of course,” Thea heard herself say. “I am always happy to meet one of my husband’s old friends.” Her emphasis was not polite.
Lady Towles’s smile became a little fixed. “How do you like London? I understand you were used to live in the wilderness; Somerset or somewhere equally rustic.”
“That is true, but of course I was still in the schoolroom then.” Thea smiled sweetly.
“How fortunate for you.” Adele Towles turned to look out at the crowded salon. “Is Douglas—dear Matlin—is he here this evening?”
Thea suppressed the urge to slap the older woman’s face. “He is somewhere about, ma’am,” she answered negligently. “Now, if you will forgive me, my friends are waiting. A pleasure to have met you.”
“Of course.”
It was nothing short of a challenge, Adele Towles’ smile, her manner and unbearable self-confidence, the way she rolled Matlin’s name on her tongue. The only thing for it was to ignore it. Thea had the memory of that brief exchange and Matlin’s smiles; that made it easier to ignore Lady Towles’s veiled threat.
Half an hour later, when she saw the woman leaning close to Matlin and murmuring something to him in a decidedly intimate manner, it was less easy to ignore. Thank God Matlin seemed unmoved by his companion’s manner, her confiding smile, and the hand, which Thea could see from across the hall, resting lightly on his forearm. Other men in their vicinity had eyes for Lady Towles, and Thea breathed a secret sigh when one of them finally bore her away with him. Take that, Thea thought, satisfied. If Matlin could reject Adele Towles’s obvious advances, perhaps there was hope. Everything seemed a sign of hope this evening.
Riding home to Hill Street that evening Thea and Matlin took turns teasing Lady Ocott about her elderly beau, threatening her with “what Uncle Nigel would say.” The old woman was so pleased to see her nephew and his wife in such high spirits, of such an accord, that she bore with their teasing happily. If there was a touch of wariness in Thea’s glance at Matlin, if Sir Douglas in turn looked on his wife with a kind of diffidence, that could surely be resolved. All in all, Lady Ocott was mightily pleased with the entire of the evening, corsetted suitor included. She was the more pleased to overhear Thea’s murmured request to Matlin that he take a few minutes in the library to talk with her.
“Well, children, goodnight,” she said in the hallway. “I’m for my bed. Have a nice chat.” Her smile was knowing and sympathetic. “What, Nigel, are you still up? Come to bed, dear love, and leave these children to themselves.” She favored her husband with a significant look and took his arm; she swept him along with her up the stairs. Matlin turned and let Thea lead the way to the library.
“I apologize for Aunt Sue; she can be revoltingly arch at times.”
“I wouldn’t change her for the world, not to the last dear lamb,” Thea protested mildly.
“No, nor would I.”
For a moment it seemed neither had any more to say. Matlin poured himself a brandy from the decanter Lord Ocott had left by his wing chair. Thea settled herself on the sofa. The silence was not uncomfortable, but at last Matlin broke it to remind Thea that she had requested a word with him.
“Yes, I....” She laughed and found herself blushing. “It’s hard to know where to begin.”
Matlin crossed to the sofa and took her hand in his own. “Begin at the beginning.”
“I wanted to tell you, that is, I....” Distracted by his touch and his nearness, Thea faltered. “I have to speak to you on someone’s behalf.”
It was plain from his expression that this was the last thing Matlin had expected. Oddly, that pleased Thea. She continued on, haltingly. “I promised to speak to you for him, well, not just for him, of course, but for...Matlin, what is it?”
He withdrew his hand, put his glass down on the mantel with a crisp clink, and stood there watching her; his face was tense and white. “What are you saying? Whose behalf?”
Flustered, Thea stammered out the name. “Joaquín. He is....”
“What is he?” Without giving her time to reply, Matlin went on. “If his message is what I think it is, let me remind you that you’re my wife, Dorothea, and the mother of my child, as well. Have you told him that? I don’t like his manner, nor the way he hangs upon you, and to be frank, I’m surprised that you let him. It would be as well for you to remember that you’re a married woman and one who is increasing. I don’t expect wisdom from a girl your age, but a little conduct, for God’s sake. If he thinks, if you think, that I would release you to him....”
“What are you talking about?” Thea cried. “What on earth do you think? All I want....”
“I can imagine all you want, madam. But recall, you’re my wife; it may not have been what either of us meant, but you’re my wife; you’re going to bear my child, and I won’t have you permitting men like that Joaquín to drape themselves over you as he did tonight. My God, since we arrived in London I don’t know what has got into you.”
“Do you care?” Thea shot back, infuriated. “If someone admires me, what of it? That man, that Joaquín, is no more to me than Tony Chase or anyone else, and if you are everlastingly at Whitehall, what do I owe you? Never a kindly word—I don’t mean sweet or gentle or, God forbid, loving, of the sort that a wife might expect from a husband. I mean kind. The sort of kindness you might show your boots or stableboy! Your aunt launched me in society as you told her to, and I’ve learned to do as ladies do in tonnish society, and now you find you don’t like it! Would you rather I were back in the convent and hemming tablecloths and listening to prayers?”
For a moment Matlin was taken aback by Thea’s anger.
“I don’t mean you should not go about; you know I don’t mean that. I’m proud of you, the success you’ve had since Aunt Sue brought you out, but you’re so damned young. I cannot wholly blame them,” he added darkly, “Joaquín and the others, when you dress that way, those muslin slips and low-cut bodices. My God, what do you expect a man to think?”
“You don’t seem to mind dampened muslin and low bodices on other women, sir. William Lamb’s wife, for example, or Sir Charles Towles’s.”
“What has Adele Towles to say to anything? My God, you don’t want to take her for your model.”
“She seems to have a great deal to say to you; she certainly did tonight. If we are to speak of it, she was practically hanging on you tonight. Matlin, if you wish to make such a high and mighty to-do about what I do as a married woman and your wife, you would do as well to recall that you are a married man. I might as well have stayed with Mother Beatriz and Silvy....” Her voice broke on the name, but anger made Thea shake the tremor from her words. “If you were offering me love in a cottage it would be one thing, but if you think I am likely to play Joan whilst my Darby goes about leering at someone as vulgar as Adele Towles....”
“Stop it! My God, girl, Adele Towles has nothing to do with this. I was talking about that—Joaquín whatever he is....”
“If it were not Joaquín you objected to, it would be Tony Chase or someone else as harmless! A friend!”
“You call that unctuous blackguard a friend?” Matlin spluttered.
“I certainly would not call him any of the names you have been giving him. Do you know him so well? I have never called him anything warmer, but I doubt you’ll believe that. Since you have made it perfectly plain that you do not consider me a wife but an obligation, I should think you would be deliriously happy to let other people amuse me and be kind to me, just so I should leave you alone!”
Determined not to show the tears she knew were imminent, Thea turned away from him toward the door. He stopped her, his fingers steely and unforgiving on her arm.
“Dorothea.” She did not turn. “Thea, turn around and look at me. For God’s sake, child, you don’t even know what you’re talking about! You cannot pretend you would have welcomed my attentions.... Dammit, you’re only a child, a baby. What I did to you, I don’t wonder you cannot forgive me....”
/> “Forgive you?” She spun around now and met his eyes, aware of how tall he was this close beside her. “Forgive you? What could I possibly have to forgive you for? You married me, you brought me home to England through great danger, established me with your family and made sure I was introduced to the ton in the best style! Forgive you? I am so indebted to you I can hardly lift my head under the obligation, particularly when you make it so plain it is an obligation! For that I cannot forgive you. If you don’t wish to be a husband to me that is your choice, but don’t try to make that out to be my fault! I rather wonder if you will ever forgive me, for saving your life, for having been foisted upon you by Silvy and Mother Beatriz, for....” Her voice broke again. Before she could begin to cry Thea resolutely shut her mouth and stared up at him, stony-eyed.
Matlin backed away from her. “My God, how you must hate me.”
Thea wanted to weep, to scream at him: no, I don’t hate you, I’ve never hated you, I’ve loved you since the day I found you in that ditch, sick...with Adele Frain’s name on your lips.
She said nothing, afraid that she would cry.
“All right,” Matlin said weightily. “I won’t trouble you again, Thea, but mark this: I will not tolerate that court-card hanging about you, or any other man of his stamp. If not for my sake, try for a little discretion for your own sake and the child’s. It’s a small world, London society, and things can be said that are unkind. A puppy like Tony Chase is nothing, Dorothea, but stay away from Joaquín.”
He turned on his heel and left the room.
Thea stood still with her hand at her mouth, unable to move, unable to make sense, of her own tumultuous thoughts. “What have we been saying to each other,” she whispered at last. “Oh my God. He didn’t understand a word I said, and all I could do was taunt him about Lady Towles. Oh lord.” Inexpressibly tired, Thea left the library at last and climbed wearily to her room, where Ellen was waiting to put her to bed. Suffering the woman’s ministrations numbly, Thea watched in the mirror as her dress was taken off and tidily hung away, her negligee put on, her hair unpinned and combed out. Not until she was alone again with only the distant glow of the dying fire for company did she begin to think.
She had let them down, Joaquín and, in a way, Silvy and Mother Beatriz and the others, all of Spain. Such a simple task, to ask for an audience for a friend with her husband, and what a disaster she had made of it, what a complete mull....
o0o
Some time after she heard Matlin stomp upstairs, followed by Thea’s lighter tread, Lady Ocott rose from her bed, pulled on the ornate satin robe which Lewis had laid out for her and went through the dressing room which connected her own room to that of her husband. To her satisfaction he was still wide awake, reading some official looking papers, his nightcap perched at a rakish angle over his thinning hair.
“My love, what an honor,” he teased dryly.
“Don’t be difficult, Nigel. Move over. I need to speak with you.” Lady Ocott sat on the edge of her husband’s bed and waited for him to make space for her. When they were settled in and Lord Ocott had taken her hand in an old-accustomed gesture, Lady Ocott said, “Nigel, I am out-of-countenance worried.”
“You are never out of countenance, Sue. What is it? In River Tick over a new bonnet?”
She drew herself up with some dignity. “I have never outspent my allowance in all the years of our marriage, Nigel Ocott; I will thank you to remember that. Have you not seen the way those children are with each other? Half the time I think they are just on the verge of being deliciously happy, and then they have a row and hey-presto, it’s all to pieces again. That poor girl is pining for love of Douglas, and he seems to have no idea of it at all.”
Lord Ocott stirred uncomfortably. “Sukey, do you really think this is our business?”
“Yes,” Lady Ocott said definitely. “Douglas is your heir, and I know you love him, dearest one; so it should be your concern to see him happy. As for Thea, she is just a dear little child....”
“Not so much of a child, Sue, and she don’t care to be called so; have you noticed? I think that if Douglas would remember that, they would be in happier case; he still thinks of her as a little girl from the convent. I thought that a little time....”
“Time? My God, they had another fight tonight, Nigel, when all looked so promising! So tomorrow Thea will be stony quiet, and Douglas will bury himself at Whitehall, and matters will only become worse. I cannot stand it; I cannot sit by and watch those imbecilic children make themselves so unhappy.”
Lord Ocott waited while his wife settled herself a little lower onto his shoulder before he asked, gently, “What do you wish me to do about it, my love?”
She looked up at him hopefully. “Will you speak with Douglas, Nigel? Find out what has possessed him since he came back from Spain. That girl truly loves him, and you must admit,” she added, with a touch of pride, “she is more than just pretty. Any man in London could be proud to own her as his wife, except Douglas, it seems.”
“You’ve done wonders with her, Sukey.” He sighed gustily. “I’ll speak to him, if you really wish it, and probably be cursed for a meddlesome old fool.”
“Not by me,” Lady Ocott assured him affectionately. “Now, shall I leave you to your reading, love?”
Comfortably aware of his wife’s plump, soft weight beside him, Lord Ocott considered. “I must finish this report, my dear, but if the candle will bother you....”
“Heavens, Nigel, when did candlelight ever bother me?” Lady Ocott protested drowsily. She nestled a little deeper into the crook of her husband’s arm and was very shortly asleep.
Chapter Twelve
In the light of day Lord Ocott uncomfortably recalled the promise he had given his wife the night before. He arose by eight and was dressed and breakfasting in a small back dining room by nine o’clock, when his nephew joined him. Douglas’s step was heavy; the dark hair tumbled over his forehead and fiercely knit eyebrows, very dark against the pallor of his face.
“Good God, boy, looks as if you were making a batch of it last night. Where did you go after Almacks’?”
Matlin summoned a faint smile for his uncle, sat, and rang for coffee. “I went no farther than my room, sir. You keep excellent brandy in your cellars.”
Lord Ocott frowned. “If you keep this up, Douglas, I shall give orders to Platt that none of the staff are to bring the decanter to your room.” He leaned forward with an expression of exasperation on his face. “God’s blood, boy, it’s one thing to get foxed amongst friends at your club or at a men’s dinner.... I don’t disapprove of young chubs who go off drinking Blue Ruin at Tattersall’s or Cribb’s Parlor, however much it may surprise me that they can stomach the stuff, but to drink yourself into a stupor in your own room—no matter how good the brandy—is not just ruinous to your health. It is stupidity itself where your career is concerned.”
“I will bear that in mind,” Matlin said stiffly.
“Come, don’t cut up stiff with me. You might at least tell me what has got into you since you returned from Spain. You never used to drink this way, hellion though you were amongst your friends. Now look what you have: a good income and property, which I managed to keep out of the hands of your cousin Jack, not a little feat, if I say so myself; your health, which, considering your adventures abroad, is no inconsiderable gift; what may be a promising future in the government, or are you unaware that practically the only thing Castlereagh and Canning can agree upon is that you’re a young man of promise? And a little beauty of a wife who has made a success in the ton and will, I do not doubt, make an excellent helper to you in your career. Now you tell me, what of all that admits of the sort of misery you’ve wrapped about yourself?”
“You’re right, sir. Nothing in the world, obviously.” Matlin’s voice was light and ironical; his smile was pained.
Lord Ocott gripped his nephew’s wrist strongly. “Don’t play games with your ancient uncle, Douglas. You’re all the heir
I have in the world, and to tell the truth, it near killed me to think you’d died out there in Spain on business of mine. Look, boy: I mean to know what is troubling you. Sukey says it’s to do with the girl, Dorothea, and that she’s no happier than you are. If this is some kind of lover’s quarrel....”
“Uncle, I cannot conceive that you are truly interested in my domestic arrangements. I am sorry if I have been letting my work at Whitehall slip because of this, and I will endeavor....”
“Whitehall be damned. Douglas, tell me straight out, and please believe I am no more comfortable asking than you are in answering. What has gone wrong between you and your wife? The girl plainly adores you, and she’s a pretty, amusing little thing; she should be all that a man would need. She is your wife, not some highborn flirt you can neglect at will, like Adele Towles. So what the devil is to do?”
“I’m afraid you read my wife a little differently than I do, sir.” Again Matlin strove for that ironical tone. “So far from adoring me, as you say, Dorothea dislikes me quite strongly. As, I regret to say, she has reasons to do. It seems she is much happier to be left to her own devices these days with no interference from me. It is not,” he added as his uncle opened his mouth to speak, “it is not the way I would wish it, but I will not importune her. Not again,” he added in an undertone.
“What a Cheltenham tragedy,” Lord Ocott drawled. “Mysterious reasons for disliking you, veiled suggestions.... What in God’s name could you have done to a healthy, happy child like that? Were you too rough with her on your wedding night? I’d hardly have thought she....”
“For God’s sake, sir!” Stung by the accuracy of his uncle’s wild guess, Matlin knocked his coffee cup over and stood up. “She is only a child, a ‘baby,’ she knows nothing of these things....”
“Sit down, Douglas.” Nigel Ocott commanded. “And you listen to me. That child, that ‘baby,’ as you call her, is a young woman with, and I mistake it not, all the normal feelings and—uh—urges felt by young women. If you don’t take her down from that pedestal you’ve set her on, you’re going to lose her, my boy, and probably ruin yourself and your career into the bargain. Think on that, if you please. I am going out for a ride to clear this fustian from my head.” He laid down his napkin with a crisp gesture and took his leave; he was shaking his head irritably.
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