by Mary Balogh
“Secrets?” he said, his voice unaccustomedly harsh. “Again, Anna?”
She looked up into his face. “There have been no secrets,” she said. There, she had lied after all. His eyes, steely and cynical, looked back into hers.
“Secrets are one thing, madam,” he said. “Lies are something else again. Here, take the money, and take yourself from my sight. I am busy.”
He might as well have slapped her face. She winced, took the money, and turned away. But his voice stopped her before she reached the door.
“Anna,” he said, “you are my wife. I am never too busy for my own wife. Come and sit and I will order tea. Will came calling earlier. I do believe he fancies your sister. Certainly he blushes and stammers enough for ten lovelorn suitors. If she ever accepts him you must persuade her to tease him out of his atrocious bob wig and into a more fashionable bag wig instead. The sight of his head pains me. All of Paris would fall into a collective swoon at the sight of him.”
She sat, clutching her money foolishly in her hands until he fetched a stool for her feet and took the money and set it on the desk. And she wished she could go back and answer his question honestly. It is to pay one of my father’s gambling debts, she could have said. Would it have sufficed? Would he have wanted to know more?
She longed to tell him more. She longed to tell him everything. But she could not. She dared not risk it. There was a child in her womb, an innocent child who might well be cast out with her. And thrown into prison with her. And . . .
“I believe,” she said, “that Agnes likes him as he is, Luke. She gazes at him as if he were Prince Charming come to life. It amazes me, I must confess. Myself I always looked for a . . .”
“Yes, madam?” His eyes were intent on her. She was reminded suddenly of the way he had looked at her across the Diddering ballroom.
“For a handsome face,” she said and blushed.
“Indeed?” He raised his eyebrows. “And is that what you got?”
“Yes.” Her cheeks were on fire.
“As for me,” he said, “I always looked for a pretty face. And I got it, I might add.”
They were on familiar ground, flirting and teasing each other. She kept her eyes averted from the money on the desk.
Anna learned over the weeks and months following that first letter to live deeper within herself. She did not neglect either her duties or her social obligations. But there was a private inner world to which she retreated whenever terror approached.
• • •
Luke knew about the letters. He had seen a few of them being delivered, but even when he did not see them, he always knew. He knew her far better than she could possibly realize, far better than he had known any other woman. He always knew.
He knew, too, that the letters did not come from anyone local or concern any local crisis. They were letters that were deeply personal and deeply disturbing to her. They were letters concerning her past, perhaps. Letters from her former lover. Though he felt he knew Anna rather too well to suspect that she would carry on such a clandestine correspondence. And he suspected that blackmail was somehow involved. There was that rather large advance she had asked for on one occasion.
What was it that she felt she had to hide? What could be so serious that she was willing to pay to keep it hidden? Something to do with that former love, perhaps? Was someone threatening to give him the details? Could they be so very bad?
He tried eventually to talk to her. It was on a day when one of the letters had come, though he had not seen it this time or the messenger who had brought it. He was in his study, dealing with some correspondence of his own, when there was a knock at the door. He ignored it, thinking that it was probably Henrietta, but the door opened anyway. He did not look up.
“I am busy,” he said curtly. “Perhaps later.”
But then he felt a hand touch and then smooth over his shoulder and looked up sharply. He smiled, set down his pen, and covered the little hand with his own.
“Emily,” he said, “what can I do for you, my dear?”
She gazed into his eyes, her own sorrowful.
“What is it?” He took her hand between both his own. He felt a deep fondness for the child, a fact that had taken him by surprise at the beginning. There was so much person behind the silence, he suspected. Her eyes were the only window to that person, and her smiles. Today she was not smiling.
She pointed upward and he found himself looking up to the ceiling.
“Upstairs?” he said. “What is up there, my dear? Or who is up there?”
She stared at him mutely.
“Anna?” he said and she nodded.
He knew she had had a letter today. He had seen the truth in her face. “She is unhappy?” he asked. “She needs me?”
Emily nodded.
He did not immediately turn away from her. He found himself searching her eyes, almost as if he expected to find answers there. And almost seeing answers.
“You know, do you not?” he said. “You know what it is that is making her unhappy.”
Her eyes grew luminous.
“’Tis something from her past,” he said.
But she would neither confirm nor deny it. She pointed upward again.
“I will go to her,” he said. He squeezed her hand between both his own and then brought it to his lips. “Thank you, Emily. You are a good sister. You love her dearly, do you not?”
But she turned, drawing her hand away, and ran lightly across the room. She had opened the door and was through it before he could open it for her. She ran ahead of him up the stairs, pausing a few times to look back to make certain that he followed. She stopped outside the door to Anna’s sitting room, waited until he had caught up to her, and then turned back to the stairs. He watched her run lightly up to the nursery floor.
Yes, he thought, raising a hand to tap on the door, it was time he tried talking with her.
She was sitting beside the fire and was in the process of opening a book, which she had reached for in response to the knock at the door, he guessed as he opened it and entered. She had not invited him to come in though she smiled now and closed the book again.
“Oh,” she said. “I was reading and lost track of time. Have I forgotten something? Is it teatime?”
“No,” he said, seating himself and looking at her.
The incongruity of the smile on the one hand and the pale face and bleak eyes on the other was chilling. She was wearing a morning gown wrapped loosely about her and looked more than six months pregnant. Even in her stylish sack dresses, worn loose in front, French fashion, as well as at the back, which he had suggested to her after forbidding her to wear stays, she looked noticeably pregnant. His mother was scandalized by the fact that she was no longer laced and had suggested that she stay out of the public eye until after her confinement. Anna had told her gently but firmly, as only Anna knew how, that she went unlaced at her husband’s bidding and would honor her social obligations for as long as he saw fit. Or so Henrietta had reported to him. Henrietta had also suggested that he have a quiet word with Anna and persuade her to behave in a more seemly manner. As if there were something unseemly about being with child.
“What is it?” Anna’s smile had slipped somewhat. “Why do you look at me like that?”
“Emily just came to me in the study,” he said, “to tell me that you were unhappy.”
She looked at him blankly for a moment and then laughed. “Emily told you?” she said. “Emily cannot speak.”
“Oh, yes, she can,” he said. “Her eyes are more eloquent than many people’s tongues.”
“And with her eyes she told you that I was unhappy?” she said.
“Yes.” He watched her keenly and waited.
A few times she looked to be drawing breath to speak but said nothing. He watched her swallow. He watched her hands on
the arms of her chair. So much could be learned about people’s emotions from watching their hands, he had learned when he was receiving instructions on swordplay and shooting. Anna’s were plucking at the upholstery.
“I have been feeling heavy,” she said at last, “and a little unwell. I have the misfortune to be one of those women who grow very large with child.” She laughed briefly. “And I have three months still to go. I have been feeling a little depressed. A little u-unattractive. It is foolish, I know.”
“Have I made you feel unattractive?” he asked, his eyes narrowing.
“No,” she said almost in a whisper. “No, Luke.”
“Come here,” he said.
She looked at him uncertainly for a few moments, but then she rose to her feet and came obediently to stand before his chair. He undid the sash that held her gown closed at the waist and pushed back the silk fabric. The swelling of her womb pushed against her shift. He spread both hands over it and looked up at her.
“Do you remember what I once told you about how you would appear to me when you were large with child?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said.
“I spoke the truth,” he said. “I still come to your bed at nights, Anna. I claim my marital rights there two or three times a week though I am careful these days not to burden you with my weight. You must know, I believe, that I still find you desirable.”
“Yes.” Her lowered eyes watched his hands.
“But perhaps, madam,” he said quietly, “you wish to be attractive to others as well as to your husband?”
She looked up into his eyes and shook her head slowly.
“Let us have done with this nonsense about your feeling unwell and unattractive, then,” he said. “We once agreed that plain speaking was essential to a workable marriage. I allowed you to retain one secret. I did so on the understanding that it belonged in your past and would forever remain there. But it encroaches on the present. That I cannot allow. There have been other secrets, Anna.”
Her eyes had widened. His hands, resting firmly on her hips, prevented her from taking a step back.
“No,” she whispered.
“Yes,” he said. “You are mine, Anna. Body and soul. I will have all of you now and for the rest of our lives.” He was surprised by the fierceness of his tone, by the power of his feelings. He had not intended to speak this way. “No more secrets.”
“Ahh!” Her hands came up to cover her face though even so he could see its chalky whiteness. “Not those words, Luke. Not body and soul. Not like a bird in a cage, robbed of all freedom, robbed of all privacy. Not body and soul.”
But he had grown angry. Even as he had spoken he had felt the impossibility of possessing her soul. And the undesirability of doing so. But even so he felt shut out, totally excluded from all the deepest meanings of her life. He realized suddenly how little he knew her even after six months of marriage. There was a whole aspect of her life from which she had excluded him and from which she would continue to exclude him.
The realization made him angry. He had never wanted such knowledge of her. What had changed? He got to his feet, keeping his hold of her.
“Who was he?” he demanded. “I need a name, madam.”
A great blankness descended almost visibly behind her eyes, like a curtain. She stared at him, her face turning paler, if it were possible.
“Your lover,” he said. “The man who had you before you married me. Who was he? Who is he?”
“No.” Her voice was a whisper. “You said . . .”
“He is the cause of your unhappiness, if I am not greatly mistaken,” he said. “Are the letters from him? Or from someone who writes of him?”
“The letters?” There was terror in her eyes.
“You must think me a fool, madam,” he said.
She shook her head. “I sometimes have letters from Mrs. H-Hendon,” she said. “She needs help with her—with her father. He is elderly and infirm. I sometimes go to help.”
He looked at her steadily without saying anything and finally her eyes closed and she bit her lip.
“His name, Anna,” he said. “He has already had the virginity that should have been mine to take. He will have no more of you. He will die if he thinks to try.”
Her eyes came open. “He did not,” she said. “He did not. I have only ever been yours. I have lain with no man except you. There has only ever been you.”
“Ah, pardon me,” he said. “Clearly my experience was not sufficient enough to enable me to know the difference between a virgin passage and one already opened for sexual activity. It seems I have done you an injustice, madam.”
She bit her lip again. And she drew breath. “And what about you?” she said, her voice rising. “You kept a secret from me. You told me you could not remember the cause of the quarrel with your brother, as if that were possible. You told me nothing of Henrietta. And you have told me nothing of your numerous meetings with her since we came here. You could not marry her, could you, because she was your brother’s widow. And you could not come here without a wife because then it would not have seemed proper for you to be so much in her company. But all is cozy for both of you now. Is that why you married me, Luke? Not just for sons but for respectability while you rekindle the past with your old love?”
Good God. “Madam,” he said coldly, “you are out of order.”
“Oh, yes,” she said. “Yes, of course. We live in the real world, do we not? The real world where there is one set of rules for men and another for women. I must be condemned because I was apparently not a virgin on my wedding night. But you can freely admit to enough experience to have made the detection of my secret very easy. I must live without memories and bind myself to you body and soul while you can indulge, not only in memories but in a reenactment of those memories. Do you sleep with her, Luke? Or is a wife not permitted to ask such questions of her husband?”
He clamped a hand on her wrist and drew her toward the door. He was not consciously aware of where he was taking her or for what purpose until they were in her bedchamber and he was stripping off her gown and her shift and pushing her down onto the bed. He watched her as he stripped off his own clothes, feeling angry and frustrated. She looked back at him with pale, set face and hard jaw.
He knelt between her spread thighs and drew her legs up over his. He lifted her with his hands and pushed himself slowly and firmly inside. He held still there while he leaned over her, setting his hands on either side of her head, and joined his mouth to hers. He opened it with his own and thrust his tongue deep inside before withdrawing it and lifting his head to look into her eyes.
“You are mine, Anna,” he said. “This is an act you will perform only with me for the rest of your life. ’Tis an act I will perform only with you for the same period of time and an act I have performed only with you since our wedding. Have I answered your question?”
She closed her eyes and lay submissive and unresponsive beneath him.
“You are my wife and I am your husband,” he said. “If those facts make you feel like a bird in a cage, without freedom and without privacy, Anna, then so be it. ’Twas your choice to marry me.”
He watched her during all the minutes while he worked in her with steady rhythm. But for once his expertise failed him. Not that he was using any great expertise. He was doing only that which was intensely satisfying for a man but far less so for his woman unless her body had been prepared in advance or was worked on as part of the process. He was touching her only with the one intimate touch. But he could bring no response. And he was not even sure he had ever intended to. He was not making love to her, he realized as his climax approached. He was stamping her with the seal of his possession, reminding her that there was no part of herself that did not belong to him and was not his for the taking.
He released into her and knew for the first time as he did so that physica
l satiety and emotional satisfaction were two quite different experiences and did not always come together. He wondered if he had just ravished his wife—though that was rather a contradiction in terms. He drew himself out of her and got off the bed. He gathered his clothes from the floor.
“If it is freedom and privacy you crave, Anna,” he said, hearing the coldness in his voice, “you may have them in some small measure. Your private sitting room will be just that. I will not come there again uninvited. And I will not come to your bed again until after your confinement, until it is time for you to conceive again. Shall we say six months after this birth? Perhaps four if this is a daughter?”
Her eyes were closed. He had neglected to cover her when he got up from the bed. He dropped his clothes and did so now and then stooped for his clothes again.
“If you wish to discuss your letters with me at any time,” he said, “you will find me ready to listen. I cannot imagine you guilty of anything so very heinous. But you will remember, Anna, that you are mine. That that is an unalterable fact.”
She did not move. He went through her dressing room and into his own room, in which he had never slept. He leaned back against the door and closed his eyes. He had gone to her because she was unhappy. He had gone to try to bring her some comfort, some aid.
God!
He should have known that he was incapable of bringing comfort to anyone. He had known for a long time that he was no longer capable of loving. He had not known he was capable of cruelty. When she had needed comfort and understanding, he had been cruel.
He had allowed himself to become frustrated by her refusal to confide in him and angered by her accusation that he had been unfaithful with Henrietta. And that was something else he must do something about. He had allowed Henrietta to draw comfort from his company, always steering the conversation away from personal matters. But Anna had become suspicious. Could he blame her? He must see to it. He had hurt her and he did not want her hurt.
He opened his eyes and looked at his bed. Not so long ago he had guarded the privacy of his sleep, seeing to it that he never slept with the woman to whom he made love. Now he wondered if he was going to be able to sleep alone in that bed. For how long? Six months, he had said, four if this child were a girl. Plus the three months that remained of her pregnancy. Nine months, then. Perhaps seven.