by Candace Camp
Thea said crisply, “Young lady, while you may not have any concern for your reputation and are happy to let everyone see your very poor manners, you might consider the other patrons of this establishment, who did not come here to listen to a silly young girl screeching like a harpy.”
Iona’s jaw dropped comically as she stared at Thea. “Ow! You’re hurting me. Let go.”
“I will be happy to if you have regained your senses,” Thea began, but before she could go on, Mrs. Farnham rushed over.
“Iona! Iona!” She swung on Thea. “Let go of her! Who are you? Do you realize to whom you’re speaking?”
“I am speaking to a very rude and impulsive young woman,” Thea answered, gray eyes snapping behind her spectacles. “If this girl is in your charge, I can only say that you are doing a very poor job.” As the woman began to puff up like a pouter pigeon, her face flaming red, Thea went on, “Though I can certainly see where she gets her taste for theatrics.”
Genevieve stood up quickly. She would have liked to hug Thea for her swift and razor-sharp defense of her, but she could not let this scene escalate into another bit of fodder for Lady Looksby’s column.
“We are leaving, Mrs. Farnham,” Genevieve said shortly. “But I suggest you get Miss Halford in hand before she makes a spectacle of herself.”
She expected an angry retort from the older woman, but Mrs. Farnham refused to even look at her, giving an ostentatious sniff and turning her head away, as if the very sight of Genevieve offended her. Genevieve was amazed at how the insult pierced her. She turned and walked to the door, not daring to even glance back to see if Thea followed her. Tears beat at the backs of her eyes, and her cheeks were hot with humiliation. She started blindly up the street, and Thea came up beside her to take her arm, turning her the other direction.
“The carriage is down here,” Thea said, leading her to the Morecombes’ glossy black vehicle. Thea climbed into the carriage after Genevieve and sank back into the seat. “What a horrid woman! Sometimes I find myself quite lacking in Christian charity.”
Genevieve nodded, trying to smile, but tears were flooding her eyes, and she turned her head away quickly, gazing out the window as intently as if she had never seen Piccadilly before. Thea, after a quick glance at her companion, continued to talk, leaving the subject of the women they had just met and starting a paean to the ices they had eaten, followed by an account of the books she had purchased at Hatchards, and finally running out of anything to say as they were pulling up to her front door. Genevieve kept her hands clenched together in her lap, clamping down the sobs that threatened to burst from her, reaching up now and then to wipe away a trickle of tears that had escaped out of the corner of her eye.
“I should go,” she said in a choked voice as they stepped down from the carriage.
“Nonsense.” Thea wrapped an arm around Genevieve’s shoulders and pulled her into the house with her. Waving off the footman who stepped forward to take their hats, she took Genevieve into the small sitting room and closed the door firmly behind them. “Now, tell me.” Thea took off her bonnet and dropped it into a chair. “What is the matter? Is it only that extremely silly young woman?”
“No. No.” Genevieve shook her head, pressing her lips together. Her tears only seemed to come faster. “Oh, bother! I shouldn’t cry! I’m so sorry.”
“Of course you should cry.” Thea reached out to undo the ribbons of Genevieve’s hat and send it sailing onto the chair with hers. “Anyone would want to cry if someone attacked her in the confectioner’s shop.”
Genevieve let out a laugh at Thea’s statement, but it turned somehow into a sob, and suddenly she could not hold back the tears any longer. She began to cry in earnest, great, tearing sobs wrenching her body, tears flooding down her face. Thea wrapped her arm around her and guided her over to the sofa to sit down, patting Genevieve’s shoulder as she cried her heart out.
“I’m so sorry. So sorry.” The words came out of Genevieve as if wrenched from her. “I’ve ruined everything.”
“Nonsense,” Thea said briskly. “Of course you haven’t. What could you have ruined?”
“My—my life! Myles’s life. Oh, Thea, you don’t know! It is all such a horrible, horrible mess.” Genevieve drew a shuddering breath and pulled out her handkerchief to wipe at the tears covering her face.
Thea took her arm from Genevieve’s shoulder and turned to face her squarely. “Why do you say you’ve ruined your life? Or Myles’s?”
“Because I married him! I let him sacrifice himself. Worse, I seized upon his offer. And now he is—is tied to me forever!”
Thea frowned. “Has nothing changed since we last talked? Is Myles still angry with you?”
“No. Yes. Oh, I don’t know! I am so confused. I think sometimes he must hate me.”
“Genevieve! Surely not. Gabriel has said nothing to me of anything like that.”
“Does he—” Genevieve looked at her almost beseechingly. “Does he know what Myles wants?”
“I don’t know.” Thea looked puzzled. “He has not said so to me. Genevieve . . . why do you think Myles hates you?”
“He—he wants me to submit to him,” Genevieve burst out. Thea’s eyebrows soared upward, and Genevieve blushed to the roots of her hair.
“Genevieve, what do you mean?” Thea’s voice was filled with concern. “Is Myles—are you saying that he is cruel to you? That he . . . hurts you? Or makes you do something you don’t wish to?”
“No! Oh, no, not in that way. He would never raise his hand to me; you must not think that.” Genevieve blushed even harder, her face twisted in misery. “He said I was cold. I don’t mean to be. I didn’t—” She sighed. “I didn’t think I was. But I don’t know what a man wants.”
“Myles, um, said he was ‘dissatisfied’?” Thea asked delicately.
“No. But he told me I was cold, and he told me I could sleep alone in my bed as I wanted. And I don’t. I didn’t—want to, I mean. It’s just—that’s the way it’s done. And I—I wanted to have some space that was mine alone, where I could go, you know, when I want to be by myself.”
“There’s nothing wrong with wanting to be by yourself sometimes. Back at the Priory, I have a room where I like to go and read or think or just . . . be alone.”
“Do you—” Genevieve gazed at her hands, not looking at Thea. “Do you and Gabriel have your own bedrooms?”
“I’m not sure.” Thea looked surprised. “I’d never thought. Not at the Priory. We never—I don’t know, I never thought about it when we got married. But I grew up in a vicarage, you understand, and I am used to a great deal less space than you. At Gabriel’s estate, now, yes, we have two bedrooms. It is easier with all the clothes and everything, but really . . .” Thea smiled, her cheeks turning pink. “He does not ever sleep in his chamber. It is, I guess, more a very large dressing room for him.”
“Oh.”
“Is that why Myles was angry . . . because of your bedroom?”
“I don’t think so. He didn’t say anything against it—well, you know Myles, he made some sort of flippant remark. But it wasn’t what he was so furious about; it was . . .” Genevieve shrugged. “It was about me and the way I am.”
“Did he never apologize for saying those things to you?”
“He tried, I suppose.” Genevieve shrugged. “He said he was sorry to have said them. Myles does not like to offend people; he likes for life to go along smoothly. But the words are still there; you cannot unsay them.”
“But surely sometimes you say things you don’t mean?”
“I did.” Genevieve nodded and once again seemed to find her hands of great interest. “I told him I didn’t care, that I wasn’t like him and I didn’t have his . . . appetite.” She twisted the dangling end of a ribbon on her dress, then let it unwind. “It wasn’t true,” she almost whispered. “I did enjoy it. But I couldn’t—I couldn’t admit it after he’d said how cold I was. After I realized that he had been pretending.”
“I don’t mean that.” Genevieve lifted her head. “But he is able to act as if he desires you when he clearly is not as moved as you are. At first after that fight, we could hardly speak, but then, suddenly, he started acting as if everything was all right. He was the way he used to be, teasing and light, and he’d . . .” She swallowed. “He would touch me or kiss me, and he would look at me in a certain way—do you know what I mean?”
“I have an idea,” Thea replied drily.
“And I thought he was going to take me to bed again and everything would be all right. But then he wouldn’t. After a bit, he would just stop. And I would feel such a fool. Except worse than a fool because I was so . . . twitchy. He’s purposely tormenting me, using what I feel for him against me, so, yes, he is being cruel. He has hurt me.”
“But why? I don’t understand.”
“Because he wants me to grovel!” Genevieve surged to her feet. “He told me the other night he wanted me to come to his bed. He wants me to beg, to give up my—”
“Your what? He wants you to give up your . . . ?”
“Myself!” Genevieve cried out. “He said I didn’t want to just be his wife, that I wanted to still be Genevieve Stafford. But I can’t not be me.”
“Of course not. No more than Myles cannot be Myles.”
“Yes! Exactly. He wants me to capitulate entirely. And he is driving me mad! He won’t stop. I know he won’t stop until I either go insane or I’m driven to his bed. I cannot be like that. I won’t be under a man’s power.” Genevieve stopped and faced Thea almost defiantly.
Thea regarded her for a moment. Finally she said, “You say you are proud. But it seems to me that you are being far too humble.”
Genevieve looked at her blankly.
“You don’t seem to realize that it isn’t only Myles who has power over you. You have power over him.”
“No. I don’t,” Genevieve said sadly. “He does not care about me.”
“Now there I know you are wrong. Gabriel was with Myles last night when he received that message about you and the rumor. Gabriel saw his face when he realized what sort of trouble you were in, and it was not that of a man who doesn’t care. He ran; he came to your side as fast as he could. Because he knew you were hurt, that you needed him. He flew to you the way I would fly to Gabriel or Matthew if they were in danger.”
“I am his wife. It is his name under siege, as well.”
“Those were not the actions of a man concerned about his name,” Thea told her flatly.
“Then how can he kiss me until I’m quivering and then he just walks away?” Genevieve cried.
“He may walk away, but I’ll warrant you it is at no small cost to him, Genevieve. You are a beautiful woman. And Myles is a man. A man, you just said, who has ‘appetites.’ ”
“He seemed to,” Genevieve admitted a little sadly.
“I cannot know what happens in your bedroom, but I have seen you and Myles together. He looks at you the way a man looks at a woman he wants. A woman he cares for. It may be that Myles is good at pretending, but I think the pretense is his walking away from you.”
“Do you really think so?” Genevieve asked, unable to hide the green shoot of hope in her voice.
“Yes, I do. I am not sure just what he wants from you or why he is acting this way, but you don’t have to surrender everything. There is bound to be somewhere in the middle you can meet. Have you never seen your cook haggle with a vendor?”
“You want me to negotiate with him?” Genevieve gaped at her.
“Not with words. But you can affect him just as much as he affects you. You have to remember, men always carry a traitor in their ranks. And that is how you can end this war.”
“Is my husband at home?” Genevieve asked the footman as she took off her bonnet and handed it to him.
“He’s in his study, my lady.”
Genevieve walked across the entry and paused in front of the large mirror that graced the opposite wall. The signs of her crying bout were still on her face, but though her eyelids remained a bit swollen, much of the redness had receded from her eyes, and her cheeks had an attractive flush. The starry points the tears had made of her lashes, the soft vulnerability of her mouth, were appealing—especially, she thought, to a man such as Myles, who could never resist a plea for help. Her hair was a bit of mess, and she reached up to tame a wayward strand, then stopped. With a small smile, she left the bit of hair free of its pins and trailing down the smooth, long line of her neck, and she started down the corridor to Myles’s study.
Her fingers clenched and unclenched with nerves. She was not an actress, but surely she could manage the part of a seductress. She had, after all, the sweet, sensual days of their honeymoon to draw from. Thea was right; Myles could not have been entirely unmoved by their lovemaking. He had participated in it far too enthusiastically for that—and she could remember the things that had sparked a certain look in his eyes.
Genevieve paused at the doorway, waiting until Myles, sensing her presence, looked up. He smiled, rising to his feet. “Genevieve. I was wondering where you were. Did you go out with Thea today?”
“Yes, it was quite pleasant.” She decided to leave out the scene at Gunter’s. Genevieve strolled toward him, raising her hand and beginning to tug her glove from her hand, removing it bit by bit.
“I am glad.” Myles’s gaze was on her hand, seemingly riveted by the slow, languid movements.
She came to a stop in front of him as she finished taking off her gloves and tossed them onto his desk. Gazing into his eyes, she said, “I came to ask for your help.”
“Indeed?” he murmured, reaching up to touch the lock of hair clinging to her throat.
“Yes. I thought I would take the carriage to The Onlooker tomorrow.”
“Genevieve . . .” He looked somewhat alarmed. “I thought we agreed it would cause more scandal to confront them.”
“Oh, I don’t plan to go inside.” She smiled up at him, taking the lapels of his jacket in her fingers and sliding them down to his stomach. “I am going to sit in the carriage and watch. I might see someone of interest going into their shop.”
“Like Langdon, you mean?” His voice came out a bit rusty, and he cleared his throat.
“Exactly.” She slipped her hands inside his jacket and rested them against his front. Her forefinger casually traced the pattern of his waistcoat. “But it would not do, would it, for me to go there alone?”
“No, indeed not.” His chest rose and fell a trifle more rapidly, and a faint flush was rising on his cheeks.
“So I thought that as my husband, you might wish to accompany me tomorrow afternoon.”
“I would.” His eyes were bright and intense on hers, and Genevieve wanted quite badly to lean forward into him, to raise her lips to his. But she made herself step back, trailing her fingers down and off his waistcoat. She started toward the door, but turned back at the sound of his voice.
“Genevieve . . . what the devil are you doing?”
Her eyes glinted as she smiled slowly. “Oh, I think you know.”
Genevieve turned and sauntered from the room.
Twenty-one
Genevieve went upstairs and set about renovating her wardrobe. Under the watchful gaze of her cat, who lay atop the elegant mahogany highboy, she and Penelope sifted through her gowns, deciding which ones could be altered. Genevieve had never realized before how many of her dresses were high-necked. A large number of them would look far better without a lace fichu tacked onto the neckline, and on one or two Penelope could lower the neckline.
It also occurred to Genevieve that her nightgowns were remarkably dull. Did she really need each and every one to be high-necked and long-sleeved? A bit of lace here and there would not be amiss, either. All her undergarments, fro
m petticoats on down, could do with a sprucing up. She would have enough time to do some shopping the next day after they went to The Onlooker.
For supper that evening, she wore a deep plum satin gown, so rich in texture and color that it almost drew one’s hand to touch it. With its lace fichu removed, the dark color and wide, square neckline showed off the white expanse of her chest to best advantage. Such a dress called for a hairstyle other than her usual rather subdued one, and she had Penelope add a few loosely corkscrewed, feathery, pale strands that brushed against her neck and face. Her success was measured in the way Myles’s eyes widened in appreciation when she came into the room.
As they ate, she flirted lightly with her husband, seizing any opportunity to lightly touch his arm or hand. She could see the signs of desire soften his features and darken his eyes, and though he did not respond to her subtle overtures, she was confident he was not immune to them. Her suspicion was confirmed when after supper, Myles immediately bolted to his club.
The next morning, wearing her dressing gown and with her hair hanging loose down her back, she intercepted Myles on his way to breakfast. His eyes flew to her hair, then to the neckline of her dressing gown, where the lapels joined, revealing the white cotton of her nightgown above it.
“I had Bouldin set up a breakfast room in here,” she told Myles cheerfully, taking his arm and sweeping him into the anteroom off the dining room. “ ’Tis so much cozier.”
She indicated the small room, now furnished with a round table set for two and a sideboard on which chafing dishes of food were lined up. “I hope you do not mind that I did not dress yet. It seemed all right since it would be just the two of us. I told Bouldin we would simply serve ourselves.”
He sank down into his chair without replying. Genevieve fussed around him, laying his napkin across his lap, pouring his tea, then insisting on taking his plate and filling it with food. Setting the plate down in front of him, she leaned over, letting the loosely tied dressing gown gape open a bit, revealing a further glimpse of her nightgown and the shadowy valley between her breasts.