It had to. Because he didn’t know how he’d bear it if it didn’t.
Chapter Twenty-one
In the next few days, however, things did not go back to the way they were, and it was driving Giles mad.
Ravenswood had been called to his estate to deal with an emergency there, so Giles couldn’t reach him without leaving town, which his trials wouldn’t allow. And he couldn’t write to the man—Ravenswood had always been adamant about not communicating by the mails. So he had no choice but to wait until the viscount returned, chafing at having the matter left up in the air.
Nor did it help his mood that Minerva still kept him at a polite distance even when they were making love. Oh, she was cordial enough. She told him of her day and listened as he told her about his. She began to decorate the town house, turning it from a sterile building that smelled of linseed oil and sawdust into a home that smelled of flowers and lemons. In every way, she behaved like a wife.
Or rather, like the average man’s image of a wife—one who would see to his needs and not bother him with anything of herself. If Giles asked about her book, she closed up, saying only that it was going well. She never told him how she felt—she was never playful or angry at him. She was just . . . there, like a doll he’d conjured up to share his bed.
It was making him insane. Every night he tried to crack her armor, to bring back the old Minerva, but though she shared his bed willingly and cried out her pleasure in his arms, she still kept him at a distance afterward.
He tried to convince himself that it didn’t matter if she didn’t blather on about feelings and such. He’d never wanted that. Things were as they should be. With her accepting her role as his wife, he had nothing to worry about.
Yet he worried all the same. The thought of continuing on in this formal sort of marriage made an odd panic seize his chest. Worse yet, though he tried not to let his rabid desire for her make him behave like an idiot, every time she was cool to him, it got more difficult to restrain himself. But he wasn’t going to beg.
So by the time Ravenswood returned to town and arranged a meeting with him, he was in a foul humor.
The morning after he’d received the note from Ravenswood, Giles left the house before Minerva was awake. She wasn’t always an early riser, given her habit of writing at odd hours.
Ravenswood was waiting for him at the boathouse in Hyde Park. Briefly Giles explained the situation with Newmarsh.
The viscount took notes, frowning here and there. “Had he guessed the other work you did for us?”
“No, I don’t think so. He was very focused on his own troubles.”
“Thank God for that.” He sighed. “Still, he’s put us in a devilish position.”
“I realize that. And I regret that my rash actions nine years ago are the cause of it.”
“If not for those rash actions, we would never have caught Sully. You may regret them, but I don’t.” Ravenswood searched his face. “You realize that the British government’s policy is not to—”
“Give in to blackmail. Yes, I know.”
“You wouldn’t want us to, anyway, would you, after what he did?”
“I’d rather see the man rot than allow him back into England. If anyone deserves to die alone in France, it’s Newmarsh.” Giles glanced away. “Unfortunately, not giving in to his blackmail means the end of my future. Which is why . . .” He dragged in a hard breath. “I’m willing to return to working for you, if that’s what it takes to get your superiors to comply with his blackmail.”
He could feel Ravenswood’s surprised gaze on him. “You’re serious.”
Giles nodded. “I don’t see that I have much choice, if the government will not give in to his demand otherwise.”
“That’s not true. You have one other choice. You can call the bastard’s bluff. Even if he does as he’s threatened, I don’t think the consequences will be as dire as he predicts. You were acting on your own. You were young and foolish. And you were on the side of right, whereas he was a villain. The public never sides with the villain.”
“Perhaps. But I won’t risk putting my family—and my wife—through another scandal. Besides, my career would be over—I’d certainly never be made King’s Counsel.”
“Ah, but you have friends in high places now,” Ravenswood said. “We can do a great deal behind the scenes to bury the story and make sure Newmarsh doesn’t get very far with it in the press.”
“Even if you could manage that, you can’t keep me from being disbarred.”
“You’d be surprised what we can do.” When Giles said nothing to that, Ravenswood eyed him closely. “Don’t you trust me? Surely you don’t think we’d leave you to fend for yourself after all you’ve done for your country.”
Giles met his friend’s gaze. “I know how the game of politics is played.”
“That may be true, but no one will abandon you, I swear.”
“I’d rather not stake my future and my career on that.”
“And I’d rather not have an operative whose heart is no longer in it,” Ravenswood retorted. “That does me no good.”
“Damn it, Ravenswood, you owe me this!”
“No—as your friend, I owe you better than this. I’m not going to watch you go back to a way of life that no longer suits you, just because you think you can’t trust anyone but yourself.” Ravenswood shook his head. “You’ve been doing this work so long that you’ve forgotten how to trust your friends. Be careful with that. If you never put your life in someone else’s hands, then you can’t really expect them to put theirs in yours. In the long run, never trusting anyone is a hard way to live.”
The statement took Giles by surprise. Had he really stopped trusting people? Was Ravenswood right?
He thought of Minerva, how she’d been so distant, so reserved. Was that how he appeared to her? Was that why she continued to be so vexed with him?
“I tell you what,” Ravenswood went on. “I’ll ask my superiors if they’d be willing to meet Newmarsh’s demand. If they refuse, as I suspect they will, then we’ll talk again, and you can tell me then what you want to do. That’ll give you some time to think about it.”
“Thank you,” Giles said, though he’d made up his mind already. “I’d appreciate that.”
He turned to go, but Ravenswood wasn’t finished with him. “By the way, I found out some information concerning that map of Plumtree’s.”
Giles blinked. He’d forgotten all about the bastard. Perhaps this was something he could sink his teeth into while waiting for Ravenswood to give him an answer. It would certainly help him with Minerva. She would surely come around if he presented her with decent information about Plumtree’s role in her parents’ deaths.
“What did you learn?” he asked.
“It’s a bit odd, actually. The map is a copy of one that’s in the British Museum.”
“What exactly is it supposed to show?”
“That’s the interesting part.” A gleam shone in Ravenswood’s eyes. “You are not going to believe this . . .”
MINERVA SAT AT the desk in her study and tried to write, but it was no use. She’d been out of sorts since before dawn, when she’d felt Giles leave the bed. She’d considered asking him where he was going. He went early to work some days, but never that early.
But she hadn’t asked. It was easier not to ask than to deal with his lying to her. Though she didn’t think he’d done so since France, she no longer knew what to expect from him. And that was killing her.
She’d just decided to go for a walk to clear her head, when Mr. Finch appeared at the door.
“You have several visitors, madam—” he began, but before he could even introduce them, practically her entire family invaded the room—Oliver and Maria, Celia, Gabe, Jarret and Annabel, Gran, and even Freddy and his wife, Jane. The only one missing was Jarret’s stepson, George, who was in Burton, visiting his other family.
She sprang up in delight. She hadn’t realized just how much she’d
wanted to see them until they’d appeared. “What are you doing here?” she exclaimed as she exchanged kisses and hugs with them.
Gran glanced around the room, eyebrows raised. “Celia told me you’d sent her a note saying that you and Mr. Masters hadn’t gone to Bath after all, so we figured we’d come call on you. We thought it was about time we saw where you were living.”
Celia grabbed her hands and leaned near to whisper, “You sounded a bit down to me, though I didn’t tell them that.”
Leave it to her sister to guess what she didn’t dare say. Marriage to Giles wasn’t turning out quite as she’d hoped. But she certainly didn’t want her family to know that.
“No, I’m perfectly fine.” She ignored the skeptical look Celia shot her. “Did you bring the map?”
Celia nodded and slipped it to her surreptitiously. Minerva shoved it in her apron pocket.
“And what is this room?” Gran demanded. “Looks like a library.”
“It’s the study Giles fitted out for me so I could write,” Minerva said proudly. Even with things so strained between them, it touched her every time she thought of his considerate gift to her. “He had the bookshelves specially built and bought me that desk and couch and everything.”
“How wonderful!” Annabel cast a knowing look at Jarret. “I told you he would take good care of her.”
“He’s not here, is he?” Jarret said.
“He had to work.” Minerva scowled at her brother. “He has a very important position, you know.”
“He could get away if he wanted to,” Jarret countered. “He always managed to do so before, disappearing for days at a time with no explanation to anyone.”
Yes, and she’d begun to wonder about those disappearances. They hadn’t bothered her so much before, but after Calais . . .
“You have no right to criticize him for working all the time,” Annabel told her husband. “You said you could only stop in here for a minute because you have a meeting with the cooper. Or had you forgotten?”
“Damnation!” Jarret cried. He bent to press a kiss to Minerva’s cheek. “Sorry, sis, got to run.” He started for the door, then stopped to glance at her. “He is treating you well, isn’t he?”
She pasted a teasing smile to her lips. “Except for the nightly beatings. Those are growing rather vexing.” At Jarret’s raised eyebrow, she said, “Now go on, before you miss your meeting.”
“He beats you?” Freddy said, wide-eyed.
“It was a joke, old boy,” Oliver said, clapping his hand on Freddy’s shoulder. “You know Minerva.”
“Yes, dear, a joke,” Freddy’s wife said, though a moment before she’d looked as shocked as Freddy.
“Well?” Gran said. “Are you going to show us the rest of the house, girl?”
“As long as you realize it’s a work in progress,” Minerva said. “I still have much to do to get it how I’d like it.”
Maria eyed her closely. “And Giles doesn’t mind you taking that over?”
“If he does, he hasn’t said a word.”
“Then he’s a more long-suffering husband than I gave him credit for,” Oliver muttered.
They trooped about as Minerva gave them the grand tour, explaining what she intended to do with furnishings. They oohed and ahhed over the jasperware fireplace surround and anthemion moldings in the drawing room, the crystal chandelier in the large dining room, and the fine Chippendale dressing table in the master bedchamber.
“You don’t have your own bedchamber?” Oliver asked as he spotted her notebook on one bedside table and Giles’s law journal on the other. “Maria has her own—even if she never uses it.” He and his wife exchanged a knowing glance that grated on Minerva’s nerves.
“I don’t want my own,” Minerva retorted. “I’m perfectly happy to share Giles’s.”
“Besides, they’ll need the rooms for their children,” Gran said. “These town houses never have enough bedchambers.”
The remark brought Minerva up short. How was she to bring children into a marriage where the parents were at odds? That was too much like her parents’ marriage for her comfort.
No, she couldn’t bear to think on it. “Come, let’s go see the garden.”
As if sensing her sudden dark mood, Oliver fell into step beside her. “He’s not going out every night and leaving you here alone to brood, is he?”
She could feel her brother’s searching gaze on her. “Of course not,” she said brightly.
“Not even to his club?” Oliver asked in surprise.
“He comes straight home and dines with me,” she told him. “So you had nothing to worry about.”
“I’m glad to hear it,” he said, though he still looked unconvinced.
“Even Oliver goes to his club occasionally.” Maria cast a shy smile up at her husband. “But he never stays out late.”
“No reason to,” Oliver said, patting her hand. “I have all the entertainment I want at home.”
Gabe and Celia snorted at that, but Minerva felt a stab of despair. Did Giles feel the same way as Oliver—that he would rather be at home with her than at his club? Or was he just keeping up appearances in these initial days? Would he soon be trotting off every night to find more amusing entertainment?
She wanted to think that her marriage would become like her brother’s in time, but Oliver and Maria were in love. Giles was not.
Still, he’d promised to be faithful. He’d also promised not to lie to her, though, and he’d broken that promise within days after their wedding.
“What’s in here?” Gabe asked as they passed a closed door on their way out to the garden.
“Giles’s study.”
Gabe opened the door and went inside.
Giles had never said she couldn’t enter it, but he’d never invited her in, either. The first time she’d breezed in, shortly after their return from Calais, he’d jolted up in his chair, shoved something into a desk drawer, then asked in a rather terse voice if there was something she’d wanted.
Later, too curious to resist, she’d gone to see what he’d been so eager to hide, but every drawer in his desk had been locked. It had reminded her with painful clarity that she wasn’t privy to everything in his life. After that, she’d left it alone.
That was probably why, as her family crowded inside now, she felt uneasy. Which was absurd. It wasn’t as if Giles were Bluebeard or something, hiding dead wives in his closet.
“Good God,” Gabe exclaimed. “Look at this place. He’s as bad as you.”
Minerva blinked, then looked around at the shelves full of books organized first by category, then alphabetically by author. On his desk, the inkwell sat in a precise line with the quill holder and the wax seals. She’d thought nothing of it when she first saw it, but now she burst into laughter. It was exactly like the items on her own desk. They both preferred to keep their surroundings under strict control.
Celia chuckled. “Gabe can’t imagine anyone preferring order to the chaos that is his desk.”
Gabe scowled. “I don’t like things hidden away where I can’t find them.”
“Which means that you think they should be strewn across every available surface,” Celia shot back. She smiled at Minerva. “Personally, I find it rather sweet that you both keep your studies so tidy.”
“Thank you.” A pity that they kept their marriage so messy.
“Makes you wonder what you two are like in the bedroom together,” Gabe muttered. “You probably make love with your eyes shut.” When everyone gasped, Gabe said, “What? You know you were all thinking it.”
“I wasn’t,” Freddy retorted. “I was thinking that Masters has a damned fine desk. I shall ask my father-in-law for one like that in my office. Do you know where he got it?”
Minerva wanted to kiss Freddy for changing the subject. She did not want to talk with her brothers about Giles’s bedroom prowess, of all things.
But as she answered Freddy’s question and ushered them out of Giles’s office a
nd down to the garden, she couldn’t help thinking that Gabe wasn’t far wrong. Giles was a bit too controlled in bed.
Not that he didn’t give her pleasure. He knew exactly where to touch her, how to touch her, how to enthrall her, even when she didn’t want to be enthralled.
Unfortunately, he did so with a curious lack of feeling, as if he were trying to win a competition. She’d kept herself aloof in an attempt to provoke him into showing some deep emotion, but it hadn’t worked. It was killing her.
After her family left, promising to have her and Giles out to dinner at Halstead Hall soon, she wandered back into her husband’s study. The place really did remind her of how buttoned-up and restrained he could be. Not cold or stiff, just . . . curiously unengaged.
She’d tried to wall up her own heart against him, but that hadn’t worked, either. Something about the intimacy of sharing a bed with a man night after night made it difficult to keep him at arm’s length.
So where did that leave her? She ran her fingers over the surface of his desk, with its locked drawers. How was she to make a man like him fall in love with her? Was that even possible?
“Madam, you have another caller.”
Wondering if one of the family had returned to speak to her privately, she glanced up to see the butler, Mr. Finch, standing in the doorway with Mr. Pinter at his side.
Relief swamped her. Now she might learn enough about her recalcitrant husband to figure out a way into his heart.
With a nod at Mr. Finch, she rose. “Mr. Pinter, how good to see you. Do come in.”
When Mr. Finch frowned, she gave him a frosty glance. She was married now, and there was nothing improper about her entertaining a male friend of the family in her own home, no matter what Giles’s stodgy new butler might think.
“Forgive me for intruding, Mrs. Masters,” Mr. Pinter said, with a furtive glance at the butler, who positively radiated disapproval. “I had thought your husband might be home. I could return later . . .”
“Nonsense. He’ll be here soon.” That was a blatant lie, but at least Mr. Finch didn’t know it. Giles had already told her he might not be home until quite late, because of one of his trials. “Do take a seat. Mr. Finch, if you’d be so kind as to send a maid up with some tea?”
How to Woo a Reluctant Lady Page 25