A Marriage of Inconvenience

by Susanna Fraser

  “Who was she?” Lucy asked.

  “Her name was Eleanor Talbot. She’s Lady Langley now. She married a few months ago.”

  “Lady Langley,” she repeated. “So—she’s—she’s not a—”

  “She is a woman of good family and excellent character, and not a member of the demimondaine,” James said, correctly interpreting her stammers. “I was not her keeper, and she was not my mistress. She—when I turned twenty-one and took my seat in the Lords, she was there in Town, recently widowed. Mr. Talbot had been an MP, and Eleanor kept up the salons she’d begun hosting while he was alive. I went, of course. All the Whigs of note were there, and I wanted to build connections. So we met, we talked—and I suppose she took a fancy to me. I would never have had the effrontery to approach her, boy that I was.”

  Lucy couldn’t help but smile to hear him refer to himself as having been a boy only three years before, but his words immediately suggested another question. “So she was—was she older than you, then?”

  “Thirteen years older.”

  She quickly worked the sum. “She was thirty-four?” Her voice rose in amazement.

  “Hardly an ancient age.” James sounded amused, but a trifle impatient, as well. “No one would remark upon the difference if the man were the elder—it’s not half the difference between your cousin and Lord Almont.”

  “The only reason no one is remarking upon their age difference is that he can hardly marry a woman near his own age if he wishes to get an heir.”

  “True. But still, you talk as though four-and-thirty is a great age. A woman of thirty-four is still young and beautiful.”

  “If my mother were alive today, she’d be thirty-six,” Lucy said. Younger than James’s Eleanor, in fact, who must be thirty-seven now. How could her husband have loved a woman older than her mother? Though Lucy was only six years younger than James, she must seem the veriest child to him.

  “Good God—she was eighteen when you were born?”

  “Yes, just as I am now.”

  “You’re so young,” he said, sounding dismayed.

  “So are you,” Lucy pointed out, a little annoyed. She was hardly too young to marry, nor too young for James by any reasonable standard.

  “I know. And I’m not saying you’re too young. It’s simply rather startling to realize that your mother wouldn’t yet be forty. My parents were older than most when they met, because my father was well into his forties when he returned from India. Of course, like our dear neighbor, he couldn’t choose a woman his own age if he hoped to pass on his title, but my mother was eight-and-twenty when they married.”

  “How did she happen to still be unwed? She was so beautiful, and an earl’s daughter.”

  “Because my grandfather, the earl before my uncle, had no money. My mother lacked a dowry, and so she received no suitable offers until my father came along. Even then, I’m not sure my grandfather quite approved of this upstart Sassenach—”

  “What’s a Sassenach?”

  James chuckled. “A rather impolite Gaelic term for an Englishman.”

  “Ah.”

  “Not what my grandfather had in mind for my mother, needless to say. But my parents fell in love—it sounds incredible, given how different they were in age and experience, but they did—and my mother pleaded her case. The fact that my father could provide funds enough to restore Dunmalcolm and the Gordons to solvency helped, though.”

  “Undoubtedly.”

  “And it worked out well. My parents were happy. I wish they were still here, but at least they were happy for the time they had.”

  “I wish my parents had been happy,” Lucy said softly. “I suppose they must have been, at the beginning, or they never would’ve eloped, but by the time I can remember, they were miserable. My mother would not have been young and beautiful at thirty-four. I remember her as…tired and worn. And she was only twenty-seven when she died.”

  He clutched her in a closer embrace. “I promise you, that will not be your fate. You won’t die young, and twenty years from now you will still be toasted as the beautiful Lady Selsley.”

  She was touched, but she shook her head. “You cannot promise me any such thing. You may be a powerful man, but I don’t think you can control whether I live out the next two decades, nor how I will look at the end of that time.”

  James sighed. “I know—though I do wish I could.”

  “You wish to be God, then?”

  “Not God of the whole world, no. But perhaps a demigod, with power to care for my own. Wouldn’t you, if you could?”

  “I suppose. I’d never thought of such a thing before.” Lucy realized that her husband, so powerful already, ached for yet more power, and it troubled her, for his sake. He didn’t seem capable of cruelty, so she couldn’t picture him abusing or exploiting those under his control—including herself. But she worried his hunger to control his world would only make him suffer more when inevitably some tragedy or disaster struck.

  “One thing I can promise you,” James said soberly, “is that you will never be so poor, nor so worn out from too much childbearing, as your mother was. Both of which should go a long way toward preserving your health and youth.”

  “That’s so.” Lying there with her own new husband, Lucy wondered about her parents and their marriage as she’d never thought to do as a child. “I wonder why my parents had so many children—a baby a year, essentially, and she was increasing again when she died. My parents weren’t happy, not at all. They were always good and kind to us—well, Mother could be short-tempered, but I know she meant to be kind—but they were bitter against each other.”

  “And?”

  She waved her hands in the darkness, embarrassed by what she was trying to say and looking for the best words. “I cannot imagine doing this—this coupling with someone I wasn’t kindly disposed toward. So much intimacy would be…abhorrent.” It was startling enough with James, whom she liked as well as she ever had any man other than Sebastian.

  “Ah, well…” His hand twitched restlessly against her stomach, and she got the sense he was looking for the right words on his own account. “It’s a powerful physical urge, and perhaps your parents still desired each other long after the rest of their affection had died. And…to tell the truth, it’s possible to use one’s body as a weapon, almost, and not only in the obvious case of rape. It can be about power, control.”

  Lucy shuddered. Her poor parents. She hoped it had been the former, that their bed had contained the last remnants of their affection.

  “Don’t worry, Lucy. It’ll never be so, for us. I promise.”

  “Has it ever been so, for you?” she asked quietly.

  “No.” His voice held the casual assurance of truth.

  “Then how do you know it can be?”

  “Because some men like to boast of their exploits,” he said, dry and cynical. “Some of them are all too revealing about the ugliness of their motives. There was a set when I was at Oxford…” Lucy felt him shudder. “When I was just seventeen or eighteen and didn’t really know what they were, some of them tried to cultivate me, I suppose because they thought my title and fortune would add a certain cachet to their ranks. They took me to a particular brothel in London—I don’t want to tell you the things I saw there, but suffice it to say I decided I would never lie with a woman unless I was certain she wanted to be there. No prostitutes, no mistresses, no one who took me to her bed because my money obliged her to do so.”

  Lucy frowned in the darkness. In a sense, his money had obliged her to marry him—she couldn’t refuse an offer of such obvious benefit to her brothers. She had yielded her body to him because such were the obligations of her marriage vows. No wonder he had been so anxious that she feel pleasure, and so disappointed and hurt by her fears and resistance. But it wasn’t only duty and obligation that bound her here, and she must make him understand that.

  “James?” she said softly.

  “Yes?”

  “I want to
be here.” As she spoke she realized there was no place in all the world she’d rather be.

  “You’re not just saying that?”

  “Of course not,” she said firmly. “I’m with you.” She’d very nearly said I love you, and she wondered at herself, because that couldn’t possibly be the case, but then she couldn’t think at all because he had turned her to face him and was kissing her, lingering and deep. She sank her hands into his hair and gave herself up to him, and sore as she was, if he had wanted her again she would’ve given herself gladly, and she was almost angry when he pulled away.

  “Lucy?” he murmured, resting his forehead against hers.

  “Yes?”

  “I’m glad you’re here.”

  “Truly? You don’t wish I were Eleanor?” She wished the words unsaid as soon as they were spoken. She had no right to demand anything of him, and what would she do if the answer wasn’t what she wanted to hear?

  He shook his head. “I don’t. Even a fortnight ago I might’ve, but not now. I’ll be honest with you—I promised you that. I wanted to marry her, and I was heartbroken when she refused me. But she was right. It was for the best. I can already tell you’re going to make a wonderful viscountess—I can’t wait to show you London—and I was telling the truth when I called you beautiful. I’m a lucky man.”

  Lucy wished she could be honest with him, and tell James all that had happened between her and Sebastian. His openness deserved a return. But it was impossible. She could not break her word to Sebastian, nor could she be so selfish as to ruin his and Anna’s happiness.

  James kissed her again. “We really should try to sleep,” he said. “Tomorrow will be a long day.”

  “Yes,” she agreed, rather relieved. She couldn’t tell him the whole truth, and so she regretted having heard so many of his confidences.

  He fell asleep quickly. Lulled by the steady rhythm of his breathing, Lucy drifted off, too. Her last coherent thought was relief that he hadn’t yet noticed the scar.

  James slept later than he had meant to that morning, lulled, he supposed, by the gray sky. He sighed regretfully; he had meant to love his wife again and, he hoped, bring her to a climax now that she knew what to expect and would no longer be ruled by her fears of the unknown. But bedsport would have to wait for the evening, because they both needed to rise and dress if they were to be at the church on time for her cursed cousin’s wedding to Lord Almont.

  Lucy slept curled against him spoon-fashion, her face peaceful and lovely in repose, thick dark brown lashes fringing the creamy gold of her cheeks. Much as he hated to disturb such beauty, he needed to awaken her so she would have ample time to dress.

  Her nightdress had ridden up in her sleep, such that his hand, resting lightly on her hip, touched bare skin rather than white lawn. He was so tempted to wake her with kisses and passion, but there was no time, so he leaned over her to gently shake her awake. His hand brushed across her back and found—what the devil?—scar tissue.

  He drew back until he could see what he touched—a raised scar, some four inches long, running diagonally across the right side of her lower back, not far above the curve of her buttock. He’d seen such scars before—many more of them, but the same type of mark—on the backs of men who had been flogged. Angry and grieved, he traced Lucy’s scar with his finger.

  She startled awake and looked over her shoulder at him, her eyes full of anguish and shame. “You found it,” she said.

  He continued to measure the mark’s contours with his fingertips. “Is it from the workhouse?”

  “Yes,” she replied in a tight voice. “From the time I told you about, when I was whipped because they thought I was lying about my family.”

  He supposed it was a good thing it was the workhouse; if it had been her family, he would have had his revenge, no matter how much it grieved Lucy or angered Anna.

  He bent down until his head was at the small of her back and kissed along the length of the scar, slowly tracing it with lips and tongue.

  Lucy shuddered and dragged in a breath, her back arching. “James…dear God.”

  Quickly he nuzzled his way up her spine, then turned her onto her back and gazed down at her. Worry and shame still lingered on her face, but desire had almost driven them away. Her eyes were so glorious and dark, and her lips were parted and kissable.

  “You’re so beautiful, Lucy,” he told her. “Every inch of you.”

  She closed her eyes and trembled in his arms, and a pair of tears trickled from beneath her eyelids. He kissed them away, tasting their salt, and then kissed her on the mouth, hard.

  Her arms wound around his shoulders, clutching at him, and James couldn’t remember when he’d ever experienced a kiss so wild and so meaningful. Damn Portia Arrington and her wedding anyway. Surely they had time—

  A soft knock sounded on the inner door to the connecting dressing rooms. “My lord, my lady, are you awake?”

  It was Higgins, his valet. James broke the kiss and swore under his breath. “Now we are,” he said.

  “I beg your pardon for disturbing you, but your aunt and uncle were sure Lady Selsley wouldn’t wish to miss her cousin’s wedding.”

  “I suppose it is late,” Lucy murmured.

  “Quite right, Higgins,” James called. “I’ll be in my dressing room in a moment, and please send her ladyship’s abigail to her directly.”

  “Of course, my lord.”

  James sighed and got out of bed. “We’ll take up where we left off tonight.”

  Lucy smiled, though she looked distracted and preoccupied.

  James left her to dress and didn’t see her again until both of them joined Anna, Uncle Robert and Aunt Lilias and climbed into the waiting carriage. As James helped Lucy into the rear-facing seat, Aunt Lilias gave them both a searching look. Apparently satisfied with what she saw, she nodded.

  Lord Almont’s wedding to Portia Arrington had all the pomp and ceremony James and Lucy’s had lacked. The church was crowded with all the local nobility and gentry, along with Almont relations who had journeyed from all across the country to see the head of the family marry his third wife. James wondered how the second cousin, due to inherit the title and estates should the marquess die without a son, felt about the marriage.

  After an interminable wedding breakfast followed by a lengthy discussion of Anna and Lieutenant Arrington’s plans, they returned to Orchard Park. James took Lucy to bed again as soon as he felt they could decently retire upstairs. Again he loved her as patiently and tenderly as he knew how, applying the most reliable of the arts he had learned in his three years in Eleanor’s bed. But while Lucy was more relaxed this time, he still couldn’t bring her to a climax. Just as she had the night before, she seemed to almost panic as her arousal grew, calming herself with what was obviously an effort of will.

  James kept his frustrations to himself as they lay in each other’s arms afterward. He was tempted to chastise or blame her, but he knew it would only make the problem worse, so he held his peace, stroking her hair as she fell asleep. But he didn’t know what to do. He didn’t think Lucy was truly frigid; it was clear from her body’s response and her pleasure in the early kisses and caresses that she did desire him. But she was actively fighting her arousal, so he didn’t think finding mutual pleasure in the marriage bed would be as simple as trying a different position or caressing her a little more firmly or softly.

  He knew himself well enough to acknowledge that a large part of his frustration and annoyance stemmed from wounded vanity. He prided himself on a certain degree of prowess in bed, on being the kind of man who had applied himself to pleasing his partners. It was galling to find himself married to a woman who rejected what he had to offer. What if he never found a way to convince Lucy to relax and accept pleasure? But then he shook his head. It was much too early to fear such a dire fate after only two nights.

  But another two nights passed with no better result. The fourth night of their marriage followed a busy day. Anna and Lieu
tenant Arrington had married in the Orchard Park parlor that morning and driven off to spend a fortnight of newly wedded bliss in the Almont dower cottage. Lord Almont had lent them the cottage for their honeymoon as a wedding gift so that the couple could enjoy some privacy before the lieutenant sailed to rejoin his regiment.

  James was glad of it, for Lord and Lady Dunmalcolm were to begin their journey home to Scotland at first light the next morning, and he and Lucy would at last have some privacy of their own. Perhaps that was why he let his frustration show that night. After yet another session where she lay beneath him in her bed, watching him with unnerving calm, rather than gathering her into his arms he leaned back on one elbow and snapped at her. “Lucy, why can you not relax? I’m doing everything I know to please you, so I wish you would let yourself be pleased.”

  She burst into tears.

  He took a deep breath and forced himself to speak gently. “Lucy, don’t cry. I’m not angry with you.”

  She wiped her eyes, though the tears still flowed, and blinked furiously at him. “I think you are,” she asserted.

  He took a deep breath. “Perhaps I am, a little. But I don’t understand what I’m doing wrong.”

  “I’m sure it’s not you. It’s me. I—I try, but I can’t.”

  “What is it that you can’t do?”

  “What you said—relax. I try, I want to make you happy, but—” she turned away, burying her face in her pillow, “—I’m so afraid.”

  “Afraid of me?” he asked, incredulous. Surely he had treated her with tenderness and every possible consideration, not only in bed but from the first day they had met.

  She shook her head, still not looking at him. “Not of you. Of myself.”