A Marriage of Inconvenience

by Susanna Fraser

  “You’re afraid of yourself,” he repeated. “I don’t understand.”

  “I don’t either!” she said with sudden passion. “All I know is that when we—when we come together, I feel like I’m about to lose all control of myself, and I cannot allow that to happen.”

  He blinked. “But you’re supposed to lose all control. That’s precisely the point.”

  “I can’t.”

  He tamped down his anger and frustration. It would never do to turn this into a shouting match. “But it’s so delightful when you do. Of course, I don’t truly know what it feels like for a woman,” he allowed, “but I don’t think it’s so very different from what a man experiences.”

  She frowned at him, her eyes now dry. “You lose control?”

  “Can’t you tell?”

  “You seem so…so expert and assured.”

  “Maybe at the beginning, but by the end I’m not controlling anything, believe me.” He tugged her into his arms, and she rolled against him, resting her head on his shoulder. “Why are you so afraid of losing control?” he asked. “I promise, nothing bad will happen—only pleasure.”

  She considered his question in silence for a moment. “I’m not certain,” she said thoughtfully. “I suppose—I’ve never been able to control anything but myself. And…when I was a child, after my family died, I had to learn so much self-control, to…to survive, and to please those who must be pleased.”

  Damn that workhouse, damn its overseer and damn all Arringtons. But he sensed that if there was a solution for Lucy’s problem, she needed to talk her way to it herself. “How so?” he asked.

  Her eyes grew distant, and she didn’t answer at once. “You may find this difficult to believe,” she said at last, “but I wasn’t so quiet and reserved as a child. If anything, I was boisterous, and I used to order my brothers and sisters about. I was the eldest, after all, so I thought they should listen to me.”

  As she spoke the last few words she quirked her eyebrows in the expression of gentle mockery James was beginning to find inexpressibly endearing. “Are you suggesting any resemblance to anyone else in this room?” he asked mildly.

  “Perhaps a domineering nature is a common trait of eldest children,” she said, with the ghost of a smile. “In any case, Papa was often sickly and Mama tired and sad, so someone had to look after the younger ones and keep them in good cheer.”

  He stroked her hair. As far as he could tell, Lucy had never truly had the chance to be a child. For all her life, she had carried the weight of the world on her slim young shoulders. “You had to be the strong one,” he said.

  She shrugged. “I didn’t mind. I loved them, they needed me and I enjoyed being important.”

  “Everyone does, I suppose.”

  “Yes.”

  “But then so many of them died.”

  “Yes, and suddenly I wasn’t important at all. In the workhouse I learned very quickly never to draw attention to myself.” He stroked the scar on her back, and she flinched for a moment before relaxing against him with a nod. “Even when I went to Swallowfield, they were all kind, more or less—well, except for Portia—but I was never allowed to forget that I was the least of the family, and not a daughter of the house.”

  “I’m sorry, Lucy. If I knew a way to undo it, or to make those who hurt you pay…”

  “But there isn’t,” she said patiently, “and I’m not sure my family was in the wrong. After all, I wasn’t as well-born as Portia, and I had no dowry at all, so it would’ve raised false expectations to treat me as her equal. But—I had to learn to control myself, you see. I thought of it as protecting my brothers. Since I was the one there at Swallowfield, I wanted to be good and quiet and never in the way, so my aunt and uncle would never regret helping all three of us. But it was to protect myself, too. I can see that now. The better I could control myself, the less reason anyone would have to rebuke me, or to interfere with me at all.”

  “So you learned to control yourself so that no one else could control you.”

  “Exactly, only I never realized it fully until now. It’s such a strong habit now that I don’t know how to stop. I can’t lose control, even when I try.”

  “Perhaps trying so hard is making it worse,” he said. “Now that I understand, I won’t push you so much. You—you do enjoy it, don’t you, even if you can’t quite give in to it?”

  She smiled shyly. “I do. It’s…most pleasant.”

  “Well, it’s a beginning.” He paused and shifted to a more comfortable position. “You realize that you’re not powerless anymore, don’t you? You can control more than just yourself.”

  “I suppose,” she said doubtingly.

  “You suppose? Lucy, you’re mistress of this estate. You have a great deal of power, if only you’ll learn how to exercise it.”

  She frowned. “You have a great deal of power. Any power I have only comes through you.”

  He sighed. “It’s still power, and your case is no different than any other married lady’s—though I like to hope I’m an agreeable husband.”

  “You are,” she said earnestly.

  “Though you will have power in your own right if I should happen to predecease you,” he said thoughtfully. “No one would ever control you again.”

  “Don’t talk so! I don’t want you to die.”

  “Well, it’s not my intention, but I’m merely pointing out that if I were to meet with some untimely accident or illness, you’d be a very rich and independent woman.”

  “Don’t talk so,” she repeated, her voice low and firm. “I don’t even want to contemplate it.”

  “You’d miss me?” he asked lightly.

  “Dreadfully.”

  He kissed her and wondered if he was falling in love with his wife. “Don’t worry,” he said. “I mean to live a long life at your side. There’s so much I’d like to see and so much that needs to be done that I’ll need at least another five decades to accomplish it all.”

  She snickered. “And because you need fifty years, they will be granted to you.”

  “A man can hope.”

  “I pray you get them,” she said soberly.

  His hand was resting at her slender waist, and he wondered if they’d started a child already. He thought of the day his mother had died and couldn’t quite repress a shudder.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked.

  “I don’t want to lose you, either.” His grip at her waist tightened, almost convulsively.

  “You’re afraid I’ll die in childbirth, because of your mother.”

  He blinked. “That was very perceptive.”

  She shrugged. “Not really. Anna told me that she was a little afraid of childbearing for that reason. So I’m not surprised that you’d have similar worries.” She trailed her hand down to his and intertwined her fingers with his, above where their child might be growing.

  “Are you afraid?” he asked.

  “No.” She smiled ruefully. “Not yet, at any rate. I may be terrified when the time actually comes.”

  “I know I’ll be terrified enough for both of us.”

  “I don’t think I will,” she said meditatively. “It’s a risk, of course, but life is full of risks—most of them are simply less obvious. There’s no way of avoiding it if we want children.”

  “I’d rather have no children at all than lose you,” James said, knowing that nevertheless he would be in her bed almost every night. “Do you want children?” he asked. “I mean, do you want them for their own sake, and not simply because you think you owe me an heir?”

  “Of course I want children,” she said, looking baffled by the question. She smiled up at him. “I hope ours have your eyes.”

  “I want them to have your eyes.”

  “But mine are so ordinary—just brown.”

  “Just brown?” He shook his head. “They’re dark. Fathomless. Mysterious. Beautiful. I love your eyes.”

  “But I love yours—I’ve never seen such a blue.”r />
  “You’ve seen my uncle. My mother’s portrait. You haven’t met my cousins yet, but more than half of them have them. They’re just the Gordon eyes.”

  “Well, I like the Gordon eyes.” Suddenly she giggled.

  “What is it?”

  “This is the most ridiculous thing to quarrel over. It’s not as if we have any control over the outcome—we’re quite powerless.”

  He laughed. “Were we quarreling? In any case, if we have several children, the odds are some will have brown eyes, some blue and perhaps a few green like their grandfather and their Aunt Anna.”

  “Or light blue like my mother’s.” Lucy yawned. “We’ll see, I suppose.”

  “I’m tired, too.” He shifted until they were in a comfortable position for sleep, curled together spoon-fashion. “Lucy,” he said as he settled the coverlet across their shoulders.

  “Yes?”

  “You do have power. You simply have to choose how to use it. That’s when it becomes your own. Any power I have came from my father, and from the laws and traditions of the kingdom. But when I take what I inherited and use it for the ends that matter to me, that’s when it becomes my power.”

  “Oh.” She shifted her head on the pillow. “So I need to choose my ends, then.”

  “Exactly.”

  “Hmm. I’ll think about that.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Lucy awoke early the next morning to the somewhat disconcerting sight of her husband leaning on his elbow and staring down at her.

  “You’re beautiful when you sleep,” he said in response to her blush and raised eyebrows. “Not that you’re not beautiful now, too. On the whole, I think I like you better awake.”

  He kissed her and rolled atop her. It was only the second time they had coupled by daylight, and Lucy enjoyed it even if she still couldn’t relax enough to experience this climax that James was so anxious that she have. But this time she thought her reticence was as much rooted in fear that a servant might walk in on them as in her inability to drop her carefully assembled self-control.

  “I’ve bought you a horse,” James said an hour later as they sat together in the breakfast room.

  “A horse?”

  He took a sip of his coffee. “A pretty bay mare, to be exact. She arrived this morning. I thought it was high time you had the opportunity to learn to ride, if you wish it.”

  The first time they’d met, she had spoken wistfully of her lack of riding ability. “You remembered,” she said.

  “Of course,” he said complacently. His eyes glowed with a mischievous spark. “After all, it wasn’t so very long ago.”

  She laughed. “If I’d had any notion that day that I’d be married to you within the month!”

  He smiled, the same lazy, confident smile he’d offered her that morning just after falling from his horse. “I’m content. Are you?”

  “Why, yes. Yes, I am.” Their eyes met, and she reveled in how beautiful a deep blue his were. She did hope all their children inherited them. But then she was distracted by the realization she wasn’t ready for a riding lesson. “But I haven’t a riding habit.”

  He chuckled. “Well, if that’s the sole source of discontent in your life, it’s easily remedied. Send for Mrs. Dyer straightaway.”

  She laughed too. “I only meant that I’ve nothing to wear to a riding lesson.”

  His eyes narrowed assessingly. “Anna must have left at least three habits in the house, and I’m sure she wouldn’t mind sharing one of them until your own is ready. Your figures are different, but you’re much of a height. I’m sure your maid could take in a seam here and let one out there and have it ready by tomorrow. Today, we’ll simply meet your horse. I hope you’ll like her.”

  “I’m sure I shall.”

  After they had finished eating, they strolled together in the morning sunshine to the stables, where James asked one of the grooms to lead out the new mare. Soon the groom emerged from the stable leading a tall, elegant bay with liquid, inquisitive eyes and a star on her forehead. Lucy would have preferred a shorter mount—the ground would have been closer when she inevitably fell—but the mare was undeniably a beauty.

  “She’s lovely,” Lucy breathed. “Does she have a name?”

  “She’s called Barbara,” James said, “but you can change it, if you wish. All our Arabs are named for supernatural creatures—we’ve Ghost, Shade, Pixie, Dryad and the like—but there’s no particular pattern in how the other horses are named.”

  The groom led the mare straight up to Lucy, who inhaled the warm, sweet scent of horse. The mare dipped her head, and Lucy tentatively stroked her silken muzzle and threaded her fingers through her mane. “Hello, Barbara,” she said. She turned her head to smile at James. “I’ll keep Barbara. It’s what she’s used to hearing, and I think it suits her.”

  “Very well. I’m glad you like her.”

  “How could I not? Thank you—she’s a lovely gift.”

  “She’s eight years old, so neither a new filly nor elderly, and I bought her from the Cathcarts. Miss Cathcart rode her for a time, but…”

  “She’s since moved on to more spirited mounts?” Lucy asked.

  “Er, yes.”

  Lucy laughed. “I don’t mind. I know Miss Cathcart must have learned to ride not long after she began to walk.”

  They admired Barbara together for a little while longer, and then James asked if she minded if he went for a ride on Ghost alone. She said that of course she did not, and once she had watched him canter off she returned to the house.

  So James thought she needed to learn to wield her power, to somehow make it her own. She mulled over his words as she sat down with Mrs. Ellis to discuss the menu for the next few days. Always before she had deferred to the housekeeper’s judgment, asking her which dishes James preferred or what would best please Anna or Lord and Lady Dunmalcolm. Now Lucy asked if it might be possible to have fricasseed chicken for dinner and some sort of sweet involving strawberries.

  “Of course, my lady,” Mrs. Ellis said. “Cook makes an excellent berry tart.”

  “That will be lovely,” Lucy said. Such a petty use of power, to request some of her favorite foods, but she did feel more like Lady Selsley and less like an actress attempting a role.

  After she had finished conferring with Mrs. Ellis, she went upstairs to the sitting room James had said might make a good studio for her and unpacked her sketchbook and pencils. Since the wedding she had been so busy, and so unsettled, that she hadn’t had time to draw. Now she began by sketching the view from the window. She was amazed how much it relaxed her simply to rough out the outline of the hill in the background, to draw the stream winding through the valley and the cottages along its banks.

  She missed painting. She had not brought her watercolors with her to Gloucestershire, expecting as she had that she would be returning to Swallowfield soon. Of course, there was nothing preventing her from sending for more. If Lady Selsley wanted paints, paints she could have. She wasn’t sure if any of the shops in Great or Little Alston would carry such things, but if not she could simply order them from Gloucester. She would inquire that very afternoon, when she called at Mrs. Dyer’s shop to be fitted for her riding habit.

  When she was satisfied with her sketch, Lucy selected a book from the library—nothing improving like the books Sebastian and her governess had always given her, but a Minerva Press novel with the promisingly dramatic title of The Orphan of the Rhine. She took it to the little parlor and chose a comfortable sofa.

  James found her there engrossed in the book about an hour later. “My wife is reading Gothic novels,” he said in mock horror.

  She smiled and raised her eyebrows. “I found it in the library, and I’m sure a gentleman of taste and good breeding such as my husband would never have anything unsuitable for my perusal on his shelves.”

  “Naturally not.” He grinned and sat beside her on the sofa. “I’m simply glad to see you taking your leisure. It hasn’t been easy f
or you, has it?”

  She frowned at him in consternation. She hadn’t wanted him to realize that. “How can you say such a thing, James? I’m—I’m glad I’m here. I’m happy with you, happier than I’ve been since—since I can recall.”

  “Truly?”

  She nodded earnestly, feeling her eyes sting a little. “Truly.”

  He lifted her hand to his lips. “I’m glad. But still, that doesn’t mean all has been easy for you, does it now? Didn’t we agree we’d be honest with each other?”

  Lucy sighed, thinking of Sebastian. “Yes. Well, then, it’s been exhausting, trying to learn the house and the servants, and to behave like the sort of confident mistress the staff must expect. And that’s the least of it. It wasn’t easy having to play hostess to your aunt and uncle and sister when they’re far more at home here than I—”

  “I see,” James said. “Perhaps we should’ve delayed the wedding, but I thought you managed very well, and all of them like you.”

  “I think your sister and Lord Dunmalcolm do, but does your aunt?”

  “Yes.” His voice was firm.

  Lucy shook her head. “Anna said she only became reconciled to your cousins’ marriages when their wives made them happy and gave them children, and it’s far too early to tell yet if I’ll succeed in doing either for you.”

  James laughed. “Well, then, Aunt Lilias is willing to be persuaded. She really is good and kind, you know, only she’s…” His voice trailed off, and he spread his hands as if searching for the right words.

  “Proud? Devoted to her family?”

  “Those, but also simply reserved, on her guard against anything or anyone new. So she’s treating you no differently than she would anyone else who’s essentially a stranger to her.”

  Slowly Lucy nodded. “That’s comforting. I should hate to think she’ll always dislike me or think me unworthy of you.”

  “She won’t,” James said with assurance. “In any case, she’s well on her way to Scotland now, and we’ll have no more houseguests until your brothers arrive next month.”

  “So until then, I’ll only have to worry about pleasing you.”