“I cannot love her after only two days,” Anthony answered. “I do not even know what love is.”
Pembroke laughed at that, drawing the cigar from his mouth, letting his tobacco smoke circle above his head in sinuous spirals. “You may not know love, but it knows you, my friend. And right now, it has you by the throat.”
Anthony made a dismissive gesture with one hand, grimacing, but he stopped pacing. He turned once more to look over the books on a nearby shelf, but he did not truly see them.
He came to sit beside his friend finally, giving up on the race he knew he could not win. He could not run from his wife, but here, in the province of men, he could hide.
“She will give you fine sons,” Pembroke said.
“If she does not kill me first.”
Pembroke nodded. “There is that.”
“Do you have another cigar? I will not sleep tonight.”
Pembroke offered the cigar box, mahogany inlaid with mother-of-pearl. It had once belonged to his father, one of the few objects of the old man’s his friend had kept.
“You need to sleep sometime,” Pembroke said. “Wife or no wife, the prince’s supporters will meet next week. There will be Victor to face again.”
Anthony’s eyes darkened. “Yes. There will be that.”
The two men smoked in silence. They sat together until the sun began to rise, turning the sky from indigo to the lightest gray. That was when Pembroke took his leave. He said he had two women waiting for him, and he would have to pay for another day if he did not have them before dawn.
Anthony laughed when he heard this, as his friend no doubt intended. As he sat alone in the empty library, the fire in the grate began to go out.
Anthony was tempted to go back upstairs and crawl into his wife’s bed. He wanted to make love to her until she breathed his name in the soft way she had, clinging to him in her passion and her innocence.
But he did not go to her. Instead, he watched the sunrise from the window of the library while the last of his cigar burned down. He waited until the sky took on the same golden color as his wife’s hair. Only then did he turn and go to his own room alone.
Chapter 16
Ravensbrook, Shropshire
Caroline did not see her husband the next morning until she stood in front of Pembroke House, waiting to be handed into the traveling chaise. Hercules and Achilles had both left already, but not before she gave them the last of the contraband apples from her portmanteau.
Anthony was nowhere to be seen, but Pembroke appeared, bowing low to her before taking her gloved hand. “I apologize if my guests made you at all uncomfortable last night, Lady Ravensbrook. I would never have invited them here had I known you and your husband were coming.”
“Does Anthony often keep such company?” Caroline turned to look at the horses, as if she was not interested in the answer Pembroke might give.
“He visits my club on occasion, my lady. But…”
She looked up at him past the rim of her bonnet. “I did not mind the dinner or the dancing. I would not choose such companionship for myself or for my husband, but there was no harm done.”
Pembroke laughed. “Only to your husband’s peace of mind.”
Caroline’s smile faded. “Perhaps. No doubt he will regain that once we have reached his home.”
She met her husband’s eyes as he strode down from the house. Anthony was dressed that morning in midnight blue with a black waistcoat, his dark hair still damp from his bath. His beauty made her shiver.
Caroline thought of how he had touched her the night before, of the pleasure she had received at his hands. Warmth began to rise in her cheeks as she thought of the hours she would spend enclosed with him in the traveling carriage. But her pleasure was dampened by the memory of how Anthony had made love to her and then left her like a common whore. At least he had not left gold on her table. She might have drawn her dagger from its hiding place in her reticule and killed him for that.
“My lady.” Pembroke’s eyes sparkled with mirth and a touch of the devil as he leaned down and placed a lingering kiss on her hand.
She raised one eyebrow but said nothing. She could feel her husband’s gaze on her like a red-hot brand.
“Forgive me, my lady,” Pembroke said. “I do not mean to take liberties.”
“I do not care, if my husband does not.”
Anthony came to stand beside them then, glowering but silent. Pembroke’s booming laughter filled her ears, bouncing off the stone wall of his old castle. For the first time, Caroline heard a little joy in it. She wondered what had made this man lose himself so he drank to excess and sported with whores. She was certain that with the right woman to guide him, Pembroke might become a man to be reckoned with.
“Indeed, my lady, your husband does care, and plenty. He would run me through if he had not saved my life himself a hundred times already.”
Anthony’s face remained unreadable but for the muscle twitching in his cheek. Caroline took in the sight of him in one glance and just as quickly turned away. She spoke as if he were not there.
“You are wrong, my lord. What you see in my husband is not jealousy but possession. He would look at you the same way if you were overfamiliar with his horse.”
Pembroke laughed again, releasing her hand with a flourish, relinquishing the field of combat to her. “Lady, far be it for me to contradict you. I would, if you would allow it, come to visit you in your new home in a few months’ time. I find I have a sporting interest in just how much your husband cares for you and what form that care will take.”
Anthony did not smile, nor did he take that bait. Caroline’s smile was wide enough for both of them. “I have no objection, my Lord Pembroke, as long as you leave your whores at home.”
When Anthony did not step forward to offer his hand, Pembroke lifted Caroline into the coach, allowing his hands to linger on her waist so she frowned at him. He released her, but not before Anthony’s fingers flexed as if reaching for a weapon.
Satisfied with the mischief he had wrought, Pembroke turned away from his friend’s wife. He extended his hand to Anthony.
“Safe journey, and safe homecoming,” Pembroke said.
Anthony clasped his hand in his own. “Safer than Belgium.”
“Safer than Italy,” Pembroke answered.
Without another word, Anthony climbed into the carriage behind his wife, and the team of four grays drew the coach toward the road, toward Shropshire and Anthony’s home.
***
Caroline stared out the window all that day, except when she was sleeping. She tried to put her handsome husband and his touch from her mind. She was almost successful. Anthony assisted her by not speaking or touching so much as her gloved hand. So she was not distracted as they came into Shropshire, the land of beautiful rolling hills.
There were no moors filled with heather and emptiness, where the winds moaned like specters of the dead. Every neat field was surrounded by copses of trees, lovely maples and birches, as well as oaks and hawthorn. The carriage rolled with the hills as with the swells of the sea. Caroline had never been on a ship, but she hungered for the sight of the ocean, the great swells that would carry her to far, undiscovered countries where the people had never heard a word of English spoken. Or to the wilds of Byzantium, where the great domes and marbled streets led from one delight to another, to Venice, where the very roads were made of water, where the air was filled with spices.
Caroline knew she was foolish to think of such things. Like all women of her station, she would live out her life in her husband’s house, raising his children and keeping his home. She would go to London for the Season, for fittings and for balls. She would walk in the staid park of Regent’s Square, and take in the river Thames. London was as close as she was ever likely to get to the places she had read about in her father’s library. Caroline cast one surreptitious glance at her husband. She wondered for the first time if he loved books, too.
Anthony stared out his own windo
w and did not turn to her, so she went back to her perusal of the land beyond the coach they rode in, and the lands within her mind’s eye. She took in the deep green of the trees that had not yet begun to color with autumn and the golden fields of barley and millet and wheat.
She dreamed of riding Hercules out among those fallow fields once the harvest was brought in. She could ride for days and never be seen again. She could ride as far as London—and beyond, if she chose. The thought of getting Hercules onto a ship and keeping him there for as long as it would take to journey to Venice burst the bubble of her dreaming. She could take her horse nowhere. She was a countess, a wife, and would someday be a mother. She must put away such indulgent longings. She stared out over the green hills of her husband’s home county, desire for foreign places burning in her breast. Perhaps Shropshire would be foreign enough. Perhaps she would be happy there.
They turned off the main road through a set of high gates. The walls around the estate had long since crumbled, but the gate remained, a silent testament to the past. The rolling hills continued beyond them, but now instead of tilled fields and blowing wheat, Caroline saw only long swatches of green grass with sheep grazing here and there, a boy following along behind them with a scythe to keep the lawns neat. The road was paved in stones, but they were well laid and did not jounce the carriage as the rutted highway had done. Caroline clutched the strap as the horses picked up speed. Those four matched grays knew their home and that they had come to the end of their long journey.
She took in the sight of her husband’s house and almost lost her breath. The high walls were built of gray stone that caught the light of the setting sun and shone with the mica hidden in their depths. Huge picture windows along the walls seemed almost like eyes. Those windows winked as the carriage pulled around to the front door, the sunlight catching their clear panes of glass. Ivy grew along the walls in places. Caroline could see a rose arbor and a folly with wisteria growing over it. Though no flowers bloomed there this late in the year, she knew that come spring, the roses and wisteria would be plentiful enough to fill the air with their heady sweetness.
There was something warm and inviting about the house before she even entered it. For a moment, it was as if her future called to her. She could almost hear the laughter of her children yet to come as they ran along those corridors and out into the sunlight, coming to greet her as she came home. She knew she could be at home there, just as she had once been at home on the moors. She blinked hard as the carriage stopped and the footman opened the door. She could not greet her husband’s household with tears in her eyes.
Before she stepped from the carriage, her husband caught her hand. Caroline turned to him and met his gaze. “Welcome home, Caroline.”
Anthony climbed out before her. She let him help her down, conscious of the eyes of the household on her. Every servant in that great place seemed to be lined up along the driveway in two neat lines to the front door. Caroline knew her mother would be pleased with such orderliness. It spoke of a housekeeper who knew her trade and took pride in it.
It was the butler who stepped forward and bowed to her. “Billings, my lady. At your service.”
Caroline inclined her head, and the man stepped back. He looked to be about sixty but had a military bearing, just as all the men on her father’s estate did. His iron-gray hair was cut short, and his shoulders were straight, as if he waited for orders to take the hill beyond or perhaps to capture the rose garden from marauding invaders. Caroline’s shoulders relaxed. Her father’s household was full of ex-military men. She knew how to get on with them. As she took in the straight lines of the servants, all watching her for some sign of who their new mistress was, she felt even more at home.
“I am the housekeeper, my lady. Mrs. Brown.” A tiny woman dressed all in black curtsied to her. She came only up to Caroline’s shoulder, her bright button eyes and quick movements reminding Caroline of a wren.
“Thank you, Mrs. Brown, Billings. I am very happy to be home.”
The rest of the servants applauded when she said that, and each girl from the household staff came forward to offer her a bouquet. They had been culled from the hedgerows and were full of late-blooming flowers, asters and goldenrod, with sprigs of barley thrown in for a blessing of fertility. Caroline’s arms were soon full of flowers, so full she could hold no more. Mrs. Brown had thought of that, too, for a quiet girl came up to stand behind her, gathering all the flowers Caroline could not carry.
Caroline turned to walk into the house when she was stopped by her husband’s hand on her waist.
“Allow me.”
Anthony picked her up with one fluid sweep of his arm, smiling down at her in the half light of dusk. The sun had set beyond the hills, and the courtyard of Ravensbrook House was bathed in shadow and sweet, buttery light.
Caroline kept her face scrupulously blank and met her husband’s eye evenly. But her treacherous heart leapt at his nearness, and she wondered whether he noticed.
“It is Ravensbrook tradition to carry a new bride over the threshold.”
“Indeed, my lord. We must not break with tradition.”
Anthony carried his wife into his house in three strides. Caroline saw a couple of the girls dab their eyes at the romance of the moment, and even Mrs. Brown smiled. Caroline forced herself to smile, too. She pushed away her fear of her own emotions and leaned against her husband’s chest, letting herself imagine he carried her for love and not tradition, that this romantic gesture was real.
The great walnut staircase had a dark blue runner, and Anthony’s boots were silent on the thick carpet. A flower dropped from her hands as she looked into his eyes. He quirked a brow at her and smiled. In spite of her misgivings, she smiled back. Anthony bore her all the way up the winding staircase. He carried her into a huge suite of rooms where a fire was already lit. Large windows looked out across the park facing south, gathering in the last of the daylight. The bed was hung with heavy blue damask to match the curtains at the windows. The rich red mahogany of the bedstead reminded her of her own furniture at home in her father’s house. The fire burned cheerfully in the grate, and a delicate bathing screen stood at the far side of the room. Already, Caroline could hear women behind it, pouring water into a tub for her bath. Tabby stood holding her lady’s dressing gown, watching as Anthony held his wife in his arms. For once, her little maid said not a word.
Her husband gazed down at Caroline, his eyes unreadable. “These rooms were my mother’s. Now they are yours.”
Only then did Anthony lower her to the floor.
“We will dine here, alone, if you wish,” he said.
“Do you wish it?” she asked him.
“I do,” he said.
Caroline looked into her husband’s face, taking in his beauty. She found that for the first time in her life she had lost her tongue.
Anthony kissed her, his lips lingering on hers. He did not stir up the fire between them. She savored his lips and knew the taste of him would stay with her long after he had left the room.
When Anthony drew back, he spoke low, so only she could hear. “I will return in an hour.”
“I will be ready,” she said.
With that, Caroline stepped away from him and straightened her shoulders. Anthony raised one hand to touch her cheek before he turned on his heel and walked away.
Tabby was first to break the lingering silence. “Holy Mary, Miss Caroline. I mean, my lady. Your gentleman is a good-looking one, and no mistake. He gives me the shivers.”
Caroline laughed, forcing a lightness into her voice she did not feel. “He is easy on the eyes, is he not, Tabby? If only he were as easy on my temper. But a woman can’t have everything.”
***
Caroline was nowhere to be seen when Anthony entered her rooms. Her husband found her tucked into the window seat, a thick cashmere shawl wrapped around her shoulders. Her nightgown was of thin lawn and lace and did little to keep out the chill of the evening.
When she turned to him and climbed down from her perch, Caroline saw he had bathed and changed into simple trousers and waistcoat, the kind of clothes a farmer might wear, if he could afford brocade. Their cut was plain, the color the same as his hair.
The heat between them began to rise as it always did when they were alone. Anthony stayed silent, and she wondered if he had some new infraction of his rules of correct behavior to charge her with. But as they stood together, the silence lengthening, she began to see there was only the warmth of desire and a slow-growing affection between them. For one night, at least, they might declare a truce.
Caroline waited without moving, so he might make the first move toward peace. Anthony smiled as if he knew what she was thinking, as if he knew she meant to challenge him with her stillness. He did not rise to the bait but pushed a strand of her long hair behind her ear.
Caroline stayed where she was and let him come to her. Anthony leaned down and pressed his lips to hers.
He tasted as sweet as he always did, like a spice she had longed for all her life. She savored the taste of him and his scent, letting both fill her senses like an incoming tide.
His mouth opened over hers as he drew her against him, against the hard planes of his body beneath the softness of his loose shirt and brocade waistcoat. His tongue plunged into her mouth, teasing her, coming into her and then withdrawing, mimicking the act of love.
Caroline pulled away from him, for she had no interest in being toyed with.
“Dinner has been served, Husband, if you would eat it with me.”
Anthony drew back. She saw that though he had sought to tease her, he had drawn himself into his own web of lust. His eyes were black with desire.
“There is a delicacy here that I would sample first,” he said.
He did not kiss her again but lifted her in his arms as he had when bringing her into his house that afternoon. Caroline’s passion filled her, and she relished the taste of it.
Anthony did not carry her to the bed but sat with her in a deep armchair drawn close to the table where their meal was laid out. Caroline took in the scent of the spices from the food that steamed in china dishes on the mahogany table. Anthony held her in his lap, leaning back against the cushions of her chair.
How to Tame a Willful Wife Page 11