A knot of dismay tied itself tight inside her chest. “But surely you cannot be serious. You’re playing a joke upon me, aren’t you?”
Mercy, she prayed he was playing a joke upon her!
But her chest tightened further when he didn’t start to grin or laugh, or unbend enough to confess to his prank. Slowly she realized he was completely serious.
“But it’s a cottage,” she sputtered.
He crossed his arms and leaned a shoulder against the coach door. “Aye, it’s a cottage. A clean, tidy, well-constructed cottage with six rooms, including a spacious kitchen that boasts the newest in modern cookstoves.”
Six rooms? And all the size of a matchbox, no doubt. Did he seriously expect her to live in a six-roomed, matchbox-sized cottage?
Folding her arms over her breasts, she leaned back against the upholstered coach squabs. “Take me back.”
“Back where?”
“To my cousins. I wish to go home, to England.” Her lower lip quivered. “From my cousins’ house, I should be able to contact my parents and procure a passage home.”
“Don’t be daft, woman. We’ve been on the road for half a week and I’m not taking you back moments after we’ve arrived.”
“Fine. Then take me to an inn. I shall stay the night there then make arrangements in the morning for my return journey.”
He let out a snort. “And what’ll you use for money to pay for this return trip, since I won’t be giving you any of mine?”
She wrinkled her nose in consternation. Money? She hadn’t even considered money. All she had in her reticule was a single half-crown coin, a silver card case, her etui, a vinaigrette and a pair of lace handkerchiefs. Certainly nothing of enough value to pay her way back to her cousins’ home.
“I have jewelry,” she said, blurting out the thought the instant it sprang into her head. “I shall sell some of that.”
“You could try, but folks around these parts have little use for fancy baubles. You’d do better if you had a cow to trade.”
She gaped. A cow?
“Besides, I believe you’re forgetting one essential point.”
“Oh, and what, pray tell, might that be?”
“The fact that you’re my wife, honor-bound to remain at my side, to let me care and provide for you the best way I can. Before we came here, you gave me your promise you’d try to make our marriage work. Have you forgotten that promise already?”
“N-no,” she sputtered, “but surely you can’t expect me to live in that.” She flung a hand out toward the cottage. “After all, I am still a lady.”
“Aye, you are, and living in that dwelling will not change that fact. Wherever you reside, humble or grand, you shall always be a lady and the person you were born to be. Now, come down with you and let me show you our home.”
His words left her feeling churlish and every inch the snob he’d once accused her of being. But it wasn’t right that she should have to live in such a meager abode. She’d known Darragh was a commoner, but not this common. She’d expected a house with at least two stories and a comfortable number of rooms. Something a member of the gentry, for instance, might be satisfied to own.
Surely working as an architect provided a more lucrative income than this tiny cottage in the middle of nowhere? Surely he could afford to build something better, bigger, finer, since clearly he knew how. Until now he’d been a bachelor, given to traveling for his profession. Maybe the cottage had suited his needs and now that he was wed he planned to construct something larger and more genteel. Or could it be he had another commission already arranged and did not plan for them to remain here long? She brightened at the thought.
Either way, she supposed she would have to make do for the time being.
Thank God none of her friends or acquaintances could see her now. How they would stare and deride her, shaking their heads in pity before turning away. Even her best friend, Christabel, would sniff and cast sad, reproving eyes upon her.
“Does Raeburn know?” she said, blurting out the question nagging at the back of her mind.
“Know what?”
“About this? About our…circumstances?”
He met her gaze, his expression oddly enigmatic. “Aye, he knows.”
So, her jilted beau had found the means to have a bit of revenge upon her, after all. It must seem a great joke to him, well deserved and fitting in a perverse sort of way. Well, she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of begging for his assistance, probably what he was expecting of her. Likely all of them were waiting for her to run back home, which she conceded she had been only too ready to do a mere two minutes ago.
But despite her pampered upbringing, she was made of sterner stuff. She would show them, every last one, of exactly what Jeannette Rose Brantford O’Brien was made.
The footmen and coachman had been busy while she and Darragh talked, unloading Darragh’s compact travel valise then her trunks and bandboxes and hat cases, one after another after another.
She crossed to the front door, Darragh at her back. When they reached the threshold, he stopped her with a hand and moved around to her side. Turning the knob, he pushed the door open on silent hinges. Then before she knew what he meant to do, he bent and swept her off her feet.
She cried out in surprise, her arms looping instinctively around his sturdy neck.
“Tradition, a ghrá,” he murmured in his deep, lilting voice. “To bring us luck.”
Her pulse stuttered and for an instant she lost herself in the brilliant blue of his eyes.
The moment passed as he strode forward and set her on her feet. She looked around, heart plummeting to the soles of her fashionable boots. Gazing along the central hallway, she spied four doors, two on either side. He’d said there were six rooms in the house, and just as she’d feared, they were far from spacious. If she wasn’t mistaken, she believed the whole cottage would fit into the family drawing room at Wightbridge House and still leave room to spare.
She gulped against the new lump wedged in her throat.
At least he hadn’t lied about the place being clean. The floors were neatly swept and scrubbed, furnishings and decorative items neatly arranged, with nary a speck of dust anywhere to be seen. On the air, the scent of polish and sweet dried herbs—rosemary and thyme. And beef stew cooking in the kitchen, if she didn’t mistake.
Her stomach ached with hunger, reminding her that a hot meal would not go amiss. But first she wanted to wash away her travel grime, change into fresh linens and a clean dress for dinner. She might reside in a true backwater now, but that didn’t mean she intended to forget her manners.
“If you will excuse me, sir, I believe I shall retire to my room, if you would be good enough to show me where it is.”
“Of course, darling.” He nodded down the hallway. “Our room is just there in the back, to the right.”
“Our room? So we shall be sharing?”
He tossed her a clearly amused look. “ ’Tis the usual way of things for a wedded couple, would you not agree? Most particularly a newly wedded couple.”
Not among her class, who generally kept separate bedchambers. But she supposed new sleeping arrangements would be yet another adjustment to which she would have to accustom herself.
“Please send Betsy to me if you would, and inform her I would like a bath as soon as one can be arranged.”
Turning on her heel, she started down the hallway.
“About Betsy,” he called toward her retreating back.
She halted, swung around to face him. “Yes? What about her?”
He dug his thumbs into his waistband. “She…well, she isn’t here.”
Her stomach lurched in sudden dread. “What do you mean, she isn’t here?”
“I’ve been scouring my mind, since this morning, trying to think how to tell you, but there’s just no easy way. I am sorry, lass, but I had to let her go.”
“Let her go?” she repeated, the tenor of her pitch rising with each word. “Wh
at do you mean? As in release her from my employ?”
Alarm shot through her at his nod.
“But how could you?” she said, aghast. “Betsy is a wonderful maid. Why would you dismiss her, especially without consulting me? It wasn’t your right to send her away. She was my maid and my responsibility. You will send a rider back immediately to wherever it is you abandoned her and bring her back.” She stomped her foot against the floor on a wave of rising hysteria, and sudden, unreasoning fear. “Bring her back now.”
He crossed his arms. “I can’t bring her back. She wasn’t dismissed for poor conduct. There simply isn’t the money to keep a lady’s maid, nor much need for her services any longer.”
She goggled at him in disbelieving horror. “Of course there is a need for her services. Who will keep my clothes? Who will tend to my toilette and arrange my hair? Who will help me dress and disrobe?”
“I can help you with any buttons or laces you can’t reach yourself, and manage the occasional pin or two, if you’ve trouble doing your hair. And since it isn’t likely we’ll be holding any fancy parties, you can wear simple gowns that don’t take so much work nor care.”
Reeling at his blasphemy, she pressed a hand to her chest. “None of my gowns are simple!”
“Then mayhap you’ll have to stitch a few new ones that aren’t so troublesome to maintain.”
“Stitch? As in sew? Me?”
“You sew, do you not?”
“I embroider. I do not sew clothing.”
“Then it’s past time you learned.” He gestured with a hand. “And for what it’s worth, I didn’t just abandon your maid. I gave her glowing references and put coins in her purse to pay for travel expenses to England plus two months’ wages besides. ’Tisn’t as if I’m a monster, after all.”
At this moment, Jeannette decided, he was far worse than a monster. Far, far worse. She blinked against the pressure that built up behind her eyes, that made her nose and eyelids sting.
She would not cry, she willed. She would not let him see her reduced to a torrent of tears. But that’s exactly what happened seconds later, a single, harsh sob bursting uncontrollably from her lips. Pressing a fist to her mouth, she whirled and ran toward the bedroom.
Darragh winced as the door slammed shut behind her, the sound reverberating with the fury of a thunderbolt through the cottage.
Well, he mused, that had gone about as well as expected, though he’d hoped she wouldn’t cry. The wrenching misery of her weeping rang out, tearing at his vitals, twisting knife-deep.
Jesus, he hated it when women cried, their tears more caustic than a vat of quick lime. But after years living with three younger sisters, he’d long ago learned that there are all sorts of tears and just as many reasons for them to be shed. Female tears ran the entire emotional gambit from joy and relief, to anger and frustration, to sorrow and despair and even to pure, premeditated manipulation. When used effectively, a good cry could reduce the most hardened man to a puddle of mush, make him willing to do anything, no matter how foolish or unreasonable, if only to make the tears cease.
But he refused to be coerced. Not that he believed for an instant that Jeannette’s current distress wasn’t honestly felt. He’d given her a shock, several of them, and it was only natural she was in their bedroom crying her eyes out. But once she stopped, once her anger cooled, her panic eased, then there would be a chance for her to learn to look beyond her pampered upbringing, her social prejudices, and see something more. See him for the man he truly was, and see herself for the woman he knew she could be.
What if it doesn’t work? a little voice whispered. What if she never comes to love you the way you want? The way you need? What if this game of yours is only a conceit and does nothing but drive a wedge between the two of you that will never again be healed?
A fresh wail carried down the hallway.
He set his teeth against the sound and the needle-sharp stab of guilt that followed.
It wasn’t too late. If he wished, he could put an end to his plan right now. Explain that the cottage actually belonged to a friend and he’d just been having a bit of fun with her, a harmless little tease. She’d be angry at first. But then relief would set in, a smile appearing on her lips when she saw his real home, learned his true identity.
But then he would never know, would he? Forever left to wonder if she did indeed love him as he hoped, or whether he was just fooling himself, her love stemming from a pleasure in the material things he could provide.
Even with his wealth and title, if he revealed himself to her now she would always carry with her a sense of superiority. After all, she was English, he was not. The English as a group uniformly considered themselves better than the Irish, regardless of an Irishman’s lineage. This would hold especially true for the pampered daughter of an English peer, a woman so beautiful she could have had any man in the realm. Even, it seems, a duke.
He tightened a fist at his side, resolved to continue on with his scheme. Let her cry. Let her rage. Tumbling her off her lofty pedestal to live like ordinary folk for a while could only do her good. And in a few weeks, after she’d had a chance to acclimate to her reduced circumstances, he would see if his plan had been unwise. See if he’d succeeded in finding a way into her proud heart, as she had already done to his own.
Jeannette placed the tray with its empty dishes that had contained a meal of beef stew, buttered soda bread, apple cobbler and tea onto the floor outside the bedroom. Shutting the door, she took angry satisfaction in turning the lock behind her.
Darragh O’Brien could find himself another bed to sleep in tonight. And tomorrow night as well, since her present unhappiness wasn’t likely to have passed by then. If it ever did.
Just thinking about this cottage and his callous treatment of her made her livid and weepy all over again. She had cried for nearly an hour straight, leaving her nose stuffed, temples throbbing, eyes heavy and red-rimmed. If Betsy were here she would have brought a lavender-scented cloth for her head. But Betsy was gone. Dismissed by that insensitive brute of a man.
Her hands tightened into balls. He’d had no right. No right at all to release her lady’s maid from service and send her home. She needed Betsy. A shiver ran through her at the thought of being without the other woman’s familiar, comforting presence.
She hadn’t even had a chance to say good-bye. And Betsy had been her last, her only remaining link with home and the life she once had led. Now she was alone. Stranded in this new, unfamiliar place, with only Darragh for company.
She padded to the bed and sank down onto the mattress in dejection.
Since delivering his infamous news, Darragh had only come near to ask if she wished to join him for supper. She’d refused, using silence as a weapon, waiting until his footsteps finally moved away.
Sprawled across the bed in the dark, she’d fallen asleep until sometime later, when his knock startled her awake. He announced he was leaving a tray for her outside her door. She’d wanted to refuse that as well, but intense hunger had driven her to accept his offering once she was sure he was gone.
The meal was delicious and left her feeling marginally better. But now that it was done, she had nothing to do and no reasonable idea of the time, since there were no clocks in the room.
By the light of the single tallow candle she’d found and lighted, she gazed around the modestly sized, modestly furnished room. Plain white walls, simple oak furniture—bed, bureau, wardrobe and cane chair—a large multihued braided rug spread over the wide-plank pine flooring. Ordinary blue curtains covered the single window, a yellow and blue quilt spread across the bed. The only decoration was a wooden cross hung on the wall next to the bureau, and near the door a small oil painting of an Irish country village.
She supposed she ought to go to bed. And she would, if only she could figure out a way to unfasten the back of her dress. She’d tried, and all she’d been able to manage were the top three pearl buttons.
Wounded outrage
burned afresh in her blood. She would sleep in this gown, she vowed, before she asked Darragh for help. She might well end up rotting in it before she asked. And to think all this had begun when she announced she wanted a bath.
A tear trailed over her cheek. She couldn’t even tidy her hair, since her brush was still packed up and she had no idea where to find it. That had been Betsy’s job, to unpack all her belongings, to see her clothes laid out, her toiletries arranged and available for her use. Yet another demerit to add to her husband’s ever-increasing tally.
As if he’d known she was thinking about him, the doorknob turned and stopped. “Jeannette. Open the door.”
Even though he couldn’t see her, she glared and stuck out her tongue.
“Enough now, lass. Let me in.”
“Has Betsy returned?”
“No, you know she has not.”
“Then go to the devil,” she shot back.
She expected him to rattle the knob again, issue another set of demands.
Instead, nothing. Not so much as a muttered curse.
A full minute of silence passed, quiet so palpable she could almost hear him breathing where he stood on the other side of the door. What was he doing out there? Why wasn’t he arguing with her, demanding again that she let him inside?
She waited, tense and ready for his next salvo.
Then she heard him move away, his footfalls fading in a hushed tap as he trod down the hall.
Well, that had been easy, she thought. Too easy. Then again, maybe he’d realized she wasn’t going to budge and had chosen to save himself the trouble of a strained voice and simply admit defeat. Let him sleep in the guest room—assuming there was a guest room in this pea pod—and in the morning she would decide whether or not to emerge. Whether or not to speak.
For now she supposed she ought to try to get some sleep. With that thought foremost, she twisted her arms behind her back for another wrestling match with the buttons on her dress.
She squirmed and strained, tugging at the material as much as she dared in an attempt to reach one of the quartet of buttons at the center of her back. Her arm muscles quivered, fingers straining in an agony of frustration against her overarched spine.
The Wife Trap Page 24