Treasured Vows

by Cathy Maxwell

  Hot color flooded his face. “You saw that?”

  “I did—and so did everyone else in the room. But notice that I’m not standing up here demanding that you wear gloves.”

  He frowned and took a step away from her. “That would be ridiculous. The woman is an infamous courtesan. Her lovers are legion and her reputation ruined.”

  Phadra tapped her foot impatiently before saying, “And what description would you give to Lofton? The man boasts of his conquests as being in the hundreds. Do you believe he is more circumspect in his encounters than the countess?”

  Grant didn’t like the way this conversation was going—especially since all he wanted to concentrate on was removing the rest of his wife’s dress, laying her out on the bed, and making mad, mindless love to her. With that intent in mind, he edged his way around the bed toward her, saying, “Phadra, you are talking apples and oranges.”

  “I’m saying that you can’t apply one standard to me and another to yourself,” she retorted, moving several steps away from him. “Be honest. Between the two of us, you are the prettier one—”

  “Men are not pretty,” he interrupted, irritated that they were still talking and not doing something far more interesting.

  “They are to women,” she said, and held up a hand to ward him off while she made her point. Grant stopped and crossed his arms over his chest, impatient for their little argument to be done.

  The look in her eyes told him that she didn’t appreciate his attitude, but she continued, “Don’t think that just because we are the softer sex, we are any less rapacious in our desires. When the two of us are together in a public place, no woman even notices me because they are so busy lusting after you.”

  “That’s ridiculous.”

  “It’s true. I’ve lost count of the number of gloves and kerchiefs dropped in your path while I’ve been standing right next to you, but I don’t expect you to wear a mask over your head or do something to disguise the width of your shoulders or the strength in your thighs—”

  “Phadra, this is nonsense!” he interrupted, embarrassed at her listing his physical attributes.

  “Women are even bold enough to ogle a man’s equipment.” She let her eyes drift down to his nether region before saucily admitting, “And you, my dear sir, are very well equipped—but I don’t demand that you wear looser breeches or longer waistcoats, do I?”

  Grant blinked, surprised at her boldness. He backed up a step, fighting the urge to cover his groin, and stated flatly, “If you insist on emulating anyone, I’d prefer you follow Lady Dumbarton’s lead and not the Countess von Driesen’s.”

  “Why, certainly, Grant. I’ll be more than happy to do so,” she said with sweetness that immediately put him on guard. “After all, Lady Dumbarton is the one who compared you to her favorite stallion.”

  “The devil, you say!” Grant exclaimed, and then felt himself turn a bright and burning shade of red. He hoped Phadra couldn’t see how embarrassed he was. Imagine, my wife and a group of ladies sitting around and talking about me as if they were—his mind searched for an apt comparison—as if they were a group of men sitting in a coffeehouse, leering at women.

  What was worse, Phadra stood there, hands on hips, eyes dancing with laughter, apparently feeling no remorse at embarrassing him this way.

  The laughter died in her eyes and was replaced by sudden realization. She said with mild surprise, “You don’t like the way you look, do you?”

  He frowned. “I like the way I look.”

  “No, you don’t,” Phadra said with a shake of her head. “I’ve always known that you aren’t particularly vain about your looks, but now…” Her brow crinkled as she puzzled over the problem. “It’s not a lack of vanity, is it? You just don’t like to look at yourself.”

  He took another step toward the door. “Phadra, this conversation has turned silly.”

  But Phadra wasn’t listening. Instead she searched the room with her eyes before her clear, direct gaze met his. “There’s no mirror in here. In fact, this afternoon we had to borrow a mirror from Wallace in order to do our hair. Your sisters mentioned that they took all the good mirrors with them when they married and that you’d never had the need for a mirror.”

  “So I don’t have a mirror. What does it matter?” he asked in clipped tones. “I’m not a vain man.”

  Phadra walked thoughtfully over to his wardrobe and opened it.

  “What are you doing?” he asked.

  She ran her hands over the sleeves of the coats hanging there. “All your clothing is the same. The same colors, the same cut.” She turned to him. “When we first met, my initial thought was that you wear your clothing the way most men wear a uniform. I thought it had something to do with your being a banker, but it’s more than that, isn’t it? You do it so that you can spend as little time as possible on your appearance.”

  “I have no idea what you are talking about—”

  “This morning,” she interrupted, “you were bathed, dressed, and out the door in less than ten minutes.”

  “So?”

  “So you spent hardly any time at all on anything other than what was necessary. You didn’t primp. You didn’t spend time on yourself.”

  “I was clean and shaved,” he protested,

  “But you didn’t take any extra time.”

  “Oh, don’t be ridicul—”

  “I’m not being ridiculous,” she said with a stamp of her foot. “I’m now realizing something important about you. You don’t even talk about yourself.”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “No, you don’t. You never talk about what you feel or think except to tell me what you want—such as to earn a knighthood and become a director at the bank. But you rarely talk about why those things are so important to you.” She slid him a pensive glance. “Except for that night in the Evanses’ garden when you told me about your father.”

  Grant shifted his weight. It was only when he bumped into the door handle that he realized he’d edged his way to the door.

  Phadra leaned against the bedpost. “I remember thinking later that night that it was strange you hadn’t already achieved those goals. I mean, with your extraordinary looks, you could have contracted a suitable alliance without having to resort to Miranda Evans. But you won’t trade on your looks, will you? You told me that too, that day in the museum. ‘I don’t trade on my looks.’ Those were the exact words.” She paused and looked him in the eye. “Why not, Grant? Why don’t you like the way you look? Is it because everyone says you look so much like your father?”

  Grant placed his hand on the door handle and then removed it quickly, as if he’d touched a hot poker. Was he really so disturbed by her words that he’d let her chase him from the room? He stood his ground. “I didn’t come up here to discuss this. I came up here to tell you that from now on I expect my orders to be obeyed.”

  “Obeyed?” she repeated as if she hadn’t heard him correctly.

  Grant took a step into the room, feeling a need to exert more control, to keep her sharp mind away from subjects too uncomfortable for him. “From now on, I expect you to consult me before you throw parties like this one tonight.”

  She didn’t appear to take offense at his words, as he’d expected her to. Instead she asked, almost gently, “And I suppose you will expect to have a hand in choosing which fashions I wear?”

  “I hadn’t considered it, but yes, I do think that is a wise idea.”

  “And if I disagree?”

  “I am your husband.”

  “And I’m your chattel?”

  He frowned, not liking the word. “No, nothing quite as dramatic as that.”

  Phadra shook her head. “Then how else do you express it? I am to do what you order me to do, when you order me to do it, and how you order me to do it. Is that not correct?”

  “Phadra—”

  “I’m sorry, Grant, but I don’t think I can live that way. I don’t believe in it. The ladies and I were discussing
this today, and we all agree that it’s wrong for women to be treated as though we aren’t partners in a marriage, just as it’s wrong to treat us as if we aren’t full and equal citizens of this country. The laws are wrong.”

  “British laws are designed to protect a woman and help a man cherish her.”

  “Is ordering me about to suit your mood considered ‘cherishing’?”

  “I don’t order you about to suit my mood. I’m acting in our best interests.”

  “You don’t know me well enough to know what my best interests are!”

  “I know your best interests aren’t chasing around after that vagrant father of yours,” he snapped back, his voice rising. “I know that you would have been better off staying at that girls’ school rather than rolling yourself into debt in London. If you’d stayed where you were supposed to, none of this”—he waved his hand intending to encompass the house and their marriage—“would have happened!”

  Phadra pulled back as if he’d struck her.

  Grant wanted to call the words back, to deny them—but he stopped himself. He hadn’t spoken anything other than the truth. She had to learn that he was in control of his own house.

  He just hated to see the hurt in her large blue eyes.

  Phadra crossed her arms against her chest protectively and backed away even farther.

  “Phadra, you know we aren’t a love match.” The second he said the words, he knew they were the wrong ones to say. She actually flinched when she heard them. He shut up and shoved his hands back into his pockets. This wasn’t working. “Maybe we are too different,” he muttered.

  The silence stretched out painfully between them. She was the first to break it. “All right,” she said softly. She lowered her arms to her side and straightened her shoulders. When she lifted her chin, he knew he was going to be in trouble.

  “Perhaps we are too different. Perhaps it doesn’t matter.” She bunched her skirts up, giving him an excellent view of her shapely calves, and climbed up onto the bed. “It’s obvious that you won’t be happy until I understand my place.” She slipped the sandals off her dainty feet.

  He murmured something unintelligible, his mind suddenly reeling with the vivid memory of her legs wrapped around his hips up in the attic. He took a step toward the bed, his body moving of its own volition.

  “Well,” she said in an icy voice that demanded his attention, “henceforth I shall endeavor to stay in my place.” Opening her arms, she fell back onto the feather mattress with a slight whooshing sound, spread open her legs, and stared up at the canopy.

  After several long seconds he finally asked, “What are you doing?”

  “I’m waiting for you,” she said without looking at him. “Like a good and docile wife. Come and have your way with me.”

  Her words shocked him. “Have you gone mad?”

  Phadra sat up, her scarfed hair bouncing with the movement. “I’m sorry. Do you not like this position? I can turn over onto my stomach if you’d prefer that position better.” To his horror, she rolled over and spread her arms out to her sides like a martyr waiting to be tied to a cross.

  He backed away…even as another part of his body cried Yes! at the sight of her delectable little bottom offered up to him. “Why are you doing this?” he ground out.

  “Because I can’t settle for a marriage that is nothing more than this, and I don’t think you can, either.”

  Oh, yes, I could, he thought. And if she was paying any attention to his equipment, she’d see that fact. He moved back into the shadows and once again felt himself bump into the door handle. Did she realize how seductive she looked spread out on the bed?

  She turned over and sat up, resting her palms on the mattress, the position emphasizing her cleavage. Dear God, he ached with the need to touch her, to take her. But he couldn’t give in—not if he still wanted to be the one in control of this marriage. He placed his hand on the door handle and gripped it as if it were a lifeline.

  When he still didn’t speak, she shifted position again, sitting back on her heels in the position of a supplicant. “Grant, if you are going to insist that I live only to follow your command, to be little better than a servant, then I’d rather be locked up again in Miss Agatha’s, where at least I was free to think my own mind.”

  “And is that the only way? On your terms?” His voice sounded harsh.

  She blinked as if slightly hurt by his tone. Then she lifted her chin. “Yes.” The expression in her eyes softened as she added, “I can’t live my life as little more than a marionette.”

  The words hung in the air between them. Grant heard the almost desperate plea underlying them, but he couldn’t shake the voice he heard in his mind, which was telling him that if he gave in now, he’d never be in control again. A man didn’t let a woman run his life.

  Only those weren’t his words he was hearing; they were his father’s words. He could hear his father saying them, emphasizing them, as they made the rounds of brothels and supper clubs, his arm around Grant’s shoulders.

  The sudden revelation shattered everything he’d ever believed about himself.

  Grant turned the door handle and let himself out of the room. She called out to him. When he was halfway to the staircase, he heard her crying. He kept walking.

  Downstairs, the guests were long gone, and most of the remnants of the party had been cleared away. A single candle burned in the hallway on a table. Picking up the candle, he walked purposefully into the dining room to the small liquor cabinet in the corner, set the candle on top of the cabinet, and took out a decanter of whiskey he kept for guests and one glass. Pulling the stopper out, he poured the whiskey into the glass. His hand shook as he poured, causing the mouth of the decanter to clink against the rim of the glass, and in a burst of violent rage he threw the decanter with all his strength at the far wall.

  The crystal bottle smashed into thousands of pieces. “I am not my father,” he said, enunciating each word clearly, distinctly.

  The sound of footsteps made him turn with alarm to the door. A second later Anne appeared. A shawl was wrapped around her nightdress, and she was holding a candle. “Grant? Are you all right?”

  He didn’t want company. “I’m fine, Anne. Go back to bed.”

  She didn’t move but stood in the doorway. He had no doubt that she’d heard the crash and could smell the peatlike scent of the whiskey in the air. She stepped into the dining room. “I thought you would be with Phadra.”

  He heard her unspoken question. “We’re not a love match,” he explained quietly.

  Anne raised her eyebrows and sat down at the table, setting her candle in front of her.

  Grant frowned. “I have no desire to discuss this.”

  Anne shrugged, as if his wishes were unimportant. “I like her.”

  “Why is it women are always so free with their advice?” he asked angrily. “Why can’t you ever accept what a man says and leave it at that? Which reminds me, Anne, were you really smoking this evening?”

  Anne waved a hand at him. “You aren’t my husband, so don’t adopt that tone with me. And please give me credit for some good sense. I didn’t smoke. I was only teasing Jane.” A slow smile spread across her face. “Of course, I seriously thought about doing it. Every once in a while it’s fun to try the forbidden. Makes me feel like less of a matron.”

  “Matron? You’re only thirty-one.”

  “And you are thirty and more than ripe for marriage. What I want to know is, why you are down here and not up sharing the marriage bed with your wife?”

  He shoved his fists in his pockets and moved around the table away from her. “I didn’t realize you were capable of being this direct, Anne,” he said irritably.

  “Bearing four children does that to a woman, Grant. Now, what is the matter?”

  He pulled a hand out of his pocket and combed his fingers through his hair before admitting, “We don’t suit each other.”

  “I found myself thinking today that you two are
very much alike.”

  “Have both you and Jane gone daft? She told me Phadra was perfect for me. I don’t understand why two of the people closest to me can’t see that we are complete opposites.”

  Anne leaned across the table. Her gray eyes, so much like his, caught the candlelight. “I find her much like you. She’s good, kind, intelligent, generous—”

  “Generous enough to waste hundreds of pounds entertaining!”

  “She did it to help you,” Jane’s voice chimed in. She walked into the room, rubbing her back. “And you’d do the same if you thought it would help us. One of the reasons Anne and I are sleeping on the parlor sofas tonight is because you gave us the furniture from the bedrooms upstairs to help us set up our households, and would have given us the parlor furniture too if we’d let you. Believe me, Grant, not every brother is as generous as you.”

  She sat down in the chair next to her older sister. “Phadra thought that if she did a good job with the party, it would help your fortunes with the bank. She only wanted to please you, Grant.”

  He faced them across the table. “Well, it didn’t help, did it?”

  “Only because you decided to throw an earl out of your house by the seat of the pants,” Anne observed dryly. “None of us expected the party to grow so big or so wild. And certainly no one thought that Lofton would attack Phadra.”

  Grant hated being reminded of his own part in the disaster. But when he’d entered this very room and seen Phadra holding off the bastard—“I don’t want to argue about it, Anne. This is between myself and Phadra.”

  “Well, there is something I do want to talk about, brother of mine, and it is between us,” Anne said.

  “What is that?” he asked curtly.

  “I heard what you said when I came into the room.”

  Grant went very still.

  She pinned him with her gaze. “Father’s dead, Grant. He’s gone. You can’t fight him. He’s not here.”

  “I don’t know what you are talking about.”

  “Yes, you do. Oh, I’ll be the first to admit that Papa left a reputation that may last forever, but when he was sober, he could also be a caring, loving man. We did have some good times. Not all the memories are bad, Grant.”