by M C Beaton
“God, I could sleep for a week,” he groaned.
“What are you doing in my bedroom?” cried Susie, sitting up and then moaning as her headache returned in full force.
“It’s our bedroom,” said Giles. “Husband and wife, remember? Now go to sleep.”
He turned over on his side and closed his eyes. Susie looked at him doubtfully for a few minutes, but her eyes ached and her head hurt, so at last with a resigned little sigh she too went to sleep.
When she awoke some hours later, Giles had gone.
She climbed stiffly down from the high bed and went to look out of the window. Small chilly flakes of snow were beginning to drift across the bleak countryside. There was a stretch of lawn dotted with old trees in front of the house, ending in a thick wood.
A deer stood frozen at the edge of the wood, looking like a child’s toy. Then, with one enormous bound, it disappeared.
A faint smell of cooking drifted up from downstairs. Susie realized she was very hungry indeed.
She bathed and changed and made her way down a beautiful staircase to a bright square hall.
Mrs. Harrison appeared with an enormous white starched lace cap on her gray hair in honor of the occasion.
“My lord is just sitting down to an early dinner, my lady,” she said. “If you go straight through to the dining room, you’ll just be in time to join him.”
She held open a door, and Susie walked into a pleasant room that had not changed much since the days of the Regency. There were no carpets on the highly polished floor. An applewood fire crackled at one end, and the room was lit by two branches of candles on the dining room table.
A silver epergne depicting the Battle of Salamanca dominated the center of the table. Susie sat down and peered cautiously around the battle to where her “husband” was sitting at the other end.
He gave her a brief look and then said, “Move your chair round here, Susie. I can talk to you easier.”
Susie went around and sat beside him, looking down at her folded hands, while Mrs. Harrison bustled in with the dishes.
Susie was wearing the brown velvet dinner gown with the bands of sable that she had worn for her first dinner at Blackhall Castle. Giles was wearing a black velvet smoking jacket with plaid trousers and an opennecked soft white silk shirt and a paisley cravat with a small ruby stickpin.
Susie thought he looked very handsome but very Bohemian. He should have at least put on a dinner jacket.
Unconventional clothes could be taken off so quickly, she reflected, and then blushed at her unconventional thought.
“I rode over to see the vicar, Charlie Wade,” said Giles, shaking out his napkin. “Then I went into Lewes and arranged a special license. Charlie can marry us in a couple of days time. He thinks the whole thing is a great laugh.”
“He does?” asked Susie miserably. She had been hoping for a severe cleric who would have pointed out to Giles the error of his ways.
Susie was wishing desperately she had not come.
But she was young and she was hungry, and she attacked her meal with a good appetite, refusing, however, Giles’s offer of champagne.
She felt she never wanted to touch the stuff again.
Giles suddenly wondered what to talk about. He had never really talked much to Susie that he could remember.
“Dobbin’s all right,” he said at last. “Ate a good dinner.”
“Oh, thank you,” said Susie, her beautiful eyes lighting up with real gratitude. “Is his stable warm enough?”
“Yes.”
There was another silence.
“It’s a very pretty house,” ventured Susie at last. “I did not think a hunting box would be so big.”
“Well, it has to be,” Giles pointed out. “Where else would one put one’s guests?”
There was another silence while the wind howled miserably outside and the snow whispered against the windowpanes.
“Port?” asked Giles after the dishes had been cleared and an old fashioned sort of tray on wheels containing port, Madeira, and liqueurs to have with walnuts had been wheeled onto the table.
“No. Yes. I mean, thank you, I would like some,” said Susie miserably, her eyes falling before the gleam that was appearing in the blue eyes opposite.
She drank a glass of port very quickly. “What shall we do this evening?” she asked brightly.
“What do you think?” asked Giles with some surprise.
Susie blushed a painful red. “Aren’t you going to wait until after the wedding?”
“No.”
“Oh.”
There was another silence.
Susie drank several glasses of port in quick succession. She hoped to encourage Giles to drink, so that he would fall asleep, but although he was drinking quite steadily, he looked remarkably bright-eyed and sober.
At last he said, “I think we should go to bed now, Susie.”
“I’ll just finish my—”
“I said now!”
“Oh, must we? Oh, dear. Oh, very well,” sighed Lady Blackhall.
Chapter Ten
What did you say, Giles?”
“Necrophilia.”
“What’s that?”
“Never mind,” sighed Giles. “Go to sleep.”
Susie turned over on her side and hunched herself up into a small ball, drawing her legs up against her chest. What had she done wrong? But it had all been so painful and bewildering.
First he had insisted on undressing her, which had taken an agonizingly long and embarrassing time.
He had unfastened the brown velvet dress, then the camisole blouse, then the layers of petticoats tied with tape at the waist. Then he had unbuttoned her long frilly knickers and unclipped her stockings from their garters. Swearing mightily, he had wrestled with the metal busks of her corset until he had got them undone, and then had stared in dismay as she stood revealed in all the glory of her fine wool combination, a one-piece garment that covered her from her bust to her knees.
He had started to laugh, and that had been horrible. “Honestly, Susie darling,” he had cried, “how can you females possibly wear so many clothes?”
She had simply stood there, like a statue, staring at him, wide-eyed. He had started to take off his own clothes, and that was when she had found the courage to ask him to blow out the candles, which he had done with an indulgent smile.
As he had carried her to the bed and had started to remove her one last garment, remembering from his long experience that it unfastened by a sort of back panel over the bottom, she had closed her eyes tightly.
He had started to kiss her, and that was all right, warm and comforting. He had kissed her and caressed her for a very long time, and then, all at once, a lot of very painful and embarrassing things had started to happen.
He had not seemed to realize how painful it was and had answered every one of her moans with a moan of passion. Just when she thought she simply could not bear it any longer, he had collapsed on top of her.
She had lain supporting his body for some minutes and then had asked timidly, “Is it all over?” At which Giles had turned his back on her and had muttered that word that she did not understand.
Giles closed his eyes and willed sleep to come. That “Is it all over?” of hers had been like a jug of cold water. She had endured his embraces, that was all. He had made a simply terrible mistake. But now he would have to marry her.
He tried to remember his first nights with his ex-wife, but found he could not remember much except his surprise that she had seemed so experienced. He began to wonder if he had ever slept with a virgin before and after a lot of long and painful thought, decided he had not.
He felt the beginnings of some pity for Susie and some understanding. But, at that moment anyway, he did not feel he could touch her again.
He tried manfully to woo her on the days and nights before their wedding, but she only submitted reluctantly to his embraces, looking at him with hurt eyes, like a dog who wonders why his master is be
ating him but is heartbreakingly determined to endure anything in the cause of love and duty.
They were married on a grim, dark day in a tall, narrow church in the neighboring town of Whiteboys. The weather was so cold and bitter that only a few of the townspeople had turned out to cheer the couple, and the only guests invited were the Harrisons, who had finally been told that the couple had not been married before after all.
The vicar, Charlie Wade, was a muscular, jolly man with a hearty, jovial laugh and a pretty, silly wife, who managed to play the organ and cry copiously at the same time all through the service.
The vicar and his wife were invited to the wedding breakfast and stayed for the whole day, determined to make the most out of this rare social occasion.
At last they left, and Susie, Lady Blackhall for the second time, was left alone with her husband.
“Susie,” said Giles gently after the Harrisons had cleared the dishes and retired, “you must be patient. You do not seem to enjoy my lovemaking at the moment, but I feel sure that pleasure will come with time. Do you love me?”
“I don’t know,” said Susie miserably, tying her napkin into a knot.
Now, this was exactly the answer that Giles had given her, but he felt very angry indeed. She might at least have lied.
He tried to fight it, but his bad temper got the better of him.
“You’re not even trying,” he said severely.
“I am trying,” said Susie, stung to the quick. “Night after night. It hurts, Giles.”
“That’s because you won’t let yourself relax.”
“Why is it always my fault?” said Susie, beginning to sob.
“Oh, for God’s sake, stop being such a wet blanket. All right. Hear this, my lady. I will not sleep with you again until you go down on your knees and beg me.”
“Don’t be silly,” said Susie, feeling a burst of healthy anger. “Beg you?”
“Yes, beg me, you frigid little snow maiden. Furthermore, this was supposed to be our honeymoon. But I’m damned if I’m going to stay here, with you mooning around like a bloody martyr. I’m going back to the castle tomorrow. I’ve got work to do there, which, I may add, is more rewarding than any of the hours I’ve slaved over your cold body.”
“How dare you!” cried Susie, her cheeks flaming. “You are no gentleman, sir!”
“Who ever heard of playing ladies and gentlemen between the sheets?”
“Crude, vulgar, awful—”
“Shut up! I made a mistake, and now I’m stuck with you. For Christ’s sake, take your miserable face out of here. You make me sick.”
“Not half as sick as you make me,” screamed Susie, desperate to hurt him as much as he had hurt her. “You, with your grabbing hands and wet mouth. Men! You’re all the same!”
“Only after one thing,” he sneered.
“Exactly!”
“At least there are plenty of women to supply that one thing,” said Giles. “You supply nothing, d’ye hear? Nothing! Neither conversation, nor company, nor affection, nor love. All you care about is that mangy horse of yours.”
“Perhaps because Dobbin loves me,” said Susie, suddenly quiet.
“Oh, go away,” said Giles wearily. “I’m going to get drunk.”
Susie stalked from the room, her head held high, and Giles sat and nursed his port and a guilty conscience. He had not meant to be so cruel, but that untouchable air about her drove him mad.
The unhappy couple settled in for the long winter at Blackhall Castle.
They exchanged chilly presents at Christmas and a chilly kiss, and apart from that, they did not have much to do with each other.
Their bitter atmosphere affected even the servants, who became quarrelsome and split up into two camps, one led by Mrs. Wight, favoring Giles, and the other led by Thomson, favoring Susie.
As far as Susie was concerned, she had had her taste of reality. Better to retreat to the safe world of her dreams, where that tan and handsome and kindly man was always waiting for her.
Giles bitterly noticed her vague and dreaming air of abstraction, and it infuriated him more than her cold snubs had done.
It was when he was glancing through the social columns that he hit upon an idea.
Winter had at last fled, and the days were growing warmer and longer. Thoughts of old romances and old conquests began to burn in his blood. He was determined to show Susie somehow that he was still considered a highly attractive and desirable young man. And Mary Bartlett had returned to London. Mrs. Bartlett, an old amour of Giles’s, had long been called The Merry Widow. She was a voluptuous redhead with a large fortune and a roving eye. He would hold a house party, nothing too elaborate, just a few couples and the intriguing Mrs. Bartlett.
Susie accepted the news of the house party with infuriating calm. She ordered flowers to be arranged, wrote menus for the dining room and cards for the doors of the guest rooms, and dreamed of that handsome, square, solid man who would arrive and rescue her from Giles’s icy scorn.
The Earl and the Countess of Blackhall were standing on the castle steps, arm in arm and with fixed social smiles pinned on their faces, to greet the first guests.
Giles searched the arriving carriages and motorcars anxiously for Mrs. Bartlett, and Susie searched for her dream lover.
They both arrived at once.
A smart, brand-new Lanchester painted a dazzling shade of pink rolled up after the other guests had arrived. Clashing magnificently with the paintwork of her automobile was the flaming red hair of Mrs. Bartlett. Only she wasn’t Mrs. Bartlett anymore.
“I’ve just got married, darling,” she cried, pressing Giles to her ample bosom. “Isn’t he a poppet? I’m Lady Mary Glassop now. This is my husband, Jimmy.”
Sir Jimmy Glassop was a wealthy financier, one of the new kind of aristocracy who had turned from their lands to make their fortune in trade. He was tall and handsome with a square, tanned face, and honest brown eyes. He had walked straight out of Susie’s dreams, and she could not take her eyes off him.
Giles watched her over Lady Mary’s lace shoulder and felt that his superb plan was backfiring.
Lady Mary linked her arm familiarly in Giles’s and called over her shoulder to her husband, “See that the servants know where to put my bags, darling.” She went into the castle, talking animatedly to Giles. She had not even looked at Susie.
Susie turned to Sir Jimmy and gave him a radiant smile. “If you will come with me,” she said, “I will show you to your rooms.”
“I say,” said Sir Jimmy. “We haven’t been introduced.”
“I’m Susie, Giles’s wife,” said Susie, leading the way.
“He’s married!” exclaimed Jimmy, lumbering after her. “There was nothing about it in the social columns. Giles married! Well, well, well.”
Susie conducted him up to the top of the keep and into a guest suite of rooms, which was in fact Giles’s former quarters. He had moved into the earl’s rooms, and Susie had taken up the adjoining suite, which had been redecorated in her honor. Jimmy thanked her heartily and said he would go straight back downstairs again and join his wife, since the trunks and all been safely bestowed.
Susie trotted along happily beside him. When they reached downstairs again, it was to be informed by a disapproving Thomson that my lord and my lady had gone walking down by the lake.
“Do you want to join them?” asked Susie.
“No, my dear,” said Jimmy. “I simply want to sit down and stretch my legs and have something to drink.”
She led him into the rose chamber and ordered Thomson to supply the necessary refreshment.
“Do you mind if I smoke my pipe?” asked Jimmy, taking a venerable meerschaum from his pocket.
“Oh, no!” sighed Susie adoringly. “I adore men who smoke pipes.”
Jimmy looked at her in surprise. “Giles smoke a pipe?”
“No.”
“Oh,” said Jimmy, looking startled and then looking closely at Susie for the first
time.
She was wearing a white lace tea gown threaded with gold silk ribbons. Her hair was dressed low on her forehead in the latest fashion, and the style accentuated the size of her large eyes. He watched the play of her heavy lashes against her cheek and felt a little quiver of surprise. By George! he thought. I’ve charmed this little lady.
“Do you come up to town often?” he asked.
“No,” said Susie. “I have a house there, you know, but I haven’t visited it since I was married. Giles’s Aunt Matilda lives there at the moment.”
“Season’ll soon be starting,” he commented, puffing on his pipe and looking at her admiringly through the clouds of aromatic smoke. “Young thing like you should be going to all the balls and parties.”
“I don’t really like balls and parties,” said Susie. “I like a quiet country life.”
“So do I,” said Jimmy, “but I can’t talk my wife into it. She likes the social round. Before I had any money, I lived in my parents’ old home down in the country. It was very small and quiet, but I rather liked it. Good hunting.”
“I sometimes think I would like a small house,” said Susie, thinking of that thatched cottage. “Do you have a dog?”
“Whole pack,” he said amiably.
“I mean a pet dog,” urged Susie, thinking of the dog called Rover who would gambol about the garden.
“No,” he said. “I like dogs in the kennels, where they belong. Nasty, smelly things to have about the house, you know. Hair all over the cushions and bones under the carpets.”
Susie sighed. Nobody was perfect.
She heard a trill of laughter and turned her head. Mary was entering, hanging onto Giles’s arm. She was rather on the heavy side, but she had magnificent skin and eyes as blue as Giles’s own. She was wearing a silk chiffon dress, which Susie noticed was cut so tightly to her voluptuous figure that it was almost possible to read the name of her corsetiere.
“Giles has been telling me he’s married. Fancy that. Our gay bachelor tied down at last! Lucky girl,” she cooed at Susie and then raised her penciled eyebrows as she intercepted the cold look that passed between Susie and her husband.
In the days that followed, Susie was quite happy, however, to see Giles’s attention so much taken up with Lady Mary. It left Jimmy plenty of time to pay attention to her.