Wenna

by Virginia Taylor

  Dev indicated precedence to Wenna, who followed the man past the old tapestries to a reserved back room. Inside was more of the same: a long table, uncomfortable chairs, and paneled walls. “My wife and I will drink barley water. Will that suit you, my love?” He raised his eyebrows at Wenna.

  “Oh dear. You’re martyring yourself for me. You may have barley water if you insist. I’ll have watered wine.” She smiled firmly at the maître d’hôtel, who blinked at Dev.

  “In that case, I’ll share your wine,” Dev said, enjoying her mock reproof.

  The door opened. “Thought I saw your back, Dev. Didn’t know you would have a lovely lady with you.” The newcomer, a short man with a cherubic face, was Hubert Grace, the son of Sir Patrick and Lady Grace. He smiled at Wenna.

  “Let me intro—”

  “Move along.” Luke Worthing, a lawyer who’d studied at Cambridge, too, pushed Hubert into the room. “We’ll have two bottles of that French claret you showed me last week, Mason,” he said to the maître d’hôtel. His severe brown-eyed gaze turned to Wenna. “Good Lord. Another redhead. Welcome to the club.” Wry lines formed beside his thin-lipped mouth. He’d always been overly conscious of his own red hair.

  Dev moved to his wife’s side, again preparing to introduce her, as Mason opened the door to leave. Before he could, tall, dark, and handsome James Hawthorn entered. “Hubert invited me,” he said defensively. Younger than the others, he was often referred to as the pup. “He thinks I have the makings of a member of this exclusive band after playing cards with me last night.”

  “You’re that bad?” Dev turned to Wenna. “We don’t take card-playing seriously. We ignore anyone who can win two games in a row.”

  “James can’t win one game in a row.” Hubert, a friend of James’s older brother as were the others, had teasing rights, which the even-tempered Pup never took amiss.

  “Unlike you, I don’t cheat,” James said loftily. “Will Nick be here tonight?”

  “Is that some sort of follow-on? Are you implying Nick cheats?”

  “Certainly not. He doesn’t need to. Damn man. Drunk or sober, he can win whenever he wants. Excuse my language.” James glanced in Wenna’s direction. “I didn’t know we had a lady among us.”

  Wenna stared straight at him. “I’m auditioning for the cricket match. If I pass muster, I shall be able to attend tomorrow.” She gave the lad one of her wide beautiful smiles.

  James looked momentarily stunned. “You pass my muster. Are we to be introduced?”

  Dev stepped forward. “May I introduce Wenna—” The door opened again.

  “Wenna!” Ivor Penrith strode into the room. Slim, fair-haired, and too sophisticated to look like the heir to the largest copper holding in the colony, he lowered his eyebrows with disapproval. “My God, Wenna. What on earth are you doing here?” He reached for her arm.

  She moved, evading his grip. “Mr. Penrith. How do you do?”

  “How do I do? Who brought you here?” His expression angry, he gazed at each of the men in the room. “Which one of you?”

  “T’was I,” Dev said, not knowing whether to be insulted or amused.

  “What would your mother say?” Ivor continued, not about to be stopped mid-questioning. “You were always a very scrupulous girl. I’m shocked to see you have come to this.”

  Wenna raised her fine red eyebrows. Apparently, Ivor couldn’t intimidate her. Dev knew he should have mentioned his marriage, but the devil in him wanted to see Ivor put nicely in his place. “I was shocked by you a number of times,” she said in a honeyed voice. “The first time was when you broke the rector’s window, and you let me take the blame.”

  “That’s hardly an excuse to take up a life of sin.” Ivor folded his arms across his manly chest.

  Wenna turned to the other chaps, her face a picture of hurt innocence. “I haven’t seen him for at least ten years, and yet he thinks he has the right to admonish me.”

  “So, you were childhood friends?” Dev asked, puzzled. Ivor’s very wealthy family lived on a sprawling acreage in Clare. Wenna’s family, on the other hand, had mined—in Clare. “Clare. That’s the connection.”

  “That’s the connection, but we were hardly friends. My mother did his mother’s laundry.”

  “As a matter of fact, we knew each other for years before that. Her father was the manager of our mines. And her mother might have had to earn a living during the last year of her life but...” Ivor looked embarrassed. “Wenna was more Nell’s friend than mine, in any event.”

  “Nell? Tony’s wife?” James raised his eyebrows at Wenna. “Nell is my new sister-in-law. I’m James Hawthorn.”

  “And….” Dev left a dramatic pause. “Wenna’s my wife.”

  James gave him a hearty congratulatory thump on the back.

  “Hubert Grace, at your service, Mrs. Courtney. Well done, Dev.”

  “Luke Worthing. Delighted to meet you. Are you back in your sanctimonious box now, Penrith?”

  Ivor shot his cuffs and had the grace to look embarrassed. “Nell will be pleased to see you again. She misses all her friends in Clare.”

  “And I will be pleased to see her. It’s been many years. I hope she will recognize me.”

  “Your hair,” Luke said, relaxed and looking slightly amused. “No one ever forgets redheads.”

  Dev allowed himself a smile. “Now we’re all settled, let’s order a meal. I’ve been working all day, and I need sustenance.”

  Hubert pulled out the chair at the head of the table. “This is the place for you, Mrs. Courtney. The only place. We can worship you from here without our vision being impeded.”

  “Call me ‘Wenna.’ That’s what I’m most used to.” With a glowing smile, she sat. While Ivor seated himself on her right, and Luke on her left, she fussed with the arrangement of her skirts. Although having the complete attention of a roomful of gentlemen might be a first for her, Dev didn’t doubt she could handle them the same way she’d handled him when they’d met, with her forthright speech and inability to suffer fools.

  For a moment, he wished he’d seated himself beside her. He had the need to protect her despite knowing firsthand how well she could protect herself. As he took his place at the table, the inevitability of this night hit him. He’d finally made a real commitment. Introducing Wenna into society as his wife meant he could no longer keep his marriage a secret. He could no longer put off his return to Cornwall. Finally he had to do the job he hadn’t been born to do. A sigh pushed out of his chest. The duty he had to the Courtney family had conjoined with his duty to his wife.

  “Married, eh? Time you bought a house then, isn’t it, Dev?” Luke twirled the stem of his empty glass.

  Dev suppressed a wry smile, knowing he had, and knowing he would never live in the almost-completed sturdy gatehouse of the gracious mansion he had hoped to build in the foothills. “City living is for me. I meet very interesting people on Rundle Street.”

  “Was it you who found the hat on the footpath last year?” James’s mouth curved. “And when you picked it up, the man beneath asked if you would help dig out the horse beneath him?”

  Dev raised his eyebrows. “I believe that is a story from some twenty years ago, James. If you would care to visit your carriage-building business in town more often, you would notice we now have footpaths and gas-lighting.”

  “That’s right, Dev. Time someone reminded Pup that life isn’t all pleasure. Some of us have to work for a living.”

  “Speaking of working,” Hubert said, unfolding his table napkin. “How are things in Clare, Ivor?”

  “None too good.” Ivor crossed his forearms on the table. “The copper is still puttering along, but the gold’s finished. And what with the drought, I hear that no farmer has more than a quarter of his stock left. Fortunately, beef is on the hoof and they can keep moving the stock. They can probably go on for another year without rain, but after that I don’t know.”

&nb
sp; “It’s a mistake to put your money in stock. The weather’s too uncertain in this colony.” James sounded satisfied. He could, since, with his brother, he had inherited a fortune from his father.

  “Diversification is the answer,” Ivor said morosely. He raised his head and stared straight at Dev. “I’m sorry, Dev. I’ve money worries and woman trouble, and I don’t know which is worse. Probably women,” he added after a quick glance at Wenna.

  “Any woman in particular?” Dev asked, interested.

  “Yes. Has anyone see Nick lately?”

  Luke laughed. “That’s a real word association for you. I saw him last week at the races with, as usual, a woman hanging onto him. He didn’t particularly want to know me.”

  “He’s keeping a low profile,” Dev said as the menus arrived.

  The waiter edged in beside Wenna, about to fill her glass, but Dev caught his attention and indicated the water jug. She glanced up.

  “You’re drinking watered wine, remember?” he said. She nodded, watching as the waiter leveled off her glass with water.

  “It’s quite refreshing.”

  “Most of us drink watered wine on Saturday night.” Hubert held his glass out for the waiter to fill his with water, too. “Cricket on Sunday, you know. Can’t play with a muzzy head.”

  James chortled. “So you can’t use that as your excuse for being the worst cricketer in the colony. Your youngest sister plays better than you.”

  “I know, dear fellow, I know,” Hubert said mournfully. “She’s a constant embarrassment to me.”

  The waiter took the meal orders while Ivor spoke under his breath to Wenna. Dev didn’t trust him. Ivor had a reputation for “romancing” women below him in class. But as Dev had fallen in love with a milkmaid himself, he’d never had the patience to listen to the gossip or to join in. However, he doubted Ivor would attempt to inveigle a woman married to one of his friends, and so he tried to tamp down his new possessiveness.

  The food was as good as always, and the conversation didn’t seem stifled by a woman’s presence. Quite the opposite, in fact, with each of the chaps trying to outdo each other in competing for Wenna’s attention. The conversation about the stock market interested her the most, which he found interesting but possibly not surprising. She hoarded the money he gave her like a miser, plotting the spending of every penny.

  The meal finished, and the chaps rose to their collective feet. “Is Wenna going upstairs, too?” Hubert asked, looking slightly worried.

  “Of course. If she loses too much of my money, I’ll take her home.”

  Wenna caught his glance. “I can’t lose something I don’t have.”

  He fished in his pocket, and his hand came out with a one-pound note. “Try to make this last.”

  “You do know I have never gambled, don’t you?”

  “Wenna would probably prefer to go home now that it’s dark.” Ivor gave her a confident smile.

  She shook her head. “I’d prefer to go upstairs.”

  “You can’t take her upstairs, Dev.” Ivor drew his eyebrows together. “Be a gentleman and take her home.”

  “Upstairs or home?” Dev waited for her answer, watching her gaze waver between Ivor and him. Although she was his wife, she clearly thought Ivor didn’t want her exposed to an unsuitable environment. This, of course, would tempt her to flout him. Dev needed to suppress a laugh when she tried to read the expressions on the other chaps’ faces. None had an agenda and each waited politely.

  “Upstairs.”

  In a line, Wenna and his friends trooped toward the stairs.

  “I’ll escort you home if you’d prefer it,” Ivor said to her, apparently still intent on guarding her.

  “No, thank you, Ivor.” She offered him a firm smile. “If the rest of you can afford to play badly, I can’t do any worse.”

  Ivor shrugged, and she was escorted into the gambling rooms. Dev doubted she would be shocked by the women present. She seemed to fit in with any class, and not only women of the night frequented the rooms, but also avid gamblers of either sex. Most of the women stuck to the expected standards of dress, though Wenna’s, as a former lady’s maid, looked better than most.

  Hubert, who had three younger sisters, took her off to explain the intricacies of the games, and Dev lost sight of her while he tried the roulette wheel for a while. “Where did you meet her, Dev?” Ivor asked, rocking on the balls of his feet.

  “She was Dora Brook’s maid. She caught my eye.”

  “She always was noticeable. That wild hair! And she had a motherly streak, which attracted Nell, being a couple of years younger.” Ivor’s fingers worried the tip of his chin. “But you know what women are. They might take against her because she worked as a maid. I think it’s a territorial thing—they don’t like female servants being noticed by their male relatives.”

  “She doesn’t look like a servant.” Dev met his friend’s gaze. “And she doesn’t act like one. I don’t think she’ll have a problem as my wife.”

  “At least she knows Nell.”

  “Are you going to put those coins on the wheel or keep rattling them in your pocket?”

  “I’m going to help your wife win some money.” Ivor stalked off.

  Dev stared after him. He’d never seen Ivor so restless. Knowing Wenna could look after herself, he drifted into a game of cards and realized that these idle pursuits bored him. He would rather be doing something constructive—though winning money was mildly constructive. He won a little, lost a little, and began to understand why Tony Hawthorn would rather be at home with Nell.

  Drumming his fingers, he glanced around the crowded room, trying to spot Wenna. After stalking around the room, he found her in a card game with Ivor, Hubert, and a couple of men whose faces he knew, though he couldn’t put a name to them. He said he would wait for the end of the hand before he spirited Wenna away.

  She frowned at him. “I was just starting to learn the game.”

  “We’ll want to be up early for the cricket match tomorrow.”

  “We don’t begin until ten.” Ivor placed his next card.

  Dev raised his chin. He didn’t appreciate being seen as a disgruntled husband. “Our day begins before that.”

  After some fiddling with the gloves on her lap, Wenna scraped to her feet. The gentlemen stood. Although she continued to assess the expression on Dev’s face, he put a firm arm around her waist and guided her to the stairs. “It seemed to me that I could win some money for us,” she said in a peeved voice.

  “Please rid yourself of the idea that I need money.”

  She stared at him. “So, you gamble simply for the intellectual exercise?”

  “I know when to stop.”

  “Oh, good lord. You assume I’m a fool.”

  “I think you’ve spent enough time with your old friend Ivor,” he said grimly. “And I’d rather you spent more time with me.”

  “We’ve been married six weeks, and in that time I’ve spent every Saturday, morning and night, alone. And now we’re finally out meeting other people, you want to rush me home to spend time with you.” Chin raised, she turned to him after marching down the stairs. “If you’re worried about Ivor paying so much attention to me, don’t be. I can handle him. When you’ve washed someone’s underwear, you have some sort of advantage, which I always used.”

  “I’m sure you did, but you mistake me. I’m not at all jealous. I don’t have the sort of friends who try to snatch each other’s wives.”

  Her face stiffened. “You may well have a wife who wouldn’t flirt with her husband’s friends?”

  “That, too.”

  “We had some catching up to do.”

  He wouldn’t be wise to begin questioning her about her younger dealings with Ivor, who had been quick to deny a relationship but even quicker to get Wenna to himself. Although not completely at ease, he scooped his arm around her neat waist. Tonight, Wenna had done him as proud with her
table manners as with her forthright, educated speech.

  He opened the main door to the warm dark night. The gaslights flickered and the moon sat just above the Adelaide hills in the distance. Tomorrow, Wenna would need more than forthright speech and nice table manners. She had to fit in with the female members of Adelaide’s society. He thought she could, especially if he explained his father’s title to her. His own he wasn’t ready to admit to yet.

  The only fly in the ointment might be the presence of the Brooks.

  Chapter 12

  Dev undressed for bed. Wenna, still surprisingly modest, always changed into her nightgown in the room she now used as her dressing room, already showing the poise of the Viscountess she was. Although this amused him, he would much rather see her step out of her gown. His imagination made him smile as he plopped onto the bed and pulled up the cover to his waist.

  She arrived, dressed in her usual pristine white nightgown with her hair a bright haze across her shoulders. He wanted to bury his face into the lush softness. Undoubtedly, she noticed his desire for her, which he had harbored since this morning, for she shook her head. “Not tonight. I’m tired.”

  “I thought I had you on a promise?”

  “Do you want me to be dutiful, or enthusiastic?”

  He rubbed the back of his neck. “I could change your mind.”

  “I know, but I don’t want you to.”

  Sighing, he lifted the sheet so that she could wriggle in beside him. “You’ve had a long day. I understand. I don’t know if indicated this, Wenna, but tonight I was proud to be your husband.”

  She lay beside him, her face a picture of astonishment. Her mouth curved into a delighted smile. “Proud?” She stroked his cheek in a way he found placating. “That’s a lovely thing to say. I don’t think I’ve ever heard that word before in my life—or perhaps my mother once told me she was sure I would make her proud.”