The Earl Claims His Wife

by Cathy Maxwell

  He stood by the washbasin watching her, one hand cleaning off his razor in the soapy water. “Should I surmise you are not happy with me?”

  Chapter Eight

  Not happy? I’m furious with you,” Gillian said, clutching the bedcovers with her fists lest she set them loose on her husband. “How dare you undress me? How dare you take advantage of me in that shameful manner?”

  Wright set down the razor. He wiped his face with a linen towel. “What do you believe I did?”

  “I believe you took shocking advantage,” Gillian said, her voice shaking with her anger.

  He looked heavenward a moment as if searching for divine guidance. “Gillian, I woke to find you slumped over in that chair to the point your chin all but touched your knees. That’s not the way to sleep, especially when you are that exhausted.”

  “I did not ask for help from you,” she replied stiffly.

  Wright swore to the heavens. He came to the foot of the bed. “We’re not strangers, Gillian. And I meant no harm. I helped you to bed. You are my wife. I took a vow before God to honor and protect you. No matter what you think of our marriage, I always managed to see to your needs.”

  “Financially,” she shot back, still disgruntled.

  “Yes, financially.” He made an impatient sound as if wondering what else she wanted from him. “Well, last night, I went a step further. I saw you in that chair and realized that if you slept all night in that position, your back and neck would ache. We have four more hours travel to London. I can’t imagine the trip would be any easier if you hurt.”

  He had a point.

  “The fire was dying,” he continued. “The room was cold and I worried about your comfort. Is that such a bad thing? I helped you into bed to be kind, Gillian, and for no other reason than that.”

  “But you took off my dress.”

  Wright closed his eyes as if their argument pained him. “I did. I also took off your shoes and stockings. I didn’t know if you had another dress you planned to wear this morning or if you were wearing this one.” He waved to the dress carefully laid out on the chair. “It would have been hopelessly wrinkled if I’d put you to bed in it. As for the shoes and stockings—” He frowned. “I thought you’d be more comfortable with your shoes off.”

  Gillian rubbed the toes of her feet together beneath the covers. He was right. “It’s just so intimate,” she murmured.

  “They are feet, Gillian. Nothing more. I have them, too.”

  Wright took a step around toward her side of the bed. “I know we have a complicated history between us. I know I haven’t been a good husband. I didn’t want to be a husband when we married. But I’m different now. Circumstances have changed me. I’m trying to make amends—and don’t tell me it is too late. I’m no fool, Gillian. You haven’t known the Spaniard that long, and even if you did, you still have feelings for me. You wouldn’t be so outraged at our close quarters or feel threatened by a simple kiss if you didn’t.”

  He was right.

  “What I’m asking,” he continued, “is for a second chance. Yes, I’ve tried to maneuver matters to my advantage. But last night, I only sought your comfort. I put you under the covers and I slept on top. I wanted to protect you, Gillian. That’s what husbands do.”

  That’s what husbands do.

  Tears welled in her eyes. How often had she longed for someone who cared enough for her to see to the little things? The small kindnesses that let a woman know her husband cared?

  She lowered her head to wipe away those damning tears before he saw them. “I’m sorry,” she whispered around the tightening in her throat. “I may have overreacted. It’s just that…” She let her voice trail off, knowing whatever she said could be taken in the wrong vein.

  “It’s just that you don’t trust me. I understand that, Gillian. I wouldn’t trust me either based upon matters between us in the past. But I’m here now. I want this marriage. I want you for my wife. It’s up to you to decide what you want.”

  “And if I don’t want you?” she asked in a small voice, humbled by his straightforward and very honest speech.

  “Then I can’t have what you won’t give, can I?”

  Gillian didn’t know what to say. And he was right. He had been charming and kind and not at all the monster she’d been building him up to be in her mind all these years.

  There had been a time she hadn’t thought him a monster at all, a time when hurt hadn’t colored her opinion of him.

  “I’ll let you have some privacy to dress,” he said, taking a clean neck cloth from his shaving kit and quickly tying it into a respectable knot.

  She sat on the bed, her arms around her legs and watched him, surprised by the limpness of the linen in his neck cloth. “I’m surprised Hammond let you out of the house with that one,” she observed.

  Wright flashed her a smile in the looking glass. “It’s not such a big thing. Besides, Hammond has other things to do beyond the starch in my clothes.”

  The comment surprised Gillian more than anything he’d said. When she’d last been around him, Hammond had behaved as if the only thing of importance in the world was the starch in Wright’s clothing, and the cut and the shoe blacking, and a hundred other details to a fashionable man’s dress.

  “Perhaps the war has changed him, too?” she suggested.

  Wright’s smile faded, but only slightly—she had to be watching him closely to notice. However, his manner was good-humored as he agreed. “We’ve both come back wiser. Here, let me go. I’ll have to sneak outside for my boots and grab my jacket from the front hall. When next you see me, I shall be respectably outfitted.” He tossed his water in the bowl out the window before leaving.

  Gillian sat still in the quiet room, wondering at this new Wright. It was almost as if her husband was a different man, not that there was anything wrong with that. She liked this new one better. He was kinder and more attentive.

  Perhaps she had been hasty in her assessment of him?

  One thing she was learning, the early infatuation she had once labeled love was dead. He had her heart racing again, and she didn’t know whether to be happy or alarmed. His treatment of her when they’d first married had taught her not to trust her emotions. She needed to be wise and tread carefully.

  With that warning in her head, she rose and started dressing. It didn’t take her long. She wasn’t fussy. However, she lingered over styling her hair. She’d salvaged most of the pins in her hair last night so she could twist it into a neat chignon, but she didn’t pull her hair as tightly as usual. She also loosened a few tendrils around her face to soften the style. She also bit her lips a few times and pinched her cheeks to bring color to them.

  She picked up her coat, gloves, the velvet muff and hat, and went downstairs to join Wright.

  The family she’d almost displaced the night before was spread out through the dining room enjoying their breakfast.

  Wright was seated at a table in the far corner under a window. He had on his coat and boots.

  He didn’t notice Gillian’s entrance. Instead, he was concentrating on the act of peeling an apple while a young girl of around the age of seven, her hair in two braids, watched him closely—and for a moment, Gillian couldn’t move she was so taken with the picture of him and the child.

  She’d not connected the thought of Wright and children before. When she’d married him, she’d supposed they would have them, but she’d been so anxious about her marriage, she hadn’t fully fleshed out the idea. Then again, she’d spent so much time taking care of her siblings, she hadn’t been anxious for motherhood.

  But now, seeing him being so gentle with the child, an almost overwhelming desire for children settled inside her.

  He noticed her and beckoned her over with a nod of his head before he returned to his apple peeling.

  She crossed the room, reaching the table just as he finished his task. He held the curled peel up in the air. “Is this right?” he asked the girl.

  �
�That’s perfect, my lord,” she said in a soft northern brogue. “You are very good at peeling.”

  Wright rose and pulled out a chair for Gillian. “This is Miss Amy Doward. Those are her parents at the next table. They are traveling home from London. Miss Doward, this is my wife, Lady Wright.”

  He said “my wife” with a proprietarial air. Gillian couldn’t correct him, not in front of everyone…and she discovered she truly didn’t have the will to do so. Wright was winning her over.

  Miss Amy’s brow furrowed with concern. She motioned for Wright to bend down so that she could whisper in his ear in a voice Gillian could overhear, “Should I curtsey? I am sometimes confused.”

  “Amy,” her mother said, in that tone mothers used to excuse the precociousness of their children. She held a squirming toddler on her lap.

  Wright waved her concerns aside before pretending to consider the matter. Gillian decided to speak for herself, “No, it’s not necessary. I’ve never been comfortable with it.” She sat down so that she was on Miss Amy’s level. “And all the rules confuse me, too. So many rules. I prefer saying hello with a shake of the hand.” She held out her hand. “Hello, I’m Gillian.”

  A huge smile spread across Amy’s face at the attention. Her two front teeth were missing and she was absolutely adorable. She shyly gave Gillian her hand. “I’m-Amy-Doward,” she answered, her words running together in her excitement. She glanced at her parents, smiling her happiness.

  “Miss Amy Doward was showing me a trick with an apple peel,” Wright said, “that she assures me works every time.”

  “And what is that?” Gillian asked.

  “If he holds the peel over his right shoulder and drops it to the floor,” Amy said, “it will tell him who his true love is.”

  “Yes, the peel will spell out the first letter of my love’s name,” Wright chimed in.

  Gillian shook her head, marveling that here was another side to this man she’d not imagined. She’d never considered him fanciful. “The first letter?”

  Wright nodded. “Miss Doward assures me it is accurate every time.” He turned his back to them and held the apple peel over his right shoulder. “Do I hold it like this?”

  “Yes,” Amy said with complete seriousness. “Now drop it.”

  He let go and then immediately turned to see what letter was formed.

  Amy beamed up at him. “It’s an S,” she announced.

  “’Tis not,” Wright countered. “It’s a G.”

  “A G?” Amy scrunched her face in confusion.

  Her three older siblings had to see for themselves. Even her parents looked over and Gillian was no less curious.

  “I don’t see a G, my lord,” Amy’s older brother, a lad of about ten, said.

  “It’s there,” Wright argued. “A small g. See how it curls up.”

  Gillian had to look—and was surprised that he was right.

  Amy decided he was, too. “It is a g,” she said, obviously pleased for him.

  “Of course it is,” Wright said and beamed a smile at Gillian that stole her breath. He seemed to know his effect on her because he reached over and brushed one of the curls from her face. “My true love’s name starts with g.”

  And that is when Gillian gave in. He had been working hard to win her over, and he had succeeded. In one fell swoop, the past between them evaporated, replaced by the present. The things he should have done, the vows that should have been made—all vanished. What mattered was from this moment on.

  He seemed to know her change of heart. His gaze went straight to her heart. “Gillian,” he said, her name sounding like a benediction on his lips. “My true love’s name is Gillian.”

  “Is your name spelled with a g?” Amy asked, breaking the moment between them.

  Gillian laughed and said, “Yes, it is. How lucky I am that the apple peel didn’t form a ‘p’ or an ‘m.’”

  “You are lucky,” the child agreed ingenuously before her parents informed her the time had come to put on her coat and hat. They were ready to leave.

  There followed goodbyes and well wishes for a safe trip. Amy’s parents almost had her herded out the door with the others when the child abruptly turned with a small gasp of alarm.

  She slipped past her parents, ran up to Gillian, and curtseyed. “I almost forgot.”

  “You performed a lovely curtsey.”

  Amy gave her a toothless smile, one last wave goodbye, and then joined her parents.

  Gillian waited until they left to pick up the cup of tea Wright had ordered for her. “The apple peel really is shaped like an S.”

  “Or an eight,” he agreed easily, meeting her eye with that smile that had far too devastating an effect on her.

  She set down her teacup.

  “What is the matter?” he asked, immediately attuned to her distress.

  “This isn’t right,” she murmured. She glanced out the window. The family was climbing into their coach. The toddler had started crying. He didn’t want to be cooped up for hours of travel.

  She wanted to cry too, but for a different reason.

  “Gillian, what is it?”

  Turning back to Wright, she whispered, “I don’t want to love you. I don’t want to even like you. I loved you once before, Wright, and you crushed me.”

  The smile faded from his face. For a long moment, she waited, wanting him to say something and not knowing what he could say. It hurt to look at him this way. He was undeniably handsome but it wasn’t his looks that drew her to him. It was something more, a sense from the first moment she’d met him that she belonged with him.

  And yet that proved to be a lie.

  In fact, there wasn’t anything he could say that would make her trust him. She was being a fool for even sitting there—

  Wright slowly reached for her hand, which rested on the table. He laced his fingers with hers. His gaze dropped to their joined hands. A frown formed on his brow. His jaw hardened. And then almost reverently he brought her hand up to his lips and kissed the back of it, and she discovered that was what she’d wanted. She’d needed to have this contact with him.

  Words wouldn’t have served. Words were too simple.

  He raised his gaze. His eyes were coldly sober.

  Could he care that much? Did she dare hope?

  “I don’t want you to leave me, Gillian. You are all that I have.”

  The walls she’d struggled to keep around her heart against him crumbled.

  She squeezed his hand, not wanting to let go of this moment. She ached for Andres, for the promises she’d made to him…promises she’d be unable to honor.

  Right or wrong, as silly and foolish as it was—she loved Brian Ranson, the Earl of Wright. Brian. The name sounded right.

  The innkeeper’s wife approached with their breakfasts. She gave them an approving smile as she set their plates in front of them. “There you are, my lord. Good hearty breakfasts for you and your lady.” She paused, one foot ready to leave and the other staying. “I have to say this, and I know Mr. Peters would not approve my speaking, but I was watching the two of you. It’s a treat to see a young couple like you who are so handsome together and who obviously care very much for each other.” She bobbed an awkward curtsey, her face flooding with color as if she’d said too much. She made a hasty retreat.

  “See?” he said, quietly. “We must be doing something right if others can see it, too.”

  He smiled at her then…and she smiled back.

  Over breakfast, they made their first tentative partnership as man and wife. It was a very companionable breakfast and all that Gillian had once imagined her life would be with him.

  Brian dominated the conversation. He had big plans for his future. He was determined to join Liverpool’s staff. He knew it would be a challenge since his father had set himself against the idea. Gillian had several suggestions based upon advice she’d overheard her father make to other ambitious young men like her husband over the years.

  Her fat
her and stepmother would be pleased when they heard she and Brian were together again. Her father had not been happy when she’d left her husband.

  “I’m anxious to show you your new home,” he said, pushing his chair away from the table.

  “I’m anxious to see it,” she answered, setting her napkin down beside her plate.

  While Brian settled with the innkeeper, Gillian collected her things. James and George had already seen to her valise. They waited with the coach by the front door.

  Brian joined her, taking her arm and leading her out to the coach.

  The day was damp and breezy. The sun appeared ready to play hide-and-seek all day. It was a good day for travel. They were approximately four hours outside of London and would easily arrive before dark.

  A basket had been set on the floor inside the coach. “What is that?” Gillian asked.

  “I had the innkeeper prepare a basket in case we grew hungry,” Brian answered.

  “After that breakfast?” Gillian shook her head. “Not likely.”

  “Either case, we’ll be prepared,” he said helping her into the vehicle.

  “Yes, Colonel,” she said, gently mocking his military planning and was rewarded with one of his quick smiles.

  The basket actually took up a good amount of room on the floor, forcing her to lean against her husband to be comfortable.

  Brian didn’t appear to mind. He shut the door and pulled down the shade over the window, plunging them into a murky twilight. His arm came around her waist with easy affection. “Awkward having the basket there, isn’t it?” he said, his lips close to her ear.

  “Difficult,” she murmured, but didn’t make a move away from him other than to remove her velvet cap. She set it and the muff on top of Brian’s greatcoat, which he had folded and placed on the seat next to her.

  He knocked on the roof, signaling James they were ready to go.

  With a shout of, “hey” to the horses, James set the coach on the road. Brian and Gillian jerked forward with the movement. His free arm came protectively in front of her. His hand around her waist didn’t move. He didn’t move it.