The Marriage Act

by Alyssa Everett

  He was silent a moment, though she waited for his corresponding claim to faithfulness. Did his hesitation mean he’d taken mistresses?

  “I do sometimes think about it,” he said as if the admission had been forced out of him. “About the years that are slipping by, the opportunities that won’t come again. They even have a word for the feeling in the German language. It’s called Torschlusspanik.”

  “Torschlusspanik?” she said, the consonants discordant on her tongue.

  “Translated literally, it means ‘gate-closing panic.’ It harks back to medieval times, when cities were walled, and to be caught outside the gate at night meant chancing some terrible fate—freezing to death, or falling prey to enemy marauders, or perhaps being torn limb from limb by wolves. To feel Torschlusspanik is to sense one’s time is running out and one’s last hope of safety and happiness may be slipping through one’s fingers.”

  Caro’s heart sank. “Yes, that’s it. That’s what frightens me.”

  “I think about it,” he acknowledged. “But I didn’t know you did.”

  “I do,” she said in a thin voice. “All the time. If that’s what you want me to feel, if that’s the punishment you believe I deserve, then you have won.”

  The coverlet rustled, and she had the impression he was turning to face her, propping himself up on one elbow. “That’s not what I want you to feel, Caroline.”

  He sounded...concerned? That wasn’t like him. “Then what do you want from me?”

  “Do I really have to spell it out? I want you to feel those things I mentioned before. Affection. Loyalty. Respect.”

  Of course he would want that kind of one-sided adulation. Despite the contempt he felt for her, despite his unyielding coldness, he expected her to worship the ground he walked on. “I’ve been loyal to you for five years now, and you do have certain qualities I respect.”

  He sighed—a long, slow, dissatisfied breath. “I’m afraid one and a half of my requirements isn’t enough.”

  His requirements. “Then there’s no hope for us. The gate is going to close.”

  He didn’t reply.

  She stared up into the darkness. If only she hadn’t made so many mistakes that spring Welford proposed, her life might be so different now. As a girl, she’d always assumed she would end up married someday to a husband who loved her, someone who found the things she said and did delightful, not fodder for criticism. They would raise a house full of happy, spirited children, and the years would be full of laughter and good cheer. Instead she was trapped in a bad marriage to a man who didn’t want her but didn’t want anyone else to have her either.

  For the next hour Caro lay awake, wishing she had the bedchamber to herself so she could have a good cry.

  Chapter Six

  Where, then, is the wonder, that they who see only a small part should judge erroneously of the whole? or that they, who see different and dissimilar parts, should judge differently from each other?

  —Samuel Johnson

  The next day they set out at eight o’clock—earlier than John expected, but not as early as he’d hoped. They had a good deal of road to cover if they were to reach their goal of Market Harborough by nightfall, and the morning sky was an unpromising gray.

  “It looks like rain,” Caroline observed as he handed her up into the carriage. She was wearing a broad-brimmed bonnet and a slim-fitting blue pelisse trimmed in black braid, and the shade brought out the deeper color of her eyes.

  “I noticed. If it should start to fall, I’ll have Ronnie join us inside the carriage, and Leitner too. I don’t dare ask Leitner to brave the elements, since he’d only find some sly but ingenious way to repay me for it later.”

  “I’d like to have a word with your valet, if he really knows of methods to make you more amenable,” she said, but it was clear from the quirk of her lips that the remark was meant as a joke.

  Despite their troubling conversation of the night before and her obvious worry about her father’s health, she seemed in a better mood that morning. He had his brother to thank for that, and Ronnie’s comic descriptions of the aches and pains he was suffering after having spent the previous day in the saddle.

  “I would tell you exactly where it hurts,” Ronnie had said in a rueful voice as they gathered in the inn yard, “but it might earn me a slap in the face.”

  Caroline had laughed. “I have my suspicions, based on how gingerly you came down the steps at The White Lion.”

  “And I thought I was hiding it well, just because I didn’t make this face.” His comically exaggerated expression of agony had drawn a full-throated giggle from Caroline.

  John was in a better mood too, but not because of Ronnie’s clowning. He couldn’t stop thinking about something Caroline had said the night before—I’ve been faithful to you for more than five years.

  Could it be true? All this time he’d been imagining the worst, and the look she’d given that lout in the taproom had done nothing to ease his mind. But she’d sounded genuinely frightened when he’d come upon the two of them outside the inn, and he was quite sure he’d heard her tell the man You’ve made a mistake. I’m married.

  Half an hour later she’d come out with I’ve been faithful to you for more than five years, neither flinging it at him in a mocking way nor letting it drop with a calculated purr in her voice. She’d stated it simply, flatly, as if he must know it was the truth.

  Of course, she’d gone on to make it clear she felt no affection for him and precious little respect, but it had nevertheless left John wondering whether he could have been wrong about her. Caroline was incurably dishonest, and he wouldn’t trust her word as far as he could throw her, but what proof did he have she’d actually taken lovers? In all the time he’d been in Vienna, there’d been no gossip about her, no sign of pregnancy, not even a whisper of concern from Ronnie or his steward at Halewick.

  They made their first change of horses at Old Stratford, where they also turned off the Holyhead Road to head north. “The route should grow thinner of traffic from here on out,” John remarked.

  Caroline studied the passing landscape, her face all but pressed to the window. “I’m not very familiar with this part of England. It’s been years since I last visited my uncle’s house.”

  “How long ago was that?”

  “Let me see...my cousin Anne was planning to make her come-out the next year, and her sister Sophia was eleven, so I must have just turned sixteen. Between seven and eight years ago.”

  “A year or two after I inherited,” he mused. “Not the easiest time in my life, but still far better than the years that came before.”

  She regarded him with frank curiosity. “What was wrong with the years that came before?”

  What wasn’t wrong with the years that came before? He’d been miserable after his father remarried. “Childhood is never particularly pleasant,” he said with a shrug. “Children have so little control over their own lives, and so few rights compared to adults.”

  “Do you really think so?” Her face went blank with surprise. “I’ve always considered childhood such a carefree time. One is loved and protected, with no real responsibilities.”

  Of course her childhood had been that way, growing up as Bishop Fleetwood’s daughter. She’d been fortunate. There were times John would’ve liked to strangle his own father, or at the very least imbue him with a backbone. Most of John’s trials had been his stepmother’s doing, but she would never have been able to make his life so wretched without his father’s exasperating failure to stand up for him.

  “If we ever have a child—” John refrained from adding not that such a thing is likely to happen “—I mean to make sure he feels the way you do.”

  She smiled at him. “Why, Welford, you said if we ever have a child, and not if I do or if you do.”

 
A smile, from Caroline? He smiled back. “Unless something about the process of baby-making has changed, I doubt I could manage it on my own.”

  She actually laughed. “There are few things in this world I would put past your capabilities, but that happens to be one of them.”

  A compliment too? It was the most favorable thing she’d said to him since their wedding night. She was even leaning closer. Emboldened, he ventured, “If I ask you something, will you give me an honest answer?”

  What a foolish question. If she meant to lie to him, she wasn’t likely to admit it. But she was still smiling and leaning in, and for one brief moment he had a sense the closeness between them was real.

  “Of course.”

  “On our wedding night—was that your first time?”

  The playful spark faded from her eyes, and she sat back with a jerk, her smile vanishing. “Do you have to ask?”

  “Regrettably, I do.”

  Her lips thinned to a taut, angry line. “Was it yours?”

  He wasn’t sure whether she meant the question as an insulting assessment of his expertise or she simply believed turnabout was fair play. If it was the latter, she wasn’t being entirely realistic. Society didn’t expect a man to wait for marriage, and besides, he’d been twenty-six, more than eight years older than she. Even so, he could’ve counted on one hand the women he’d bedded.

  He stared out the carriage window. “I gather I have my answer.”

  “You should have taken up the law instead of diplomacy,” she said, her hands clenched tightly in her lap. “You’re excessively skilled at condemning others on little or no evidence.”

  His gaze snapped back to her. “What does that mean—that it was your first time?”

  “Does it matter so much to you?”

  “Of course it matters.”

  She arched a disdainful eyebrow. “Why, because you couldn’t possibly accept a bride who wasn’t pure and untarnished?”

  She made him sound closed-minded and judgmental, when surely he’d had some right to expect that the gently reared daughter of an English prelate would be what she seemed. “Go ahead, tell yourself what’s become of our marriage is my fault. Brand me a hypocrite, or a cold, unfeeling prig. Never mind that if you were a widow or a victim of ravishment, I wouldn’t give a tinker’s damn that you weren’t a virgin.”

  “So I’d be acceptable, provided I’d paid for my sins by losing a beloved husband or suffering unspeakable rape.”

  “You’re twisting my words.”

  “Am I?” she said on a skeptical note. “I notice you didn’t propose marriage to a widow or a victim of ravishment. There’s one reason husbands require a bride who’s never lain with another man, and that’s because they’re afraid they’ll suffer in the comparison.”

  There was just enough truth in her speech—the first part of it, anyway—to make him seethe. But it wasn’t the whole truth, and it certainly wasn’t the reason he’d asked his question. He’d never been afraid that when it came to matters of sexual prowess, he might not measure up to her Lieutenant Howe. This wasn’t about his own pride and self-importance.

  Goaded, he lunged forward and seized her by the wrist. “Damn it, madam, I didn’t propose marriage to a widow or a victim of ravishment because they weren’t you. God forgive me, I thought I was in love with you.”

  She stared back at him, her eyes startled in the pale, perfect oval of her face.

  “The reason it matters has nothing to do with your being untarnished, or with having to pay for your sins.” He gave her arm a shake. “It has to do with your being honest. With my wishing to believe that night meant something to you. That’s what I expected in a bride—not virginity, but closeness and honesty and trust.”

  She gulped. “You’re hurting me.”

  He glanced down to where he gripped her wrist, and released her at once. His fingers had left livid marks on the white skin above her glove. Shocked at himself, he lounged back against the seat. “Forgive me. I shouldn’t have allowed my feelings to...I think we’ve said quite enough on this topic.”

  She gaped at him as if she’d never seen him before.

  He avoided her eyes, choosing instead to examine the view out the window. Why had he asked her about their wedding night? It was ancient history now. Worse yet, why had he lost his temper with her? They’d been doing so well, and he’d even begun to wonder if...

  He should have left well enough alone.

  Silence reigned inside the carriage. The only sounds were the clip-clop of the horses’ hooves and the creak of the coach springs. Long minutes passed while he marveled that he could have asked such a tactless question or lost his composure so completely. Normally he prided himself on his self-control. He’d sooner cut his own throat than hurt a woman.

  “Welford,” Caroline said in an unsteady voice after they’d gone for some time without speaking. “I was a virgin that night. It shouldn’t matter, and you don’t have to believe me, but it’s the truth.”

  He didn’t reply, because she was right. It shouldn’t matter.

  But it was one small confidence she’d shared with him, and for that he was unaccountably grateful.

  * * *

  They were almost an hour past their third change of horses when the clouds burst.

  The rain came down in a sudden torrent, rattling against the carriage roof. Welford had been in a funk ever since...well, ever since that strange outburst between Old Stratford and Northampton, but at the sound he opened the carriage door and leaned out. “Ronnie!” he shouted. “Tether Argos to that tree and come in out of the rain. We’ll stop until this slows.”

  Caro shrank back from the rain pelting through the open door.

  “You too, Leitner,” Welford called, though Caro couldn’t see his valet. He pulled his head back inside. “It’s coming down in buckets.”

  She might have guessed as much, if not from the clatter on the roof then from his appearance. He hadn’t had his head outside the carriage door for more than fifteen seconds, but his black hair curled wetly against his forehead.

  The carriage stopped, and a few seconds later the valet opened the door and sprang inside, shutting it quickly behind him. “Such fine English weather,” he said in his strange accent, breathless with haste and the exertion of scrambling down from the rumble. He took the seat across from her, his back to the horses, and Welford moved to join her.

  Half a minute later, Ronnie burst in, drenched to the bone. Wearing a grin, he plopped down next to the valet. “It’s cats and dogs out there.”

  Leitner’s brow wrinkled. “Cats and dogs?”

  “Schusterbuben,” Welford translated.

  “Ah.”

  Ronnie pulled a silver flask from his coat pocket. He took a long swallow, then held it out to his brother. “Care for a nip?”

  Welford eyed it askance. “No, thank you.”

  “Oh, it’s not gin, it’s brandy. Good brandy. I pinched it from your house in Town.”

  “Perhaps later,” her husband said.

  Ronnie was about to replace the cap, but the valet threw him a look of mute appeal. Ronnie passed him the flask, and Leitner took a quick swig before returning it with his thanks.

  Ronnie tucked it back in his coat pocket. “I’m not sorry to be out of the saddle. Argos is a prime goer, but enough is enough.”

  “Perhaps a change will be as good as a rest,” Caro said. “Though I’ll be happy enough myself when I don’t have to sit in this carriage anymore. Some people can carry on through almost any amount of discomfort—”

  “Like John,” Ronnie put in.

  “—but I’ve never had that talent.”

  “It’s hardly a talent,” John said. “It’s more a matter of stubborn determination.”

  “You, stubborn?” Caro
said with a lift of one eyebrow. “Surely you jest.” But despite her attempt at raillery, the notion that Welford was stubborn—that they both were—sent a cold current of melancholy through her. It reminded her of lying on the floor at the inn the night before, and the terrible sense that any hope of happiness was rapidly slipping away.

  “I don’t envy our coachman, out there in this weather,” Ronnie remarked as the four of them sat listening to the drumming of rain on the roof.

  “I hope this lets up soon,” Welford said. “We still have miles before we reach Market Harborough, and if the road—”

  A brilliant flash of lightning lit the coach, and in the same instant a deafening crack rent the air, the loudest and nearest thunderclap Caro had ever heard.

  Chaos broke loose.

  The carriage lurched into motion—not the familiar speed of a measured trot over good roads, but a wild, headlong rush. The horses were bolting.

  Caro clutched the edge of her seat. She let out a cry as a sudden jolt threw her to the right. Outside, tree branches thumped and scraped against the coach, the horses’ hooves thundering as they hurtled forward at breakneck speed. The carriage jounced and careened to one side. Caro struck her head against the window glass.

  Then strong arms seized her, holding her down against the velvet squabs, and a much larger body half covered hers, shielding her from harm as the carriage veered and bumped erratically. Pinned beneath Welford, she was too frightened to scream.

  The coach took a violent bounce, and for a moment Caro hung suspended in midair as the world tilted around her.

  With a thud that knocked the wind from her lungs, she landed in a heap, half on her husband’s solid chest and half on the carriage window—only now, somehow the window was beneath them. She couldn’t tell who was where, only that there were grunts from the others as they all slammed to the bottom together, and outside the scream of a horse.

  The carriage slid a little way farther before everything went still.