Meg had left him with a lot to think about. It seemed that civilian life had some challenges in store for him. He remained deep in thought and was quiet on their ride back to the house. He could feel her gaze rest on him from time to time, but she didn’t interrupt his thoughts until they entered the cool quiet of the house itself.
“Mrs. Meadows usually leaves a cold luncheon in the dining room. I am never sure quite when I will return. Annis sometimes waits and other times eats without me.”
She stopped and turned toward James, consternation showing clearly on her face. “Annis!” she said. “I haven’t given a thought to Annis!”
“Why should you?” James said, meaning only that Annis would return to them as scheduled sometime in the afternoon.
Meg took one angry step toward him. “Because she is my friend. Or is it your habit to ignore those whom you hold in affection?”
James raised his eyebrows. “I cannot see why Miss Fairchild needs you to be constantly thinking of her. What possible good will that do? Is there any reason why she cannot make her way from Mattingly Place to Hedgemere without your thinking of it? Or is your worry an indispensable element of your friend’s well-being, as you conceive it?”
“I meant nothing of the sort! I know Annis would be capable of traveling all over the British Isles by herself if the occasion arose. I only meant that I haven’t received a note letting me know when she will return.” That wasn’t all she meant. Best not to bring up Annis’s continued residence at Hedgemere now, perhaps, but a look at James’s face convinced her she had better say something.
“I was thinking not so much about her return here today as about what she is going to do after she returns.” She cast a considering look at James. She wasn’t sure what his reaction would be to the idea of Annis’s staying on at Hedgemere.
“Why should that be a problem? Surely there is enough to do in this house to keep you both busy for some time to come.” He extended his arm. “Shall we go in to lunch, my lady?”
Meg didn’t know whether to be glad that there was no longer any obstacle to Annis’s continued residence or to take her new husband to task for assuming that the decorating tasks would all be hers.
“Yes, it will be wonderful to have Annis here. She knows about colors and fabrics. I can leave the house entirely up to her.”
“You have no interest in your home?” James could remember the duchess’s constant redecorating projects at Kettering. She spent almost as much time furbishing that vast, Elizabethan pile as she did clothing herself in the latest fashions. He realized he didn’t know much about women, but surely it was unusual to be as uninterested as Meg seemed to be in both subjects.
“Why don’t we go in and have our luncheon?” Meg said.
After he had seated her at one end of the table, James went over to the sideboard. “May I help you to some of this cold beef?”
Meg got to her feet. “I am perfectly capable of filling my own plate, James.”
James looked at her, wondering what had made her so prickly. When she met his gaze, he could see the turmoil in her eyes. “Marriage is going to take some getting used to, isn’t it?” he said, groping for some explanation of her mood.
Meg slapped two slices of beef on her plate. “I don’t see why.” She dumped a salad of lettuce on the plate. “Why should anything have to change? Why can’t things go along just as they have?” There was a note of near panic in her voice.
James carefully filled his plate and returned to sit down. He chose a seat to one side of hers, rather than at the other end of the table. It put him in the position of a guest rather than master of the house, but he was closer to Meg. This was not a conversation he wanted to have with a long, formal dining room table between them.
He began to eat in silence. Meg had taken a roll and now sat crumbling it between her fingers. “James,” she said at last, her voice tentative.
“Yes, my dear?” he encouraged her when she failed to continue.
“I—I told you I hadn’t any social skills. Well, I don’t have any housekeeping skills either. I never learned much about keeping house, except darning sheets. Mrs. Meadows taught me, and she says I’m very good at it,” she added.
“That’s a commendable skill. Many times I could have used you in my career. Could you darn socks as well?” He smiled at her.
“Yes, and they had no lumps at all.”
“You are a pearl without price! I cannot tell you how many times as a midshipman I tried to darn my own socks. They were nothing but lumps when I finished.” He chuckled and for a minute thought Meg might join him. But the moment passed, and she returned to her destruction of the roll.
“I really do not know much else about anything other girls know about.” She sounded defiant, as if daring him to think that this was a fault. “Annis tried, but she soon gave up water-colors and the pianoforte, and I gave up trying to teach her to enjoy riding.”
“I’m sure you could learn anything, if you wished to. Mrs. Meadows and Miss Fairchild could teach you all the household skills you would need to know.” Would she agree to this simple solution? Somehow he thought not. Meg seemed to value not doing a woman’s work in the house as much as she valued doing a man’s work on the estate.
“I have no talent along those lines,” she said firmly, and attacked her beef with slashing cuts of her knife.
“No talent or no interest, Meg?”
Her knife and fork clattered to her plate. “Why are you pursuing this, James? Do you intend to attempt to turn me into the ideal, comfortable helpmeet? It won’t answer, I assure you!”
“What will answer, Meg? Do you intend that you and Annis and the Meadows will continue your lives as you always have? And what did you envisage for me? Handing over the blunt and then meeting you in the bedchamber at night?” He hadn’t meant to be quite so harsh, but her unwillingness to change, her refusal to discuss any deviation from her life as she had known it had flicked him on the raw. “What am I to be? The male equivalent of the cit’s daughter who marries into the peerage?”
Before Meg could gather her wits to reply, James threw his napkin onto the table and strode from the room, anger radiating from him like light. The sound of the library door slamming meant James was on his way to the stable. He had tried to purchase Aladdin from Gerald but instead had received him as a wedding gift.
Meg sat back in her chair and sighed. James’s temper always seemed to catch her unawares. He appeared to be made of granite, but his emotions were more volatile than she had suspected. Or perhaps it was her actions that were the cause.
A feeling of desolation swept over her. What had she done because of her inability to see what he felt? She didn’t understand men’s emotions. She’d never had the opportunity. But she did not want James to feel that she wanted to relegate him to the fringes of her life.
Yet, she was not entirely to blame. He was too sensitive, too apt to see slights where none were intended. That was it, she told herself with relief. It was his fault.
* * * *
James gave Aladdin his head and felt the sheer exhilaration that a gallop on a first-rate horse could give him. It was akin to standing on the deck of a ship and feeling it leap through the water like a greyhound. He grinned as the breeze whipped through his hair and hoped to feel his mood lighten.
But he wasn’t on a ship, safe from the interference of difficult, demanding women who wanted him out of the way and out of their lives. Meg, whom he admired for her candor and caring, was treating him the way the duchess, whom he had worshiped for her beauty and elegance, had years before. They both despised him.
He slowed Aladdin to a canter and then to a trot as memory overwhelmed him.
He’d known he was different from the moment the duke’s man of business had deposited him at Kettering, but it wasn’t until he had been there for several months that everyone else knew it, too.
He’d managed to be absorbed into the swarm of children— the duke’s, his brother’s,
and those of his bailiff and secretary— who played outside in a sort of swirling mass, undifferentiated and equal. That day was no different from any other. They had been laughing and shoving and running in an excess of animal high spirits, when the duke and duchess appeared at the door.
James had met the duke for a moment when he had arrived, but he had never before seen the duchess. She was beautiful, the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen—blond and gleaming, dressed in silk of a color that had glistened like fire. Instantly all the children moved toward the two adults. James had gone along without thinking, knowing somehow that these two were the hub of the universe.
“Stop!” The voice was sharp, and James knew without looking that she was speaking to him. He skidded to a stop and looked up at the celestial being in the doorway. A long, slim finger was pointed at him, and the duchess’s lovely face was twisted into an expression he couldn’t recognize then, though later he knew it was anger and revulsion.
“I said he could live here, Trevor, but this—” She turned away, as if the sight of James was too hideous to be borne. “Not where I can see him. Please, Trevor.”
James had stood, transfixed, while the nightmare of public rejection and humiliation seeped into his bones. Everyone stared and slowly drew away from him.
The duke looked at him for a moment, then turned away. “Very well, my dear. James, you had better return to the schoolroom.” The duke seemed a little sad.
Terrified of speaking out, James could not leave it at that. He had to understand. “But what have I—?”
“Go! Right now!” The duchess turned on him in fury. “Or you can go back to the orphanage, where you belong!”
The idea of a return to the constant cold, lumpy porridge and endless, hopeless boredom of the orphanage stilled James’s protests. He looked up at the duke, the source of all things in his life, and saw the answer in his eyes. Slowly James turned away and began the long, lonely walk into exile.
Until this day he had thought that the worst moment in his life.
He shook the memory off. He’d been a child then, with no recourse but to live as the adults around him decreed. That was hardly true now. He was not helpless, and he had no intention of allowing his wife to keep him on the margins of her life. She was not the rich and beautiful Duchess of Kettering, and he would not be treated as if she were. He had done nothing wrong in either instance, and he was not going to be treated as if he should apologize for his mere existence. He was not at fault now any more than he had been then. He realized the truth at last.
Meg was.
He raised his eyes and saw Meg on Princess, headed straight for him.
Chapter Sixteen
He was willing to accept her apology. He owed her that. She probably had not intended to sound as surly and unwelcoming as she had.
He waited, magnanimity at the ready, until she reached him. The wind had whipped color into her cheeks, and her large hazel eyes were bright. The light was behind her, and he could not read her expression.
“I came after you,” she said breathlessly. He nodded graciously. “To give you a chance to apologize.”
James froze. A chance to apologize? Although many of his peers in the service considered it entirely unbecoming for a captain in His Majesty’s Navy to apologize to anyone for anything, he had been ready to admit, after a suitable interval for his wife to grovel, that he might—might— have been a wee bit to blame for their quarrel. But this was intolerable!
“Indeed.” He stared down his nose at her. “I had hoped that you had seen the error of your ways and had come to realize that there can be only one commander on any ship.”
Meg’s eyes blazed for a moment; then she had the effrontery to grin at him. “We are in agreement on that. Our difficulty is that we cannot seem to agree on who it should be!”
He stared at her. He must have misunderstood. “There is no difficulty there. I know that you have ruled the roost for years, and that it will be difficult for you to learn to give over the reins, but surely you see that it must be done.”
They stared at each other, anger and stubbornness and pride emanating from both of them in waves. Without speaking, they turned their horses toward the stables.
Meg faced him and said, “What is that growing in the field over there, James?”
He smiled. “I do not know. The duke knew nothing of farming, but the fields were his.”
“No, they were his bailiff’s and his tenants’,” she replied. “You cannot own what you do not understand. Not really. I could tell my father that the fields he had just ridden over would yield only half of what any farmer would have seen instantly they would produce. That was how I kept Hedgemere going—by cheating its owner!”
“And what is growing in that field, Margaret?” He kept his tone carefully neutral.
“Barley. And if you will give me the money to try a new strain, next year we will double the yield.”
“Why should I give you the money? You know nothing of how it is made. By your reasoning, you should study seamanship so you can earn money and the ways of the ‘Change so you can put it to work before you think to spend any.” His eyes blazed down into hers. “I am going to Mattingly Place to see Sir Gerald. If Miss Fairchild is still there, I will tell her you are awaiting her return!”
He wheeled Aladdin around and headed across a meadow toward the road at a brisk canter. He husbanded his anger, using it to keep despair at bay. Had he already ruined whatever chance he’d had to build a bridge to Meg? God knew they were so different that any life for the two of them yoked together as they were would be difficult. Added to the differences of temperament and experience, there was her pride—and his. James could only regret the impulse mat had led him to marry a woman he didn’t know and couldn’t understand.
He looked back only once to see his wife sitting completely still on her horse.
* * * *
“Why must you go back today, Annis?” Gerald asked as he stood beside her in the rose garden at Mattingly Place. “M’mother would love to have you remain here as long as you like. She misses female companionship now that her cousin, Adelaide, is married and gone.”
“You are both very kind, Sir Gerald,” Annis said, as she bent over a cluster of sweet-smelling climbing roses. “But I cannot impose on your hospitality any longer.”
“It has been only one day, you know. That hardly constitutes outstaying your welcome. It will take you at least a week to straighten out her knitting yarns.” He smiled at her, and Annis couldn’t help but smile back. He was such a genuinely kind person, without being in the least weak or vacillating. His affection for his mother was tinged with humor, and he saw the world always with a fine appreciation for the ridiculous. It was not a help that she admired the man she loved. It made being in his presence almost intolerable.
His mother’s voice interrupted Annis’s thoughts. “Gerald, my dear, you’d best come in. I believe Captain Sheridan has come to see you.”
Gerald’s eyebrows lifted as he looked over at his mother, who was just appearing in the doorway. “James is here?”
“So it would seem,” Lady Mattingly said. “It must be something important. I think perhaps you should take him into the library and offer him some of your father’s Madeira.”
“Madeira? You think it’s that serious?” Gerald’s smile could not hide his worry.
“Well, he’s only been married twenty-four hours,” his mother replied. “That would bespeak a certain urgency.”
Gerald hurried past her into the house. Lady Mattingly strolled out and sat on a conveniently placed bench.
“Do sit down, Miss Fairchild.” She patted the seat next to her. “It is entirely too hot to stand about in the sun.”
“Thank you, Lady Mattingly, but I really should pack so that I can return to Hedgemere this afternoon.” Annis cast a worried look at the door. “It is important that I go to Meg. Something must have happened, and I—”
“And you must stay here and let
the newlyweds work this out for themselves.” Lady Mattingly smiled but her voice was firm. “They need time alone to get to know each other. Your place is here, with us, and we are delighted to have it so.”
Annis sat down, more troubled than before. “You think that I should not go back? But I’m sure that Meg needs me. Whatever has happened, she can tell me.”
“No, Miss Fairchild, she cannot. A couple’s secrets should remain sacred between them.” Lady Mattingly patted Annis’s hand. “I know you love Meg and will always worry about her and want the best for her, but you cannot fill the same role anymore.”
Annis closed her eyes. Lady Mattingly was right. She herself had known that things had changed irrevocably when she had told Meg she would leave after the wedding. But how could she if Meg was not happy? What had occurred to send the captain over here? Was Meg ill? Did she need Annis’s help?
“I know how hard it is,” Lady Mattingly said. “But you must know I am right. Besides, I have been wanting to speak to you about a proposal I have for you.”
“A proposal, my lady?” Annis tried to force her mind to focus on something other than Meg. It was difficult after so many years, but she looked attentively at Lady Mattingly. “If there is any way I can help you, you know you have only to ask.”
“Very prettily said, my dear, but you may change your mind when you hear what it is.” Lady Mattingly smiled kindly at Annis and said, “I want you to consider staying here permanently. As my companion.”
Annis’s mouth dropped open for a moment. Her surprise was complete. So was her rejection of the idea. She could not stay in the same house with Gerald and hope to retain any peace of mind. It would be intolerable to see him, talk to him every day as his mother’s employee. To watch him as he courted some eligible young lady of birth and fortune. To dwindle into a sterile middle age while he was surrounded by his wife and their children.
Martha Schroeder Page 13