To Win his Wayward Wife AZ w cover

by Rose Gordon

  “Oh, yes, they are,” he retorted sourly. “You’re to be a major part of those activities. Therefore, they better be of some interest to you.”

  She leveled a cold stare at him. “Sir, do you honestly expect me to share your bed after last night?”

  Benjamin felt heat creep up his face. Surely she did not wish to discuss this in front of her family. Turning to their audience, he said, “Can you please excuse us?”

  “Don’t bother,” Madison said while the earl and countess shook their heads, denying his request for them to leave the room. “Nothing more needs to be said on the subject. I shall stay here that way you are free to come and go as you please without concerning me.”

  “Madison,” he said tightly, “I’m sorry, but that option is not available to you.”

  “Yes, it is,” she said pertly. “Can I stay?” she asked her sister and brother-in-law.

  Brooke nodded enthusiastically and Townson slowly shook his head. “I’m sorry, Madison, but I cannot let you stay here against his wishes.”

  “But—but—but,” Madison sputtered.

  “Grab your things and let’s go,” Benjamin said, coming to her side.

  Madison shifted her eyes from her sister’s direction to his. Her eyes were reminiscent of looking out a porthole on a ship during a storm while sailing across the ocean. So much hurt and fury swirled together Benjamin was almost hesitant to touch her elbow and steer her from the room.

  Just as his fingers brushed her delicate elbow, her fiery eyes snapped back to Townson. “I’d like to collect my favor now,” she said firmly, making everyone in the room freeze.

  “Pardon?” Townson asked after a minute. His face was completely expressionless except for one quirked eyebrow.

  Madison nervously licked her lips. “You owe me a favor. I’d like to collect.”

  “Madison, I don’t mean to sound like a braggart, but I don’t believe I’m in your debt,” he said softly.

  “Yes, you are,” she countered with a pointed glance at Brooke.

  Townson looked to Brooke and then to Madison and back to Brooke once more before comprehension lit his features. “That was you?” he whispered.

  Madison nodded.

  Benjamin and Brooke exchanged confused looks before Brooke broke eye contact and turned to her husband. “What is she talking about?”

  “Umm…well, as it turns out,” he cleared his throat and fidgeted with his cravat a second.

  “Oh, please,” Madison said, rolling her eyes. “Brooke, do you remember when Andrew showed up at Covent Garden? Well, I’m the one who told him to go there.”

  “That was you?” Brooke squealed before turning to her husband. “I thought you said it was a servant.”

  “I never said that. I said I thought it was a servant. That’s completely different. She stood in the corner of my dark study wearing a hood,” he explained.

  “Sounds more like a woman of ill repute,” Brooke quipped.

  “Well, I actually thought she was at first,” Townson admitted.

  “Seems to be a common misconception,” Madison muttered, making a new wave of shame wash over Benjamin.

  Thankfully, her sister didn’t hear that remark because she said, “Wait, you went to welcome a prostitute into your bed before I’d even left the country?” Her voice had taken on a sharper edge and her eyes were boring into her husband in a way that made Benjamin glad he hadn’t married her.

  “No,” Townson said defensively. “In fact, if you ask her, she’ll tell you I wasn’t overly welcoming of her.”

  “That’s true,” Madison added in his defense. “He wasn’t. He actually was rather rude at first. And, if that’s not convincing enough, he kept readjusting his dressing robe. As if I’d be interested in what it covered,” she said sarcastically, rolling her eyes again.

  “You’ll never know,” Brooke said rather smugly, making her husband shake his red face in embarrassment. “But why did you make me embarrass myself by going to his townhouse when you knew he’d be at the garden?”

  Madison looked at her sister like she was a simpleton. “I didn’t intend for you to embarrass yourself. When I told him where we were going, I assumed he’d try and catch you outside the house where he’d been sitting on a bench for the past two days. When we went outside and I didn’t see the lummox there, I worried he’d stayed home and was going to try a different tactic. I just wanted to make sure he wasn’t home first. Sorry, I didn’t know you were going to get a set down by the holier-than-thou butlering footman.”

  Brooke laughed. “All is forgiven,” she said with a smile.

  “Now that we’ve established who came to my house that night, that I had no intentions to be unfaithful to my wife, I was uncomfortable being dressed in only my dressing robe in the company of another and that Madison thinks I’m a simpleton who cannot follow simple directions,” he flashed her a quick smile, “we need to discuss what will happen now. Madison, being the one I owe the favor to, what do you want me to do?”

  “Let me stay here,” she said simply.

  Townson let out a pent up breath. “Trust me when I say I’d love nothing more than to keep you safely here and away from him,” he said calmly, slicing a sharp glance at Benjamin. “But I cannot do that. Legally I have no right. I can use physical force to temporarily keep you here, but he’ll just take me to court.”

  “Fine,” she agreed. “We’ll let the courts decide it.”

  “The courts are going to decide you must return,” Townson said gently. “Unless he seeks an annulment,” he flickered a hopeful glance to Benjamin who shook his head in return, “you’ll have to return to his house eventually.”

  “What if I seek an annulment? Could you help me petition?” Madison asked quietly.

  “I can help you petition, but it won’t do any good,” Townson told her, shaking his head. “You won’t be granted one unless he agrees to it. And seeing as though he won’t, the courts will then force you back to his house.”

  Madison nodded and shot pleading eyes at Brooke and Townson. Benjamin almost felt sorry for her. So much so, that if he’d have been an onlooker in this situation, he would have taken up in her defense and fought anyone who wanted to take her away against her will. But since he was the active party that wanted her returned to his home, he just shot her a triumphant smile. “Let’s go,” he said quietly in her ear.

  “Wait a second,” Townson called, standing up. “Ladies, why don’t you go wait in Brooke’s sitting room, we’ll join you in a minute. I want to speak to Gateway alone.”

  Benjamin didn’t want to let her go. He was ready to haul her out to his carriage right this minute. Unfortunately, Madison took Townson’s suggestion to heart and scampered from the room faster than he could react.

  “This better be important,” Benjamin ground out after Brooke followed her sister out.

  “It is,” Townson said, sitting back down. “You realize she’s scared of you, don’t you?”

  “Why?” Benjamin demanded, flabbergasted. “She has no reason to be scared of me. I’ve never done anything to her to make her scared.”

  Townson raised an eyebrow at him.

  “All right, with the exception of last night, I’ve never done anything to affect her so,” he allowed.

  “Really?” Townson drawled. “You don’t think she might fear you because you hired a man to ruin her sister and send her to flee the continent?”

  Benjamin snorted. “You’re the man I hired and she seems to trust you just fine.”

  “That’s because I’ve proven myself to her,” Townson countered. “She’s spent enough time in my company for her to know she has nothing to fear from me.”

  “What are you suggesting?” Benjamin asked, knowing he probably wasn’t going to like the answer.

  “Court her,” Townson returned with a shrug. “She barely knows you. Let her stay here at night and take her out during the day so she can get to know you. Take her for a ride in the park or the British Mus
eum. Just spend time with her and let her learn she can trust you.”

  “Absolutely not,” Benjamin said firmly. “She’s my wife. I’ll not have rumors circulating we’re living apart after only a day.”

  “What if we go to Rockhurst?”

  “If I don’t want her to live separate from me in London, what makes you think I’d let her go there?” Benjamin countered, crossing his arms.

  “We’ll all go,” Andrew returned, folding his hands and resting them in his lap. “She can stay at Rockhurst and you can stay in the gamekeeper’s cottage.”

  “Excuse me?” Why was he being made to stay in the gamekeeper’s cottage while his wife was to be a guest in a house that he knew had to have at least seventy five bedchambers?

  Andrew shrugged. “I’ve just renovated it. What’s the problem?”

  “I don’t care about how quaint the cottage is. I want to know why I’m to stay in it while Madison is kept somewhere else,” he said defensively.

  “Because it’s what I’m offering,” Andrew said, his lips twitching.

  “You’re enjoying this too much,” Benjamin ground out. This is the payback he got for what he put Andrew through last spring when he’d hired him to ruin Brooke. Damn if life didn’t have a way to sneak up on a person and bite them in the arse.

  “Anyway,” Andrew continued, “you’ll be close enough to see her every day and nobody will be none the wiser.”

  Benjamin ground his teeth. He wanted her back right now. He didn’t want to court her. But what if Townson was right? They all knew she wouldn’t be happy about going home with him today. Would she be more accepting of him if he played her game and courted her?

  “Fine,” he ground out at last. “But if one word of this leaks, she’ll be back in my home before nightfall. Am I clear?”

  Townson nodded. “Would you like to tell her or shall I?

  “I will.”

  Chapter 5

  Madison blinked. That’s all she could do. She’d once again been rendered speechless by her husband. He seemed to have a knack for this sort of thing.

  He wanted to court her? Surely she’d misheard him. Was this the same man that was so cruel to her last night and demanded she return to his home at once not more than ten minutes ago? “Could you please repeat that, sir? I’m quite certain I misheard,” she said.

  Now it was his turn to blink at her. Opening his eyes after an extended blink, he calmly said, “First, please don’t call me ‘sir’. I admit it’s slightly better than Your Grace or Gateway, but not much. Yesterday you called me Benjamin, and I would like you to continue. Second, you did not misunderstand. I would like to court you.”

  “Why?” she asked, uncertainty filling her voice. Why did the man want to court her? Couldn’t he just leave her alone? Many couples lived in separate residences, why couldn’t they?

  Benjamin swallowed uncomfortably. “It’s been brought to my attention that we didn’t court, therefore, we don’t know each other well enough for marriage. I would like to change that.”

  “Someone had to bring it to your attention that we don’t know each other as well as other married couples,” she said dubiously.

  He sent her a lopsided smile. “I feel I know enough about you. But yes, someone had to remind me that you may not know enough about me to be comfortable with me.”

  Of course he felt he knew enough about her already. He, like most men, was willing to take anything in a skirt to bed regardless of his knowledge of, or feelings for, the woman. He’d just confirmed that suspicion for her for the second time now. “All right. I’m free every Wednesday afternoon from one to three thirty. Provided Brooke is available to chaperone, I’ll plan to see you then.”

  “Not so fast,” he said quickly. “I’m not some lapdog like some other man we both know around here. I’ll not be given a two and half hour window once a week. I’m compromising by agreeing to do this and not dragging you home right this minute. Therefore, you’ll be doing some compromising, too.”

  Madison crossed her arms. “Name your terms, Benjamin,” she said smartly.

  “First, you must call off your watchdogs. I require our outings to be unchaperoned. Stop shaking your head. I’m playing your game, and you’ll play mine. No chaperones. Second, I understand you like to participate in several charitable organizations. I’m not going to stop you from that, but you’ll allow me at least two and a half hours each day.”

  “Absolutely not,” she said sharply, shaking her head. “I can understand your concerns about Brooke and Andrew being overprotective, but I cannot give you so much time. That’s more time than any couple, married or not, spends together.”

  “That’s doubtful,” he said with a scoff. “I imagine one day you’ll think two and a half hours with me is not long enough.”

  “Now, that’s doubtful,” she said, curling her lip in disgust at his innuendo. “Do those two and a half hours each day have to be exclusive?”

  “No,” he said quietly. “I’d like it to be. But we can include family activities as well. Just as long as half the time is exclusive, I’ll be satisfied.”

  “Fine,” she agreed. At least part of the time she’d have others present to help keep him pleasant. “Any other demands?”

  “We’ll be leaving for Rockhurst after lunch. I’ve already sent a note to inform Lottie to pack your things. You’ll ride with me in my carriage,” he announced, standing to leave.

  Madison blinked at him again. They were going to Rockhurst? He was coming, too? And they were to be alone in his carriage for the ride? “All right,” she replied in mock cheerfulness. She knew she’d have to ride with him anyway, but at least this way she got to pretend she agreed with him even if she didn’t.

  After that lone tear hit the plush carpet the night before, Madison had made up her mind not let him play her the fool like Robbie had done. Granted he was not nearly as close to her as Robbie had been, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t take what power he did have over her and use it against her.

  Quite honestly she was rather surprised when he showed up this morning. Not that she thought he wouldn’t come, his pride demanded it. She was just shocked he’d discovered her missing so soon. How had he even known? Did he go searching for her? It really didn’t matter, she thought dismissively.

  Last night she’d waited until well after the household had gone silent before making her quiet escape. Obviously not a stranger to donning a dark cloak and hiring a hack, she’d easily made it to Brooke’s and used her key to let herself in before retiring to the bedchamber she’d been occupying previously. It wasn’t until only about thirty minutes before her husband arrived that she’d first seen Brooke.

  Brooke had once poured out her marital troubles to Madison, and she figured turnabout was fair play and dumped her bucketful of woes out for Brooke to help her wade through. She knew Brooke and Andrew couldn’t hide her. She’d had no intention to ask them to until she saw the raw anger in Benjamin’s eyes. She’d planned only to seek Brooke’s counsel on the matter. She’d been brutally rejected once already in her life, and that was once too many for her liking. She wasn’t going to stand idle while it happened again.

  She would have returned, she reminded herself again as she dug through her sewing box. She would have gone back to his house and been the perfect cool, impassive wife. But no, he had to come and act all high handed, which only served to infuriate her more. Then she let her fear of him and his reputation for being the Dangerous Duke get in the way and she’d acted like a ninny and pleaded for Andrew’s help. Not that she minded the recent developments, mind you. She only wished she hadn’t revealed her vulnerability to him.

  The morning passed swiftly and Madison once again found herself facing a table full of food with no desire to eat. She excused herself and waited in the drawing room for Benjamin to show up.

  Just as her hopes were rising that he’d changed his mind and wasn’t coming, she saw his carriage stop out front.

  ***


  Benjamin stared at her from across the carriage. She was scared of him. He could see that now. It all made sense. The uncertainty he thought he’d glimpsed in her eyes several times the day before, her loss of appetite at their wedding meal and then again at dinner, and of course, her trembling half-dressed body complete with tight hands fisting the sheets when he joined her in her room. He’d thought it was all bridal jitters, but now it was plain as day she was scared of him. What the blazes for? He’d never done anything to her to give her a reason to fear him.

  “What has you scowling?” she asked suddenly.

  “Nothing,” he said, shaking his head. “I just don’t understand you, that’s all.”

  “What’s there to understand? You made some unflattering remarks and then you left me. Was I not entitled to do the same?” Her voice was smooth and calm and held no hint of fear or uncertainty.

  “I came back,” he pointed out. “That's the difference.”

  “And I would have, too,” she countered, plucking at a pleat in her skirt. “You just didn’t give me the chance.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  She looked up at him with cool eyes. “Believe what you wish, but that’s the truth. In case you don’t know, allow me to inform you, I may come off as docile as a lamb, but I'm not. I’m not as outspoken about things as my sisters may be, but I do not take kindly to being treated poorly and I will not stand by while you make a mockery of me.”

  “I didn’t make a mockery of you,” he replied defensively.

  She shrugged. “Benjamin, I don’t care if you keep your wedding vows to me. I know you probably won’t and that’s fine. However, leaving me on our wedding night was the cruelest thing you could have done. I know now you didn’t seek the company of another woman, but I didn’t know it then.”

  He stared at her in disbelief. She didn’t care if he kept his wedding vows? “Do you intend to keep yours?” he choked out, heart racing in anticipation of her answer.

  “Of course,” she said with a dim smile.

  He felt a bit of relief at her answer, but not much. He reached up and rapped on the top of the carriage.