by Millie Adams
She blinked heavily, annoyed at herself. ‘He being my husband?’ She dashed at one rogue tear that had slid down her cheek.
‘Yes.’
‘Why would he be an ogre?’
‘You seem distressed.’
‘Yes, but why would it make you think he is...unkind to me?’
James hesitated. ‘There is a lot of talk about the Duke of Brigham. And his...proclivities. Though, I should not pay heed to gossip of that nature for clear reasons.’
Beatrice blinked, feeling as if she were missing a piece of the conversation again.
‘To be as delicate as possible, he is a man of exotic tastes. Some might say perverse, though I never would.’
Briggs? Perverse?
She did not have a clear idea of what that might mean, except it called to mind someone who was twisted and warped in some way. One thing she could not imagine was her brother being friends with someone that were true of.
Much less allow her to marry him.
You are a ward, not a wife...
‘I’ve seen no proof of anything of the kind,’ she said, trying to smile.
‘Probably a good thing.’
‘What is that supposed to mean?’
James sighed and sat in the chair opposite her. ‘That you are sweet. And men like him are not.’
‘People keep saying I am sweet. Why is that? What have I done to suggest that I am?’
‘You...’
‘I am stupid, is what I am. I do not know enough people, I have not been educated broadly on enough topics, I have not done enough.’
‘You are not stupid,’ James said. ‘You are innocent.’
‘Well, I am tired of it.’
‘Do you wish for him to take your innocence?’
She suddenly felt that same warmth she’d felt in the carriage. She was embarrassed, but...but James had told her his secrets. Secrets that could see him jailed. What did she have to fear with her friend? This dear, lovely friend who had put his faith in her in such a real way. ‘I... It would be better if I knew what that meant.’
‘There is nothing to know. Beatrice, I knew what I was, what I wanted, before I knew details or specifics. You do not need to know the full list of things one might do, to know you wish them.’ She still felt confused, but she couldn’t be angry because his smile was so gentle. ‘The question is, do you want to be closer to him?’
‘I...’
‘Do you want to kiss him?’
Her face went hot. ‘I do... I...’
‘Then kiss him, Beatrice.’
‘He said...’
‘That has nothing to do with what he wants.’
Bea’s breathing became short, harsh, and she could feel her heart beating in her temples. ‘James, I cannot...’
‘Whatever he says, Beatrice, you are his wife.’
She let out a long breath. ‘Enough about me. Please. What are you doing?’
‘I came to tell you I’m leaving.’
‘Leaving?’
‘Yes, I...am travelling to Rome with a friend.’ The way he said friend was heavy.
‘Will you stay there?’
‘For a while at least.’ He smiled. ‘I’m happy, Beatrice.’
‘I am very glad for you, I...’
She felt him before she saw him and when she looked up, her husband was in the doorway with all the subtlety of a storm. ‘Your Grace,’ James said, standing quickly. ‘I came to say goodbye to your wife. I’m leaving the country.’
Briggs’s eyes flickered over him. ‘You must be James.’
He did not sound friendly, or impressed.
‘Yes,’ he said.
‘In the future if you wish to call on my wife, you will ensure I am present.’
‘He’s my friend,’ Beatrice said.
‘He is the man you intended to marry. And I’ll not be made a cuckold in my own home.’
‘If you cannot give any credit to my honour, at least give it to hers,’ James said.
Briggs looked at him, hard. ‘I have nothing to fear from you, do I?’
The side of James’s mouth kicked up. ‘No. I am leaving, though, so if you wish to have me arrested it will have to be quick.’
‘I am the last person on earth to have a man arrested for his inclinations.’
‘Ah. I did wonder.’ James turned to her. ‘Remember what we talked about. Be you, Beatrice. And if that’s not sweet, then don’t be sweet.’ He leaned in and kissed her cheek, and the feeling of affection that overwhelmed her nearly brought her to tears.
So few and far between were connections in her life.
‘I will see you again, when I return.’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Come to dinner. Bring your friend.’
He left her there with a squeeze of her hand and when she turned to face Briggs, his eyes were like ice.
* * *
‘What were you thinking?’
Briggs couldn’t account for the rage that was currently pouring through his veins.
‘I was thinking that I would take tea with my friend, who came to sit with me. Which is more than you have done, Your Grace.’
He knew this side of her. He had seen it when she’d pushed at Hugh in her bedchamber. He had often admired her spirit, but he admired it much less now that she chose to use it against him.
‘If my household were not so loyal to me, the scandal you might have caused...’
She laughed. ‘Here I thought married women entertaining other men was de rigueur.’
The rage in his blood threatened to boil over. ‘Not in my house.’
His tone was hard, uncompromising, and he could see the way she responded to it. The way her cheeks lit up like a beacon on a hill, a signal to a man like him that she would melt like butter if he were to place his hand on the back of her neck now...
She would go to her knees willingly.
He shut that thought down with ruthless precision.
‘We are leaving for London in the morning,’ he said, ready for a change of subject.
He had been enraged seeing her in here with another man, regardless of the fact he was not a man who would be interested in her. Regardless of the fact he was not supposed to want her.
He was eager to get out of this house.
He had grown to see Maynard Park as his own. For some reason, though, the demons of his childhood felt close now. Perhaps because it was the very beginning of summer, with flowers beginning to bloom.
A reminder.
His father had died this time of year.
His father had also destroyed everything Briggs had cared about in June, and humiliated him while he did it.
‘Briggs, I do wish you’d reconsider about William.’
The mention of William on the heels of the thoughts about his father brought him up short.
‘No,’ he said, his voice sharper than intended.
‘Didn’t your parents...?’
‘I went nowhere. I stayed here.’
‘Were you happy with that?’
Sometimes. Because it had meant living as he chose. Only doing what he enjoyed. Losing himself in his own world.
‘You want to make everything simple,’ he said, his voice rough. ‘It is not simple. You are angry that you’ve been protected all your life, but you can’t know whether or not that protection was necessary. You cannot know if you would have died without the intervention you were given.’
‘I...no. I don’t suppose I can know that.’
‘You resent it but it might be the very thing that saved you. William may be lonely, but being exposed to other children might not be the best thing for him. It would not have been for me. I...am angry at my father. But on that he might have been right.’ It cost him to say it, and to the end of his life he woul
d not know why he had.
Except Beatrice was honest.
In all things.
And there was something about that honesty that seemed to demand it in return.
If there was one thing a man such as himself valued, it was the necessary balances in life.
She looked at him, her gaze far too insightful. ‘Why are you angry at your father?’
‘It is not important,’ he said, his jaw going tense.
‘It must be. For you to be angry after all this time.’
She was so guileless in her questions. As if she merely wished to know.
And it compelled him to answer.
‘My father was cruel. He enjoyed that. Enjoyed making others feel small. He wielded power and control over those weaker than himself. And do you know what that makes him?’
‘What?’ she asked, her voice shrunken to a whisper.
‘A coward. A real man, a man of honour, does not use his power in that way.’
‘You don’t use your power that way,’ she said.
He looked at her and he wanted to...he wanted to cup her chin and hold her steady, hold her gaze until she had to look away.
He could use his power, his strength, to make her feel good.
And just then he felt desperate to do that. It would ease the ache in him as well, this restless fury that had been building since he had brought her here.
Perhaps it is her.
Another reminder of all you once hoped for.
All you can never have.
He pushed that aside.
He could not have her. Not like that. And he would not allow lingering memories of Serena, or of his father, to push him to violate his friendship with Hugh.
To put Beatrice at risk.
‘No,’ he said, finally. ‘I do not.’
‘What did your father...?’
‘My father liked to humiliate. He liked those around him to feel small. Undone. And he could do so with a few well-placed words.’ And actions. His father had not hesitated to take away whatever Briggs had found himself obsessed with.
He would wait, though.
Until he had invested time and himself into it. Would wait until the loss of it had an exacting, heavy cost.
‘Briggs, I...’
‘I am not an object to be pitied. My father is rotting in the ground and I am the Duke of Brigham.’ He smiled, and he knew it did not reach his eyes. ‘I may not be perfect in regard to William but what I want is for him to avoid shame.’
‘I believe you. I do know that you only have his best interests at heart. I...’
‘You just don’t trust me. Because you’re a foolish girl who has seen nothing of the world and yet is convinced she knows the right way of it.’
He successfully cowed her then. But she rallied, and quickly. ‘Perhaps that is true. But my innocence has been forced upon me. I can learn. But what I see in William is not the product of inexperience. Quite the opposite. I recognise myself and it pains me.’
‘You see loneliness. Because it is what you felt. I did not feel lonely here.’
‘What did you feel?’
He felt a slow smile spread over his face. ‘Rage.’
Chapter Nine
Beatrice knew that she should be excited. They were headed to London just before the Season started, and Briggs had promised her new dresses.
She was not feeling excited.
Not after the way everything had happened between the two of them. She was still upset about William, and Briggs’s refusal to bring him. She was still upset about what had happened with James the day before, and still...
Deeply confused by the conversation they’d had after.
She was a jumble of feelings. None of which were sweet or strictly innocent.
Kiss him.
Her heart jolted. She did not wish to kiss him. She was angry at him.
For his heavy-handed behaviour. For the way he made her feel.
For what he made her want.
She was still ruminating on that, standing at the entry of the home, when William, Alice, and several more bags came down the stairs. ‘What is this?’ she asked Briggs, as he appeared alongside her.
‘I thought about what you said,’ he returned, his voice clipped.
‘You thought about what I said?’
‘Yes,’ he said.
‘And you changed your mind.’
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I changed my mind. William shall accompany us to London for the Season.’
It was difficult to tell if the boy was pleased or not. But she very much hoped that he was. She hoped that he would enjoy his trip, and she even hoped that she could be the one to take him to some of those places he was so interested in. Places she had never been either.
* * *
It was a five-hour carriage ride to London, and William was alternatively fidgety, fussy, quiet, and extremely talkative. He spent a good hour of the trip telling Beatrice each and every fact he possessed about Italian architecture. And there were quite a lot of them. Later she realised that it was the same time in the afternoon that she had first arrived at Maynard Park. When William had been screaming inconsolably.
They had to stop so that the little boy could relieve himself, and they paused the carriage, and rather than his governess accompanying him, it was Briggs who got out of the carriage.
Alice made a study out of avoiding any sort of eye contact with Beatrice. Which she supposed was probably common enough, but she didn’t have anyone to talk to. She was older than governesses often were. She reminded Bea nothing of the little frothy blonde creatures her father had favoured putting her in the care of.
Though she had a feeling her governesses had not been selected because of the care they might give her. A thought that made her skin feel coated in oil.
She squirmed in her seat and thought about getting out simply to stretch her legs and get some distance between herself and the unfriendly woman.
But a moment later she heard a great wail, and the governess immediately departed the carriage. Beatrice wasn’t far behind. William was on the ground, refusing to be moved. Briggs looked...grim, stone-faced, but determined.
‘William,’ he said, not raising his voice at all. ‘We must get back in the carriage now.’
‘I’m tired.’ William was flopped, utterly, limply across the ground.
‘It doesn’t matter if you’re tired. You cannot sleep here. You may sleep in the carriage.’
‘I can’t sleep in the carriage. It’s too noisy.’
‘William.’
‘I can’t. I can’t. I can’t.’
And that began a period of long repetition. Denials and recriminations. The young boy thrashed on the ground like a fish, and refused to be settled. He ground his heels into the soft mud, kicking and flinging rocks into the air.
Beatrice was frozen. She had no idea what to do, what to say. She felt useless.
And for the first time she wished she were back at Bybee House. Where she was safe. Where she could not cause the harm that she had clearly caused here by begging Briggs to bring William.
Finally, Briggs plucked him up from the ground and held him as close to his chest as possible while the boy squirmed.
‘Back in the carriage,’ he bit out to both Beatrice and the governess.
The governess obeyed quickly, but Beatrice stood and stared at him.
‘Do you find there is something to gawk at?’ he said.
‘No,’ Beatrice said. ‘I’m not gawking.’
‘You do rather a good imitation of someone who is.’
He moved past her, opening the carriage door and depositing William inside. William continued to howl unhappily.
‘Get inside,’ he said.
And she obeyed.
‘William,’ sh
e said, trying to keep her tone placating. ‘Didn’t you want to see things in London?’
But he was simply screaming now, and there was nothing, seemingly nothing at all that could reach him. She did not know what to do, or how to proceed. And Briggs was only sitting there grim-faced, staring straight ahead.
‘William,’ she tried again, moving forward.
And was met with a short slap on the hand, directly from William, who screamed again, ‘I can’t.’
It didn’t hurt, his slap, but it shocked her, and she drew back, clutching her hand.
Briggs leaned forward, plucked William up and held him in his arms, his hold firm, but not harming him in any way. ‘William,’ he said. ‘You may not hit. Ever.’
‘I can’t. I can’t.’
‘William,’ Briggs said.
‘I’m not William.’
And neither of them said anything after that. They simply let him scream. Until he tired himself out, with only thirty minutes to spare before they arrived in London. The town house was lovely. But she could barely take it in. Or the excitement of being in London. She was too enervated by everything that had occurred on the ride. By how badly she had miscalculated. No wonder Briggs was so protective of William. No wonder he had been concerned about taking this journey. It was not because he hadn’t wanted to take it on board. It was because it was devastating to watch William unravel in that fashion. And she hadn’t realised it. Of course she hadn’t. She had not listened.
Not really.
She had been so certain that she knew best, and she had been wrong.
William had drifted to sleep by the time they got inside, and it was Briggs who carried the limp little boy up the stairs. He said nothing to Beatrice, and she could hardly blame him.
‘Your Grace.’ The housekeeper in London, Mrs Dinsdale, put her hand on Beatrice’s shoulder, as if sensing her distress.
‘Oh, yes,’ she said.
‘You will find a lady’s maid waiting for you. You may go and get freshened up for dinner.’