A Worthy Wife (6 page)

Aurora raised her chin. “It is my marriage”—with a glare to Kenyon for not acknowledging his own participation in the event—“so I would hear what’s discussed.”

Mr. Juckett looked for guidance to Lord Windham, who shrugged. The solicitor cleared his throat. “Yes, well, that’s a common misapprehension, it is, that…that non-consummation is proper grounds for annulment. But what the law means is that…ah, consummation shall be impossible to complete.”

“Of course it is, with him staying across the hall.”

Kenyon chuckled, which earned him glares from both Aurora and Mr. Juckett. The solicitor addressed Aurora, although his bald pate turned scarlet in embarrassment. “Physically impossible, as certified by examining physicians in the female’s case.”

“Oh, dear,” Aurora whispered, knowing she would fail such a test, if she did not die of mortification.

At the same time, Kenyon declared, “Miss McPhee shall not be subject to such indignities.”

Mr. Juckett nodded. “Then the man must give a sworn avowal that he is, ah, incapable of fathering a child.”

Kenyon groaned. He’d have to declare himself unmanned? Hellfire and damnation! And enough opera dancers could refute the claim. “Impossible.”

“There is the insanity clause.” The solicitor steepled his fingers. “If you wouldn’t mind having yourself declared insane, Miss McPhee, you might still have the marriage set aside.”

“Gammon, man, Miss McPhee may be addlepated for getting into the fix; she is not attics-to-let.”

Aurora did not know whether to be pleased or insulted. She did know she was not alone in this sinking ship on the sea of matrimony, nor was she the only one
fit for Bedlam. “Please, sir, there has to be another way.”

Mr. Juckett rubbed the bridge of his nose, thinking. “Tell me, miss, did your parents agree to this marriage?”

“My parents are long dead. My aunt and uncle formally adopted me years ago, and, yes, they witnessed the marriage ceremony.”

“And did you give your own true name?”

“Of course.”

He shook his head. “Then I am afraid you were legally married, and married you shall stay.”

The earl sighed and stood. “Then, Mr. Juckett, I take great pleasure in presenting you to Aurora Warriner, Countess of Windham.” While the solicitor bounded to his feet, bowed, and babbled out his felicitations, Kenyon placed a sheet of paper on the man’s desk. “Here is the notification for the newspapers, if you would be so good as to see it inserted. And begin drawing up settlements and such. I have the name of the McPhee family’s solicitor here in London. I am sure he’ll be in touch.”

And then they were in the carriage again, married again.

The poor man was stuck with her, Aurora lamented, trying to keep the grin from her face. How sad.

The poor puss was stuck with him, Kenyon despaired, hurrying her into the hotel before he did a jig right there in the street. Too bad.

Chapter Six

A gentleman of three decades should not have to go courting. He should indicate his interest by a smile, a soft, not quite accidental touch. The lady in question should answer the unspoken question with a nod, or a gentle brush of their bodies, a promise of what was to come. So Kenyon’s relationships had always developed in the past.

But marriage was not mistressing, and a wife was not affair fare, so a-wooing he would go. The earl was not about to scribe love poems to Aurora’s earlobes, dainty and delicious though they might be, nor to her honey-colored, arched eyebrows. He’d not shower her with costly baubles—although he did wonder if he could match her sunny-day-skies eyes to sapphires—or pay her flowery compliments. His bride would sniff at Spanish coin. What was left? Dancing attendance at shopping expeditions and social dos? Lud, he was too old for that nonsense.

Win her he would, however, now that he’d wed her. Kenyon merely needed to prove himself worthy of Aurora’s regard, by proving that he trusted, respected, and revered the mutton-headed Miss McPhee. He had absolutely no idea of where to start, except it shouldn’t be in London’s fish bowl. He was not about to have the entire
haute monde
witness him making a cake of himself over some starchy-scrupled snip of a female. He’d have to take her to Windrush, his family seat in Derby, where only his sister and his lifelong retainers could watch him try to wheedle the widgeon into his bed.

He couldn’t bundle her off on another journey today, Kenyon decided, although she’d been a regular Trojan
on the way from Bath. Aurora didn’t chatter or complain that he slept, or suffer carriage sickness. His first wife, Genevieve, had always insisted on stopping every half hour, and being entertained between times. Miss McPhee just might turn out to be a restful sort of female, when she was not turning his life upside down. And once he overcame her maidenly misgivings.

There were other reasons he could not leave London on the instant—the marriage settlements, for one, and discovering information about his brother for another. Besides, Kenyon needed to spend some time at his own house, making arrangements for his trunks and valet and horses and messages. He could make a start in the few hours before dinner.

Kenyon decided that he’d also make a start in showing Aurora that he had confidence in her intelligence and her honor by leaving her alone at the hotel, her proper Bath maid having arrived.

“But what shall I do?” Aurora wanted to know. “I have read all the papers, and Baggins has unpacked all the boxes.”

“You could work on your embroidery, I suppose,” he offered, since every lady of his acquaintance had a workbasket or tambour frame nearby.

“I gave up on needlework ages ago. Aunt Thisbe is the only one in the family with any talent in that regard.”

Yes, Kenyon thought, she had enough talent to drive a man to lascivious thoughts over lizards! “Well, what about the lending library? You’d enjoy taking out a subscription, I’d wager. Or you could go shopping, as long as you take the maid along.” No female had ever turned down that pastime, to his knowledge. Still, his bride was looking like an abandoned kitten. “I realize you had a large circle of friends in Bath to visit with and none here, but why don’t you go have calling cards made up, for the time when you do meet some proper people?”

Dash it, she was just shaking her head no. “Confound it, Aurora, do what any other well-off woman does—go spend your blunt. Purchase a new wardrobe or practice good deeds. I shall return by dinner.”

He was halfway out the door of her sitting room when a small voice stopped him in his tracks. “But I have no money to spend.”

Damn, damn, damn! Any other female would have had his purse in her hands hours ago. He’d forgotten Aurora’s innocence and inexperience, again. How could he be so insensitive as to make her ask, nay, nearly beg him for funds? Kenyon pulled a leather pouch out of his coat pocket and handed it to her. “This is for incidentals only, gratuities to servants and the like. For anything else you wish to purchase, merely direct the bills to me. Later we’ll establish an allowance so you don’t have to come asking for pin money.”

The purse weighed as much as a
Sciurus vulgaris,
a red squirrel. “It’s too much.”

“It’s nothing. I’ll fetch more from the town house when I instruct the servants to clean the place from top to bottom, pending their new mistress’s arrival.” All traces of feminine apparel, exotic scents, or inebriated soldiers would have to go. “Don’t worry, I can stand the nonsense.”

“But I can’t take your money.”

The earl took her by the shoulders, trying to decide whether to kiss her or shake her. Instead, he merely said, “You are my lady, Aurora, my wife. You will never want for anything as long as I live, or after, according to the marriage settlements I am having drawn up. What I have is yours.”

So she purchased a horse that was too old to pull its master’s wagon, a cart full of wilted flowers from a girl who was coughing too badly to hawk them to passersby, a tray of meat pastries for the one-legged veteran and his ragged friends on the corner, and a boy.

She didn’t mean to purchase the boy, not precisely, just hire the street urchin for the afternoon, but he declared he was hers now, not belonging to anyone else, which meant he was Windham’s too, Aurora supposed. She was sure Kenyon wouldn’t mind, for Ned Needles was such a handy sort of boy to have around. Ned had approached her when she and Baggins left the hotel, offering to find her a hackney or direct her to the best
bargains in lace, the nearest glove-maker, or the prettiest selection of gowns, sewn by two sisters who were supporting their ailing parents and nine younger siblings. That’s why they called him Needles, he’d explained, to Baggins’s severe disapproval, ’cause he could find anything. Anything she needed in all of London, Ned was her man for locating it.

Smiling, Aurora had handed the ragamuffin a coin for his recommendation of a lending library, and in no time at all she was being bowed into Hatchard’s, where her husband’s name placed a world of books at her disposal. Despite her new friend’s promise that he could show her all the sights, Aurora selected a few London guidebooks for now, which Ned was waiting outside to carry for her. And to tell her about Gunther’s ices, which they then had to sample, to Baggins’s disgust. But it was Ned Needles who bargained with the drayman over his decrepit horse, and who hired the one-armed soldier to lead it back to the Grand Hotel. He even knew a deaf printer who’d have her calling cards delivered before she could say Jack Rabbit. Ned also set a fair price for the flower girl, else Aurora would have emptied her purse.

“No, m’lady, you can’t go givin’ all that blunt in one swoop. There be lots of folks what need a share. I’ll find ’em for you. The ones what be honest beggars, don’t you know. Coo, you need me, lady, else you’d get diddled proper.”

And Ned needed a bath and a pair of shoes and a place to stay and reading lessons, he was such a bright boy. Why, he could grow up to be a Bow Street Runner with his aptitude, and Windham’s sponsorship.

“Bloody hell, he’s a waif off the streets!” The earl did not appear pleased with his new dependent. “And filthy to boot. And the management of the hotel is complaining of the lines of beggars waiting outside for you, and—”

“They were waiting for you. I had no idea what to do with all those people in search of positions.”

“What am I, an employment agency?” Windham was trying to hold on to his temper; shouting at the peahen was not his idea of turning Aurora up sweet. Was it just
a few hours ago that he’d promised himself he’d woo his bride into submission? ’Twould be a miracle if he did not wring her neck! Pasting a smile on his face, he asked, “And just what the deuce am I supposed to do with a horse that can barely hold its head up, much less pull a cart?”

They were having dinner in the sitting room of Aurora’s suite, and she could tell Kenyon wasn’t really angry because he kept smiling at her. And he
had
sent a lot of the unemployed soldiers over to his town house to help with the cleaning, since they’d be moving sooner than he’d planned, with the hotel management’s encouragement. He even got Ned to agree to a bath, by banishing him until he was clean and free of vermin. Truly her husband was a kind and generous man, despite his blustering. He was beautiful, besides, in the formal evening dress that his valet had brought from Warriner House, handsome being much too insipid a word for such magnificence. Of course Aurora had found him attractive in the altogether, but she would not think about that, not for a month. They should be good friends by then. She would also not dwell on the fact that his valet had unpacked the earl’s bags in the other bedchamber of her suite, not the one across the hall.

Finished with his soup, Kenyon brought his quizzing glass to his eye. “This hotel is never going to be a success at this rate. All the flowers are wilted.” Then he studied the young person waiting to take the covers off the next course.

Noting his raised brow, Aurora took a drink from her water glass and said, “That’s Judith, my maid.”

Judith bobbed a curtsy. Kenyon nodded politely, but addressed his wife. “Correct me if I am in error, but isn’t your maid, Margaret Baggins, a proper, gray-haired woman of middle years?” He knew dashed well she was, for he’d hired the woman precisely because of her respectability.

“Oh, Baggins found that she missed Bath, my lord. She found London agitating to her nerves.”

London or Lady Windham? he wondered. From the evidence awaiting his return to the hotel, Aurora’s afternoon had been enough to daunt the staunchest soul. But Aurora was going on. “Happily, Ned Needles found me Judith, who had been employed as abigail to two sisters making their come-outs this Season. Wasn’t it lucky that she was available?”

Lucky wasn’t quite how he would have described the young woman’s availability. With his looking glass now dangling from its ribbon, he drawled, “Were you aware, my pet, that your new maid is increasing?”

Aurora leaned forward. “Ssh, Kenyon. She’ll hear you.”

He edged his chair nearer to hers conspiratorially and whispered back, “I think she knows it.”

“It wasn’t her fault. The two young ladies had an older brother, the bounder. Judith was tossed out, while the libertine was merely sent back to university. That’s not fair!”

“It never is,” Windham agreed. “But how do you intend to right the wrong done to the girl? You do know you cannot keep her on as your dresser, don’t you?”