Indiscreet (17 page)

It was a strange feeling when she had not wanted to marry, when she did not like her husband, when nothing was really right
with her marriage. He had scarcely touched her since their wedding night. That was at least partly her fault, of course. She felt embarrassed that she had allowed her terrible feeling of loneliness to spill out in self-pity when he had been with her and close enough to notice. She wanted no one's pity, not even her own. She was alive and healthy—there was nothing to be pitied.

She did not like him. He was far too arrogant and had been far too insistent in his attentions even knowing that she had not wanted them. But oh, she had to admit to herself during the journey that he was an interesting companion to talk with. He was knowledgeable and intelligent. But he was not so opinionated that he would not listen to her. And he paid her the compliment of arguing with her when they disagreed rather than merely dismissing her as a woman with an inferior mind. She had been starved for conversation for longer than five years, she realized.

And he was protective of her. It felt strange to be helped in and out of carriages, to be escorted from room to room at the inns where they stayed, to be accompanied on the walks she took with Toby. She had been alone for so long. It might have been irksome—almost like having a guard wherever she went and no privacy. But it was not irksome. Strangely, although she had come to value her independence and scorned to be treated like a weak and frail woman, it felt good to be protected. It felt almost like being cherished, though she put that thought firmly from her. Only pain could come of starting to think like that.

Of course she was not cherished. He slept alone when they had two rooms. She did not know where he slept the one night when there was only one room. He certainly did not spend it with
her. The one night when he did come back to their single bed and she had lain in bed, faking sleep, her heart beating painfully with anticipation, he had slept on the floor. It had been a horrible humiliation. Had that once been enough to cool all the ardor with which he had pursued her before and during the night of the ball? Had her lack of knowledge and experience made her such an unenticing lover? Or was it the fact that she had not been a virgin? Or the fact that she had turned from him in her loneliness afterward?

He was so very handsome and attractive. She wished she could like him. It did not seem right to desire him as much as she did, to be feeling as much excitement at the prospect of a married life with him when she did not like him. It seemed too—carnal. But there was no point in entering her new life in the deepest gloom, she consoled herself. Nothing would be served by it.

She was excited at the thought of arriving at Stratton Park. She had heard of it before. It was said to be one of the most stately houses and parks in England. And his descriptions of it only succeeded in whetting her appetite even more. She was excited by the thought of living there, of being mistress there. It seemed a little disloyal to her precious cottage to think so, but what was the point of trying to remain loyal to an inanimate object?

They arrived there in the middle of a sunny afternoon. She guessed that she was seeing it at its loveliest. She gazed from the window of the carriage, keeping her back straight and her hands relaxed in her lap, trying not to make a cake of herself by jumping up and down and showing the excitement she felt. Her husband reclined indolently across one corner of the carriage
seat, gazing at her rather than at the view. He did a lot of that—gazing at her. She found it somewhat disconcerting. She had to school her hands not to stray to her hair to see that no strand had escaped its pins.

“Well?” he said.

Everything about it was square and solid and on a grand scale. The house, built of gray stone, was classical in design with a pillared portico at the front. The inner park was built in a great square about it, its lawns shaded by ancient oaks and elms and beeches and dotted with clumps of daffodils and other spring flowers. There were no formal parterre gardens. The relatively short, straight graveled drive took them over a Palladian bridge across a river. It was all breathtakingly magnificent.

“It is lovely,” she said, feeling the inadequacy of her words even as she spoke them. Some things just could not be expressed in words. This was to be her home? She was to belong here?

He laughed softly.

Toby, sensing that they were nearing their journey's end, sat up on the seat opposite and looked alert.

“We are expected,” her husband said. “By now my carriage will have been recognized. Mrs. Keach, my housekeeper, will doubtless be lining everyone up in the hall to receive their new mistress.”

He sounded mildly amused.

“All you need to do,” he said, “is nod graciously and smile if you wish and the ordeal will be over.”

All
— Men were quite impossible, she thought.

He was quite right, of course. After he had helped her alight from the carriage and had escorted her up the marble steps and through the great double doors, she had no chance to look about her at the pillared hall, though she had an impression of size and magnificence. There was a silent line of servants on either side of the hall, men on one side, women on the other. Two dignified middle-aged servants, one man and one woman, stood alone together in the center of the hall. The man was bowing; the woman was curtsying.

They were the butler and the housekeeper, Horrocks and Mrs. Keach. Her husband presented her to them and she nodded and smiled and greeted them. She looked to either side, smiling. And then her husband had his hand on her elbow, said something about tea to Mrs. Keach, and would have steered her in the direction of the great pillared doorway that must lead to the staircase.

“Mrs. Keach,” she said, ignoring his hand, “I would be delighted to meet the women servants if you would introduce them to me.”

Mrs. Keach looked at her with approval. “Yes, my lady,” she said, and she led the way with great dignity to the end of the line and called each servant by name as they moved slowly along it. Her husband trailed after them, Catherine was aware. She concentrated on learning names and trying to associate them with their respective faces, though it would take her a while to remember them all, she supposed. She had a word with each of the
servants. When they came to the end of the line and her husband reached for her elbow again, she turned toward the butler and asked him to perform the same duty for the menservants.

Finally she allowed herself to be steered toward the doorway and the grand staircase. Mrs. Keach went ahead of them.

“You will show her ladyship to her apartment, Mrs. Keach?” her husband said. “And make sure while she freshens up that someone waits outside to show her the way to the drawing room for tea when she is ready.”

“Yes, my lord,” the housekeeper murmured.

“I shall see you in a short while, then, my love,” he said, bowing over her hand as he relinquished it. He was looking amused again.

Her apartments, consisting of a bedchamber, a dressing room, and a sitting room, would probably hold her cottage twice over, she thought over the next half hour. The thought somewhat amused her. And also the memory of Toby's trotting footsteps as he inspected the lines of servants with her. Her husband had scooped him up before he could follow her upstairs to her rooms. He was stretched out on the carpet before the fireplace when she entered the drawing room later but jumped up to meet her with a wildly wagging tail.

“Toby.” She stooped to pat him. “Is this all very strange to you? You will get used to it.”

“As will you,” a voice said from her right. He was standing by a window, though he came toward her and indicated the tea tray, which had been brought already.

She sat behind it to pour the tea. It was a beautiful room, she
saw at a glance, with a coved and painted ceiling, a marble fireplace, and paintings in gilded frames on the walls. She guessed that most of them were family portraits. She was beginning to feel somewhat overwhelmed.

Her husband took his cup and saucer from her hands and sat down opposite her. “You really did not have to inspect the lines, you know,” he said. “You certainly were not expected to speak to every servant. But they were all charmed beyond words. You now have a houseful of slaves rather than servants, Catherine.”

“What is so funny?” she asked him, on her dignity. He was not looking just amused. He was actually grinning.

“You are,” he said. “You look rather like a child's top, wound up and ready to start wildly spinning. You may relax. There has been no woman in this house since my mother died eight years ago. Everything runs perfectly, as you can see. Very little will be required of you. A mere token approval of the plans and menus Mrs. Keach will bring you.”

Ah, she understood. He thought she was incapable of running a household larger than the one she had had—or not had—at her cottage.

“You are the one who may relax,
my lord
,” she said, emphasizing his title since it was one little way she could always be sure of annoying him. She was feeling mortally insulted. “The household will continue to run smoothly for your comfort. I will speak with Mrs. Keach in the morning and together we will come to an amicable agreement about how the house is to be managed now that it has a mistress again.”

She enjoyed watching the smile being wiped clean from his
face. But it was back soon enough, lurking behind his eyes as he regarded her in silence. He sipped on his tea.

“Catherine,” he said, “one of these days you are going to tell me who you are, you know. You are not at all daunted by all this, are you?”

“Not at all,” she said crisply. She had been wishing for a long time that she had told him everything that day she had given him her real name. There was really no reason why he should not have known. It was not as if she had been trying to prevent his crying off. She had hoped at the time that he
would
cry off. But now it was difficult to tell him.

“Catherine.” He had finished his tea and set down the cup and saucer on the table at his elbow. He shook his head and held up a staying hand when she picked up the teapot again. He looked at her in silence for a few moments and she thought he had nothing more to say. But he did. “Who is Bruce?”

Everything inside her seemed to turn over. She seemed to have been robbed of air. “Bruce?” Even her voice seemed to come from a distance.

“Bruce,” he repeated. “Who is he?”

How had he found out? How did he know that name?

“I have discovered,” he said, “that at least occasionally you talk in your sleep.”

She had started to dream about him again. About holding him and watching him just fade away into nothingness as she held him in her arms. She supposed it had been brought on by the fierce and unexpected desire for another child that had come with
her marriage. Though there appeared to be no real chance of its happening anytime soon.

“I believe,” he said, and the coldness and arrogance she had seen in him on their first acquaintance were there again, “he is someone you once loved?”

“Yes.” The word was no more than a whisper. She should tell him now. Obviously he thought Bruce to be a man. But she could not tell him. How could she tell this cold stranger about the dearest love of her heart? She felt her vision blur and realized in some humiliation that her eyes had filled with tears.

“I cannot command your past affections,” he said. “Only your present and future ones. Though I am not sure I can ever command your
affection
. Your loyalty, then. I do command it, Catherine. I suppose a past love cannot be forgotten at will, but you must understand that it is in the past, that I will not countenance any pining for what is gone.”

She hated him then. With a cold, intense passion.

“You are an evil man,” she hissed at him. Part of her knew she was being unfair to him, that he had misunderstood, that she should explain to him. But she was too deeply hurt to be fair. “I have married you because you left me with no choice. You will have my loyalty and my fidelity for the rest of my life, for what they are worth. Do not expect my heart too, my lord. My heart—every shadow and corner of it—belongs to Bruce and always will.”

She got to her feet and hurried from the room. Oh, yes, she was being dreadfully unfair, she knew. She did not care. If he thought to play the heavy-handed lord and master with her, then she would fight him with every weapon at her disposal, even
unfairness. She half expected that he would come after her, but he did not. Toby was woofing excitedly at her heels, though. She hoped, as she hurried toward the staircase, that she could remember the way to her apartments.

T
HERE
was a pianoforte in the drawing room that had not been played much in ten years, though it had always been kept in tune. He asked her to play it after dinner and she did so without argument and stayed there for longer than an hour. Probably, he thought, she was as relieved as he to have something to do that took away the necessity of making conversation. Though they had done remarkably well at dinner. It seemed that they could be good companions when they steered clear of personal matters.

He sat and watched her as she played. She was wearing a pale blue evening gown, neither fussy nor fashionable nor new. Her hair was dressed in its usual knot at the nape of her neck, even though he had made sure that a maid had been assigned to her to assist in her dressing. She looked very typically Catherine. She
played self-consciously, though correctly, at first. Soon she lost herself in her music as she had in Claude's music room that morning long ago—it seemed long ago. Beauty and passion came from the pianoforte and filled the room. It seemed almost impossible that one slim woman could be producing it. She could easily play professionally, he thought.

It felt strange to have her here at Stratton with him. She had obsessed him for those weeks at Bodley, the lovely and alluring—and elusive—Mrs. Winters. He had burned for her. He had schemed to win her. He had refused to take no for an answer. And now here she was with him in his house, his wife, his viscountess.

Even stranger was the fact that he felt a moment of triumph, almost of exultation. There was no triumph in what had happened. And no reason to exult. Their marriage was a mess, a nonevent. She loved and would always love a man named Bruce. He had even found himself racking his brains for any acquaintance of his with that name. But there was no one. Not even a corner or a shadow—how had she put it exactly? He frowned in thought. . . .

My heart—every shadow and corner of it—belongs to Bruce and always will.

And she had begun that impassioned speech by calling him an evil man. All because he had tried to establish a few ground rules with her, advising her that the past must be dismissed from her mind and the present take its place. What was evil about that?

She should have left him angry when she rushed from the room—and she did. She had also left him feeling shaken and
bruised. Hurt. Though he was reluctant to concede that she had the power to hurt him.

Toby, who had been standing beside the pianoforte bench for a few minutes, slowly wagging his tail, had decided that there must be an easier way to attract his mistress's attention. He leapt onto the bench and nudged her elbow with his nose.

“Toby.” She stopped playing and laughed. “Do you have no respect for Mozart? You are not accustomed to this sort of competition, are you? I suppose you need to go outside.”

Viscount Rawleigh got to his feet and strolled across the room toward them. She looked up at him, her eyes still laughing. He found himself changing plans abruptly. He had been about to inform her that there were footmen enough to take her dog outside whenever he needed to go, that it did not behoove the dignity of the Viscountess Rawleigh to be at the beck and call of a spoiled terrier.

“Maybe we could take a walk outside,” he said. “I wonder if the evening is as pleasant as the day has been.” What he was really wondering was how soon he was going to become the laughingstock among his servants. Belatedly he asserted his authority, his voice stern. “Get down from there, sir. The furniture in your new home is for viewing from floor level. Understood?”

But Toby was already prancing about his heels and yipping with excitement. And Catherine was laughing again. “You mentioned the W-word in his hearing,” she said. “It was not wise.”

He frowned down at the dog. “Sit!” he said curtly.

Toby sat and gazed at him with fixed, anticipatory stare.

“It must be your military background.” She was still laughing. “He will never do that for me.”

They were out on the terrace a few minutes later. She took his arm and they strolled all about the house while she examined it with interested eyes and looked about the park. It was a clear, moonlit night and not cold at all. Toby was dashing across the lawns, snuffling all around the trunks of the trees, acquainting himself with his new territory.

It would be bedtime by the time they went inside, he thought. Their first night home. The night that would set the pattern for all future nights, in all likelihood. Would he spend it in his own bed? By doing so he would be setting a precedent that would be hard to break. Was he willing to have such a marriage? A marriage in name alone?

It was ridiculous even to contemplate such a thing. She was his wife. He had desired her from his first sight of her. He had needs even apart from his attraction to her. Why should he go elsewhere to satisfy those needs? Besides, he had what was perhaps a regrettable belief in fidelity within marriage. He certainly was not prepared to live a celibate existence. He was no monk.

And was he to be inconvenienced merely because she still loved a man from her past?

He stopped walking at one corner of the house, close to the rose arbor, which had been his mother's favorite part of the park.

“Catherine,” he asked her, “why did you cry?”

It was a foolish question to ask. He had not intended to begin this way. He would be just as happy to forget that night and its humiliation.

She stood facing him, looking up at him in the moonlight. God, but she was beautiful with her smooth dark hair, which looked more silver in this light, and her plain gray cloak. He could see from her eyes that she knew just exactly what he was talking about.

“For no particular reason,” she said. “I was— Everything was so new. I was a little overwhelmed. Sometimes emotion shows itself in strange ways.”

He was not sure that she spoke the truth. “You turned away from me,” he said.

“I—” She hunched her shoulders. “I did not mean to offend you. But I did.”

“Did I hurt you?” he asked. “Offend you? Disgust you?”

“No.” She frowned at him and opened her mouth as if to say more. But she closed it again. “No,” she said once more.

“Perhaps,” he said with unexpected and unwise bitterness, “you were comparing me—”

“No!”
She closed her eyes and swallowed then looked down at her hands. He saw her shudder. “No. There was no comparison whatsoever.”

Which, in light of what she had said in the drawing room at tea, was a marvelous compliment indeed. He felt like a gauche, uncertain boy again and resented the feeling. He had become accustomed to thinking of himself as a tolerably skilled lover. Certainly the women with whom he had lain in the past several years had appeared well satisfied with his performance. But of course she
loved
the other man. Perhaps sexual skills were of little importance when one loved elsewhere.

“I am not prepared to conduct a celibate marriage,” he said.

She looked up, startled. “Neither am I,” she said, and bit her lip. He wondered if she was blushing. It was impossible to tell in the moonlight. But her words were encouraging.

“If I come to your bed tonight,” he said, “will I be dismissed by tears again?”

“No,” she said.

He lifted a hand to smooth the backs of his fingers down one side of her jaw to the chin. “You know,” he said, “that I have always desired you.”

“Yes.” He felt her swallow.

“And I believe,” he said, “that though finer feelings are out of the question, you have desired me.”

“Yes.” It was a mere murmur of sound.

“We are married,” he said. “Neither of us wanted it but it happened. I will even take the blame upon myself. It was entirely my fault. But that is irrelevant now. We are married. Perhaps we can learn to rub along well enough together.”

“Yes,” she said.

“One thing.” He cupped her chin in his palm, holding her face up to his. But he knew it was unnecessary. She met his eyes as unflinchingly as she almost always did. “I cede your right to ‘my lord' me when you want to set my teeth on edge—it is an admirable weapon and it would be unfair to deprive you of it since we will undoubtedly do our share of quarreling down the years. But I have a hankering to hear my name on your lips. Say it, Catherine.”

She gazed back into his eyes. “Rex,” she said.

“Thank you.” It was quite unclear to him why the sound of his own name spoken in her voice should cause a lurching of his insides. He had been too many nights without her, he supposed.

He closed the distance between their mouths and kissed her. Her lips were soft and warm and parted. They trembled against his, almost as if he had never kissed her before and they had never lain together. He felt the familiar soaring of his temperature. He had never known another woman who could ignite him so effectively with a mere kiss.

“I do believe,” he said, lifting his head, still holding her chin, “we have given Toby sufficient time to stake out his claim to every tree in the park. Shall we go inside?”

She nodded. There was a look in her eyes that he recognized. She wanted it, he thought. She wanted him. He felt a rush of exultation, which for pride's sake he hid. He turned his head and whistled for Toby. The terrier came at a run.

She laughed, the sound a little shaky. “I am not sure I like the way he gives you instant obedience,” she said.

“Perhaps,” he said, looking at her sidelong as he offered his arm again and she took it, “unlike his mistress, he recognizes a master's voice.”

She chuckled but did not reply.

It was a good moment, he thought in surprise. He had teased her and she had laughed. It was a small, seemingly insignificant incident. To him it seemed that perhaps it was momentous.

•   •   •

IT
felt strange having a maid again. Marie was eager and anxious to please, though she must be somewhat surprised by the smallness and plainness of her mistress's wardrobe, Catherine thought. She had laid out the best of the nightgowns, the one Catherine had intended to wear on her wedding night.

She wore it now as she waited in her bedchamber for her husband to come. For Rex—she must begin using his name, even in her thoughts. He was right. They were married now, for better or worse. They could only try to make the best of it, try to rub along together, as he had put it.

It was a splendid room, with elegant furniture and a soft carpet underfoot. The bed was very grand, with finely carved bedposts and silk bed hangings and canopy. They would be lying there soon. . . .

She swallowed. She wanted it very badly. She was almost ashamed of her eagerness when she remembered how she had hated him just a few hours earlier for the autocratic commands with which he had tried to control her. But it was an eagerness she must cultivate. There was no point in trying to quell what might well be the only good aspect of their marriage. They desired each other—that had been established beyond doubt outside less than an hour ago.

Tonight she must take his lovemaking for what it was worth and her own response too. She must not allow her essential aloneness to wash over her once the ecstasy was at an end. Perhaps after all she was not so very alone. Despite herself and almost unwillingly, she had admitted during the course of the evening that there were certain things about him that she might come to
like if she would allow herself to do so. She liked his intelligent conversation. Her mind had been unstimulated by anything except books for such a long time. She liked his direct, head-on approach to problems, though that had its drawbacks, like this afternoon when he had suddenly demanded out of nowhere to know who Bruce was.

Unexpectedly, she had liked laughing with him. She had not imagined that they would ever laugh together. But they had.

She liked his kindness to Toby, though she would never say so to him. She suspected that he considered it rather unmanly to be kind to a mere dog. She glanced fondly at Toby, who was stretched out before the fireplace, fast asleep. He had suggested when they first arrived that Toby might be more comfortable in the stables, but he had not argued when she had firmly refused.

How could she live without Toby? And how would Toby live without her?

She turned her head suddenly as a tap at her dressing-room door preceded its opening, and he came into her room. She had guessed earlier that the other door in her dressing room must connect with his. He was wearing a wine-colored dressing gown. He looked irresistibly attractive. She was glad suddenly that she was married to him and did not have to quell her desire for him. And she did not stop to remind herself that there ought to be more to marriage than this. For now this was enough.

He stopped and looked her over slowly from head to foot.

“How is it,” he asked her, “that you can make simple cotton appear more alluring than the finest lace, Catherine? You look beautiful with your hair down. No, scratch that. You look
beautiful with your hair up. With it down you look—is there a word more superlative than beautiful?”