My Naughty Minette (23 page)

“I’m sure you won’t,” he assured her. “Your playing has progressed so beautifully, and Josephine will love hearing you play. Your brother too.”

Warren stared at him with a deeply hateful gaze. He wanted to take Minette away now. “You needn’t decide right away, mopsy,” Warren said, turning to his sister. “We’ll be a few days yet, packing up at Park Street. But I daresay Josephine would find you a comfort. Once the baby is born, you can stay a while longer, or return to prepare for the season. With Barrymore House so recently in bereavement, I don’t think you’ll need to do much.”

“Goodness. It just seems...” Minette knit her fingers together, and looked back at August. “It seems so soon for you to be alone,” she said meaningfully.

August had shown her a side of him, a tortured, ragged side no one had ever seen. Rather than feel repulsed by him, as any wife ought to, she wished to protect him. August wanted to haul her against him and disappear inside her brightness. He wanted to sob like a child against her neck. But he didn’t, because he had to be strong.

“I’ll be perfectly fine, if you think it best to go with Josephine,” he said in a carefully steady voice. “I’ll visit when I can, and we can write one another letters, of course.”

If Warren glared at him any harder, he’d bore a hole right through his dinner coat.

If you don’t want to be friends
, thought August,
we won’t be friends.
He had expected this, eventually.

He was growing grievously comfortable with loss.

Minette lay in her childhood bed at Park Street, a place she really ought not to be. Warren and Josephine were leaving tomorrow for Warren Manor, and Minette along with them. Everything was packed and ready to go, but her heart was not prepared.

Her heart wanted to stay here with her husband.

Josephine lay beside her, absently rubbing her rounded belly. Warren had gone out, Minette knew not where. To bid farewell to his gentlemen friends, and settle his accounts in town. His farewell to her husband earlier that evening had been unreservedly icy. She shivered now, remembering it.

“Are you cold, dear?” Josephine pushed more of the blanket toward Minette. “No, you must take it. I’m hot as an oven these days. The baby keeps me nice and cozy.”

“I’m not cold.” Minette eyed her sister-in-law’s seven-month bump. “How does the baby keep you cozy?”

“I suppose it’s like cuddling, to have a baby inside you. We’re warmer when
we
cuddle, aren’t we?” She eased closer to Minette, then took her hand and spread it against her waist. “If you wait like this, you’ll feel the baby kick, or turn about. Warren talks to it sometimes in the evenings, and I swear the baby hears.”

“He ought to tell it to stop kicking you.”

Josephine laughed. “I like when it kicks me. I like to think it’s happy and healthy in there, and that everything will go well with the birth.”

Minette patted her bump gently. “I’m sure it will go well. And I shall care for you, and run to get you tea and cakes whenever you like, and keep the servants from tucking blankets around you if you’re hot. I’m so happy to go with you to Oxfordshire, and help you and Warren with whatever you need.”

Josephine gazed at her a moment, with far too astute a look. “You aren’t really happy though, are you?”

“Whatever do you mean?” Minette looked away, lest her sister-in-law see the bleak misery in her heart. “I am marvelously happy to stay with you during your confinement,” she said with manufactured conviction. “We shall become closer than ever. I’ve missed you, you know.”

“I’ve missed you too.” Josephine squeezed her hand. “But you don’t have to come if you don’t want to. I think you’re sad, darling. I think you want to stay here with August.”

“He’s Barrymore now,” she said glumly. “And there’s no reason for me to stay.”

“No reason? Why?”

Minette thought she felt a flutter of movement beneath her palm, but it may have been Josephine shifting position. How novel, to think a little niece or nephew was tucked so perfectly inside her friend. “Do you feel like it’s a boy or a girl?” she asked.

“Don’t change the subject, Minette. Why don’t you want to stay with August, or Barrymore, or whoever he is now? You still love him, don’t you?”

Minette caressed over Josephine’s belly. If only August wanted her, she might have her own baby in a year’s time. Their baby, his and hers, together in one blessed package. “I’m afraid it’s never to be,” she blurted out.

“What’s never to be?”

“A baby. A child of our marriage.”

“Oh, that takes time,” said Josephine. “Sometimes it happens quickly, but sometimes it takes months, even years to conceive.”

“No.” Minette could feel her cheeks going pink. She ought not to have said anything, but the confession poured out of her. “There can be no possible way for us to have a baby. August won’t touch me. Since that first night at the Townsends’ house party, we have not... He will not... I have tried, believe me,” she said at Josephine’s shocked look. “I’ve tried to entice him, but nothing works.”

“Oh, dear.” Josephine sat up a bit straighter. “Perhaps he’s only been preoccupied with his father’s illness.”

“Perhaps.” Minette left her friend’s side and sat on the edge of the bed, hoping Josie couldn’t see her blush in the dim candlelight. “I think the real problem is that he never wished to marry me. The sister thing, you know. He’s slept beside me only to prevent me sleepwalking, but he won’t touch me in any husbandly way. I thought his father’s death might bring us closer, but it hasn’t. It’s as if he’s withdrawn even farther into himself. I suppose the truth is that we’re not suited to one another, as much as I wished us to be.”

“Oh, darling, he loves you. I could see it in his face when he kissed you goodbye.”

“Perhaps he loves me in some honorable, necessary manner, but he doesn’t
want
me. I irritate him and cause him all sorts of difficulty.” She turned back to her friend with a rueful laugh. “When your husband has spanked you more times than he’s bedded you, it’s a terrible thing.”

“He shouldn’t be spanking you,” said Josephine with a frown. “You should demand a proper honeymoon. No callers, no duties, no clothing whatsoever. Nothing but long hours spent together in bed.”

Goodness, that sounded heavenly. Unfortunately, in their case, it was unlikely to happen. “Whenever I demand things,” she explained to Josephine, “it puts him in a peevish mood.”

“What about your peevish mood? If Warren went two months without...” Now Josephine was the one blushing. “Well, I think your husband’s been lamentably derelict in his duties. You are charming and beautiful, and sweet.”

“That’s the problem.” Minette stood and crossed to a low shelf, and opened a small trunk of her childhood keepsakes. “I think he would prefer some experienced woman of the world. He still thinks of me as a sweet young lady, too innocent to be besmirched.”

Josephine laughed. “You’re not innocent, no. Not since we browsed through Lord Townsend’s private literature.”

Minette’s shoulders slumped. “August spanked me for that too. I suppose if he doesn’t want a traditional sort of marriage, I’ll have to let it go.”

“Oh, Minette.”

“No, it’s all right. It’s better for my heart if I just stop trying. It’s become so painful.” She sorted through ribbons and dolls, and a set of bells Warren had given her one Christmas. “We ought to take these to Warren Manor for the baby,” she said, jingling them. “Your child should hear happy sounds when it’s born. I remember how Warren used to sing silly songs for me, and play whatever instruments were around. And, oh goodness, this old doll. Warren brought her to me when I was ten or so. I begged my nurse to help me dress her as a bride, so she might pretend to marry August. There’s a veil here somewhere...” She lifted a ragged fluff of lace and went still.

Beneath the scrap of lace lay a porcelain swan with a long, graceful neck. It was her French swan, ivory and pink and gold-flecked, with garish red lips. Her hero Lord August had gifted it to her, and oh, how she’d treasured it. How she had cared for it all these years, so it wouldn’t be chipped or broken.
And here I am, already singing a swan song, letting our relationship die.

“I can’t...” she murmured, touching the delicate, curving neck.

“What, darling?”

Minette straightened and turned back to Josephine, holding the precious thing against her breast. “I’m doing it again. I’m not trying hard enough.” She remembered so clearly when he had said that to her at the piano. It was one of her very worst faults. “I mustn’t give up so quickly on our marriage. I can’t sing my swan song already, when it’s only been a couple of months.”

“Your swan song?” Josephine looked perplexed. “What does that mean?”

Minette took to her feet. “It means I have to go back to Barrymore House right now and talk to August, and try again to make our marriage work. There has to be some way, if only I can find it. I have to keep trying to fix things until I do.” She sat beside Josephine with an apologetic look. “Oh, my dear, I’m so sorry. I know I promised to help you with the baby, but...”

Josephine touched the swan and gave Minette an encouraging smile. “I’ll have plenty of help with the baby. You’re absolutely right, dear sister. It’s too soon to resign your marriage to failure. You must go to your husband right this instant and show him that true love never gives up.”

*** *** ***

August sprawled in the front parlor, in the deep chair before the fireplace. He had an entire bottle of his father’s finest brandy beside him, but he couldn’t rouse himself to take a drink. He stared at the flames instead, thinking of his song for Minette. The notes came to him like all the other songs, in a persistent repetition, but instead of dark and heavy clamor, he heard phrases as light and lyrical as her soul. He heard her voice in the melody, the pleasing resonance of her chatter.

No, not chatter. He understood now that Minette didn’t chatter. Everything she said had meaning, at least to her. She used words to soothe, to explain, to calm, to soften difficulties and make people smile.

August thought he ought to hurl the bottle of brandy into the fire. His mind wanted to do it but his body waited, stiff and unmoving. He was half dead in this body. His fears paralyzed him.
I will hurt her. I will fail her. I’m not worthy of her.

I will become like my father one day.

“Come back to me.” He said it to no one. To the fire. To the air. He didn’t even really say it, only muttered it between numb, dead lips. For the thousandth time he tried to imagine himself as the husband he ought to be, cheerful and pleasant, with Minette smiling up at him in her vivacious way. She should not have become his wife. That Robert fellow, with the ginger hair, he would have made her a fine husband. Bancroft, Everett, any of the chaps who’d pined for her, they would have done better than him. Arlington, even. Arlington would have done everything properly and made Minette happy.

Come back to me. Out of all of them, I love you the most.

He fell asleep at some point, waking occasionally at a crackle from the fire. He hoped it would be easier to sleep without her in the bed. Folly. He could sleep better with some brandy. He turned to pour himself some and fumbled the glass, then thought better of things and put the bottle’s neck to his mouth. Rich flavor burned down his throat. His father’s brandy. His father’s glass, embossed with a
B
. He flung the horrid thing into the fire with a satisfying crash. People were starting to call him Barrymore already. He had to make peace with it. He wished to become one of those cold, emotionless aristocrats who never smiled, who never betrayed the least hint of feeling. He’d be hard and icy as frosted glass, so no one could ever shake him. He intended to become that unflappable person, at least in a day or two, when he was finished breaking down.

His father was gone, buried. Why did he still feel his ghost in the room? He saw a motion out of the corner of his eye and gave such a start he nearly dropped the brandy. He put the bottle down and lurched to his feet. No, not his father’s ghost, God save him. His wife stood in a black traveling gown with a box clutched to her chest. He felt disoriented, confused. He’d only had a swallow of brandy. She was supposed to be at Warren’s, wasn’t she, to leave for Oxfordshire in the morning? He had already kissed her goodbye.

“How did you get here?” he asked. “Are you sleepwalking?”

“No, Warren brought me.” She took a few steps closer. “He said he wouldn’t come in. He’s angry, I’m afraid. Not at you. Well, perhaps partly at you, but mostly at me, because it’s late and I made a big fuss and forced him to bring me here when he didn’t want to.”

“You’re...not...?” He swallowed hard. “You’re not leaving with them in the morning?”

“I know I ought to go for Josephine’s sake, but I can’t. I had to come back. I—I wanted to show you this.”

She crossed the room toward him, becoming more and more real with every step. Minette was back. His heart’s jubilation warred with dread.

When she stood before him, she pried open the box’s lid. “I found it in my old bedroom at Warren’s. I told you I still had it.” She gazed up at him with a hopeful, almost desperate look. He had created that desperation, just as surely as he’d given her the porcelain figure nestled in the tissue paper. She took the swan out and held it right up to his nose, as if he might not recognize it otherwise.

My God, she’d really kept it all this time.

“I found it in my little box of treasures.” He heard a wobble in her voice, a devastating note of misery. “I have loved you so long, August. I’ve loved you more than anything and anyone, except perhaps my brother. I’ve loved you more than my parents, because I never knew them. I loved you before I understood what love was, because there was something special about you.”

Tears welled in her eyes. He couldn’t bear to see them. “You ought to go back to your brother and Josephine,” he said roughly.

“I can’t. I love you. I never should have left.”

“You didn’t leave. I encouraged you to go.”