The Ideal Wife (7 page)

He laced his fingers with hers, cleared his throat, and began speaking. His mother and his sisters had never ever been such a quiet audience. The only interruption during the next several minutes was caused by the arrival of the tea tray and his wife’s smiling but silent indication to the butler and footman that it be placed before her and the plates of cakes and scones handed around.

A
BIGAIL HAD TAKEN
granted that her mother-in-law and her sisters-in-law would be taking up residence at Grosvenor Square. But it appeared not. Lady Ripley had her own establishment in town, and Constance stayed with her there. Mr. Kelsey had rented a house for the Season and was to join Prudence and their two children there within a month.

“The only reason I brought the children visiting with me this afternoon,” she explained to Abigail before she left, “was that we are newly arrived and I thought Barbara would be frightened if I drove off without her. And if I were to bring Barbara, then it seemed only right to bring Terrence too.”

Prudence was the one who thawed most noticeably before taking her leave. She even kissed Abigail’s cheek and asked for the name of her modiste.

Constance was polite, though she protested to both the earl and her mother that she could not remember any Gardiners in the family.

“Yes, there were some,” her mother said unwillingly. “Though we never had any dealings with them, Constance.”

Lady Ripley herself accepted the inevitable with a cold graciousness. “This will appear like a ramshackle affair,” she said. “I must take you about with me, Abigail, and see to it that you are presented to the right people. It must seem that this match has my approval.”

“I hope it will not merely seem so,” Lord Severn said. “I hope our marriage will have your approval, Mama, once you have recovered from your shock.”

Abigail smiled determinedly. “When you see how I love Miles, ma’am, and how I will use every effort to make him comfortable,” she said, “then perhaps you will be less unhappy. It must be dreadful to lose a son to a stranger—and so suddenly. I am sure I would not wish it to happen to any of my sons.”

She blushed at the implications of what she had said. Her husband, who was holding her hand at the time in preparation for escorting their visitors to the door, squeezed it tightly.

“Well,” the earl said to her after the door had closed behind his mother and younger sister and they had ascended the stairs back to the drawing room, “that ordeal is over. You did very well indeed, Abby. I was proud of you.”

“They are used to running your life for you, aren’t they?” she said, and watched his rather shamefaced grin bring the dimple to his cheek. “But I think it will not happen any longer, Miles. You stood up to them beautifully and forced them to be quiet and listen to you. I am glad you decided to tell them the full truth instead of making up a more plausible-sounding story that they would have been bound to discover was a lie. I was afraid that you would say perhaps that we had met several weeks ago. But you had the courage to admit that it has been only three days.”

“I think it was you who said that,” he said, still grinning.

“Was it?” she said. “But I could see that that was what you wanted. Miles, you have spent the whole day with me. But you must not feel obliged always to do so. You must go out this evening if you wish. Do you belong to any of the clubs? I am sure you must. You would feel more comfortable spending an evening at one of them, would you not, and relaxing with your friends? I will be quite happy to find the library and take my embroidery there. I shall find a good book and not feel at all neglected.”

“What I would really like to do,” he said, “is spend the evening in the library with you, Abby. A nice quiet read sounds like the perfect way to relax. Will you mind my company?”

“What a foolish question,” she said. “This is your home, after all.”

“And yours,” he said.

And so they spent the evening together, exchanging scarcely a word once they had adjourned from the dining room to the library, which was all wood and leather and brandy bottles and masculine coziness. Abigail loved it.

She could not, after all, read, she found. Her brain was teeming too actively with all the new facts and events of her life. She had never been an avid needlewoman, though she had been forced to acquire a taste for embroidery when living with Mrs. Gill. The woman spent most of her days indoors and inactive.

But she enjoyed stitching that evening and looking about her at this most cozy room of her new home and at the sprawling and oblivious figure of her husband, his attention entirely focused on the large tome that was open on his lap.

She was beginning to feel less intimidated by his good looks. After two days and a night spent in his company, she was growing more familiar with him and more comfortable with him.

She was seated at her dressing table, brushing her hair, when he came through his own dressing room later that night. She was thankful that it was not the night before—very thankful. This night she could look forward to with some pleasure. She smiled at him and set down her brush and preceded him into her bedchamber. She lay down on her bed while he removed his dressing gown and blew out the candles.

“I think perhaps your mother and your sisters do not wholly dislike me,” she said. “They will get used to me, won’t they, once they have got over being vexed with you for marrying without consulting them and once they have recovered from their disappointment in not having a chance to help you choose a bride. That is what their plans were for this Season, weren’t they? That is what they were referring to?”

“Of course they did not dislike you,” he said, joining her on the bed and settling one arm beneath her shoulders. “Why should they? They do love me, after all, and you put on a splendid show of being deeply infatuated with me, Abby. You had me almost convinced. Are you less nervous tonight?”

“Oh, yes,” she said. “I was very foolish. It scarcely hurt at all, and even then only for a moment.” She lifted her hips so that he could raise her nightgown to her waist. “It was more the fear of pain than pain itself—the feeling of ‘Oh, oh, here we go—pain on the way,’ and then the realization that it was over already.”

He found her mouth in the darkness and kissed her. “I am glad,” he said. “Hurting you is the last thing I would wish to do, Abby.”

His hand had slid up beneath her nightgown and was fondling one breast. His thumb was rough against her nipple, his palm warm as it covered the hardened tip and made circular movements over it.

“That feels good, Miles.”

“Does it?” he said, moving his hand to perform the same magic on her other breast.

“And as for its being unpleasant,” she said, “that is so much nonsense. I heard it from wives when I was still living at home, and I heard it from Mrs. Gill and her friends. They would sit for hours conversing about their children and the miserliness of their husbands with money and of how very tedious and unpleasant
that
part of marriage was—always spoken with nodding heads and widened eyes and lowered voices and a significant emphasis on the
that.
One woman actually commented once that she pitied mistresses since they have to perform the duty ten times as often as wives. But she received such a look from the other women present that it is amazing she was not immediately transformed into an icicle.”

He was laughing softly against her mouth. “Abby!” he said, while his hand moved down between her thighs and his thumb found a part of her and rubbed lightly over it and sent that sharp ache shooting up into her throat again.

“Ah,” she said. She enjoyed the sensation for a few silent moments and parted her legs slightly to give room to his hand. “I think those women were silly. I don’t find it at all unpleasant, Miles, and certainly not tedious. And it is silly to call it a duty, like dusting the furniture or emptying the chamber pots.”

He was doing a great deal of laughing, she thought as he brought his weight over on top of her at last and she parted her legs for him, bending her knees and sliding up her feet to rest on the mattress on either side of his hips, lifting her own so that he could slip his hands beneath her.

“Do you have a mistress?” she asked a moment before gasping as he came into her.

“Why do you want to know?” he asked, his mouth against her ear.

“Just idle curiosity, I suppose,” she said. “Though perhaps more than that. I would not like the idea, Miles. And if it is just this that you go to her for, then I would prefer that you do it with me.”

“Would you?” he said, beginning to move in her as he had the night before and creating that growing physical excitement that had been the only disappointing part then because it had led nowhere and had forced her to spend several minutes after he was finished, imposing relaxation on her body. “Even if I wanted you several times during the day and several times during the night?”

She thought for a moment and almost lost the trend of her thoughts in the pleasure of what he was doing to her body, though he was moving slowly and without the depth that she had particularly enjoyed the night before.

“During the day?” she said. “Is it not embarrassing?”

“Because we would see each other?” he said. His voice sounded amused. “I don’t think either of us has a body we need feel ashamed of.”

“Well,” she said briskly, “I would rather a little embarrassment, I suppose, than the knowledge that you also did this with a mistress.”

“Abby,” he said, his mouth finding hers again, “I have no mistress, my dear, and have no intention of doing this with anyone but you for the rest of my life. Can we discuss the other possibilities you have brought up at some other time? I find it somewhat difficult to hold a conversation and make love at the same time. And if one of those activities has to go, I would prefer it to be the conversation.”

“And so would I,” she said.

She lay still and quiet with her eyes closed, enjoying the physical sensations of his lovemaking, hoping that it would not end for a long time, not at least until she had reached beyond the achings and yearnings that were quite out of her control.

But it did not happen. And perhaps it never would, she thought sadly, putting her arms about him as he lay still on her finally, the whole of his weight relaxed on top of her. Perhaps there was nothing else. Perhaps it was that fact that had soured those silly women in Mrs. Gill’s parlor.

But no. They had spoken with some disgust about the necessary but unwelcome male attentions that were a lamentable part of marriage. Not with regret and longing, but with disgust.

He moved away from her with a sigh of what sounded like satisfaction and drew her with him, onto her side, against his relaxed warmth.

At least, she thought, he was going to stay for a while. Perhaps if she remained very quiet and very still he would stay for a long while. Perhaps he would do it again.

“But you have had mistresses, haven’t you?” she said.

He sighed again. “I was not a virgin last night, Abby,” he said.

“I must seem very inexperienced and unsatisfactory,”she said.

“Inexperienced, perhaps,” he said. “But if you think I am not satisfied with you, Abby, you have not been paying attention. This is not to be a lengthy conversation, is it?”

“No,” she said, “not if you do not wish for it.”

“I don’t,” he said. “Something has made me tired. I cannot imagine what.”

“My tedious conversation, perhaps,” she said.

“Perhaps.” He laughed softly and pecked her on the nose with his teeth to take any sting from the word. “Go to sleep, Abby.”

“Yes,” she said. “I will.”

“I don’t have a mistress, I promise you,” he said. “And at the moment I have no hankering for one, either. None whatsoever. Now, will you sound less forlorn and go to sleep?”

“Yes,” she said. “I didn’t plan to say a word. I wanted you to fall asleep before you remembered that you should go back to your own bed.”

“Did you?” he said. “You would rather I slept here?”

“Yes,” she said.

“You are going to have to be quiet, then,” he said, “or I shall flee screaming to my own rooms.”

She chuckled.

“Go to sleep,” he said.

“Yes, my lord.”

She slept almost immediately.

7

W
ELL, THE SMUG BRIDEGROOM.” SIR Gerald Stapleton stopped in the doorway of the reading room at White’s, strolled inside, and peered over the top of the
Morning Post
at his friend. “You are looking very pleased with life, Miles.”

The Earl of Severn folded his paper and got to his feet. “Let’s find a room where we don’t have to strain our voices whispering,” he said. “And why should I not be feeling pleased with myself, Ger? A two-day bridegroom, the notice in this morning’s papers for all the world to see, and everyone eager to offer congratulations.”

He stopped to shake hands with a well-wisher to prove his point.

“And after two full days you have been driven to finding more congenial surroundings,” Sir Gerald said. “I must confess I was looking for you all day yesterday. I was obliged to go to the races with Appleby and Hendricks and to spend the evening with Philby and his crowd. You might have saved yourself the expense of the notices in the papers, Miles. I told everyone your sad story and they all commiserated.”

The earl chuckled. “The confirmed cynic,” he said. “I left Abby composing a letter to a relative in Bath and tickling her nose with the quill and ordering me from the room because she could not think with me there and finds the writing of letters difficult under the best of circumstances.”

His friend looked at him dubiously. “Oh,” he said. “And you left meekly, Miles—not only the room but also the house? Driven from your own dwelling after only two days? Not an auspicious beginning, old chap.”

Lord Severn laughed. “I was also excused from an outing to Bond Street later this morning,” he said. “One of Abby’s new dresses is ill-fitting and needs some alterations.”

“Doubtless you will be happy to be at some distance when she gives the dressmaker the length of her tongue,” the other said. “So, Miles, are you finding that your bride is exactly as you expected—quiet, demure, very ordinary, someone to be largely ignored, in short?”

“Do I detect a note of malice?” the earl asked. “You will be pleased to know, then, my friend, that Abby could probably talk nonstop from dawn to midnight without once running short of a topic or an opinion if no one insisted on having his say or if she did not occasionally notice that she is talking too much.”

“Ah,” Sir Gerald said. “I suspected as much on your wedding day, together with the fact that she is quite good-looking enough to cause you trouble if she so chooses. I am sorry, Miles. But you cannot say that I did not warn you.”

“No,” the earl said with a grin, “I cannot say that, Ger. She set Mama and the girls in their place quite magnificently yesterday.”

“Your mother?” Sir Gerald said, impressed.

“Told her to be seated and not to trouble herself about running my life,” the earl said, “now that I have a countess to take precedence over her.”

“She said that?” Sir Gerald sounded awed.

“Actually,” Lord Severn said with a laugh, “she told my mother to sit down while she rang for a pot of fresh tea. But the other was what she really meant. I think my wife has backbone after all, Ger.”

“In other words, she will be running your life just as the females in your family have always done,” his friend said gloomily. “You have jumped from the frying pan into the fire, Miles. And you continue to grin like an imbecile and look as if the world is your oyster—to mix metaphors quite atrociously. You will be a poor abject thing before the year is out. Mark my words.”

The earl threw back his head and laughed. “I think she will suit me, Ger,” he said. “I think she will. Despite the talkativeness, which has taken me by surprise, I must admit, there is a basic shyness, I believe, and an eagerness to please. I like her.”

“Eagerness to please?” Sir Gerald said. “Enough to compensate you for the loss of Jenny, Miles?”

“Now, that,” the earl said, raising one finger to summon a waiter, “is privileged information, Ger.”

“Did you know that Northcote and Farthingdale are fighting over Jenny?” Sir Gerald asked. “And that her price is going up and up? It is doubtful that Farthingdale can afford her anyway. Though he is more personable than Northcote, of course, and Jenny is quite discriminating.”

“How is Prissy?” the earl asked. “Still threatening to move back home to the country?”

“Some rejected swain wants her back,” his friend said, “even knowing what she has become. She should go, I keep telling her. She does not really suit the life of a courtesan. It’s time I found someone else anyway. A year is too long to spend with one mistress—makes them too possessive. How about a stroll to Tattersall’s this afternoon, Miles? I have my eye on some grays.”

“I have promised to take Abby driving in the park,” the earl said. “And before that I will be giving her waltzing lessons.”

His friend stared at him.

“She has never waltzed,” Lord Severn explained. “And Lady Trevor’s ball is this evening. I promised to teach her.”

“Good Lord,” Sir Gerald said. “I see the noose tightening with alarming speed, Miles. I strongly advise you to tell your good lady quite firmly that you are going to Tattersall’s. Better still, send a note.”

“You play the pianoforte,” the earl said. “You confessed as much to me in one rash moment, Ger. Come and play for us. Otherwise I will be reduced to singing a waltz tune. I don’t think Abby sings. At least, when I asked her, she dissolved into peals of laughter, had me laughing too, and never answered the question.”

“Don’t try dragging me into this cozy domestic arrangement you have,” Sir Gerald said with an exaggerated shudder. “If your wife wants to waltz, Miles, hire her a dancing master, and take yourself off about some more manly pursuit while the lessons are in progress. You’ll be sorry if you don’t, mark my words.”

“I knew you were a true friend,” the earl said, getting to his feet. “We will expect you at three, Ger?”

“I say,” his friend said.

“Don’t worry if you are a little early,” Lord Severn said. “My wife and I will both be at home.”

He grinned, turned to shake hands and exchange greetings with another pair of well-wishers, and made his way from the room and the club.

Gerald could be right, he thought as he made his way home. Abby was certainly not the quiet, timid creature he had taken her for on first acquaintance. Perhaps she would in time try to dominate him and he would have to exert himself to be master in his own house, as he had never done with Mama and the girls.

But he did not think so. Despite her talkativeness and her firm and clever handling of his mother the day before, he believed there was a certain innocence and basic shyness in Abby. And he had spoken the truth to Gerald: in two days she had shown an eagerness to please him, refusing to demand his company, entering wholeheartedly into the scheme to convince his mother that they had fallen deeply in love, wearing her hair as he liked it at night.

And she had made no protest against anything he had done to her in bed, claiming in that unexpectedly candid way that always had him laughing that she found it not at all unpleasant, though he had touched her more intimately than he had expected to be allowed to do with a wife and had prolonged his love-makings beyond the limits he would have expected her willing to endure. She had not complained about being taken a second time on both their wedding night and the night before. He had restrained himself at dawn that morning, when he had wanted her again.

She had even said that she wished him to sleep in her bed. He had plans for taking her into his own that night, making it a permanent arrangement. She could use her own room during the daytime when she needed rest.

Yes, he thought, he had unwittingly made the wisest move of his life when he had impulsively asked Miss Abigail Gardiner just four days before to marry him.

She was going to make his life comfortable, he suspected. And to hell with Gerald, who warned him differently. What did Gerald know about marriage, anyway?

A
BIGAIL HAD AN UNEXPECTED VISITOR
during the morning. Who would it be? she wondered as she hurried down the stairs to the yellow salon, where she herself had waited just four days before. Her mother-in-law or one of her sisters-in-law? But no, they would have come up. Laura? Mrs. Gill? Some stranger who had read the marriage announcement in the paper that morning?

She felt apprehensive. But when she stepped inside the salon and saw who her visitor was, she cried out in delight and went hurtling across the room.

“Boris!” she cried, hugging the tall, thin young man who stood where she had stood on a previous occasion. “Where have you been? I have not seen you in an age. How did you know I was here? Did you read the announcement of my marriage? What do you think of it? Were you ever so surprised in your life? I would have liked to tell you before the wedding, but I never know where you may be found. Have you come to congratulate me? How thin you are! You are not eating well, are you? Are things not going well for you? Have you—?”

“Abby,” he said, with a firmness of voice that seemed well accustomed to breaking into her monologues, “hush.”

“Yes,” she said, smoothing her hands over the lapels of his coat. “It is just that I am so very pleased to see you, Boris. Miles is from home. What a shame! I do so want you to meet him. He is our kinsman, you know. Did you know that the old earl was dead? Or did you think I had married a white-haired old man?”

“Abby,” he said, and she could see at last that he was not sharing her delight, “you did not come begging to him, did you?”

“Begging?” she said. “No. Not for money, anyway. Mrs. Gill dismissed me from my post, Boris, and would not supply me with a character. I thought the earl would give me a letter, he being our cousin and all. That is all. It was not really begging.”

“He is not our cousin,” he said. “Even the old earl was not, not really. The connection was very remote, and you know very well that he would not have acknowledged any connection at all with us, Abby. We have always been disreputable.”

“No,” she said, all the joy gone out of her morning. “Only Papa, Boris, and he could not help it.”

“Not to mention Rachel,” he said.

“Our stepmother?” She spread her hands before her and examined the backs of them. “Perhaps she had good cause too, Boris. Papa was not easy to live with.”

“We are off the point,” he said. “Why did he marry you, Abby?”

“He fell in love with me?” she said, looking at him inquiringly, eyebrows raised, willing him to believe her.

“Nonsense,” he said impatiently. “This is real life.”

“He needed a wife,” she said, “and wanted to marry before his mother and his sisters arrived to try to arrange a dazzling match for him. He wanted someone quiet and sensible and good-natured—those are his exact words. And so he asked me.”

“Quiet?” he said. “Sensible? Come on, Abby. Was he born yesterday? Did he tell you that he had an understanding with Lord Galloway’s daughter?”

“Who?” she said, frowning.

“The Honorable Miss Frances Meighan,” he said. “Reputed to be a rare beauty. A friend of the family. All the right connections and an enormous dowry. He didn’t tell you, did he? He married you out of pity, that’s what, Abby.”

“He did not,” she said indignantly. “That is not true, Boris. Men don’t marry women out of pity.”

“Why, then?” he asked.

“I don’t know why,” she said, “apart from what I have told you. Don’t spoil things, Boris. You always do that. Just when I am happy, you always come along and try to convince me that I am being unrealistic.”

His shoulders slumped suddenly. “I’m sorry, Abby,” he said. “You are happy with him, then? How long have you known him, for goodness’ sake? I have never had wind of it. Come and be hugged, then. Yes, I wish you happy, of course I do. Oh, of course I do, Ab.” He hugged her tightly. “You of all people should have an eternity of happiness. And of course you are right. He would not have married you out of pity. People just don’t do that. He has probably been wise enough to discover just what a gem you are.”

“He can help you,” she said eagerly, pulling away to look up into his face. “You are not doing well, are you, Boris? You really are very thin—and marvelously handsome. Are all the ladies swooning over you?”

“Oh, yes,” he said with the boyish grin she remembered from earlier days. “Women have a habit of swooning over penniless adventurers.”

“They do,” she said. “You never did understand women, Boris. “I am going to ask Miles—”

“No!” he said sharply. “Absolutely no, Abby. I am going to find my own way in life, do you hear me? I am going to pay off Papa’s debts if it is the last thing I do. And then I will find something to do with the rest of my life—without your help and without Severn’s help. If you try getting him to assist me, Ab, I will disappear entirely from your life and you will never see me again. Understand?”

She sighed and pushed a lock of fair hair back from his forehead. “I have just written to the girls’ Great-Aunt Edwina,” she said. “I am going to have them back, Boris. Miles said I might.”

“I’m glad,” he said, smiling fondly at her. “They belong with you, Abby, and you with them. I had better be on my way.”