The Ideal Wife (8 page)

“Stay to luncheon?” she said.

He shook his head and reached out to touch her cheek with one knuckle. “Mad, mad Abby,” he said.

“How long did you know him before you married him, anyway? You did not answer my question.”

“Two days,” she said. “It is four days now.”

He stared at her for a moment before chuckling softly.

“Well,” he said, “it is about time life started to turn around for you, Ab. I will just hope that this is it. I’ll see you again.”

She could not persuade him to change his mind about staying. She stood at the door a minute later, watching him striding down the street. And she raised a hand to brush a tear from her cheek.

N
OW WOULD COME
the main test, Abigail thought, taking a deep breath and resisting the urge to reach out a hand to cling to her husband’s sleeve. Now and this evening.

It was true that she was wearing another new outfit, a dress and pelisse of spring green and a straw bonnet trimmed with spring flowers that one would swear were real, though they were not. And true too that Miles had taken her by both hands before they left the house, squeezed them, and declared that she would cast all the other ladies in the park quite in the shade.

But bridegrooms were supposed to pay such lavish and foolish compliments to their new brides. The
ton
would doubtless see her as very plain and ordinary and wonder what on earth the very handsome Earl of Severn had seen in her to marry her, considering the fact that she was a nobody and had had nothing by way of a fortune to bring to the marriage.

The Earl of Severn was turning the heads of his horses through the gateway into Hyde Park, which was already crowded with horses, carriages, and pedestrians. It was right on the fashionable hour.

This was it, Abigail thought. The notice of their marriage had appeared in the papers that morning, and the
ton
must be agog to see Miles’s bride. The ladies must be all poised and ready with their spiteful tongues and their cats’ claws. And who could blame them? Miles had doubtless been the most eligible and the most desirable bachelor in London just four days before.

She would probably die of the ordeal ahead of her.

Her very best plan would be to remain quite silent and to smile and nod graciously at anyone to whom Miles chose to present her. That was what she would do, she decided.

“I feel like a performing bear tied to a post,” she said. “Very conspicuous and very much in danger of being torn limb from limb.”

“Do you?” The earl turned to smile down at her.

“We will just take one turn about, then, Abby, and go home again. But it will make things a little easier for you tonight if you are familiar with at least a few faces.”

“Sir Gerald Stapleton,” she said. “Your mother and your sisters. That sounds like plenty of faces, Miles. I really don’t think I dare try doing the waltz, do I? That is, assuming that anyone asks me, of course. But you will, won’t you? And with you I can do it, Miles. You have the remarkable ability to keep your feet from beneath mine. I did not tread on them more than three or four times, did I? And that was at the beginning, when we were both laughing so hard and Sir Gerald was playing so many wrong notes that we were not concentrating at all.”

“Staying away from your feet is called good leading, Abby,” he said. “Most gentlemen are quite skilled at it, I assure you. You need not be afraid.”

“Did you mind my inviting Sir Gerald to spend the summer at Severn Park?” she asked. “I realized as the words were coming from my mouth that I should have asked you first, Miles. But it seemed such a splendid idea for you to have a friend with you. If your mother and Constance come, with me that makes three ladies—not to mention Bea and Clara—and you all alone.”

“I did not mind,” he said. “I thought it a good idea, Abby, and was glad that it came from you. Here are Lord Beauchamp and his wife. Easy, dear. They are a friendly couple.”

They were. Abigail launched into speech after the introductions had been made and continued to talk and smile and laugh when Mr. Carton and Mr. Dyke and his sister, all on horseback, joined them. And when the Beauchamps finally drove away, after Lord Beauchamp had asked her to reserve a set for him at Lady Trevor’s ball, Lady Prothero and her two daughters stopped their carriage, and she chattered away to them too. And Sir Hedley Ward stopped to be presented and to exchange a few pleasantries, though he did not introduce the young lady on his arm.

“She must be his mistress,” Abigail said in a quiet aside to her husband as the couple walked away. “She is pretty, is she not?”

And she turned back to talk with the little crowd of people that had gathered around the curricle, and continued to converse with several others who stopped for varying lengths of time.

“I did say we would make one turn about the park, did I not, Abby?” her husband said at last, when there was a lull in the crowd. “I thought I was doing your shyness a favor, and expected that we would be on our way out through the gates ten or fifteen minutes after coming through them. That was more than an hour ago.”

“Everyone is very kind,” she said. “I have promised four sets for tonight. I am not going to be quite a wallflower after all.”

“Did you expect to be?” he asked.

“Oh, yes,” she said. “It is strange, Miles. I have driven here twice before with Mrs. Gill, when not a single person so much as turned a head to look our way. It is the clothes you have bought me, of course, and the fact that I am the new Countess of Severn. I am not so vain as to think that I have suddenly become a belle.Oh!”

“What is it?” he asked as she turned her head sharply to peer back through the crowd.

“Nothing,” she said, frowning. “I just thought I saw someone I knew, though I do not know who it was I thought I saw.”

“Shall we turn back that way?” he asked.

“No,” she said. “Will you mind if I invite Laura into the country for the summer too, Miles? I have been thinking about what you said, and you are quite right. I cannot offer her employment, though I suppose you could use your influence to find her something more suitable than what she has. But I could find her a husband, couldn’t I?”

He grinned at her. “You have someone picked out already?” he asked.

“Of course,” she said. “Sir Gerald Stapleton. I think he is handsome enough for Laura. She is very lovely.”

“Gerald has a horror of marriage,” he said, “and an incurable distrust of women. He thinks of leg shackles and mousetraps and such things whenever the subject is broached.”

“But Laura is very sweet,” she said. “If they are
together for the summer, he will change his tune. You mark my words.”

“Are you a matchmaker too, Abby?” he said.

“Too?” She looked up at him. “In addition to what?”

“In addition to caring about other people’s happiness,”he said. “You do care, don’t you?”

“Wanting to match one’s friends is part of it,” she said. “Don’t you think it a splendid idea, Miles?”

“Invite your friend, by all means,” he said. “But don’t start hearing wedding bells, Abby. Invite your brother too if you wish. I am sorry I was from home when he called. Did you get your letter written to your satisfaction this morning?”

“Yes,” she said. “The girls’ Great-Aunt Edwina will be glad to be rid of them. I do not foresee any problem. And I can scarce wait to have them back. It will be a good idea for them to come straight to Severn Park when we remove there, Miles, rather than come here, won’t it? You are going to be swamped with females, aren’t you?”

He smiled.

“I just hope our first child is a son,” she said.

He turned his head to look directly into her eyes, and she flushed painfully.

“Do you?” he said. “Just so that numbers will be stacked more in my favor, Abby? I hope our first child will be healthy. Will you welcome the experience?”

“Yes,” she said, acutely embarrassed and wishing that they had not already turned out through the gates onto the busy street beyond the park. She wished someone else would come along and interrupt their conversation. “I did something very impulsive this morning. I hope you will not be annoyed.”

“Did you?” he said. “Is that not unusual for you?”

“You sounded quite like Boris then,” she said. “He always likes to mock me.”

“What did you do, Abby?” he asked.

“I hired myself a personal maid,” she said. “I did not really need one because you provided me with one, though I do not think that Alice has any real ambitions to be a lady’s maid and I am sure Mrs. Williams will be quite willing for her to resume her former duties.”

“Abby?” he prompted.

“I don’t believe Madame Savard is a pleasant person to work for,” she said, “and if you will not mind very much, Miles, I will not patronize her anymore. She does make lovely clothes, but I don’t believe that employers who treat their employees with less than courtesy should be allowed to prosper. Do you?”

“No, I don’t,” he said. “What happened?”

“There is a seamstress there who is perhaps a little slow and a little clumsy,” Abigail said. “And she is very thin and very anxious-looking, Miles. I can well imagine what would become of her if she were ever dismissed. Madame Savard had the girl in tears this morning, blaming her because the bodice of my pink muslin dress did not fit quite perfectly. Though I did not go in there to accuse anyone or be angry with anyone, just to have the adjustments made. And I do not think it kind to reduce an employee to tears in front of a customer, do you?”

“You have hired the girl?” he asked.

“You guessed?” she said. “Yes, I did, Miles. When Madame turned away to talk with another customer and we were left alone for a few moments, I asked Ellen—her name is Ellen—if she would like to come and work for me. And her eyes lit up, Miles. She is going to work out a week’s notice and then come. Are you angry with me?”

“I have the feeling,” he said, “that I had better not take you into the poorer quarters of London, Abby, unless I have you in a closed carriage with all the curtains drawn. I might find my home bulging at the seams with waifs and strays.”

“You
are
angry,” she said.

“On the contrary.” He smiled at her. “Are you sure this girl can do your hair and perform all the other duties of a lady’s maid?”

“I have never had a maid,” she said. “I am very used to doing for myself, Miles. If I do not like the way she does my hair, I shall wait until she has left the room, not to hurt her feelings, and do it again the way I like it. Nothing could be simpler.”

The Earl of Severn threw back his head in the middle of a busy street and roared with laughter. “Abby,” he said, “where have you been all my life? I don’t think I ever laughed until four days ago—or perhaps three. You were very demure on that first day.”

“Well,” she said stiffly, not knowing whether to be hurt or to join him in his laughter, “I am glad I amuse you, Miles, I am sure.”

She joined in his laughter.

8

T
HE EARL OF SEVERN WAS FEELING amused. He seemed to have misjudged his wife on every count, and the realization might have alarmed him, given the fact that he had married her two days after meeting her and drawing all the wrong conclusions about her. But he was not alarmed. He was amused.

For one thing, he thought after he had tapped on the door of her dressing room the evening of the ball and let himself in, she was not plain. She was wearing the evening gown that had been his favorite from the start, even before it had been made. The underdress of pale green silk glimmered through the overdress of white Brussels lace. The gown was low at the bosom, revealing the tops of her firm breasts. Her long gloves and her slippers matched the underdress. Her maid had dressed her hair becomingly in a style similar to that she had worn on their wedding day. The color was high in her cheeks and her eyes sparkled.

No, she was not plain. She was not beautiful either, of course, not in the way that Frances, for example, was beautiful. She was perhaps something better. For while he found Frances beautiful yet unappealing, he could see that all of Abigail’s loveliness came from within. She was clearly enjoying the occasion even before they left the house.

And she was not timid and shrinking, as he had rather expected her to be. Or at all shy, for that matter, though he had clung to the belief that she was for a few days. She could be nervous, and became highly voluble when she was, but once into a situation, she appeared to be thoroughly at ease. He smiled at the memory of the way she had held court in Hyde Park that afternoon for a whole hour, with almost no assistance from him.

He was not even sure he could cling to the hope that she was sensible. He thought of her plans for Gerald and of her hiring herself a maid when she did not even know if the girl could dress hair, and had to make an effort to repress a grin.

He should feel alarm. It was becoming increasingly obvious that she was nothing even remotely like the ideal wife he had described to Gerald less than a week before.

“I think I look quite gloriously splendid,” she said to him, twirling before the full-length pier glass. “And I am determined to enjoy admiring myself while I may. I am quite sure that as soon as we set foot inside Lady Trevor’s house and I see all the other ladies, my vanity will be instantly deflated.” She laughed merrily.

Alice curtsied and left the room quietly.

“You will be the belle of the ball,” he said. “You look very lovely.”

“Thank you, sir,” she said, curtsying deeply, “but you lie through your teeth. Oh, you match me, Miles. You are all silver and green. Did it take you forever to tie your neckcloth that way?”

“I have a valet,” he said, “who fancies himself an artist. Turn around.”

“Like this?” she said, turning her back on him and extending her arms to the sides.

“Like that,” he said. He reached into the pocket of his satin evening coat and drew out the diamond necklace he had bought that morning before returning home. He placed it about her neck and secured it. “A wedding present, Abby.” He kissed her just below the clasp of the necklace.

“Oh,” she said, fingering it and turning to look in a mirror. “Oh, it is beautiful. You bought it for me, Miles? As a wedding present?” She whirled about to look at him. “But I have nothing for you.”

He smiled at her. “One does not give gifts in order to
receive something in return,” he said. “I wanted to buy you something.”

“Thank you,” she said, and her eyes were suspiciously bright for a moment. “No one has bought me a present for years.” She hesitated, took one step forward, threw her arms up about his neck, and kissed him hard on the lips. “And now I will be squashing you and earning the eternal enmity of your valet. I was wondering what to wear to fill the bare expanse between my chin and my bos . . .” She flushed. “I was wondering what to wear and realizing that I had only one choice—Mama’s old pearls, which are not real pearls at all, though they are a quite convincing imitation, and are too heavy and too long for this gown. Or nothing at all. No jewelry, that is. But now I have these. They are gorgeous, Miles. They must have cost you the earth.”

“The earth and half a star,” he said. “Shall we go?”

“If my stomach would just turn itself the right way up again,” she said, “and the bones return to my knees. I have never been so frightened in my life.”

“You, frightened?” he said, smiling. “Is it possible?”

“It is,” she said. “But I lied. I have been more frightened before—when I came to call on you that first time, though I was expecting the old earl, of course. I would have died outright if I had known it was you I must face. I thought you were his secretary at first. And on our wedding day. And when I had to walk into the drawing room alone to meet your mother and your sisters.”

He laughed and offered her his arm. “Let’s see you through one more ordeal, then,” he said. “Soon you will have faced all the terrors that life has to offer, Abby, and there will be nothing left to do but enjoy what remains of it.”

“There will be at least one more to face,” she said. “I once had to watch a woman suffer through labor pains and give birth.”

The earl looked down at her as she stopped talking abruptly. She was deeply flushed. Even her neck and bosom were rosy. He grinned at her, though she did not turn her head to note his expression.

And if she was frightened, he thought, then he was feeling decidedly nervous himself. Foolishly he had forgotten when he had accepted his invitation to Lady Trevor’s ball that she was Frances’s aunt. And as luck would have it, Frances had arrived in town in time for the event and it had suddenly been transformed into her come-out ball.

Nothing could be less fortunate or more awkward:Frances and Abigail making their debut into society on the same evening and at the same event.

He had called on Lord Galloway that morning. Lady Galloway and Frances had been nowhere in sight. But Lord Galloway had known about his marriage and was very civil in his congratulations. Nothing had been said about any imagined arrangement with Frances. Perhaps it was all in his mother’s head, he thought hopefully.

But the evening was not one he greatly looked forward to, despite his eagerness to show Abigail off to the
ton.

He turned his head to watch her as they descended the stairs and Watson opened the front door. Yes, he thought as she smiled at the butler and thanked him, she was very different indeed from the demure, sensible, rather dull young lady he had taken her for just four days before. He had married her for all the qualities she appeared not to have.

He supposed he should be sorry, to say the least. Perhaps he would be, in time. He had not wanted a prattler or a manager of a woman who would force her way into the very forefront of his life. Abigail appeared to be all three.

And yet he was not sorry. Not yet, at least.

He even thought he was beginning to be a little in love with his wife.

A
BIGAIL HAD NOT LIED
about boneless knees and a stomach that stood on its head. What she had not realized until they had entered Lady Trevor’s hallway and climbed the stairs and passed the receiving line and were standing inside the ballroom was that her hands would also be cold and vibrating and her head swimming and her heart thumping.

And though she had known that everyone would be curious to see the bride of such an illustrious personage as the Earl of Severn, she had not expected to be quite such a focus of attention. It seemed—and she was sure she did not imagine it—that every eye and quizzing glass and lorgnette in the room was directed their way and that the buzz of conversation was buzzing more energetically after they had stepped inside the doors.

It did not seem right when a young lady was making her come-out that evening and had a right to expect to be the center of attention. Of course, the young lady in question was still in the receiving line. Perhaps the situation would change when she arrived in the ballroom to lead the opening set.

The young lady was the Honorable Miss Frances Meighan, she thought with another lurching of the stomach. An extremely beautiful young lady, who was wearing a white lace and satin gown that was far more becoming to her blond and fragile beauty than was Abigail’s own. Miles had taken her hand in both of his and raised it to his lips. Miss Meighan had looked at her as if she were a worm that had dared to wriggle into the house.

She would not think of it. Miles had married her quite freely. And of course men did not marry women out of pity. Not when they could far more easily give a letter of recommendation.

“Don’t remove your arm for at least another five minutes, please, Miles,” she begged, her jaw feeling stiff from the effort it was taking her to stop her teeth from clacking together. “If you do, I shall collapse in a heap on the floor.” His arm felt reassuringly solid and steady beneath her hand.

He smiled at her, showing his very white teeth and his dimple, his blue eyes crinkling at the corners, and she could almost feel all those eyes and quizzing glasses and lorgnettes swiveling from her face to his.

“And yet you seemed so very much at your ease as you talked your way along the receiving line,” he said. “Here come Gerald and Pepperidge. You will feel better once you have someone other than just me to talk with.”

She did. She chattered happily with Mr. Pepperidge after Sir Gerald had reserved the second set with her—he would dance once, he said, before taking himself off to the card room for the rest of the evening. He definitely needed Laura’s touch, Abigail decided, and stored the thought for future planning. And Lord and Lady Beauchamp came to exchange pleasantries and brought with them Lady Beauchamp’s young sister and brother-in-law, the Earl and Countess of Chartleigh. The countess appeared as eager to converse as Abigail herself.

Abigail was surprised to find after a very few minutes that her arm was no longer resting on her husband’s but that she was still on her feet nevertheless. He was standing a few feet away from her, talking with Sir Gerald and another young man.

“Sorenson has brought Mrs. Harper with him, I see,” Sir Gerald was saying, looking across the ballroom, his quizzing glass to his eye. “Lady Trevor must have turned purple when she saw her. Not quite good
ton
to bring her to a gathering like this, is it?”

“Then Lady Trevor ought not to have invited Sorenson,” the unknown young man said. “He takes her everywhere these days.”

The earl caught his wife’s eye and winked at her.

Abigail followed the direction of Sir Gerald’s look, but the ballroom was already crowded and several couples were promenading about the room. For a moment she had that same strange sensation of having spotted someone familiar that she had had that afternoon, but her attention was diverted to Lady Beauchamp, who was flushing and looking uncomfortable.

“Georgie!” she said to her sister, reproach in her voice.

“Did I say something wrong?” the countess asked. “But there is only Lady Severn to hear, Vera—or did you imagine that I had not told Ralph yet? And I am sure Lady Severn will not have a fit of the vapors to know that you are increasing and that I am wondering if you will be dancing the more strenuous sets.”

Lord Beauchamp was grinning, and had set one arm loosely about his wife’s waist. “I warned you not to tell Georgie until the evidence was staring her in the face, Vera,” he said. “Though why you should be embarrassed, I have no idea, unless you are afraid that people will be imagining the process by which you have come by this state.”

“Roger!” his wife said while he laughed down at her. “I am so sorry, Lady Severn. If my sister and my husband do not drive me to an early grave, perhaps I will live to a ripe old age.”

“I envy you,” Abigail said, smiling reassuringly at the baroness. “I hope to be in the same state myself before many months are past.”

Her husband’s hand was at her waist, she felt as she was speaking.

Lord Beauchamp chuckled. “Now, there is a challenge for you to take up, Severn,” he said. “Ah, the dancing is about to begin at last. Vera, my love?”

“Abby?” The earl was smiling at her. “It is a quadrille, not a waltz, so you can put away that look of blank terror for a while.”

Abigail laughed. It felt very splendid, she thought, to be led into the opening set by the gentleman who was not only her husband but also without a doubt the most gorgeously handsome man in the room. Her own claim to great splendor had already been relinquished to fifty other women, but she would continue to bask in the glory of being Miles’s wife.

After a few minutes of dancing, she was caught again by that feeling of familiarity about someone across the ballroom. She turned her head sharply and looked again.

It was a woman—a woman with black hair and a daringly low-cut red gown that clung to her generous curves just as if it had been dampened. And undoubtedly it had been—Abigail had heard that several bold ladies did that.

Her hair had been a light brown when Abigail had known her, and her figure had not appeared quite so generous. But her identity was unmistakable. She was laughing up at a dark-haired, heavyset gentleman, her dancing partner, apparently enjoying herself greatly. She had not often looked happy when Abigail had known her. Not toward the end, anyway.