Eight Hunting Lyons (The Lyon’s Den Connected World)

Chapter Nine

I t was the scratchy lace at her neck that woke Madeline. Sitting up in bed, tugging at the lace-trimmed peignoir that had been part of her trousseau, she wished the garment to perdition. Outside her window, birds sang and chirped. Bees darted about, buzzing busily as they moved from flower to flower. The sun was bright and there was not a single cloud visible in the blue expanse of sky. In short, it was a perfectly glorious day as late spring hovered on the cusp of summer. But her mood did not reflect the beauty of the day. Far from it.

Perhaps it was the lack of sleep that made her irritable. Or it might have been her confusion. After all, she’d spent the first night of her marriage entirely alone. When she’d left the dining room after dinner, determined to return to her chambers and prepare herself for things she still had no notion of, she’d waited for hours. Seated first at her dressing table, then on the edge of her bed, and finally, she’d crawled beneath the covers as the candle on her bedside table burned down to little more than a nub. And her husband had never materialized.

She had thought that, based on what he’d said prior to their wedding, that theirs would be a real marriage. And perhaps it was nothing more than wishful thinking on her part, but she had believed that he found more appealing about her than simply the fortune she brought with her. But perhaps that was not the case. Did he revile her? Did he wish she were thinner or plumper or taller? Was there something about her appearance that displeased him? Something in the nature of her character that made her less than ideal for him as a bride?

Tears threatened. They burned behind her eyes and her throat ached from the efforts of holding back a sob. It was one thing to bear the indignity of her family’s disapproval for so long. In many ways, she’d grown numb to it. But for someone she barely knew to see so little of note in her, well, that stung her already battered pride.

She had been spared a terrible marriage to Edmund, a marriage where she would have lived under the rule of his vile and wretched mother and where he would have daily made her bear the brunt of his resentment because she was not Coraline. But had she only been spared that fate to find herself married to another man who detested her?

At that moment, Lucy entered the chamber. “Good morning, my lady. Your husband is downstairs for breakfast so I thought it a reasonable time to intrude.”

“What’s reasonable about it?”

Lucy blushed. “Well, I only meant that I knew I would not be interrupting.”

“There’s nothing to interrupt,” Madeline cried. “Lucy, why would my husband, on our wedding night, choose to sleep elsewhere? He never came to my bed, nor did he summon me to his. Have I made a terrible mistake?”

Lucy’s blush faded as her face paled. “Oh, my lady. I don’t know. I never—well, I don’t know why he wouldn’t have. Unless—I shouldn’t speak of it.”

“What? Lucy, you must tell me something! I fear I’ve made a terrible mistake. I’ve married a man who cannot abide me!”

“That isn’t the case at all,” Lucy insisted. “But there are men who cannot be husbands in the traditional sense. Perhaps the problem is not that he does not have the desire to be a true husband, but that perhaps he does not have the ability? There could have been some sort of injury or illness that has left him unable to do so!”

Madeline considered that. “Surely he would have said something prior to our marriage.”

“I don’t think so. Most men would be terribly embarrassed. Humiliated, even. Admitting such a thing would make them less than a man… you are beautiful and the kindest mistress any person could ever ask for. I cannot believe that it is lack of attraction, if you will, that kept him from your side.”

“Then how do you explain Edmund?”

Lucy grimaced. “He is stupid. Foul. Wretched and horrid. And your sister poisoned him against you for her own ends.”

Well, all of that was likely true. “I should confront him about it. I should simply ask, but I don’t—how does one ask such a thing? I don’t even know what it is that I’m speaking of!”

“What do you mean ‘you don’t know’? Your mother spoke to you of this,” the maid protested. “She ushered me right out of the room so she could discuss it with you.”

Madeline put her head in her hands. “But she didn’t discuss it. She just uttered vague nonsense that meant absolutely nothing. I asked Mrs. Dove-Lyon and she was certainly more reassuring about it, but she indicated that I should allow my husband to guide me in these matters and now it appears he either will not or cannot and I am to remain both ignorant and uncertain at all times!”

Lucy—perplexed, embarrassed and very uncomfortable—sat down on the bed next to her. It might have been a breach of etiquette, but as the maid’s arm came about her shoulders to comfort her, Madeline could only be grateful, even as hot tears burned her cheeks.

“There, there! It’s not so bad. There are things I know about being with a man and things I don’t. I’m not so innocent as you, my lady, but not so experienced as others. It can be quite nice at times, if it’s with the right sort of man,” Lucy confessed.

“You’ve—but you’re not married,” Madeline protested.

Lucy grinned slyly. “It’s different for working people, my lady. Most of us in service… well, we won’t get married. If we do, it’ll be quite a ways down the road. Takes money to marry, you know? To set up house and have a family. And, well, most of us aren’t inclined to wait that long to find out what it’s all about,” the maid explained. “Now, there’s always a bit of kissing to start. And I think, you can tell a lot about how the rest of it will go by how a man kisses you.”

“I’ve never been kissed… well, on the cheek. And the back of my hand,” Madeline admitted grudgingly.

“You mean Mr. Wortham never kissed you? Not in all the years you were engaged?” Lucy squawked.

“No. Not even once. I don’t think Edmund much cared for me. I think he much preferred Coraline’s more flirtatious behavior and her more obvious prettiness—”

“You mean her bosom. Which was always obscenely displayed no matter what I did to her necklines,” Lucy snapped. “That girl would have walked about Mayfair like a dairy cow if she could’ve gotten away with it!”

“Can we not discuss my sister?” Madeline asked with a shudder. “It makes my head ache.”

“Fine… as to your husband, and the consummation of your marriage, I’m certain that it will either happen at some point or he will tell you why it has not,” Lucy stated. “Until that time, maybe you could try luring him into a kiss. Once he kisses you, you’ll know.”

“Know what?” Madeline asked.

“If he’s not coming to your bed because he can’t or if it’s because he doesn’t want to,” Lucy stated. “Let’s get you ready for the day and then you can go find him.”

Brandy, and copious amounts of it, had not proved successful in distracting him from what a man ought to be doing on his wedding night. It was a sad state of affairs that a man in the prime of his life, with a lovely young bride, had spent his evening drinking and propagating roses. Not that he didn’t love his work. He was close to a breakthrough, after all. Still, it was something of a poor second.

He’d been grafting roses from one bush to another, then tinkering with soil composition and proximity to other plants. It was unpredictable, impossible to fully understand. And yet sometimes, nature, without any clear indication of cause on his part, would produce something truly extraordinary.

Thinking of extraordinary things in nature circled his thoughts back around to his bride, who had slept chaste and innocent in her bed the night before. He questioned exactly how Mrs. Dove-Lyon and the new Lady Foxmore qualified what being patient meant. Two nights? Three? A week? God help him, a month? What if there was no end in sight? What if he was simply supposed to wait for some enigmatic sign from the woman that she was suddenly ready to be his wife in actuality.

It was a quandary for Oliver. He’d never courted an innocent young woman and certainly never seduced one. In fact, thinking back upon his escapades with his former ladyloves, most of them had been his senior. Many had already possessed husbands who simply turned a blind eye as they had an heir and a spare. It hadn’t been his way to break up a happy marriage, but there were many society marriages where the parties involved had reached a mutual understanding. And married women were a safer prospect for a man like him, or like he had been—a younger son with no prospects.

The reality was that he’d never pursued a woman in his life because he simply hadn’t had to do so. While it had been grand at the time, now he felt it rather left him at a disadvantage. He sincerely doubted that the seduction of a sheltered young woman could be accomplished in the same way. For most men, and he wouldn’t be such a hypocrite as to not include himself with that lot, all it required was that the seducer be passably pretty and brazen enough to make her willingness known.

Mrs. Wilson entered the conservatory then. “My lord, Lady Foxmore is in the breakfast room. As you have not yet had your morning meal… or even slept, I thought I should alert you to the fact so that you might join her.”

“I see. Is that your way of telling me I’m being a bad husband, Willie?” he asked, reverting to the name he’d called her in his childhood. Maybe it was exhaustion. Or maybe he was still slightly inebriated.

“I couldn’t say, my lord. I’d be hard pressed to determine if there’s been enough husbandly-like behavior to make such a pronouncement.”

Scathing was the only word he could call to mind to describe her tone. He grinned in spite of himself. It had been some time since he’d been taken to task. “Believe it or not, Willie, I’m actually trying to be a good husband… Lady Foxmore is very sheltered. And, as we both know and you have often bemoaned, I am not. I’ve yet to determine the best way to go about wooing one’s wife. Do you have any advice on the matter?”

“I would never presume, my lord,” she stated primly.

Oliver laughed outright. “Willie! Of course, you would. And it’s hardly a presumption if I’ve asked for your advice.”

“To start, shave your face. You look like a dock worker,” she replied flatly. “And you can’t very well woo her if you’re not even in the same room as her. There’s a reason, my lord, that unmarried women are forbidden from being too much alone in the company of unmarried men. Nature, as well you know from your studies here, will take its course in due time.”

“Proximity,” he mused, looking at the plants he’d so carefully positioned side by side with the hope that one would assume the properties of another. “Send for my valet.”

“He’s waiting in your room, my lord. Likely beside himself because you’ve once more soiled your cuffs by digging in the dirt like a common farmer,” the housekeeper pointed out glibly.

“Willie, I asked you for advice about my wife… not about my wardrobe.” He tossed that volley over his shoulder as he left the conservatory and made his way toward his chamber. He’d get himself tidied up and proper and then find some way to spend at least a portion of the day in the company of his new bride.