Chapter 7
Dear Ben,
I fear my eyesight is failing me. For I thought your latest missive revealed you were to be married, and no matter how many times I stare at the page to rectify my misunderstanding, I cannot make your words say otherwise.
Which cannot be correct. When you left London, you gave no indication you were so much as considering a courtship, let alone something more.
Timothy has an ague, which is the only reason I have not yet boarded a coach bound for Wiltshire so I can gain some insight into what, exactly, is going on.
There’s clearly much you haven’t told me, and I think we should have a discussion before you do anything rash.
Please write to me at your earliest convenience—actually, hang convenience.
Write to me immediately and tell me what in blazes has transpired.
Your loving (but utterly perplexed) mother
Ben sank into his desk-side chair, running the letter between his fingertips.
Trying to reconcile himself with the fact that, despite his mother’s entreaties, he was now a married man.
How in hell would he pen a satisfactory reply explaining that the wedding had already taken place? Frankly, he hadn’t a clue.
He cast the letter aside, squeezing his eyes closed and drumming his fingers against the desktop. It was difficult to find the right words when, truth be told, his status as husband had yet to feel real.
When he discovered this morning that the rustling in the adjoining bedchamber came from chambermaids preparing a room for his wife, he’d felt as though he were a guest looking in on someone else’s home.
When he’d first encountered Violet at the church—covered in lace and flowers, with golden spirals framing her face—and watched her walk to the altar, he’d felt like he was viewing a pantomime rather than living out a pivotal moment.
When he’d spoken his vows, the voice seemed to come from somewhere other than his own throat, and the feminine replies had echoed as if from far away.
Hours had passed, twilight fallen, and the house had grown so quiet he could almost think himself the only person in it. As if he, and not his young brother Timothy, were the one with the ague, and delirium had caused him to imagine the day’s events.
Yes, he could almost think that. Almost, except for the little details that kept springing up in his memory, too vivid to be false.
The deep purple of the irises in her hair.
The coolness of the gold wedding band, the warmth of her skin as he’d slipped it onto her finger.
The scratch of the quill as she’d signed the register. All proof he had a wife.
A wife who’d ridden home with him in the landau in near silence, taken a tour with the housekeeper, and retreated to her bedchamber, declining the need for dinner. Even though she’d consumed little besides champagne during the wedding breakfast at Meadowleigh.
For that matter, Ben had been disinclined to eat much at the breakfast either, despite the food being well-prepared and plentiful, and he’d requested nothing since beyond a strong cup of tea and dry toast. His throat was gravelly, his stomach unsettled.
A natural reaction, he supposed, when one had the sense of drifting deeper into the ocean in a rowboat with no paddle.
He didn’t know what he was doing here. What the eventual outcome of his time at Aldercombe would be.
What he wanted from the future. And if he didn’t know his own place in the world, how was he to offer a happy, prosperous future to another?
Especially to a woman who’d dreamed of marrying elsewhere.
He opened his eyes to relieve the tension in his brow and pushed his spectacles up his nose. He’d had little success concentrating on ledgers and agricultural pamphlets over the past week, or even the novels he typically enjoyed, but he may as well try again.
He selected one of the lengthier books on his desk, an in-depth tome about farming, and flipped it open at random, attempting to focus on the words within. Turnip crops … strong soils … fermentation …
“What are you reading?” The sharp voice wrenched his attention away from the page, and he looked up to find Violet hovering near the other side of the desk, studying him intently.
She’d changed from her wedding gown to her nightclothes and removed all the adornments from her hair. For the first time since he’d met her, she wore no color, only white. Yet that only made her golden hair shine brighter in the candlelight and her eyes seem even purer a blue.
“A farming manual,” he supplied after clearing his throat, although his words came out more like a question than a statement. Did he imagine things, or had her query held an accusatory ring?
“May I see?” Without waiting for his reply, she scurried around to his side of the desk, leaning over his shoulder to peer at the text. He watched her lips part and brows rise. “The Treating of Dunghills.” Her nose wrinkled, and she quickly took a step back. “Fascinating.”
He snapped the book closed, pushing it beneath a stack of ledgers.
It wasn’t as if he’d derive any knowledge from it tonight.
Especially not now, with her standing so near.
She was close enough that he got a strong whiff of her floral perfume—lavender, perhaps—and he wondered if she’d recently been in the bath, for the curls around her face looked damp.
A skittish sensation shot across his chest. He hadn’t expected to see her in his study, and now that she was here, he felt … unnerved?
No, that wasn’t right. Well, yes, it was, because having her in his study in her dressing gown certainly proved unnerving, but at the heart of it, he also felt …
glad. He hadn’t liked thinking of her shut away in her bedchamber, refusing to eat.
Hadn’t known what to make of her wan face and near-silence as he’d conveyed her to Aldercombe Grange after the wedding breakfast, as if the fiery spirit he’d witnessed during their previous encounters had been doused.
The fact that she’d emerged from her room and sought him out was a promising development. He had no illusions that her disappointment over their circumstances had waned, nor did he have any idea how to rectify matters. But at least her presence here was a start.
“Did you require something?” he asked. He may not be able to give her the marriage she’d envisioned, but he could at least ensure she had every comfort while she was under this roof. Whatever money could buy.
She straightened her shoulders, her chest rising as she took a breath. “Yes. I wanted to ask …” All that followed was a stuttering exhale, and she bunched her fingers around the belt of her dressing gown, twisting them in the fabric. “Never mind. Perhaps we could have a drink to toast our union.”
That much, he could provide. In part, anyway.
He rose from his chair, going to the cabinet in the corner that had been stocked with spirits prior to his arrival.
“What’s your drink of choice?” He crouched down to rifle through the bottles, searching for whatever would prove most suitable. “Sherry? Orange wine? Madeira?”
“Do you have brandy?”
He glanced over his shoulder to where she remained by his desk, arms folded across her chest. Eyes upon him, holding a hint of challenge.
Was she waiting for him to deny her? He couldn’t imagine she imbibed brandy while out in society.
But rather than make a comment to that effect, he turned his attention to selecting a glass and filling it from the bottle at the front of the cabinet.
The one placed there for his use. The drink of gentlemen.
“Would you like to sit?” He stood abruptly, motioning to the pair of leather armchairs positioned beside the hearth. Although it wasn’t a cold night, a low fire burned in the grate, providing an extra bit of comfort to Achilles, who lay stretched on the rug before it to absorb the warmth.
Violet accepted the invitation, her hips swaying gently as she crossed the room to take the glass from him and her dressing gown rustling softly as she lowered herself into a chair.
He followed behind her, giving Achilles a cursory scratch on the ears before taking the other seat.
He allowed himself a moment to smooth his waistcoat and place his reading spectacles back in his pocket.
Only to find, once he’d finished, that Violet was gazing at him, her mouth twisted into a frown. “You don’t have a glass for yourself.”
“No.” He swallowed, the same long-ago recollection assaulting him the way it always did when the topic arose. The stillness of the dusky study. The heavy, stringent odor. The overturned bottle, the limp hand hanging from the desktop.
He shook his head, forcing himself away from the room in his memory and back to the study at Aldercombe. With Violet. “I don’t partake of alcohol. But please, drink to the marriage on behalf of us both.”
She paused, her brows giving the slightest twitch. But then, with a little shrug, she raised the glass in the air and tipped it to her lips.
Her face contorted instantly, and a strangled sound emerged from her throat.
“Is it not to your liking?” It was rude to gawk, but he couldn’t help but stare at the deep flush coloring her skin and the hand she pressed to her chest as she tried to stifle a cough.
“It’s splendid,” she choked out in a voice that relayed the exact opposite.
Nonetheless, she returned the glass to her lips as if proving her point, taking another brisk swallow.
She was better prepared this time, enough that her momentary grimace was hardly distinguishable. “Thank you, Mr. Prescott.”