Chapter Twelve
Whatever Marcus had expected to find in his wife’s bed, it certainly hadn’t been that.
A lush minx, eagerly cleaving herself to him, while emitting pretty sighs and maddening groans of pleasure.
“Evelyn Wolfenden, a Venus encased in ice,” he muttered to the mirror above his washstand. He lowered his face and splashed water over it several times before looking up again, his hair hanging wet before his eyes.
Who would’ve supposed?
He mopped his face off before ambling over to the fireplace in his bedroom. It was small but modern, like nearly all the house’s fixtures. No room was cold in his house, unlike in the drafty, frigid Methering Manor. If he were being honest—something he found he was still capable of, on occasion—he’d expected that bedding his wife would be much like visiting her ancestral home: chilly, uncomfortable, and best gotten over with quickly.
But then he’d kissed her. And she’d melted in his hands.
Despite that surprising turn, though, he now found himself stunned at being cast out, sent back to his room to sleep alone in his cold, empty bed. What good was having a biddable wife, after all, if she would only entertain him for the briefest of interludes?
Marcus frowned. No, he ought not think that way.
The terms had been settled, well before he’d been privy to the allure of her thick hips, her ample breasts and pillowy stomach. It would be best to view their bedsport as a pleasant surprise, especially given his initial expectations.
His eyes fell upon the newspapers and letters that had accumulated in the days leading up to the wedding, a stack that was now growing quite large. He scrubbed a hand over the lower half of his face.
He’d best get back to business, to the plan as it had originally been devised. He’d taken Evelyn on as a wife, and tomorrow her female relations would move in as well. Once that was settled, he’d better make his usual rounds, checking in with his usual points of contact throughout the borough, in addition to some new ones. It was time to put his newly won spurs to good use. Worry pricked at him as he recalled the first time he met his future wife, and Evelyn’s blank stare when he’d offered his name. It simply would no longer do, to remain as anonymous as that. He’d make himself into a Knockton man, and then he’d return to London, once the locals knew his name.
His name. He wished his wife would use it.
With his mind on the sound of his wife’s shouts as she climaxed, and how he wished she would call out his name with the same unbridled ecstasy, he picked up the top half of the stack of letters and papers and began shuffling them about.
He didn’t register much of what he was seeing until he paused at one overlarge envelope, with writing in a looping, curling hand. Far too fine of a thing to be mere correspondence. He set aside the rest of the stack, then flipped the envelope and broke the heavy seal. It was an invitation.
Blast it. Now he’d be heading to Birmingham to celebrate Towle’s baronetcy, with his brand-new wife in tow. Add that to the list of errands to be done.
With his head full of enough problems for one evening, he slipped the invitation back into its envelope and tossed it back onto the pile. Then he went to bed, alone on his wedding night.
It was as he had expected, ever since he and Evelyn had first come to their arrangement. But now it irritated him. She would spread her legs for him, and open her lips to his. But she rebuffed his lazy affection, and refused him the comfort of her alongside him through the night. Refused to allow him to call her by her name. Hell, any of her preposterous mouthful of names. And she refused to call him by his.
He had never before cared much for love, and he told himself that he still didn’t. But he refused to live like those aristocratic boys from his school days, selecting their wives as the middle class chose their professional careers, while paying them as little heed as the latter—as a means to an end, another societal expectation ticked off the list.
No. Marcus would win her over.
If not for love and honor, then because he did nothing by half-measures.
Before he slipped into sleep, a new anxiety poked at the back of his mind—had he been foolhardy in this matter? His thoughts were already consumed by his wife’s ambivalence toward him; would this worrying eventually nullify any advantage he’d gained by bagging a Wolfenden?
The question gave Marcus pause. But then he shook his head and rolled over. Fretting over his wife’s feelings toward him?
He’d bloody well better not.
The next day Marcus rose to find that not much in his life had changed, despite Bray’s uncharacteristic smile as he assisted him in his dress.
All the servants seemed to be in higher spirits than usual, though. The benefits of allying yourself with the local gentry, Marcus supposed. In the past, such favoritism displayed by the staff might rankle him, but as he now basked in the warmth afforded to the Wolfendens, he allowed it.
Funny, that.
After a solitary breakfast, he returned to the pile of papers and envelopes, wanting to get it all cleared before Evelyn rose.
Despite his vow to keep his head, and his deference to her wishes, Marcus preferred to think of her that way, as Evelyn. Evelyn of the light hair and lush kisses. Mrs. Hartley, no. God, no. Never. Mrs. Hartley was his mother.
Marcus grimaced at the response he’d written to Towle, then reached for the ink blotter, rocking it back and forth atop his words.
Evelyn.She would come around to it, in time.
There was a gentle knock at the door to his study. After a brief pause, his wife entered the room, as if she had been summoned by his very thoughts.
He set aside his correspondence and stood, a smile he was certain looked quite obnoxious having appeared on his lips.
“Please, sit,” said Evelyn. “I shall not be long.”
Marcus sat and gestured to another chair, hoping she would take it, but she shook her head.
Nothing about her manner betrayed a hint of what they’d been up to, oh, eleven hours or so earlier. Her expression was, as usual, placid and cold, like the still waters of an ancient loch nestled between snow-capped mountains. She looked awfully fetching in a dark blue frock. Had he seen this one before? It seemed somehow different from the rest of her wardrobe, he thought as he studied her complexion, her blue eyes.
“Mrs. Gill informed me that the two bedrooms in the northeastern corner have been prepared for Mrs. Wolfenden and Leonora,” she stated calmly, unaffected by his gaze.
“Who?” Marcus furrowed his brow.
“Mrs. Gill?” Evelyn blinked. “Your—our—housekeeper?”
“Oh, right. Right. Mrs. Gill,” he said with more enthusiasm than he’d intended, feeling a bit embarrassed.
“Yes,” she said slowly, then folded her hands. “I mean to speak with her about the carpets in Leonora’s room. That is, if—”
“Yes, of course. Spend whatever you deem necessary.”
Marcus waved a hand, feeling magnanimous. Which reminded him that he ought to write to Collier and ask if he would be willing to stand in for him in regard to the distribution of funds to women in need, seeing as he’d be away from London for longer than expected. He couldn’t allow his private acts of charity to lapse in his absence. To the list, he thought, reaching for a scrap of paper so he might write a reminder to himself before the idea flitted away.
“Er—no. The carpets are lovely; far too fine for a nursery, which is the problem. I mean to see if we might swap them out with the carpets in the music room. Those are quite worn, I believe.”
Marcus stared at her, bewildered.
“Is that a refusal, Mr. Hartley?” She drew a breath, tilting her chin upward ever so slightly.
“No, by all means. Do with the house what you will. God knows someone needs to pay attention to it.” He chuckled, then scribbled his note: Have Collier distribute funds. He looked up. “And as I said last night, please—call me Marcus.”
She pressed her lips together.
“Don’t pull a face,” he jibed good-naturedly. “At least consider it.”
“We are in disagreement on this issue,” she said, her tone flat. “And I have never, as you put it, ‘pulled a face.’”
Marcus sighed and shook his head. “I really ought to have outlined this in our contract.”
“Contract?” she said, bristling.
“A jest, a jest. There’s nothing written… I only mean our private agreement,” he assured. He reached for Towle’s invitation, thinking to shift the tension he’d invited into their conversation.
“Good.”
She stepped forward as if to punctuate her point.
“I have another practical matter for you, Mrs. Hartley,” he added, unable to restrain himself.
Her reaction was nearly imperceptible, but she blinked, and tightened the clasp of her hands against one another. Ah. She did not enjoy being teased, though everything Marcus had ever seen her say or do had already suggested that. It occurred to him that he ought to lay off if he wished to ever be admitted to her chamber again. He sighed, then lifted the invitation so she might see it.
“Do you possess appropriate attire for a dinner party?”
She squinted, trying to make out the words written on it. He really needed to ask the doctor about that. For the moment, though, he leaned in her direction and offered it to her. She stepped forward and took it; her every movement was slow, carefully considered.
As she read the invitation, Marcus took up the scrap on which he had been writing his list. Underneath his reminder to write to Collier, he added: Also ask Collier for suggestion of doctor in Birmingham. Might as well kill two birds with one stone; Birmingham was nearly as good as London when it came to this sort of thing.
“Dinner party?” Evelyn returned the invitation to his desk. “This states that the event is to be a ball.”
“Ball, dinner party, they’re all the same.” Marcus curbed the urge to roll his eyes, guessing she’d not appreciate it. “Aren’t they?” he added, not liking how uncertain he sounded.
“Hmm. You’ll find the dress requirement is not.”
She raised one eyebrow, looking so assured that Marcus suddenly wanted very much for it to be evening and for her to be looking at him thus, only in the nude.
“Well, either way.” He cleared his throat, discomfited by such a thought. “Make sure you’re up to snuff.”
She did not respond, but merely watched him, and for a moment he thought she might speak of something else. But then she added disinterestedly, “I believe that was all I wished to discuss.”
Marcus stood, fiddling with the pen still in his hands. He’d attended scant few balls, and fewer still since his cousin, Harmonia, had married. It always felt better to have someone allied with you at such ordeals, where the deck was always stacked against someone lacking a title. Like him.
“Perhaps, er, you might speak with Bray as well?”
She waited.
Marcus set the pen down. “That he might check and… make sure I’m also up to snuff.”
“Very well,” she said, and nodded graciously.
It took him a full quarter of an hour after his wife had left to clear his head and return to his correspondence, which surprised him. But he assured himself that it was only the novelty of a female presence in his home, of a woman in his bed after a few years of celibacy. The situation would normalize soon enough.
Five hours later, the situation was absolutely, completely, utterly mad.
Leonora Wolfenden, a little girl of five years (or was it four?), was howling—no, screeching—as she beat upon the floor with her tiny fists, her face twisted into an expression of rage and despair worthy of any Renaissance painting.
“I don’t understand,” Marcus shouted to Mrs. Selina Wolfenden, his hands over his ears. “What the dickens is the matter? What is it she wants?”
His newly obtained sister-in-law replied with the slightest suggestion of a shrug. She seemed awfully at ease for a lady whose progeny was going on as if she were being poisoned by the very air she breathed.
Marcus felt a tap on his shoulder and turned to find himself face to face with his new coachman, Murphy, a narrow-faced man dwarfed by the many capes of his greatcoat. He held his hat in hand, along with his long whip.
“Sir, I believe this is my fault,” he apologized.
“What?” Marcus bellowed, confused.
Leonora latched onto a heavy oak side table, kicking it in a staccato rhythm that paired nightmarishly with her screams. Mrs. Wolfenden sighed as she seated herself upon a settee, tapping against her skirts with a folded black fan.
“I said,” Murphy shouted, “I believe this is my fault.” Then he looked back to Marcus apologetically and barked, “Sir!”
“No, no, I heard you,” Marcus said as he felt a panicky sensation rise in his chest at the absurdity of it all. “But what do you mean, man?”
Murphy frowned and looked at the little girl.
“I told her she couldn’t ride Saturn, one of the team. The bay.”
“What?” Marcus exclaimed.
“I told—”
“No, no, I heard you,” Marcus yelled. The sound of a door opening barely registered in his frenzied mind.
“Oh,” Murphy looked back to him with a contrite expression. “Saturn, my lead. I told the young miss it wasn’t the time for it, not with the horses just returning and in their tack.”
“Of course,” Marcus said, finally comprehending the disagreement between the girl and the coachman. “Pay it no mind; you are in the right.”
“She’s got a gob like the Thames Tunnel, she does,” Murphy said, staring at Leonora with a mix of horror and awe.
“Thank you, Murphy. Now please, go and see to the horses.” Free yourself from this torture, Marcus added silently.
With a nod, the coachman left.
Only then did Marcus look back to Leonora, and he started; Evelyn was there, on her knees alongside her niece, in that same lovely dark blue gown. It must’ve been her who had opened the door.
His wife.
“No!” Leonora screamed, and rolled to the side, farther from Evelyn.
“But your pony—surely it will be here soon,” Evelyn said.
Or at least, Marcus thought she said. Unlike him, Evelyn seemed unwilling to raise her voice to be heard over Leonora’s sobs.
She looked to Mrs. Wolfenden, her face questioning. The widow replied with another elegantly useless shrug.
“How should I know? I left supervision of the packing to Wright,” Mrs. Wolfenden said, her voice shrill.
Evelyn, set back on her heels, leveled her sister-in-law with a look as close to a glare as Marcus had ever seen her make. Even so, it was awfully mild, considering the chaos of the environment. In the midst of it, Evelyn caught his gaze, and for a moment she held it, even as her niece went on.
Then she looked back to the girl. Evelyn reached out, haltingly, and placed a hand on the little one’s arm.
“Leonora… darling.”
The girl stilled momentarily, then jerked away and curled up into a tight little ball. Thankfully, her high-pitched screams gave way to a series of softer choking sobs.
Marcus stepped forward, embarrassed to leave this mess entirely to his wife, even as he hadn’t the foggiest notion of where to begin.
“Is there not… have you not engaged a nanny?” He looked from Evelyn to Mrs. Wolfenden.
“She quit last spring,” Mrs. Wolfenden said, with more than a hint of irritation. “Though I doubt that woman is what she’s after.”
Evelyn shook her head ever so slightly, then looked at him. “It’s her riding horse, Penny.”
“Ah,” Marcus said, as if that made all the sense in the world.
“She was under the impression that it would be here when she arrived. It’s a toy,” Evelyn further explained, as if Marcus himself had never been a child. “Similar to a rocking horse, but with wheels.”
“Ah,” he repeated witlessly, looking again from Evelyn to Mrs. Wolfenden.
Evelyn delicately held up one hand, her fingers worrying at one another. After a deep breath, she again extended a tentative arm toward Leonora, and placed her hand on the girl’s back.
Now that the little girl had replaced her shouting with more benign hiccups and sobs, Marcus could hear his wife as clear as day, could hear the apprehension in her voice as she spoke to her niece.
“All… all will be well. You’ll see.”
He nearly felt an electric shock at the sound of those familiar words. His father’s words, which he would use to console Marcus when the need arose. Giving him encouragement after his first term of disappointing marks at school. Or cheering him up after a nasty fall.
Reassuring him from his sickbed.
That unwanted ache, combining the happiness of the memory with the sharpness of his loss, overwhelmed him. He stared at Evelyn.
They were just words, weren’t they? She knew nothing of Lewis Hartley, of how his life had shaped Marcus. Or his death. Perhaps she’d uttered this exact comfort to her niece hundreds of times before. But Marcus knew it could not be. He knew, somehow, that he was witnessing his wife’s first overt attempt at soothing the child. For the nobility possessed neither the kindness nor the warmth of his father. They wouldn’t even allow their husbands the privilege of addressing them by their given names, for heaven’s sake.
Still Leonora sobbed on the floor. And still, somehow, Evelyn maintained her composure, one hand still resting on the girl’s back.
Marcus glanced at Mrs. Wolfenden, who yawned into a slim white hand.
“Right, then,” Marcus said to himself.
He left the room, walking quickly. His mother had wasted no time settling into a routine upon arriving, and at this hour he was counting on her being in her room, relaxing upon a chaise with Walter happily snoring away upon a silken, tasseled cushion alongside her.
Which is exactly how he found the pair of them.
“Marcus! Oh, but your knock is so violent! One would hope your gentle wife would have had a calming effect on you by now,” she groused, clutching at her chest for good measure.
Walter, to his credit, barely moved; he merely shifted his gaze about the room in irritation from his position of repose.
“It’s Mrs. Wolfenden’s daughter. She’s in a state.”
“Is she?”
Marcus tilted his head, realizing the sound didn’t carry up here. Well done, Platt Lodge, he silently thanked his house. Though it obviously wasn’t due to any effort on his part—the house had been built in the previous century and by another family altogether—but he allowed the pride to bloom in his chest all the same. He’d been chasing accomplishments his whole life, and he would take them where he could.
“Her riding horse is stuck on the baggage train, as it were. Have we any toys… sitting around?”
“It is your house, not mine,” his mother said, indignant. “What toys, pray tell, might I carry about my person? Why, as if I were some pack mule!”
Marcus rolled his eyes.
“At any rate, all your old odds and ends are somewhere in the attic back at the London house, if that’s what you’re after.”
Suddenly he had a memory of being stretched out in the front room of that house, shooting marbles with his father, which was quickly followed by that nostalgic lump in his chest. He had to make this right, had to soothe Leonora.
He had to show Evelyn how people truly ought to be. He looked to his mother with as serious a face as he could muster.
“Then, Mama, I must beg a favor of you.”