Chapter Twenty-Three
Laura traveled to Somerset Hall just one week after her wedding, and Christiana took a carriage to Grancott so she could meet her friend off the stagecoach.
Both Hugh and Laura had drawn the line at sending a coach all the way to London to pick her up, and so Christiana waited anxiously at Grancott’s only inn, the Black Horse, ignoring the curious stares that came her way.
A footman in livery attended her, and she reflected once again how much her life had changed over the course of just a few months.
Finally, the stagecoach pulled into the yard with a clatter, the horses tired and the heavy vehicle sagging somewhat under the weight of its passengers.
Christiana lingered in the inn’s doorway as several people disembarked: a stout matron with a chicken, a man in a rather ill-fitting greatcoat carrying a briefcase, and a harassed mother with two children between the ages of five and seven.
And finally, Laura.
She looked just the same as Christiana remembered her, wearing one of her old gowns, rumpled and travel stained. Upon seeing Christiana, her face split into a grin.
“Chris! You came!”
Ignoring the stares from everyone around them, Christiana hurried forward, her arms outstretched. The two women embraced in the courtyard.
“Of course I came,” Christiana said. “Otherwise, it’s a three-mile walk to the estate. Which, of course, can be achieved quite easily, but not after a long journey. How was it?”
Laura pulled a face. “The less said about the journey, the better. At least it’s over.
No wonder Ewan begged me not to go via stagecoach.
” Her pretty, blue eyes softened as she spoke about her new husband.
“We have a little put by, and he urged me to spend it hiring a private coach. But heavens above, Chris, you would not believe how truly expensive everything is.”
“I will give you something for the journey home,” Christiana assured her friend, tucking Laura’s arm in hers. “Hugh is exceedingly generous with his pin money; I don’t spend half of it.”
“Hugh, eh?” Laura grinned. “I see the Beast of Somerset has won you over.”
“Don’t speak about him like that.” Christiana led Laura inside, opting for a private parlor. That, at least, would mean they could converse in private. “He is a very kind, considerate man.”
“Heavens above.” Laura stared at her on the stairs. “Don’t tell me you’ve fallen in love with him.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. One can admire a man without being in love with him.” Although, Christiana reflected, she knew nothing for certain. Perhaps she did love him and merely hadn’t realized. How would she know, anyway? “In here.”
Laura took in the parlor in a single glance and settled herself in the window seat, staring out across the small village. “Well? Tell me everything.”
“Not so fast. You first. How was the wedding?”
Laura’s face went soft, her eyes luminous, and for the first time, Christiana felt as though she could understand her decision. Perhaps not approve—a groom was a groom, after all—but love was love.
And Laura loved her groom. Very much, judging by the soft, girlish flush on her cheeks.
“It was lovely,” she said. “Not in the way that your wedding was lovely, with your expensive gown and a husband in very fine clothes and a mask to whisk you away to live at your beautiful estate, but wonderful nonetheless. Ewan took me to a small church where he lives and married me there with just two witnesses. Not my father, of course.”
“Was he very angry?”
“Furious,” Laura said cheerfully. “He informed me that he had not invested in my future so I could throw it away, and I informed him that if after four years of the London marriage mart, I had been unable to find a husband I wanted, perhaps I ought to try more unconventional means.” She shrugged.
“Ewan thinks he’ll come around eventually, but I don’t know.
When it comes down to it, I don’t much care, either.
All he ever cared about was what connections I could make for him.
If he could have forced me into the arms of an elderly gentleman with gout, I have no doubt he would have done. ”
Christiana sat with a sigh. “Yes. I quite know the feeling.”
“We will live modestly from now on,” Laura continued.
“I have kept my gowns, but they will fall sadly out of fashion all too soon, and I will have to make up new ones. No matter—I think I will become quite the seamstress. And I shall have to learn to cook. That has been a trial for us both, I assure you, but I am learning.” She held up her hands, where two blistered burns stood out on her fingers, and wiggled them ruefully.
“No one tells you how heavy everything is in a kitchen, and how important it is to protect one’s fingers with a towel.
But, as I say, I’m learning. And Ewan is very patient with me. ”
“Are you happy?” Christiana asked, an odd ache in her stomach at the news.
An image popped into her head: Laura, struggling in a modest kitchen, struggling to make tea, and her groom husband encouraging her like he might a wild horse, in soft, low tones.
Even in that image, Laura’s happiness shone through.
That was what love did, Christiana reflected. It made even a trial a joy if done for the one you loved.
“I am happy,” Laura said, confirming what Christiana already knew.
“And thankful not to have lost your friendship. I know I will have lost all others.” She shook her head, dismissing the thought.
“No doubt the scandal has made its rounds by now. Everyone will be gossiping about how they knew my fall from grace was inevitable. After all, I had the audacity to have opinions.”
Christiana rolled her eyes. “Heaven forbid.”
“Precisely. According to all the dowagers of the ton, no gentleman wishes to have a wife who thinks.”
Christiana recalled the way Hugh had found her amongst all his books. The mess she had made—assuming, erroneously, no one would discover her—and the way he had merely lowered himself to sit with her, asking questions about her interests as though they’d mattered to him.
A servant came by with wine and lemonade, and Christiana sipped at her wine. “I am sorry I couldn’t invite Ewan,” she said.
“Don’t be! There could not be a situation in which he would be more uncomfortable.” Laura sent Christiana a wry smile. “And I am under no illusions, Chris. This was not a prudent marriage. The fact that you were able to persuade the duke to host me at all is a miracle in and of itself.”
“He was reluctant,” she admitted.
“No doubt. But you brought him around.” Laura’s eye took on a curious gleam. “I do wonder about that. How did you manage such a feat?”
“I asked him.”
“That was it? Such a great man brought low by such a simple request?”
“Well…” Christiana’s cheeks heated still more. “We kissed.”
“And?” Laura blinked, her eyes going wide. “Wait, you mean—for the first time?”
“We never agreed that we would be—physically and intimately engaged. In fact, he said quite the opposite.”
“And yet you kissed, anyway? Tell me everything!”
So Christiana did—from arriving at the house, meeting Amelia, all the way to the single kiss and the carnival she had gotten Hugh’s permission to attend with him.
“Since then, I haven’t—” She cleared her throat. Every other time she’d seen him, there had either been other servants about, or she hadn’t dared continue what they’d started. And he had never asked her, either.
“That has been your only kiss?” Laura demanded.
“Yes.”
“And you’ve done nothing more?”
“We have not,” Christiana said, pacing to stand by Laura at the window. Summer was coming to an end—the August carnival was its final hurrah before harvest arrived. The world seemed golden in the sunlight.
“But you would like to,” Laura surmised.
“I’m not entirely certain it’s possible.”
“Have you asked?”
Christiana whirled, partially horrified, partially amused. “What an indelicate question.”
“A perfectly delicate one for a wife.” Laura shrugged. “You ought to have asked him before you ever committed to him, but it’s not too late now. At least you’ll know.”
“We never discussed children,” Christiana said. “Save for him to say he has no expectations.”
“An oversight on your part.”
“Hardly. I have no need for children. And he said he had no expectations for intimacy—what more is there to say?” She clasped her hands before her, trying to sort through and quieten her thoughts.
Finally, she had someone in whom she could confide, but emotional vulnerability never came easily to her.
“If he is capable, why does he not expect children from our union?”
“Well, even if he is incapable, there are other things you could do.”
“Such as?”
“Well, his hands and his mouth. Those all work, one would assume. He could offer you relief, even if he can have none. Poor fellow,” she added, almost as an afterthought. “I would not envy being him if that is the case. Always wanting, never able to be sated.”
Always wanting. Perhaps that was the case. When he’d kissed her, it had felt as though he’d wanted very much—she was no expert, but she could recognize enthusiasm when she saw it.
She placed her glass back on the table. “The coachman is waiting. We should return to the house so you have time to change before dinner.”
Laura grinned, fluffing her curls coyly. “Are you saying I don’t look my best after three full days of travel, dearest? You wound me.”
“You,” Christiana said, taking Laura’s arm and squeezing it, “are a menace. And I’m so glad you’re here.”
As Laura washed and changed for dinner—and after several hushed exclamations about how very grand the house was—Christiana knocked on the adjoining door between her chambers and Hugh’s.
“Come in,” he called after a moment, and Christiana opened the door—unlocked, she noticed—to find Hugh standing in the middle of the room before a mirror.
His valet whisked out of sight, evidently dismissed, though Hugh was in the midst of changing; he wore only a shirt, his cravat hanging loosely around his neck.
Here, he looked relaxed and utterly wonderful.
Her heart gave a traitorous leap.
“I am so sorry,” she said, stepping back out of instinct. “I hadn’t realized you were busy. Forgive me—”
He caught her elbow as she made to leave. “Does the sight of my undress offend you so much you can’t look at me, Chris? What is it you came to say?” His gaze swept over her face, and as always, he saw more there than she could ever have supposed. “Did your friend arrive safely?”
“Of course.”
“And you were treated well at the Black Horse?”
“As though you would have allowed me to return without immediately questioning Matthew about the entire affair,” Christiana said teasingly.
The only way Hugh had allowed Christiana to go was if she had taken a footman, and she had no doubt he had been under instruction to relay everything to his master.
“There was a period where you were in the parlor and he waited outside.”
“And there was no one else there to cause offense,” she said, placing an affectionate hand lightly on his arm.
He glanced down at the contact, and she retracted her hand immediately, suddenly self-conscious.
The truth was, she hadn’t seen a man—except for her father—in nothing but a shirt.
And although she had seen statues and knew, supposedly, what gentlemen looked like, she hadn’t ever come to appreciate the broadness of a gentleman’s chest, or how his skin might appear through his translucent shirt.
Just the barest hint of tan. Or perhaps peach.
Every time she looked, she felt her unexpected shyness grow.
“What did you wish to talk to me about?” he prompted gently.
In her confusion, the words tumbled free without constraint.
“Please treat her well and don’t be standoffish.
I know you don’t like her, and you absolutely do not approve of her choices, but this matters to me.
And to her.” She looked up into Hugh’s face, carefully expressionless.
“Her father cast her out. She is learning how to cook and make a home, and I believe she’s happy, but that doesn’t make the world an easier place to live in. You know, don’t you? You know.”
His face betrayed none of his thoughts, and she had never wished she could read them more than now.
“I have been an outsider all my life,” she said quietly. “She has always been loved, everywhere she goes. This will be hard for her. Please don’t make it harder.”
He caught her hand, his palm sliding up her arm to her elbow. Even that small contact made her feel dizzy with—something. “Did you think I would treat her badly, Chris?”
“No, but—I know you dislike that she’s here. And this is important to me.” Her final attempt to persuade him—a plea that was not precisely a plea.
He sighed, his fingers sliding a fraction underneath the soft puffed sleeves of her dress. Fingertips against delicate bare skin. She caught her breath. “If she is a guest of yours, then she is entitled to my civility. I will do my best to make her welcome.”
Was there anything he set his mind to that he didn’t try his best at? Christiana had not seen all of him, but she had seen enough to know the answer to that question: a resounding no.
His best was more than she could ever have asked for.
Laura had taken one look at her face and declared that she was in love. And for the first time, staring up into her husband’s face—one half scarred, the other coldly handsome—Christiana wondered if there was a chance her friend could be right.