Chapter Four
What was she doing?
It was a question that echoed repeatedly through Abigail’s mind the next morning as she slowly and carefully chose her bridal attire.
There wasn’t much of a selection in her small traveling trunk.
She hadn’t planned to stay more than a day, two at the most if things had gone her way and she’d been invited to tour the college.
She certainly hadn’t planned—or packed—for a wedding.
But in medicine, as in life, a good doctor knew how to make adjustments to their patient’s care when a new symptom revealed itself.
And her blue dress with white chenille trim would do nicely.
A few pins scraped along the sides of her scalp to hold her unruly curls in place, her mother’s brooch fastened to her throat with a length of black velvet ribbon, and she was ready.
Not to be a wife. Her mind was still spinning at the implications of what that particular duty entailed.
But she was ready to learn from some of the finest medical practitioners in the entire world, and if the only means she had to do that was by marrying a man of great wealth and social influence, then she was prepared to sacrifice her independence for being permitted to attend a scholarly institution that would otherwise be above her reach.
People married for less important things all the time, she conveyed to her solemn reflection in the cracked mirror hanging on the wall beside a potted fern that looked as she felt; dry, wilted, and a bit bewildered at how it had ended up here.
Like love, for instance.
At least she would be gaining something of great significance from a betrothal contract that had been drawn up without her knowledge or consent.
A contract, she was well aware, that her mother had crossed an ocean to escape so that her daughter’s life might turn out differently than her own: forced to marry a man who had treated her with callous contempt only to have her child consigned to the same fate before she even gave birth.
The Duchess of Hanover had chosen to forsake her title and all of the accoutrements that had accompanied it in exchange for personal freedom.
She had snuck from her home in the dead of the night with a babe on her breast, had boarded a ship bound for unknown shores, and had raised that babe, on her own, in a small village that had only known her as Mrs. Victoria Pratt, a widowed seamstress.
She had traded a life of surplus for a life of struggle, but she hadn’t regretted it.
Not a single moment. And that she had told Abigail between rasping breaths as the consumption had gradually filled her lungs with fluid.
What would she think of her daughter now if she knew what Abigail was about to do? Would she be disappointed, or would she understand? Would she beg her to reconsider, or would she stand beside her in the church? Would she tell Abigail to run, as she had done, or would she approve of Stephen?
Would she even, with time, come to . . . like him?
Abigail thought that she might.
After their kiss, she thought she might come to like him a great deal.
Unconsciously, her fingers drifted across her bottom lip and her vision glazed as she recalled the sheer heat of his mouth pressed to hers.
The way her knees, which were, under normal circumstances, quite reliable and stout, had gone weak and fluttery.
Or how her heart had threatened to pound right out of her chest, even though she knew such a thing was medically impossible.
A human heart was responsible for pumping blood through the body.
It was an organ.
A combination of muscle and tissue.
As such, it did not feel emotion.
It certainly did not fall in love.
And yet . . .
The sharp strike of iron shoes on stone in the early morning quiet drew her to the window, and her stomach clenched when she saw the black carriage pulled by two matching horses stop beneath it, their breaths forming plumes of smoke in the frosty air.
Stephen was here.
She walked down the stairs to meet him at the front door with measured steps, her composed countenance concealing the riotous upheaval of emotions that were clawing away inside of her.
Hope.
Trepidation.
Excitement.
Doubt.
Was she making the right decision?
Was there any other decision to be made?
If she wanted to be welcomed into an institution that had already closed its doors to her.
If she wanted to fulfill her dream of becoming a doctor. Mayhap not in name (that was a door even the future Earl of Lancaster could not open), but in education. In practice. In experience.
If she wanted to live a life larger than the one her gender had borne her into . . . and then commit herself to the very role her mother had raised her to rebel against.
“Lord Sandwich.” She blew a stray wisp of hair out of her eyes and then lifted her chin when he opened the door, his own eyes—copper burning bright against a backdrop of freshly fallen snow—widening at the sight of her. “I am ready to be your wife.”
*
“You know,” Stephen began, glancing sideways at Abigail where she sat beside him in their moving carriage, her slightly dazed expression reminiscent of the one she’d worn after their kiss the day before, “now that we’re married, I believe you can call me by my given name. Or at least my correct title.”
She nodded, but he wasn’t convinced she’d heard him. Reaching across her lap, he gently pried her clenched hands apart and laced his fingers through hers.
“Stephen,” he said, squeezing.
“Stephen,” she said softly, almost shyly, and his heart stuttered as it hadn’t done since he was a young man staring at the magnificent bosom of Addy Tate, the gardener’s daughter and his very first love.
Or at least his very first experience with lust, which, when you were a randy young lad of sixteen, seemed like the same thing.
Except this time, he wasn’t looking at a beautiful pair of breasts.
This time, he was gazing at his wife.
His wife.
The woman he was now pledged to protect, honor, and love until death did they part. The woman he already felt a fierce sense of protectiveness over. The woman he would leave in two days when his ship departed for England and she remained behind in America for seven years.
Seven years.
A pittance of time yesterday, and a looming stretch of three-quarters of a decade today.
What the hell had he been thinking, to agree to such a term?
A wife belonged with her husband. Except Abigail wasn’t just any wife.
She was driven, determined, and wondrously intelligent.
Smarter than him by a bloody mile, not that he’d ever admit it aloud.
She had plans, goals, ambitions . . . and he had Summerwind House.
Brick, slate, timber. A manor as important to him as Abigail’s medical education was to her.
There was also steel. The sharp glint of it carved into the triangular shape of a guillotine hanging over his neck should he not return promptly to London with positive news of his nuptials.
If he weren’t back on British soil by the time the daffodils began to shove their cheerful little heads out of the dirt, there wasn’t a doubt in his mind that his father would personally oversee the burning of Summerwind House.
And the only thing that made him feel better, that gave him a smidge of consolation at leaving his brand-new bride, was imagining the expression of absolute fury on his father’s face when he slapped proof of his marriage onto the old goat’s desk, effectively saving Summerwind House and denying his father the grand spectacle of a wedding all in the same breath.
It was going to be glorious.
But was it worth seven years away from the woman that he . . .
Not loved, Stephen thought silently, his mind automatically shying from the word as a feral horse did from the halter.
He loved Summerwind House. He loved a perfectly aged brandy. He loved a good night out at his favorite gambling hell.
Did he love his wife?
Almost absently, he ran his thumb across her knuckles as he mused over the question before deciding that if he didn’t love her, he did like her a great deal.
Dare he say, more than he’d ever liked any other woman.
And no, he did not want to be separated for the better part of a decade.
What an utterly absurd way to begin a marriage.
Except that was what he had agreed to. What he’d thought, as he had sat across from Abigail in the coffeehouse recovering from choking, would be in both of their best interests.
But now, sitting beside her in a carriage with the subtle scent of lavender teasing his nostrils as the soft weight of her thigh pressed against his, he wasn’t so certain.
“Come with me,” he said abruptly, his hand tightening possessively around hers. “Come with me back to England. Surely there are institutions there you can learn from. Physicians you can study under. Far superior ones, if the tea here is any indication.”
“I prefer coffee.” Frowning, she tried to tug her hand away, but he held fast. “I will be attending Columbia College in the spring. That is what you promised me. Those were the terms of our agreement. Then, in seven years’ time—”
“Four.”
“Seven.”
“Five,” he said, a touch desperately.
“In seven years’ time, I will book myself passage to London.
” When she attempted to extricate her fingers from his grip again, he didn’t stop her.
He had asked, as best as he was able, and she had said no.
He wouldn’t resort to begging. No matter how much he was tempted to.
Because damn it all, she was right. Those were the terms of their agreement.
And while he may not have been a perfect man, or even a very good one, he was a man of his word.
Even when it pained him to be.
Even when the sunlight filtering in through the carriage window illuminated the faint dusting of freckles on her nose and the shimmering hints of auburn in her hair.
Even when he wanted to pull her into his arms and kiss her senseless.