Chapter Eighteen
‘You know what we should do. We should take a holiday.’
Calliope looked up from her sketchbook and grinned at the ridiculous statement her husband had just made. ‘Why, because we are working so hard here?’
Montague snorted. He was lying on the sofa with a book lying open on his chest. He wasn’t reading it; it was quite hard to read a book while one’s eyes were closed. ‘Did I not work hard enough for you this morning?’
Well, she had to give him that. Calliope was not sure just how often a married couple should be making love, and it was hardly the sort of question one could ask anyone else. Even the idea of asking Ditty was deeply unpleasant to consider.
But every morning and at least once more after that…well. She was not complaining. Montague was too good with his tongue for her to complain.
‘You did very well,’ she said with a grin from her armchair. Her legs dangled over the side and there was a sweet lemonade in a glass beside her on the console table. She had only put her pencil in it once, the habit of putting a paintbrush in a jar too strong an instinct to deny.
Montague’s eyes shot open. ‘Only very well?’
‘Spectacularly well. Marvellously well. So well I could hardly walk afterwards,’ teased Calliope, dashing another leaden line on her sketchbook. She could never get his nose right.
Her husband relaxed, closing his eyes again and tapping his foot against the side of the sofa. ‘That’s better.’
‘My point is, we are in Brighton, the place where people come for a holiday,’ Calliope pointed out, glancing at the nose in question and then down at the nose she was attempting. ‘I mean, where would we go?’
‘Where wouldn’t we go?’
‘You are attempting to provoke me,’ said Calliope calmly, her heart skittering a warm beat.
Montague grinned, eyes still closed. ‘I am succeeding.’
Was this how easy it was to be married and in love, and know that every day was going to be more marvellous than the next?
Calliope had never dreamt of such a thing.
This was far more the purview of her sister Thalia, love and romance and petals and ecstasy, and all that.
That was what poetry always promised, but Calliope had never been quite convinced it would be possible for someone like herself to find a gentleman who could offer such things.
Now she found herself married to a man who not only would bring her the moon if she requested it but would add on some stars—and she felt the same for him.
It was like a dream.
It was certainly a whirlwind.
‘My sister honeymooned abroad.’
‘You’ll have to tell me more about your sister,’ Calliope said vaguely, considering the nose she was currently attempting as a failure and turning the page in her sketchbook to try again. ‘She sounds lovely.’
‘Oh, Annabelle is all very well,’ Montague said with a wave of his hand, still not bothering to open his eyes. ‘It is only in the last few years I have really grown to know her. She’s six years older, I suppose that’s it.’
‘And she went abroad?’ Calliope had never considered going to Europe. Why would she, when her older sister Ditty had been working as a matchmaker to ensure they could pay for lodgings?
But now…
‘She had a wonderful time, as far as I can make out from her letter,’ Montague said with a yawn he did not even bother to stifle. ‘You can read it, if you like.’
Calliope looked up. ‘I can?’
Annabelle was a bit of a mystery, as far as she could tell. Oh, the age difference between the siblings would explain most of it, but Montague seemed particularly reticent to speak of any of his family. That damned uncle of his was to blame, she was certain.
‘Of course. Letter’s in my pocket,’ muttered Montague, another yawn escaping his lips. ‘Come and get it.’
Rolling her eyes at the laziness of the man who had, to her certain knowledge, a valet who actually buttoned up his shirts, Calliope put her sketchbook aside and rose from the armchair.
In three strides she had covered the gap between them in the drawing room and stifled a laugh as she realised precisely why Montague had not moved.
His grin was lazy, but also that of a scoundrel. The letter was clearly poking out from his breeches pocket.
‘You just want me to rummage around in—’
‘Fine, fine, here you go,’ sighed Montague, keeping his eyes closed as he pulled out the letter and held it up from where he lay on the sofa. ‘You’ll have to excuse her calligraphy, it is nowhere near as elegant as mine.’
Snorting a laugh, Calliope snatched the proffered letter and returned to her armchair, as it did not appear likely that her husband was going to give her room on the sofa.
Annabelle’s hand was impeccably neat, as Calliope had suspected, and the letter was not in fact a long one. It took her but moments to read.
Montague,
Venice was wonderful, you really must come here—the food is tolerable, for foreign food, but the architecture is spectacular. You will have to bring at least three sketchbooks to feel as though you have even attempted to do the place justice and, knowing you, you’ll leave with at least five more.
Travel is wearisome, however, and I must admit I am looking forward to returning to England. I just received your last letter and am proud of you for taking in that little boy. From my memory, Uncle Trefusis was not very pleasant. Do I recall correctly?
As for your plans to find some poor spinster with no prospects and no confidence, I do think you might think better than that.
Surely Brighton has a plethora of women who will throw themselves at you, true, but as you seek only a broodmare for your heirs and a nursemaid for your new ward, do you not think you could aim a little higher?
Is there not an earl’s daughter somewhere you can convince to put up with you?
I’ll send word when we’re back in London, and if you do concoct a scheme to trick a woman into marrying you as you promised in your last letter, let me know. We’ll come posthaste for your silly wedding.
All the love I can spare from my husband,
Annabelle
There was a ringing. A ringing, in her ears.
It blocked out all other sound other than the slow thump, thump, thump of her pulse, which somehow Calliope could feel in her ears.
…as you seek only a broodmare for your heirs and a nursemaid for your new ward, do you not think you could aim a little higher?
Calliope swallowed. Her mouth was dry. Her throat was coarse. There were no thoughts in her head save those that she had just read and they repeated again, and again, until she was unable to escape them.
As for your plans to find some poor spinster with no prospects and no confidence, I do think you might think better than that.
No.
No. No, this was not, he would not. Montague would never…
Surely Brighton has a plethora of women who will throw themselves at you…
There was a sudden movement in the room and Calliope blinked. Sound and sight rushed in, and what she saw was Montague. Montague, who had sat bolt upright, panic on his face, his lips working.
…and if you do concoct a scheme to trick a woman into marrying you as you promised in your last letter…
Calliope blinked again and his sounds started to form words.
‘—give it back, my sister and I—foolish joke, wouldn’t understand—’
Ah. So, it was true, Calliope thought vaguely, as though viewing her own life through a telescope that had been turned around and now showed the world as it was, but farther away.
He had married her to be a broodmare.
He had married her to be a nursemaid.
He had married her because she was a spinster, with no protection nor family to advocate for her. Other than Aunt Louise, the poor woman, blinded by the title and wealth of a marquess.
‘Calliope, give it back,’ Montague said urgently.
Calliope stared. Somehow her husband had moved from the sofa to her armchair, kneeling beside it. She looked blankly at him, as though unable to recognise him.
‘Calliope,’ he said quietly.
She did not need the letter itself to know the truth, not now she knew precisely why she had been conned into marrying this man.
‘It’s—it’s a jest, a joke, something I played the fool about in my last letter—’
‘You married me because you wanted someone to care for John and provide you with sons,’ Calliope said lightly, almost as though it did not matter that her heart was breaking.
Montague drew in a deep inhale. ‘It’s not like that.’
‘A broodmare, I think your sister said.’ She had risen now, and though her husband—her husband, the man she had married—had attempted to grasp at her wrists, Calliope had shaken him off and walked to the fireplace.
A hand was placed on the mantel and she exhaled slowly, the cooling marble helping somehow.
‘Did you ever love me? Do you even like me?’
‘Calliope, it’s not—’
‘I gave up my name for you, my freedom, my very personhood—yes, for that is what marriage is for a woman,’ she said slowly, hardly able to breathe as she spoke, her throat somehow raw. ‘And you didn’t care about me at all—’
‘Yes I did!’ For some reason he looked furious, though Calliope could not understand why. ‘Calliope, you’re purposefully misunderstanding—’
‘Am I? Am I indeed?’ Calliope brandished the letter at him, the evidence, the proof—as though she had needed it—that she had been right.
That the world either ignored her, as her mother did, or saw as something useful and nothing more.
‘Dear God, man, I’m a placeholder! A name, a vessel for your children and nothing more! I thought you loved me!’
He had come closer now and there was pain on his face, but also something akin to self-righteousness. All hope Calliope held that they could reconcile melted away.
How could she reconcile with a man who was so certain he had been right to injure her?
‘I thought you loved me,’ Calliope repeated, her voice dull now. ‘But I was wrong. I am so easy to forget, so easy to slip into your perfect life, just as any woman could have been—’
‘I don’t want any woman, I wanted you—’