Chapter 16
Leonard believed, for the following twenty-four hours, that he had achieved at least some measure of success with his difficult wife.
She didn’t come to his study during that time, and he was able to focus on his work.
There was no more violin playing. In fact, he didn’t hear from her at all until the following afternoon when he went to the library and found her sitting in front of the black pieces on the chessboard.
“What’s this?” he asked her.
She looked up at him. “Let me guess—I’m not allowed to be here either?”
“It’s the library. Of course, you can be here.”
“Don’t act as if I’m out of my mind to think otherwise,” she said. “Every time I move, it seems as if I’ve violated some rule of yours.”
“It’s not like I’m being unreasonable, you know,” he said. “The things I have asked you not to do are exceedingly reasonable. Like not dressing in the garb of a common man and sneaking off to pubs for instance.”
“And telling me I’m not allowed to play the violin?”
“You’re in my house. That noise irritates me.”
“It’s my house too, isn’t it?”
“I haven’t said you can never play the cursed thing, only that you have to wait,” he reminded her. “Does it trouble you so much to have to wait a short time before you can learn the instrument? What do you need those skills for anyway? You’re already married.”
“What does being married have to do with anything?”
“Well, isn’t that the reason a lady learns to play an instrument?” he asked her. “So that she can impress potential suitors with her skills? That was my understanding.”
“So, you think that now that I’m married, I have no more need to learn any new skills?” she asked him. “My whole life has been about reaching this point—marriage to a man who has no real interest in me. And now that I’ve achieved that, I can languish and do nothing with myself until the day I die?”
It was odd. Her words were fairly usual for her.
Argumentative. Confrontational. But the tone was completely different.
She didn’t sound as if she was challenging him.
Instead, she was very quiet. Her gaze fell to the chessboard in front of her, and she touched her finger to the top of a pawn as though contemplating moving it, despite the fact that there was no one sitting opposite her.
She was trying to sound as if she was angry with him, but Leonard realized suddenly, she wasn’t. Not really.
She had said all those things because she meant them.
She wasn’t making wild accusations to try to provoke him, the way he would have assumed yesterday. He understood that now. She was talking about real fears that she had.
And she was probably right to have them.
After all, what did she have left? What was her life going to look like?
Soon he would leave her on her own. She wasn’t going to have any sort of conventional marriage.
Their honeymoon had been a ruse, a joke.
There would be no children. She could have her sisters come to visit her, and that would be a diversion, but other than that… what?
No wonder she wanted to sneak out to a club. I’d have done the same thing.
That didn’t make it all right of course.
It was different for him. He was a gentleman.
She was a lady. He could never let her know that he had experienced this moment of understanding because if he did, she might take it as some sort of permission.
And even if her reasoning made sense to him, he could not have her sneaking out again the way she had.
It was foolish and dangerous, and he wasn’t going to allow it.
But maybe she did deserve a little more sympathy than she’d been given so far.
He sat down opposite her. “Are you looking for an opponent?” he asked, gesturing to the board.
Her eyes widened slightly. He could see that she hadn’t anticipated that. ‘You want to play chess with me?”
“If you like. But I’m warning you, I’m pretty good at it,” he said. “I mean, since you wanted to learn about me, that’s something you might as well know. No one ever beats me at chess. It’s been years since I lost a game.”
“Who do you usually play against?”
“Hawkins, ordinarily.”
She pressed her lips together, but he caught the smile she was trying to hold back. “Your butler?”
“He’s not bad.”
“You don’t think he might be letting you win?”
“Why would Hawkins do that?”
“Because you pay his wages maybe.”
“Hawkins knows that he doesn’t need to think like that.
He wouldn’t let me win.” But now Prudence had Leonard doubting himself.
Was it possible? Hawkins was a good chess player.
It was a bit surprising that Leonard won every game.
He ought to have tested himself against Gabriel, he realized now, but he had always held himself back.
He had told himself it was because he didn’t want to embarrass his friend with his superior skills, but now, he wondered.
Was that nothing more than an excuse—a story he had told himself to avoid a game with someone who might defeat him?
And now, here he was sitting across from Prudence. A little bit of life had come back into her eyes when he had offered her the game. And as he made his opening move, she sat forward in her chair, clearly eager for what was to come.
He had misunderstood this about her, he realized.
She was fiery and full of life, not because she loved to be difficult but because she had an appetite for excitement.
She hadn’t gone out to that club to court scandal; she had done it to have an adventure.
She hadn’t taken up the violin to vex him; she’d done it because learning something new excited her.
He had been far too hard on her. This was something he could understand… even if she had been channeling her desire in ways that concerned him. He just needed to help her find things to do that wouldn’t put them at risk but could still excite her.
The trouble was, he didn’t know her well enough to know what those things might be.
“We should have dinner together tonight,” he told her as she moved a pawn.
She started and in the process, tipped the pawn onto its side. “What do you mean?” she asked, standing it back upright. “You want to have dinner with me?”
“I think it might be nice,” he said. “It would be a chance for us to spend some time together before I go.”
“You want to spend time with me?” She frowned. “Where is this coming from? I thought it annoyed you when I wanted to spend time with you—but now you want me around?”
“I’ve been thinking about it, and I can see your point,” he said. “We should get to know each other better. Maybe that way, you won’t shock me by doing things I never would have imagined a well-brought-up young lady would do. Maybe if I know you a little better, I’ll see it coming next time.”
To his relief, she smiled. “Well, that couldn’t hurt,” she agreed.
“All right, we can eat dinner together. Maybe we ought to make it a regular thing until you leave in fact. After all, once you’re gone, who knows when we’ll ever see each other again.
We should take the opportunity while we have it. ”
“It’s your move,” he pointed out.
“Are you in a hurry to lose? If you haven’t lost in years, I suppose you might be anxious for it.”
“You’re very confident.”
“I’m good at this,” she said.
“You’re good at many things most ladies aren’t so good at, aren’t you?”
“I don’t know,” Prudence admitted. “That’s probably a fair assessment.
But I don’t tend to think about things like that.
I just do what I want to do without worrying about others very much.
She blushed slightly. “What I mean is… I’m not saying I don’t care how my actions impact people.
I only meant that I don’t care how I’m perceived. ”
“Yes, that I had noticed,” he observed with a smile. “But you say that you do care how your actions impact people?”
“Well, of course,” she said. “Did you have the impression that I didn’t care about that?”
“I don’t mean to be critical, but I do see you prioritizing your own happiness over what might be considered…advisable,” he pointed out. “Surely you must see that.”
She chuckled. “I suppose I do. I would never do anything to hurt another person. But if I feel that the people around me have chosen odd priorities for themselves, I’m not ashamed to say that my choices ought to take precedence.
I don’t have a problem with doing something you don’t like just because it might tarnish your reputation.
I think you can survive a little damage to your reputation. ”
“And what makes you so confident of that?” he asked.
“You’re a very strong person,” she said. “Surely you can survive almost anything.”
Leonard tried to ignore the warm feeling in the pit of his stomach at the compliment. Did she really mean that? He thought she probably did—what would idle flattery gain her at a time like this? “Even if that’s true,” he said, “that doesn’t mean it’s a good idea to go through something like that.”
“I don’t know,” she countered. “When my sisters and I were young, our reputations were pretty bad. It wasn’t our fault.
Our father’s gambling debts and bad business investments put us in a difficult position, we couldn’t keep up with the other ladies of society, and the talk about us was never flattering.
” She moved another piece. “The thing is, even though that was difficult, it made us strong. It made me into someone who doesn’t hesitate to go after the things that I want, and that’s the kind of person I want to be. ”
He sat back and regarded her for the first time with admiration. Not astonishment or consternation, the way he usually felt when he looked at her. He was truly inspired. She had taken hardship in her life and found a way to turn it into strength.
For a moment, it made him question whether he was being too harsh with her.
She couldn’t be allowed to go out dressed as a man, of course, but he could have been more easygoing when he’d learned what she was doing.
She had only been trying to have a good time after all, and was that really so wrong?
For a few moments, the two of them moved their pieces along the board in silence.
Then Prudence sat up straighter, a gleam in her eye. Leonard felt a sinking in the pit of his stomach, even though he didn’t know exactly why, as she picked up a bishop and set it down with authority.
She sat back in her chair and gazed at him, obvious satisfaction written across her face as he looked from her to the board and back.
“It’s checkmate,” she told him. “I guess your winning streak is broken.”