14
He should have returned home, Robert thought as he studied himself in the looking glass in Thornston’s dressing room.
He should have returned straight after the discussion had concluded at the Duke of Camborne’s townhouse.
He should at least have returned home when he had finished his coffee at the salon with Thornston and Xavier afterwards.
Before he agreed to have dinner with Thornston.
Before he sent a note to have his evening clothes brought to Thornston’s townhouse and a short apology to Jo that he would not make it home before she had to leave for the Cloptons’ soiree and that he would meet her there.
He should certainly have returned before he emptied a bottle of red wine with Thornston, became slightly inebriated and would have to fight the urge to pull Jo aside – preferably into a dark hallway or the garden – as soon as he arrived at the soiree.
He thought of her rosy cheeks as she had entered their house earlier. The way her dress emphasized her bosom.
“Are you ready? You are spending more time than me getting dressed,” Thornston called from his lounge next to the dressing room.
What had once been a suite for his parents had been turned into a massive five-room suite for Thornston alone.
His dressing room was the largest Robert had ever been in and was created in the bedroom that had been meant for the viscountess.
As if Thornston did not anticipate she would ever exist. Or perhaps meant for her to sleep elsewhere in the house.
His friend had never spoken of marriage, even though he was the last of his line and would need an heir if the title was not to go back to the crown.
Robert had often thought of asking but always hesitated.
Even though Thorston was one of the people Robert knew best, he had always sensed that Thornston put up invisible barriers around several issues and that marriage was one of them.
“Yes, I am almost done,” Robert muttered and fiddled with his cravat once again as he gave himself one final glance in the looking glass.
With the dark blue coat, cream colored waistcoat and matching breeches, he looked presentable enough.
Although even the finest clothes could not remove the dark circles under his eyes.
He and Jo had been invited to another party tomorrow night and had already agreed to go, because it was important to show a united front, but he wished they had not.
Robert needed time. Time alone to recuperate. Ride for hours and empty his mind and make sense of the complicated labyrinth of desire and distance his life had become after he married.
And time to become better acquainted with Jo. If they knew each other better, they might avoid awkward and unnecessary fights in the future.
But every second of his day was filled. After their ride that morning, he had had to look over the final papers for the meeting this afternoon with the Duke of Camborne, Lord Winterbottom, Thornston, Xavier and several others to discuss the Simpson Divorce Act and the Bakewell Inclosure Act which they would be voting on for the final session of Parliament.
None of them wanted to trap two unwilling parties in marriage nor put people out of their livelihoods by enclosing their land, but they also realized that their votes could be used strategically and wanted to discuss it. It was crucial that he was there for his future political work.
He had thought he and Jo could have luncheon together, but when he had asked Robinson where Jo was, his butler had informed him that she had gone out several hours ago.
It had felt strange that he did not know where she was and that she had not informed him.
He had spent too much time trying to reason with himself that she had probably not wanted to disturb him or thought him indifferent to her whereabouts.
Which was the furthest from the truth. He had no wish to control where she went, merely to know where she was. It was normal when you were living together, was it not? She was his wife and his responsibility. It was natural for him to feel uneasy when he did not know where she was.
And to pay for her clothes. He did not fully understand their disagreement earlier – only that he felt Jo had relented because of his argument about her cousin, rather than because she too believed that Robert should pay.
Which he should. The husband paid for his wife’s dresses.
Even if he did not understand why she felt she needed them.
“What is happening between you and your new bride since you are hiding here?” Thornston asked when Robert joined him in the lounge and plunked into a high-backed leather chair beside him.
Thornston handed him a glass of whisky without a word. Robert took a large gulp of it, even though he knew he should not. He needed his wits about him to navigate the soiree – and the closeness to Jo in an evening gown – but could not refrain from the liquid comfort he was offered.
“Nothing,” Robert told Thornston and kept his gaze fixed on the unlit fireplace. “We had our first fight,” he mumbled after another sip.
“And she threw you out?” Thornston leaned forward and looked almost gleeful at the thought.
“No, I…” Robert rubbed his forehead. “We made amends before I left. It was why I was late.”
“Amends?” Thornston smirked and raised his eyebrows.
“Not like that,” Robert scoffed.
“So, what did you do?”
“I wanted to pay for her dresses,” Robert told him and took another sip of his whisky. The warmth was soothing and relaxing, although he could not allow himself to become too relaxed in Jo’s presence.
Thornston sat back in his chair with a stupefied expression on his face.
“Pay for her dresses?” he repeated slowly as if he could make sense of the words by repeating them. “But why would she expect anything else? Oh, well, she is a tad different…”
Robert turned his head sharply to glare at him.
“I meant that in a positive way,” Thornston hurriedly told him. “Most women would not have proposed to a man they had only seen across a ballroom. You must allow me as much. So, she wanted to use her inheritance on dresses?”
“Part of it,” Robert muttered and downed the last of the whisky. He had finished it too fast but there was nothing to be done about it. “She invests her own money. She has made 4,625 pounds since she came of age two years ago from a principal of 20,000.”
Thornston whistled, impressed.
“I should have her look at my finances.” Thornston grinned and poured more whisky into Robert’s glass.
“She is certainly something else than Lady Egerton. And I mean that as a compliment,” Thornston hurriedly added before Robert had a chance to comment on it.
“Did you hear she has started a kennel of pugs at her new husband’s estate? ”
Robert shook his head as the new information landed with him.
He had always liked Lucretia’s love of dogs.
She had had several pugs during the time he had known her, and she doted on them as much as her two children she had had before they met.
Robert had always liked the idea that his house would be full of dogs once they married.
He had wanted a dog for himself but had waited since he was afraid it might not get along with Lucretia’s dogs once they moved in together.
He did not even know whether Jo liked dogs. Should a dog have been part of their contract?
His stepfather had always had dogs. Large bloodhounds that were excellent for hunting but also great family dogs.
Xavier had kept up the tradition and at least three bloodhounds always roamed the hallways of Barforth Castle and the grounds beyond it.
Robert knew that Xavier missed the dogs just as much as the solitude he found there.
“Should I not have told you?” Thornston asked cautiously.
Robert looked at his friend and remembered that Thornston had mentioned Lucretia and his thoughts had then veered off… in the direction of dogs.
“No, it’s fine,” Robert muttered, emptied his glass and held it out for Thornston to refill it.
He had not thought of Lucretia since standing in the Thistleworths’ ballroom he realized.
He had been pining over her for eight years, been heartbroken for the past six months and then…
three days of nothing. Because he had been too busy of course.
Settling Jo into his world as well as all his other obligations meant he had no time to think of Lucretia or the life they could have built together.
When he had met Lucretia, he fell in love instantly.
They had been at a house party, the first he had attended with his stepfather and mother.
They had arrived a little late, he could not recall the reason, but the whole party had been gathered outside, soaking up the last of the warmth before autumn truly set in.
Lucretia had been standing among a group of women. She had thrown her head back and laughed when they had approached and it had shown off her long, slender neck and blonde curls around her face.
Robert had instantly known that he wanted to become acquainted with her. Intimately and deeply and not purely in a sexual manner. He had been attracted to dozens of women before, he had been a young man of nineteen after all, but this was different. He had known it as soon as he felt it.
Jo was nothing like Lucretia, Thornston was right about that. Nor were his feelings for Jo anything as clear as what he felt for Lucretia.
The past few days had been the most confusing he had ever experienced. When she had asked him why it was important for him to pay for her dresses, he could not give her an answer.
Or at least not voice the one that had first come to mind: He wanted to provide for Jo.
Be able to give her what she needed. Both materially and in other aspects of their marriage as well.
In the bedroom certainly, but also outside of it he was starting to realize.
He wanted there to be a partnership between them.
And it meant that he took care of her in the ways he could, like paying for her dresses. Without being questioned about it.
Robert sighed and emptied his third glass of whisky, silently holding it out for Thornston to fill it again. His friend lifted a questioning brow but acquiesced when Robert raised both of his in a silent answer.
He was uncertain whether Jo felt the same as him.
Nowhere in her contract had she mentioned friendship or even the two of them liking each other.
Her second list was only meant to establish enough comfort between them for her to perform her marital duties.
Not for a friendship or a partnership to blossom.
But it would be ideal, Robert thought, if they liked each other outside of the bedroom as well.
Perhaps it was a given to Jo. She saw the world so differently from him, as if she had a clearer lens to watch it through.
He remembered Jo’s comment about Thornston, about how difficult it must have been for him to read Robert and Xavier’s letters from home when Philomena was sick. As if his mind was grasping onto anything other than having to decipher his complicated feelings regarding Jo.
“I have never thanked you,” Robert blurted, then realized from Thornston’s puzzled look that he had offered no context. “For reading our letters from home. When Philomena was ill.”
“You are welcome,” Thornston told him coolly, which told Robert that they were close to one of the invisible boundaries his friend had created for himself.
Nevertheless, the whisky and the red wine made Robert continue.
“Jo made me realize how difficult it must have been for you. And I had never thought of it. I just… I was truly grateful that you would read our letters. And I am certain that Xavier was as well.”
Thornston looked at him with an almost pitying expression on his face.
“Yes, I am aware,” he told Robert gently. “Barforth thanked me… at the time.”
“Fuck,” Robert muttered and rubbed his forehead. “I… I’m sorry.”
“All is forgiven,” Thornston told him. “I am glad though that you realized now. Even after twelve years.”
Robert huffed mirthlessly. The room seemed to be spinning around him and he felt sick.
“Riddles, are you quite right?” Thornston asked concerned and placed his hand on Robert’s arm.
“No,” Robert groaned.
“You should lie down,” Thornston urged him.
Robert nodded, which only made the room spin faster. He kept hold of the arms of the chair as if it was the bulwark and the floor a ship in a stormy sea.
“I can’t,” Robert said in a thick voice. “Jo…”
“I will go to her,” Thornston told him.