19
“What do you think they are talking about?” Thornston asked when Robert turned after checking on Jo who was dancing with Xavier.
He was immediately able to find her in the sea of colorful dresses and dark jackets.
Robert shrugged. He had no idea what his stepbrother and wife were talking about but from Jo’s encouraging smile, it seemed their conversation was going fairly well.
“His lips are moving, he seems to be taking part in the conversation,” Thornston commented with narrowed eyes, as if he was an ornithologist studying a rare species of birds.
“He is not that bad.”
Robert rolled his eyes at his friend and took a sip of the port. It was good; strong and potent. Not something that had been watered down. As he lowered his glass, his gaze immediately found Jo again on the dance floor.
She was wearing the teal silk dress she had worn on the second day of their marriage. It was paired with the diamonds again, but her hair was arranged differently, making it look brighter, and she was wearing different gloves as far as he could tell. She looked radiant as always.
“Nor is he that good,” Thornston countered.
“Why are you like this?” Robert turned to his friend abruptly.
Thornston and Xavier were friends, although Robert had wondered more than once what they spoke of when they were alone. He knew some people referred to his stepbrother as the Gargoyle because of his stony expression and Robert did not like it. He had never known Thornston to criticize him though.
“Nothing,” Thornston hurriedly added. “I am sorry if it came about in such a manner. It was merely an anthropological wondering since Barforth and your wife have not known each other for ten years or more, yet seem to be able to make a conversation last more than two minutes.”
Robert hated to agree with him, which was why he emptied his glass of port, handing it to a passing footman.
“I heard that you and Jo are going to Brighton on your honeymoon.”
Robert scowled at him. He did not like the intimate use of his wife’s name from his very charming friend’s mouth. Especially not only two days after the two of them had been accused of having an affair.
“Fine, you and the duchess,” Thornston relented in a tone that told Robert that he was absolutely not sorry.
“We are, yes,” Robert muttered.
He had been annoyed with his mother when she announced it this afternoon.
All the women of his family as well as Mrs. Oakley had come to tea at their townhouse.
Robert had gone upstairs briefly to greet them, and his mother had told Jo and him with a great smile and a flourish of her hand that they were going to Brighton for their honeymoon – along with at least half the ton.
Her smile had faded as she had seen Robert’s frown and Jo’s valiant attempt at keeping a thankful face, even though she had failed miserably.
“I thought you would both like it, Robert,” his mother had told him when he had pulled her aside to speak to her in private.
“If you had been courting beforehand, I would never have found something close to us. But you have not. You are still becoming acquainted with each other, and I thought it might put unnecessary pressure on both of you, if you were sequestered from other people.”
What she said did make sense, and he recognized that she had acted with their best interests in mind.
It was only… he had been looking forward to being sequestered with Jo.
Their day at Hampstead Heath had shown him that they could both be silent together and enjoy each other’s company.
Not to mention that he would finally be able to take her to bed by the end of their two-week honeymoon.
In Brighton, they could not help but meet people they knew, and they would have to see his mother and sisters as well.
They would have to show their faces in the assembly rooms, and every attraction in a ten-mile radius would be filled with other members of the ton.
It felt like an extension of London instead of the chance for them to finally settle into their marriage.
Robert had thanked his mother while trying to hide his disappointment.
With the time it took to write letters back and forth, it would be almost impossible to secure a different place to stay.
Unless they wanted to stay in a dusty roadside inn, the house in Brighton seemed like the best option for now.
They would have plenty of time just the two of them once they arrived at Riddlesmarsh Hall, he told himself.
“I gather from your tone of voice that you are not happy with it?” Thornston asked now.
“We will make the best of it,” Robert told Thornston as they both accepted another glass of spirits from a footman. This time Robert opted for the watered-down punch. He did not want a reprise of the day before yesterday.
“Will you be there?” Robert asked to change the subject, secretly hoping that Thornston might travel to the seaside as well. Since he and Jo had no choice but to go, it would be comforting to know that Thornston would be close by if he needed his advice.
“I have taken rooms there, yes. Then I am headed to Thornwell Abbey for a few weeks, before I begin my tour of house parties across the country.”
“Will we see you for Christmas?” Robert asked, trying to mask his worry that this might be the year Thornston decided to drink himself into a stupor either alone or with his reveler friends.
“Of course, you are never getting rid of me, Robbie boy.” Thornston grinned and shoved Robert’s arm affectionately.
“Good,” Robert growled and took a sip of his watered-down punch as Xavier and Jo approached them.
Jo’s hand rested loosely on Xavier’s arm and Robert felt the urge to tug her to his side.
She offered Robert a smile, tentative at first, then growing stronger when he returned it. Beside him Thornston chuckled lightly.
They talked for a few minutes, before Thornston exclaimed:
“I have always loved this melody. Duchess, will you do me the honor of dancing?”
Jo accepted with a look in Robert’s direction although he only smiled and nodded slightly.
He wished he could ask her to dance as well, but it was not customary for husband and wife to dance with each other at these events.
He could dance with another lady if he truly wished to dance, but his desire to move to the dance floor had nothing to do with wanting to dance and everything to do with wanting an excuse to be close to Jo.
Even if Xavier and Thornston kept a perfectly respectable distance between their bodies, it still put them closer physically to his wife than he had been in days.
He could not wait for their honeymoon to begin.
“You seemed to have a lot to say to her,” Robert observed to Xavier to distract himself. They were both watching Jo and Thornston take their places on the dance floor for a lively country dance.
“She asked me what I thought about the enclosure acts,” Xavier told him in a level voice.
Robert had to commend his wife for thinking of a topic that his brother would be able to speak about at length. She seemed to be getting on well with his family, especially his mother and Philomena. But he was glad that she was making an effort with Xavier and Maggie as well.
He watched Jo dance with Thornston. She was not as graceful a dancer as him, but she was enthusiastic and looked like she was having fun. She was constantly laughing whenever she and Thornston met in the dance.
“What do you think they are talking about?” Robert asked as he turned to Xavier and found his stepbrother watching him with an amused half-smile.
“He is probably telling her jokes,” Xavier said, still smiling slightly and observing him.
“What?” Robert asked.
“Nothing,” Xavier said and shook his head, turning to look at the dancing couples again.
Robert waved a footman with a tray full of small, delicate glasses of port over and took one for himself and handed one to Xavier before he pressed his brother:
“No, what were you thinking?”
“Just…” Xavier shook his head, not meeting Robert’s eyes. He took a sip of port while Robert waited for him to speak. “You seem happy.”
Another pause. Robert knew not to speak immediately but let Xavier take his time. He often formulated what he wanted to say in his mind before he spoke. Meaning that people frequently spoke over him, before he had a chance to say anything.
“If you had told me twelve days ago that you would be this fond of her…” Xavier trailed off with a sigh.
“I am not… She is my wife. It is natural to show concern and consideration for her.”
“Of course it is,” Xavier said placatingly in his quiet way that other people would probably think was a neutral statement, but which Robert knew to be teasing.
“The two of you need to stop. Both you and Thornston are insisting that there is more, when there is not. I don’t want to give her the wrong impression. I can’t. And neither can you,” Robert told the side of his stepbrother’s face as he kept his eyes on the dance floor.
Xavier slowly turned to him.
“I don’t know why you are fighting this, Robert. You have been extremely lucky. You should treasure it.”
Robert gritted his teeth and gripped the delicate glass of port tightly. He was not fighting it. He was not. There was nothing to fight. He was being sensible and practical. Kind, but not overly attentive. He did not want to give either Jo or himself hope that there was more than there was.
“I hated seeing the way Lady Egerton strung you along for years. You have found someone you can make happy, who can make you happy…” Xavier’s throat went hoarse toward the end, and he cleared his throat and looked at the polished wood of the ballroom floor.
“She did not string me along!” Robert inferred. “We loved each other!”
Xavier raised his eyebrows in a questioning manner, before looking at the dance floor again.
“If you think that was love, you know nothing about it at all, Robert,” he said quietly.