Chapter 10
Boxing with the boys. It was something to get his mind off the mess that his life was quickly becoming.
“Two-minute rounds,” the boy announced, chin high.
“Three,” Oliver corrected. “Keep us honest.”
The boy saluted with the watch.
“You sure?” Peter lifted his brows at Stephen.
“About starting?” Stephen slid his mouthguard between his teeth. “Or about anything else.”
“Either,” Peter said.
“Start,” Stephen said, and touched gloves.
They moved. Peter came in clean. Stephen liked him best in the ring. He slipped a jab, blocked the follow, answered with a left that Peter caught on his shoulder.
“You’re slow,” Peter said.
“Thinking,” Stephen muttered.
“Dangerous habit,” Peter said, and hooked to the body. Stephen ate it, pivoted, and worked the jab.
“Break,” the boy said, unnecessarily. They separated. Stephen blinked sweat.
“You good there?” Oliver thumped the ropes with his glove.
“Shut up,” Stephen said through the guard.
“Footwork,” Peter said. “You’re crowding me to crowd yourself.”
“Round,” the boy called.
Stephen stepped in harder than he meant to. Peter took it, adjusted, returned a neat one-two that rattled Stephen’s vision, and the bell clacked. They touched gloves and Stephen paced to his corner, rolling his neck.
“Water,” Oliver said, offering the dipper. “Or something stronger. I can fetch Nicholas’s brandy if you like.”
Stephen took the water. It was cold enough to remind him he had a mouth. “Next.”
Oliver grinned, tightened his headgear, and stepped in. He was taller than Peter and less careful. He liked combinations and surprises. He also liked to talk.
“Marriage,” Oliver said, bouncing. “You sure about this?”
“Focus,” Peter said from the ropes.
“I am focused,” Oliver said. “On preventing his face from becoming less handsome before his wedding. Which, by the by, is what we are not discussing.”
“We are not.” Stephen ducked a looping right and countered to the ribs.
“Rude,” Oliver said. “Give us an evening, at least.”
“Hands,” Peter warned.
Oliver threw. Stephen blocked, slipped, and returned a cross that landed a fraction early. Oliver grunted, grinned, and used the moment to step inside. They bumped shoulders, and the boy’s watch clacked again.
Break.
“Say it,” Oliver said, hands on his hips, mouthguard clenched in his teeth. “Get it out.”
“It’s simple.” Stephen spat into the bucket and bought himself a second with the towel.
“Nothing about your face is simple,” Oliver said.
“You dislike being forced,” Peter leaned on the top rope.
Stephen glared. “I dislike forcing her.”
“Better. Keep going.” Oliver’s grin faded.
“It’s a marriage,” Peter said calmly. “Not an execution.”
“Depends on whom you ask,” Oliver muttered.
Peter ignored him.
“A contract. You are compatible enough not to make each other miserable. You can be kind. She is not foolish. What is the problem?”
Stephen rolled the wrap at his wrist.
“You assume marriage is weight,” Peter’s brows lifted. He had assumed correctly, of course. That was the trouble with old friends. There was simply no lying when it came to them.
“For me, it is,” Stephen said. “I have not been… light, lately.”
“Since when?” Oliver’s eyes flicked.
“You’re terrified,” Oliver said, not unkind. “Not of marrying but rather failing at it.”
Once again, he declined to respond.
“Round,” the boy called.
They touched gloves again, and Oliver came in hot. Stephen let him have the luxury of thinking that he had the upper hand for starters. It was always a better victory when one let their opponent think that they had a chance at first.
Besides, blocking and moving were easier than thinking. He found a rhythm, and Oliver talked anyway between exchanges.
“You think Alethea and I had it easy at the start?” He slipped a jab. “Ours was a tumultuous start, really. You at least like each other. I think that is quite promising.”
“Do we?” Stephen said. He circled, jabbed the chest to move Oliver’s feet, circled again.
“You seem to say good things about her,” Oliver shrugged his shoulders. “So, I can only deduce from that.”
“That is more than most manage,” Peter added in.
Stephen took a body shot and let it make him honest.
“I don’t want to marry.”
“Neither did I,” Oliver snorted. “But it worked out just well enough for me. I suspect you take the leap of faith as well.”
“It’s really only just a marriage,” Peter replied. “You need not take it so seriously. It is not as though your life will end once you say the words to her.”
Stephen wondered what to say in response. In earnest, it was true that it was only a marriage. Yet the circumstances in which he had been pulled into one were just not ones that he had ever expected for himself.
He did not even have the license to be angry at Maria, of course. This was not her fault.
But there were just too many unknowns still. He did not know what the future was going to hold.
“Another match,” he found himself saying abruptly. Anything to distract himself.
“Are you sure you need another match?” Oliver was grinning at him now. “Or do you rather need another drink instead?”
“Whichever is fine.”
He did not want to marry, nor did he wish to elaborate. Both of those things, he decided, he could defer to later.
Their wedding was not much to talk about. For Maria, it went by like a blur. The ceremony was beautiful, of course, but not a lot of people had been invited.
She had gone through the motions. It was not a good thing to overthink, she told herself. This was a new stage of her life, and as daunting as it was, she was going to have to show up for it.
Maria had also heard that brides often cry on their wedding day.
But she had not shed a single tear. Was it because she was still coming to terms with how quickly everything had been decided?
Or was it because she did not feel a strong attachment to her family home, which was a reason why some brides cried.
If anything, Maria should be feeling a sense of relief. For she had finally achieved her objective of getting married and no longer being a burden to her brother.
When the ceremony was over, Maria was placed in a carriage with her now-husband.
Husband. The word sent a shiver down her spine, and she knew that it was going to take a while for her to get used to it.
“You managed to look everywhere but at me,” Maria said at last. She could not help herself now. They had not exchanged many words during the wedding, and now she finally had a chance to speak to him.
“I looked precisely where I ought,” Stephen replied. “I do not think you should have any cause for complaints.”
Maria bit down on her lip. Complaint, no. She would not wish to do that on the first day of their marriage.
“I would not say that I am complaining,” Maria managed her tone carefully. “But I am merely pointing out that you seemed to look more at the wall than you did at me, or at the guests.”
“Did you not wish for me to look at the guests?” Stephen asked. There was a hint of amusement in his voice now. “They did the trouble of attending our wedding. It would be considered a rude thing not to acknowledge them.”
Maria shot him a look. “Yes, but was it really necessary for you to look at only them the entire time, and ignore your wife entirely?”
“Perhaps that was what was required of me,” Stephen replied. Infuriating, Maria thought. He seemed to have a ready-made answer to everything.
“How thoughtful. One cannot fault you for attention to hospitality,” she said in a dry voice. “But I was merely pointing out to you something which I noticed.”
“You are observant, yes,” his tone was amused again, and Maria wondered if he extracted some sort of joy from riling her up in this manner. “I shall keep that in mind.”
“I suspect that there will be many new things that you shall discover about me now,” she said. She did not know where the confidence had come from, but she was not going to shrink herself.
It was true that she already did feel comfortable around him. Maybe it was because he had given her those lessons before they had gotten married, or maybe there was just something comforting about the way they were around each other.
Comforting and difficult both, she corrected herself. Their personalities seemed to be at odds for the most part, and she did not know how that was going to be resolved over the course of a marriage.
“Hmm,” was all that he said in response. She waited for him to continue, but it was as though he had run out of things to say to her now.
The rest of the drive passed with the measured patience of two people determined not to quarrel, or perhaps just ignore each other a tad bit more.
Verwood House received them well. And Stephen was quick to lead her to her chambers.
“These are yours,” he said at the door of a bright suite. “If anything displeases you, have it changed and do not worry in the slightest.”
She walked a slow circuit, hands tucked into her gloves so he would not see them shake.
“It is all… possible,” she said. “That is praise, in case you wondered.”
He nodded once and set a small ring of keys on the desk.
“Mrs. Walsh answers to you in domestic matters; I in none. The nursery is shut; you may ignore it. The chapel needs no attention beyond flowers. If you prefer another paper in the sitting room, choose it.”
“You have prepared everything,” she said, the words straight.
“That was the point.”
“It usually is,” she said.
He let that pass.
“Tea is ordered for four. Supper at eight, plain. I will be in the library until six.” He glanced toward the window. “It suits in the afternoon.”
She turned from the window to him.
“And a husband,” she said. “Does a husband suit here as well, or do I expect him in some other room by appointment only?”
He held her gaze just long enough to confirm he’d heard the question.
“You will not often be put to the inconvenience.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“I have work,” he said. “Town, chambers, the estate offices. We will keep a sensible schedule. It prevents bruised expectations.”
“Whose?”
“Both,” he said.