Chapter Seven #3
Alexander cleared his throat. “Not that I’m aware of. Everything … works as it should.”
“Rather a miracle then that you haven’t yet sired a child,” she tossed back at him. “Unless you have?”
“I have not. There are many methods to ensure a child is not conceived and I make use of most of them. I am exceedingly careful with all my … attachments that no child is created and I shall continue to be, for both of our sakes.”
“Continue?” Harriet looked a little pale now, although Alexander was still trying his best not to notice her emotions overmuch. This was the only way he would marry, and she’d have to accept it.
“I have no interest in forcing a child to be raised a bastard. It was rather miserable for me, and I will not damn someone else to that existence. As such, I also ask that you take care in your own affairs.”
And then she laughed. What about this was humorous?
“I’m sorry. I wasn’t meaning to … I just … I feel rather silly I suppose, but I didn’t realize you meant to … continue. Or that you meant for me to … Though of course you do. You’re …” Harriet gestured toward his entire being with a smile that didn’t entirely reach her eyes.
It took Alexander a moment to retrace the conversation and understand her.
Of course he meant to continue seeing women.
It had not occurred to him that she might assume otherwise.
Resentment bubbled up in him—society was forcing this on both of them; he had no desire to offend her or cause her misery.
He simply wanted to be left alone, to do as he always had.
Alexander took a deep, steadying breath. “I am sorry. I should have been more delicate about the topic. Or perhaps less honest. Since the marriage is in name only, I figured that, upon return to London, we might both resume our lives.”
“I agree entirely, my lord. And I appreciate your honesty.”
Alexander had the distinct impression that, despite her words of concurrence, she was still upset. Her mouth was getting tight again. She didn’t speak for a while, which he was learning was quite a bad sign with Harriet.
“Well then,” she said, standing from the table and heading over to the water ewer to wash up, “I see no reason to engage in amorous congress at all.”
He did. He saw many reasons. Every atom in his body stilled, as if that might alter what she had said.
“I beg your pardon?” he asked, carefully.
“As I understand, you have many willing partners. I cannot fathom you having a need to bed me.”
“Don’t be absurd! Of course I intend to bed my wife.”
“Whatever for? You have no desire for children, to do so would only increase the risk of begetting an heir.” She dried her hands on a small piece of toweling, and then reached up to adjust the pins in her hair. Her efforts did little to help rein in the mass of rich mahogany hair.
“We must at least consummate our marriage.” Indeed, the promise of a wedding night was perhaps the only upside to the custom of matrimony.
“As long as we don’t plan to annul—which we both agreed would be antithetical to our interests—there isn’t any reason. Certainly not a legal one.”
“A great oversight on the part of Parliament,” Alexander retorted. Antithetical to our interests? Bedding her perfectly aligned with his interests. He was famous for those very interests!
“Is this about your pride?” she asked, hairpin between her teeth. He hadn’t been condescended to by a woman in ages. In fact, ever, if recollection served.
“I shouldn’t like to think myself a prisoner of my ego; however, I can’t imagine there’s another man in England who hasn’t tupped his wife!
” This entire conversation was perplexing.
He felt as if he’d been repeatedly thrown in the Thames with his limbs bound.
And every time he scrambled to shore, he got tossed in again.
One of them was going mad and he wasn’t certain it wasn’t him.
“Perhaps it will be a balm to recall how many other men’s wives you’ve tupped,” Harriet offered, and the oddest part was that she seemed almost sincere in her attempt to soothe him. “No one need know. I hardly plan to go about announcing that I’ve been … overlooked … by my own husband.”
“Any man who would overlook you is a fool, and I don’t plan on being a fool.”
Harriet smiled then, and Alexander returned it. Thank goodness. Perhaps their conversation could return to more agreeable avenues—like what she thought of his bare chest and where they planned to stop for the night.
“You really are incredibly practiced at your little coquetries, aren’t you, my lord?” she said, patting his arm as she swished past him, still in that bewitching ball gown.
Oh, hell. She hadn’t been smiling; she’d been laughing at him. She thought his compliment false. Alexander wasn’t used to his flirtation being so easily dismissed.
“I’ll wait for you in the carriage,” she called after herself, sailing out of the room, leaving a bewildered Alexander and the strong scent of hothouse citrus in her wake.
Worse, she’d finished off the entire breakfast tray, leaving him nothing but kippers.
Christ, this was going to be a long marriage.