First Comes Marriage (29 page)

“—will have to wait,” Elliott said without glancing at the pile—or at his secretary. “I will be spending the morning with her ladyship.”

There was a short pause.

“Ah, quite so,” George said, making a great to-do of straightening the third, small pile.

“I will be taking her to see the Towneley collection at the British Museum,” Elliott said. Later, he wished he had not added the next words. “It is her wish that we do some things together.”

“Some wives are funny that way,” George said as he mended a pen though there was no sign that he intended to put it to any immediate use. “Or so I have heard.”

“I need to go upstairs and change,” Elliott said.

“You do.” His friend looked him critically up and down. “A suggestion, Elliott, if I may?”

Elliott had already turned toward the door. He sighed and looked back over his shoulder.

“I suppose the museum and the collection was your idea,” George said. “And a fine one it was too. But take her to Gunter’s afterward. I daresay she has never tasted an ice. It will please her. She will see it as a romantic gesture on your part.”

Elliott turned fully to face his secretary again.

“And you are suddenly an expert in romantic gestures, George?” he asked.

His secretary cleared his throat.

“One does not need to be,” he said. “One has only to observe ladies to understand what pleases them. And your lady is easy to please, I would wager. She is a cheerful little thing—even when there is not much to be cheerful about.”

“You are wishful of making a point, George?” his employer asked with ominous calm.

“The trouble with you,” George said, “is that you do not have a romantic bone in your body, Elliott. The only thing you have ever known to do with a woman you fancied is to bed her. Not that I blame you. I have often envied you, if the truth were known. But the fact is that ladies need more than that or at least—Well, never mind. But they are romantically inclined and it behooves us to give them what they want at least occasionally—if they belong to us, that is, and are not merely mistresses.”

Elliott stared at him.

“Good God!” he said. “What the devil have I been harboring beneath my own roof in the guise of a secretary?”

George had the grace to look apologetic, though he did not remain mute.

“The sculptures first, if you really must, Elliott,” he said. “I believe your lady has the fortitude not to need smelling salts there. I believe she will even enjoy them. But take her to Gunter’s afterward, old chap.”

“This early in the year?” Elliott asked.

“Even if it were January,” George assured him. “And especially after she has been all alone for four days—except for the other ladies, of course. And married for only a little over a week.”

“You are impertinent,” Elliott said, his eyes narrowing.

“Only observant,” his friend said. “You had better go up and change before breakfast.”

Elliott went.

He was not in the best of moods as he climbed the stairs to his room—though he had not been in the best of moods for six days. Not when he was at home, anyway. He had been happy enough at his clubs, at Tattersall’s, at Jackson’s boxing saloon, mingling with his friends and acquaintances, talking on congenial topics like the government and the wars and the upcoming races and boxing mills.

He was convinced that he had made the biggest mistake of his life when he had allowed Vanessa Dew to talk him into marrying her.

Though if it had not been her, it would have been someone else soon. And if he had not married either her or her sister, then the Huxtable ladies would still be like a millstone hanging about his neck.

She had
loved
Dew, for the love of God, but had not been
in
love with him. What the deuce was
that
supposed to mean? She had not enjoyed her sexual encounters with Dew, though the poor devil had probably been too ill to give her a good time. On the contrary, she had enjoyed her beddings with
him
—until she had remembered her dead husband and got herself caught up in a web of grief and guilt so tangled that his head spun at the thought of even
trying
to unravel it—
not
that he intended to try.

He wondered if there could be a more muddle-headed female in existence than his wife and seriously doubted it.

But she had thought the three days and four nights following their wedding the most wonderful of her life.

That was mildly gratifying, he supposed.

Good Lord, did she expect him to
talk
about every small problem that might arise in their marriage for the rest of their lives? Were they going to
analyze
everything to death?

Was life going to become hopelessly complicated?

Of course
it was. He was
married,
was he not? And to Vanessa, of all people.

And now he was to give up a perfectly decent morning of reading the papers and conversing at White’s Club in order to take her to enjoy a cultural experience. And
that
was to be followed by ices at Gunter’s.

Not that he had to take her there. He was not about to allow his secretary to dictate his every move, was he? And scold him for neglecting his wife?

But it appeared that taking Vanessa to Gunter’s was the romantic thing to do.

Good Lord!

Had she not at one time promised to make him comfortable?

Thus far he was finding marriage the most uncomfortable thing he had ever experienced or dreamed possible.

Though those first few days had been somewhat enjoyable, he had to admit. More than
somewhat,
in fact.

Either way he was in this marriage for life.

It seemed like a damnably long time.

He rang the bell for his valet.

17

VANESSA enjoyed looking at the sculptures. She spent a great deal of time gazing at them all one at a time, quite unabashed by their nakedness and undeterred by the fact that most of them were mere fragments.

“I cannot believe,” she said at one point, “that I am actually looking at objects created during such ancient civilizations. It all quite takes one’s breath away, does it not?”

But she did not fill the time with chatter, Elliott was interested to find. She gave her undivided attention to the collection. Until, that was, he became aware that she looked at him from time to time rather as she was looking at the exhibits—with a steady, critical gaze. He noticed because
he
was looking at
her
as much as he was viewing the pieces—he had seen them before, after all.

She was wearing pink, a color that ought to have looked dreadful on her but did not. It made her look delicate and feminine. It made her complexion look rosy and vibrant. It made her look really quite pretty.

Of course the clothes were all expertly styled and her absurd little bonnet was in the height of fashion.

He intercepted one of her looks and raised his eyebrows.

“They are all very white or gray,” she explained, “as if the ancient Greeks and other Mediterranean races were pale. But they could not have been in real life, could they? I suppose these were all painted once upon a time in vibrant colors. They must have looked like you. They must have been dark-complexioned like you only more so because they lived under the hot sun all the time. They must have been even more beautiful than they look here.”

Was that a compliment? he wondered. And was she calling him
beautiful
?

“All of that is your heritage,” she said later, as they left the museum. “Do you feel a tug at your heart-strings, Elliott?”

“I believe,” he said, “it is an organ that comes without strings attached.”

He was rewarded for his sorry attempt at a joke with a wide, delighted smile.

“But yes,” he said, “I am always aware of my Greek heritage.”

“Have you ever been to Greece?” she asked.

“Once as an infant,” he told her. “My mother took Jessica and me to visit our grandfather and numerous other relatives. I remember little except large, noisy family gatherings and bright sunshine and deep blue water and getting lost in the Parthenon because I would not obey instructions to stay at my mother’s side.”

“Do you never think of going back?” she asked as he helped her into the carriage.

“Yes,” he said. “But I did not do it when I could. Now, since my father’s death, I am too busy here. Besides, Greece is a very volatile part of the world politically.”

“You ought to go anyway,” she said. “You still have family members there, do you?”

“Too numerous to count,” he said.

“
We
ought to go,” she said. “It would be like a honey-moon again.”

“Honeymoon?” It was a word that had always made him cringe.
“Again?”

“Like the three days at the dower house,” she said. “They were good, were they not?”

That had been a
honeymoon
?

“I have estates to run,” he said. “And I have just become guardian to a seventeen-year-old boy who has much to learn before he can assume the full exercise of his duties.”

“And it is the beginning of the Season,” she said as the carriage moved off down Great Russell Street, “and Meg and Kate need to be introduced to society.”

“Yes,” he agreed.

“And you need to set up your nursery without further delay.”

“Yes.”

He glanced at her sidelong. She was looking ahead and smiling.

“They are not good enough excuses,” she said.

“Excuses?”
He raised his eyebrows again.

“Your family members are growing older over there,” she said. “Is your grandfather still alive?”

“Yes.”

“And life goes by very fast,” she said. “Just yesterday, it seems, I was a girl, yet now already I am approaching my middle twenties. You are almost thirty.”

“We are practically in our dotage,” he said.

“We will be before we know it,” she said. “If we are fortunate enough to grow old, that is. Life should be

lived and enjoyed every moment.”

“And to the devil with duties and responsibilities?”

“No, of course not,” she said. “But sometimes it is easier to shelter behind those duties than to admit that our presence is not always indispensable and to step out into life and live it for all it is worth.”

“Forgive me,” he said, frowning, “but have you not lived all your life thus far in Throckbridge and its environs, Vanessa? Are you qualified to advise me to throw duty and caution to the winds and embark on the first ship leaving for Greece?”

“But I am no longer there,” she said. “I chose to move to Warren Hall with my sisters and brother even though it was all a great unknown. And then I chose to marry you—and heaven knows
you
are a vast unknown. Tomorrow I am to be presented to the queen. Then I will be attending Cecily’s come-out ball and introducing Meg and Kate to the
ton
. And then a thousand and one other such events. Am I frightened? Yes, of course I am. But am I going to do it all? Absolutely.”

He pursed his lips.

“I think,” he said, “we will not be going to Greece anytime soon.”

“No, of course we will not.” She turned her head to smile dazzlingly at him. “For there
is
duty, and I know I must learn that this new life does not mean total and endless freedom. But we must not be oppressed by duty, Elliott. I think perhaps that is what you have allowed to happen since your father died. There can be joy even in a dutiful life.”

He wondered suddenly if that was a description of her first marriage. Had she not really been happy, but had forced herself to be joyful? And if he was not careful, he was going to become as tortured by words as she was. What
was
the difference between happiness and joy?

“And one of these days,” she said, “when there is nothing urgent to keep you at home and Stephen is capable of looking after his own affairs, we will go to Greece and meet your family and have a second honey-moon. And if we have children by then, they will simply come with us.”

She had her head turned to look at him. She blushed suddenly, realizing perhaps what she had just said. Though why she needed to blush after almost two weeks of regular intimacies with him he did not know.

“The carriage is stopping,” she observed, looking out through the window beyond his head. “But we are not home yet.”

“We have arrived at Gunter’s,” he told her. “We are going to have an ice here.”

“An ice?” Her eyes widened.

“I thought you might like refreshments after trudging about the museum looking at cold marble and breathing in old dust for a whole hour,” he said. “Though you actually enjoyed it, did you not?”

“An
ice,
” she said without answering his question. “I have never tasted one, you know. They are said to be absolutely divine.”

“Nectar of the gods?” he said as he handed her down to the pavement. “Perhaps. You may judge for yourself.”

It was easy to become jaded with the luxuries and privileges of one’s life, Elliott thought over the following half hour while he watched his wife taste and then savor her ice. She ate it in small spoonfuls and held the ice in her mouth for several seconds before swallowing. For the first few mouthfuls she even closed her eyes.

“Mmm,” she said. “Could anything possibly be more delicious?”

“I could probably think of a dozen things
as
delicious if I set my mind to it,” he said. “But
more
delicious? No, I doubt it.”

“Oh, Elliot,” she said, leaning toward him across the table, “has not this been a
lovely
morning? Was I not right? Is it not fun to do things together?”

Fun?

But as he thought of the morning at White’s as it might have been, he realized that he did not feel unduly deprived. He really had rather enjoyed the morning, in fact.

As they were leaving Gunter’s, they ran into Lady Haughton and her young niece, who were being escorted inside by Lord Beaton.