The Countess
Authors: Lynsay Sands
Lynsay Sands
The Countess
Contents
M
y lady?”
Christiana remained curled on her side in her cocoon of blankets. She merely opened one eye to peer at the older woman bent over her. Grace, her maid. “Hmm?”
“Your sisters are here.” Those four words and the urgency behind them brought her other eye open at once.
“What? My sisters in London?” Christiana rolled over, thrusting the blankets and linens away to sit up. “And here at this hour? There must be some sort of emergency for them to be calling so early.”
“That was my thought when I saw them getting out of the carriage,” Grace admitted as Christiana got out of bed. “So I hurried up here to fetch you. If you’re quick we can have you dressed and downstairs before your husband sends them away.”
“Dicky wouldn’t send them away,” Christiana said with surprise, and then tacked on an uncertain, “Would he?”
“He’s done so with others.”
“Who?” Her horror and surprise came muffled from inside the cloth of her nightdress as the maid dragged it off over her head.
“Lady Beckett, Lady Gower, Lord Ollivet and Lord Langley . . . twice.” Grace turned away to trade the nightdress for a pale blue gown that matched Christiana’s eyes. As she began to help her don it, she added, “And I can tell you Lord Langley didn’t like it the first time, but was absolutely livid the second.”
“I can imagine,” Christiana said with a sigh as the dress dropped to cover her body. The Langley estate bordered her childhood home, Madison Manor. Robert, the only son and heir, had grown up with her and her sisters. He was like family, the big brother she’d never had. He wouldn’t have appreciated being sent away like some sort of undesirable. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
Grace snatched up a hairbrush and began to drag it through her hair before saying, “What good would it have done?”
“None,” Christiana admitted unhappily. Her husband had every right to turn away whomever he wished from his door, while she, as she’d come to learn, had few to no rights at all in this marriage. She sighed, and then grimaced as Grace tugged at her hair, pulling it into the tight, matronly bun Christiana had worn since marriage, a style she absolutely abhorred. Aside from being ugly, having her hair pulled so tight all day resulted in terrible headaches, but Dicky insisted it gave some sophistication to her unruly person.
“What could have brought my sisters here?” Christiana asked worriedly.
“I do not know, but it must be something important. They did not send word of their arrival in the city ere arriving,” the woman pointed out, and then stepped back. “There. I have finished with your hair.”
Christiana barely managed to swipe up her slippers before Grace took her arm to urge her to move. “Come, we must hurry. Haversham will have found and fetched Lord Radnor by now. Let us hope we were quick enough and your husband has not yet sent them away.”
Grunting in agreement, Christiana hopped on first one foot and then the other to get her slippers on without the necessity of stopping as the woman rushed her to the door.
Christiana could hear both Lisa’s and Suzette’s high anxious voices from the entry below as she hurried along the upper hall and immediately frowned at the rudeness of keeping her sisters in the entry rather than showing them to the parlor. She couldn’t blame Haversham, however, the butler would only be following Dicky’s orders regarding guests.
Dicky’s voice sounded next, loud and pompous as he announced, “I fear
my wife
is still sleeping. You really should have sent a messenger around with a card had you wished to see her.
I
could have responded with an appropriate time for such a visit. As it is, I fear you shall simply have to return to your father’s townhouse and send that card now.”
“Can we not just slip up to speak to her, Dicky? We
are
her sisters and it’s important.” Suzette’s tone was a combination of desperation, anger and something like shock. The anger was no doubt at Dicky’s pompous words. Probably the shock was as well, Christiana acknowledged and knew the man her sisters now faced was a far cry from the one they’d encountered prior to the wedding. She had no doubt they were just as confused and startled by the change in him as she herself had been for the first six months of their marriage. However, it was the desperation that worried her. Something was definitely wrong.
“It’s all right, husband. I am awake,” Christiana called out as she reached the stairs and started down.
Dicky immediately turned to peer up at her, his face like thunder. Whether his anger was over her sister’s words or her own, she didn’t know. Dicky preferred to be obeyed, and promptly; he wouldn’t appreciate Suzette’s insistence. However, he also wouldn’t be pleased with her arrival before he could send Suzette and Lisa away as he apparently had others.
Forcing a soothing smile to her lips, Christiana stepped off the stairs and moved to his side. The man had a terrible temper and could say the cruelest things when angered. She had to live with the insults and criticisms, but her sisters shouldn’t have to face the rage she found so frightening. It wasn’t the anger itself that unsettled Christiana so much as the depth of it. Fury swirled around him at all times like a dark cloak. When provoked, his face flushed red and twisted into a tight, cruel mask, and he would begin to snap and snarl with such rage and venom that spittle actually flew from his lips, and gathered at the corners of his mouth like a rabid dog. He also tended to tremble with the depth of his feelings as if they were barely contained and might explode at any moment. It was that explosion Christiana wished most to avoid. He was a strong man and she didn’t wish ever to see the wreckage his anger would leave in its wake were it completely unleashed.
“Good morning, Dicky,” Christiana breathed nervously as she reached his side. She leaned up to kiss his cold, hard cheek as if all were well and she wasn’t fighting the urge to flee the seething fury she could sense simmering in him.
Dicky did not even respond to her greeting, snapping instead, “I was just explaining to your sisters that it’s quite rude to arrive uninvited so early in the morning.”
“Yes, well, family is allowed some leeway, aren’t they?” Christiana said, and winced at the pleading she could hear in her own voice. There was no mistaking that she was begging him not to make a scene and she could tell by her sisters’ expression that they recognized it, which was just humiliating. Even more humiliating was that Dicky chose to ignore the plea.
“My
family would never arrive uninvited and without any warning,” he snarled, sneering at her sisters as if they were beneath contempt.
“Of course your family wouldn’t. They’re all dead,” Suzette snapped in response and Christiana glanced at her with alarm. Her gaze then darted worriedly back to Dicky, who was sucking in air through his teeth and puffing up.
Recognizing the signs of an approaching explosion, she quickly took his arm and tried to urge him away, saying, “Why do you not go enjoy your breakfast and leave me to deal with my sisters?”
Dicky didn’t move. Feet planted solidly, he ignored her tugging and scowled at Suzette who merely glared defiantly back.
Christiana closed her eyes briefly and fought the urge to slap the stupid girl. Oh yes, Suzette was being brave enough, but then she had little to lose in this battle. Dicky couldn’t hit her or even penalize her in any way. It was Christiana he would punish for the girl’s bravery . . . and probably in several different ways. It wouldn’t be enough for him to rant and rave at her for half an hour about her unruly and uncouth family. He would also most likely insist Suzette was a bad influence and order Christiana not to see her again. Then he would add various other little unpleasantries to the punishment such as ensuring that all meals served were ones she disliked, having her woken early with some excuse or other, and then either insisting she retire early when she was curled up with a good book, or keeping her up late when she was exhausted. Where Dicky had started to leave her to her own devices lately, he would probably force her to suffer his company for the next several days as he ranted and raved about everything and everyone in London in a manner sure to leave her disheartened and depressed, and then he would insist on taking her out to aid him in purchasing some item or other, only so that he could announce that her choices were poor ones and select something else instead in a show of how little taste she had. All of which were petty punishments, but when added together and carried on for long periods of time would leave her exhausted and despairing of a life of such steady, small tortures.
On top of all of that, Dicky would also be spouting criticism after criticism of her looks, her dress, her speech, her comportment, her family members, her intelligence, her naivety, her friends or her lack of them. It would be a steady trickle of abuse that slowly eroded every last vestige of self-esteem she possessed until she longed for nothing but the escape of sleep. There was no other escape available to her. Suicide was out of the question, as was divorce.
“Where is your father?” Dicky barked suddenly, drawing her attention back to the matter at hand. “What kind of man leaves two young unmarried women to gallivant about the city without his escort?”
“Visiting us is hardly gallivanting about the city,” Christiana protested quickly to forestall Suzette doing so. “Please husband, your breakfast will be getting cold. Why do you not—”
“Our
breakfast,” Dicky corrected sharply and then smiled in a way that made her sigh inwardly. He had thought of a way to punish someone. “But you’re right. It
is
getting cold while we waste our time on
uninvited
guests.”
Christiana found her hand suddenly caught up in his as Dicky began to drag her up the hall, “Show my wife’s sisters to the parlor, Haversham. We shall attend them after we have enjoyed the breakfast cook has worked so hard to produce.”
Christiana cast a glance that was half apologetic and half warning to her sisters and then she was in the breakfast room and Dicky was slamming the door closed behind them.
“Your father should be ashamed of raising three such unruly creatures,” Dicky snarled as he led her to the sideboard and the food waiting there. “A little discipline would have gone a long way toward making better women of you all. But then he has little discipline himself, does he not?”
Christiana remained silent, merely picking up a plate and beginning to select food from the offerings. She had learned long ago that to try to argue her case merely ensured an even longer, more furious rant, so simply chose a piece of toast and some fruit and started to turn away.
“You will eat a proper breakfast, wife,” Dicky snapped, bringing her to a halt. “Give me your plate.”
Christiana bit her tongue as he snatched the china away, and managed to swallow the sigh that tried to escape as Dicky began to pile kidneys and kippers on her plate. She hated both kidneys and kippers and he knew that. It seemed the punishment was starting already.
“There. Now you may sit.”
A glance at the plate Dicky shoved under her nose showed that he’d added scrambled eggs to the kidneys and kippers. She preferred boiled eggs, but merely took the plate and turned to take her place at the table. But she was wishing the whole while that she had the nerve to toss the plate, food and all, in his face. Unfortunately, she never did anything so bold, ever. She might have, had he dared to treat her like this before they were married, but he had been all charm and compliments then. This behavior hadn’t started until after the wedding, and Christiana had been so startled and taken aback by the sudden transformation in his attitude that she’d been slow to stand up for herself. It had left her feeling as dazed as if someone had hit her in the head. By the time she’d got over the shock and even considered standing up for herself, it was too late, the criticisms and abuse had already taken effect and rather than argue, she’d found herself wondering if perhaps the dress he was criticizing
wasn’t
cut too low, or that the shade
might
clash with her coloring. Her self-confidence had been shaken, and as time had passed it was shaken more. Now rather than even consider that he might be wrong, she simply tried to appease him, soothe his temper and please him if possible. Somehow she had become a slave with less rights than the servants who worked for them.
“You’re not eating your breakfast,” Dicky said as he joined her at the table.
Christiana cleared her throat. “I am not very hungry.”
“I don’t care. You’re too skinny. Eat,” Dicky said firmly, and then added, “Your diet is atrocious. You don’t eat enough meat. Eat your kidney and kippers.”
Christiana bowed her head and began to eat, doing her best not to taste what went into her mouth. That was impossible, however, and she was more than grateful to finish the last bite and stand up.
“What are you doing?”
Christiana stilled, her eyes shooting to her husband. “I am finished, Dicky. I thought I would go see what my sisters—”
“I
am not finished.” When confusion covered Christiana’s face, he snapped, “Is it too much to expect my wife to keep me company while I breakfast?”
She settled reluctantly back in her seat, but resentment and anger were stirring within her again. They never breakfasted together. From the first morning of their marriage he had either risen early, breakfasted and left the house before she had even stirred, or he slept later than her and took his breakfast in his room alone. At first Christiana had worried over that, thinking a wife and husband should breakfast together, but after a while she’d been grateful for the respite. Now she was just annoyed with the man, knowing he was simply using the demand for her company as an excuse to make her sisters wait longer.