The Marriage Bed (16 page)

"At last!" he cried, and tossed the swath in the air, earning himself stares from the matrons around them and a baffled look from her.
"A victory at last."

She cast an uneasy glance around. "What are you talking about?"

He grinned at her, and he didn't give a damn if every lady in
Mayfair
was in the shop. "You called it our library."

She jerked her chin, looked sideways. "I did not," she muttered.

"You did," he said, "and you can't take it back."

She returned her gaze to his. "That was a trick,
Hammond
," she accused. "You don't really want orange, do you?"

"Of course not.
But it doesn't change the fact that you called it
our
library. You know what that means?" He gave her a triumphant look. "I get a point."

"A point?
What are you talking about?"

"If I get enough points, I win."

"Points, indeed.
Are we playing another game, then?"

"The same game.
It's called 'Winning Viola.'"

Despite her best efforts, a tiny hint of a smile touched her mouth. "So I am to be the prize in this game as well as your competitor?"

"Well, yes. How many points do I need to win?"

She made a sound that might have been a laugh, but she pressed her fingers to her lips, smothering it at once. After a second or two she lowered her hand and once again began sorting through the samples on the counter.

"How many, Viola?

"Thousands and thousands."

"Not fair. Give me a number."

"All right."
She paused,
then
said, "Eighteen thousand, seven hundred forty-two."

"It that all?
You are being far too easy on me. That means, of course, I get another point."

That made her look
up again.
"Whatever for?"

"If you really hated me as much as you keep saying you do, you'd have told me I needed a million points at least. See how this game works?"

"You are so outrageous!" She held up piece of fabric in a sort of beige color with gold leaves embroidered into it. "What do you think of this for your music room?"

"What about this instead?"
He held up a swath of lavender velvet, and though he once again tried to look serious, this time he couldn't quite manage it.

She smiled, wider this time. "Lavender,
John
?
Surely not for the music room.
But it would be the perfect color for your bedchamber."

He set down the sample and leaned over the counter, closer to her. "Would it get you there?" he asked in a low voice.

She didn't even hesitate. "No."

"Never mind, then," he said, and straightened. "I was willing to make the sacrifice, but it would be in vain, I see. Given that, there is only one useful purpose for velvet this color."

"What purpose?"

"
A
coat for Sir George."

This time she did laugh, and his spirits lifted another notch. "That poor man," she said. "You and Dylan truly have it in for him. Have the two of you been composing limericks about him again?"

"No, but we did come up with one for Lady Sarah
Monforth
. She is one of your dearest friends," he added slyly, "So I'm sure you want to hear it."

"I don't."

With a glance around to make certain no one was within earshot, he once again leaned over the counter. In a low murmur he said, "There once was a lady named Sarah, with a heart as dry as the
Sahara
. Bedding her would be as cold as the sea, and talking to her like having malaria."

She burst into laughter, forgetting for the moment that she was supposed to hate him. "That is one of the most dreadful limericks I have ever heard," she told him, still laughing.

He laughed with her. "I know, but I think I get at least ten points for it."

"Ten? I shall give you two. It's so awful it doesn't deserve more."

"Of course it's awful. Think of the subject. Be-sides, have you ever tried to rhyme anything with the name? It's rough going. And having been forced to endure that lady's conversation at dinner more often than any man should have to do, I feel malaria was a kind way of describing it.
Accurate, too."

"Accurate?
How so?"

"Around her, I always get this dazed, rather ill feeling. It comes of having to listen to someone whose mind is truly empty of any brains at all."

She laughed again, and as he looked at her, at the gold highlights of her hair and the radiance of her smile, he caught his breath. Eight years may have changed both of them, but one thing was still just the same. When Viola smiled and laughed, it was like the sun coming out. He knew he was going to need more limericks.

Suddenly, all her laughter stopped and all that radiance went out of her face. The sun went behind a cloud, and it was as if a chill wind had just whispered through the shop. He turned to see what had brought that terrible look to her face.

A pretty, brown-haired woman in a cherry-red hat was leaning over the counter in the center of the room, looking at bolts of fabric and smiling as she talked with the other women surrounding her. She looked up and caught his eye. When she gave him a nod of recognition, a fleeting tenderness came into her face. He bowed in response, and she looked away.

Lady Darwin.

A long time since he had last seen the baroness, he thought. Two years, at least, perhaps longer. She looked well, and he was glad of it. Peggy had always been a warm, kind woman.

He watched her glance past him, and he turned back around just in time to see Viola vanish out the door of the shop. He felt a sinking feeling in his guts, fearing that any progress he had made toward wooing back his wife had just disintegrated into ashes.

John
started across the draper's shop in pursuit of his wife, but by the time he made it around the long counter, two stout ladies carrying parcels had stepped into the doorway ahead of him, each of them insisting that the other lady go first. He had to wait until they finally settled upon precedent as the proper order of departure, and it seemed an eternity before he was able to exit the draper's shop. He stepped onto the sidewalk just in time to see his wife turning the corner onto
Brook Street
, walking as fast as she could. "Viola, wait!"

He raced after her, calling her name, oblivious to the stares of the people he passed, not caring that this was
Mayfair
—proper, well-mannered
Mayfair
, where no one shouted and no one ever ran anywhere.

He caught up to her at the corner of
Davies Street
. "Where are you going?"

"Home.

He put a hand on her arm. "
Grosvenor
Square
is not your home."

"It is now." She jerked free of his hold and kept walking. "And it will be forever, if I have my way."

"Can we talk about this?"

"You want to talk instead of leaving?" she shot back without looking at him. "That's a refreshing change for you, but no. I don't want to talk because there is nothing to say. I don't want to see you. I don't want to spend time with you. I don't want to pick fabrics for
your
library. I want you to go away and leave me be. Don't like having Bertram as your heir? That is your misfortune and no concern of mine!"

They reached the end of the block and started to cross
Duke Street
, but a lorry was passing and he grabbed her to keep her from stepping in front of it. "Careful, Viola, for God's sake!"

She waited until the lorry had passed, then pulled out of his hold again and started
across,
though this time she did look where she was going. He stayed beside her until they reached the other side of the street, but when she turned into the
square,
he stopped and watched her walk away, waiting to see if she would even look over her shoulder to see if he was following. She did not.

He wondered if he should even bother to follow. He'd asked if they could talk, but as she had so accurately pointed out, there was nothing to say.

He watched her cross the square toward
Tremore's
house, and he slammed his fist into his palm with an oath of frustration. Deuce take it, they had just started to get along.

Seeing Peggy Darwin was the worst thing that could have happened. He couldn't help wondering if this was going to occur every time they were out together. If so, he hadn't a prayer.

She still didn't look back to see if he was following. Perhaps he should just let her go.

Of course you'll walk away. You always do.

Not this time.
John
strode across
Grosvenor
Square
and entered the house just as she was reaching the top step of the curving staircase. "Viola, wait."

She did not stop.

"Now who is the one walking away?" he shouted after her.

His words echoed back to him down the stairs, but there was no reply. Ignoring the curious stares of
Tremore's
servants, he took the stairs two at a time, racing to catch up to her, though it wasn't until she turned down a corridor on the second floor that he managed it. He got there just in time for her to slam the door in his face, but he grabbed the handle and shoved it open before she could even think about locking it.

This was Viola's bedchamber. Her maid, Celeste Harper, was in the room, laying out gowns on the bed. Harper," he said quietly, leave us.

"No, Celeste," Viola countermanded him, "
stay
right where you are."

John
said nothing more, but the maid knew he didn't have to. The lord and master was the one who paid her wages. She gave a quick bob of a curtsy to both of them and went scurrying out.

"How dare you follow me into my room this way and order my maid around!" Viola cried the moment the door was closed. "This is not your house. Get out of here at once or I'll have Anthony throw you out."

"Hiding behind your brother's coattails won't solve anything."

"Get out. Go find yourself some welcoming feminine company."

"I am not going to do this anymore. By God, I'm not! I am not going to be in a continual war with you and have you throwing things in my teeth that I cannot change. There is nothing I can do about the past. There is nothing I can say."

"What do you mean there is nothing you can say? Why not try something witty, something clever,
something
to make me laugh and deflect from the unpleasant situation at hand. Isn't that what you always do?"

That cut him, deep, but he refused to let her see how much it hurt. "Oddly enough, my dear, I cannot think of a single witty comment. It's beyond me just now to even try to make you laugh. I wish to hell I could. There is nothing I can say about Peggy or Anne or Elsie or any other woman I've been with. You are going to have to get over it."

"Just forgive and forget? Is that it?
How convenient for you."

"Do you want me to tell you about Peggy so you have even more reason to despise me?" he asked, frustrated by the futility of it all. "Do you?"

She did not answer.

"Some of the women I've bedded I haven't given a damn about," he went on, goaded by her silence. "Like Anne Pomeroy. She used me, I used her. Sordid, but there it is. Peggy was different. Peggy and I came together with one thing in common.
The loneliness of our empty, meaningless, sensible marriages."

Pain shimmered across her face, pain that hurt him, too, but he did not stop. "Peggy and I consoled each other. Believe me, we both needed consolation."

"Don't!" She clamped her hands over her ears. "I do not want to hear this."

"You must want to hear about it, since you keep bringing it up and hammering me with it. Peggy and I were lovers for over a year. She was a merry companion and a warm, loving woman. And both of us enjoyed it for exactly what it was for as long as it lasted."

"It's bad enough I have to see your lovers everywhere. I don't have to stand here and listen to you talk about them."

She tried to walk around him, but he stepped in front of her.
"Why not?
Would it really bother you?" He saw the pain in her face and knew he was causing it, but he didn't stop. He pushed harder, feeling defensive, feeling cruel,
feeling— damn it all—guilty
. "Do ice queens ever need anyone?"

She turned her face away. In profile he could see her lips quiver, press together in a hard, tight line.

"I could say that my affair with Peggy meant nothing, because that's what men always say to their wives, but in this case, it would be a lie."

"As if lying is so hard for you."

"It wasn't
nothing
. But it wasn't love, or anything close to it. It was two lonely people who had a fondness for each other and needed the warmth of human contact."

"Peggy Darwin was in love with you!"

"Nonsense."

"It's not nonsense. She was mad for you, and everybody knows it.
Everybody but you."

She started to turn away, but he grabbed her by the shoulders. "It wasn't love, Viola. It was lust and someone to talk to afterward, a way to ease loneliness, and that's all it was."

She shook her head in disbelief but wouldn't look at him. He grabbed her chin and lifted her face, and he saw the streak of a tear. It fell onto his hand and burned his skin like acid.

"Christ almighty!" He let go of her and backed up against the window, hating her for eight years of walls between them, hating
himself
more for giving her so many reasons to build them. "What do you want from me? Devil
take
it, woman, what do you want?"

"I don't want anything from you. It's you who wants something. Something I can't give you. It's gone,
John
, and you cannot get it back. Some things just aren't reparable." With that, she turned and ran for the door.

"How many times do I have to say it? I cannot do anything about the past."

"Yes, you can." She halted in the doorway and whirled around. "You can learn from it. I did. I learned never to trust you again."

With that, she was gone.

He leaned back against the window and stared at her bed in her brother's house, at the pale, magnolia-pink gown that lay across it, and her laughter from earlier echoed through his mind. He'd decorate every house he owned with pink wallpaper if it would make her laugh and smile.
If it would do any good.
But it wouldn't.

He turned his back on the bed and stared out the window, fighting the urge to smash his head through the glass. "Damn," he mumbled, regret
ting
the harsh words he had spoken moments ago, cruel words, meant to hurt. "Damn, damn, damn."

They had been down this road so many times before, where Viola was cold and he was angry, where she was hurt and so was he, where she could not forgive and he said to hell with it. When he walked away and found a woman who didn't judge him, didn't cut him into pieces, and didn't despise him. Perhaps she was right that some things weren't reparable. No matter what he said or did or tried to do, it wouldn't be enough. He could take a vow of celibacy and move to a monastery in
Italy
and it wouldn't be enough. As long as he was breathing, it would never be enough. Not for Viola.

A couple walking down below caught his attention, and he realized it was the Duke and Duchess of
Tremore
. They were strolling side by side along the path at the edge of the oval park below, and
Tremore
himself was pushing a pram in front of them. They were taking baby Nicholas for a walk. Beckham, the nanny, trotted along a few paces behind.

John
watched as they stopped beside a wrought-iron bench. The duchess lifted Nicholas from the pram,
then
she sat down, standing the baby on her knees, her hands holding him around the waist. Her husband sat down beside her, draping an arm across the back of the bench, behind his wife.

They were like any couple fortunate enough to be happily married, laughing and talking and taking their baby son for an outing in the park.

They were a family.

Just then Viola emerged into view, crossing the thoroughfare in front of the house to join them. Her hat was in her hand, and her tawny hair shone like gold in the sun.

She halted in front of the bench, tossed the hat onto the grass beside the bench,
then
reached out her hands to take Nicholas from his mother. She lifted him high into the air above her head and spun in a slow circle, head thrown back as she laughed up at the baby. Something as hard and painful as a physical blow hit
John
in the chest.

He tried to turn away but felt paralyzed. He flattened his palms against the glass panes on either side of his face and stared at his wife holding a baby that was not his son, and he had never felt more helpless,
more angry
, or more bereft in his life. Maybe he should tell Viola, he thought. No doubt his pain would be a great comfort to her.