The Perfect Mistress (33 page)

"Damnation."

She hugged the shoe to her, battling back tears of frustration, and knew beyond all doubt that in gaining a husband, she had just lost her dearest friend.

After a short stop at Pierce's Hyde Park house, where Pierce took care of several details, including the posting of a terse but dignified marriage announcement to
The Times
, they did indeed leave for Pierce's estate in Sussex. Gabrielle protested that she had to wait for her maid and her baggage to arrive from her father's house, but he informed her that he had already sent a carriage to collect them and carry them straight on to Thorndike, his family home. Then when she insisted she could not go anywhere without shoes on her feet, he sent his houseman into his mother's wardrobe to borrow a pair for her to wear. They were underway in less than an hour.

In the carriage, Pierce produced a blanket and a pillow and suggested that, since the trip would take at least seven hours, she get some rest.

"Pierce, please… I think we should talk."

"I despise long carriage trips—they put me in a foul mood. And the only thing I hate worse than the ride is idle chatter during it. Go to sleep, Gabrielle."

Distraught at his deep anger and his high-handed manner, she realized that pressing him now would only make things worse. She removed her hat, wrapped up in the blanket, all the way to her chin, and tried to do exactly what he suggested, rest. Sleep didn't come easily; her thoughts and feelings were chaotic, and the feel of his constant gaze on her was difficult to bear.

But at length the rocking and jostling of the coach lulled her into a troubled sleep.

She didn't awaken until Pierce gave her shoulder a shake and announced that they would soon arrive. The carriage was slowing and swaying as it executed the final turns, and she sat up, blinking, and looked out the darkened windows. In the distance, through a stand of old trees, she could see house lights. As they drew nearer, she made out the shape of a stately Queen Anne house nestled in a rolling countryside and surrounded by clumps of trees. When they reached the front court, a number of servants came hurrying out the front doors to greet them. They had received word of his marriage and impending arrival when the coach that carried Rue and Gabrielle's baggage arrived earlier. And for most of the afternoon they had been busy cleaning, polishing, and preparing for their master and new mistress.

Pierce lifted her down onto the gravel drive and introduced her to Onslow the butler, Frieda the housekeeper, Millie the cook, and Old Stanch, the head of the stables. He declared that she would meet the others later, and ushered her inside. With a hand clamped tightly on her elbow, he directed her through the soaring center hall with its crystal chandelier, split staircase, and marble floors, and up the stairs to the portrait-lined gallery that ringed the hall. It was a beautiful house, she thought, solidly built and tastefully decorated, at least what she was so far permitted to see of it.

He showed her to a stately bedchamber filled with somewhat oversized furnishings and a massive bed bearing a gilded crest at the head. After laying down orders for her to bathe and rest before dinner, he turned and walked out.

She stood in the middle of the room, holding the hat she hadn't had time to put on, feeling confused and abandoned and guilty. He was furious with her… undoubtedly blamed her for the whole affair. And he was probably right. It was her fault.

In her moment of truth, confronted with that most
primal of decisions, she had chosen
passion
, and from that
moment on, she had lost all control of her life. Since then,
she had been pushed and pulled about; ordered to "sit."

"stand," and "stay" like the veriest hound; dragged, carried about, and dumped in a bedchamber like a piece of baggage. She had been told what to wear, what to say, what to sign… and now was being told when to sleep, when to bathe, when to rest…

Once she had believed that marriage would bring her a bit of freedom, the chance to be her own person. But that was before she dabbled in passion and as a result had been forced to marry Pierce. The man she had once considered her closest friend had been made her lord and master, and now was turning out to be a tyrant. She understood too well that
marriage
was what had worked that devastating change in him.

The door latch clicked, and she looked up to find Rue coming toward her with a sympathetic expression. When she put out her hands, Rue took them and smiled at her.

"It is not so bad,
chérie
," the Frenchwoman said tartly. "At least this great pile of rocks has piped in water."

At that moment, the fledgling tyrant was pacing the walnut-paneled library on the floor below, trying to expunge the distress in Gabrielle's eyes from his mind and conscience.

He had just had several long hours in the coach to think about his situation and put it into perspective. What he had to do, he saw quite clearly, was to seize control and exert proper husbandly authority from the start. She had managed to get him to marry her, but that didn't mean she had the upper hand.

That was what women wanted, he knew—the upper hand with a man. It was their way of exerting control over the world around them. They might not have the vote or the right to own property or to succession to titles, but as long as they had men to control and manipulate, they were far from powerless. That was the entire point of marriage, he had realized some time ago—snaring men through their own weakness and then gaining control of their money, their passions, and their emotions.

That was exactly what his mother had done to his father—demanded and berated and usurped, until the lusty and independent earl left her to establish a separate life altogether. It hadn't escaped Pierce that Gabrielle bore more than a passing similarity to his ruthlessly proper and respectability-obsessed mother. And he didn't intend to let what happened to his father happen to him.

Just thinking about it in such logical and forthright terms made Pierce feel a great deal better. He had come across clever, contriving, even formidable women before, and he'd managed to escape their snares. In fact, he'd
lost
control with Gabrielle precisely because she didn't seem to
have
any control

—over him or anything else. He hadn't seen that her subtle appeals to his rebellious spirit and her neatly timed surrenders to his sensual enticements were slowly lowering his own defenses… until it was too late, and he was trapped.

But he saw it now. The clever chit. And he was going to use that knowledge to his advantage. If he had to be married, it would be on his own blessed terms.

The warm bath that should have been soothing wasn't. The rest that should have restored her didn't. And Rue's usually reassuring chatter wasn't at all reassuring. All Gabrielle could think about was the night ahead, the seven-foot bed looming in the midst of the chamber and the look in Pierce's eye as he exited earlier. By the time he arrived, she was as tense and fragile as a new bowstring.

He acknowledged her with a nod, then strolled to the fireplace and leaned an arm on the mantel as he watched the old butler and the other servants trundle in the food and lay the table with linen, china, and silver. He had changed into a loose-fitting jacket and removed his collar and tie. By the glow of candlelight, he looked bronzed and powerful—consummately sensual and in control. She had difficulty getting her breath.

When the door closed behind the servant, he held the chair for her and let her know that he, too, was recalling what happened the last time they sat at a table together. "I doubt well be interrupted this time."

She took a seat and felt him pause behind her chair for a moment before taking his seat across from her. He served the food and poured the wine from the cart by the table, and they spoke in single syllables until the main course. This was her wedding supper, she thought dismally, and there was only tension between her and the man with whom she would share her life.

The pain of that realization made her determined to try to do something about it.

"Your house is beautiful," she said, in a conciliatory tone. "And the servants have been both diligent and pleasant."

"Yes, they are. Something of a miracle, actually, since they have to put up with my mother for months at a time." He looked up with a cool smile. "Did I mention that she lives both here and in my city house? Unavoidable, really. She owns a considerable interest in both houses." He cut his beef roast, stuffed it into his mouth, and chewed for a moment. "By the way…

you mustn't be put off by the way she calls you 'that tart.' I'm sure she'll get over that in a few years, and the two of you will get on famously."

She couldn't swallow what was in her mouth. It took three sips of wine before she managed to get it down. "Was she the lady in gray, at the church?"

"She was." He spooned the creamed potatoes into his mouth and gave a sigh of satisfaction. "That was a new hat she was wearing too. Quite an honor, actually. She seldom spends money on 'fripperies.' Very frugal sort, my mother. Makes Onslow reboil the tea for belowstairs. Knits tea cozies and potholders out of all her end skeins." He took a long drink of his wine and gave her an irritating smile.

"And she has rather fixed ideas about proper behavior for ladies. No riding horseback for a female in her household. And no spirits for females under forty. She's not overly keen on piano music. And she believes that a woman without a cap is a… well… not respectable. But her greatest loathing is reserved for people who laugh too much and for loose
women
." He smiled and took a huge bite of buttered bread. "Just a few items to keep in mind…

as you 'settle in' here at Thorndike."

But it was not the bread or the wine that made him smile. The glare his mother had given Gabrielle at the vows that morning had indeed branded her "that tart." Now, reboiling tea and knitting potholders, women in caps and no piano music—he was purposefully trying to intimidate her. And—

curse his black heart
—it was working.

"Don't you care for rarebit?" he asked, gesturing to her untouched plate.

"Pity. It's one of Millie's specialties. And what with my mother's notorious cheese paring, she seldom gets the chance to cook it."

Her heart was pounding, her hands were icy; she simply had to say something.

"Pierce… I'm sorry about all this." She concentrated on keeping her voice low and level. "I didn't want this any more than you did."

"Didn't you?" He put down his fork and knife and sat back, his genial taunting instantly gone. "I find that hard to believe. But then I have only myself to blame. You stated quite plainly, from the start, that marriage was your goal. I was just distracted enough by your novelty, and arrogant enough about my own experience with women, to actually believe that your designs were on somebody else."

"They
were
on somebody else…
anybody
else!" she declared, irritably, clenching her cold hands in her lap, seeing the full range and depths of his suspicions and appalled by them. "You're not exactly the husband I had in mind, you know. You're much too worldly and unpredictable and carnal and arrogant… Merciful heaven, you're arrogant. You know what my mother's friends called you? Rue told me. Temptation on the hoof.'

Aggravation
on the hoof is more like it.
Tyrant
on the hoof also comes to mind. I can see now why the prime minister wanted to protect me from you. My only regret is that he didn't succeed."

"Oh, he succeeded, all right. He did exactly what he intended to do all along… humiliate me. What I want to know is: Was the marriage part his idea or yours?"

She stared at him, stunned by the implication that she and Gladstone had conspired together against him. After all the time she and Pierce had spent together and the things they had shared with one another… how could he think such things about her? The ease with which his view of her had been poisoned by his contempt for Gladstone made her want to shake him.

"Over and over, I've told you the truth and you haven't believed me. I told you that Mr. Gladstone tried to rescue me, that he preached at me and fed me cocoa and biscuits… You didn't believe me. I told you my mother insisted that I take a lover… You didn't believe that. I told you I had a plan to look for a husband… You scoffed until you saw it all with your own two eyes. You've disbelieved nearly everything I've ever said to you. Why should I bother to tell you the truth again?"

"Because I want to hear your explanation," he said, leaning forward, his eyes glinting darkly. "Because I find your fictions… entertaining."

She jerked her chin back, feeling as if she'd just been slapped. "Then, you'll have to find another diversion," she said, tucking her arms around her waist. "I'm not in the mood, just now, to be reviled and pilloried as a schemer and a liar."

"You did see Gladstone at the Savoy that night," he charged.

After a long, volatile moment she answered.

"Yes."

"You told him I was helping you find a husband."

"Yes. And he told me you were a bounder and a beast, and that I was in danger." She gave him a furious look from the corner of her eye. "I should have listened."