He was quite contented to return to the house much sooner than expected.
Thus far he was pleased with his marriage. Indeed, he had been surprisingly reluctant to leave the dower house this morning. He had felt absurdly as if some spell were about to be broken.
There was no spell to break, of course, and no magic involved in anything that had happened. He had had a regular bed partner for three days and four nights and the sex had been surprisingly good. A woman's body did not have to be voluptuous in order to be desirable, he had discovered.
It had not been just the sex, though. His wife had decided not to quarrel with him during those three days, and he had found her company congenial.
Good Lord, he had allowed her to row one of the boats - with him in it - even though it was obvious she had no skill whatsoever at the oars.
He had allowed her to murder his ears with shrieks of laughter when by sheer accident she had sent a stone skipping three times across the lake. And he had - heaven help him - gathered more daffodils than he had known were in existence anywhere in the world and had then run and fetched for her as she filled the dower house with them a mere few hours before they were to leave there.
He was ever so slightly charmed by her, he realized.
And there was no reason that things should change drastically for the worse now that they were back at the main house and on their way to town tomorrow.
Perhaps after all they could enjoy a decent marriage.
And so instead of just coming home early, he actually /hurried /home, ignoring the inner voice that told him there were other tenants upon whom he might have called.
They had had sex yesterday among the daffodils, he and Vanessa. If the weather had just held they might have gone back there today - to gather daffodils for the main house. As it was, there was the bed in her bedchamber to try out for the first time, and what better time to do that than a rainy afternoon when neither of them had anything better to do?
She was not in any of the downstairs rooms. She must be in her bedchamber already. Perhaps she was lying down, catching up on some missed sleep.
Elliott took the stairs two at a time, though he did go into his own dressing room first to dry his hair and haul off his boots without stopping to ring for his valet. Vanessa's dressing room adjoined his own. He crossed through it, treading quietly in case she was asleep - though it was going to give him great pleasure to wake her in a few minutes.
The door into her bedchamber was slightly ajar. He opened it slowly without knocking.
She was not in bed. She was sitting on the love seat, her back to him, her head bent forward. Reading? He contemplated tiptoeing up to her and setting his lips against the nape of her neck.
How would she react? With a shriek? With laughter? With shrugged shoulders and a sensual sigh?
She sniffed.
A wet sniff.
And then it was perfectly obvious that she was weeping. She did it with deep, grief-stricken sobs.
Elliott froze in place. His first instinct was to stride forward to scoop her up into his arms while demanding to know what had happened to upset her so. But he had never been much good at embroiling himself in female emotions. What he actually did was move forward more slowly and quietly. He was making no attempt to hide his presence, but she was too preoccupied to notice him.
And then, just as he was about to set one hand on her shoulder and squeeze it, she set something down on the cushion beside her, and he found himself looking down at the miniature portrait of a delicate, almost pretty young man.
It took Elliott less than a moment to realize that the young man must be Hedley Dew. His predecessor.
He found himself suddenly angry.
Furiously angry. /Coldly /angry.
He drew a clean handkerchief out of his pocket and held it out without a word.
She dried her eyes and blew her nose while he walked farther into the room. He took up a stand before the window, his back to her, his hands clasped behind him. He gazed out through the rain at the park. Off to one side was the lake with the dower house on its near bank.
He did not turn his head to look in that direction. Indeed, he did not really see anything at all beyond the window.
Why he was quite so angry he did not know. They had entered this marriage without illusions. It had been basically a marriage of convenience for both of them. 'I suppose,' he said when the blowings and snifflings had stopped, 'you loved him more than life.' He did not even try to hide the sarcasm from his voice. 'I loved him,' she said after a lengthy pause. 'Elliott - ' 'Please,' he said, 'do not feel that you must now launch into an explanation. It is quite unnecessary, and would almost certainly involve nothing but lies.' 'There is nothing about which I /need /to lie,' she said. 'I loved him and I lost him and now I am married to you. That says it all. You will not find me - ' 'And you saw fit to bring his portrait into my home,' he said, 'and to weep over it in private.' 'Yes,' she said. 'I brought it with me. He was a large part of my past.
He was - and is - a part of /me/. I had no idea you would be home so soon.
Or that you would come to my room and enter without even knocking.' He swiveled right about and stared stonily at her. She was still sitting on the love seat, his handkerchief balled in her hands. Her face was red and blotchy. It was not a pretty sight. 'I need to /knock,/' he asked her, 'before entering my wife's rooms?' As she was in the habit of doing, she answered his question with one of her own. 'If I entered /your /rooms without knocking,' she said, 'would you be annoyed? Especially if you were engaged in something you would prefer I did not see?' 'That,' he said, 'is a different matter altogether. Of course I would be annoyed.' 'But I am not allowed to be?' she asked him. 'Because I am merely a woman? Merely a wife? Merely a sort of superior servant? Even servants need some privacy.' Somehow she was turning the tables on him. /She /was scolding /him/. She was putting him on the defensive.
The last few days, he realized suddenly, had been about nothing but sex.
As he had intended. There was no point in being indignant at the discovery of what he had already known - and wanted.
He certainly did not want her in love with him.
But even so… 'Your wish will be granted from now on, ma'am,' he said, making her a formal bow. 'This room will be your private domain except when I enter it to exercise my conjugal rights. And even then I will knock first and you may send me to the devil if you do not wish to admit me.' She tipped her head to one side and regarded him for a few silent moments. 'The trouble with men,' she said, 'is that they will never discuss a matter calmly and rationally. They will never listen. They always bluster and take offense and make pronouncements. They are the most unreasonable of creatures. It is no wonder there are always the most atrocious wars being fought.' 'Men fight wars,' he said between clenched teeth, 'in order to make the world safe for their women.' 'Oh, poppycock!' she said.
She ought, of course, to have kept her head down from the beginning and remained mute while he had his say, except to answer his questions with appropriate monosyllables. Then he might have stalked from the room with some dignity without going off on a dozen verbal tangents.
But she was Vanessa, and he was beginning to understand that he must not expect her to behave as other ladies behaved.
And heaven help him, he had married her. He had no one but himself to blame. 'If you men really wanted to please your women,' she said, 'you would sit down and talk with them.' 'Ma'am,' he said, 'perhaps you think to distract me. But you will not do so. I do not demand what you can-not give me and what I do not even want - I do not demand your love. But I do demand your undivided loyalty.
It is my right as your husband.' 'You have it,' she told him. 'And you do not need to frown so ferociously or call me /ma'am, /as if we had just met, in order to get it.' 'I cannot and will not compete with a dead man,' he said. 'I do not doubt that you loved him dearly, Vanessa, and that his passing at such a young age was a cruel blow to you. But now you have married me, and I expect you to appear in public at least to be devoted to me.' /'In public,' /she said. 'But in private I need not show devotion? In private I can be honest and show indifference or dislike or hatred or whatever else I may be feeling?' He gazed at her, exasperated. 'I wish,' she said, 'you would let me explain.' 'About what I encountered when I /invaded your privacy /and came in here?' he asked. 'I would
