Regency Innocents: The Earl's Untouched Bride / Captain Fawley's Innocent Bride

Heloise glared at the door through which he departed. Not a word of thanks for her efforts, abortive though they had been. Only a stern warning to watch her behaviour at dinner this evening, so as not to offend his precious brother any further. He had not even bothered to find out what the boor had said to upset her!

Nothing she ever did would please him.

Very well, then, she would start pleasing herself. She tore at the silver buttons of her riding habit with trembling fingers. She would dismiss the horrible dresser who looked down her nose at her. As a pair of housemaids came in, carrying towels and cans of hot water, she eyed them speculatively. Her husband seemed to employ dozens of staff. If she could not find one amongst them with whom she could strike up a tolerable relationship, then she would advertise for an experienced lady’s maid and begin to conduct interviews. If nothing else, it would give her something to fill the endless monotony of her days.

And as for tonight … Oh, Lord! She sank into the steaming fragrant water of her bath and bowed her head over her raised knees. Charles would be watching her like a hawk. Robert would resent her for being the catalyst that had forced the two men to eat at the same table. She would be like a raw steak being fought over by two butcher’s dogs.

By the time she entered the little salon Robert and Charles were already there, sitting on either side of the fireplace, sipping their drinks in a silence fraught with tension. Both, to her surprise, looked relieved to see her.

‘I believe I owe you an apology,’ Robert said, struggling to his feet.

She merely raised one eyebrow as she perched on the edge of the third chair which had been set before the hearth.

All right, dash it! I know I owe you an apology. I should never have used such language to a female …’

‘Not even a French female?’ she replied archly, accepting the drink the footman handed to her. ‘Who is not even of noble birth, is an enemy of your country, and most probably a spy to boot?’

Flushing darkly, Robert muttered, ‘If I said any of those things to you this morning …’

‘If?’

‘All right. I admit I said a lot more besides the swearing I have reason to apologise for! But don’t you think it is pretty disgusting behaviour to laugh at a cripple?’

‘Oh, I was not laughing at you, Robert.’ Heloise reached a hand towards him impulsively, her eyes filling with tears. ‘No wonder you got so cross, if that was what you thought. It would indeed have been the most unforgivable behaviour if that was so!’

‘But you were laughing …’

‘It was the horse! When you went to climb onto him from the right side it looked so surprised. I have never seen such an expression on an animal’s face before.’ A smile twitched her lips at the memory. And it turned to stare at you, and it tried to turn round to place you on what it thought was the correct side, and the groom was dodging about under its head, and you were clutching onto the saddle to stop from falling off the mounting block …’

‘I suppose it must have looked pretty funny from where you were sitting,’ Robert grudgingly admitted. ‘Only you have no idea how I felt—too damned clumsy to mount a slug like that, when I’ve always been accounted a natural in the saddle.’

‘I’m sorry, Robert. But you have to admit I received just punishment for my thoughtlessness.’

He barked out a harsh laugh. Aye. You should have seen her, Walton. Laughed herself right out of the saddle. Lost her balance and landed on the cobbles at my feet …’

‘With you swearing down at me while I was struggling to untangle all those yards of riding habit from my legs …’

And the grooms not knowing where to look, or how to keep their faces straight …’

‘It sounds better than the pantomime,’ Charles put in dryly. ‘Ah, Giddings, it is good to see you back with us. I take it your presence indicates that our dinner is ready?’

Charles had tactfully arranged for the meal to be brought to a small round table set in the alcove formed by the bay windows, so that Robert had very little walking to do.

Linney took a position behind Robert’s chair. When Charles’ footman approached him with a tureen of soup, the man took it from him, ladling a portion into a bowl for his master himself. For the first time it occurred to Heloise just how difficult it must be to eat a meal with only one arm, and how demeaning it must be for a man in his prime to have to rely on someone else to cut up his food for him. How he must hate having others watching the proof of his disability.

Desperate to introduce some topic of conversation—anything to break the strained silence which reigned at the table—she asked Giddings, ‘Did I not meet you in Paris?’

Although he was somewhat surprised to be addressed, the butler regally inclined his head in the affirmative.

‘How was your trip back to England? I hope your crossing was smooth?’

‘Indeed, once I was at sea I felt heartily relieved, my lady,’ he unbent enough to admit.

‘Did you dislike France so much?’

The butler looked to his lordship for a cue as to how he should answer. Instead, Charles answered for him.

‘You have evidently not heard the news, my lady. Bonaparte has escaped from Elba. On the very eve of our marriage, he landed at Cannes with a thousand men and began his march on Paris.’

‘Damn the fellow!’ Robert put in. ‘Has there been much fighting? King Louis must have sent troops to intercept him?’

Charles again gestured to Giddings, which the butler interpreted correctly as permission to tell his tale himself.

‘The last I heard, every regiment sent for the purpose of arresting him joined him the minute they saw him in person.’

‘It is no surprise, that,’ Heloise said darkly. ‘He has a way with the soldiers that makes them worship him.’

‘By the time I reached Calais,’ Giddings continued, ‘fugitives from Paris were catching up with me, telling tales of the desperate measures they had taken to get themselves out of the city before he arrived. The price of any sort of conveyance had gone through the roof.’

‘Thank heavens we married when we did,’ Charles remarked. ‘Else we might have been caught up in that undignified scramble.’

‘Is all you can think of your precious dignity?’ Robert retorted. ‘And how can you—’ he rounded on Heloise ‘—be so bacon-brained as to worship that Corsican tyrant?’

‘I did not say I worship him!’ Heloise snapped. First Charles had made light of the convenience of their marriage, and now Robert had jumped to a completely false conclusion about her. ‘Do you think I want to see my country back in a state of war? Do you think any woman in France is ready to see her brothers and sweethearts sacrificed to Bonaparte’s ambition? It is only men who think it is a fine thing to go about shooting each other!’

‘Now, steady on, there,’ Robert said, completely taken aback by the vehemence of her reply, and the tears that had sprung to Heloise’s eyes. ‘There’s no need to fly into such a pucker …’

‘Not at the dining table,’ put in Charles.

‘Oh, you!’ She flung her napkin down as she leapt to her feet. ‘All you care about is manners and appearances. Men in Paris might be fighting and dying, but all you can do is frown because I speak to a servant as if he is a real person, and say what I really think to your so rude beast of a brother!’

‘This is neither the time nor place—’

‘When will it ever be the time or the place with you, Charles?’ she cried. Then, seeing all hope torn from her—not only for her marriage, but also for her country—she burst into sobs and left the room.

For a few moments the brothers sat in an uneasy silence.

‘Dammit, Walton,’ Robert said at last, flinging his spoon down with a clatter. ‘I didn’t mean to upset her so.’

‘I dare say she is anxious over the safety of her parents,’ Charles replied abstractedly. Did she really think he was so shallow all he cared about was good manners? ‘Giddings, give Her Ladyship an hour to calm down, then take a tray up to her room. As for you—’ he turned to Robert with a cool look. ‘—I suggest you finish your meal while you consider ways to make amends for insulting my wife and making her cry for the second time in one day.’

Chapter Seven

‘Charles, you will never guess what has happened!’ Heloise greeted her husband, when he came in to bid her goodnight several nights later.

She was not clutching the sheets nervously to her chest for once, Charles observed. Sadly, the robe which matched the gossamer-fine nightgown she wore was fastened demurely across her breasts, rather than lying provocatively across the ottoman. Though she was getting used to him visiting her room, she had no intention of inviting him into her bed.

Still, it was a small step in the right direction. There were other indications that she was gaining confidence in her position as his wife, too. She had ordered some lower footmen to rearrange her furniture without asking his permission. She had dismissed the dresser and the maid he had engaged for her. Then, as though wondering just how far she dared push him, she had promoted the scrubby little girl who cleaned the grates and lit the fires to the position of her maid.