Playing To Win

“I still am.”

“And still feeling guilty?”

“About you, as well, now.”

“Well, stop it,” she commanded. “Stop feeling guilty about me, for I was not deranged when I married you, and I like you still.” She got under his arm to steady him up the stairs. “And stop feeling guilty about your father. You couldn’t have saved him.”

“It’s not that. I never really cared about him until he died and it was too late.”

“You idiot. Don’t you realize everyone feels that sort of regret? They just have less of a conscience about it.”

“What do you mean?” he asked as he gained the door to his room.

“They shake it off and get on with their lives a lot quicker. Don’t you feel you have punished yourself enough?”

“Is that what I’m doing?”

“That’s the only thing you are accomplishing.”

“I wish I could see things as clearly as you.”

“I wish you were as easy to talk to sober as you are drunk. Most likely you won’t even remember this conversation in the morning, and I shall be right back where I started.”

Tony laughed weakly and heard a thump from the dressing room that indicated they had awakened his valet. “I shall try to be both more sober and more easy to talk to in the future, and you have my permission to recite this entire conversation to me over breakfast. I know your memory is capable of it.”

“You look suddenly quite pale.”

“That is because I am going to be disastrously sick in a moment, so I wish you would go and leave Stewart to help me.”

“Gladly, and I shall remind you of that, too, if you seem inclined to drink again.”

“You are a heartless woman,” he said as Stewart helped him into his room.

* * *

Tony made a late appearance at breakfast and had weak tea and bread as a palliative for his queasy stomach. “What shall we do today?” he asked Sera.

“If I have not got to recite, I think we should take a drive. Fresh air is good for a headache,” Sera answered.

Lady Amanda looked rather mystified by all this, but declined an invitation to drive. She did wish the children, as she thought of them, would get out from underfoot for a few hours so that she could have the gloomy morning room stripped and get the wallpaper started.

* * *

Lady Amanda was so engrossed in redecorating Oak Park that she might have been content to stay there in February, when Tony began to prepare to return to London. But Lady Amanda felt strongly that all was not right with Tony still, in spite of his somewhat more cheerful manner. When she broached the subject with her new daughter, Sera begged her to come to London with them so sincerely that she could not refuse the girl. If Sera needed her, she must be there to support her.

Tony saw Sera so busy with her cleaning and repairs that he thought she would not have minded staying on the estate through the spring and summer, but one of the things he had determined was that he would not be an absent peer in Parliament. He could scarcely go to town without his wife, when the whole point of their marriage was to lend him some respectability and to bring her into the ton.

It was difficult for him to remember sometimes that they were married. Sera seemed more to him a comfortable sort of sister. What she made of their odd marriage, he had no idea, for they had never so much as discussed it. The longer they went on without consummating their marriage, the more difficult he felt it would be to do so.

He thought perhaps Sera had no idea what to expect, and that it would be all right to wait until his mother could be on her own. He did not realize this was just an excuse, as his wound had been. Why he had held himself back from her in the beginning, he had never bothered to analyze. But when he agreed to marry to please his parents, he had been at the disadvantage of being in disgrace. He had numbly consented to all his father’s arrangements, including the marriage settlements, which he had later found to be greatly in his favor. Now that he had the family finances in his own hands, he discovered he had married Sera for her money, whether he had intended to or not. The only blessing was that she did not know it.

Tony was wrong in thinking Sera would have liked to stay at Oak Park. She was getting tired of pretending to be his wife. She missed her life in London, and was eager to resume it, especially since it did not appear that she was to have a real marriage. Also, she must get away from their cheerfully pregnant maid, who was a reminder of all that Sera was missing.

Chapter Three

The Cairnbrooke town house stood at stiff attention, one in the seemingly endless rows of fashionable houses around Portman Place. It did have a certain stately reserve, like a retired army officer, and side walls of its own, though only the front and back rooms got much light. Most important, it had its own stable in back, so Sera could be reunited with her horses, Casius and Ivy, and her groom, Chadwick.

Tony had just come from an extremely disquieting meeting with his man of business when he drove into the stableyard to discover two strange horses being cosseted by his wife.

“Are these your horses?” he demanded, with more than ordinary force.

“Yes, they have kept well over the winter, don’t you think?”

“You are not keeping those two old screws here.”

Sera looked at him in disbelief, but Tony was not joking.

“But I have had Ivy and Casius since they were young. I can’t sell them.”

“Well, they are not taking up space in my stables.” With that, Tony stormed into the house, leaving her in the company of the grooms, and feeling for the first time in her life as though she would like to burst into tears. Instead, she took a deep breath, raised her chin and requested the undergroom to saddle Casius and put a lead on Ivy. “Chadwick, come with me.”

She led her groom into the breakfast parlor, where there was a small desk Lady Amanda had given her to use. “I want you to take Ivy and Casius to Gott Farm. Father isn’t there right now, but you know everyone. I’m sure they will be willing to take care of my horses. Here is money for the journey, and the trip back by stage.”

“Yes, miss. If His Lordship asks what I’ve done with them...”

“Tell him the truth. If he should get angry enough to dismiss you, I will employ you myself at the farm.”

“I’m not worried about that. I shall be back late tomorrow.”

Sera said nothing to Tony of all this. She pretended, in fact, that nothing had happened. She supposed she could mope about and be tearful, but she strongly suspected that would only make Tony angrier.

Tony, of course, regretted his flash of temper, but he could not have his wife mounted on such old horses. She would like a younger one better once she accustomed herself to it. Since she did not seem upset, he thought no more about it until the next morning. Sera was writing some letters in the breakfast parlor when he came in wearing boots and carrying a riding crop. “I’m sending two horses to Tattersall’s today. Where is Chadwick? I want him to ride one.”

“I sent him on an errand. He won’t be back until late today.”

“I know he is your groom, but you might have consulted with me first. Does he go to sell your horses?”

Sera was astounded that Tony could know so little about her. “Of course not,” she said, rising. “He is taking them someplace safe. I would never sell or otherwise dispose of old friends, just because they are old.”

“Someplace safe? Are you afraid to tell me where?” Tony asked, in rising anger. “What do you imagine I would do? Butcher them?”

“I don’t know anymore what you might do,” Sera said, clasping the back of the chair.

Tony was shocked to realize that she was afraid of him, and yet she faced him down. He sat down, somewhat shaken by his own display of anger. He must not lose control again. He owed her that much.

“If you must know, I sent them to my father’s farm. It’s where we all grew up. I’ll get to see them when—if—I go there for a visit.”

“You—you make them sound like people. Had you no friends when you were little?”