The Notorious Marriage

‘Truly, Kit, what do you expect? A hero’s welcome?’

It was seldom that Lord Mostyn had to face the combined disapprobation of both his sister and his cousin, who were the only people on the face of the earth who could make him feel as though he were back in the nursery. He now reflected wryly that he had rather face Marshal Soult in the Peninsula again than take on the combined forces of his relatives. Not that anyone knew he had been in the Peninsula. That had been when he was supposed to be working for the East India Company, and before that…Kit sighed, and sat back, accepting the cup of tea that Charlotte passed him. She gave him a severe frown at the same time. Kit offered her a weak smile in return.

‘You look radiant now that you are a married woman again, sis—’

‘Gammon!’

‘And Beth…’ Kit manfully braved the glare that his cousin was directing his way ‘…increasing already! You are to be congratulated…’

‘Pray spare us, Kit!’ Beth said shortly. ‘You cannot be glad to see either of us married into the Trevithick family, but since you were not here to advise us you must just accept the consequences!’

Kit raised his brows. ‘Would you have accepted my advice, Beth?’

‘Certainly not! Especially with the example that you have set us!’

It showed all the signs of degenerating into a nursery tea party. Kit sipped his tea and wished he were at his club. He had hoped that his sister and cousin would be pleased to see him, fall on his neck with tears of joy, and provide the welcome that Eleanor had so singularly failed to do. He shifted uncomfortably. He was already grimly aware that he had no right to expect a warm reception from his wife and the fact that her coldness had hurt him was just too bad. He would learn to live with it.

To be fair to Charlotte and Beth, they had greeted him very warmly when he had first arrived at Charlotte’s town house that morning. Now, however, they were over their initial relief and pleasure and were full of questions—and recriminations.

‘How could you do that to poor Eleanor!’ Charlotte was saying, strongly for her. ‘To marry her and leave her all in the one day! To marry her in the first place so precipitately…’

‘To seduce her in the first place!’ Beth put in, eyes flashing. ‘Yes, Kit, I know that Eleanor ran away to you, but you could have exercised some restraint…’

Kit gave her a speaking look. Beth looked at him, looked down at her own swelling figure and after a moment, burst into a peal of laughter.

‘Oh, very well, I know I cannot upbraid you when my own behaviour has not been above reproach, but what an odious wretch you are to remind me, Kit! And I shall have you know that I am most respectably married now, and even if the tabbies count the months they can go hang—’

‘Beth!’ Charlotte said warningly. ‘You become ever more unbridled in your speech!’ She passed her brother a biscuit. ‘As for you, Kit, you know you have no defence. Your treatment of Eleanor has been truly dreadful!’

Kit sighed. He dipped the biscuit into his tea—it immediately broke off and sank to the bottom of the cup. It seemed all too apt.

‘I never intended to treat Eleanor so shabbily but matters fell out that way. I am not at liberty to explain…’

He shifted uncomfortably. They were watching him with scepticism and it made Kit feel both guilty and annoyed. He did not like the sensation of feeling in the wrong—and he felt it most strongly.

‘It was a difficulty relating to business that kept me away so long…’

‘Oh, please…’ Beth murmured, putting her teacup down with a disgusted clink of china.

‘I am sorry that I cannot be more precise…’

He thought he heard Beth say something that sounded like: ‘Pshaw!’

‘It is not important for you to explain to us, Kit,’ Charlotte said gently. ‘Eleanor is the one who requires an explanation—and an apology. I feel sure that you are able to take her into your confidence.’

Kit shrugged, hiding his frustration beneath a nonchalance he was far from feeling. ‘I have tried to offer Eleanor an explanation, sis! She would not let me speak. She has decreed a marriage of convenience and she says that she has been enjoying herself hugely as a married woman without the constraints of a husband!’

Kit cleared his throat and looked away from his sister’s penetrating eye. He had no wish to allude any more precisely to his wife’s disgrace and he hoped that he had not given away too much already. But perhaps Charlotte and Beth already knew all about Eleanor’s behaviour. It seemed that the whole of the Ton knew.

Charlotte and Beth exchanged glances over the teacups.

‘Oh dear,’ Beth said. ‘Eleanor has taken this every whit as badly as I would have expected.’

‘She is very young and has all the Trevithick pride,’ Charlotte agreed. ‘Besides, she has suffered a great deal. It is no wonder she is so adamant.’

Kit looked at them, mystified. They appeared to him to be speaking in riddles.

‘It seems quite simple to me. Eleanor is not interested in explanations…’

‘Nonsense!’ Beth said robustly. ‘She is hiding her hurt behind that confounded pride, Kit! I’ll wager she is positively expiring to know! If Marcus disappeared for five months without a word, the first thing that I would wish to know is where he had been—’

‘And the second would be who he had been with!’ Charlotte finished, nodding. ‘That would be after he had apologised, of course! Kit, I hope that the very first thing that you said to Eleanor was how sorry you were and how much you had missed her…’

Kit could feel the guilty expression spreading across his face. ‘Well…There was the matter of Paulet to deal with first…’

Charlotte sighed heavily. ‘Oh Kit—no! Tell me you did not blame Eleanor for her situation!’

Kit made a hopeless gesture. ‘I tried to explain matters to her later when my temper had cooled, but—’

‘Too late!’ Beth said, in a disgusted tone. ‘How like a man!’

There was a heavy silence.

‘There have been rumours about you, you know, Kit,’ Charlotte ventured. ‘It has been most distressing for Eleanor.’

Kit looked up, his attention arrested. ‘Rumours of what?’

‘Rumours of actresses—or was it opera singers?’ Charlotte looked vague. ‘You know how these tales spring up! People were forever claiming to have sighted you abroad and Eleanor has heard every one of the stories! The gossips made sure of that!’

Kit scowled. This was getting worse and worse. His guilt settled into a lump in his stomach. So Eleanor had heard rumours about him and he had heard scandal about her…And if he was unsure whether shehad been unfaithful, she must believe the same of him…What a confounded mess they had got themselves into!

‘Those stories are not true!’ he said coldly. ‘And I have heard plenty of stories about Eleanor, if it comes to that! Muse to Sir Charles Paulet, mistress to Lord George Darke—’

‘Poppycock! Club scandal!’ Beth’s silver eyes flashed. ‘Eleanor is as virtuous as on the day you married her!’

Kit frowned at her. ‘Beth, I admire you for defending Eleanor, but…’ he shifted his shoulders uncomfortably ‘…she practically admitted to me that she had encouraged the attentions of other men! Oh, not in so many words…’ he had heard Beth’s exasperated sigh ‘…but why else would she refuse to discuss what had happened during the last few months? She is afraid to tell me the whole truth!’

He thought that his cousin looked as though she would explode and he almost backed away. Beth could be awesome when her anger was roused.

‘Kit,’ Beth said, with reasonable restraint, ‘you are speaking nonsense!’ She took a deep breath. ‘We were not going to tell you this since we both agreed that it was Eleanor’s place to speak to you, but…’ she broke off at Charlotte’s murmured objection ‘…no, Lottie, I cannot keep quiet! For some extraordinary reason Kit thinks himself the injured party, when poor Eleanor is only nineteen and has been reviled and laughed at and ruined through the careless way in which he abandoned her—’ She ran out of breath and started again. ‘And now Kit adds his own voice to the chorus of disapproval! Oh, it makes me so cross!’

‘Yes,’ Charlotte said, in her customary, more measured tones. ‘Beth is correct, you know, Kit!’

Kit held a hand up in surrender. ‘Perhaps I have misjudged the situation…’

Beth glared at him. ‘You have, Kit! Indeed you have!’

‘I am sorry.’