Authors: The Dutiful Wife
London was just as noisy and smelly and grim as Rothwood had told her it would be. And Beatrix loved it at first sight. There was an energy here she hadn’t felt back home. Buildings in the distance beckoned, promising treats and sights and sounds she had not experienced before. Finally she would get to see museums and go to the theater and dance at Almack’s.
Seated across from her, Rothwood could not seem to decide how he felt about her excitement. One moment she would catch him smiling at her enthusiasm and the next scowling as though it might overset his plans. One moment he would tell her about places he would take her, like the theater or a museum or a park, and the next he would be assuring her she would grow bored with London and wish to be gone from it within the month.
Which, then, was the man she had married? Was it the stern and rigid fellow who wished to whisk her away and exile her to the countryside, or was he the kind man who made love to her so beautifully and smiled at her smiles? Did he even know himself? Would it be his duty or his heart that won out?
Because she wanted to keep seeing him smile, Beatrix began to tease him, hoping to coax him into laughter. “When you were a boy,” she asked, “what did you most want to see when you came to London?”
He did smile, but shook his head. “My father did not allow me near London until I was almost grown.”
“Afraid you would get into trouble?”
Now he did laugh and it transformed him from a handsome man into one achingly dear to her. “Probably,” he allowed. “I was known for slipping out and breaking rules at home on our country estate and at school.”
“What would you have done if your parents had brought you to London and you had slipped out and broken rules here?”
But that was apparently going too far because Edmund stiffened into a stern-looking Lord Rothwood. “I don’t know.”
His voice was curt but Beatrix did not let it deter her. She leaned forward, smiling softly as she persisted in a coaxing voice. “Come. Tell me. Surely you imagined what you would do or can imagine what you would have done? It is just the two of us here. Tell me. What mischief do you think you might have gotten into?”
For a very long moment, matters hung in the balance. Then his lips twitched. Once. Twice. Finally he grinned and he, too, leaned forward. “Very well. I would have headed for Astley’s Amphitheater. I don’t even know if it was there then, but if it was, I’d have headed to see the animals and the circus acts. I’d have bought food from vendors on the street. I’d have thrown snowballs if it was winter or gone through the park if it was summer. I’d have brought pocket money and stuffed myself on sweets and ices at Gunter’s Tea Shop. I’d have stayed out seeing as much as I could before I went home, because the moment I did, my father would have packed me up and sent me back to the countryside.”
It was Beatrix’s turn to laugh. Impulsively she took his hand between hers. “You must have been a wonderful boy!” she exclaimed. “I do wish I had known you then.”
“We did meet when I was a boy. When I was fourteen, almost fifteen.”
“I was thinking of when you were even younger,” she said, grinning broadly. “Well before you even began to learn how you were supposed to be. Perhaps we could have gotten into mischief together.”
For a moment, she thought he would say he wished it too, but then his father’s memory, his father’s dictates must have won out because Rothwood pulled his hand free of hers and sat back, as tall as he could, against the squabs. He crossed his arms over his chest and said, in biting tones, “Fine words for a woman soon to be a mother! Pray do not tell me you will encourage our children to indulge in such mischief and disobedience! Patently my father showed great sense in keeping me in the country when I was not away at school!”
Dismayed, Beatrix settled back against the squabs as well. For a brief moment she had seen how his laughter and happiness had shone in his eyes as he talked about what he might have done. Did he truly think it so terrible that she wished she could have shared the fun with him? It was time she learned more about what had shaped him to be the man he now was. He had told her the barest facts about his family but she needed to know far more than that.
“Tell me more about your mother,” she said softly. “I know she died when you were thirteen but that is all. Mama and Lady Kenrick never wished to talk about her. At least not in front of me.”
“I’ve told you, my mother was a dear but very flighty creature. It took a great deal of effort on my father’s part to school her to her proper duties as a mother and wife.”
Dear God, how stiff his voice was, how impassive his face!
“Did she sing to you?” Beatrix asked softly.
His expression eased just a little and so did his voice. His arms came uncrossed though he planted his hands firmly on his knees, his posture still forbidding.
“She did sing to me. She had the sweetest voice. Father said she was coddling me, though, and as I grew older only allowed her to do so when I was sick. Which did not happen very often.”
Beatrix could not keep the disapproval out of her voice as she said, “And your mother simply obeyed him. She did not argue with him over it?”
Rothwood frowned. “Of course she obeyed him. She was his wife.”
That silenced Beatrix. How was she to deal with a mind-set that said a wife was never to argue with her husband? Even when he was patently wrong! How was she to reach Rothwood when there was such treacherous ground to walk upon? Still she had to try.
“Will you take me to Astley’s Amphitheater?”
He started. His eyes narrowed. “Why should you wish to go there?” he asked in a voice meant, she was sure, to daunt her.
Beatrix shrugged. “It sounds interesting. Perhaps even fun.”
He did not at once answer, which meant there was hope. “Please?” she added.
He looked puzzled. He seemed to take his time pondering the matter. In the end he said, “Very well. If that is what you wish.”
He meant to deal her a setdown with his manner. Instead, Beatrix took heart at the fleeting twitch of his lips and the matching gleam in his eyes. He might not wish to admit to himself that he wanted to go, but the boy inside the man still longed for that adventure and she meant to see that he had it. Oh, not the snowballs or the other trappings but the excitement of seeing the animals and the circus acts. She wanted to see him smile and hear his laughter. She wanted him to unbend enough to be happy. He might not know the lack in his life but she could see it and already she cared deeply that he find it. Even better if he found it with and through her. But even if he did not, she was his wife and she would see him happy. She would!
* * *
Edmund wondered what put such a fierce look on his pretty wife’s face, but he was not about to ask her. That would let her think he noted and cared how she felt. It would encourage her to more outrageous behavior. His father always said a man must show his wife the proper way to go on and not coddle her emotions. Those were what made women the weaker sex and for her sake as well as his own, he must remain strong and aloof. After all, hadn’t his parents had a suitable marriage? Certainly he had never seen his mother behave in the outrageous way so many of his friends’ mothers did and surely that was due to his father’s care in handling her and choosing to have her stay in the country while he came to London alone? Hadn’t they all been happier for it?
He must not allow himself to be swayed by either his wife’s tears or her smiles. She would try both, or so his father had taught him from a very young age. Women needed to be told what to do. Otherwise they could not manage. One must be kind, of course. His father had impressed upon him that men must be kind as well as protect and take good care of women. It was just that men must not be swayed by a woman’s emotions or allow her to think she could make the decisions that ought to be made by men.
Edmund had an uneasy feeling that he had gone beyond kind and already indulged his wife far too much, but he shook it off. They had been married little more than a day. It was natural and right to allow her a little more consideration. Just until she became accustomed to her married state, of course.
And why these ideas he had heard so often from his father should suddenly seem not quite so certain, Edmund could not have said. He only knew that he was beginning to ask himself questions, remember moments of his childhood and feel things he did not expect to feel when he looked at his wife. What the devil was going on with him? His father had been the smartest, most respected of men as well as the best of fathers and husbands!
Hadn’t he?
But had he ever seen his mother laugh and smile the way Beatrix sometimes did?
Yes, of course he had!
When his father was about?
No, and that was a rather lowering thought. Edmund liked it when Beatrix laughed or smiled. He liked it a great deal. He liked it even more when she laughed or smiled with joy when they were making love. He should hate for that to ever stop happening.
Hmmmm, perhaps this marriage business required a little rethinking.
“Is something wrong?”
Beatrix’s voice broke into his thoughts, causing Edmund to look up and realize the carriage had stopped. They were in front of his townhouse and someone would be opening the carriage door and letting down the steps any moment now.
Edmund made himself smile at his bride in a way that he hoped would be reassuring. “No, nothing is wrong,” he said. “I was only pondering how we should spend the next few days. Besides seeing Astley’s Amphitheater, of course.”
She smiled at his teasing, as he knew she would, and moments later he was handing her out of the carriage and leading her up the front steps to his townhouse. It was only when he chanced to look at her face that he realized how daunting the house might seem at first glance. There were none of the touches that brightened up so many houses around them. No flowers out front. No lacy curtains at any window. Only clean, sharp lines and servants standing stiffly at attention. Just as his father had wanted.
For the first time, Edmund realized that there was not a single touch, inside or outside the house, chosen by his mother. Not a stick of furniture or length of curtain fabric or placement of any object in any of the rooms and suddenly he wondered how the house might look if his mother had been given a free hand to decorate. He had an uneasy feeling he was about to find out.
Still, for the moment, his priority must be to present his wife to the household staff and they to her. It did not cross Edmund’s mind that it was anything more than a formality or that anything would change about the management of household matters. He simply wished to do what was right and proper and this was one of the things one was expected to do when one brought home a bride. The staff, of course, knew their place. With a shock, however, he realized that Beatrix did not seem to know hers!
The first thing she did that appalled him was to ask each servant to tell her both their names and what work they did about the house. She asked Cook to come and speak with her once she had put off her hat and gloves and pelisse. She told a scullery maid (a scullery maid of all things!) to go to bed just because the girl apparently had a fever.
Edmund was stunned into silence at her side. What was he to do? If he upbraided her in front of the staff, they would have no respect for her and they would not treat her as his bride ought to be treated. Nor could he let them think this informality would be the new order of business in the house.
He tried touching her arm. She ignored him. He stepped closer to her and softly cleared his throat in a way he hoped only she could hear. Still she ignored him. Finally he said, with a tautness to his voice that was apparent even to his own ears, “My dear, perhaps you should give yourself time to recover from our journey before you try to sort out how our household is run? I would not wish you to tire yourself your first few minutes here.”
She turned and looked up at him and her eyes narrowed in a way he could not like. Nor was he pleased at the tone of her voice when she replied, “I am not tired,
my dear
. It is my duty to make certain your household is run in such a way that it preserves your comfort. The sooner I get to know your staff, so that I can ensure it does so, the better!”
That would have been bad enough but then she had the temerity to turn to the staff, smile at them warmly and add, “You will have to forgive his lordship. He is accustomed to having to manage everything himself. I know that all of you must be superb servants or he would not have hired you. Please forgive me if I unintentionally offend. You may always speak your minds freely to me and I shall listen. But I do wish to take up my responsibilities regarding household matters straightaway.”
And they all smiled back at her! Indulgently! Edmund found himself all but shaking with rage. How dare she? How dare she contradict him and do so in front of the staff? How dare she smile at them more warmly than she smiled at him? And how on earth was he going to regain control of his home? No wonder Father had always kept Mother on such a short rein! Here, with his own eyes, he had just seen ample proof that women didn’t know their place unless one did so.
What was wrong with Edmund? One moment he was kind, the next looking fierce and disapproving. She was simply taking charge of the household, the way she’d been told she should. Mama had been quite clear on what responsibilities fell to a woman once she married, and a woman must manage a household. It was different at home, of course, because they had so few servants and Mama had long since been happy to pass the reins into Beatrix’s hands, but still she could not think of anything she had forgotten to do. So why did she have the sense Edmund was angry with her?
His hand pressed against the small of her back as he guided her up the stairs to their bedchamber. At least that was what she expected. What Beatrix did not expect was to be shown to one bedchamber and told her husband would be in another.
“But . . . but shouldn’t we share a bedchamber?” she asked.
His face could have been set in stone for the rigidness of his features. “My parents had separate bedchambers. We shall have separate bedchambers. This was my mother’s room. I trust you will find it satisfactory?”
Satisfactory?
When it meant being apart from her husband?
Satisfactory
when it looked as if it had been decorated with a male hand, all dark wood and gloomy colors?
Satisfactory
when the whole room felt cold and forbidding?
Beatrix tilted up her chin. “Well, then, if this is my room, I presume I may make some changes?”
He looked startled. Taken aback. As if he would refuse.
“Please?” she asked softly. “I do not wish to be thinking of your mother when we are here together.”
That swayed him. “Yes, of course some changes ought to be made,” he agreed rather curtly, then turned on his heel and left the room.
Well that was odd. Feeling she had an opportunity not to be wasted, Beatrix turned to the housekeeper who had come with them up to the bedchamber in case her new mistress should need anything. And she did.
“All of this will have to go,” Beatrix said. “Is there other furniture to choose from up in the attic? Other draperies, perhaps?”
The housekeeper hesitated, then seemed to reach a decision. “Yes, m’lady, there are. Lots of things. Things that ought to be out and about but haven’t been ever since his lordship’s father dictated how things ought to be in this house. It’s been dark and gloomy ever since and if you change that it will be a welcome thing. A very welcome thing, indeed.”
“And what will Lord Rothwood think of such changes?” Beatrix asked, having a shrewd notion of the answer.
The housekeeper took a deep breath before she answered. Then, presumably concluding that in for a penny, in for a pound applied, she said, “He won’t like it. Not at first he won’t. He hasn’t allowed us to make any changes since his father’s death. Everything must be just as it was. But it will be good for him to have changes made. How a soul can be happy in the midst of all this gloom, I can’t imagine. He doesn’t know it will be good for him but it will.”
Beatrix nodded. That settled it. She would go up in the attic when Edmund wasn’t home and have things in place before he returned. That way he wouldn’t have a chance to stop her and once he saw how much better everything looked, surely he would be happy she had done so.
Well, perhaps
surely
wasn’t the correct word. Edmund had surprised her in some disturbing ways in the short time they had been married and it might take him a while to be grateful for her efforts. But that didn’t mean she shouldn’t make those efforts. She was his wife now and it was her duty to be concerned with his welfare, whatever he thought of the notion. She would just have to make him so happy when they were alone together that he would forgive her everything else.
To that end, she turned to the housekeeper and asked, “How long have you been with Lord Rothwood?”
Rather taken aback, the poor woman replied, “I’ve been with the family some twenty years now.”
“So you know Lord Rothwood well?”
“Yes, m’lady.”
“How wonderful! Then perhaps you can tell me all about him.”
“I don’t know, m’lady. It don’t seem quite right.”
Beatrix understood the woman’s hesitation, she truly did. But the success of her marriage depended on knowing her new husband better. Especially the things he didn’t know or didn’t think or want to tell her about himself. So now she smiled and gentled her voice. She spoke as enticingly as she could.
“Just a little. I do want to be a good wife to him, you see, but I don’t know enough about what might please him.” The woman still hesitated so Beatrix added shamelessly, “I must please him if I am to bear his children and provide an heir.”
The housekeeper drew herself straight up and said sharply, “I wouldn’t know anything about that side of his lordship!”
Beatrix felt her face flame red. “I didn’t mean . . . Of course you wouldn’t . . . I—I wasn’t asking about
that
! I simply meant that the more at ease his lordship is, the better. I want to make his life easier and happier. I want him to want my company.”
The other woman continued to eye her warily, but after a moment sniffed and said, “I daresay it would be to the good to have a happy Lord Rothwood about the house. Not that he wants or expects you to ease his life. His father raised him to believe a man ought to make all the decisions in a household. Didn’t even let her poor ladyship arrange her own bedchamber. He chose it all for her. As he did the rest of the house. You won’t find this Lord Rothwood thinking it’s your place to rearrange things, either.”
Beatrix smiled. “Well, then, we shall just have to show him how wrong he is, how much more comfortable he can be if he leaves it to us, won’t we?”
At last she seemed to have pleased the other woman, whose face broke into a smile. “That would be a relief, it would, m’lady. To have a woman’s touch about the place. And a pleasure to help you show his lordship what he’s been missing.”
“And the more you can tell me about him and what he likes, the better able I shall be to do so.”
Her defenses swept away, the housekeeper only paused to take the precaution of shutting the bedchamber door before nodding to Beatrix and saying, “Very well, m’lady. What would you be wishful to know?”
“Everything!”
“Well, the first thing I must tell you is that his father had some rather queer notions, even for a lord.”
“Really? Tell me all about them.”
* * *
Edmund began to notice the first changes at dinner that night. What were flowers doing on the table? Why was his wife seated next to him rather than at the far end of the table, as was proper? Who had brought in extra candles to light the room?
He started to protest, to tell a footman to take the flowers and extra candles away and move his wife’s place setting but she forestalled him by placing a hand on his arm. She leaned toward him and said, in a throaty voice he had not heard her use before, at least not out of bed, “Isn’t it wonderful, dear? So newly wed as we are, I wanted the table to be festive and to be close to you.”
Well, what was there to say to that? That he did not want to be festive about their wedding? That he did not want her near to him? That this was not how his parents would do things and one ought to do as his parents had done?
He could, of course, have said any or all of those things. Perhaps he would have if there was not such a look of avid interest on the faces of the servants. And if he did not feel somehow uneasy at how those things would sound spoken out loud. As if he could not think for himself. As if he was a blind follower of his father’s notions.
Not that there was anything wrong with that! His father was highly esteemed. Highly. Everyone said so at his funeral. Still, Edmund found himself uneasy at the notion of being thought unable to make his own choices or decisions. So in the end he smiled at his bride. “Perhaps just for tonight,” he agreed.
She smiled back, warmly it seemed, as if he had just given her a wonderful present, and Edmund felt himself sit straighter. As if of its own accord, his hand moved to clasp hers where it lay on his arm. He was even, he realized with a shock, rather glad he had agreed to this most unorthodox arrangement.
His parents had always eaten in silence, but Beatrix had other ideas. Just as if they were still in that private parlor at the inn, she spoke to him. And it felt rather nice! The sound of her voice seemed to warm Edmund and make him feel safe, which was a very odd thing since it ought to be the other way around.
He
ought to make her feel safe. Oughtn’t he? But it was so nice to have someone care about the books he liked to read or what his favorite foods might be and what he absolutely abhorred. She teased him to tell her his favorite memories from childhood and he found himself not only doing so but laughing with her over them as well.
Mind you, it felt odd discussing such things with the servants present, but soon he all but forgot they were there, reminded only when one stepped forward to refill his glass or serve him from another platter of food.
Edmund even found himself asking about her family and laughing outright at some of the stories Beatrix shared with him about her brothers and sisters and some of the pranks they had played upon each other, often at the dinner table. He found himself leaning close and smiling more than he could remember smiling in some time.
When dinner came to an end and she ought to have risen and left him to the port, she held out a hand and said, “Will you show me the gardens out back? Your housekeeper tells me they are particularly fine.”
“Wouldn’t you rather see them in daylight?”
Her eyes twinkled, dash it, they twinkled as she replied, “That, too, but right now, well, there is a full moon.”
Could she possibly have in mind what he thought she had in mind? Regardless of the fact that his father would have been horrified, Edmund abandoned the port without a moment’s hesitation. Instead he rose to his feet with Beatrix and held out his arm to her. “This way, m’lady.”
Her hand seemed to tremble just a little as she placed it on his arm. Was she feeling shy? Edmund drew her closer and smiled reassuringly down at her. “There is nothing I would like more than to show you the gardens in the moonlight,” he told her.
Her answering smile was radiant and Edmund counted himself the luckiest man alive. His opinion did not change when, by the roses, after he plucked one and handed it to her, she threw her arms around his neck and kissed him.
It was forward. It was most unlike the behavior he had ever seen his mother display toward his father. It was . . . quite simply wonderful. He could not seem to catch his breath as her lips parted for him. Or when she moaned as his hand clasped her breast.
There was, it would seem, a great deal to be said for abandoning tradition.
It was too cold to stay outside long, even with the warmth of their ardor. Still, he could not seem to stop touching her. Nor she him.
“Let us go upstairs. To bed,” she whispered in his ear.
Edmund felt as if a bucket of cold water had been dashed over his head. “Now? But it is so early!”
“So? Don’t you want to be with me? I want to be with you. And we are newlyweds, after all. The servants will think it only natural.”
So they were. With a grin, Edmund seized onto this salve to his sense of how things ought to be. “And as a newlywed husband, it is my duty to keep you well served, is it not?” he asked playfully.
“Most definitely,” she agreed. “Indeed, it might almost be scandalous if we did not go to bed early this soon after our wedding.”
Edmund was only too happy to agree. And to the devil with what his father might have said! He was Lord Rothwood now and it was for him to say what was proper and what was not. And what he thought was proper was to go straight upstairs and bed his wife without further delay.
They all but raced back into the house and up the stairs, leaving a trail of grinning servants behind them as they went. Up in Beatrix’s bedchamber he hastened to undo her gown. Tomorrow, he told himself, he would take her to the best modiste in London and demand that at least half her evening gowns be made in such a way they were far easier to remove than the frustrating creation she wore tonight!
Her fingers fumbled just as much when given the opportunity to remove his clothing. In part, he was sure, it was due to an unfamiliarity with the garments of men. But it was also due to the same thing that caused her breath to come in quick gasps and her heart to race under his hand when he cupped her breast. There was something very satisfying in knowing she wanted him as much as he wanted her.
His father had tried to tell him women were different from men and not to expect his wife to enjoy the act of begetting an heir. One was only supposed to expect one’s wife to do her duty. But Beatrix, oh, Beatrix was not merely enduring her duty to beget an heir. No, she was showing him with every shy and awkward touch both her innocence and her passion—and it drove him to a higher degree of arousal than before. He would have said that ought to have been impossible. But it wasn’t. Not with Beatrix.
Her skin was warm beneath his touch. And soft, so very soft. Her breath on his chest made him shiver, but not from cold. Her hands trailing down his back made his muscles clench in the most wonderful of ways. And the way she gasped as he touched her made him want to make her do it even more.
He’d never been a thoughtless lover. At least he hoped he had not. But there was something about Beatrix that made him want to put her first, to see her pleasure as well as feel his own. He wanted to know that he could bring her the same ecstasy she brought him. It made him want to please her and that should have scared him. But it didn’t.
Why had no one ever told him it could be this way? Didn’t they know? Or was it such a precious thing that it made a man want to protect the woman and keep it private, all to himself? Yes, that was it, that must be the reason. For Edmund realized he would not ever want anyone to share this knowledge of what he had with Beatrix.
And that was perhaps the last coherent thought Edmund had for some time. He picked up his bride and carried her over to the bed, his heart beating faster than he could recall it ever beating before. He threw back the covers and set her down, drinking in the sight of her in candlelight. She was so beautiful and when she reached for him, he came to her gladly.