The Spanish Marriage (18 page)

“Sally!”

Lady Jersey turned to him with a delicious, knowing smile.
“Douglas Matlin, where have you been? Letting that charming little wife
of yours run tame at all the balls and musicales! Shame on you! If the child
weren’t such a good little thing, it would be a scandal. Are you
positively
aux anges
over her?”

“Head over heels,” Matlin replied lightly, with
a smile to match her own. “Now, I want your help, ma’am. Who the
deuce is that fellow?”

Lady Jersey followed Matlin’s glance to the
dark-visaged man in evening dress who stood not far off. “That? He’s
a mystery man, Douglas. His name is Joaquín. Someone, I can’t even recall
who it was, brought him into fashion, and. someone—I can assure you it
wasn’t me—vouchered him in to Almacks’. He
is
good
looking,” she added judiciously. “Are you jealous, Sir Douglas?”

“As I am head over heels in love with my wife,”
Matlin replied coolly, “is it so wonderful that I should wonder who her
friends are?”

Sally Jersey broke into a delighted laugh that trilled above
the voices of near-standers. “Oh, my dear, how lovely! You make me
positively believe all the romantical nonsense about that Spanish marriage of
yours. Look you, Douglas,” she continued kindly. “She is a good
little thing, your wife, and she’s chosen her intimates wisely, and they
won’t let her come to harm. It would not hurt her if you wished to spend
more time out with her...just to show fellows like Mr. Joaquín that you
are
head
over heels.”

Matlin grinned and thanked her. As payment for her advice
she instructed him to dance with a young woman who was not surrounded by
admirers, pointed him in the direction of a dish-faced debutante of good
family, and disappeared herself. As he bowed over the surprised girl’s
hand Matlin caught a glimpse of his wife; the dark stranger was at her elbow
now, murmuring something to her in a very familiar manner while Thea listened
intently, her face turned up to his. “Damnation,” Matlin hissed.
Then the music began, and he was obliged to lead his partner out to the dance.
A moment before, Lady Jersey’s words had had him in remarkably good
temper; now that was undone, and he took every chance to search for Thea in the
crowd; he wondered what the man Joaquín could possibly be saying to his wife.

Had he been able to hear their conversation he would have
been calmer, though no more enlightened.

“Have you spoken to your husband yet?”

Dorothea regarded the back of her cousin’s head as he
bowed low over her hand. “I didn’t see him before this evening. He
has been away....”

“Cousin, I beg you will believe that time is of the
essence,” Joaquín hissed. “Our country is overrun by the French.
God knows what at this moment they are doing....”

“Cousin, if you will have patience, I mean to speak to
my husband tonight. If you will
not
have patience....” Thea let
her voice drift off and turned to smile at Bess Chase, who had just joined her
again. “Now, I wish you will dance with Miss Chance, who looks as if she
were dying for the music.” Parodying the manner of an Almacks’ patroness,
Thea took Bess’s hand and placed it in Joaquín’s. “Go dance,
Mr. Joaquín. I’ll speak with you both later.”

Unable to protest, Joaquín led a highly gratified Bess Chase
out to the floor, and Thea was able to relax and to talk with other people. She
was relieved when Joaquín and Bess continued for the second dance; later, she
saw her cousin dancing with some nameless young woman, obviously a dance of
duty. That is that for this evening, anyway, she thought with relief. Bess,
glowing with pleasure at her two dances with Joaquín, had returned to
Thea’s side, only to be taken off to dance again by someone else. Thea
danced nearly as often as Bess; when Matlin appeared at her side during an
intermission and asked for a dance, she was dismayed to find that she had
promised them all. “I can ask if someone will release a dance to
you,” she offered.

“Good God, and earn me a reputation as a spoil-sport?
After all, I have the honor of bringing you home, don’t I? I can afford
to be generous.” He looked around him. “Where is my aunt, by the
way? She should be chaperoning you, surely.”

“You forget, sir, I am a chaperon these days. I think
you’ll find Lady Ocott drinking lemonade with an old beau, a very fat man
with a corset. It creaks,” she confided. Matlin grinned. For a moment
they felt the old understanding they had shared sometimes in his sickroom at
the convent and on the journey across Spain. When he left her to her dancing
partners, Thea was conscious of an odd excitement, a deep pleasure. He was
flirting with me, she thought.
I
was flirting with him!

“You look like the cat that caught the bird,”
Bess teased her.

“Perhaps I have.” Thea smiled. “Did you
have a good dance with your idol?”

Bess launched into a paean of Joaquín’s perfection of
manner, of face, and of form. Would it be so strange, Thea wondered, if Bess
won Joaquín just through sheer wanting of it? That would make the Chases her
cousins, a comfortable thought. Thea listened to Bess’s enthusiasms; from
time to time her attention wandered, and she would look for Matlin in the
crowd.

An overanxious young gentleman who had been charged to
procure lemonade for Bess ended by spilling most of it on her skirt, and Thea
drew her away from the boy’s protestations and apologizes to help repair
the damage. A few minutes’ ministry by Thea and the attendant in the
ladies’ dressing room took care of the worst of the stain, and Bess went
out to the saloon again to find her would-be swain and to assure him no
permanent damage had been done. Thea stayed behind to tuck up a fugitive curl
and to smooth out a wrinkle in her skirt; she was thinking of Matlin as she did
so, smiling. She was still smiling when she started away from the dressing
room.

“Lady Matlin? I
must
introduce myself. I hope
you will forgive my familiarity, but I am really such an old friend of your
husband’s.”

Thea turned and confronted the woman she knew to be Adele
Towles. She was dressed this evening in sheer jaconet of a cream color,
lavishly laced with blonde and sashed with a bright crimson ribbon. Her
necklace, which consisted of diamonds and rubies, was gaudy for a relatively
informal evening party, and the dress—both the plunge of the neckline and
the way in which the garment clung to her—was just within the bounds of
propriety, not the strictest bounds, either.

Lady Towles seemed to expect a reply; she had obviously been
assessing Thea at the same time, and her smile made it clear what she thought:
negligible.

“Of course,” Thea heard herself say. “I am
always happy to meet one of my husband’s
old
friends.” Her
emphasis was not polite.

Lady Towles’s smile became a little fixed. “How
do you like London? I understand you were used to live in the wilderness;
Somerset or somewhere equally rustic.”

“That is true, but of course I was still in the
schoolroom then.” Thea smiled sweetly.

“How fortunate for you.” Adele Towles turned to
look out at the crowded salon. “Is Douglas—dear Matlin—is he
here this evening?”

Thea suppressed the urge to slap the older woman’s
face. “He is somewhere about, ma’am,” she answered
negligently. “Now, if you will forgive me, my friends are waiting. A
pleasure to have met you.”

“Of course.”

It was nothing short of a challenge, Adele Towles’
smile, her manner and unbearable self-confidence, the way she rolled Matlin’s
name on her tongue. The only thing for it was to ignore it. Thea had the memory
of that brief exchange and Matlin’s smiles; that made it easier to ignore
Lady Towles’s veiled threat.

Half an hour later, when she saw the woman leaning close to
Matlin and murmuring something to him in a decidedly intimate manner, it was
less easy to ignore. Thank God Matlin seemed unmoved by his companion’s
manner, her confiding smile, and the hand, which Thea could see from across the
hall, resting lightly on his forearm. Other men in their vicinity had eyes for
Lady Towles, and Thea breathed a secret sigh when one of them finally bore her
away with him. Take that, Thea thought, satisfied. If Matlin could reject Adele
Towles’s obvious advances, perhaps there was hope. Everything seemed a sign
of hope this evening.

Riding home to Hill Street that evening Thea and Matlin took
turns teasing Lady Ocott about her elderly beau, threatening her with “what
Uncle Nigel would say.” The old woman was so pleased to see her nephew
and his wife in such high spirits, of such an accord, that she bore with their teasing
happily. If there was a touch of wariness in Thea’s glance at Matlin, if
Sir Douglas in turn looked on his wife with a kind of diffidence, that could
surely be resolved. All in all, Lady Ocott was mightily pleased with the entire
of the evening, corsetted suitor included. She was the more pleased to overhear
Thea’s murmured request to Matlin that he take a few minutes in the
library to talk with her.

“Well, children, goodnight,” she said in the
hallway. “I’m for my bed. Have a nice chat.” Her smile was
knowing and sympathetic. “What, Nigel, are you still up? Come to bed,
dear love, and leave these children to themselves.” She favored her
husband with a significant look and took his arm; she swept him along with her
up the stairs. Matlin turned and let Thea lead the way to the library.

“I apologize for Aunt Sue; she can be revoltingly arch
at times.”

“I wouldn’t change her for the world, not to the
last
dear lamb,”
Thea protested mildly.

“No, nor would I.”

For a moment it seemed neither had any more to say. Matlin
poured himself a brandy from the decanter Lord Ocott had left by his wing
chair. Thea settled herself on the sofa. The silence was not uncomfortable, but
at last Matlin broke it to remind Thea that she had requested a word with him.

“Yes, I....” She laughed and found herself
blushing. “It’s hard to know where to begin.”

Matlin crossed to the sofa and took her hand in his own. “Begin
at the beginning.”

“I wanted to tell you, that is, I....”
Distracted by his touch and his nearness, Thea faltered. “I have to speak
to you on someone’s behalf.”

It was plain from his expression that this was the last
thing Matlin had expected. Oddly, that pleased Thea. She continued on,
haltingly. “I promised to speak to you for him, well, not just for him,
of course, but for...Matlin, what is it?”

He withdrew his hand, put his glass down on the mantel with
a crisp clink, and stood there watching her; his face was tense and white. “What
are you saying? Whose behalf?”

Flustered, Thea stammered out the name. “Joaquín. He
is....”

“What is he?” Without giving her time to reply,
Matlin went on. “If his message is what I think it is, let me remind you
that you’re my wife, Dorothea, and the mother of my child, as well. Have
you told him
that?
I don’t like his manner, nor the way he hangs
upon you, and to be frank, I’m surprised that you let him. It would be as
well for you to remember that you’re a married woman and one who is
increasing. I don’t expect wisdom from a girl your age, but a little
conduct, for God’s sake. If he thinks, if you think, that I would release
you to him....”

“What are you talking about?” Thea cried. “What
on earth do you think? All I want....”

“I can imagine all you want, madam. But recall, you’re
my wife; it may not have been what either of us meant, but you’re my
wife; you’re going to bear my child, and I won’t have you
permitting men like that Joaquín to drape themselves over you as he did
tonight. My God, since we arrived in London I don’t know what has got
into you.”

“Do you care?” Thea shot back, infuriated. “If
someone admires me, what of it? That man, that Joaquín, is no more to me than
Tony Chase or anyone else, and if you are everlastingly at Whitehall, what do I
owe you? Never a kindly word—I don’t mean sweet or gentle or, God
forbid, loving, of the sort that a wife might expect from a husband. I mean
kind.
The sort of kindness you might show your boots or stableboy! Your aunt
launched me in society as you told her to, and I’ve learned to do as
ladies do in tonnish society, and now you find you don’t like it! Would
you rather I were back in the convent and hemming tablecloths and listening to
prayers?”

For a moment Matlin was taken aback by Thea’s anger.

“I don’t mean you should not go about; you know
I don’t mean that. I’m proud of you, the success you’ve had
since Aunt Sue brought you out, but you’re so damned young. I cannot
wholly blame them,” he added darkly, “Joaquín and the others, when
you dress that way, those muslin slips and low-cut bodices. My God, what do you
expect a man to think?”

“You don’t seem to mind dampened muslin and low
bodices on other women, sir. William Lamb’s wife, for example, or Sir
Charles Towles’s.”

“What has Adele Towles to say to anything? My God, you
don’t want to take her for your model.”

“She seems to have a great deal to say to you; she
certainly did tonight. If we are to speak of it, she was practically hanging on
you tonight. Matlin, if you wish to make such a high and mighty to-do about
what I do as a married woman and your wife, you would do as well to recall that
you are a married man. I might as well have stayed with Mother Beatriz and
Silvy....” Her voice broke on the name, but anger made Thea shake the
tremor from her words. “If you were offering me love in a cottage it
would be one thing, but if you think I am likely to play Joan whilst my Darby
goes about leering at someone as vulgar as Adele Towles....”

“Stop it! My God, girl, Adele Towles has nothing to do
with this. I was talking about that—Joaquín whatever he is....”

“If it were not Joaquín you objected to, it would be
Tony Chase or someone else as harmless! A friend!”