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Alexa discovered that all her limbs felt stiff and that she was enraged, at the same time. How dared he give orders to her servants in her house! And indirectly to her as well? She drew in a deep breath, meaning to send back an icy message by Bridget; and then it suddenly dawned on her that she was married, and everything that had been hers was now his. Including herself, even if he had not bothered to avail himself of his conjugal rights on their wedding night. Was that why Bridget seemed unable to meet her eyes this morning? The scorned bride. She had locked her door last night, but it was Bridget and not her husband who had awakened her by knocking at her door.
“I believe we are supposed to spend a week or so in the country before we travel to Europe,” Alexa said as she forced herself to stretch, hoping that Bridget could not see her face when she added: “But how considerate of Lord Embry to make sure I was to sleep late! Is he already awake, Bridget? If he is, please do tell him that I have to consult with him before we can be completely packed. I cannot quite remember if we are supposed to go first to Spain or to Germany, you know.”
His Lordship, Alexa was informed soon afterwards, had called for a carriage and departed over an hour ago. He had left word for Lady Alexa that he had several urgent business matters that needed his immediate attention and would keep him away until shortly before eight that night, at which time he planned to join her and their guests at dinner.
It was only by a determined exercise of her willpower that Alexa was able to continue pinning up her hair while she said with studied casualness, “Oh? I suppose I had forgotten in all the turmoil yesterday. Did his Lordship happen to leave me a guest list, by any chance?”
“Oh yes, ma’am,” Bridget said quickly. “He had given it to Mr. Bowles before he left—in case you might have forgotten, he said—and I have it here with me. And Cook would like to talk with you about the menu as soon as it’s convenient for you, my lady.”
Damn him, damn him! What kind of a cruel game was he playing with her now? Formality, politeness, and distance. He was avoiding her, that much was obvious. And by inviting guests to dinner on the night after they had been married, he was making it clear that he did not care to be alone with her. Did it also mean that she would spend another night alone in her own bed? Alexa gritted her teeth together and glared with narrowed eyes at her own reflection in the mirror. She meant to have it out with him and get everything straight between them as soon as he entered the house again, whether he liked it or not—guests or no guests. Just because they were married now, how dared he treat her with such detached indifference, as if she had suddenly become no more than a housekeeper? She snatched up the guest list that Bridget had cautiously laid on the dresser before her and frowned angrily over it Nicholas’s writing was almost as impossible as he was. Except for a few names that were familiar to her, the list was barely legible. Ten people—most of them strangers to her—and she would have to play the gracious, smiling hostess. It was hard not to give in to her impulse to tear the piece of paper she held into little shreds, or to pick up the crystal bottles ranged before her and send them smashing one by one into the mirror; and Alexa might even have given in to her impulses if one of the footmen had not knocked at the door to her sitting room and offered her a square parchment envelope borne on a silver tray.
“I’ll read it in here, Bridget,” she called to the girl in her most controlled voice. “And you might as well send for Cook at the same time, I suppose.” But her mind stayed angry until some of her rage was replaced with curiosity after she had read the note from Adelina, Dowager Marchioness of Newbury, intimating that there were several private matters of some urgency she wished to discuss with her dear Alexa—this same afternoon, if possible.
“What a very pretty gown, my dear,” the Marchioness commented when Alexa had been shown into her private sitting room. “That particular shade of brown suits your coloring very well, and I like the gold ribbon trimming. I was fond of browns and golds myself when I was younger. Would you care for tea? Or coffee, perhaps? Or,” waving Alexa impatiently into a chair, “that I should come as quickly as possible to the point?
“Fortunately—or perhaps unfortunately—I think we are enough alike, you and I, to appreciate directness,” the Dowager began bluntly after her maid had left them. “And you’ve certainly proved that you’re quick-witted as well as ambitious.” She gave a cackle of laughter. “At least, thank God, you’re not a milksop like the rest of them. You know what you want and go after it, don’t you? Well, grudgingly or not I have to give you credit for that. But to have real power—and that’s what you said you were after, wasn’t it?—well, to have that, my dear, you need to know a lot of things about a lot of people; and that’s where I have the advantage over you, because I know everybody that matters and everything about them too. And I’ve played the game a lot longer than you have, and succeeded—until you came along.” Even though Alexa had not spoken, the Dowager waved an impatient, beringed hand in a silencing gesture before she went on with a shrug: “But, if there’s anything I’ve learned it’s to accept what has to be accepted, even if I don’t like it. There’s no use the two of us being enemies, is there, if we can use each other? And by that I mean that I can help you gain whatever ends you’re after, my dear, and at the same time you can help me! And we don’t have to interfere with each other either, do we? I think you’ve a logical enough mind to realize the sense of what I’m proposing, don’t you?”
Alexa said cautiously, “And that is...? You must forgive me if I don’t quite see how I can be of any help to you, ma’am.”
“You don’t? Well I’ll tell you how. And it could have advantages for you too, as you’ll find out.” Surprisingly, the Dowager gave vent to another harsh crow of laughter as she studied Alexa’s face before saying: “You don’t trust me, do you? Well, that’s clever of you too, I suppose. I wouldn’t do you any favors unless it was to my advantage, because I’ve always looked out for myself first. How else d’you think I’ve survived and done so well for myself in a man’s world? If you want power, my dear, you can’t allow yourself the luxury of being swayed by your emotions. You’d best learn instead how to arouse the emotions of others for your own purposes. I married an old, rich man with a title, and I had my pick of young lovers when I wanted them and discarded them when I was tired of them, just like men do with the women who give in too easily. They can’t resist a woman who’s stronger than they are and controls a relationship. They’re not used to being used themselves, you see, and they never see it, the poor fools! And when you’re a married woman it’s easy enough to break off an affair whenever you choose to and keep them still hungering after you; as I’m sure you’ll find out soon enough for yourself if you haven’t been stupid enough to develop an emotional attachment for your husband. And in that case everything I’ve been telling you was a waste of time, because you’ll end up being nothing but a poor silly brood cow with no say about anything, not even the use of what used to be your fortune—which he’ll spend on his mistresses, no doubt! But I, my dear, managed to keep my husband my adoring slave—and a cuckold, until the day he died.”
Alexa had found this sudden, blunt openness on the part of her grandmother quite surprising, although she had not let herself become disarmed by such unexpected frankness. But the last part of the Dowager’s speech had struck home all the same, because she knew it was no more than a repetition of everything she’d been told before and warned against before—by Harriet first, and then all the other worldly-wise instructors Sir John had taken the trouble to find for her. Hadn’t even her Aunt Solange told her the same thing in cruder terms? “You’d better start thinking with your head, my girl, and not with what you’ve got between those pretty legs of yours!” she’d said. And hadn’t she seen and heard for herself how base men were and how unfeeling towards women they could too easily rule; and how easy it was to transform those same men into slaves begging for favors if a woman knew enough and was clever enough to keep herself detached? It was acting and not feeling that counted. Why hadn’t she learned that yet?
As if she had been able to read minds, the Dowager leaned forward in her chair and said startlingly: “There’s already a strain between you and Nicholas, isn’t there? You’re not going to bother denying it if you’re intelligent enough. I saw it clearly if no one else did. And I’m not asking you to confide in me, if that’s what you’re afraid of, although I could give you some advice if you need it in order to make him easier to manage. You’ll find, sooner or later, that men are all the same and quite as easy to fool as to keep happy—once you have discovered what their weaknesses are.”
Alexa found that all the muscles in her face felt stiff from the effort of keeping it composed, even her lips. But now, somehow, she managed to smile and to say quite lightly: “I must rehearse myself until I am a better actress, I suppose. But the strain you noticed is due, I think, to the circumstances leading up to our marriage, of which you’re aware, and also to the fact that neither of us is used to having our freedom restricted. I daresay we shall both manage to come to an understanding sooner or later, and perhaps getting away from London and all the soot and smoke and fog will help.”
“Ah!” Adelina exclaimed with satisfaction. “That is exactly what I wished to speak to you about in the first place. Newbury has become very difficult of late and has actually been raising objections to my leaving London
for Spain and Portugal as I usually do every year. He’s suggested the country—but I detest being cooped up there for the winter, and so would you, I’m sure! Servants’ parties for Christmas, and visits to and from neighboring squires and parsons and their wives—and before that all the men are usually off to Scotland or the moors for the shooting. I hope you’re not naive enough to think that because you’re newly wed your husband’s going to miss all the fun to stay with you and have all the other men make jokes behind his back and call him henpecked? I’ve always believed that if a man’s entitled to his amusements so is a woman, although we are forced to be more discreet than they are.”
“I beg your pardon,” Alexa said rather constrainedly, “but I’m afraid that I...”
“I am suggesting, my dear Alexa, that you would probably find the south of Spain with its warm sun and salubrious climate much more exciting than being snowbound in an English country estate. I know that I certainly do. And if you were to mention to Newbury that since you are used to a tropical climate you cannot stand the thought of a cold, damp winter and would much rather spend that time in Spain or Portugal with me as a suitable chaperone, why, I’m sure it would raise no objections from anyone and might prove a most interesting experience for you as well. Do consider all the possibilities as well as the advantages to you before you make up your mind, won’t you? Or better still, try the country for a week or two first!”
Choices or decisions—there were always those to be made. Alexa returned to her own home in a strangely uncertain mood that kept her tense and on edge for the rest of the afternoon while she tried to clear her mind of the clutter of emotion in order to think rationally and calmly. Weighing everything. Preparing herself and the questions she had to ask like an actress rehearsing her lines while she waited and watched a fine drizzle wet the street outside her window until it blurred her view and she turned back to the welcoming warmth of the fire in her sitting room. She would be cool. She would be perfectly objective and reasonable and would not under any circumstances allow him to make her lose her temper. She would point out that it would be much more convenient for them both if they could come to some understanding from the very beginning of their marriage of what each of them could expect from the other. But in the end nothing turned out as she had expected and she could remember none of her carefully prepared speeches and attitudes when she most needed the armor they might have provided.
Perhaps it was the dinner party composed of strangers and casual acquaintances that he had arranged without consulting her first. Or perhaps it was the rankling knowledge that he had not returned to the house to change for dinner until just before the first guests had arrived, leaving her to entertain them until he sauntered downstairs at last with his perfunctory apologies. Or had it been the seemingly interminable time that the men had spent over their port and cigars and their ribald jokes while six women who scarcely knew each other and had nothing in common sat in strained silence between equally strained efforts at making polite conversation? All that Alexa was conscious of by the time the last guests had left was her steadily mounting rage, which was aggravated by the fact that at least two of the “ladies” she had been forced to entertain were in fact “seclusives”—well-known courtesans who were kept by their protectors in pretty villas in St. John’s Wood and who later would no doubt laugh over having been entertained by Viscount Embry and his wife in fashionable Belgrave Square. Laugh at her for being forced into it.
While Bowles was locking the front door Alexa turned abruptly to her husband, who had actually dared to yawn. “I must speak with you in private, if you please, my lord.”
Sarcasm dripped from every word she uttered, but he had the temerity to stifle another yawn before he inquired if it could not wait until some other time when he was not so sleepy and could give her his full attention. “And if it’s about money and what kind of allowance you desire, I have already taken care of that through your own solicitor, Mr. Jarvis. I’m sure he’ll be able to explain everything to you much better than I can. You will have no reason to feel deprived.”
The thought, as bitter as gall, that she might be expected to thank him for being generous enough to allow her to spend some of her own fortune almost choked her as Alexa looked up into his dark, impenetrable face and met his clouded-green eyes that showed her nothing at all, except, perhaps, bored indifference. And that she could not and did not intend to tolerate.
“If that was all that concerned you, then I hope that you’ll excuse me?” He had actually made a motion to turn away from her when Alexa put her hand on his arm. She was aware that Mr. Bowles was watching them both while he pretended to fiddle with the bolts on the door, but by now she was past caring.
“There is a great deal more that concerns me and must be discussed tonight,” Alexa said in a low, suppressed voice that vibrated with the force of anger raging in her.
This time she was awarded a quizzical upward tilt of a black eyebrow as Nicholas drawled, “Must be? I’m hardly in the mood for discussions of any kind tonight, I’m afraid, or for anything but rest. Is it urgent?” And then he must have seen something in her face that made him think better than to try and evade her, for he gave a resigned shrug before saying, “I can see you’re determined to be insistent, so—shall we use the study or the library for this discussion? And will you promise me it will be brief?”
There was already a fire lit in the library, because some of the gentlemen had repaired there earlier to find a book that would settle an argument they’d had. Mr. Bowles added more coal to make the flames leap to life again before he left them alone with a decanter of cognac, two glasses, and the wary silence between them that continued while the Viscount Embry poured a large amount of cognac into each glass before handing one to his new bride.
“Salud, Marquesa.” With a rather mocking gesture he lifted his glass to her. “There was something urgent you had to discuss with me?”
In the end she could hardly fault him for not being honest with her after she had demanded it. And she could not accuse him of being purposely cruel either. She had asked for the truth and he had given it to her, like an arrow sent straight to the heart.
“Oh Christ, Alexa! I tried to tell you before that marrying me would be no good for you any longer, if you remember. But you insisted, and your father the Marquess insisted, and after I had been urged to consider the alternatives in a most persuasive fashion, marriage to you and my freedom seemed to become infinitely the easier of the choices I was given. I find it hard to believe that you did not know—but perhaps you didn’t, and in that case I apologize to you for thinking so and also for what I am not able to give you, if you expected more from this marriage than my name and the title of Marchioness of Newbury that will be yours some day.”
