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She was starting to suspect that servant girl was the only one who would ever experience August’s tenderness and warmth.
*** *** ***
August felt too tense to walk. He felt too tense to speak, and yet he must do both out here in his father’s gardens. It was a cold afternoon, when one might walk more quickly to warm the blood, but both of them kept a slow gait. A cautious gait.
“How is your wife?” August inquired as they turned onto the path. “I pray Josephine is well.”
“She’s very well,” Warren replied. “She plans to call tomorrow, when she’s not feeling so ‘jolted and jangled’ from the trip.”
“Minette will be happy to see her.”
“Minette is generally happy to see everyone. Especially you, which is why I was shocked to arrive and find the two of you at odds.”
At odds. Was that what one called it when a wife hid behind her brother to escape you? Sobbing, no less. “It’s difficult to explain.”
“Nonetheless, I would like an explanation.”
August knew he must confess the dire state of their union. Minette was the man’s sister. Warren ought to know that things weren’t exactly rubbing along, and so he thought a long while about the best way to say it. “Your sister and I are not very suited to one another, as you have always known. We’re different in habit and temperament, and with the history between us, what we have can barely be called a marriage. If you wish to begin annulment proceedings, I won’t stand in the way.”
Warren pursed his lips. “It’s not what I wish, Method. It’s what my sister wishes. Let’s be clear on that.”
Were they to attack one another with Christian names, then? Very well. “What your sister wishes, Idylwild, is not in her best interest.”
“Not in your best interest, you mean.”
They walked a bit farther in silence. As younger boys they used to tear through these gardens, beating one another up whenever possible, whacking one another with sticks, digging holes so the other might fall into it. Had they changed so much?
“We have not consummated the marriage,” said August.
“Yes, you have,” Warren snapped. “There will be no annulment. You’re stuck with her.”
“She’s not happy here. She’s restless all day, then walks in her sleep every night, wandering about in her shift. They find her in the library, the parlor, or curled up halfway down the stairs.”
“I’m not surprised she’s wandering in her sleep. I understand you’re both unhappy. But she loves you.” Warren stopped and turned to him. “She lives for you, and you very well know it. You’re the sun in her sky, the only flower in her meadow. You always have been. I don’t understand why you can’t return that love. She’s charming, she’s pretty, she’s well-mannered, she’s cheerful—”
“She’s perfect. I know. She’s also been my sister as long as she’s been yours. What do you want me to do?” Sleep with her? Debauch her? Slake my lusts between her thighs?
He didn’t have to say the words. Both men heard them in his tortured tone.
“She went to see Esme,” August said. “We argued because she went to ask Esme for marital advice.”
He could see Warren was taken aback, as shocked as he’d been. “Did anyone see her there?”
“She says no, but who knows? Your sister doesn’t think before she acts.”
“She never has,” Warren said.
“She wants things of me, husbandly things I can’t do to her. Not yet. Perhaps not ever.”
Warren began to walk again, avoiding August’s gaze. “Is it because of me? Because she’s my sister? If you need my permission... If it has to come down to that, you have it, man. She’s your wife. You have to treat her like...your wife.”
“I don’t need your permission.”
Warren gave him a sharp glance. “You need someone’s permission, apparently. You have Minette’s. You have mine, damn you. Who else’s do you need?”
“My own,” August said raggedly. “Try to imagine my situation.”
“I understand your situation, but you’ve got to figure things out. Do what comes naturally. I don’t imagine you need lessons.”
“You know I don’t.”
Warren’s jaw tensed. “God, I don’t want to talk about this. I don’t want to think about any of this. Can’t you just make her happy? You slept with her once, which is why all of us are in this snarl. She might have been engaged to some other gentleman by now.”
The idea rattled August. Yes, she ought to have been engaged to someone else, anyone else. “My father’s getting worse,” August said. “That’s why I told Minette to stay in Oxfordshire.”
“Not the only reason,” muttered Warren.
“No, but a damn good reason. The closer he gets to the end, the wilder his fits. Mother is beside herself. My father’s heart is as bad off as his mind, and the doctor says...”
A matter of months. The doctor had said it was a matter of months, but August feared he meant weeks. There was no comparison between the formerly robust Marquess of Barrymore and the thin, deranged man he was now.
“I’m sorry,” said Warren. “I’m sorry about your father. I’m sorry everything’s falling on you at once.”
“I’ll survive.” He reached to pluck a dried brown leaf off a hanging twig. “But Minette shouldn’t be here. I don’t have the time or patience to be the proper husband she wants. I lost my temper today over this Esme caper. If you hadn’t shown up, she would have been over my lap.”
Warren sighed. “Look, I’m not going to judge you for spanking Minette now and again. I even gave you a paddle to do it. Sometimes it’s the simplest way to teach a naughty wife a lesson.” He stopped and kicked at a clump of dirt. “But if the lesson you’re teaching Minette is that you don’t want her, I take issue with that. Understand this, August: I won’t stand by and allow my sister to endure a miserable marriage.” He emphasized these words with quiet intention. “I don’t care how you do it, but I want her happy.”
“What if I can’t make her happy?”
“That’s not an option. Damn it, man. She’s loved you for so long.”
August leaned back against a tree and shut his eyes. He’d like to pummel Warren the way they used to. August had always been bigger and stronger, and had usually prevailed by brute and stupid force. He did everything by brute and stupid force, and now he had this delicate, perfect wife he was terrified to touch.
“I’m afraid I’ll hurt her,” he said, opening his eyes and looking at Warren. “I want you to take her away.”
“No, you don’t want me to take her away.” Warren’s sharp rejoinder crackled in the stillness of the garden. “You love my sister as much as she loves you. If you want to wait a while yet to”—he grimaced and passed a hand over his eyes—“to take her to bed with you, then explain your reasons so she doesn’t believe she’s at fault. But in the meantime you must find ways to make her happy. Tease her. Smile at her. Let her shine, and accept that she’s going to be Minette sometimes, and drive you out of your mind.”
“I’m giving her music lessons,” August said. “The pianoforte.”
“There you go. A nurturing and intimate activity. Does she enjoy them?”
She spent the entire time mooning and smiling at him, very much as she had when she was a child. “I suppose she enjoys them,” he said to Warren.
They began to walk again. “You always loved your music,” said his friend. “You were always the reclusive one, the perplexing enigma of our rowdy little bunch. I wonder if Minette won’t be good for you in the end.”
“She has enough personality for us both,” August said ruefully. “But she ought to have gone to some other more animated chap.”
“Be that as it may, she’s gone to you, and you’ve got to make the best of it. Townsend and I didn’t start out with auspicious marriages, you remember. They took a bit of work, and you’ve never been afraid of work, old man. How long have you been handling your father’s estates
? Seven or eight years now? Listen, you’re a decent person, the sort of man I would have wanted for Minette, that is, if you weren’t my friend, and a crashing sex fiend, and broody as a woman. Still.” He stopped as they neared the house and fixed August with a look. “I know you would never hurt Minette, not if you could prevent it. I believe in my heart that you love her, and that you want her to be happy. You’ve picked her up too many times to let her fall now.”
This encouraging talk was well and good. Warren was always a wonder when it came to words, like his garrulous sister, but in his heart, August still felt doubt.
“If I can’t make her happy, do you promise you’ll take her away from me?” he asked. “Even if I don’t want to let her go?”
Warren crossed his arms over his chest and let them down, and scuffed his boot against the ground again. “Like I said, it all depends on my sister. Now, let’s go have tea with Minette like civilized gentlemen. And if you don’t smile at her at least ten times before we’re through, I’ll slap a glove in your face, and neither one of us wants that.”
*** *** ***
Minette felt very cross tonight, and so she worked at embroidery in her private sitting room, making a handkerchief for August, painstakingly embroidering it with an ornately swirling A. Whoever would have guessed an A would prove so difficult to craft?
