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He stiffened. ‘I do hope that your trunks are not full of another woman’s cast-offs. Did I not give you enough time to kit yourself out, properly, for a trip to the country?’ One week. Just one week had he kept her entirely to himself. He’d refused all invitations to socialise and insisted that modistes and what-have-you came to her rather than let her venture out into the streets without him. Until he’d caught her gazing wistfully out of the window and suspected she was starting to feel like a prisoner.
And so here they were, setting off for Lesser Peeving and talking about clothes as if they were all that mattered.
‘They are not full of Lady Harriet’s cast-offs,’ she was saying waspishly. ‘But I saw no reason to throw away any clothing that I was able to make use of.’
‘That carriage dress you have on is never one of hers.’
‘No. This is new.’
‘I thought so.’ He sat back with a feeling of satisfaction. He couldn’t expect Clare to abandon her habits of thrift overnight. But at least she could treat herself to new clothing now, whenever the mood did take her. He’d done that much for her. No more dyeing coats because she couldn’t afford decent mourning garments.
He’d taught her how much pleasure her body could give her, too. Although she wasn’t at all comfortable with that new knowledge. Not when the pleasure came at the hands of a man she despised so heartily.
Not that she’d said as much. But then he hadn’t given her the opportunity to do so. Every time she’d started to stiffen up, in his arms, and he’d seen the waves of guilt and regret wash across her expressive little face, he’d given her thoughts another direction. Had deliberately goaded her into an argument about something else, so that they wouldn’t have to confront the issue which he dreaded hearing coming from her lips.
Her true feelings about him. About marrying him.
She’d never made any secret about the way she felt about him when they’d been growing up. She’d called him a libertine, a profligate care-for-nobody, a ne’er-do-well, an arrogant, unfeeling, miserly, harsh landlord…oh, there had been no end to the insults she’d flung at him.
Although to be fair, she’d only done so in retaliation to his teasing. Because teasing her had been the only way he’d been able to get her to make any sort of reply to him at all. Goading her into flying into the boughs had always been one of his greatest pleasures. She looked so funny, spitting fire and practically hopping up and down on the spot. And whenever he’d prodded her down off her high horse, forced her to lose control with him when what she most wanted to do was treat him with haughty disdain, it had felt like a victory.
Not the best way to conduct relations with one’s own wife, perhaps, but then that was the way they’d always interacted and it wasn’t as easy to get out of a habit, he was finding, as it had been to fall into it.
Though he could see she was trying to. He shifted guiltily in his seat as she darted him a tentative smile. Since she’d given vent to her feelings in that initial orgy of crockery-smashing, she’d been doing her utmost to keep her temper in check. He could see her wrestling with it right now, as his secretary finally clambered into the coach, his satchel of papers slung over one shoulder and his portable writing desk clutched under one arm.
‘You won’t mind, my dear,’ he said to Clare, who clearly did to judge from the way she narrowed her eyes, ‘if I spend some time attending to my correspondence? I often spend the time it takes travelling from one place to another in this manner.’
Any newly married woman would be insulted to find her husband was bringing a secretary along on her bride trip. Clare was no exception. But after sitting up very straight, she said, ‘Of course not,’ with a determined smile. ‘I know you are a very important man and must have a great deal of work to attend to. You know, I have never travelled very far from Watling Minor before so I will be quite content watching the passing scenery out of the window.’
Dear lord, but Saint Paul had it right when he talked about heaping coals of fire upon your enemy’s head. He felt downright scalded by Clare’s dogged determination to enjoy the journey, so as not to be a nuisance. Especially since he’d only invited Slater along to create a barrier between them. The last thing he wanted to do was talk to her for any length of time. Because she would probably start to thank him for taking her out of town rather than forcing her to go to Almack’s, where she’d have taken her place in society as his bride. And he wasn’t sure how long he would be able to let her think he was being a caring, thoughtful husband when the truth was he’d deliberately manipulated her into taking this trip. First of all, he’d reduced her to a state of boneless satiation, and then, when her judgement was clouded, he’d scared her with that threat of parading her before the town’s tabbies at Almack’s. If he’d suggested a trip to the country to start with, she’d have been so offended at the implication she wasn’t up to snuff that he’d have had to drag her into this carriage kicking and screaming.
