How to Handle a Scandal (14 page)

She made an exasperated sound. “Clearly you would have to pause in your shaving while your eyes were closed.”

“And yet I prefer not to. I
am
your husband, after all. And you’ll be behind a screen. Besides, it’s not as if I haven’t already seen most of you.” Though not
all
, not anywhere near as much as he wanted, and the knowledge plagued him constantly.

“You’re being a beast,” she grumbled, but he could hear her pulling the blanket around her as she got out of bed while he went to work on the other cheek. He spared barely a glance for her as she made her way to the trunk that Anna had sent for her, a length of blanket trailing behind her like a queen’s train. She opened the trunk, poked through the clothes inside for a few moments, then closed the lid without taking anything out and reached for the blue gown she’d worn the day before.

“What, don’t you like the things Anna sent?”

She ignored him and disappeared behind the screen. After some minutes of rustling, she emerged at the edge of the screen. She’d tidied her hair by pulling it into a simple knot high on the back of her head, and she was holding her blue gown closed at the neck in back. “I need help with the buttons again,” she said. “Please.”

She turned around expectantly, displaying the line of buttons he’d undone in near darkness the night before. Now the daylight gave him a fine view of gauzy white chemise where the gown gaped, and what seemed like yards of buttons to be gotten through little slits.

“Isn’t there one of those kinds of gowns with the drawstring neck in that trunk?”

“No. They’re just party clothes, things from a long time ago.”

He snorted. “And they’re not good enough for your wholesome widow image, is that it?”

She just stood there with her back to him, waiting.

He gritted his teeth and got to work, keeping his eyes on the back of her head. Looking at his fingers was not a good idea, since as they moved upward, her hand gripping the gown closed let go, revealing the soft, fair skin of her nape, where a few strands of hair lazed against her milky skin.
Siren
, he reminded himself.

* * *

Eliza could feel Tommy doing up her buttons with determined speed, as though he couldn’t wait to be done with being so near her. It was just as well he was treating her as though she had the plague, because she was tempted to spin fantasies of something positive perhaps coming out of their forced marriage, something good for their baby. She knew that wasn’t going to happen.

He thought the life she’d made for herself in the last six years had been nothing but a mask for the selfish, careless flirt he believed her still to be, and maybe it was better for her if she let him think her so shallow. “Maybe I’ll wear the clothes if there’s anyone at your estate worth impressing,” she said.

“If that’s how you want to look at it.”

They were both quiet as he finished the buttons. When she turned around, she let her eyes skip over his rumpled suit and forced herself to adopt a haughty tone.

“You’re hardly dressed to impress.”

She was certain she heard the sound of teeth grinding. “I’m about to change.” He put his hand on the waist of his trousers with a glint of challenge in his eyes, and she gave a shocked gasp (which was not entirely for his benefit) and turned away.

While he was behind the screen, a knock sounded and a maid entered with a breakfast tray. Once she’d left, he said from behind the screen, “We’ve a long way to go today, so you have about five minutes to eat.”

She knew it would be best for the sake of her stomach to eat something, and she picked up a roll, but she couldn’t seem to make herself take a bite.

“You’ll need to actually put the food in your mouth for it to benefit you.”

She turned and saw he’d come out from behind the screen. “You do realize that I’m not some fragile young thing who’s going to quiver at your every command?”

He gave her a dark look. “In fact, as your lord and master, I
can
order you about if I choose.” He moved toward the looking glass and began tying his cravat in a simple knot, which she supposed was necessary since he had no valet. Though she couldn’t really imagine him wearing some elaborately tied confection.

“Lord and master?” she scoffed. “Whether you believe it or not, I do want what’s best for the baby. It’s just hard to eat with a queasy stomach.”

He gave a sharp nod and went over to his valise.

She did her best to eat some of the roll and drink a little tea, since apparently they were going to be on the road for hours again, a prospect she tried not to think about.

“Will we arrive today?”

“Yes.”

“How long do you mean to stay at Hellfire Hall?” He didn’t look up from his valise when she spoke, and she thought that perhaps those moments when they weren’t looking at each other were the best times to attempt conversation. Not that she wanted to engage him in chat, but there were things she needed to know.

“A while.”

Which told her nothing. He held so much power over her now, power she hadn’t wanted to surrender, and the knowledge infuriated her.

“Do you mean several days? Weeks?”

“I haven’t decided.”

“And then you’ll return to India?” A horrifying thought occurred to her: he could compel her to return to India with him. Though why he should wish to do such a thing short of sheer bloody-mindedness, she couldn’t imagine. “Alone?”

“Alone. My passage is booked for two months hence. You will stay in England.” He paused. “It was what you wanted anyway, wasn’t it, to have it be just you and the baby.”

“Yes,” she muttered, though everything was different now from what she’d dreamed of, and she knew, stupidly, that she was a little disappointed that he clearly was not even the tiniest bit tempted to stay in England and meet his child, never mind being a part of his or her life.

She was being foolish, because it was for the best that he was leaving.

She stood and began to pack up the few things she’d taken out of her case. She had a life in London. She had Meg and Will and Anna and her friends, and
they
would be her baby’s family since Tommy would not.

And he was not abandoning her. Except for the detail of their marriage, they’d made no promises to be with each other.

She rested a hand on her still-flat belly. She was going to have a baby to love, a baby who wasn’t going to be born on the wrong side of the blanket, and she was
lucky
. If Tommy didn’t want to share in that, it was his problem.

When he turned away from the looking glass, freshly shaved and dressed in a peacock-green tailcoat, she instructed herself to ignore how handsome he was. Also, how tall. Nor should her eyes linger for even one moment on his thighs, whose rock-like muscles were suggested by the snug-fitting cloth of his buff-colored breeches. She averted her eyes when he turned around to put something in his valise and refused to care that his back looked extremely good.

Nor did she allow herself to remember that lying in the same bed with him last night, just before she fell asleep, she’d experienced an entirely misplaced feeling of comfort.

They departed the inn, with her and Traveler again in the carriage and Tommy riding his large chestnut stallion.

It was a very long day, during which she, surprisingly, didn’t feel as ill as she had for the past few days. She distracted herself from thinking about all the ways her life had changed overnight by talking to Traveler and looking out the window. The scenery at least was beautiful, everywhere the crimson and gold of autumn, and people working in the fields.

When they finally arrived at the manor, it was evening and very dark. Eliza could see little of the building, but by then she couldn’t summon the energy to care. Her limbs felt like weights as she climbed down from the carriage.

The housekeeper, Mrs. Hatch, greeted them warmly at the door and was all smiles when Tommy introduced himself and told her that he’d recently married and brought his bride to see his new estate.

Eliza, who’d never felt so exhausted in her life, asked if she could be shown to her room.

“Of course,” Mrs. Hatch said. “The bedchambers for the master and mistress have been cleaned and aired.” She looked a little hesitant. “Though of course the furnishings are very…simple.”

Eliza wouldn’t have cared if the furnishings were nothing but a blanket thrown on a cold floor at that point, as long as she could stretch out her cramped, aching body and sleep.

With the help of a maid the housekeeper sent to her, Eliza undressed and fell gratefully into bed.

In the middle of the night, she awoke to the awareness that something was very wrong.

* * *

Eliza did not make an appearance at breakfast the next morning, though Tommy, dining alone, was not surprised. When he saw Mrs. Hatch later that morning, the woman, clearly thinking that a newly wedded husband hungered for every morsel of news about his beloved, told him that a maid had been dispatched with a tray for the mistress, but that Lady Halifax had sent the girl away and asked not to be disturbed.

Though he tried to convince himself that Eliza was playing the martyr, or perhaps the princess for whom nothing in his crumbling manor would be good enough, his conscience prodded him. She’d looked drawn and pale when they’d arrived, and she’d retired immediately.

He went to her room, but there was no answer to his knock, so he went in.

“Time to start the day, Eliza,” he said, advancing into the room, which, like his, looked suitable for an inhabitant who was either austere or destitute. His agent had not exaggerated when he’d said the estate was in need of renovation. Hellfire Hall would clearly need quite a lot of attention before it would be truly presentable, and if nothing else, Eliza could help with that. She certainly owed him. “You’ve a manor to play mistress to.”

She was still in bed, lying on her side facing away from him, and she didn’t turn when he spoke, but what had he expected? Though he acknowledged a grudging respect that she hadn’t crumpled under the less-than-generous manner in which he’d been treating her, he knew that developing soft feelings for her would be a mistake.

The fire was dying and the room was colder even than the rest of the drafty manor. He threw a few logs in the hearth, then moved toward the bed. As he did so, he caught sight of an empty washbasin on the room’s small table and, on the unwelcoming old wood of the floor, a single, startling drop of blood.

A sense of foreboding came over him and his eyes flew to the bed. “Eliza?”

She finally turned over. Her face was ashen and her lips bloodless, but it was the flatness in her blue eyes that struck him most.

“I lost the baby,” she said in an emotionless voice. Then she turned on her side away from him again.

He stood there speechless.

Mrs. Hatch had clearly known nothing of what had happened, nor surely any of the servants, which told him that Eliza had dealt with the miscarriage entirely on her own. Alone, in the dark of night, in an unfamiliar house.

Perhaps she hadn’t rung for help because she hadn’t wanted to make it known that she’d been increasing, since they were so recently married. Or perhaps she’d felt alone among people she hardly knew. He felt bad, though, that she’d been on her own.

“I’m sorry,” he said quietly, moving closer.

When she didn’t respond after several long moments, he said, “Should I call a doctor?”

“No. It’s not necessary.”

“Is there anything you wish? Anything you need?”

“Please just go away.”

He felt instant relief at her words—relief that she didn’t expect anything from him. This was followed by an unwelcome feeling of self-disgust. He might be furious with her, but she was clearly very much affected by the loss of the baby. However, she wanted him to go, and he certainly didn’t want to stay there when he didn’t know what to do, so he obliged her and left.

He would let Mrs. Hatch know that the mistress was exhausted from the journey and a bit unwell, and that she should be left to rest.

* * *

The soft click of the door closing told Eliza that Tommy was gone.

She didn’t seem able to do anything beyond stare at the bare stone walls of her chamber. The room’s windows were starkly unrelieved by curtains, and she could feel a thin current of cold air seeping through their old frames. The furnishings, though they were clean and tidy, were ancient, and the small carpet was threadbare. The room looked like a dungeon cell.

She didn’t care. The only thing that mattered was that her baby—her sweet, tiny, fragile, miracle baby—was gone.

Her throat closed with the heavy weight of sorrow, and her tears soaked her pillow.

By the next morning, Eliza still hadn’t stirred from her bed and Tommy was concerned. She hadn’t touched the tray he’d delivered to her room the afternoon before, though she did appear to have drunk some of the tea Mrs. Hatch had brought her in the early evening. But tea was nothing.

He was beginning to think she needed a doctor.

He went to her room again, clearing his throat to announce his presence in case she was sleeping. But as he drew near the bed, he could see she was awake and lying on her back.

“How are you feeling?” he asked.

“Tired,” she said, not looking at him.

“You should see a doctor. I’ll send for one today.”

“No,” she said, rolling her head on the pillow to look at him. “I don’t need a doctor. It was a…normal occurrence,” she said dully. “It happens. It happened to Anna, a year after Heck was born. She was fine.”

He hadn’t known that had happened to Anna. It was hardly the sort of information one put in a letter, but perhaps if he’d been at home, Will would have shared the news with him.

Eliza’s words reassured him somewhat, though she didn’t exactly seem to be “fine,” but he supposed a day or two of recovery would be needed.

“Very well, but you must try to eat something.” He gestured to the tray at her bedside. “It will help build your strength.” He sounded like a damned nursemaid, but he didn’t know what else to do. What did he know about women’s needs or caring for ill people? He almost never got sick, and when he did, he retreated to his rooms and preferred to be left alone.

“I just need to rest,” she said, and turned away from him. He didn’t like it, but he left.

Two days later, he overruled Eliza’s wishes and sent for a doctor.

She looked daggers at Tommy when he brought Dr. Hall in to see her, and Tommy was glad to escape the room and leave her in the care of someone trained and knowledgeable.

After his examination, Dr. Hall assured Tommy that Lady Halifax had recovered physically from the event and that she could certainly have another baby. But he also said that some women took losing a baby very hard, even one that had barely had time to grow.

The next morning, her tray was again sent away with hardly anything missing. Mrs. Hatch said to Tommy, “Poor Lady Halifax must be quite unwell. She’s not eating enough to keep a bird alive.” He couldn’t agree more.

He made his way to her bedchamber, knocked once, and entered, closing the door behind him.

She lay in the bed as usual, though now she was dressed in a fresh white chemise that he suspected the maid had helped her into, and her hair looked freshly washed and still a bit wet. But her skin was pale, her cheeks sunken, and her eyes flat. Pity stirred in his chest, along with the banked embers of his longtime anger with her.

He strode over to the bed. She turned away from him, pulling the blanket over her shoulder as if to seal herself off under its protection.

“You need to get up,” he said. “It’s not sensible to lie in bed like this for days.”

She made no reply, but he was prepared for that. He grabbed the edge of the blanket, pulled it briskly off her, and tossed it over a nearby chair. She yelped and sat up.

“What do you think you’re doing?” she demanded hoarsely. She drew her legs up and hugged them, and her teeth chattered for a moment before she clenched them.

“Helping you get ready for the day.”

She just stared at him, though perhaps that was a hint of anger beginning to brighten the flatness in her eyes? Good. Anything was better than that detached, emotionless look.

Tommy went over to her wardrobe and examined the dresses. The silks and velvets of a fashionable woman, they were all too pretty and impractical for the chatelaine of this rustic home. One even had jewels sewn all over it. He knew what Anna had been thinking when she packed such things for an eloping couple, but now he wished he’d let Eliza bring her own trunk from the coach, because he guessed it had been full of those plain gowns she’d been wearing in London.

He’d assumed those sensible frocks were nothing but a costume, part of the veneer of propriety she’d created. But though he’d been so convinced she’d been acting the part of a demure, caring widow, he didn’t feel comfortable judging her so harshly now.

“It’s cold today,” he said needlessly. “You’ll want something warm.” Hellfire Hall’s name promised warmth, but instead the place seemed to absorb any heat generated by the well-tended fires that were kept lit in most rooms. Though today, by his order, her fire had been allowed to go out. “You can put on that gown you were wearing when you left London.”

“I’m not getting up.”

“Oh, but you are,” he said firmly. He might not be a good nursemaid, but he definitely knew the value of getting on with things even when you didn’t feel like it.

He thought of his friend Jonathan Tartt, a captain in the East India Company, who’d embraced the Hindoo religion and delighted in holding nautch parties full of dancing girls. Though Tartt had a wife in England, his true love was his Indian mistress, and when she died delivering his child, he’d shut himself in his house with crates of wine. By the end of the fourth week, it had become apparent that if somebody didn’t force Tartt to take up his duties, he’d lose everything he’d worked for. He’d yelled like an ogre when Tommy had gone through his house collecting every last bottle, but it had forced him to get out of his house and start going through the motions of living again.

“You’re the lady of this manor, and you have a household to manage.”

“I’m not well. Mrs. Hatch can see to things until I’m better.”

He spotted the blue gown she’d been wearing when he stopped her coach and brought it with him as he returned to the bed.

“You can put this on.”

“No, thank you,” she said stiffly.

His jaw tightened. “Either you put it on, or I’ll put it on for you.”

“I just lost a baby, Tommy,” she said in a ragged voice.

“You did,” he said quietly, “and I’m sorry about that.” He cleared his throat. “But the doctor says you’re fine, and that there’s no reason you can’t have… He said that someday maybe you could have another one.”

He
really
didn’t want to talk about this. The idea of another baby—a baby that wouldn’t be an accident—was so distant from his thoughts that it was best left for some other decade. But it wouldn’t be fair for her to think that part of her was damaged.

He tossed the dress on the bed. “Now, who’s doing the dressing?” he said, though he really hoped she wasn’t going to test him on this.

“I’ll do it,” she bit off. “Just get out. And send a maid.”

He nodded and started for the door. “I’ll return in twenty minutes. If you’re not presentable,
I’ll
get you dressed.”

* * *

What the hell had come over Tommy
? Eliza thought angrily, hugging her legs tighter for warmth and mentally piling on him several choice words she’d picked up at the Malta docks as a girl but had never allowed herself to use—even in her mind—in recent years. How could he treat her this way? The man was an unfeeling beast!

Clearly he meant business, though, and the thought of him dressing her… She shuddered.

The fire in the hearth had been allowed to burn down that morning as it hadn’t on the other mornings, and now she guessed that he must have ordered it to be neglected as another means of forcing her out of bed. With her blanket gone, she was freezing.

“Grr,” she muttered, swinging her legs off the bed. Her bare feet hit the icy floor and she forced herself to stand up. She felt limp and weak as a kitten, and she needed something warm immediately, but she ignored the dress he’d picked and made her way to the wardrobe.

Anna had packed her a bouquet of beautiful gowns. Eliza trailed her fingertips over the myriad shades of pink she used to wear—deep roses and the palest pastels, and lustrous ashes of roses for when she was feeling more serious. They were all the kind of beautiful, attention-seeking colors she never wore anymore. Anna, who hardly even bothered about her own clothes, often urged Eliza to wear pink as she used to, or to put on some of the jewels she’d once worn with such pleasure. But then, Anna had thought Eliza should marry again.

And now she had.

The little voice of conscience that had been such a constant companion in recent years directed her to put on the sensible blue dress. For years she’d listened to that hard voice of discipline, but now, with a feeling of bitter anger, she ignored it and plucked a rose-colored silk dress from the wardrobe. Crossing the small, threadbare carpet, she stepped behind the ratty old screen.

The screen was covered in a fabric that might once have been nice but was now faded to the color of sunbaked dirt and stained with alarming dark patterns that looked like dripping liquid. Perhaps it had been part of some horrible midnight event involving pirates and captives and knives and blood. Probably some smuggled rum as well, and doubtless chains and ropes.

Or just disgusting, clumsy men, she thought as her eyes roamed anew over the ugly room that had been her only view of the world for the past several days. Perhaps every woman who’d ever come to this manor had, like her, been brought here against her will—possibly countless women sold or forced into marriage, their wishes of no value in the transactions men undertook.

She was being absurdly dramatic, she thought as she pulled the dress over her chemise. While she
had
been forced into marriage, she was the one who’d set the stage for it. The little scolding voice pointed out that she’d made her own bed, and now she’d have to lie in it.

Preferably alone
, she thought, though judging by the cold expression that came over Tommy’s face whenever he was in her presence, she wasn’t going to have to worry about him finding her so irresistible that he’d force himself on her.

The thought shouldn’t have made her spirits sink any lower, but it did. Against all sense, and even as she’d been outraged by the heartless words he’d just spoken, she’d also dearly wanted him to take her in his arms and hold her. She told herself that she was merely starved for human contact after days alone in bed.

She started on the buttons she could reach while she waited for the maid, but she was too weak to make much progress. When the maid arrived, she was the same young woman who’d sometimes brought her trays. She’d brought a cup of chocolate with her now, Eliza noticed with the first stirrings of appetite she’d had in days.

She accepted the cup and warmed her hands on the hot drink, then took a small sip and asked the maid, who said her name was Lucy, to do up her buttons.

“Would you like me to do your hair?”

Eliza was about to specify her usual boring, severe coiffure, but she didn’t feel like having her hair pulled back tightly. When she lived in Malta, she’d run about with her hair floating in the wind, and she’d been happy and carefree. Coming back to England had meant the end of carefree ways and the need to forget the pain of her father’s abandonment and death. As she’d grown older, she’d come to think of her wild younger self with shame.

For the first time now, she looked back on the girl she’d been with a feeling of loss.

“I’ll just leave it in a plait,” she said, pulling her hair over her shoulder and separating it into three strands.

“Oh,” Lucy said, clearly surprised that the new mistress should wear such a casual coiffure. But when Eliza asked her for a ribbon to tie the end of her plait, Lucy produced a small length of blue satin with a smile. “It will look very pretty with your hair, ma’am.”

Eliza thanked Lucy and dismissed her. She brushed a hand over her silky, richly colored skirts. The bodice was lower than what she was used to wearing, and it was snug after six years. Her inner scold insisted that she looked like she was trying to attract a man, but she was tired of telling herself pretty colors were a mistake, and she wanted to wear pink because she liked it. If some man found her attractive, it was his own damned problem, because she just didn’t care.

A sharp rap on the door indicated the return of her husband, exactly twenty minutes after he’d left.

Would she ever get used to the idea that Tommy was her husband? They’d taken those vows, and now they were sealed together, their destinies tied until death, even if he was planning to spend much or maybe even all of that destiny on his own in India.

If they’d only waited a few days, there wouldn’t have been any need to marry. If only Tommy hadn’t kidnapped her and made it nearly impossible to refuse…

No.
He might have been overbearing, but she couldn’t fault him for not wanting his baby to be born a bastard.

The pain of grief still tugged at her, but she pushed it down as another sharp rap sounded at the door. She let him in.

His eyes traveled over her gown and hair, and his brows drew down. No need to worry that
he
would find her attractive. “I thought you didn’t like the things Anna sent.”

“I changed my mind.”

He looked like he wanted to say more, but he just frowned and came into the room with all the cheer of a rain cloud. She supposed having black hair must be useful when needing to create a sense of doom. The cold glint in his clear green eyes suggested there’d be no warmth for her. “Luncheon will be served shortly in the dining room. I am going out.”

“You forced me out of bed so I could eat lunch alone in the dining room?”

“You needed to get up.”

This was true, but she wasn’t going to agree. His mouth was set in a commanding slant she never would have dreamed him capable of six years before, and it made her wish she knew more about what he’d done in the intervening years in India.

When she didn’t say anything, he said, “You’re the mistress of Hellfire Hall, Eliza. Or do you plan to shirk your duties?”

She crossed her arms. “Of course I don’t plan to shirk my duties. I mean to speak with Mrs. Hatch shortly. And since we’re talking of plans, how long will you be gone today?”

“A little while.”

“Which could mean an hour, a day, or a week. I’ll need to know this sort of information, now that I’m the mistress of Hellfire.” She liked that:
mistress of Hellfire
. It made her sound ferocious.