Marry Christmas (Zebra Historical Romance) (20 page)

“Are you not yet breeding?”

Elizabeth stared at the dowager duchess with horror and not a little fear, for the woman was, without a doubt, the most intimidating person she had yet to meet. She made her mother seem a cozy, country lass who cooked apple pies for a brood of children. The dowager sat on a thronelike chair, her hair piled high and ornately upon her head, draped in jewels and squeezed into a gown so intricately made, Elizabeth imagined an army of seamstresses must have been employed. She gazed down at Elizabeth through a pair of quizzing glasses as if she were a new and inadequate servant. And she wanted to know if she were “breeding.”

One must have sex in order to have children.
How she longed to say those words, especially because Rand stood behind her, likely highly amused that his mother was treating her so abhorrently. “No, ma’am,” she said, her cheeks burning with humiliation.

“You do know that is your most important duty.” She looked back at Rand. “She does know this, does she not?”

“Yes, Mother.”

Elizabeth could hear in his voice that he was trying not to laugh. She only wished she were sharing his great amusement instead of being put on display. Rand had warned her that his mother would be angered that he married an American, and that his mother knew almost nothing of his financial difficulties. It gave Elizabeth little comfort to know that her family’s money would no doubt go a long way toward making this woman’s life more comfortable. The dowager lived in a lovely town house that Rand had been on the verge of losing, for it was the only piece of property, other than Bellewood, that he had left to sell. His mother had been completely ignorant of this. How Elizabeth longed to tell this woman that she was completely dependent upon her money, to bring her down a bit. It was clear within minutes of their meeting that she thought Elizabeth specifically, and Americans in general, far beneath her consideration.

After her torturous interview, which lasted perhaps five minutes, the dowager dismissed her, forcing Elizabeth to wait in the hall like a wayward child while Rand spoke with his mother. She could not hear a word they said, only certain tones that told her Rand was placating and his mother enraged. Honestly, one might think she’d been a wharf rat the way the woman was carrying on. Elizabeth, who all her life had been treated with the utmost respect, found herself in the position of being made to feel inferior. She did not at all feel that way, however, which likely had the older woman in a snit.

Elizabeth would no sooner apologize for being American as she would for her father’s overly generous settlement that would benefit the old cow.

Inside the room, Rand was only mildly irritated by his mother’s behavior. She was behaving precisely the way he imagined. If anything, she had deported herself with immense calm and restraint, compared to how Rand expected her to act.

“Mother, she comes from an excellent family.”

“An American, really, Rand. When you wrote to me, I could not believe it. I simply could not fathom why you would choose an American when there are so many fine English ladies who would far better fill the role of duchess. Why her? By the way, I heard she was brought about by her mother last year and I must say at the time I thought it completely vulgar of the mother to think any one would consider the girl. And then my own son…”

Apparently, her rage made her unable to continue.

Rand let out a sigh of impatience. While he could not tell his mother the true reason for the marriage, he also would not lie and tell her he’d fallen madly in love with her. “She’ll make a fine duchess. She is beautiful and extremely intelligent. I believe she will handle the duties with ease.”

“She looks like a child. How old is she?”

“She is nineteen.”

His mother pressed her lips together. “She
is
a child.”

“You were seventeen when you married Father,”

Rand pointed out.

“But I did not become a duchess until I was well into my thirties.”

Rand was so very tired and completely overwhelmed by everything that needed to be done with the estate, he had no energy left over to deal with his mother. He’d only arranged this meeting to get it over with. “I cannot argue with you, Mother. Time will tell if Elizabeth is up to the task. Right now, I would be more worried about me.”

His mother waved away his concerns. “You will do fine. I do wish you’d spent more time with your brother and father, but it is in your blood to lead. I have no doubt, none at all, that you will fill those shoes and fill them well.”

“Then please have confidence in my choice of duchess.”

She pressed her lips together and forced a nod. “I shall visit you when you can present me with a grand child,” she announced, dismissing him. “See to it that it is done quickly.”

With a nod and a barely hidden smile, Rand left, glad the interview was over. He’d been away from Bellewood for four necessary days, but with everything he had to do, it seemed far too long. Their days had been spent or dering massive amounts of goods, including basic furniture for their apartments and consulting with builders for the necessary upgrades to Bellewood. Nothing would be done until spring, but they could at least come and see what putting in central heating, a modern kitchen, and central plumbing would entail. For now, he was busy working on the tenants’ homes, some of which were barely livable. He’d also hired a property manager, and a valet, though he hardly thought he needed one with their social life nearly nonexistent.

The visit with his mother was the last appointment on their long list of things to do while in London and he was more than glad to return home. He had been back in England for a month and was pleased with the progress being made on the cottages. Roofs were being repaired, walls whitewashed, doors and windows re placed, and every home under his domain would have central heating and plumbing. It was humbling how grateful the tenants had been for even the smallest re pairs, and it made him even more ashamed that they had been neglected for so long. It was difficult for him to believe his father and brother had actually collected rent on some of the places, which had become little more than hovels. It was a modern age and there was no reason anyone should live in such poverty. At least not on Bellingham lands.

He found Elizabeth pacing outside his mother’s sit ting room, obviously upset about the interview with his mother. As soon as she saw him, she marched over to him, fists clenched. Perhaps she was more than upset.

“How could you allow your mother to speak to me in such a way?” she demanded in a harsh whisper.

“I have no control over what my mother says or thinks. She is old and set in her ways. I knew she would be disappointed with my choice in a bride and I believe I warned you.”

She glared at him, which for some reason he found extremely funny, though he tried hard not to show it.

“You’re laughing at me,” she declared.

Apparently he was not at all good at hiding his mirth.

“No. Well, yes. You look so very…fierce.”

Elizabeth let out a puff of anger. “She asked me if I were breeding.”

“Yes. I heard that.” He looked decidedly amused.

“Don’t laugh at me,” she said, getting quite cross. “I should have told her the truth. That one cannot breed if one does not share a bed with one’s husband.”

Rand’s apparent delight at her anger vanished immediately. “We should go now if we wish to get back to Bellewood by dark,” he said, turning abruptly away.

“Yes. As soon as things get the slightest bit difficult, it is always best to turn away,” she shot at his back. She was so sick of being punished for something she was beginning to believe wasn’t that large a crime. Was he to treat her this way their entire marriage?

He continued walking out the door, his entire body stiff with anger, and Elizabeth walked after him, just as angry that he was angry. When they reached the outside, he turned on her.

“You made a fool of me. You broke my…trust.” He swallowed and looked away, working his jaw. “That, my dear, is not a slight difficulty, as you say. Not to me.”

Elizabeth felt her anger immediately deflate and her eyes prick with unshed tears. “We should go,” she said, stepping down toward their waiting carriage. The foot man immediately leaped down and assisted her in, and Rand followed, sitting across from her and gazing out the window.

It was a long, silent journey home. They stopped once to eat at an inn, then continued on to Bellewood, reaching it after dark. Rand immediately went to the stables, as he had each night for weeks. She had no idea what he was doing inside, because there were no horses to tend to other than the two that pulled their carriage. It wasn’t as if Bellewood wasn’t large enough for him to disappear in so he wouldn’t have to be near her.

Elizabeth let out a sigh and trudged up the small set of steps that led to the private apartments. She’d been in the massive home for weeks, and still hadn’t seen an entire wing of the house where the formal state dining and meeting rooms were and honestly didn’t much care to. They were no doubt another series of vast, empty and very dusty rooms.

“Good evening, Your Grace,” Tisbury said, holding out his hand to take her cloak and muff.

“Good evening, Tisbury. It’s nice and warm in here,” she said. Tisbury had been one of the original servants, and no doubt remembered the chilly days spent inside the place. Elizabeth walked to her room, her footsteps echoing in the long, empty hall, feeling as if she were quite alone even though she knew the house was now filled with servants. When she reached her room, she sat upon her bed, feeling depressed and out of sorts. She didn’t know how to fix things between her and Rand, and desperately wanted to. Simply put, she missed him.

She missed the way he looked at her, as if she was the most beautiful woman on earth. She missed how he touched her, how he made her feel so incredibly wonderful. She missed feeling his warmth next to her in bed. And she didn’t know how to get it back. That letter had been so damning. No matter what she said now, he would think her actions filled with ulterior motives.

She was honest enough with herself to admit that when she was first married, Henry’s words had filled her with a small amount of solace, and that only compounded the guilt she felt.

Worst of all, perhaps, was that she had absolutely no one to talk to. Her days were endless and tedious, filled with duty and very little joy. She longed for Maggie, her cousins, even her mother—anyone who would listen to her. She found herself alone most of the time with nothing but her thoughts to keep her company. She’d never thought of herself as a frivolous girl, but how she longed for a ball or dinner or the opera, for one single reason to get dressed each day.

If the days were endless, the nights were purely solitary.

Rand never appeared at the dinner table, and never came to her, not even to say good night. Their rooms were so far apart, she hardly even heard him enter his own rooms. If it hadn’t been so very cold everywhere in the house, Elizabeth might have sat in the mansion’s only other furnished room to curl up with a book. But the long walk from her room to the sitting room made such a thought extremely distasteful, especially since the servants did not tend to fires in rooms that were not occupied.

Like every other night, Elizabeth found herself sitting alone at the dining table, feeling slightly humiliated to be accompanied by only the footman, who stood so still at the door awaiting to serve her slightest need. She hadn’t much appetite, and the large amount of food put in front of her could have fed five people. After forcing down a bit of each course, Elizabeth stood and thanked the foot man and disappeared into her room. It wasn’t even half-past eight and she was done for the evening. Back home, she would have been getting ready for a dinner or a ball or for a night at the opera. She would be chatting with Maggie or her mother about something. Anything.

She felt much as she had in Newport when she’d been confined to her room and not allowed to participate in any amusements. It wasn’t, she realized, the amusements themselves that she missed, but the basic human interaction. Discussing the weather, the newest fashions, politics, something that would stir her brain a bit. She was surrounded by servants, who still looked at her curiously, and the one other person she could talk to hadn’t mumbled more than a few words since their arrival in England. She looked at her embroidery and grimaced, refusing to take it up out of pure boredom. Elizabeth, along with the finer womanly arts such as pianoforte and needlepoint, had been educated much like a boy, she realized. She was used to being challenged mentally and found herself missing reading the many books her family’s houses always contained. How wonderful it would have been if Bellewood had a large library, but the books, along with everything else, had been sold.

Rising from her bed, Elizabeth went out into the dining room and toward the entrance, bracing herself against the cold. No matter how warm the rooms were kept, the halls were always chilly.

“Tisbury, do you know where I might find the duke?” she asked.

“His Grace is in the stables, Your Grace.”

“Would you please fetch my cloak and muff,” she said, peering out a window into the darkness. She couldn’t see the stables from that vantage point. Indeed, she wasn’t certain where they were.