The earl clasped his hands more tightly at his back. “She is my wife, Mama,” he said, “and if you have a quarrel with her, then I am afraid you have one with me too. It sounds to me as if she was severely provoked this afternoon.”
“We were trying to help her, Miles,” Constance said. “Can you not see that? It will be a dreadful thing for all of us if the most influential people of the ton decide to turn their backs on her. It will affect all of us.”
“I have to go,” he said. “We are expecting dinner guests. Good day to you, Mama. Connie.”
He was sorry he had called. He had already been angry at what Gerald had told him that morning and at the opinion he had expressed about Abigail. Now this!
He was bewitched, was he? He had fallen under the influence of a vulgar fortune hunter, had he? He should control her, both his mother and Gerald had told him. He was easily led, his mother had said. He knew that to be partly true—he had been dominated by her and his sisters for years.#p#分页标题#e#
Was he now dominated by Abigail?
The idea was foolish. He would not think of it. His steps quickened as he neared home. He wanted to see her. It seemed a long time since breakfast.
10
ABIGAIL FULLY INTENDED TO TELL HER husband about the events of the afternoon. It was not in her nature to keep secrets and she was already burdened with too many from her past.
When he came to her dressing room before dinner, however, he returned her smile in the mirror, bent to kiss the back of her neck, and clasped a string of pearls about it.
“Because your mother’s are too large and heavy for evening wear,” he said.
“Oh.” She covered the pearls at her throat with one hand and gazed at him in the mirror. “They are quite gorgeous, Miles. And I will wager that they are real too.”
She watched laughter crinkle the corners of his eyes and dimple his cheek.
“How was your afternoon?” he asked, touching her shoulder.
She opened her mouth and closed it again. She remembered what her mother-in-law had said about the kindness Miles had done her in marrying her. And she remembered the way she had chosen to defend herself that afternoon and the strong possibility that what she had said was vulgar. She remembered that not all the ladies who had listened to her story had been amused by it. She remembered the setdown she had given Frances Meighan.
“It was good,” she said, smiling brightly. “I have met a large number of people in the last two days, Miles. What did you do today?”
She would tell him later, she thought. Perhaps after they returned from the theater.
Laura was embarrassed by the invitation, Abigail found later.
“But, Abby,” she said on her arrival when they were alone together, “it was different on your wedding day. Now you are the Countess of Severn. Are you sure his lordship does not resent my being here?”
“How preposterous!” Abigail said. “As if Miles is high in the instep, and as if I had changed in four days. You are my dearest friend, Laura, and I intend that you will remain so. Now, tell me: have Mr. Gill and Humphrey been behaving themselves? Before I left the house, I enjoyed giving Humphrey that friendly advice on how he might treat his spots. I particularly enjoyed assuring him that it was a youthful malady and would surely disappear as soon as he reached manhood.”
Laura smothered a laugh. “Mr. Gill has been in the schoolroom once since you left,” she said. “I am afraid I quite shamelessly mentioned my dear friends the Earl and Countess of Severn. He did not stay long.”
Abigail took her arm and led the way into the drawing room, where her husband and Sir Gerald were enjoying a drink before dinner.
Conversation at the dinner table fell mainly on Abigail’s shoulders, the earl being unusually quiet, Laura shy, and Sir Gerald content to be an amused spectator. She talked almost without stopping.
“I have never been to the theater,” she confided at last. “I was never more excited in my life.”
“Never, ma’am?” Sir Gerald asked. “That is rather an extravagant claim.”
Abigail thought for a moment. “I suppose I was just as excited when I attended my first assembly at home,” she said. “Though it turned out to be a poor affair, and I was not nearly the belle of the ball I expected to be. I was sixteen and invisible to all the young gentlemen. Only the grandfathers danced with me.” She laughed merrily.
“I do not believe you will be invisible tonight,” Sir Gerald said gallantly.
“And I suppose I was as excited on my wedding day,” Abigail said. “But I was also terrified and cannot even remember the excitement. Laura had to help me unroot my feet from the floor of my bedchamber.”