The Ideal Wife(55)

“No,” she said. “I have to be busy.”

He set a hand on her shoulder as he passed. “I shall see you later this afternoon, then,” he said.

“Yes.” She balanced her knife on her forefinger and spun it. It clattered to the floor after the door had closed behind her husband.#p#分页标题#e#

So he did not care for her, she thought with none of the bleak despondency of the night before. She was plain and dull, and she had turned out to be unexpectedly and unpleasantly talkative. She had been married because he did not want to be bothered with a beautiful and vibrant woman in his life and because he needed an heir. She was to be impregnated during the spring and then taken to Severn Park and left there forever after.

So. Was there anything so very dreadful in all that? She had known from the start that she was being married for convenience, and heaven knew that her mirror had been telling her for twenty-four years that she was no beauty. She had married him for convenience too. She had married him to avoid destitution. It was as simple as that. It was quite irrelevant that he had compelling blue eyes and a knee-weakening dimple and all those other attributes that she would not depress herself by enumerating at the moment. She probably would have married him if he had looked like a frog.

She would enjoy being left alone at Severn Park. She would have Bea and Clara with her, and perhaps Boris would be less reluctant to come there for extended visits if he knew she was alone. It would be quite like old times, except that Papa would not be there. It would be like heaven.

And if she did her duty properly and was a nice, obedient, uncomplicated wife, then there would be a baby to bring up too—a daughter, she fervently hoped. If it were a girl, of course, he would doubtless come back to try again. But she would not think of that.

She got up resolutely from the breakfast table. There were things to be done. She was not going to sit around all day brooding. And she was no longer going to care what anyone said about her, including Miles Ripley, the Earl of Severn. He did not like her anyway, so why try to please him? It was a pleasant, liberating thought.

She knew the first thing she was going to do—after writing invitations to the Chartleighs and the Beauchamps, that was. She would be punishing herself as well as him, of course, but she was going to do it anyway.

All her plans were thrown somewhat awry when a footman in the hallway bowed to her and handed her a note that had just been delivered. She took it into the morning room, where she planned to write the invitations.

“Come for a stroll with me this afternoon,” Rachel had written. “Meet me in St. James’s Park at two o’clock. Your affectionate stepmother, R. Harper.”

Abigail folded the note and tapped it on her palm. She did not want to see Rachel again. She really did not. She had been fond of her and sorry for her unhappiness and horrified by the rough treatment she had had at Papa’s hands. She had been bewildered and upset and angry when Rachel had run away and left her daughters to the mercy of her drunken and frequently violent father. She wanted to leave it at that. She did not feel in any mood to reopen an old story or aggravate old wounds. She did not want to discover that perhaps Rachel was still a woman to be pitied.

But there were the girls and Rachel’s ominous suggestion that she would like to see them again and perhaps even have them to live with her.

She must go, she thought with a sigh. In the park? In such a very public setting? But of course, she did not care what anyone thought of her any longer. She would go.

An hour later Abigail had written and sent off the invitations, changed into a new carriage dress, which had been delivered the day before, and was on her way to Oxford Street. There were a few hairdressers to choose among. She knew none of them but picked one at random. And she emerged one hour after that with short curly hair beneath her bonnet, and knees that felt turned to jelly and a stomach that felt as if it wished to relieve itself of her breakfast.

She went home and spent the short remainder of the morning giving Victor his first reading lesson. It was not going to be easy, she discovered. It was not as simple as opening a book on his lap and pointing out to him what each word was. How did one teach a child to read? Victor knew all about A and B and C by the time she sent him back to the kitchen for his luncheon, but she was not at all sure that he realized the significance of those letters or the depressing fact that there were twenty-three others to grow familiar with.



RACHEL HAD CHOSEN the time with care, Abigail discovered later. The morning walkers and riders had left long before, while most of the afternoon strollers had not yet arrived. The park was almost deserted.