The Ideal Wife(57)

“Is that it, then?” Abigail asked. “If I can provide you with the means to go, you will do so and leave the children to me?”#p#分页标题#e#

Mrs. Harper shrugged. “I did not suggest it,” she said. “Could my daughters mean that much to you, Abigail?”

“Exactly how much are we talking about?” Abigail asked.

“I suppose five thousand would be just sufficient,” Mrs. Harper said. She laughed. “It is always so delightful to dream, is it not? Shall we walk on?”

“I shall get it for you,” Abigail said recklessly. “By next week? One week from today? Will that be soon enough?”

“Abigail!” Mrs. Harper laughed again. “You cannot be serious.”

“You know I am,” Abigail said. “Give me your address, Rachel. I shall bring the money there within the week. You will promise to go as soon as you have it?”

“How could I resist?” the other said. “But how naughty of you to have me dreaming like this. Where would you come by five thousand pounds? You surely cannot have Severn so firmly wrapped about your finger, can you? But you always had a way with you. I always marveled that your father would do what you told him even when he was in one of his worst rages.”

“Give me your direction,” Abigail said.

“I don’t think Severn would be delighted to have you seen entering my house,” Mrs. Harper said.

“No one will see me,” Abigail said. “Your direction, Rachel.”

Mrs. Harper shrugged. “You really mean it, don’t you?” she said. “Very well, then, Abigail. But remember that this was all your idea.”

“Yes,” Abigail said. “I think it is a good bargain, Rachel.”



THE EARL OF SEVERN ARRIVED home early, though a group of his acquaintances had tried to persuade him to attend the races with them. He wanted to see Abigail and make his peace with her.

The night before had been something of a disaster, and she had still been cross with him that morning. She had said scarcely a word at breakfast.

Being married was not easy, he was discovering. Abigail was impetuous—endearingly so, but she could embarrass other people as she had the evening before, when she had decided so obviously on the spur of the moment to invite everyone for dinner.

He had tried to handle the matter tactfully. He thought he had done so, but his mild reproof had left her tight-lipped and snappy. Of course, he might have known that it would be best to allow that occasion to pass by and have his talk with her the next time. He had known perfectly well that she had had a rough afternoon.

He had not known, of course, what she had overheard about Jenny. Damnation to Philby and his crew in the next box. Could they not have kept their infernal mouths shut until they were well away from the theater? What had they said about him and Jenny, anyway, apart from the fact that she was his mistress and lovely and expensive?

He had a great deal to learn about women and marriage, it seemed. He had thought the matter at an end as soon as his explanation had been made, and had proceeded with what he had been looking forward to all evening, though he had eliminated the preliminaries, knowing that she was tired. But she had lain as still as a board beneath him and had turned away from him as soon as it was over.

Hell and damnation, he thought as he handed his hat and cane to his butler and took the stairs two at a time. Hadn’t he married Abigail deliberately so that he would not have to worry about tiptoeing about her feelings? So that he would not feel that he had lost control of his own life?

Of course, he thought, he had woken in the night to find her curled up against him in her usual kittenlike position.

“Abby,” he said after tapping on the door of her sitting room and letting himself in. “I have come home to have tea with you. I’m glad you are not out. Abby!”

She set her book aside and rose to her feet, her cheeks flaming.

“Oh, Lord,” he said with a groan. “What have you done?”

“I have had it cut,” she said in that curt little voice she had used the night before and at the breakfast table, “because I wanted to.”

He crossed the room and took her hands in his. They were quite cold.

“To punish me for Jenny?” he said. “Is that why?”

“What nonsense,” she said.

He held her hands and looked closely at the cropped curls and the flushed, wide-eyed face beneath.

“It was to punish me for Jenny,” he said, smiling at her slowly. “Because I have given you only one command since our wedding and you had no choice over which one to disobey. Abby! You look like a pixie. And you have failed miserably, dear. It looks, very, very pretty.”