“Oh, please,” she said, wringing her hands. She was so afraid of everyone knowing, of people seeing the improprieties he forced upon her like some new blush on her skin. He scrutinized her, one dark brow arching up.
“Is that what you fear? That people will discover the peculiarities of our marital bed, and judge you for it? The secrecy of such play is the most delicious part. Imagine meeting my eyes across the length of some dinner party or some ballroom, and seeing writ there the memory of our salacious adventures, our intimate, sweat-slickened hours.”
Aurelia cringed. She didn’t like to sweat. She didn’t believe she’d so much as uttered the word “sweat” her entire life. “We are so different,” she said mournfully.
“Yes. And I am selfishly demanding that you make me happy. But it can go both ways, can’t it? What can I do for you? What is lacking in your life, in this marriage, that would make you happy?”
Lord Warren, she thought, but she didn’t dare say it. “I don’t know,” she said aloud. “I suppose I would like to live a peaceful, safe existence. I would like a family. Children.” She considered her husband, trying to picture him as a doting father. She could not quite accomplish the task.
“I’ll give you children, as many as you want,” he assured her. “That goes without saying. You’ll have a home and safety the rest of your life. But there must be something more, something frivolous you would enjoy.”
She thought hard, but for the life of her could think of nothing. “I have never been very interested in frivolities.”
“You haven’t been interested, or they’ve been denied you?” His face took on that dark look again. “In all the time I’ve known you, I’ve never heard the sound of your laughter. I’ve never seen a true smile.” As he said this, he brought his hand down beside his plate in such a way that his fork launched into the air, landing with a dull thunk against his forehead.
A bark of laughter escaped her like a pistol shot. She clapped her hands over her mouth to stifle it as the utensil slid down the front of his embroidered dinner coat to settle in his lap.
He regarded her in mock reproach as he waved away a footman and mopped his forehead. “If that was supposed to be laughter, Aurelia, you’re making a very poor show of it. It sounds more like this.”
He threw back his head and laughed with such good-natured vigor she couldn’t help laughing too, though her giggles sounded soft and weak compared to his. He nodded. “That’s a little better.”
How strange, the way his face transformed when he smiled, so he looked handsome rather than dire or threatening. In fact, just at this moment, he regarded her the way a loving husband might dote on his wife. It created powerful, alarming feelings inside her.
“What would you like from me, little grasshopper, in exchange for your forced cooperation?” he asked, pulling her right into his lap.
She blinked at the easy, casual way he held her, and primly rearranged her skirts where they’d ridden up. “I don’t know what to ask for. I suppose I am very spoiled by anyone’s standards. I’ve always had everything I needed.”
“If you think of anything, let me know. You may find this difficult to believe, but I mean you no harm. I would like for both of us to be happy in this marriage, particularly if it’s to include just us two. Perhaps if we try, we can find some way to assuage the tensions in our relationship.”
She knew he was extending an olive branch. If only she was brave enough to accept it. “I fear you will be disappointed,” she said, holding herself stiffly. “I can only be as I am.”
He stroked light fingertips across her cheek. “I wonder if there’s more to Aurelia, the Marchioness of Townsend, than you yet realize. My darling, don’t be afraid of me. I want you to be happy. If you want safety, I swear I’ll keep you safe.”
She knew how to react to him when he was coarse or autocratic, but she didn’t know how to deal with this tenderness. Just as she was trying to sort it all out, he nudged her off his lap and seemed to go all stern again. “We must finish dinner. The hour grows late.”
“I think I am already finished.”
“You may be excused then. Try to get some sleep. We’re traveling tomorrow.”
She halted in her retreat. “Traveling where?”
“The season is over, for all intents and purposes. We shall retire to my country estate where we can commence your...training...in a more private and uncrowded setting.”
The word “training” made the hairs rise on the back of her neck. Did he really mean to go through with this? His country estate was in Berkshire, she remembered, nowhere near his parents’ or her papa’s estate. She would be in the country, far from her friends and family, at her husband’s mercy.
I swear I’ll keep you safe.
She prayed it was true. She was not at all at ease with the idea of being trained for his pleasure, but with him in absolute control of her life now, what choice did she have?
Chapter Eight: That Good
Hunter sat opposite his wife on the journey west to Berkshire. Being a gentleman, he took the backward-facing bench. He might have sat beside her, elbow to elbow, and offered her a shoulder to lean upon, but he could study her more easily while facing her—and he had become rather fascinated with studying her. Every so often she shifted so their knees wouldn’t touch in the middle. Then he rearranged his long legs so they touched again.
It wasn’t a great distance to Somerton, but it was tedious with the servants and luggage carts coming behind them. He might have escaped the carriage altogether and gone ahead on his horse if he wanted. It was a sunny, temperate day, perfect for galloping neck or nothing, but he had chosen instead to ride with Aurelia in this velvet-lined and cushioned compartment. He’d become unsettlingly preoccupied with his little mouse after their discussion the night before.
He had tried to be authoritative and unmoving when he laid out his sexual ultimatums, but in the end he couldn’t help feeling some tender respect for his wife. She had been embarrassed, shocked, dismayed, but ultimately resigned to a situation she could not change.
And he had meant what he said about doing things for her in return. If she had been haughty and condemning, he would have done his best to make her miserable, but when she put her head in her hands and told him to take her back to her father in that pitiful voice, some part of his armor had cracked. When he whacked himself in the forehead with his own fork, her choked, stifled laughter had shattered it further.
The blasted woman literally didn’t know how to laugh.
He could tell she had never been allowed to laugh and make merry, not least of all from the way she clapped her hands over her mouth and looked at him with an expression of horror, like she’d performed some great breach of etiquette. His wife had been given everything, had she?
Except for permission to make merry and have fun.
Hunter and his friends searched out fun and merriment in every aspect of their lives, and wallowed in it when they found it. They always had, ever since they were young lads. What had Aurelia been doing while he was tearing around getting into scrapes as a child and sowing wild oats as a young man? Sitting somewhere stitching flowers on some blasted silk pillowcase, he presumed.
It wasn’t her fault she was the way she was. He had to remember that. How sober, how proper she looked now, gazing out the carriage window at the sunny day. He wanted to teach her to laugh and have fun, and to find pleasure where she might. At the same time, he wished to retain authority over her. He wished her to continue to be an obedient and appropriately submissive wife, not one of those shrews who led their husbands about by the balls while other gentlemen snickered behind their hands. It would be a delicate balance to manage it.
He moved forward to peer out the carriage window along with her. “It’s not far now, my dear. Not so far as traveling to Oxfordshire.”
“Why did you set up your country home so far from the Lockridge estates?” she asked.
He shrugged. “I liked the property. It’s a good mix of wilderness and civilization, and the manor itself is comfortable and in excellent repair. And of course, it’s closer to London, where I have always spent the majority of my days.”
She looked back out the window at rolling green fields, and the last of summer’s wildflowers. “It’s pretty country. As pretty as Oxfordshire, I think.”
“Certainly. At Somerton, there are paths for walking, and lakes and follies.” My, was he ever trying to impress her. He had never felt such pride in Somerton before. It was merely a country retreat, a place to escape and occasionally hold parties, an additional estate he might some day pass down to a first-born son, or a second-born, if the first set up at Lockridge. For now, it was to be his and Aurelia’s home, and he found himself hoping she would admire it. “Do you enjoy riding? There are plenty of places to ride, and a stable of admirable horses, if I do say so. We could ride out and have picnics now and again, if you like that sort of thing.”
She looked down at her lap. “I do not ride especially well, I’m afraid. And I’ve never been on a picnic.”