Silent seconds ticked by.
John tugged on his waistcoat. “I don’t think two women should live alone, is all. I’m concerned about Netta and her sister.”
“Where else would your mistress live?” Montague asked.
“Well…with me. It worked before with Netta in my house.” He blew out a deep breath as realization dawned. That was why he didn’t like leaving her apartments. She should be with him. With two different residences, they were losing time travelling between, time that could be spent together.
“Wouldn’t it be awkward having your mistress and her sister in your house?” Montague seemed to emphasize the word mistress in his questions, and the sound grated on John. “How will you explain their presence in your home? Will she hide away whenever a guest comes around?”
“She will receive callers with me, of course.” The idea blossomed in his mind. He never should have rented those rooms for her. She should have remained with him all along. “And no one will dare question her presence.”
His friends carefully looked at each other.
“What?” His voice held a bite.
“It might not be my place to say—” Wil began.
“Then don’t.”
“—but it sounds like what you want is a wife, not a mistress.”
“A wife?” Outrage oozed from John’s voice even as the word settled into his bones.
A wife.
He wasn’t the marrying sort.
He told his friends that. “I don’t want the legal trappings you all seem so eager to bind yourselves in. I only want to be with her every day, share her company at dinner, take her to balls, and wake up to her smile in the morning.”
“Share intimate chats with her, discuss your days?” Sutton asked.
“Of course.” No one could make him laugh about life’s absurdities like Netta.
“Be there for her when she’s sick or distraught, and have her support when you are afflicted?” Dunkeld asked.
“That goes without saying.” If Netta needed him, he would let nothing prevent him from being by her side.
“What do you think marriage is, man?” Montague shook his head, exasperated. “Your preconceptions of the institution border on idiocy. It’s not a trap. Nor a chain. It’s about making the best life you can with the woman you love. Our prince might be able to live with his mistress, but you won’t be able to do the same in our society, not without subjecting Netta to scorn and derision.”
John’s knuckles whitened around his glass. He couldn’t let Netta face contempt, not if he could prevent it. And he did want her forever. He had no concerns of ever changing his mind about that.
Would a wife be so bad?
He took a sip of whisky. A wife. He could work with a wife, as long as it was Netta filling the position.
His muscles relaxed. The decision felt right. Comforting almost.
There would be mocking from his friends, of course. He’d besmirched the institution for so long he would deserve their ridicule. That wouldn’t be a problem.
The problem was Netta. She desired marriage even less than he had.
“Of course, we must look at it from her side.” Sutton picked through a bowl of nuts and popped one in his mouth. “She is an aspiring actress. A husband could get in the way of her career.”
The other men nodded.
“I wouldn’t interfere with her career,” John objected. “Not if it’s what she wants to do.”
“Stage managers might worry that as a married woman she could go into confinement during a production.” Rothchild rubbed his jaw.
