“I know nothing of the sort.” Now that she had her mother with her, Sybil was loath to let her go. “You shall stay with us for as long as you like, and Father will have nothing to say about it.”
“You know what he is like, Sybil.”
“I do,” she said grimly. “And that is why you must never return.”
“There issomething we should perhaps discuss,” Everett said as the carriage swayed over London roads some hours later.
Sybil’s mother followed behind them in the procession from Wingfield Hall, secure in her own carriage at her insistence.
“But I will sleep,” Mother had protested. “I cannot nap if you are there, chattering in my ear. Besides, you should be with your husband, at his side where you belong.”
Sybil hadn’t had the heart to tell her mother that her husband didn’t wish for her to be with him any more than she wished to share a carriage with him. In the end, she had held her tongue and relented, seeing Mother into the comfort of her carriage, her invalid chair secured with the valises.
Everett had been quiet for much of the journey, staring broodingly out the window and pretending as if she weren’t present. Rather like their marriage thus far, she thought bitterly as his words jolted her from her own quiet musings.
Sybil studied him, thinking that even in the lessening daylight and shadows that had fallen, he was unfairly handsome. “What is it you wish to discuss?”
“Your arrival at my town house is going to be something of a surprise.”
She nodded. “That is to be expected. You wished for me to remain at Riverdale Abbey and didn’t make plans for me to join you in London. And you hardly could have predicted we would be bringing my mother along with us as well.”
His abandonment of her was yet a tender subject, one she couldn’t broach without an accompanying twinge of resentment. But she was grateful to him for what he had done for her mother, so she was doing her utmost to contain her hurt and anger.
“Not just your arrival, I’m afraid,” he elaborated, his countenance pained. “But the fact that I am married and you are my duchess.”
Understanding dawned, along with more vexation. Hardly a surprise. The letters she’d had from Alice ought to have presaged such a revelation.
“Your servants don’t have any notion you have a wife?” she asked.
“They do not,” he agreed, inclining his head. “Nor, however, do my mother or my sister.”
His confession did nothing to assuage the band of worry tightening around her chest, making it difficult to breathe. “Your mother and sister do not know you are married?”
“They do not. I had intended to inform them, but I’ve yet to do so.”
The carriage swayed to a halt.
“You are telling me that I’m about to enter a household that has no notion you’re married, from the lowest scullery maid to the dowager duchess, are you not?”
He winced. “Yes, that is what I’m telling you.”
“Did you think to keep me a secret forever?”
“Not forever.” He turned toward the Venetian blinds, peering out them, and muttered a curse. “I’m afraid there isn’t time for further discussion of the matter. We’ve arrived.”
“Splendid.” She pinned a taut smile to her lips. “I’m sure this will go swimmingly.”
“I do thinkMamanand Verity will be pleased to know I’ve taken a wife,” he said. “Once the initial surprise wears off.”
Verity.
He had a sister, which she had known, but Sybil didn’t recall his speaking so familiarly about her during their furtive courtship. It was a reminder of how truly little she knew about the man she had married.
“What a relief,” she said, unable to keep the sarcasm from her voice.
“You needn’t make me sound as if I’m a monster.”
“I never said you were. I am grateful to you for what you’ve done on my mother’s behalf.”
