Amelia would see to it personally.
Henry Andrews rose at half past eight, staring at the empty place beside him in bed. Though he knew it was fashionable for wives to have their own adjoining bedchambers, he rather missed Beatrice sleeping beside him. They had been married for nearly twenty-eight years now, but somehow in the past few summers, she’d become more distant.
Part of it was because he’d been away at war for so long. Beatrice had been forced to fend for herself, making the decisions about their estates and the girls’ lives. It was to be expected that she would gain a stronger sense of independence.
Yet after he’d returned, he’d thought their lives would resume as if he’d never left, like pieces of a puzzle snapped together. Instead, the edges wouldn’t quite fit. Beatrice was no longer the quiet, obedient wife. They’d had a terrible fight over the scandalous sewing business his girls had started. He’d demanded that they cease at once, and to his shock, Beatrice had refused.
“You left us on our own,”she’d told him.“And you have no right to criticize what our girls did to survive it.”
Even now, the thought of his daughters selling unmentionables—seductive ones at that—was enough to make Henry reach for the brandy. He’d believed they would end Aphrodite’s Unmentionables immediately. Instead, his defiant wife had continued her role overseeing the crofters’ creations, as if she were unaware of the social consequences of being discovered.
She was a baroness—not a courtesan. But no matter how he argued with Beatrice, she refused to discuss it.
Worse, she’d stopped sleeping beside him, and although she’d continued to follow her duties as Lady Lanfordshire, something had changed between them. There was an intangible distance that he couldn’t grasp or understand…almost as if she’d fallen out of love with him. They existed together, but her heart no longer belonged to him. And damn it all, he hadn’t the faintest idea how to change that.
He rather wondered if anyone had written an instructional guide to reviving one’s marriage. For his was certainly on its deathbed.
After his valet finished helping him to dress, Henry went to the adjoining door of his wife’s bedroom. He pressed his ear against the door and heard the faint sounds of conversation. Good. That meant Beatrice was awake.
Henry knocked upon the door, and momentarily her maid answered it. Glancing behind her, she said, “Forgive me, LordLanfordshire, but my lady is still abed. Was there something you needed?”
Yes. He needed to speak with his wife without a door between them.
“She is not still abed,” he remarked. “I overheard her talking with you.”
The maid blushed, but added, “That is true, but she is not ready to receive you. She bid me to say that she will see you at breakfast.”
For God’s sake, this was hiswife. It was his right to push the door open and talk with Beatrice whenever he damn well pleased. But he sensed that barging in would only cool her demeanor toward him, and that wasn’t what he wanted.
He grasped the door handle and closed the door in the maid’s face. This situation had grown more ridiculous with each passing day. For twenty years, he’d slept in his wife’s bed. On the journey here from Scotland, she’d wanted separate rooms. Separate! As if she couldn’t bear to breathe the same air as him.
His temples were beginning to throb with a headache, and he went to sit at his writing desk. During the war, he’d been an officer. As a colonel, he’d presented quite a few battle strategies to the generals, and he was no stranger to warfare.
He took out paper and a quill and realized that this situation was no different. There had to be a correlation between a battle and a marriage. Both required peace terms, and it was clear that Beatrice believed she had the upper hand.
Not so.
Henry’s quill began to move over the paper, outlining the various methods of attack. In warfare, the troops needed to scout the enemy’s whereabouts and understand their actions. It seemed a reasonable course of action to shadow his wife. He hadn’t the faintest notion of what she did all day, but perhaps he could spy onBeatrice and thereby understand her better. With women, actions spoke far louder than words.
Satisfied with the results, Henry decided that today he would make a concerted effort to rediscover his wife. He had mistakenly believed that all was well between them, when, in fact, it was not.
But here, in London, they could make a fresh start. And Henry fully intended to enlist the help of his daughters.
Chapter Three
David stepped inside the foyer of the Andrews residence and gave his gloves and hat to the footman. The butler, Mr. Culpepper, was a portly man with a gray mustache and a beard. His expression was grave as he led David inside. “Miss Amelia Andrews and her mother are expecting you.”
He followed the butler toward a small parlor and was surprised to see Lord Lanfordshire standing in the hallway. The man appeared to be eavesdropping for some odd reason.
“My lord.” David greeted the baron, but Amelia’s father only shook his head and waved him onward. Why in the world the older man was lurking about instead of joining them was uncertain. The butler only lifted a finger to his lips and beckoned for David to join the ladies inside.
The parlor was a cozy room with creamy wallpaper and long green drapes to frame the large windows. He bowed to the ladies, greeting Lady Lanfordshire first. “I trust you had a good journey from Scotland?”
“It was wretched, as always.” She smiled, gesturing for him to sit. “Thank you for coming to tea with Amelia and me.”
He took a seat across from them and saw the gleam of strategy in the young woman’s face. Amelia was clearly plotting something, and he wasn’t certain what that was. “It was my pleasure.”
Lady Lanfordshire began with a banal conversation about the weather and travel conditions, but all of his concentration was on Amelia. She was wearing a deep blue gown, and her blond hair was pulled back into a chignon, though several strands were artfully arranged about her face.
