Tea came and William drank several cupfuls thirstily, one after another.
“Feeling any better? Up for a walk, do you think?”
“Not really.”
“Oh, come on, Will. It’ll do you good.”
“You know what does me good, Phin?”
Phineas was sure William was going to say whisky and ask for some despite what Phineas had said earlier about having nothing strong to drink in the house. But he was mistaken in his friend.
“You. You do me good. Always have. Your indefatigable cheer. Wish I was made like you.”
It wasn’t like William to be sentimental. Hell, this was verging on maudlin and he appeared entirely sober.
“No, you don’t. I’m not nearly as clever as you.”
“Or your wife?”
“Or my wife.”
“Well, it’s clever of you to realize that.”
“Yes, it is, isn’t it? Come now. Up. A short walk. I’ll bring Miss Lavinia along so you can admire her as we stroll.”
William made it through the mile ramble Phineas and Lavinia took him on and when they came back in, they sat down to dinner.
The food had gotten so much better since Caro had become mistress of the house. Phineas looked at his wife fondly. He liked to think he would have looked at her fondly no matter what, but William’s praise of his wife’s beauty had puffed him up a bit.
He had made so few decisions in his life, having previously been content to see where fate and happenstance took him, and, in retrospect, his decision that he must marry Caro seemed now like a divine revelation of some sort. Because he knew it wasn’t his own piddling cleverness that had allowed him to fix on her as his wife. It had been his cock. Thank God it hadn’t led him astray in this respect but instead had granted him the miracle of being married to this beautiful woman who took care of him so brilliantly.
My cock is the clever one.
Caroline had not been in the company of very many gentlemen in her life. Indeed, her father, her brother, and Phineas were the only three with whom she had spent more than a few minutes.
But even with her lack of experience, she felt something was very amiss with her husband’s friend, the Viscount Dagenham. Yes, the man sitting at the dining table was disheveled and unkempt, showed the unmistakable signs of recovering from a drunken binge, and looked ten years older than her own husband, despite Phineas’ silver mane and Dagenham’s brown head of hair.
But it was more than that.
There’s some piece of his soul missing. And I don’t think he’s looking to find it. He’s given up. He’s like me before Phineas came to Sudbury. He’s like my mother before she died.
She suddenly saw a whole different life for herself. One where William Dagenham had been her first dance partner at her first ball and the focus of her solitary sexual imagination for a dozen years. And when he had come to Sudbury Manor with her brother and Phineas and Lord Danforth and Sir Matthew Elliot, she might have crept into William’s bed instead of Phineas’ to have her one night of passion.
William Dagenham would never have had the stamina or persistence to pursue her afterwards as Phineas did, but what if he had? Would she be married to him now? She shuddered. Chained to another person like herself—damaged and fearful.
She looked at her husband who was laughing, talking about saving the best bits of dinner for Lavinia’s late-night snack, asking William about their mutual friends in London, including her own brother, and about the baby boy that had been born to Lady Danforth, George Danforth’s wife.
She had been rescued by Phineas. And not just from spinsterhood or old age in an asylum. He was saving her from herself, bit by bit. They had only been married eleven days, but in that time, she could feel some degree of her youngest self returning to her, warming her like a little flame. The being she had been in the time before she knew how deformed she was and how much her father despised her, in the time when she had been convinced she was marvelous and convinced all the other marvelous beings around her must think so, too.
“Are you all right, darling?” Her husband had turned to her and caught her staring at him.
“Yes, of course.” She looked down at her plate and busied herself with cutting a piece off her guinea fowl.
“Come now, Phin. Surely a bride gazing on her husband with love is no cause for concern,” William said and motioned to the butler to refill his glass of small beer.
Caroline could feel her face getting hot and a temper of sorts building. Why did everyone think she was in love? Amanda. Phineas. Now, his friend.
Her appreciation of her husband grew the longer she spent in his company. As she had realized today, he was an adored and esteemed earl. She was grateful he had courted her and married her and that he gave her ecstasy in their shared bed. She believed she would be content in the future if she could find a way to end the Burchester debt and have some breathing room that would allow her to bear children without worrying about the cost of raising them. She saw glimpses of the happiness that came to her husband so easily.
