Page 60 of The Luckiest Lady in London

Chapter 13

Late in the morning, as they waved good-bye to successions of their guests, Felix studied his wife.

He could not stay away from her—that much had become obvious. Everything else, however, was pure chaos. With so much injury inflicted and only a fortnight into their marriage, how would they carry on? How would he carry on, knowing that a part of him was now at her mercy?

Before he climbed into bed with her last night, he already knew he would have to make amends when the sun rose. A simple matter, he’d told himself: When a man behaved badly, he admitted to his mistake and tendered an apology. Nothing to it.

But now, in the light of day, with her demeanor cool and opaque, he could not completely suppress his inner agitation. It felt as if he would be seeking her approval—and he had always adamantly refused to seek anyone’s approval.

When the house had at last emptied, he said to the woman who had not looked at him once the entire time they saw off their guests, “Well done, Lady Wrenworth. Word will spread now of your brilliance as a hostess.”

“And of our general domestic felicity, no doubt,” she countered, with that grande dame haughtiness she sometimes used with him.

He remembered how amusing he’d found it before, but now that capacity for sangfroid unsettled him.

Now she knew how to punish him.

“I have given the staff the rest of the day off, but there is a picnic basket that has been packed for us. Would you care to join me?”

“You are too kind,” she said coldly. “Five thousand a year is all I require from you, sir, nothing more.”

“Five thousand a year is the bare minimum of what I should do for you. I would be quite remiss as a husband if I left it at that.” A phaeton, with the picnic basket already in the boot, arrived. “Now, shall we?”

She shot him a brief, hard look. She knew he was exploiting the fact that she guarded her public image carefully and would not turn her back on him before the coachman who had brought the carriage: Even his gesture of apology was not free of manipulation.

It made him feel less vulnerable to be up to his old tricks.

He dismissed the coachman and took the reins himself. They drove in near complete silence. Had he felt more in charge of the situation, he would have wheedled and cajoled her, until she laughed despite herself. But he was as hesitant as he had ever been in his adult life, an uncertainty that smothered any lighthearted words that might otherwise have emerged.

For the picnic, he had selected one of his favorite spots in the surrounding countryside, atop a high bluff overlooking a panorama of hills and valleys. She made no comment on the beauty of the place, though she did help him weigh down the corners of the picnic blanket on a patch of lush, soft grass.

“Thank you,” he said, from the opposite corner of the blanket, down on one knee.

She made no reply, but rose to her feet and walked to the edge of the bluff to inspect the view, the hems of her skirts fluttering in the breeze.

He unloaded the contents of the picnic basket, setting out three salads, four meat pies, five bottles of beverages—and the basket was far from emptied.

“I said to pack what you like,” he told her. “It would seem the kitchen staff put in everything for which you’ve ever expressed a preference. We’ve enough to last us in a siege.”

She turned around and glanced at the laden picnic blanket. He was still extracting ever more foodstuff from the basket: a loaf of bread, a wedge of cheese, a bowl of fruit.

“If you want to bed me outdoors, you have but to say the word.” Her tone was uninflected. “No need to go to so much trouble.”

“When I wish to bed you outdoors, I will but say the word,” he answered. “But now I’d like to feed you.”

Her jaw worked. He could not tell whether she also blushed.

When she came and sat down at the edge of the picnic blanket, her features were quite composed. Ignoring all the prepared dishes, she reached instead for a cluster of grapes.

She’d done the same at a different picnic, the day he suggested that she become his mistress. An era of blissful ignorance, that, when he had no idea just how deeply he was already mired in his obsession.

“Did you and your family picnic?” he asked, uncorking a bottle of raspberry wine.

She studied him. He realized that she considered the picnic a Machiavellian game of power on his part, with every move intended to undermine her. He could not blame her for thinking so—he’d always enjoyed his upper hand in all their dealings.

His current motives, however, weren’t quite so despicable. He wasn’t callous enough to use her body when he needed to and ignore her the rest of the time, so he must make amends for his earlier cruelty. And he would like to do so while keeping his pride intact.

“Occasionally,” she said at last, rolling a single grape between her fingers. “But we didn’t have such fine foodstuff—for us it was tea and sandwiches.”