Page 80 of The Luckiest Lady in London

Her throat moved. “I will speak to Mrs. Pratt about it.”

“Thank you.”

Silence expanded to fill all available space, making the gallery feel closed and stifling. He watched her unsmiling profile, then followed her line of sight to his mother’s equally unsmiling face. Something clanked inside him: the realization that like his father, he, too, was now married to a woman who wanted nothing to do with him.

He let the initial panic pass. It was what it was; the only thing that mattered now was what he could do for her.

“She was not happy here,” he heard himself say.

Surprise flickered at the corner of her lips.

“She was in love with someone else, a poor man,” he went on, relating the story that had come to him so long ago, and which, in the twenty years since, he’d never repeated to a single soul. “But her father kept her under house arrest until she acquiesced to marrying my father. My father loved her greatly, but her pain and anger were so great she could not see past it to any possibility of joy ever again.

“I don’t believe she realized that, in her wrath, she was punishing herself as well. But she did, for years upon years, till the day she died.”

Don’t do that to yourself; don’t let go of your capacity for joy, was what he could not quite bring himself to say.

She moved to a nearby globe and touched the lapis ocean. Slowly she spun the globe.

“I’m sure you find my daily notes repetitive, but I’d like to see you at something you love. If you do not wish for me to instruct you, we can find you a tutor.”

She kept spinning the globe; continents flew by under her palm.

“If we were in London, we could probably have someone of impeccable credentials by the end of the week.” Was he rambling? He could not tell. “It will take longer to find a qualified person willing to rusticate eight months out of the year at Huntington, but I will make it happen if that’s what you want.”

The globe went around a good dozen times before she said, “I am not in the habit of spending money for a tutor when I have a husband who can instruct me free of charge.”

If she had left the connecting door open at night, he could not be more thrilled. “When should we start?”

“After the guests depart. And after you have removed those tulips from the schoolroom.”

With one finger, she stopped the spinning globe. And then she turned and walked away.

Chapter 18

When the Christmas guests arrived, The Ideal Gentleman returned.

On the first night of the yuletide house party, Louisa stood at the edge of a fully populated room and watched her husband with a pang in her chest. It unsettled her to realize that part of what she felt was nostalgia—for her spring and summer, for those days and months when his smiles would send her lurching from arousal to panic and back again.

When life had been so much simpler and easier, and she’d suspected him of nothing more than arrogance and sexual deviance.

Or so it felt. A glorious, lost era of being enthralled by his frank wickedness. Of not seeing that when he broke the rules, he broke all the rules. And of not yet knowing that when he schemed for her, he also schemed against her.

Could he tell, with his occasional glances at her, that she’d been second-guessing the wisdom of agreeing to the lessons? Could he understand how it had shocked her to the core that it wasn’t just conventional sexual mores he eschewed, but fundamental principles of fairness and sportsmanship? It would never have occurred to her to disparage another debutante for her own competitive advantage, not even with an epileptic sister as an excuse.

I love you, he’d said. Once upon a time there had been no words she wanted to hear more. Yet his action had made her feel stripped of all humanity and individuality—reduced to a trophy, something for him to hoist aloft in triumph.

She did not want to be loved like that, with her heart an objective to be captured for his satisfaction.

And yet she’d said yes to the lessons that would put them in close proximity day after day, allow him to dazzle her, and lead her to mistake the pleasure she derived from learning for pleasure she derived from his company.

Even with all her illusions gone, there was a part of her—a forceful, potent part of her—that longed to return to his side. To touch and kiss him, and make love endlessly. To let the delights of his bed tip her into forgetfulness, perhaps even oblivion.

He chose that moment to look again in her direction. Their gazes held. She looked away, flushing hotly.

Half an hour later, as the ladies bade good-bye to the gentlemen and made ready to retire, for the first time since she slapped him, he set his hand on her person and kissed her on her cheek.

“Good night, Lady Wrenworth.”