Playing To Win

“But that is exceedingly useful. Think of all the dull parties you enliven.”

“Usually I settle for keeping the peace. Men do get so passionate over money and politics. What about you? What are your interests?”

“Speaking of being singularly useless...” he said with a frown.

“You drive a team, don’t you?” Sera blurted out, to distract him from depressing thoughts. “I think that would be beyond me.”

“Of course not. I can teach you. Do you ride?”

“Yes. My groom taught me. I can keep Chadwick with me, can’t I? Father has little use for him, and Chadwick does know my horses.”

“You have horses?”

“Only two, and nothing like yours. An old hack that Chadwick rides, and a mare, who I regret to say is also showing her years. I suppose I should replace them, but I can’t bring myself to sell them, since they have served me so dutifully all these years.”

“It’s only a matter of time, and if they are no use...”

“But haven’t you got an odd pasture someplace where they could live out their last years in peace? It would be a treat for them to run loose for a change, instead of spending most of their time in a stable.”

“You’re only putting off...” Tony hesitated to condemn the unseen animals, because of the pleading look Sera cast at him. “Oh, very well. You can pension them off on one of Father’s farms, if you like.” For this Tony received an exuberant hug and kiss that caused him to spill his wine. He returned the embrace laughingly, and Sera was beginning to hope that in time she could charm him into loving her in return. Time was the one thing she had, and patience.

* * *

They had idled away most of the two weeks they had planned to be in Brighton, and Tony had suggested extending their stay another week or so, since it looked like the weather would stay warm, when they received a letter from his mother. Lady Amanda had obviously been in a state when she wrote it. Tony could make nothing out of it and gave it to Sera impatiently to decipher over breakfast. “The only thing I can make out for certain is that someone is ill—your father, I think, or else it is he who didn’t want her to write. I think we must go back. If it were not serious, she would never have written us here.”

“You don’t know Mother. She can be very...possessive.”

“No, you are right, I don’t know her, but we can’t take a chance. Suppose she really is ill...”

“Very well, if you wish it, we’ll go home.” He said it so coldly, she began to think she had lost all her progress with him.

“No, I don’t wish it. I have been happier here than I ever thought I could be.”

Tony looked at her in disbelief, realizing how little he had given her. “You’re right, we must go. I’ll tell Stewart to pack.”

* * *

They reached Oak Park late that afternoon, a scant hour after Tony’s father succumbed to a second and fatal stroke. The servants looked to Sera for their orders now, not just because Lady Amanda was prostrate, but because Sera was now the mistress of the house.

Tony was rather lost those first few weeks, and went rambling with his dog and gun, or rode out alone for hours at a time. Sera let him go, and tried not to worry about his absences. He knew the country, and she felt he needed his solitude. It gave her time to establish a regimen in the disordered household.

The unfortunate aspect of the situation was that Sera could hardly expect Tony to be very loving when all of them were in deep mourning, so her campaign to win him had to be put away. She had not the heart for it, anyway, and threw herself into cheering his mother.

Lady Amanda bounced back from her grief much quicker than Tony, filling the breakfast parlor with small talk that charmed Sera but only made Tony sulk. Any time he did spend in the house, he closeted himself in his father’s study with piles of ledgers and accounts. “Father has not been dead a fortnight, and all she talks is trivialities,” Tony complained when Sera came to see if he wanted tea.

“I think it is good for her. She doesn’t mean to annoy you, Tony.”

“How do you find the patience to deal with her?”

“It’s a novel experience for me, having a mother.”

“That can’t have been easy for you, growing up without one.”

“I think it made me more independent.”

“She won’t live with us always, you know.”

“But why not?” Sera was surprised into asking.

“Because I can’t stand her most of the time.” Tony said this so desperately that Sera had to laugh. “Tell me I am an unnatural son,” he challenged, as he stood up.

Sera came and gently hugged him instead. “You are an unnaturally honest son, at any rate.”

“And you are wonderful.” He kissed her hair and stood contentedly holding her for a few minutes, until he heard footsteps coming across the hall, then amused her by releasing her as though they were lovers, and not married at all.

“Sera, there you are. What do you think of this fabric for my bedroom? Tony, I’m surprised you are still in the house. You are usually out riding, even in the foulest weather. I can’t understand why you can’t be still for a moment. You were not always like this.” Tony rolled his eyes at this monologue, and Sera received the fabric swatch with a laugh.

“Too somber for your bedroom, I think. I will order some samples from London.” Tony gave an impatient snort and went back to his ledgers.

* * *

Thrown as Sera was into Lady Amanda’s company more than her husband’s, there was a bond forged between them, an unspoken conspiracy to cheer Tony up and to keep any household annoyances from him. Sera was some use in this, since her liberal allowance provided for any little necessities in the way of servants’ clothing or extra candles. But when the kitchen maid came weeping to her with the confession that she was with child, Sera was nonplussed. She had never dealt with a situation like this before. Except for her personal maid, Marie, her father’s servants were mostly older, and did not get into such scrapes. Instinctively she took the girl to Lady Amanda.

“What are we going to do?” Sera asked her mother-in-law.

“She must be married, and soon,” decided Lady Amanda.

“But he refuses the child!” wailed the maid.

“Then we will have him arrested,” Lady Amanda said confidently.

“Can we do that?” Sera asked.

“It is what Edwin would have done if he could not force the man into marrying her. Joshua is our undergroom, after all. We have some responsibility that young girls are not accosted in our household.”

Kerry and Joshua were married within the month, the groom seeing it as a better alternative than jail. Sera hoped he would be more reconciled to his fate than Tony was to his.

* * *

They spent a somber Christmas. Sera’s father and Lady Jane, now married, had gone to Paris. Their only company were neighbors, mostly Lord Cairnbrooke’s age, who plagued Tony with their advice on estate matters until Sera thought he was ready to bolt. She nodded and listened to the advice of their wives, firmly vowing not to follow any of it. They did raise her consciousness of the poverty of the surrounding hamlets, so she sent a pair of servants one day each week to buy large quantities of bread and vegetables of whatever kind they could find and distribute them to each cottage. Tony got wind of this, and called her into the study to give her a lecture.

“I hear you have been buying food for the poor.”

“You say that like an accusation.”

“You can’t feed them all.”

“But I can feed the closest ones, and hope that our neighbors are embarrassed into doing the same for those closest to them.”

Tony stared at her.

“It might work,” she said defensively.

“They are proud people. They won’t like you for this charity.”

“Why should they like me for a few potatoes and onions? I only want them not to starve.”

“Sera, I can’t afford it,” Tony said regretfully.

“It’s my pin money. I can do with it as I please.”

Tony went rather white about the mouth and said tightly, “Yes, I suppose you can.”

“Unless...unless you need it,” she offered, seeing she had hurt him.

“No! Do as you please. You will anyway.”

Tony realized that, never having been in need or in debt herself, Sera had no inkling what it felt like. As often as she trampled on his feelings in this way, he would manage to overlook it. Whether his tenants would be as generous he had no idea, but he could not bring himself to berate her for her generosity.

He walked out and was gone the whole rest of the day, even though a slicing rain started falling in mid-afternoon.

“He must have taken shelter somewhere, depend on it,” Lady Amanda assured her as she made ready to go up to bed. “He was probably caught miles from home, and is toasting himself in front of a friend’s fire, or at some inn.”

“I’m sure you are right,” Sera said warmly. “But I want to finish this book anyway. I shall come up later.”

It was long past midnight when Tony finally blundered into the hall, rousing a servant to dry and clean his gun. Sera was so glad to know he was alive, she ran to him.

“Are you all right?”

“I’m fine, just fine,” he said with a slur.

“There’s a fire in the drawing room.”

He followed her in and warmed his hands, swaying a little as he stood upright.

“I shall have them heat some food for you.”

“Don’t bother. Most likely I couldn’t keep it down. Too much brandy.”

“But then you should eat something.”

“I don’t want anything, and will you stop trying to run my life?” He collapsed on a chair and tried, unsuccessfully, to pull off his wet boots.

“I’m sorry I’ve ruined your life,” Sera said, coming to tug at the unwilling boots.

“I said run, not ruin, but it amounts to the same thing.”

She stopped her efforts and turned to leave him, hiding the hurt on her face.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it. It’s I who have ruined your life. You got a bad bargain, my dear, but none of this was my idea.”

“Well, you don’t imagine it was mine!” Sera vowed with a spark of anger.

“What?” Tony asked as he sat up and tried to focus on her face. She looked so blurry to him, he could not decide if she was crying or not. “Whose idea was it, then? I can’t remember.”

“Actually, it was Lady Jane’s,” Sera said, getting control of her voice.

“Who is Lady Jane?” Tony tried to rise, but as he had one boot half-off, he stumbled and hopped most ungracefully until he finally fell over a footstool. Sera came resignedly to help him up, but he waved her away and tugged at the offending boot until it finally came off.

“Father’s new wife. I told you, they have been wanting to marry for years. I was very much in their way.”

“But I thought you wanted to marry.”

“No, not particularly.”

“But why me? Surely you could have done better than this,” he said, looking about him as he struggled to his feet.

Sera smiled at him through her tears. “Lady Jane has a liking for you. She thought I might be able to keep you from getting killed in another duel.”

“I suppose Mother and Father had the same thing in mind. Why ever did you agree?” he asked as he leaned on a table.

“I had no intention of doing so. I thought the whole idea was very silly, until I met you. I liked you so much, and we seemed to get on so well, I thought it just might work.”

Tony stood staring at her in disbelief. “On the strength of one meeting?”

“Yes.”

“You are naive.”

“Why did you agree?”

“I was worn down with hurting and feeling guilty about everything. I wasn’t thinking properly.”

“I see. You were deranged,” she said, disappointed.

“I still am.”

“And still feeling guilty?”

“About you, as well, now.”

“Well, stop it,” she commanded. “Stop feeling guilty about me, for I was not deranged when I married you, and I like you still.” She got under his arm to steady him up the stairs. “And stop feeling guilty about your father. You couldn’t have saved him.”

“It’s not that. I never really cared about him until he died and it was too late.”

“You idiot. Don’t you realize everyone feels that sort of regret? They just have less of a conscience about it.”

“What do you mean?” he asked as he gained the door to his room.

“They shake it off and get on with their lives a lot quicker. Don’t you feel you have punished yourself enough?”

“Is that what I’m doing?”

“That’s the only thing you are accomplishing.”

“I wish I could see things as clearly as you.”

“I wish you were as easy to talk to sober as you are drunk. Most likely you won’t even remember this conversation in the morning, and I shall be right back where I started.”

Tony laughed weakly and heard a thump from the dressing room that indicated they had awakened his valet. “I shall try to be both more sober and more easy to talk to in the future, and you have my permission to recite this entire conversation to me over breakfast. I know your memory is capable of it.”

“You look suddenly quite pale.”

“That is because I am going to be disastrously sick in a moment, so I wish you would go and leave Stewart to help me.”

“Gladly, and I shall remind you of that, too, if you seem inclined to drink again.”

“You are a heartless woman,” he said as Stewart helped him into his room.

* * *

Tony made a late appearance at breakfast and had weak tea and bread as a palliative for his queasy stomach. “What shall we do today?” he asked Sera.

“If I have not got to recite, I think we should take a drive. Fresh air is good for a headache,” Sera answered.

Lady Amanda looked rather mystified by all this, but declined an invitation to drive. She did wish the children, as she thought of them, would get out from underfoot for a few hours so that she could have the gloomy morning room stripped and get the wallpaper started.

* * *

Lady Amanda was so engrossed in redecorating Oak Park that she might have been content to stay there in February, when Tony began to prepare to return to London. But Lady Amanda felt strongly that all was not right with Tony still, in spite of his somewhat more cheerful manner. When she broached the subject with her new daughter, Sera begged her to come to London with them so sincerely that she could not refuse the girl. If Sera needed her, she must be there to support her.

Tony saw Sera so busy with her cleaning and repairs that he thought she would not have minded staying on the estate through the spring and summer, but one of the things he had determined was that he would not be an absent peer in Parliament. He could scarcely go to town without his wife, when the whole point of their marriage was to lend him some respectability and to bring her into the ton.

It was difficult for him to remember sometimes that they were married. Sera seemed more to him a comfortable sort of sister. What she made of their odd marriage, he had no idea, for they had never so much as discussed it. The longer they went on without consummating their marriage, the more difficult he felt it would be to do so.

He thought perhaps Sera had no idea what to expect, and that it would be all right to wait until his mother could be on her own. He did not realize this was just an excuse, as his wound had been. Why he had held himself back from her in the beginning, he had never bothered to analyze. But when he agreed to marry to please his parents, he had been at the disadvantage of being in disgrace. He had numbly consented to all his father’s arrangements, including the marriage settlements, which he had later found to be greatly in his favor. Now that he had the family finances in his own hands, he discovered he had married Sera for her money, whether he had intended to or not. The only blessing was that she did not know it.

Tony was wrong in thinking Sera would have liked to stay at Oak Park. She was getting tired of pretending to be his wife. She missed her life in London, and was eager to resume it, especially since it did not appear that she was to have a real marriage. Also, she must get away from their cheerfully pregnant maid, who was a reminder of all that Sera was missing.

Chapter Three

The Cairnbrooke town house stood at stiff attention, one in the seemingly endless rows of fashionable houses around Portman Place. It did have a certain stately reserve, like a retired army officer, and side walls of its own, though only the front and back rooms got much light. Most important, it had its own stable in back, so Sera could be reunited with her horses, Casius and Ivy, and her groom, Chadwick.

Tony had just come from an extremely disquieting meeting with his man of business when he drove into the stableyard to discover two strange horses being cosseted by his wife.

“Are these your horses?” he demanded, with more than ordinary force.

“Yes, they have kept well over the winter, don’t you think?”

“You are not keeping those two old screws here.”

Sera looked at him in disbelief, but Tony was not joking.

“But I have had Ivy and Casius since they were young. I can’t sell them.”

“Well, they are not taking up space in my stables.” With that, Tony stormed into the house, leaving her in the company of the grooms, and feeling for the first time in her life as though she would like to burst into tears. Instead, she took a deep breath, raised her chin and requested the undergroom to saddle Casius and put a lead on Ivy. “Chadwick, come with me.”

She led her groom into the breakfast parlor, where there was a small desk Lady Amanda had given her to use. “I want you to take Ivy and Casius to Gott Farm. Father isn’t there right now, but you know everyone. I’m sure they will be willing to take care of my horses. Here is money for the journey, and the trip back by stage.”

“Yes, miss. If His Lordship asks what I’ve done with them...”

“Tell him the truth. If he should get angry enough to dismiss you, I will employ you myself at the farm.”

“I’m not worried about that. I shall be back late tomorrow.”

Sera said nothing to Tony of all this. She pretended, in fact, that nothing had happened. She supposed she could mope about and be tearful, but she strongly suspected that would only make Tony angrier.

Tony, of course, regretted his flash of temper, but he could not have his wife mounted on such old horses. She would like a younger one better once she accustomed herself to it. Since she did not seem upset, he thought no more about it until the next morning. Sera was writing some letters in the breakfast parlor when he came in wearing boots and carrying a riding crop. “I’m sending two horses to Tattersall’s today. Where is Chadwick? I want him to ride one.”

“I sent him on an errand. He won’t be back until late today.”

“I know he is your groom, but you might have consulted with me first. Does he go to sell your horses?”

Sera was astounded that Tony could know so little about her. “Of course not,” she said, rising. “He is taking them someplace safe. I would never sell or otherwise dispose of old friends, just because they are old.”

“Someplace safe? Are you afraid to tell me where?” Tony asked, in rising anger. “What do you imagine I would do? Butcher them?”

“I don’t know anymore what you might do,” Sera said, clasping the back of the chair.

Tony was shocked to realize that she was afraid of him, and yet she faced him down. He sat down, somewhat shaken by his own display of anger. He must not lose control again. He owed her that much.

“If you must know, I sent them to my father’s farm. It’s where we all grew up. I’ll get to see them when—if—I go there for a visit.”

“You—you make them sound like people. Had you no friends when you were little?”

“No,” she said in amazement, as though the lack of them had only just occurred to her. “No one I was allowed to play with. I have a very bad habit of talking to horses as though they can understand me. I have tried not to, but it’s no use.”

Tony stared at her a moment longer, then shook his head. “I had no idea they meant so much to you. But they are only horses.”

“Once something belongs to me, I can never let go of it. I can’t bear not knowing what will happen to it.”

“Fortunate that I do not have your sensitive nature. I shall have to let go of a good few things, if we are to keep this house,” he said, rising and looking around him.

“Tony, why didn’t you tell me?” She walked toward him, wondering if she should offer to help with money. She had plenty of her own that he apparently did not even know about. But she did not want to make him angry again.

“It’s not your worry.”

This upset Sera even more, for if he really regarded her as his wife he might share his troubles with her.

“Some of the servants will have to go, too—at least one groom.”

Her eyes flew to his face.

“No, not your precious Chadwick. The man’s too competent.”

“Is there no other way?”

“We could sell the house, but then we wouldn’t need two upstairs maids.”

“This would be a very bad time for your mother to give this place up.”

“We still have Oak Park. I can’t sell it, anyway.”

“Couldn’t you just lease this house? We could live somewhere else for a few years.”

“I hadn’t thought of that. I have got a smaller house, south of Saint James’s. It never brought much rent, it’s in such an unfashionable neighborhood—near Tothill Fields.”

“Has it got a stable?”

“Actually, it does. It’s on Marsham Street, just off Horseferry Road.”

“I like it better and better,” Sera said with a smile.

“There would be no grand parties. There’s no ballroom.”

“We should not be entertaining much during the mourning period, anyway. Has it got space for my books?”

“I imagine,” Tony replied in confusion. “Why do you ask?”

“I’m afraid I’m a bit of a collector. I didn’t like to say anything about it, since the library at Oak Park is full and there is no room for a library here.”

“Just how many books have you got?” he demanded suspiciously.

“I should say there could not be more than seven or eight...hundred.” Sera peeked at him to see what effect this news would have on Tony.

He stood openmouthed for a moment.

“I did warn you I am bookish.”

“I know, but really! I thought that was just an expression.” Suddenly he smiled, and he had to bite his lip not to laugh at Sera’s hopeful look. “I don’t suppose there is anything else I should know about you. You haven’t got an art collection for me to house, or some more livestock?”

“No, I think— Well, there is McDuff.”

“Don’t tell me—an aged family retainer.”

“Some such thing. You may not like him, but Lady Jane and he do not get along, so I thought perhaps...”

“When is he coming?”

“Tomorrow.”

“Good. He can help us pack.”

“I don’t think he will be much use at that, but I shall contrive to keep him out of the way.”

“No doubt.”

* * *

Sera and Marie were in her dressing room, repacking her gayer clothes. It was tiring, having just packed and unpacked, to be going through it again. “I should have told you not to bother unpacking these. I can only wear grays and mauves for a time, anyway,” Sera said, letting her frayed temper show.

“They get too crushed if they are not hung,” said Marie as she carefully laid a pink silk between layers of silver paper.

“Nevertheless, these two trunks will go directly to the attic in Marsham Street. I don’t need them.”

Marie was protesting this decision in excited French when there was a growl, a muffled oath and angry yapping from the bedroom. Sera stepped back in to see Tony brush McDuff off the settee with enough force to make the little dog yelp when he landed.

“McDuff!” The animal limped to her, pathetically holding up an injured paw.