The Notorious Marriage

‘Kit…’ she said, trying to quell her shaking. ‘Whatever are you doing here? I had no notion…I had quite given you up for lost…’

‘So it would seem,’ Kit Mostyn said to his wife, very coolly. His hard blue gaze went from her to the lovelorn baronet, who was showing all the spine of an earthworm and was still cowering on the floor, on the assumption that a gentleman would not hit him when he was already down. A smile curled Kit’s mouth, and it was not pleasant. Sir Charles whimpered.

‘So it would seem,’ Kit repeated softly. ‘I see that you have indeed all but forgotten me, Eleanor.’

Eleanor barely heard him. Darkness was curling in from the edges of the room now, claiming her, and she gave herself up to it gladly. She heard Kit mutter an oath, then his arm was hard about her and she closed her eyes and knew no more.

‘This is all most unfortunate.’ Eleanor had not realised that she had spoken aloud until a dry voice in her ear said: ‘Indeed it is.’

Eleanor turned her head. It was resting against a broad masculine chest, which she devoutly hoped was Kit’s since for it to belong to anyone else would no doubt cause even more trouble. His arm was around her, holding her with a gentleness that belied the coldness of his tone.

‘Drink this, Eleanor—it will revive you.’

Eleanor sniffed the proffered glass and recoiled. ‘Is it brandy? I detest the stuff—’

‘Drink it!’ Kit said, this time in a tone that brooked no refusal, and Eleanor sipped a little and sat up. Kit disentangled himself from her and moved over to where Sir Charles Paulet was standing near the door, brushing the remaining blancmange from his person.

Eleanor watched, hands pressed to her mouth, as Kit grasped the baronet by the collar and positively threw him out of the door, dessert and all.

‘Get back to London, or to hell, or wherever you choose,’ Kit said coldly, ‘and do not trouble my wife again!’

The door shuddered as he slammed it closed. Then he turned to Eleanor. She shrank back before the sardonic light in his eyes.

‘My apologies for removing your…ah…admirer in so precipitate a manner, my love,’ he drawled, ‘but I fear I have the greatest dislike of another man paying such attentions to my wife! Perhaps I never told you?’

‘Perhaps you did not have the time, my lord!’ Eleanor said thinly. She put the brandy glass down with a shaking hand and swung her feet off the sofa and on to the floor. She glared at him. ‘We scarce had the chance to come to such an understanding in the few days that we spent together! You were gone before we had exchanged more than a few words and I do not believe that any of them were goodbye!’

Kit drove his hands into his pockets. ‘I realise that it must have surprised you for me to appear in this manner…’

‘No,’ Eleanor said politely, ‘it is not a surprise, my lord, rather an enormous shock! To disappear and reappear at will! Such lack of consideration in your behaviour is monstrous rude—’

‘And I can scarcely be taken aback to find my wife in flagrante as a result?’ Kit questioned, with dangerous calm. His glittering blue gaze raked her from head to toe. ‘As you say, we meet again in unfortunate circumstances, my dear.’

Eleanor’s temper soared dangerously. Matters, she thought savagely, were definitely not falling out as they should. Her errant husband, instead of demonstrating the remorse and regret suitable for their reunion, was exhibiting a misplaced arrogance that she had always suspected was part of the Mostyn character. It made her want to scream with frustration. Except that ladies did not scream like Billingsgate fishwives. They endured.

‘Surely the point at issue is your want of conduct rather than mine, my lord,’ she said sharply. ‘I am not the one who has been absent for five months without so much courtesy as a letter to explain!’

Kit sighed heavily. ‘Eleanor, I sent you a letter—several letters, in fact—’

‘Well, I did not receive them!’ Eleanor knew she was starting to sound pettish but her nerves were on edge. ‘As for finding me in flagrante, surely you cannot believe that I am in this poky little inn by choice!’

‘Then you should arrange for your lovers to find somewhere more acceptable, my dear,’ Kit observed, his tone mocking. ‘I have searched for you in hostelries from Richmond to London, and there are plenty more that could offer you greater comfort!’

Eleanor felt the tears prick the back of her eyes. This was all going horribly wrong, yet she did not understand how to stop it. The anguished questions that she had wanted to ask ever since he had left her—why did you go, where have you been—remained locked inside her head, torturing her. She had been told that ladies did not question their husbands’ actions in such an unbridled manner and since Kit had not volunteered the information of his own free will she could scarcely shake it out of him. Eleanor struggled to master her anger and misery.

‘You misunderstand the situation, my lord,’ she said coldly. ‘If there have been others who have paid me attention during your absence, that was because you were not here to discourage them—’

‘And because you did not choose to!’ Kit said, between his teeth. His face darkened and Eleanor realised with a pang just how angry he was. ‘Do you know that all I have heard since I set foot back in England is that Eleanor, Lady Mostyn, is the Talk of the Town? The lovely Lady Mostyn, so free with her favours!’ His voice was savage. ‘They are taking bets in the Clubs, my lady—should Probyn be next, or Paulet? The wager is a monkey against Darke being your current lover!’

His fist smashed down on the table, making the brandy bottle jump. ‘Mayhap I am at fault for leaving you for all this time, but you have scarcely been pining in my absence!’

Eleanor turned her back on him. She could feel the fury bubbling up in her like a witches’ cauldron after a particularly uncontrollable spell. Here was Kit, firmly, demonstrably and absolutely in the wrong after deserting her with no word for five months, and here was she, being hauled over the coals for something that was not even her fault! She had already found herself trying to justify her presence in the inn with Sir Charles whereas Kit had barely mentioned his disappearance. Apologies, explanations…Clearly they were foreign to his nature.

She sighed sharply and moved away from the window. ‘How did you find me here, my lord? If you are but recently returned to England…’

Kit looked up. He raised an eyebrow. ‘I am sorry—did you not wish to be found? I must have misunderstood! I thought that you had just been strenuously explaining that you were not here by choice!’

Eleanor gritted her teeth with exasperation, wavering on the edge of abandoning the polite manners bred in her bones and upbraiding him as he deserved. She wanted to shriek at him, to beat at him with her fists and pour out all the hurt and misery of the past five months. Except that ladies did not—could not—behave like that, no matter the provocation. Self-possession was all. She screwed her eyes up tight and took a deep breath.

‘I dislike your double standards, my lord, but I suppose that a husband may do as he pleases, appearing and disappearing if he so chooses!’ The words came out with a kind of haughty desperation. She stole a look at Kit. He was pouring himself a glass of brandy and his face was quite expressionless. The misery that was squeezing Eleanor’s heart tightened its grip. She stared blindly out into the dusk, where Sir Charles’s carriage, its broken wheel spar miraculously restored, was just setting off down the road to London.

‘You may have been debauching yourself in all the bordellos from here to Constantinople for all that I care, sir,’ she added untruthfully, ‘but you could at least have warned me of your return!’

Kit stretched his legs out before the fire and took a long draught of brandy. ‘I am sorry if I have spoiled your fun, my dear!’ he drawled. ‘I had no notion that you had set up as a demi-rep!’

Eleanor made a sound of repressed fury. ‘All you can reproach me for, my lord, is indiscretion, whereas you…’ Her voice failed her. She could not even begin to put into words all the things that Kit had done wrong.

‘What was I supposed to do?’ she burst out. ‘Sit and wait for you? You might never have returned! At one point we even thought you dead!’

Kit’s expression was bleak. ‘And better off that way so that you could carry on a merry widow? You honour me, my dear!’

It was the last straw. With an infuriated squeak, Eleanor picked up the ugly clock from the mantelpiece and threw it at him. Kit fielded it with ease.

‘Glaringly abroad, my dear! One wonders why you did not use it against Sir Charles if his attentions were so repugnant to you!’

There was a heavy silence. Eleanor pressed both hands hard to her mouth to prevent herself from crying. She could not believe how close she had come to losing her self-control, nor how furious and unhappy Kit was making her. She could not see beyond the wicked coil that had enveloped her. Kit’s return had solved no problems for her; in fact it had generated nothing but trouble.

Kit rubbed his hand across the back of his neck. For the first time, Eleanor noticed that he looked weary.

‘Maybe we are both in the wrong, Eleanor.’ Kit’s tone was heavy. ‘May we not just sit down and discuss this sensibly? I know that I have been away for a space, but I sent you a letter as soon as I could, explaining what had happened. And then several more, after that. Surely you cannot deny it?’

The very patience of Kit’s tone grated on Eleanor’s nerves now, when all she wanted was to give way to impassioned recriminations. Perhaps if he had shown such calm forbearance when he had come in, matters might have been different. But he had not. And now…

She looked at him and wondered if she really knew him at all. Once, a year ago perhaps, she would have said that she knew Kit instinctively. There had been a recognition between them, sharp and exciting, as they had circled each other at Ton balls and snatched a dance or a conversation when her mother’s back was turned. Kit Mostyn was the type of man that all the chaperones warned against and under the veneer of well-bred sophistication, Eleanor had sensed a certain degree of ruthlessness in him that had made her feel in danger yet protected at one and the same time. She had not understood it but it had been desperately romantic—or so she had thought.

Now, though, she realised that she was married to a stranger. A very good-looking stranger, she allowed, as she studied him. The Mostyns, like the Trevithicks, were generally accounted to be a good-looking family and Eleanor saw little to argue with in that assessment. Like his twin sister Charlotte, Kit was tall and fair, but where Charlotte’s classical features were pleasingly feminine, Kit’s face was strong and unforgettable, aristocratic arrogance softened only by a rakish smile that had made her heart beat faster. But he was not smiling now. The arrogance, Eleanor thought furiously, and not the charm, was decidedly to the fore.

She walked over to the fire and made a business of checking her cloak and gloves to see if they were yet dry. The steam was still rising from her dress. Eleanor felt as though she was going through the washing process still inside it. And strangely she was suddenly aware of how every damp fold clung to her figure, yet when she had been intent on preventing Sir Charles’s seduction she had not even noticed it. But it was Kit who was watching her now, his smoky blue gaze appraising as it rested on her. Eleanor’s nerves tightened with misery and anger.

She swallowed hard. ‘Several letters!’ she said incredulously. ‘Thank you, my lord. I fear I never received them.’

Kit sighed again. It was clear that he simply did not believe her. Eleanor felt another hot layer of anger add to the volcano inside.

‘Very well,’ he said wearily. ‘I am quite willing to explain what happened and where I have been…’

Eleanor clenched her fists to prevent herself from screaming. So now he wanted to explain—when it was too late! If he had arrived at Trevithick House one evening rather than catching her in flagrante in such a ridiculous situation, if he had been remorseful rather than accusatory, if she had not felt so wholly in the wrong and yet so furious with him…Eleanor shook her head. It was impossible to sit down and discuss matters quietly now.

Visions of opera singers flitted before her eyes and she tried to swallow the tears that threatened to close her throat. She did not want the humiliation of hearing Kit justify that a man was permitted to come and go as he pleased, to take his pleasure where and when he chose, whilst expecting a different standard of behaviour from his wife. She had heard all of that from her mother when she had been a débutante and had thought it so much nonsense—except that now it appeared to be true. She had had such romantic notions of marriage, whereas her husband evidently did not expect it to interfere with his existing way of life.

Eleanor pressed her hands together. Her pride would never permit her to tell Kit her true feelings—how she had waited for him, heartbroken; how her mother had made matters irredeemably worse by broadcasting intimate details of her situation to the Ton; how she had been reviled and made a laughingstock, her hasty marriage and even swifter abandonment the on dit on everyone’s lips. It was Kit who had left her at the mercy of every rake in London then made matters worse by apparently parading his amours elsewhere. And deeper than all of these things was the secret suffering that made it impossible for her ever to forgive him his desertion.

Explanations…There were some that she would never make to him. And Kit was clearly incapable of expressing any kind of remorse. He had not apologised, not at all, and with every minute that went by Eleanor resolved that she would not, could not, move to make matters right when he clearly did not care. She turned away and hunched a shoulder against him.

‘You do not need to explain yourself to me, my lord! You may do as you please!’

Kit was now looking positively thunderous. A little thrill of pleasure went through Eleanor at her ability to provoke him. She knew it was childish but just at the moment it was all she had.

‘Eleanor, I want to explain…’

Eleanor smiled. Even thwarting him in this small matter made her feel perversely better. It might be contrary but it was satisfying.

‘There is no need for explanations, my lord,’ she said coolly. ‘I think it would be better if we pretended that it had never happened!’

‘Confound it, Eleanor, do you simply not care?’ Kit sounded exasperated now. ‘Not ten minutes ago you were castigating me for leaving you! I thought you would at least wish to know the reason why!’

Eleanor fabricated a delicate shrug. ‘It was the suddenness of your reappearance that shocked me, my lord, rather than anything else. I have no particular desire for us to become drawn into descriptions of what each has been doing. That would be most tiresome! Far better to let the matter drop!’

There was a pause. She saw a strange expression steal across Kit’s face but she did not understand it. He ran a hand through his dishevelled fair hair and sighed heavily.

‘I understand you, I suppose! And for all my anger earlier I shall ask no questions of you. Truth to tell, I really do not want to know.’

Eleanor frowned a little. She was not quite sure what he meant.

‘Oh, I was not intending to tell you anything of my exploits anyway, my lord!’ she said brightly. ‘I have managed quite well on my own! I have had the status of a married lady after all, without all the tedious responsibilities of tending to a husband!’ She paused as she heard Kit swear, and finished sweetly: ‘Now that you are back we shall be a thoroughly modern couple—you have your interests and I have mine—’

‘And plenty of them—’

Eleanor ignored him. ‘And we may present a charming façade to the Ton—’

‘It sounds delightful,’ Kit said, with an edge to his voice.

Eleanor essayed a bright smile, though in fact she knew the tears were not far away. For all that she had manoeuvred the conversation in this direction, it was not what she truly wanted. If only he had swept her into his arms and told her he loved her, everything else, even apologies and explanations, could have waited. She had imagined a reunion with Kit a hundred times, and it had never been like this. This cold stranger, with an angry light in his dark blue eyes, was not a man she could reach.

She told herself sternly that she had been brought up to understand the concept of duty in marriage and so did not expect a husband to show her an unsuitable affection, the way that her brother Marcus did so unfashionably with his wife Beth. Her parents had preserved just such a chilly outward show, and whilst she had sometimes thought that love might be more fun, she had learned that that was not so. Nevertheless, something was hurting her and she did not intend to give Kit the satisfaction of knowing it.

‘After all, I hardly expect you to hang on my sleeve in a tediously slavish way!’ she finished lightly. ‘You shall go your way—indeed, you already have done!—and I shall go mine—’

‘As you also appear to have done,’ Kit concluded dryly.

They looked at each other in silence, and then Eleanor shrugged. ‘So there we have it, my lord! What happens now?’

‘We go up to our chamber, I believe,’ Kit said slowly. A mocking smile touched his mouth. ‘As you are so determined to maintain a pretence of normality, my lady wife, I do believe we should start practising straight away!’

Chapter Two

‘This is ridiculous, my lord,’ Eleanor said in an outraged whisper as Kit, the candle clasped in one hand and his other firmly gripping her elbow, steered them up the rickety stairs to the bedchamber above. ‘Why can we not simply go back to London tonight?’

‘I do not care to do so,’ her husband said coolly. ‘It is dark and I cannot risk an accident to the wife I have so recently found again…’

Eleanor made a humphing sound. ‘I cannot believe that such matters can weigh with you, my lord! And if you think that I will get one minute of sleep in this flea pit—’

She broke off. It was not the fleas that were troubling her but the thought of sharing a chamber with Kit. She glanced at him apprehensively. His face was set, dark and brooding, and he did not look at her. Eleanor’s stomach did a little flip.

‘You may stay awake if you please,’ Kit said indifferently. ‘I assure you that I am tired from galloping across country to find you and will no doubt sleep as soon as my head touches the pillow. Ah, a charming room…’ He pushed the bedroom door open.

‘The scene of your seduction, I imagine!’

Eleanor wrenched her arm free of his grip. ‘Enough, sir! I do not wish to hear another word from you on that subject! If you think that it has been pleasant for me to suffer Sir Charles’s attentions and then to be subject to your scorn as well…’ She stopped, sniffed hard and pressed a hand to her mouth. Now she was going to cry. She knew she should not have said anything.

Kit was watching her. He passed her a handkerchief as she angrily dashed her tears away.

‘I beg your pardon,’ he said expressionlessly. ‘You will perhaps feel better once you have had some rest.’

Eleanor glared at him. ‘If you think that I will have a moment’s rest whilst you are here you are far and far out! Can you not sleep in the parlour or somewhere?’

‘Or somewhere?’ Kit raised his brows. ‘Somewhere away from you, I infer?’

‘Precisely!’ Eleanor scrunched the handkerchief into an angry ball.

Kit shook his head. ‘I fear I cannot leave you unprotected, my love…’

‘Fiddle!’ Eleanor marched across to the bed and looked at it unfavourably. The curtains were full of dust and the bedclothes none to clean. ‘There is no one here to be a danger to me…’

Except for you. Scarcely had the thought formed when she realised that Kit had read her mind and she blushed to the roots of her hair. He smiled gently, coming across to take the crumpled handkerchief from her hand. His touch was warm.

‘There is the landlord. He looks a villainous fellow…’

‘You are absurd.’ Eleanor found that her voice came out as a whisper. Kit was standing close now, his hand resting in hers. She found herself unable to move away, unable to look away from that shadowed blue gaze.

‘Your dress is still damp.’ Kit’s voice was as husky as hers. ‘You should not catch a chill…’

Suddenly Eleanor was back in the house in Upper Grosvenor Street, remembering with exquisite pain the only occasion on which they had made love. The night before their marriage. And the morning…She ached at the sweetness of the memories and recoiled at the naïve trust of the girl she had been.

‘I can manage very well on my own, my lord,’ she said, almost steadily, taking her hand from his and stepping back. ‘You will oblige me by sleeping in the armchair if the parlour does not suit.’

Kit looked at her in silence for a long moment, then he inclined his head. ‘As you wish, Eleanor. Good night.’

Before she realised what he intended he had raised a hand and touched her cheek. The feather-light touch shivered down her spine and made her tremble.

‘Good night, my lord,’ she said, with constraint.

After Kit had gone out she locked the door, removed her damp dress and lay down on the bed, curled into a ball. She did not cry, but lay staring dry-eyed into the darkness. And she tried to tell herself that she was glad he had left her alone.

Kit Mostyn closed the parlour door, moved over to the sofa and sat down. The fire was dying down now and the room was chill. The dinner plates had not been removed and sat on the table, the food congealing, and the smell of beef still in the air. There was also a slippery patch of blancmange just inside the parlour door.

Kit reached for the brandy bottle, poured a generous measure into a glass, and then paused. Truth to tell, he did not really want a drink, but the temptation to drown his sorrows was very strong.

The springs of the sofa dug into him. It was going to be an uncomfortable night, hard on the body but even harder on the mind. Which was why the brandy was so tempting. He could simply forget it all. Except it would all be waiting for him when he awoke…

Kit pushed the glass away and lay down, wincing as a spring burst and stabbed him in the ribs. Eleanor. His mind winced in much the same way as his body had just done, but he forced himself to think about her. It was only five months, yet she had changed so much. Previously she had had an artless self-confidence that had been the product of a privileged and sheltered upbringing. She had been bright and innocent and sweet. Now…Kit sighed. Now Eleanor had a shell of brittle sophistication and he was not entirely sure what was hidden beneath.

Kit shifted on the sofa as he tried to get more comfortable. The candles were burning down now and the old inn creaked. He wondered if Eleanor was asleep yet.

He thought about her and about the rumours that had assaulted him ever since he had returned to England, and about finding her in a cheap inn taking dinner with Sir Charles Paulet. He had been so angry to see all the rumours apparently confirmed. Angry and jealous. His innocent Eleanor, who had evidently not spent the waiting time alone.

Yet she had insisted that she was there under duress and there was the evidence of the blancmange…Kit turned his head and the arm of the sofa dug painfully into his neck. Perhaps it was true—but then what of the others; what of Grosvenor and Probyn and Darke?

Most telling of all was Eleanor’s fearful reaction when he had suggested that they should sit down and discuss matters calmly. Kit frowned. He knew that he should have explained himself much sooner, that he would have done so had his jealous anger not intervened. Yet when he had tried she had shied away from it. What had she said—‘I have no particular desire for us to become drawn into descriptions of what each has been doing’. He was all too afraid that he knew the reason why. There must be compelling reasons why Eleanor did not wish him to enquire too closely into what she had been doing in the past five months.