Chapter 19

CHAPTER 19

T he ride back to the house was a quiet one. That was not at all what Beatrice had expected.

Things had seemed to be going… well, swimmingly. After Beatrice’s climax, and Stephen’s—which she’d managed rather well, she thought—they had lain together for a moment, breathless and chuckling giddily.

“That,” Beatrice had said, fighting the urge to grin like a fool, “was frankly marvelous. I hope we can do it again. I think I have a knack for it.”

That was a joke, mostly, but Stephen did not smile. He propped himself up on his elbows, a lock of dark hair falling over his forehead. Beatrice was struck with the desire to brush it away. At first, she curled her fingers into a fist, suppressing the feeling.

Then a thought struck her.

Why shouldn’t I? We’ve just been intimate. Why should I not run my fingers through his hair if I wish?

Summoning her courage, she leaned forward, raking her fingers through the lock of hair at his forehead, brushing it back. Stephen’s reaction, however, was not what she had expected.

He flinched back as if she’d landed a blow instead of a caress, very nearly falling off the carriage seat in the process.

“Stephen?” she’d asked, baffled, but he avoided her gaze.

In the poor light inside the carriage, she could not read his expression, and she was not sure she could have interpreted it even if there was sufficient light.

“I should find the coachman,” he said abruptly. “We’ll draw attention by sitting here by ourselves. You look rather disheveled—it might be best if you remain here. I shan’t be a moment.”

He didn’t wait for a reply, simply letting himself out of the carriage and hurrying off into the night, jamming his hat on his head as he went.

Beatrice found herself alone, sitting up on a carriage seat, bewildered.

What in the world is going on? What have I done? Did I do something terrible?

No answers, it seemed, were forthcoming.

On their way home, Stephen kept his gaze turned away from Beatrice, aimed out of the window at the dark, slick streets they passed by, drawing nearer and nearer to their home.

Her home, Beatrice reminded herself.

She hadn’t expected this sort of coldness. In the few, racy books she’d read, in which the hero and heroine engaged in some form of intimacy, it was always followed by embraces and expressions of love and generally ended with the pair falling asleep in each other’s arms. Of course, Beatrice knew quite well that it was fiction, but surely, fiction had to have some roots in reality.

Right?

Beatrice closed her eyes. She still could not think of anything to say. Something like horror was starting to trickle in at the memory of their brazen behavior. Anyone might have seen them giggling and kissing outside the carriage, drinking from an open champagne bottle, or making the carriage bounce on its axles.

How could I have been so indiscreet?

The memory of Cornelia Thompson, too, crept back into Beatrice’s head. Stephen had sworn that there was nothing between him and Miss Thompson, and she didn’t think he was lying.

And yet… and yet… Cornelia Thompson was beautiful, clever, and talented, and so very fascinating.

Beatrice glanced out of the corner of her eye and caught Stephen looking her way. She had just mustered the courage to speak, to say anything , when the carriage lurched to a halt.

As expected, Stephen scrambled to get out of the carriage, and Beatrice finally found her voice.

“Wait!”

He might have pretended not to hear her or simply ignored her, but he paused, one hand on the side of the carriage, and glanced back over his shoulder.

“Beatrice…” he began, sounding tired.

“We ought to talk, you and I,” she said firmly, a little surprised at the words coming out of her mouth.

“Tomorrow.”

“Tonight.”

He hesitated, then let his shoulders sag. “Oh, very well. If anyone is still up, I’ll request tea to be brought to us in…” He hesitated, just for a moment. “In the conservatory.”

She bit her lip and nodded. “In the conservatory.”

The interior of the house had been cleaned and tidied, the stains mostly gone, the broken glass and shattered crockery swept away. The defaced portrait of Stephen was gone, and Beatrice wondered privately where it had been taken.

Stephen disappeared into the depths of the house, and Beatrice half-expected to go to the conservatory and find it empty. She was mistaken. Stephen was already there, sitting on a wicker armchair with his chin in his hand, watching Mouse pour tea into a pair of cups.

“Sit, please,” Stephen said, not lifting his eyes from the cups. “Thank you, Mouse, that will do.”

The butler gave a neat bow, hesitated, and then turned to Beatrice. “The servants are ready to resume their work, Your Grace,” he said, sounding almost embarrassed.

Beatrice’s cheeks burned. “I see. Thank you, Mouse.”

He bowed again and left.

Beatrice turned to Stephen. “You told him to say that.”

“I did not,” Stephen responded crisply. “Come, sit. You wanted to talk, so talk. What is so important for you to discuss?”

She did not sit. Instead, she stared down at him, baffled.

“Are you truly going to act as if nothing happened between us?”

He sighed, rubbing the space between his eyebrows. “Do you know, my dear, that ladies and gentlemen do indeed engage in such activities without any intent to form a relationship?”

Beatrice’s cheeks burned. “Yes, yes, I know that. I’m not a fool.”

“Then what, exactly, are we discussing?”

There was a long pause while Beatrice tried to gather her thoughts.

“Why are you so hellbent on us keeping our distance from each other?” she said, at last.

A muscle ticked in Stephen’s jaw, and he glanced away. “If I were you, dear, I should not ask questions I did not wish to know the answers to.”

“Oh, humbug. It is clear that you are fond of me, at the very least. You confessed that you’re attracted to me, very much so, and it’s plain that your sentiments are returned. Why is it that whenever I inch closer to you, you fly away like a startled creature?”

“I’ve been called a creature before, and in more uncomplimentary terms than that,” Stephen responded tartly. “Perhaps you should ask yourself why you are so keen to lose your heart to the Devil. You’ve already made a deal with him, which is how you came to be here in the first place. Have you not learned your lesson, my dear? You should enjoy your freedom.”

She bit her lower lip. “My freedom?”

“Yes, that thing you were willing to strike a bargain with me, of all men, to get.”

“Well, what if I… what if I want more days like today?”

That was the closest she could get to confessing the truth. Beatrice tilted up her chin, forcing herself to keep her gaze fixed on his.

Stephen pressed his lips together. “Be careful, Beatrice. Call me whatever you like, but I’ll always be Blackheart.”

She scoffed. “I think it’s a dangerous game to be unable to tell the difference between one’s true self and the mask one wears.”

“Very flowery.”

She took a step forward. “Don’t make fun of me! Do you think I don’t have enough of that, in this world where women are never taken seriously? I agreed to your terms, Stephen, and I do not rescind my agreement. I might not wish to give birth to your child, but that’s not to say I do not want companionship.”

There was a brief silence after that.

Stephen had his cool gaze fixed on her, unreadable as always, and Beatrice did not allow herself to look away.

“And why would you not want to give birth to my child?”

She flinched. That was not a question she had expected from him.

“Well, ahem, you were quite clear about?—”

He cut her off, waving a hand. “Yes, yes, I recall. I am asking why you are so opposed to giving birth to my child.”

Beatrice pressed her lips together, cursing herself for being so careless with her words.

“It’s not personal,” she said. “Nothing about you, really. I don’t want to talk about it.”

“My rules are not personal, either,” he countered, his gaze intent on her face.

Beatrice found herself dropping her eyes to avoid it. “As I said, I don’t wish to talk about it.”

His eyes narrowed. “My dear, you are asking me to open up when you are not willing to do the same yourself. Would you not call that hypocritical? A little unfair to demand a thing you are not willing to offer yourself? Tut-tut, Duchess.”

To her chagrin, Beatrice realized he was right. Biting back a groan of annoyance, she turned on her heel and walked away a few steps, close enough to inspect the waxy leaves of a nearby plant.

Behind her, she heard the gentle clink of a teaspoon, the splash of milk into a teacup, and the muffled sound of a sugar lump dropping into the beverage.

Drawing in a deep breath, she turned, and found Stephen watching her carefully.

“Tea?” he said lightly, holding out a cup.

She took it, sitting down with a thump that made the tea spill into the saucer.

“I imagine you know already what happened to my sister,” she said dully. “You know everything that happens in London, after all.”

Stephen said nothing for a moment, taking a long sip of his tea.

“Perhaps,” he said at last. “But the bare facts are very different from the full story and what it does to the people involved. So humor me, dear wife.”

Beatrice squeezed her eyes shut. “I’m the middle child, you see. I have a younger brother, John—you’ve met him—and I have an older sister, Jane. Had,” she corrected, the familiar misery sweeping over her. “I had an older sister.”

“Miss Jane Haversham. Said to be a beauty, I recall.”

“Yes, Jane was lovely. She was very quiet and very sweet. In her first Season, she made the most remarkable match. The Duke of Thornbridge offered for her. I must say, I wasn’t sure about him, to begin with. He was so brusque, so serious, and Jane was so very sweet. My parents were conflicted. Of course, marrying the Duke would change everything for Jane—for all of us, in fact—so they were keen for her to marry him, but they did not want Jane to be unhappy. Everything was different back then, you see. We girls had our whole lives out in front of us, and Jane was so very popular in Society, we just knew she’d make a marvelous match.”

“And this beastly Duke,” Stephen said, taking a measured sip of his tea, “did you change your opinion of him?”

“Jane changed my opinion of him. She was happy with him, you see. She said that there was a great deal more to him than met the eye. For his part, it was clear that he respected her, brusque temper or not. They got married, of course, and it was quite the wedding of the Season.”

There was a pause, and Beatrice gulped down her cooling tea in a most unladylike way, suddenly thirsty.

“Shortly after the wedding, Jane conceived,” she continued, sticking to the facts. It seemed safer. “Jane was small, petite, very slender. Not like me, you know, although she had red hair too. She was nervous about the birth, although she never said as much. There were some complaints she had—sickness, dizziness, swollen ankles, that sort of thing—but the doctor dismissed them all. I didn’t like him. He always smelled of alcohol and talked about a woman’s duty, and how women were built to give birth to children and had no other purpose in life, so there could be no danger.”

“Any fool knows that that is not true,” Stephen remarked. “Many women die in childbirth. Doctors do not seem to understand the process at all. When Anna conceived, I advised Theodore to seek a midwife, a woman with experience in delivering children, and I am glad he took my advice.”

Beatrice emptied her teacup and found herself staring at the dregs. “Edward, Jane’s husband, paid for an expensive doctor. I daresay he thought he was doing his best. I daresay you know what happened next.”

Stephen nodded slowly. “I read the obituary of the Duchess of Thornbridge in the papers. It was a tragic end.”

“The papers—and several acquaintances—made a big fuss about the fact that her baby had survived,” Beatrice said bitterly. “As if that was all that mattered. As if Jane had succeeded and should die happy in the knowledge that she’d produced a baby. I know it’s not the child’s fault, but frankly, I still wish that my sister was alive and enjoying her life with her new baby. If there’s anything I could do to make that happen, I would in a heartbeat.”

There was a short silence after that.

Beatrice wiped away a tear. She might have known she could never tell this story with only the plain facts. She might have known that the memories of Jane’s mild, smiling face, her ready wit and good advice would always return with full force, reminding her of what she’d lost.

“I was there, at the end,” she said, her voice wobbling. “I think that dying in childbirth is the worst way to die. There’s nothing heroic, or glorious, or womanly about it. It’s simply horrific. And it happens again and again, every day, all over the country, until people believe that it’s simply a fact of life, as dull as a common cold.”

There was a pause, and then to Beatrice’s surprise, Stephen shifted, coming to sit beside her. He slid an arm around her shoulders, pulling her close, and Beatrice allowed herself to sag against him. She closed her eyes, worrying her lower lip with her teeth and willing herself not to sob.

“I know that the Duke of Thornbridge has not returned to Society since the death of his wife,” Stephen said. “And I can see how something so horrific would make you not want a baby, Beatrice.”

She nodded wordlessly.

“But you see how, if you play by the rules we set, you can have the life you want? We can have this companionship that you want.”

Beatrice flinched, sitting upright. “The rules you set, you mean?”

“Well, I?—”

“Do you know,” she said thoughtfully, “I wouldn’t expect Blackheart , the Devil of the ton, to be afraid. But you are afraid, aren’t you? You’re afraid of something, but I can’t quite work out what it is.”

His face darkened, the arm around her shoulders growing heavy. Beatrice knew he was going to pull away before it happened.

He removed his arm, getting to his feet. “It’s late. I think perhaps you should retire to bed, Duchess.”

Beatrice felt drained, wrung out, the way she always did when she talked about Jane. It was the memories that drained her, sapping her energy, as if she were using her own life force to make Jane live again, if only for a moment.

“Very well,” she said, too tired to argue. Despite her exhaustion, there was a sense of a weight being lifted from her shoulders.

Abruptly, Beatrice thought about asking to hang a portrait of Jane in the gallery. Portraits of Jane weren’t allowed back at her parents’ house—it hurt too much, they said—but Beatrice was beginning to think that she would like to see her sister now and then.

“By the way,” she added as Stephen turned away, “I am keeping your room.”

He paused, twisting back to look at her. “I beg your pardon?”

Beatrice met his gaze and smiled sweetly. “I think you heard me, husband dearest. I like your room. It’s large and well-lit, and I’ve moved some of my furniture into it. I shall be keeping it, seeing as all my things are there.”

There was a long, tense pause.

“You are stealing my own room from me?” Stephen echoed.

Beatrice got to her feet, shaking out her skirts. “Yes, that’s the general idea of it. So, until you go back to your London townhouse—which I assume you’ll do, sooner or later—you can pick a guest room.”