Chapter Twenty-Nine

Twenty-Nine

Stella had warned Teddy when he proposed that she enjoyed taking risks on occasion. And it wasn’t only traveling to and from Maiden Lane without a chaperone, or galloping Locket in the park, absent the net Stella had long used to conceal the color of her hair.

It was now—boldly doing as Teddy had asked of her—standing on the banks of the river, wrapped in a dark cloth cloak with precious little underneath, as the fog rolled in from the water and the glow of twilight faded into evening.

There was no Locket beneath Stella to lend her strength. No Furies surrounding her to offer their support. Even Teddy was a distance away, seated behind his easel as he prepared his palette.

A shiver traced down Stella’s spine. It wasn’t from the cold. And it wasn’t from fear or anxiety. She wasn’t afraid. Far from it. She felt bold as a brass farthing. Confident, there in the mud, standing on her own two booted feet.

What a glorious day it had turned out to be! First married, then feted by their friends at the Finchleys’, and now this—wild and unconventional and utterly conspicuous. The very opposite of the stultifying life she’d known before.

“I’m ready,” she said, untying the fastening of her cloak at her neck.

Teddy’s brows sank. He was having second thoughts. Third ones, too, by the looks of it. Never mind that it had been his idea. He wore the same expression he’d worn when he’d learned that Stella was traveling about the city unescorted. That visible conflict between the freedom he’d promised her and the masculine urge to protect her at all costs.

Stella registered his internal battle, but she didn’t allow it to alter her course.

She slipped the cloak from her shoulders, revealing her bare arms, bare throat, and the shimmering, pearl-spangled net that made up her gown.

They weren’t completely isolated on their tree-shrouded section of the river. Mr. Jennings stood with the wagonette at the top of the bank, respectfully giving them his back. Further on, beyond the tangle of ash, alder, and willow trees, lay meandering public walks and a curving, wood-lined roadway.

It would be scandalous to be observed. Reputation ruining, without doubt.

Once upon a time, Stella Hobhouse would have been concerned with such things. But she was no longer Stella Hobhouse. No longer, even, Stella Hayes, despite her and Teddy’s marriage ceremony, and the lengthy wedding breakfast, and countless champagne toasts that had come after.

All that was gone the instant Stella shed her outer garments. She was one of the Pleiades now.

She tossed her cloak to Teddy. His hand reflexively shot out to catch it. But he wasn’t looking at her cloak. He was staring at her, his jaw gone slack.

A thrill of feminine power went through her. “Don’t you approve of Ahmad’s design?”

Teddy’s throat worked on a swallow. “It’s, ah, a bit more revealing than I’d imagined it would be.”

It wasn’t, in truth. It was an illusion, merely.

Still…

“Isn’t that rather the point?” She turned, giving him his preferred three-quarter profile. Her unbound hair fell back from her shoulders, the mother-of-pearl paillettes on her net gown tinkling in the breeze that drifted over the water.

He cleared his throat. “Stella—”

“I’m Electra now,” she informed him. “Unless you’ve one of the other Pleiades in mind?”

He ran a hand over his hair. A scowl darkened his face. “Electra will do,” he muttered.

She smiled briefly. “The sun is setting, mortal. Hadn’t you better make the most of it?”

?It was no easy thing to capture the changing light. An artist had to work quickly. For twilight, Teddy had no more than an hour. His brush moved rapidly, his head ducking repeatedly out from behind his canvas to glance at the river, the fog, the streaks of waning sunlight.

And at her.

He had to make an effort not to gape like a simpleton. He hadn’t the time for it. But she lured him to her just the same, as surely as iron filings to a magnet. And not only because she was beautiful, and dynamic, and shining bright as a star. (Electra, by God!) But because she was fully herself, standing straight and proud, chin high and hair streaming, concealing nothing of her true, magnificent nature.

An ache of emotion infused his work. This was how he’d seen her from the first. How he’d known she would be if ever the ladylike mask was removed completely. This powerful, passionate, regal creature that had, by some miracle, become his wife.

His own insecurities lingered at the edge of his consciousness. Painting held them at bay. With a brush in his hand and his oils at the ready, he was powerful, too.

All too soon it was over. The sun set, and Stella once again donned her cloak, assuming the mantle of humble mortality. Jennings materialized with a lantern. Teddy’s canvas was covered and loaded into the wagonette, and Jennings helped to push Teddy’s chair up the bank, Teddy still in it, rolling the rubber-covered wheels through the mud.

At length, they were all of them in the wagonette. Teddy impulsively caught Stella’s hand and kissed it. She beamed at him—face aglow with radiant happiness.

It was only as Teddy took up Samuel’s reins to drive them home that he realized the damage he’d done, sitting out in the cold and the damp, so close to the river.

The first leg cramp materialized within ten minutes. The second soon after. By the time they’d reached Maiden Lane, he was gritting his teeth.

“What’s wrong?” Stella asked as he brought the wagonette to a clumsy halt in front of their house. A lantern was lit in the front window, illuminating the stone steps that led to the door. Mrs. Mukherjee would have left it before departing for the evening.

“Nothing,” Teddy said tightly.

Jennings jumped down from the wagonette to assist him.

“You look as though something is.” Stella scanned Teddy’s face. “You’re not still cross because of my costume?”

“I was never cross.”

“Is it the painting? Did you not get what you wanted?”

“It’s not the painting,” he gritted out. “It’s…It’s my legs.”

Her brows knit with concern. “I don’t understand. Did you hurt yourself coming up the bank? Or was it—”

“Nothing like that. It happens sometimes. The change in the weather. I can’t—” He broke off as a cramp assailed him. He set a hand on his thigh, squeezing it hard. A groan escaped from between his clenched teeth.

Jennings hurried to lift him down.

“Not me,” Teddy growled. “Help Mrs. Hayes.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Stella said. “I can see to myself well enough.” She suited action to word, leaping out of the wagonette with a recklessness that made Teddy’s heart briefly jump in his throat.

“Good God,” he snapped. “Do you want to break your neck?”

“There was no danger of that.” She turned to Jennings. “What shall I do to help?”

“Do nothing,” Teddy said. “It’s Jennings I require. Not you.”

A glimmer of hurt flickered briefly in her eyes. But it’s our wedding night, she might have said.

As if Teddy didn’t know that to his soul! As if he wasn’t cursing himself for being brought this low. Cursing the scarlet fever. Cursing his dratted legs. Cursing Jennings, too, though the manservant was only attempting to help in his usual ham-fisted way.

“I’ll carry you inside, sir,” Jennings said.

“You bloody well won’t,” Teddy snarled. “Fetch my chair.”

Stella waited, hands clasped in front of her, while Jennings readied Teddy’s wheeled chair and then hoisted Teddy into it.

John Turvey, Stella’s groom, emerged from the coach house to take charge of Samuel. “Anything I can do, ma’am?”

“Shall I send Turvey for the doctor?” Stella asked Teddy.

“No doctor,” Teddy replied. “It’s Jennings I require. Not anyone else.”

The same stricken look appeared in Stella’s gaze. It didn’t last. She rallied herself in an instant, taking on an air of stern efficiency. “I’m not anyone else,” she told him curtly. And then to Turvey, “Wait for my word. I may yet have need of you.”

Turvey nodded gravely before leading Samuel away with the wagonette. Teddy’s canvas, easel, and supplies were still covered in the back of it.

“I won’t have my canvas left in the coach house all night,” Teddy said to Jennings.

Jennings didn’t stop to retrieve it. He rolled Teddy straight into the dimly lit house, with Stella following close beside them. “I’ll fetch it inside later, sir. Soon as I’ve finished tending to you.”

Tending to him.

As though Teddy was an invalid who must be nursed!

Teddy’s fingers clenched on the arms of his chair. He stewed with anger, miserable to the point of incivility, his legs aching as though Satan himself were gnawing at the fraying sinew of Teddy’s calf and thigh muscles.

Stella accompanied him into his bedroom, lighting the lamps as Jennings lifted Teddy onto the low, four-poster bed. Teddy had ordered it specially from a furniture warehouse in Ludgate Hill. Its height enabled him to move from bed to chair and back without assistance.

But not tonight.

Tonight, for as long as these blasted cramps lasted, Teddy was completely reliant on Jennings.

“Tell me what I can do,” Stella said.

“You can go,” Teddy replied. And then, the rasping words wrenched out of him on another brutal spasm: “I don’t want you to see me like this.”

Stella’s taut expression softened with tender understanding. But she didn’t leave. Instead, she sank down onto the edge of the mattress beside him, the paillettes on her net-covered gown tinkling like silver bells. “I’m your wife,” she said simply.

And that was that.