“For you were the subject of gossip and speculation last spring, Chloe, before you fled London,” she had explained. “Everyone will wish to set eyes upon you now that you have made the most brilliant match of the Season. And, fickle as the ton invariably is, all who looked askance at you last year will embrace you this year—if you have the courage to face them, that is, your head held high. You are the daughter of a baronet, remember, and the granddaughter of a viscount. You will have all the consequence of Ralph’s title behind you. And you will have all the grandeur of the ducal power behind you too on the night of the ball, for Worthingham and I will surely travel up to town for the occasion.”
She had warmed to her theme. The duke had harrumphed but not said anything to contradict her.
“And for the ball, Chloe,” she had continued, “you must wear emerald green, and special care must be taken over the dressing of your hair. It must remain uncovered since it needs no adornment. And since you cannot hide its color, which fact caused you so much embarrassment last year, then you must flaunt it instead.”
Chloe, sitting on her bed now, several hours later, rubbed the fingers of her left hand in a circle about her right palm, and then reversed hands. Was the duchess right? Was that what they ought to do? But she felt sick at the thought and was very glad that Ralph had refused his grandmother’s suggestion.
“We are not going to London, Grandmama,” he had said, “despite the good sense of your arguments. Chloe has no wish to mingle with the very society that has quite unjustly rejected her twice. And, frankly, I am tired of the tedium and artificiality of life in town. We are going to Elmwood. It is high time I settled there and took an active hand in the running of the estate, and it is where my wife will be most comfortable.”
Chloe had glanced at him with silent gratitude. One thing that had taken her completely by surprise during the day was her own happiness. It was a quite inappropriate mood under the circumstances and was likely to cause her pain if she did not check it. It would certainly bring her embarrassment if her husband should suspect. Though it was not as though it were the happiness of love or the expectation of romance. It was just . . .
Well, it was just that she was married.
It had been the strangest, most subdued of wedding days. It ought to have felt dreary and anticlimactic and anything but happy. Who, after all, would want a quiet wedding in a tiny chapel to a man who had no personal feelings for her and for whom she had almost none? It ought to have chilled her to the bone, despite the touching scene with the servants when they arrived back at the house and the festive little wedding breakfast, complete with flowers and ribbons and candles and even a small wedding cake, all of which the servants had planned and prepared without even Her Grace’s knowledge. Chloe ought to have been outraged or at least upset when her new husband chose to spend the evening alone with the duke while she sat in the drawing room with the duchess.
She ought to be feeling as flat as the flattest of pancakes now. Instead, apart from a certain nervousness, she was happy. She was a married lady. Her new title was unimportant to her, for she would be just as happy to be plain Mrs. Stockwood. The fact that she was married meant everything.
She clasped her hands again and consciously stopped herself from twiddling her thumbs. But despite her restlessness—what was it going to feel like?—she waited in happy anticipation of the arrival of her bridegroom and the consummation of her marriage. Soon she would be a married lady in every sense of the word. What a blessing it was that her courses had finished just two days ago.
She wondered if she would stay happy. There was not necessarily a link between happiness and love, was there? One did not have to be in love with one’s husband in order to be happy with him, did one?
Would she be happy with the Earl of Berwick? He had once wanted to be dead. He had even tried to kill himself. He had been taken to Cornwall to heal and recuperate, but even now he was a man who could not love, a man with cold, empty eyes. He was very different from the boy he had been. Even the duchess said so. It was as though a large part of him, all that was brightest and best, really had died. Chloe shut her eyes tightly and bent her head forward. How would she be able to live with him . . .
There was a firm knock on the door of her bedchamber. She lifted her head sharply and looked toward the door, but it did not open.
“Come in,” she called.
He was wearing a long dressing robe of dark blue satin. It might have looked almost effeminate, but it somehow emphasized both his muscularity and his masculinity. Or perhaps it seemed that way merely because he was in her bedchamber and he had come to assert his marital rights.
She ought to have prepared something to say, she thought too late. She said nothing and tried not to clutch her hands too tightly. He closed the door behind his back, and she could see his eyes take in the bed turned down on both sides for the night, the branch of candles burning on the dressing table, her bare feet, her modest nightgown, her cap. His eyes paused on that last item.
“I hope I have not kept you waiting,” he said.
“No.”
There was a brief silence, and she felt her breath quicken.
“I shall try not to hurt you,” he told her. “After tonight you should find it more comfortable.”
It.
“Yes.”
His voice and manner were quite matter-of-fact, even brisk. He appeared to share none of her embarrassment.
Now what? Too late it occurred to her that she might have had some wine brought up. She could have poured them each a glass now and begun some easy, relaxed conversation about . . . well, about something. Instead, she was as skittish as a young girl. Perhaps more so. Her age and inexperience embarrassed her.