When Ralph and Lloyd began to discuss what needed to be done to prepare the house for the arrival of family members and close friends for the funeral, Chloe looked up from the letter she was writing and told them quite firmly that they need not concern themselves with domestic matters. That was her domain, and she would confer with Mrs. Loftus. Ralph exchanged a straight-faced stare with the secretary before saying that in that case he would start jotting down ideas for the funeral to discuss with the vicar.
Somewhat later, just before the Reverend Marlowe returned, Ralph mentioned the necessity of acquiring some mourning clothes, especially for Chloe, who apparently had nothing black. He would send to London for some ready-made garments and hope they would fit well enough. But again Chloe looked up from what she was doing and told him he need not worry. She had considered sending home for the old mourning clothes she had had for her mother, but there was a better solution. A skilled dressmaker lived no more than eight miles away. Chloe would ask her to come and to bring an assistant and fabrics and all her sewing needs with her so that she could stay for a few days. Ralph’s grandmother would perhaps wish to avail herself of her services too.
Ralph found himself growing increasingly irritated. He was accustomed to command, though he had not done a great deal of it in the last seven years, it was true. But he was certainly accustomed to independence, to making his own decisions, to having servants follow his orders without question or interference. Chloe, of course, was not a servant. What irritated him most about her, perhaps, was that she really was a help—an invaluable help, in fact. And that she did it all cheerfully and efficiently. And that she could—and did—think and act independently.
It fairly set his teeth on edge—until he remembered how unabashedly happy his grandfather had been yesterday. And his grandmother too. And how his grandmother had been leaning into Chloe earlier on in the drawing room after he had seen the doctor and the vicar on their way. And how he himself needed a wife, and how now more than ever he needed an heir.
And what type of wife would he prefer? Someone helpless and timid and vaporish? Someone he could bed at night and ignore by day? Or someone . . . like Chloe?
His irritation, he admitted to himself, was unreasonable.
And then suddenly, out of the blue, he thought of someone else who had always had a similar effect upon him—someone for whom he had felt respect and annoyance in equal measure. Someone he could never either dominate or quite dismiss from his notice.
Graham Muirhead. Her brother, for the love of God.
They were nothing alike. They looked as different as night and day. Of course, it was possible, even probable, that they were only half siblings, was it not?
He was relieved when Weller appeared at the study door to inform him that the vicar awaited his pleasure in the small salon. Chloe’s red head with its bright coronet of braids was bent over a letter when he left. She was gone when he returned. Her Grace, the dowager duchess, had awoken and asked for her, the secretary informed him.
Ralph was tired and dispirited when she appeared at the door sometime later. There were still letters to write, but his mind was addled and a certain numbness he had held within since last night was beginning to give place to the full realization that his grandfather was gone forever. Yesterday they had walked out to the chapel and back together. They had spent the evening together, reminiscing about Ralph’s boyhood. Today he was gone.
“It is time to change for dinner,” Chloe told him.
He frowned at her with undisguised annoyance.
“I have no appetite,” he said. “I will have something later on a tray if I am hungry.” And he bent his head to continue writing.
“Neither is your grandmother hungry,” she said. “But it is of the utmost importance that she eat and keep up her strength. I have no appetite either. It is up to you and me, though, especially you, to set the example. And you had no luncheon.”
He dropped his pen and spattered small blots across his half-written letter, ruining it. He could feel irritation escalate to anger. He opened his mouth to give her some sort of blistering setdown, but he paused and shut his mouth again while he passed a hand over his eyes. She was quite right, damn it.
“I will go up now,” he said, getting to his feet. “I’ll escort you.”
She must be just as tired as he. And it must be as difficult for her to adjust to his ways as it was for him to adjust to hers. More so. She was not frowning and scowling at him at every turn. She was just quietly going about her business.
Ralph was forced to admit to himself over the next few days that he did not know how he would have managed without her help. Though even that admission was an irritant. He had spent three years at Penderris Hall and four years since learning to live alone, learning to be dependent upon no one—especially not emotionally dependent.
Not that he was growing emotionally dependent upon his wife. Sex, after all, was not an emotion. Which was a very good thing. For he came near to becoming dependent upon it during those days leading up to the funeral, or, rather, during the nights. Tired though he was each night, he went to her bed and found some relief from the stresses of the day in her body. It was never an overly erotic experience. She always wore her nightgown to bed, and he never tried to remove it. She always wore a nightcap too, the glory of her hair all but hidden beneath it.
But he took her twice each night, three times on one occasion, and he did not even pretend to himself that it was all out of duty and the need to beget an heir, though that was his justification for taking pleasure when his grandfather’s body was still in the house, laid out downstairs in the state rooms.