The Husband Plot Page 15

  Now she was sure he was flirting with her. Disgust shivered down her spine. “If you are looking for a wife, you are better off attending Almack’s than escorting me to my varied interests.”

  This he answered with a wide, thin-lipped, wordless smile.

  They had approached the front of the gallery, near to the front door, and Lisbeth suddenly couldn’t stand to be anywhere except home at Upper Norton Street.

  “Oh dear, I am afraid I have the most frightful headache,” she said, pressing her free hand dramatically to her forehead. “My lord, would you be horribly displeased if I went home to rest?”

  There was no gentleman’s response other than to comply, bundle her to the butler, and wait to ensure she safely climbed into her carriage. Lord Brabourne did that, of course. But in the moments as they waited for her driver to pull up, he also said, “Do remind Mr. Hathorne that I am awaiting news from The Rebecca.”

  He didn’t leave room for manners in his words. It was an order, as if she and Adrian were no more than his serfs. Lisbeth stared at him, waiting for him to soften it, and when he didn’t, said, “I did not know you had such interest in commerce, my lord.”

  His lips reared back into that false grin again. Before he had a chance to respond, the carriage arrived, and the butler opened the door silently, waiting for Lisbeth to descend the front steps. She performed a small curtsey for Lord Brabourne.

  “Don’t forget my message, Mrs. Hathorne,” he said, as sweetly as if he were wishing her a safe journey.

  Lisbeth hurried down to the carriage. She didn’t know what Lord Brabourne wanted with Adrian or what news he expected from the ship, but she knew she wouldn’t be his pawn. As far as Adrian needed to know, she had never seen Lord Brabourne that afternoon.

  Twenty

  Chapter Twenty

  Looking back, Adrian could see there had been a stretch of weeks unlike any other in his life. At the time, he had simply thought: this is marriage. Or, this is love. But he could see now they had been floating along a river of clouds. By the law of nature, there could be no news from Jamaica yet, no pronouncement of his long-awaited inheritance, no reply from his father on the ten souls in negotiation. He and Lisbeth had been free of discord. Free of expectations. Free of everything except a wild obsession with each other.

  But now April had turned into May. Three weeks had turned into six. Any day now, The Rebecca would dock with a belly full of sugar hogsheads and letters from Inglewilde. And every day, a little bit more silence slipped between him and Lisbeth.

  They had not completely descended from the clouds – he still whisked her into dark corners of the house for kisses – yet Adrian couldn’t help feeling a shift. Sometimes, Lisbeth stared in his direction without seeing him. And he knew she was thinking about what would come next.

  Perhaps I’m going to a courtesan’s to audition my winter lover.

  Adrian pushed the echo of her words away. She hadn’t meant it. There was no point dwelling on it, not when he had a stack of ledgers to examine and correspondence to answer. Lisbeth was happy, and Adrian didn’t have to leave yet, and that simply had to be enough for him.

  The rain tapped on his window. He arranged his papers more precisely on his blotter, refreshed the ink on his pen, and tried to focus. Even if he wanted to throw Lisbeth over his shoulder and retire to the bedroom, she was presently hosting visitors. She adored her morning calls – which were, of course, in the afternoon, for nothing London did made any sense – where most frequently she received Mr. Nadin accompanied by a fresh crop of artist friends, Lady Dawes, and Mary. From his study, he would hear the occasional rise of laughter from across the hall or catch the heat in voices raised to intellectual debate.

  He couldn’t interrupt her, no matter how it might ease his currently spiraling thoughts.

  It was pure chance, then, and not a desperate need to see Lisbeth, that he strained to hear Ford announce to the sitting room, “Lord and Lady Gresham to see you, madam.”

  Lisbeth’s voice rang out, “How delightful! Do sit down, won’t you? Ford, could you send up a plate of Mrs. Siswell’s raisin scones? Bernard, you should like these especially.”

  Bernard. Was it even proper to stay on a Christian-name basis with one’s fiancé after being jilted? Adrian tried to picture the man – a tall, strapping English lord, no doubt, who laughed easily – winking at Lisbeth in reminder of what she had almost had.

  He should stay where he was. He had a steaming pot of tea at his elbow, a roaring fire, and still three more days of Hathorne Shipping activities to report to his grandfather and father.

  But then he heard Bernard say, “I’m glad to see you looking fine as an English spring.”

  No, it wasn’t a love sonnet, and yes, the man’s wife was in the room, yet it was enough to throw Adrian from his chair. Checking that his jacket and buttons were all aligned, Adrian hastened across the hall.

  The tableau he walked into was not particularly damning. Lisbeth sat in her favorite chair, the blue Episcopalian throne next to the fireplace. Nearer the window, his sister Mary bent over an embroidery hoop. The Lord and Lady Gresham perched side-by-side on the settee gifted to his household by his grandmother, a relic from her family upon which Sir Walter Raleigh had supposedly once reposed. No one was staring at anyone with suppressed longing, nor were any hands creeping places they didn’t belong.

  Still, Adrian had to keep himself from glaring at their guests.

  For her part, Lady Gresham was entirely too beautiful. Her hair was the perfect gold that painters spent hours mixing hues to invent, her complexion the sublime rouged cream to which Englishmen wrote poems, and her dress suggested the type of figure that other women sighed over in jealousy. She belonged in a painting, not in his sitting room, making his wife adjust her ostrich plume.

  And then there was Lord Gresham, the devil himself. The earl was less than Adrian had expected. His red hair flamed like the devil, to be sure, but his face was otherwise unremarkable, his height seemed about average, and overall, there was nothing about him that screamed handsome rake.

  Still, this was the man who had dared turn away from Lisbeth on her wedding day. She could shout from the rooftops as much as she wanted that she hadn’t wanted to marry him; Adrian would never believe that Lisbeth had left that day without a gash across her heart.

  “Lord Gresham, Lady Gresham, may I present to you my husband, Mr. Hathorne?”

  Adrian bowed. He murmured the pleasantries and perhaps even managed a smile, once he caught Lisbeth’s reminder in the form of a raised eyebrow. There being no remaining seats, he went to stand behind his wife, one hand resting on her chair.

  “I’m so glad to meet you as I’ve heard so many wonderful things of you from Mrs. Hathorne,” Lady Gresham said. “How are you enjoying London?”

  “Immensely.” Adrian thought that quite covered it, without requiring him to elaborate on which parts of London he had or had not enjoyed. When the countess blinked, he remembered to add, “My lady.”

  “Have you not been before? I would have thought a man of business such as yourself would be here year-round.” Lord Gresham did not aim his words with venom in his tone, yet they were arrows nonetheless. After all, Lisbeth was the daughter of a marquess. She should have married a gentleman of the peer who wouldn’t be caught dead lifting a finger in the name of commerce. Instead, she had married a Black businessman.

  Adrian felt his cheeks flame in embarrassment.

  “I am more comfortable in the country, my lord.”

  Lisbeth leaned forward in her chair. “Mr. Hathorne tells me he is the fastest rider at Maidenheath House, though he refuses to gallop in Hyde Park to prove it to me. Mary, is it all a boast, or does he truly always beat Robert in races through the wood?”

  “He always beats Robert,” Mary agreed, “but he does not always beat me.”

  “What kind of horse do you ride?” Lord Gresham asked. There was a glimmer of interest in his eye, reminding Adrian that Lisbeth
had complained of the man’s unending love of horses.

  She had steered the conversation to a topic they could both enjoy, this clever wife of his. Adrian answered, descending into a discussion of the best racing horses, all while mourning for Lisbeth that she had been saddled with him. With her poise, her fire, her grace, she belonged in the drawing rooms of a duke.

  Perhaps she would find her way there, once he sailed for Jamaica.

  I am auditioning my winter lover.

  Her words kept popping up in his mind, and as much as he tried to push it away, Adrian couldn’t help himself from picking at it. Soon, he would leave Lisbeth. He had to; his wife was never supposed to come with him to the plantation, where diseases felled most white women within the first few months of arrival. He would hate it. Already, if he went a handful of hours without seeing her, his body ached for Lisbeth, not just in carnal need but also in a basic desire to hold her close and hear her voice.

  Adrian could do it, though, because he knew it was his only choice. He could not forego his mission. He’d always known he would pay a price for his mission, and losing Lisbeth was simply the biggest one yet.

  What ate at him was imagining what she would do once he left. She had told him quite plainly at the beginning of their marriage that she planned to lead a rich life. Everything Lisbeth encountered, she felt passionately about. And now that they had spent the last two months discovering every inch of physical desire, he would leave her with a hunger for sex.

  He knew she hadn’t meant it when she said she was going to a courtesan’s. Yet Adrian had no doubt Lisbeth would take a lover, eventually. What he tortured himself with was who, and how many, and how soon after he sailed.

  Debating Lord Gresham on who would win the York Derby, Adrian told himself to calm down. Of all the men Lisbeth would dally with, he could safely assume it would not be the one who had jilted her at the altar. He was too smitten with his own wife, and besides, he droned about horses to no end.

  “I bore the ladies, I’m afraid,” Lord Gresham said presently, casting an apologetic smile to Lisbeth. “Mr. Hathorne, you are always welcome to stop by my stables to continue the conversation.”

  “Yes, do come by when Lisbeth and Mary attend my next salon,” Lady Gresham put in. “You two gentlemen may speak of horses all you like while we ladies discuss matters of importance.”

  Adrian looked to his sister, who blinked innocently back at him. “I didn’t know you had started attending the salons too, Mary.”

  “I didn’t suppose you needed to be informed, so long as Her Grace has given me permission.” Mary said this without ire, though she raised her eyebrows as if daring him to challenge her.

  Lisbeth had inspired this streak of rebellion in his sister. Adrian couldn’t help but admire it. When it came to leaving his loved ones in England, Adrian was at least soothed that Lisbeth and Mary were such fast friends. Mary visited almost every afternoon. When there were no other visitors, Lisbeth and Mary and her maid circled around the fireplace for hours, and he’d grown accustomed to hearing them laugh from across the corridor.

  “This week, we’ll be discussing divorce and annulments. I took the liberty of recommending some advanced reading.” Lady Gresham tilted her head, and Adrian now saw that both Lisbeth and Mary had neatly printed pamphlets beside their teacups.

  His mouth went dry. He wasn’t sure he could stomach Lisbeth thinking about annulments again, even if it were only in the abstract. “What is there to discuss about divorce and annulments?”

  “The wife’s rights,” Lisbeth answered, her ostrich feather pitching towards the mantle as she turned her face up to him. “For example, shouldn’t a mother have a right to see her children, even if her husband divorces her?”

  Adrian didn’t have a response, other than to imagine receiving a letter from Lisbeth in six months: I’m quite tired of this. Shall we get a divorce, then?

  It wasn’t that easy. She wouldn’t do it, besides. Neither of those facts made Adrian fear it less.

  “An excellent debate to be had,” Lord Gresham said. “Mr. Hathorne and I shall be more comfortable with a healthy ride through the park until you’ve sorted out the rights and wrongs of it and tell us how to proceed.”

  Ford interrupted, before Adrian had to decide how to respond to this overture of friendship. He approached with a silver tray carrying a single card. Adrian recognized it before picking it up: creamy paper, gilded with silver vines, and spidery writing too confident for its own good. Lord Brabourne.

  The man had taken to visiting every few days or so, slinking into Adrian’s study and asking questions about the plantation, about their ships, even about Lisbeth. Adrian couldn’t quite figure out what Brabourne wanted, other than to establish dominance. As if Adrian worked for him and owed him daily reports.

  For once, then, Adrian could show Brabourne that he wasn’t intimidated by such a little thing as a title.

  “Show him in here,” Adrian directed Ford, then asked Lord and Lady Gresham, “Are you acquainted with Lord Brabourne?”

  Lord Gresham barely concealed a wince, earning him a smidgeon of Adrian’s admiration. “We have crossed paths.”

  Brabourne entered the room with his typical swagger. His pale hair was flattened to his head from his now-removed hat. “I have happened upon a social call. How delightful.”

  They conducted the proper introductions, and Brabourne bowed over Lisbeth’s hand, then nodded to Mary with extra solicitousness.

  “I so often visit Mr. Hathorne, but rarely do I have the pleasure of encountering his charming wife and sister. Today is a lucky day, indeed.”

  Mary wore the patented Hathorne mask of indifference.

  Brabourne turned his beady eyes to Adrian. “I came as soon as my man informed me The Rebecca has docked. You have news, I assume?”

  Adrian did his very best not to bristle, not against Brabourne’s presumption to address him like a clerk and not against the fact that Brabourne knew about The Rebecca before Adrian did. Lisbeth’s ostrich plume, however, twitched. “Lord Brabourne, you devil, here we are enjoying a pleasant afternoon, and you should like to ruin it with discussion of business?”

  She said it in the friendly tone a marquess’s daughter could use with an earl, but the rebuke was clear. Unfortunately, Ford entered again with his silver platter, this time laden with one thin note from a messenger and a second, thicker envelope, the kind that always came from Adrian’s father.

  The kind that Brabourne had been awaiting – and Adrian had been dreading – these past two months.

  “I apologize, my dear,” Adrian said to Lisbeth. “It appears there is indeed business to be handled. Will you excuse us?”

  Collecting the papers from Ford, Adrian bowed to his wife, then Lady Gresham. On a whim, he added, “You are welcome to join us, Lord Gresham, if it is of interest.”

  He didn’t know why the fellow would find it interesting. He didn’t know why he should want Lisbeth’s former fiancé in the study as he read his father’s letter. He only knew it seemed a good idea as Lord Brabourne followed him at the heel.

  Lord Gresham’s blue eyes widened in surprise. For the briefest moment, he looked to his wife, as if for permission, or perhaps advice. Then he nodded and stood. “Thank you.”

  The walk across the corridor back to his study seemed to last forever, even though it was only a few yards. Brabourne said to Lord Gresham, “Lady Gresham is looking as beautiful as I recall from her debut.”

  Lord Gresham fumbled his words in response. “I – yes – thank you.”

  Brabourne didn’t feel it necessary, apparently, to comment on how splendid Lisbeth had looked with the firelight twinkling in her eye.

  Adrian shoved aside the thought; it wasn’t as if he wanted Brabourne coveting his wife.

  And then – oh God – what if Lisbeth took Brabourne as a lover?

  His stomach turned at the thought. And Adrian reminded himself that Lisbeth was a woman of principles as well as pas
sion. She would never bed Brabourne, especially not when she knew he was a slaveholder who would try to stop Adrian’s plan.

  He needed to get ahold of himself. Fast.

  Adrian had only two chairs in his study: the one behind his desk and one for a visitor. He pulled the first to the window and offered it to his guests, retreating to lean against his desk rather than take one of the chairs. “You’ll excuse me while I read my father’s letter.”

  “Read it aloud.” Brabourne drawled, but it was clearly an order.

  Lord Gresham didn’t hide his wince this time. “Perhaps the pertinent parts. One should keep one’s family news private, I’ve always said.”

  Adrian schooled his emotions into a calm, obedient farce. Cutting open the letter, he unfolded it carefully – noting it was actually slimmer than usual – and skimmed the first page before reading aloud.

  “He sends his best wishes, etcetera. There is some minutia about the cargo he has included on The Rebecca that would not interest you. Now: As it pertains to the ten heads Lord Brabourne requested, we shall keep those to Inglewilde Plantation as we cannot spare them during our harvest.”

  Adrian turned the page, doing his best to hide his relief. As long as they stayed on his plantation, he could free them.

  For his part, Brabourne narrowed his eyes without saying anything.

  Adrian continued to read: “I have faith Lord Brabourne will be more than happily recompensed in the dowry I bestow him upon his wedding to Mary. You will refer to my letter to the gentleman in question for the full details of the marriage contract, but I have agreed to give her hand to Lord Brabourne with a wedding as soon as possible. I trust you will work with your grandmother to make the proper introductions and solicit Mary’s favorable interest in the match.”

  His lips had kept moving even as his heart stopped. Mary? Thrown to the wolves?

  Lord Brabourne beamed from his seat in Adrian’s leather chair. “Excellent. My letter must be awaiting me at home. I had so hoped for this felicitous news.”