The Husband Plot Read online

  She was merely a pawn. A willing pawn, but the adjective did not change the noun.

  He wondered again why she had agreed to such an arrangement.

  Number 73, Upper Norton Street was quiet compared to the Dawes townhouse. It was a narrow, four-story house with black-and-white tiles on its front steps as its major claim to fashion. The servants lined up in the parlor to greet their new mistress: the butler Ford, the housekeeper and cook Mrs. Siswell, his valet Mr. Adkins, the two footmen, and the three maids. Lisbeth greeted them with her cordial smile, which made her look so stately for a woman no more than five feet tall.

  Mrs. Siswell offered Lisbeth a tour of the house. Adrian followed along. He could easily have excused himself to his study on the pretense of business, or even retreated to a club for an hour or two, but he was growing more nervous by the minute, and it seemed the best remedy was to stay close at hand. If he retreated, he might find endless excuses not to return to Lisbeth that evening, and he did not want to fail her so soon.

  Lisbeth was an active participant on the tour, exclaiming over the cleanliness of the kitchen, commiserating on the fight against mice, asking after how often the carpets were cleaned and how many candles the chandeliers required. Every now and then, she included Adrian, too, casting him glances or asking his opinion or simply offering him a compliment.

  He didn’t mind it. The attention. In fact, when they crossed the whole of the dining room without a single glance directed his way, Adrian felt a little left out.

  He would, perhaps, enjoy having a wife.

  Assuming that he could get through the wedding night.

  The tour ended on the third story, in the creaky old corridor. Mrs. Siswell pointed towards one door and then the other. “This is your apartment, ma’am, and that is Sir’s. I expect your abigail – Hannah, isn’t it? – has everything settled for you in there. May I get you anything? Perhaps a cup of tea or some claret?”

  Lisbeth’s eyes drifted across Adrian as she answered the housekeeper. His stomach flipped. She looked nervous again, which meant he absolutely could not be nervous. He was the husband.

  He was supposed to know what he was doing.

  “No, thank you, Mrs. Siswell. You may retire for the evening.” Lisbeth turned as she said this, offering a curtsey to him. “Good night.”

  Adrian bowed, watching her retreat behind the oak door. She would need some time to retire. A woman had things she must do, though he didn’t know what they were. Change out of her dress, undo her hair, he supposed. It took them long enough to get ready that it must take at least as long to undo all that work.

  He was aware that he was trying to distract himself. Or trying to delay himself. It would not do. He had duties to attend to. And Adrian never shirked his duties.

  He retreated to his own suite, which included a bedchamber and a dressing room. Mr. Adkins was already there, nightshirt and dressing robe hanging freshly pressed.

  “Many congratulations, sir,” Mr. Adkins bustled. “She is both beautiful and charming. I’m sure one could not have asked for a more suitable bride.”

  Adrian tried to smile in reply, though his inside was so knotted he imagined it came out as a grimace.

  Mr. Adkins untied Adrian’s tie and helped him shrug out of his wedding suit. “I thought perhaps you would want a shave tonight, sir?”

  “A shave?” Adrian had never been in the habit of a nighttime shave, especially since he’d just been under Mr. Adkins’s knife that morning. Though when he ran a palm across his jaw, he had to admit it was a little prickly.

  “In consideration for Mrs. Hathorne,” Mr. Adkins winked. “I also took the liberty of pulling out your cologne, if you like.”

  Adrian blushed. These were the types of considerations a gentleman should already know by the time of his wedding night. “Of course. Good thought, Mr. Adkins.”

  So he found himself sitting back, getting slathered with shaving cream. At least it was another delay. It would give Lisbeth more time to do whatever she needed to do to prepare.

  He turned his thoughts away from her. It made him too nervous.

  Mr. Adkins babbled away, as he usually did, filling Adrian’s silent room with cheerful chatter. Normally, Adrian enjoyed it, but he couldn’t even bring himself to pay attention to the distraction. The moment loomed too close. The truth loomed too large.

  Adrian was a virgin, and he didn’t have the first idea how to go about a wedding night.

  The average gentleman would have solved this problem years ago. Some of his schoolmates started lessons early with willing lasses around Eton grounds. Others went through a rite of passage with expensive London courtesans on landmark birthdays. They set up actresses as mistresses or wooed widows with lonely beds.

  By the time the average gentleman got to his wedding night, he was a veritable expert in sex. It was necessary, in order to ease his wife’s suffering as she surrendered to marital duties.

  But Adrian had never dared join his peers in their extracurricular schooling. He had too much to prove. He wasn’t from England, after all, no matter that his blood ran thick with dukes and earls. He was West Indian; he was Black. From the moment he stepped foot on English soil at the age of seven and a dockhand tried to press him into hauling freight, Adrian had known: he needed to behave better than everyone to prove his nobility.

  So he had kept his head down and come out as top of his class. He had sailed the Hathorne Shipping line without aping any of the sailors’ sins. He studied the trends of horses, racing vehicles, even fashion to stay in vogue with his friends, but he stayed far from vice, scandal, or anything else that might bring shame.

  The scheme had seemed a great idea until tonight.

  Finished with the shave, Mr. Adkins helped Adrian into his nightshirt and dressing robe. “I’ll retire now unless you need anything else from me, Sir.”

  Adrian wanted to grab the man by the coattails and beg him not to leave. Instead, he shook his head. “Any last words of advice?”

  The valet grinned as if it were a joke. “I daresay you don’t need advice from me.”

  And so the moment had come. There were no more excuses. No more reasons to delay. There was only the door that stood between Adrian and his biggest fear.

  He decided a knock was polite. After a moment, Lisbeth squeaked, “Enter.” She cleared her throat as Adrian crossed the threshold, so that by the time he turned from closing the door, her voice was lower, huskier. “I trust you are well.”

  Lisbeth stood by the fire wearing nothing but a lace shift, whose pattern he was fairly certain did not cover her most private areas. Her hair fell softly around her face and past her shoulders with a smooth brown shine. She glowed in the firelight like a woman in a Vermeer painting.

  Adrian gulped. His mouth was dry, his stomach was turning, and his cock – he didn’t dare pay it any attention. He had no idea what to do next.

  “Thank you,” he responded from knee-jerk scripting. “And you are well?”

  She smiled. This one was brave. Adrian could see how it took effort for her to summon it, how her eyes danced across his face, as if trying to read him. She was waiting for him to make the next move. To show her how it was done.

  Adrian cleared his throat. He was a smart man. He could figure this out. He knew it started with kissing. From there, surely, biology would kick in.

  Crossing the room to join her by the fire, Adrian stepped right in front of her. Closer than he’d ever been to a woman. Now he saw her pink nipples thrusting wantonly through the lace pattern. He didn’t know nipples could be so erect. He felt his own erection swell at the observation.

  Lisbeth stared up at him. She was so short. He wasn’t sure the mechanics of the kiss, considering she only came up to his shoulders. Adrian brought a trembling hand – he ordered it still before he touched her – to cup her neck, his thumb resting just before her ear. Her skin was soft, the kind of soft he could wish to caress forever. Her eyes closed at his touch. That was good; Ad
rian didn’t feel her hopes quite so much without her bright gaze watching him. Stooping, he closed his own eyes and pursed his lips, as he supposed one must for a kiss. He leaned in.

  And kept leaning, until suddenly he found himself breathing hair.

  He’d missed.

  He’d missed her lips.

  For god’s sake, he couldn’t even figure out how to kiss her. How was he ever going to figure out the rest of it?

  Lisbeth let out a little gasp at finding her husband rooting around her hair. Adrian tried to pass it off as intentional, burying his face further in the brown coiffure. “Your hair smells so good.”

  “Thank you.” After a moment, she added, “You smell divine, too.”

  Divine. That was a much better word for complimenting. And thank god Mr. Adkins had suggested the cologne.

  Withdrawing from the safety of her hair, Adrian beheld his wife’s face again. She still had her eyes closed, her chin upturned as she awaited her kiss.

  He had not disgusted her entirely yet, then.

  Holding her face in both his hands now, Adrian kept his eyes open as he leaned in. He watched her lips as he grew closer and closer. They were pink, thin, nicely shaped with a cupid’s bow at the top. And they were right there. Not moving. Hard to miss.

  This time, he didn’t miss. This time, his lips touched hers.

  It was softer than he expected. Stranger than he expected. Lovelier than he expected.

  She tasted of white wine. She felt like fire. His whole body – from his toes to his fingertips to his eager, throbbing cock – connected to her lips as one. He was nothing but this kiss. He wanted nothing but this kiss.

  Then Lisbeth’s hands reached up to his shoulders. The touch was light but so heavenly. She ran her fingers under the lapels of his dressing robe, drawing little lines across his chest that stoked the fire raging under his skin. Adrian dropped his own hands, tracing them down her neck, her shoulders, skipping down to her waist. And then, before he could overthink it, up to those pert nipples awaiting him under the wide lace loops.

  Lisbeth gasped again. Her eyes flew open as her mouth withdrew from his. Alarm clouded her irises.

  He dropped his hands. Clearly, that was not the thing. He stepped back.

  “Mr. Hathorne,” she said, her voice back to that high-pitched squeal.

  He’d done it wrong. He had offended her. Perhaps he had even hurt her.

  Adrian should have known he couldn’t do this.

  He gave her a little bow. “Madam. Sleep well.”

  And with that, he beat a hasty retreat back to the safety of his own rooms. Where he could spend the rest of the night wishing himself any fate but this.

  Three

  Chapter Three

  The morning sun was different in No. 73, Upper Norton Street than in her father’s townhouse. Lisbeth watched it rise through the narrow window afforded her bedchamber, which faced the common gardens behind the house. The sun was high in the sky before it could reach through her window, and even then it was so pale and weak that Lisbeth felt no warmth. The whole courtyard had a pall of gloom, with sickly hedge bushes protecting barren brown earth that might one day yield kitchen herbs.

  It matched her mood. Lisbeth didn’t know the exact details of a wedding night, but she knew that it wasn’t what her evening had turned into.

  Her cheeks burned as she remembered it. Of all things she’d feared about her marriage, the wedding night was not one of them. She was eager to understand what happened between man and woman, that act which seemed to obsess the entire population. She could not have love, but Lisbeth had thought she would at least have physical excitement.

  Instead, she had humiliation.

  Oh, Adrian had tried to be kind about it. But it was clear from the moment he crossed the door and looked at her with those glittering green eyes that she wasn’t what he wanted. How he stared at her. How he hesitated to come close. Before he entered the room, Lisbeth had felt bold and wanton in her lace negligee, a delicious, scandalous feeling that made her skin tingle in anticipation. He kissed her, and she thought perhaps she’d misinterpreted his eyes.

  Then he touched her. His fingers on her breasts – oh, it had been the most wicked feeling in the world. Lisbeth felt as if he had unlocked her. She thought her knees might buckle. She had nearly whimpered in desire.

  But the touch that unleashed her finished the whole affair for him. He’d thanked her, as if they’d completed their duty, and fled.

  She repulsed him.

  She knew that hadn’t been the sum of marital relations. He hadn’t even touched her between the legs. Lisbeth had explored that region herself enough to know it was key to pleasure between man and a woman. Adrian hadn’t even come near to it.

  Sighing, Lisbeth turned from the window and rang for Hannah. There was no use moping about it. She should have expected it, really. Adrian was the kind of handsome that stopped women in their tracks. He must be used to the same type of beauty. The breasts he cupped must usually be supple and overflowing. The faces he admired must be those of perfectly-sculpted goddesses. He could hardly be expected to celebrate a wife who was at best “lovely.”

  But that kiss. Oh, it had been a million times better than the one she’d stolen at Vauxhall Gardens last summer. That had been just a week before Lord Gresham formalized his offer for her. Lisbeth had snuck out to a public masquerade, with no one but Hannah as her chaperone. The world had been closing in around her, and she wanted one night where she had complete romance, before agreeing to a life with a man who she could at best call a friend. She had danced three waltzes, then accepted the arm of a tall, mustachioed man dressed as a pirate for a walk down a dark little path. He’d said sweet nothings, clichés that Lisbeth would normally have scoffed at, and then he’d kissed her.

  That had been exciting for how forbidden it was, no matter that his mustache prickled her skin and his lips tasted foully of tobacco.

  Adrian’s kiss, though, had been soft and sweet and perfect. Lisbeth could have kissed him all night.

  Well, you didn’t, she shook herself. No, there was no use dwelling in that which she couldn’t change. Lisbeth had never spent much time worrying that her looks weren’t enough, not until the matter with Lord Gresham, and she did not intend to make it a permanent feature of her personality.

  She would treasure the delicious kiss as an adventure, and she wouldn’t worry about whether there would be another. She had plans to carry out, and one day they would include a passionate love affair with a man who couldn’t take his hands off her. For now, she was content to begin establishing her household.

  Her chin-up philosophy carried her cheerfully for the entirety of half an hour, until she entered the breakfast room and discovered her husband at the other end of the table.

  Her devastatingly handsome husband.

  Just the smell of his cologne – a warm spice that spread across the room – heated her skin. Swallowing against her physical reaction, Lisbeth assembled a breakfast plate and took her seat. “Good morning, Mr. Hathorne.”

  Adrian looked up from the broadside he’d been reading. “Good morning, Mrs. Hathorne.”

  Lisbeth almost asked him how he had slept, but she stopped before the words left her lips. She didn’t want to know that he’d slept soundly, when she’d been up all night with humiliation, nor did she want to hear that he’d tossed and turned in regret of his choice in wife.

  “What are your plans today?” Adrian asked.

  Lisbeth wondered if he inquired only for the sake of conversation, or if he was truly curious how his wife would spend her time. “This morning I would like to sit down with Mrs. Siswell to understand the housekeeping accounts. Then this afternoon, a friend of mine is hosting a tea, which I should like to attend. As for this evening, should I plan on dining with you here, or will you be eating elsewhere?”

  Adrian blinked at her with those long, beautiful lashes. She almost forgot what she had just asked, remembering how he had lower
ed his eyes to her right before their kiss.

  “We will eat at home tonight,” he responded. “Who are you having tea with this afternoon?”

  “Lady Gresham.” Lisbeth tossed it out, curious if he would react. The lady – who insisted Lisbeth call her Annabelle – had sent a note around when she first got to town a month ago, apologizing again for the scandal and inviting Lisbeth to join her weekly salon. Lady Cecilia had refused on Lisbeth’s behalf, but Annabelle’s teas were quickly earning a reputation among the ladies for being highly political, and Lisbeth was eager to go.

  Adrian swallowed his bite of toast, then regarded Lisbeth with the blankest of expressions. “You are friends with Lady Gresham?”

  Lisbeth smiled. “I must be grateful to her, mustn’t I? If not for her, I would be married to Lord Gresham, and not you.”

  For the briefest of moments, his expression changed, into the same wide-eyed horror he’d worn after touching her breasts. Then it smoothed back into a careful canvas that revealed nothing.

  But Lisbeth had seen it. And her stomach dropped. For it was true: he regretted their marriage. Already.

  “I have heard of Lady Gresham’s teas,” Adrian said, picking up his knife to slather jam on toast. “She encourages political talk.”

  “Yes, precisely why I want to go. Today’s topic is the use of transportation as punishment. I’m quite eager to learn more about it.”

  When he looked up at her from his toast, Adrian’s gaze did not feel blank or friendly at all. There was suddenly a cold anger in his green eyes. “You misunderstand me. The fact that I have heard of Lady Gresham’s teas is not an endorsement. It is the exact opposite. They are no place for you, my wife, to go.”

  For a moment, all Lisbeth could do was stare at him. If not for good breeding, her mouth would have hung open all the way to the tabletop. As it were, she saw nothing but red-hot fury.

  “You misunderstand me, sir,” she finally responded, her words barely coming out whole in her agitation. “I was not asking for your permission.”