The Husband Plot Read online

  Then Mr. Clarke entered. He wore a resplendent costume, with gold piping across his jacket that gleamed in candlelight. His very step told the story of his character, the honest courtier who was torn between loyalty to his friends and to his king. Lisbeth leaned forward, ready to be lost in the magic of a master actor.

  But where usually she could dismiss her surroundings – once, she had even attended the theater despite monthly cramps that felt like knives stabbing her womb – Lisbeth found herself thinking too hard about who Mr. Clarke was. She analyzed each syllable of his perfect accent trying to detect if he was hiding a Jamaican flair. She watched his skin glow darkly in the candlelight and wondered if he felt it as a brand, proclaiming him to everyone he saw as an Other. She saw his eyes rake across the audience and wondered if he was seeking reactions, if he was measuring them for acceptance or rebuke.

  She was aware the whole time of Adrian beside her, hands clasped carefully across his lap.

  The audience applauded Mr. Clarke thrice: once after his first monologue, again when he killed one of the scheming courtiers, and the third time when he leapt from the tower set piece to his character’s tragic suicide. Lisbeth clapped along, though she barely felt the energy of the play, and saw both Lord Everly and Lord Brabourne across the way sitting conspicuously still.

  When the play ended, the general audience stamped their feet on the floor to show appreciation, and Mr. Clarke was greeted with a wolf whistle as he bowed. Lisbeth beat her hands together gratefully. The newspapers had made a show of decrying his performance, at best saying he couldn’t distinguish himself from the rest of the players in the company, but it was clear from the audience that Mr. Clarke was a talent. If only she had been able to relax and enjoy the performance.

  “That’s what I call tragedy,” Robert said, leaning forward and slapping a hand on Adrian’s shoulder. “I need nothing else in an evening but a good suicide scene.”

  Adrian shrugged off his cousin’s grasp. “You have always had a greater appetite for melodrama than I have.”

  “What did you think, cousin Lisbeth?” Robert’s face pivoted towards her, so close that she could smell tobacco on his breath. He did it in a friendly manner, with the non-threatening nonchalance of a man who could occupy any space he desired. Still, Lisbeth resented it.

  She stepped back as much as she could as she answered, though that meant backing into the wall that divided her from the next box. “The actors were excellent. The play itself was mediocre.”

  “She has a discerning eye, your wife,” Robert said to Adrian. “What do you say, shall we go find out what their lordships thought of Mr. Clarke after all?”

  Adrian’s eyes betrayed no emotion, neither humor nor ire nor sorrow. He almost looked like he would acquiesce.

  Lisbeth couldn’t let him shuttle over to submit to more of those silent nods. She seized his arm in supplication. “Oh no, please, can’t we go meet Mr. Clarke backstage? I should so like to praise him in person.”

  Adrian looked down at her in surprise. His eyes flicked to her grip, as if he was surprised she dared touch him in public. Lowering her fingers to wrap around his, she fluttered her eyelashes as prettily as she could.

  “There’s an idea,” Robert said, a little heartless laugh ending his words. “That will certainly show Everly what you think of the whole issue.”

  Resisting the urge to glare at Robert – or roll her eyes at him – Lisbeth focused her energy on Adrian. She willed him to ignore whatever strange hold the lords had over him, to instead set those green eyes on her and see her. She could help him change how he navigated London; she knew it in her core. If only he would let her, Lisbeth could free Adrian to smile whenever he wanted, not only when it was safe.

  Adrian folded his hand around hers and drew her knuckles to his lips. “It’s best we retire for the evening. After all, it has been a long day, and you must be tired.”

  Lisbeth almost reared back in anger. Almost. Had he said it the day before, she would have let loose her tongue, for no husband of hers had the right to decide when she was too tired to do anything.

  But in that moment, Lisbeth knew two things: Adrian was trying to win her over, and there was more to this situation than she understood.

  She decided to give him the benefit of the doubt. For Robert’s benefit, she even manufactured a grateful smile. “I’m not used to having so perceptive a husband. I shall work harder if I want to keep anything a secret from you.”

  Adrian’s grip on her hand tightened. He tucked her close to his side, her palm resting on the ridge of his elbow, where she could feel the muscle and heat of his body. They bade goodbye to Mary and the duchess, then waded through the crowds on the stairwell. It was only when they were standing at the entrance, awaiting their carriage, that Adrian said in a murmur so low she almost missed it, “Thank you for going along with that.”

  Lisbeth had to tilt her head to an angle in order to see his face. She was tempted to ask him to explain the dynamics she hadn’t understood, but then she caught the expression in his eyes. The emotion written across his face.

  He was smiling. He was grateful. He was human.

  She decided she didn’t need to understand the whys, not just now. For the moment, she would simply enjoy her husband unmasked.

  Ten

  Chapter Ten

  Adrian couldn’t believe what a day it had been. When he’d woken, still angry and lost from his argument with Lisbeth, Adrian had expected a quiet weekday. He had planned to meet Robert at Carraway’s to discuss their insurance claims for The Crawler and put out word that they were in the market for a new ship.

  Instead, he had been threatened with an annulment, kissed his wife in the rain, and withstood insults at the theater.

  And somehow, after all that, he wasn’t even tired.

  He’d said goodnight to Lisbeth anyhow, since the clock struck one as their carriage returned them to Upper Norton Street. She had been quiet on their ride, twisting the fingers of her gloves rather than filling the air with chatter. Adrian imagined she was something more than exhausted, given all the excitement of the box. For a moment there at the end of the play, he had been afraid she would insist on meeting Mr. Clarke; he didn’t know if he would have picked a fight with her there in front of all of London, or acquiesced and earned the ire of Lord Everly.

  Having Everly as an ally was essential to inheriting Inglewilde Plantation.

  But so, too, was having Lisbeth’s good graces.

  In any case, it had worked out. Lisbeth had miraculously cooperated, and now she was safe in bed, where surely she was enjoying sweet dreams.

  For his part, Adrian had retired straight to his bedchamber with a healthy serving of brandy. Mr. Adkins had pressed his best nightshirt again, but Adrian eschewed it for his oldest, a soft muslin that hugged his skin. Here, in the privacy of his chambers, with all the servants dismissed and his wife in her own rooms, Adrian could care for comfort over fashion. In the chair by his fire, he opened his mother’s locket, staring at the curl of hair he kept inside as if it would provide him the comfort he needed.

  Adrian had only select memories of either of his parents. His father hadn’t often visited the nursery, but when he did, he was jovial and had presents for them and made them laugh. His mother, Rebecca, was more reserved, though Adrian remembered it as serene, always wearing the perfect clothes, not a hair out of place. She’d had beautiful black hair that tumbled softly around her shoulders when she let it out, so unlike the wiry halo around their nurse’s hair.

  She had died a year after Adrian landed in England. She hadn’t seen them to the wharf, instead pressing her final kiss to Adrian’s cheek in the cool darkness of her bedroom. “Don’t forget who you are,” she’d said. Adrian wasn’t sure if she meant it as inspiration or as warning.

  His father had loved her. Adrian knew that for sure, from his own memory of how they exchanged looks over the breakfast table as well as from what his father wrote about her in letters
. Adrian believed she had returned that love, though men like Lord Everly whispered she had only married him for his whiteness. After all, her own grandmother had been a slave; she needed a white protector if she expected to stay a free, wealthy person.

  Adrian wondered what his mother would make of his life now. How would she feel about him marrying the first Englishwoman who would have him? What of his plans for the Hathorne sugar plantation – would she applaud him, or scoff at the idealist who wanted to throw away a fortune?

  A knock at the door roused him from his musings. At first, he thought it had come from the corridor, but then another, meeker knock sounded, and he realized it was Lisbeth from their private entrance.

  “Just a moment,” he called, scrambling to his feet. He couldn’t greet her in the sack of a nightshirt, nor did he want her to see his mother’s locket. Throwing the latter around his neck, he shrugged into his dressing robe and finally opened the door.

  Lisbeth’s smile was small and self-conscious. “I know we are in courting this week. However, I find that I’m feeling far too unsettled to sleep. I thought perhaps we could keep each other company with some conversation.”

  She wore a different night rail than the suggestive, revealing lace of their wedding night, but this one was so thin that he could see almost straight through it. Rosy nipples. The curve of her hips. A dark triangle at her legs. He lost all thought for a moment, relishing the sight of her.

  Then he swallowed. “Perhaps we should keep the door closed, for propriety’s sake.”

  Lisbeth blinked, then nodded.

  Adrian shut the door. He slid down to sit on the ground beside it. The back of his hand rested against the cool oak. He tried not to think of Lisbeth on the other side, practically naked. “Robert and I used to stay up all night doing this,” he said. “We didn’t dare leave our rooms for fear of waking the nurse, but we could hear each other clear as crystal through the walls, so we would sit up together, talking the night away.”

  “Ah, you did break some rules, now and then.” He could hear the smile curling her words. She had smiled easily for Robert earlier, when she and Mary hung against the banister and laughed at whatever Robert was saying. Adrian supposed she had already discovered she had married the wrong cousin; she would never ask for an annulment from dashing, gregarious Rob.

  He pushed away such ugly thoughts. “I paid the price for it the next day, for I don’t function well without sleep. Robert can waltz around just as well on one hour as on eight, but I turn into an angry, useless mop if I don’t get a proper slumber.”

  “The next time you are angry, then, I shall accuse you of sleeplessness.”

  Adrian had never focused on Lisbeth’s voice before. He was always too busy watching her pretty lips for a smile or stealing glimpses of her dark brown irises. Now, though, her voice was all he had. She spoke a little lazily, sometimes speeding over the middle of words, and with a bit of a country lilt that made her sentences more melodic.

  “Robert is so easy to agree with,” she continued. “I imagine he led you into quite a bit of trouble in your life.”

  “I learned early on not to follow him. He can get away with pranks, but not me.” Adrian had learned this the hard way the one and only time he joined Robert in mischief, when they poured vinegar in the communion wine. The vicar had caught them both in the act: Robert had been sent on his merry way while ten-year-old Adrian was forced to drink the vinegar as punishment.

  That wasn’t a story he needed to revisit.

  “May I ask you a question?” Lisbeth shifted on her side; Adrian could hear some part of her body press against the door. He tried not to imagine her bare ankles, her soft arms, her round bottom.

  “Of course,” he said.

  “My father told me that you were looking for a wife to claim your inheritance because of some Jamaican law. Tonight, Lord Everly mentioned a privilege bill. If you are your father’s son by marriage, why do you need Lord Everly involved to claim your inheritance?”

  Adrian took in a breath, holding it inside his lungs as he let the question wash over him. He should have known Lisbeth would pay attention to Everly’s words.

  The inquiry itself didn’t pain him, nor did the answer. They were simply facts. Still, Adrian heard a trace of anger in his own voice as he explained, “In Jamaica, legitimacy does not matter so much as race. My mother was the daughter of a mulatto and a Scotsman. That makes me a quadroon. People like me, by which I mean people whose skin is not white as milk, do not have rights in Jamaica. If my father died, he could only leave me two thousand pounds as a legacy. No small sum, of course, but it is only a percentage of his fortune. However, since I am three generations away from an African, my father can apply for a privilege bill, which would make an exception for me and my descendants, to be treated with the privileges of white men.”

  He paused, trying to school his tone to be matter-of-fact. “I am not guaranteed any privileges. My father decided to bolster my claim by sending me to be raised by my grandparents, to go to school at Eton, and to marry an Englishwoman. All of this establishes me as English, invested in the interests of the kingdom, and not aligned with my mother’s ancestry.”

  “In other words, they do not want to give wealth to an African man,” Lisbeth said.

  “If I considered myself African, I might do something heretical, like free my slaves.” Adrian regretted it as soon as he said it. He knew better than to even joke about something like that. Lisbeth might actually believe him. “As it is, I know all too well how the Hathorne fortune relies on labor in the sugar fields. I need slavery just as much as Lord Everly and Lord Brabourne and the rest of the West Indian lobby does, if we are to maintain our fine lifestyles.”

  Lisbeth’s voice dipped low in discouragement. “That’s why you didn’t want to offend Lord Everly. You need him to convince the rest of the Assembly to approve your privilege bill.”

  “Among other reasons. The West Indian lobby is incredibly powerful. Hathorne Shipping has a number of expansions planned that rely on their support.” Adrian stretched his legs out so his slippered feet braced against the baseboards. His temple was beginning to ache from thinking too much of Everly. It was time to change the subject. “May I ask you a question?”

  Lisbeth responded to the lightness in his tone with a smile; he could hear it again as she answered, “Yes, it’s only fair.”

  “Did you love Lord Gresham?”

  “Love him?” That she was shocked – and perhaps offended – was obvious in her tone. “No. Lord Gresham is a nice man. He didn’t seem like he would be an overbearing husband, and I didn’t have any other offers. But I didn’t love him.”

  Adrian couldn’t help grinning. “Then why did you decide to marry a man you had never met rather than try another Season? I’m sure you would have found a better option than me.”

  “You’ve clearly never been through a Season. It is an endless drone of people who think they are more interesting than they are, judging each other based on completely irrelevant attributes. They are all so bored, they jump at the whisper of a scandal. And here am I, jilted at the altar in favor of the most beautiful woman of Quality. All people think when they see me is how poor I am in comparison to Annabelle. They pity me. The best I could hope for is some matron feeling so sorry for me that she would fob me off on a fortune hunter.” This all came out as a string of fast, heated words. Lisbeth paused, inhaling so deeply that Adrian could almost feel her sucking his air from beneath the door. “Marrying you meant I didn’t have to go to a single ball.”

  Adrian hadn’t met this Annabelle. He’d heard about her, from Lisbeth and Robert and even a few of the fellows at Carraway’s. He couldn’t see how any woman would be so beautiful that Lord Gresham would cast Lisbeth to the wolves.

  “I hope at the end of this week, you don’t regret that decision anymore,” he said.

  On her side, Lisbeth was quiet.

  “Are you getting tired at last?” Adrian asked.

>   “A little. Are you?”

  He didn’t feel tired at all. His whole body hummed from the conversation, or perhaps from knowing that Lisbeth on the other side wore nothing but her translucent nightgown. “A little.”

  She turned the conversation to the theater, first asking what Adrian thought of Mr. Clarke’s performance, then soliciting his opinion on the play in general. They had both seen enough theater that they could compare notes on favorite styles; Lisbeth adored a melodrama with huge set pieces, while Adrian preferred understated performances and subtle plots. This bled into their poetry tastes, too, with Lisbeth confessing adoration for Lord Byron while Adrian preferred William Cowper.

  “I’m so glad you adore the arts as much as I do,” Lisbeth sighed at one point. “The day before our wedding, Lord Gresham took me for a tour in his gallery, and he couldn’t say one intelligent thing about any of the paintings. I thought I might die if I had to marry him.”

  Adrian smiled. “You’re lucky, then, that Annabelle showed up to save you.”

  “Truly, I am. Look at me now. I can go to the theater whenever I want. I can be a patroness of the arts, with my own playwright and poet and painter to follow me around. I doubt Lord Gresham would have made room for such a lifestyle.”

  Her words were growing even more careless, a sign that she must be getting tired. Adrian prodded, “And you can do that now? I wasn’t aware I had signed a cheque for any artists.”

  “Not yet. But you’re leaving for Kingston before the winter. Then I shall be a married gentlewoman in London. I shall be able to do whatever I want.”

  What she said was true. Adrian couldn’t explain why it made his stomach clench. Or why it made him say in a mulish, ugly tone, “That’s assuming you don’t sue to annul the marriage.”

  Lisbeth only sighed wistfully. “Yes, that’s assuming you decide to stop ordering me about whenever I have a different opinion than you.”