‘Carry on with the packing, Susan.’
‘Yes, my lady, if you’re sure.’
Rather more soberly now, Susan folded and stowed Mary’s new clothes into her old portmanteau while Mary got washed and dressed. Rather shakily.
Her whole body hurt, not just her heart. How could she have let him reduce her to this shivering, quivering wreck of a woman?
Without even trying, that was the most galling thing. He hadn’t made any pretty speeches, or given her flowers, or anything. He’d just brusquely told her his requirements, more or less snapped his fingers, and she’d gone trotting after him, all eager to please. Had kept on trying to please him, day after day.
Even though she knew it was pointless.
Because she’d read that horrid list.
A list, she recalled on a mounting wave of bitterness, she’d had to fit, to pass muster. When she’d had to accept him exactly as he was.
Which was completely and totally unfair.
She came to a dead halt in the middle of the floor, pain and resentment surging through her.
If he could measure out her worth according to some stupid list, then why shouldn’t she treat him to a dose of his own medicine?
Uttering a growl of frustration, she stormed over to the table under the window where she’d taken to sitting to write her correspondence, pulled out a fresh sheet of paper, trimmed her pen and stabbed it into the inkwell.
What I want from a husband, she wrote at the top of the page, underlining the I twice.
Need not have a penny to his name, she wrote first, recalling his stipulation that his bride need not have a dowry.
Can be plug-ugly, she wrote next, recalling how hurt she’d been by his stipulation she need not be pretty, so long as he will love his wife and treat her like a queen, not a scullery maid.
Said love will include respecting his wife, being kind to her and listening to her opinions.
Not only will he listen to her opinions, she wrote, underlining the word listen, he will consider them before he pitches her into a situation she would naturally shrink from.
Won’t deny his wife the right to feel like a bride on her wedding day.
Will appreciate having any living relatives—underlining the word any twice.
Need not have a title. But if he has one, it ought to be one he earned. One lieutenant in his Majesty’s navy, she explained, remembering her own brother’s heroic deeds and his death fighting the enemies of her country, is worth a dozen viscounts.
By that time, she’d reached the bottom of the page. And splattered as much ink over the writing desk as she’d scored into the paper.
And had realised what a futile exercise it was.
She wasn’t married to a plug-ugly man who treated her like a queen. She was married to a handsome, wealthy lord, who thought it was enough to let her spend his money however she wanted.
She flung the quill aside, got to her feet and went to the bed, on which Susan had laid out her coat and bonnet.
The coat in which she’d got married. With such high hopes.
Before she’d read his vile list and discovered what he really thought of her.
Well, futile it might be, but she was jolly well going to let him know what she thought of him, too. Before she walked out of his house and his life.
Telling Susan she could go and collect her own things, Mary buttoned up the coat and pinned on her hat.
Then snatched up the list she’d just written, stormed along the corridor to the horrid blue room where her husband had taken up residence and slapped the list on to the bed.
And then, recalling the way the list he’d written had ended up fluttering across the floor when the door shut, and knowing she was on the verge of slamming the one to this room on her way out any second now, she wrenched out her hatpin and thrust it through the list, skewering it savagely to his pillow.
And with head held high, she strode along the corridor, down the stairs and out of his house.
* * *
God, but it had been a long day. He’d kept putting off returning to Mayfield, knowing that when he did return, Mary would have gone. But Julia was tired, cold and hungry, and in the end he’d had to bring her back. Had come upstairs to get changed for dinner.
The first dinner of his married life that he’d have to face without his wife at his table.
He had at least the satisfaction of knowing he’d done what he could to make sure her journey would be as easy as he could make it, without actually going with her. She’d been able to use the travelling coach, which had only just come back from the workshop. He hadn’t had to hire a chaise, and leave her in the care of strangers. Gilbey was an excellent whip. And she had a maid to save her from impertinent travellers at the stops on the way. He—
He came to a halt just inside the door to his room, transfixed by the sight of a single sheet of paper, staked to his pillow by what looked remarkably like a hatpin.
So she had left a farewell note. He’d wondered if she would. Heart pounding, he strode across to the bed, hoping that she... She what? A note that was staked to his bed with a symbolically lethal weapon was hardly going to contain the kinds of fond parting words he wanted to read, was it?
But it might at least give him a clue as to where he’d gone wrong with her. Why she’d withdrawn from him when, to start with, she’d seemed so eager to please. So eager to please, in fact, that after her first refusal, he’d told himself she must be going through that mysterious time of the month that afflicted every woman of childbearing age. It had only been when she’d kept on refusing to allow him into her bed that the chill reality struck.
She simply didn’t want him any more.
Well, hopefully, this note would explain why.
He snatched it up and carried it to the window, so he could make out the words in the fading light of late afternoon.
Only to see the words What I want from a husband scrawled across the top of the page.
With the word I underlined.
A chill stole down the length of his spine as he scanned the whole page. Because it wasn’t just a damning indictment of all his faults. It was worse, far worse than that.
The way she’d set it out, even the way she’d underlined certain words, the very choice of words she’d used—all of it meant she must have read the damn stupid list he and his friends had written, the night he’d decided he was going to start looking for a wife.
A list he’d never meant her to know about, let alone read.
No wonder she hadn’t wanted to sleep with him any more. She must be so hurt....
No—that
