him know exactly how upset she was, she’d sacrificed what little pride she might have held on to. She’d hoped to leave Mayfield with her dignity intact. Instead, she’d made herself look utterly ridiculous. Emotional and attention-seeking. Why, she’d always despised women who created scenes in futile attempts to get bored husbands to notice them. And wasn’t that more or less what she’d done, staking her list of complaints to his pillow in that melodramtic fashion? Oh, if only she’d ripped it up and thrown it on the fire before she left.
A cold chill slithered down her spine and took root in her stomach as she saw that there were far worse things than being secretly in love with a man who didn’t handle sentiment well. Forfeiting his respect, to start with. At least before she’d written her stupid list of complaints, she’d had that much.
But there was no undoing it. She’d written it. He’d no doubt found it and read it by now.
And probably despised her for getting all emotional about what was supposed to have been a practical arrangement.
With feet like lead, Mary went to the writing desk and sank on to the chair. She’d known she’d be alone in London, but now she’d made her husband despise her, she felt it twice as keenly.
She’d write to her aunt Pargetter, that’s what she’d do. She needn’t admit she’d made a total mess of her marriage. She could focus on all the jobs that needed doing at Durant House and ask her for practical advice on that score. She was, after all, the very person to know where she could find everything and everyone she might need.
She carefully refrained from saying anything about her state of mind, but couldn’t help ending with just one sentence stressing how very glad she would be to see her aunt and that she would be at home whenever her aunt wished to call round.
Then she rang for Susan, who said she would give the letter to one of the footmen to take round immediately. It was on the tip of her tongue to say there was no need for the man to turn out at this time of night, when it occurred to her that it might be better to have the servants falling over themselves to impress her. Better than having them virtually ignore her, the way they’d done at Mayfield, in any event.
She’d regretted uttering that veiled threat about dismissing staff, upon arrival, because in truth she didn’t have the heart to turn a single one of them out, not when she knew only too well what it felt like to get evicted. Particularly not after Mrs Romsey had told her the peculiar nature of their contracts. When there were no tenants her husband’s agent had let them all stay on, for bed and board, rather than go to the inconvenience of laying them all off, only to have to hire a fresh set all over again when the next tenants were due, making each of them regard Durant House as their home.
Eventually they’d realise there was plenty of work for them all, since she meant to restore Durant House to its former glory. They’d probably even realise she was too soft-hearted to carry through on her vague threat of dismissals. But for now, at least, they’d treat her with respect.
So it was with a cool smile that she handed the letter to Susan, then wearily succumbed to the maid’s suggestion she help her get ready for bed.
She was exhausted. The past couple of days had completely drained her. And yet, once Susan had left, Mary lay wide awake in her magnificent bed. The harder she strove to relax, the more her mind ran hither and thither, the same way the shadows flickered over the network of cracks in what had once been ornately decorated plaster. What was he doing, right now? Chatting away happily with his sister, no doubt. Talking about horses and people she didn’t know. He wouldn’t be aching to feel her in his arms, the way she was aching for him. Wishing she could curl into his big warm body. She’d got used to him rolling her into his side and keeping her plastered to him right through the night. As though he couldn’t bear the thought of letting so much as an inch creep between them. It had been bad enough sleeping alone when he’d been just along the corridor.
But it was far worse thinking of him in a different building altogether.
For a moment or two she couldn’t even recall why it had seemed so important to leave him. So what if he did prefer his sister? Couldn’t she have learned to live with that? Couldn’t she have put up with him only visiting her in bed from time to time? At least it would have been preferable to this...this distance she’d created. This vast gulf. A gulf he might never deign to cross, now she’d made such a fool of herself.
The thought that the only person she’d hurt, by writing that list and flouncing off to London, had been herself, was so painful that she curled into a ball and cried herself to sleep.
* * *
She’d always hated the months between Christmas and spring, but this year those months were going to be almost unbearable.
Each day she’d have to drag herself out of bed to face yet another seemingly endless day.
But drag herself out of bed she did. By the time Susan came in with her breakfast next morning, Mary was up and almost dressed. No matter how low she’d felt during the night, she was not going to lay about in bed all day wallowing in misery. She had a home, she had the security she’d always craved, more money than she’d ever dreamed of. And a title, to boot.
There were many people far worse off than her. And it would be downright ungrateful to dismiss all she did have because she was hankering after the one thing she could not have.
Anyway, it was bad enough knowing she’d made a mess of her marriage, without drawing attention to the fact and having people pity her.
It would be far better if nobody could guess, by looking at her, that she felt so dead inside.
In fact, it was a jolly good thing Durant House was such a wreck. Restoring it would be a project that would keep her busy, as well as gain favour from her husband. He’d said he would be for ever in her debt if she could make it more like a home....
She gave herself a mental slap. That was no way to get over him. Planning ways to gain his favour! She ought instead to use this time in London to get used to living without him. It was why she’d come, after all. Without him around, prodding at her bruised heart every five minutes with shows of indifference, it would soon start to heal.
Wouldn’t it?
Yes. The longer she stayed away from her husband, the easier it would become to be his wife. Hadn’t she always suspected that was the only sort of marriage that could work? She certainly hadn’t wanted the kind of clinging, cloying relationship she’d seen destroy her parents. That was what had made her tell him, at the outset, that the only man she might consider marrying would be a sailor, because she’d thought that when a man wasn’t around, he couldn’t hurt his wife.
Well, she knew now that was a load of rubbish. She still hurt, even though she’d created a distance between them. Perhaps even because she’d created a distance between them.
And now she couldn’t help recalling that those sailors’ wives she’d envied so much in her youth for having charge of a man’s income without having to put up with his beastly nature, never had looked as happy as she’d thought they should.
Because they were lonely. Lonely and miserable without the men they loved.
* * *
When Susan came to take away her breakfast tray, she also brought the news that Mary had visitors.
‘Mrs Pargetter. And her daughters. Say they are some sort of relations of yours,’ said
