Page 29 of Not his Marchioness (Daughters of the Ton #2)

“Did you see him?” Margot whispered with a wicked grin. “The way he looked at you?”

“Stop it,” Charlotte hissed, though her cheeks flushed.

For fifteen minutes, Margot had been recounting every detail of the property search—the tumble into the pond, and Rhys’s gallant rescue.

“He no longer looks at you like a puzzle he cannot solve,” Margot said. “Now, he looks at you as though you are the answer.”

“He does not.”

“How romantic it must have been,” Marianne teased. “A veritable rescue!”

Evelyn and their aunt laughed along.

“It was covered in grass—I could not see the depth,” Charlotte scoffed, though her smile betrayed her.

“Well, it must have been exciting,” Evelyn insisted. “And you said yourself that he rescued you. Were you not the least bit moved?”

Charlotte wanted to protest, but her skin still tingled at the memory of Rhys’s touch.

“It does not matter,” she said firmly. “All is well now. I have found a location, and Lady Woodhaven has given her approval.”

“Even though it was a Catholic church?” Aunt Eugenia asked.

“It was not a church. It was first a convent, and before that, a Jewish house of worship, and before that, a poorhouse. It has served many purposes for the community, which makes it ideal.”

“Well, I suppose Lady Woodhaven is more reformed than we thought,” Marianne mused.

“She is,” Charlotte affirmed. “I was quite wrong about her. She is far more forward-thinking than many ladies I know.”

It was true. She had tea with Lady Woodhaven only the day before and presented her with three potential sites. Lady Woodhaven had agreed to view the second and third. That very evening, she had written, declaring the third location perfect and pledging to raise funds at once.

Charlotte had been elated, so much so that she had rushed to Rhys’s study, only to find him gone. She had searched the entire house, even the conservatory, a place she adored but which he seemed to avoid for whatever reason.Alas, she hadn’t found him.

The butler had informed her that Rhys had gone out, so he did not know his whereabouts.

She had remembered that it had been some time since her husband had visited the rookeries or engaged in similar behavior, but whenever he disappeared until nightfall without informing her where he was going or when she might expect him back, she could not help but assume his location.

Disappointed, she had returned to her chamber. He had been quite excited the following day when she had told him, and they had spent some time debating the next steps. Still, the distance between them had remained.

It didn’t help that while they were talking, she constantly thought back to the way his hands had felt on her body, and how much she would like to feel them again.

But those thoughts were immediately replaced by images of what she assumed he had been up to the night before—visiting lightskirts, drinking until the morning hours, while she had sat alone at home, reading about female emancipation by an author long dead, one who had never achieved what she had set out to do.

Was she doomed to end up like Mary Wollstonecraft? Only dabbling in her dreams, just to see it all come to nothing?

“You are looking at him as though he were a slice of plum cake,” Margot commented.

Charlotte looked back at her. “I am not. I was simply thinking about… nothing.”

“You know,” Evelyn interjected, “I think he cares for you. I’ve seen the way he looks at you when he thinks you can’t see. There is a certain longing in his eyes. The same kind of longing I have seen in yours when you look at him.”

“I do not long for him,” Charlotte protested, knowing it was a lie. “He doesn’t care for me. I am… I am a convenience to him, just as he is a convenience to me. In fact, he went to visit one of his female friends just the other night.”

That silenced her company. Marianne was the first one to speak, while the others were still gathering their thoughts.

“He said so? What do you assume so?”

“I am certain he did. He disappeared in the evening and did not come back until who knows when. I believe the sun was already rising. He did the same thing on our wedding night.”

“I cannot believe that,” Aunt Eugenia said. “Have you asked him where he was?”

“It is not my place to ask him about his whereabouts. I will not be a fishwife haranguing my husband, who isn’t even my husband in anything but name. He owes me nothing but the terms to which we have agreed. And those terms are almost fulfilled.”

“You truly believe that?” Evelyn asked. “You do not think there’s anything more?

When Nathaniel and I were first wed, I didn’t believe there could ever be anything between us.

But I’ve come to learn that if I had only spoken to him sooner—if I had told him how I felt—he would have confessed his feelings for me too, and we could have been happy much sooner. ”

“Rhys and I are not you and Nathaniel,” Charlotte argued. “It is different. Entirely different. I wish it were not, but it is.”

She couldn’t admit to any of them that her feelings for her husband had grown exponentially more intense over the past few days. It didn’t seem to matter that he kept his distance, that he ran hot and cold. Her heart wanted him. Her mind wanted him. All of her wanted him.

But knowing that he didn’t want her—that he preferred the company of women of ill repute—hurt more than she could express.

“Goodness, Lady Sandler,” Evelyn gasped, and Charlotte turned around.

“Oh, that harlot,” Aunt Eugenia said uncharacteristically, for she was usually the picture of refinement and politeness. “Dear, I think your husband is trying to get your attention.”

“Indeed. I think he wants you to rescue him,” Evelyn said with a chuckle. “Isn’t that part of your wifely duties?”

Charlotte looked over and saw Rhys with a woman. She was older than them, their senior by at least ten years, but it was clear she did not care about numbers. She was dressed much younger, with more skin exposed than was proper.

Under normal circumstances, Charlotte would have admired her independence, her indifference to societal conventions.

But as she saw the older woman standing so close to Rhys, touching his shoulder on occasion as she moved, she couldn’t admire her.

She couldn’t even consider her sisters’ words that Rhys might wish her to rescue him.

All she could think was that here he was again, with another woman. Showering her with attention. Looking at her with a smile on his lips. While she was nothing to him.

She was nothing but an obligation, no more than a dog or a cat kept only for catching the mice in the barn. She was nothing to him.

Her hands curled into fists, and blood rushed to her ears. When he smiled at Lady Sandler, something inside her snapped. She was halfway across her uncle’s garden, hearing her sisters call her name in utter confusion, when she realized what she was doing.

She was marching toward her husband.

Lady Sandler took a step back as she approached, and for a moment, Charlotte almost saw herself from the woman’s perspective: an enraged young girl charging forward like an angry bull. All that was missing was her red gown and steam coming out of her ears.

“Lady Ravenscar!” Lady Sandler squeaked. “How good to see you.” She curtsied to signify the difference in their stations.

“Lady Sandler, I am afraid I must borrow my husband for a moment.” Charlotte emphasized the word husband as though it were a weapon.

Lady Sandler blinked so rapidly that bits of charcoal fell from her eyelashes, but she turned and left.

Charlotte took Rhys’s arm and led him into the house. “What are you doing?”

“Me?” he said, obviously perplexed. “I was conversing with a guest at your uncle’s tea party. But what is it you are doing? You charged across the garden as though there were a fire.”

Fire…

Her mind flashed back to what Margot had told her once—that she would know when it caught fire. Well, something had caught fire, but it wasn’t whatever Margot had imagined between them.

“You were flirting in front of all these people. Our entire charade will come to naught.”

Two lines appeared between his eyebrows. “I do not know what you speak of. A guest came to me, and I conversed with her. It was nothing more. I certainly have no interest in her any more than I did in Lady Clarissa. But… are you jealous?”

“No!” she hissed, the word bursting forth like a shot from a catapult. “I am most certainly not jealous. You are free to do whatever you please. You are free to do whatever you wish to do. But I will not have you display your rakish ways in front of all these people.”

Rhys grabbed her by the shoulders and looked at her with a sternness she had never before seen.

“The only person drawing attention to us right now is you, by acting the way you are. There is nothing between me and any of those ladies. As for my rakish ways, I did not intend to reform, but it seems I have. I have not seen the inside of a gentlemen’s club since I married you.”

“Then where were you last night?” she asked.

And then it dawned on her that she sounded like a jealous wife. She had to stop right now.

She shrugged his hands off her and shook her head. “It does not matter. Wherever you were, whatever you did, it does not matter. You can have as many mistresses as you wish.”

“That is very gracious of you. I believe most wives would not be quite so liberal regarding their husbands’ affairs, but I thank you. And yet I must tell you that I have no interest in taking a mistress. Certainly not Lady Sandler.”

“Oh.” The wind had been knocked from her sails. “Well, whatever lady you prefer, you shall have her—just as soon as our arrangement is over.”

“Very well. I have a meeting with the Duke of Windsor soon. Once I can be certain that our partnership is solid, and once you and Lady Woodhaven have bought the building, then there will be no further reason for us to fake a happy marriage. Have you decided which property you wish to take? The townhouse or the country estate? Or shall I buy you another house?”

She took a breath, the cold winter air stabbing her lungs. Why had her uncle decided to host a tea party in the garden in November? True, it had been unseasonably warm, but it seemed so odd—and yet strangely fitting.

“I have not decided.”

“Well, you have to. Because the time will be here before you know it.”

And then Rhys walked past her, back out into the garden.

She watched him cross the grass to where his friend Gideon was sitting beside another gentleman. Then, he sat, grabbed a glass filled with brown liquid, and drained it.

As she watched, she felt as though her heart were truly breaking. She had known for days that their union would soon be over, that they would both be free. But the truth was, she didn’t want to be free of him.

She wanted him. She wanted them to be together. She wanted him to love her. She wanted to be allowed to love him.

But she understood now that that was foolish, and would never be.