Page 20 of Twelfth Night Sorcery (The Cambion Club #2)

“You wondered what?” Did she really say what he thought she said? Valance had expected another question about daily life or household expenses, not a question about his sexual habits.

“I wondered why you never come to my bed,” Lady Valance repeated. “We are married, so I assumed we would share a bed. Was I wrong?”

Valance gazed into the dying fire, as if it could offer some wisdom to sustain him through this conversation. But though there were said to be soothsayers who could see visions in a burning flame, the fire offered him no magical insight. He was on his own.

“You were not wrong,” he said at last. “As I told you, I do want an heir. Eventually. But although we are married, we are also strangers to each other. I did not think there was any need to rush into the physical side of marriage.”

He had thought that went without saying, but apparently not. Perhaps he should have explained this earlier. But there never seemed to be a good time to talk to his wife now that his mother lived with them.

“I understand that,” she said, in the voice of someone who believes they are being very patient, “but I don’t understand why you feel that way when you were perfectly willing to go to bed with me the night of the masquerade.”

Valance closed his eyes, knowing his head would start pounding any minute now. The questions were going to keep getting more complicated, weren’t they? “The situations are entirely different.”

He still felt ashamed of his behavior on Twelfth Night.

What had he been thinking, following a stranger out of the ballroom merely because she was beautiful?

The fact of the matter was that he had not been thinking at all.

He had merely been lusting. And he did not want to admit that to the woman who was now his wife.

In fact, he would rather never discuss that night again.

But he was not at all surprised when Lady Valance said: “Explain to me the difference.”

Valance glanced wistfully at his soft, warm bed, with its blankets invitingly turned down.

The warming pan would be cooling as they spoke.

No doubt the blankets would be freezing by the time he crawled into bed.

But he had told Lady Valance she could tell him whatever was bothering her.

He owed it to her to talk about this, awkward thought it might be.

“There is much more at stake in a marriage than in an assignation that lasts a single night.” Or a single hour, as the case might be.

“What do you mean at stake?” Lady Valance had already taken her hair down for the night; now she picked up a long strand and twisted it absently around her fingers.

As expected, his head began to throb. At least this time he had some of his usual pain medication close at hand on the dressing table. He opened the tin from George’s and popped one of the lozenges into his mouth.

The cool mint was soothing, but what he really needed for this conversation was a snifter of brandy.

If it were not so late, he would have rung for a servant to bring him one.

But the whole household would be abed at this hour, and it seemed selfish to wake someone up merely because he craved liquid courage.

He put the tin away, cleared his throat, and continued his explanation. “Imagine, for a moment, that we had done what you wanted the night of the masquerade—and not gotten caught.”

“That wouldn’t have been what I wanted,” she interrupted. “Getting caught was essential to my plan.”

Valance gritted his teeth, thereby undoubtedly adding to his headache.

He wanted to point out that the chances of them getting caught at precisely the right moment had never been high to begin with, making ruination an implausible solution to her problem.

Moreover, since she had not divulged the reason for her seduction, Valance would have done anything in his power to minimize the damage to her reputation even if they had been caught.

How could he have known she wanted to destroy her reputation?

But arguing that point would be a distraction from the real issue at hand. “Just imagine it,” he insisted.

“Very well. But why—”

He hurried to speak before she could ask another question. He struggled enough to keep up with one query at a time; he would never be able to keep track of the conversation if she started interjecting additional questions.

“If we had, er, engaged in amorous congress in a spare bedroom at Belmont Court, afterward we would simply have gone our separate ways. We might never have seen each other again, except perhaps in passing. And what we had done would not have mattered in the least.”

He knew this from experience. He still ran into Lady Morrow from time to time during the Season. When they met, they merely exchanged a few friendly words, as if they had never conducted a torrid affaire during a house party the summer after he left Oxford.

“It wouldn’t?”

“Well, if you had actually been married, as you claimed to be, I suppose it might have damaged your relationship with your husband,” he conceded.

“Depending on what his expectations were, that is.” A husband who had agreed in advance not to interfere with his wife’s amours might not have cared what she did in back corridors at parties.

“But it needn’t have mattered to us. Whether the encounter was a pleasant interlude or an unmitigated disaster, we could have shrugged it off, walked away and been none the worse for it. ”

The line between her brows deepened. Valance held his breath, knowing she was going to ask something else. But what?

“How could it have been a disaster?”

“Never mind that!” He scrambled to retain control of the conversation. “My point is, there would have been no ongoing entanglement between us. Neither of us were trying to get up a long-term affaire, right? Whether we were good together in bed or not wouldn’t have really mattered.”

It would not have mattered how well they could communicate, how strongly they were attracted to each other, or whether their desires were at all compatible. Problems that might put a strain on a marriage would have been easy enough to shrug off during a one-time tryst.

“Oh.” She frowned as she absorbed this. “And you think being married to each other makes that different?” She began to idly unwind the strand of hair wrapped around her finger. The sight was a little distracting, to be honest. It made Valance wonder what her silky hair would feel like in his hands.

“I am certain that it is different,” he said, speaking as patiently as he could.

It was not his wife’s fault that she knew so little about this subject.

Genteel young women were not allowed the sexual freedom wealthy young men enjoyed.

They were expected to be innocent, if not outright ignorant.

“We are not going to have a stitch once and never again. Whether things go well in bed or not, we are going to have to keep living with each other.”

And sleeping with each other, at least until a son was born.

After that they would be free to go their separate ways and find consolation, if such were needed, with other lovers.

That was not the marriage Valance had envisioned in his younger and more romantic days, but under the circumstances, it would hardly be fair to expect his wife to stay with him forever.

He stared moodily into the fire again, pondering the dog’s breakfast he’d made of his life.

When he was younger, he’d assumed he would someday have a large family like Sir John and Lady Carrington’s.

The sort of family where the children fought and loved with equal ferocity—and either discovered important new magical formulas or set fire to the dining room, depending on the day of the week.

But that no longer seemed like a reasonable desire.

“That was what I meant when I said there was more at stake now that we are married,” he concluded.

“And on top of all that, I was willing to, er, rendezvous with you in part because I was under the impression you knew what you were doing. I most certainly would not have followed you out of the ballroom if I had realized you were a virgin.”

She blinked at him. “What difference does that make?”

“It makes a considerable difference.” Valance spoke grimly; he did not have pleasant associations with this subject.

Most of his lovers had, of course, been experienced women.

He was not a rake, and he was not in the habit of seducing virgins.

Cherie had been the one exception, and their first coupling had gone so badly that he preferred never to think of it.

There had been blood, pain, and tears. So many tears.

Afterward, Cherie had dramatically informed him that she hated doing that, was never going to do it again, thought all men were beasts, and wanted to go home to her dear mother.

After that disaster, it had taken Valance weeks to convince Cherie to remain under his protection.

He had to woo her all over again with jewelry, flowers, sweets, and a tiny terrier puppy wearing a diamond-encrusted collar.

(She had been particularly charmed by that last gift, which might have tipped the scale in his favor.) Eventually, she welcomed Valance back into her bed, where things improved significantly.

But in hindsight, he wished he’d simply given Cherie a fat purse and sent her back home.

They would both have been happier in the long run.

“What on earth are you thinking about?” his wife asked. “You look like you are contemplating The Death of Marat.”

He laughed bitterly. “Something very like.” He lifted his eyes to study her face, catching her in a yawn. “My lady, you should go to bed. So should I. If you wish to speak more on this, we can do so another day.”

“But will you talk to me?” she asked bluntly. “Or will you run off to your club to get away from your mother?”

Valance winced. He had not realized it was so obvious why he left every afternoon. Could his mother tell, too? Or was Lady Valance particularly observant? He hoped his mother did not realize he left every day primarily to escape her.

“I will make time to talk to you,” he promised. “Perhaps we ought to get in the habit of conversing before bed.” He yawned, too. He had not been joking about needing sleep.

“Very well,” she said. “Good night.” And she left him alone.

As he’d suspected, the warming pan had gone cold during the conversation, and he shivered as he tucked the bedclothes about him.

A traitorous angel whispered in his ear: You would be warmer if you took your wife to bed with you.

He pulled a pillow over his head and refused to entertain that thought, appealing though it might be.

He had meant every word he said about his reasons for deferring such marital activities.

Tonight’s encounter had proven him correct.

A woman who was shocked into incoherence by the mere sight of her husband in his drawers would be even more appalled by the process of consummating the marriage.

Clearly it would take time before his wife became sufficiently accustomed to her new state in life.

Before he could drift off to sleep, a disturbing thought jarred him awake. For the first time, it occurred to him that although he must have spent hundreds of pounds on jewelry, flowers, and perfume when wooing Cherie Barbauld into a life of sin, he had not so much as given his wife a single rose.

He had not yet presented the new viscountess with any of the Valance family’s heirloom jewels, nor had he given her any sort of wedding gift.

He had, of course, given her money to replace her lost wardrobe and personal possessions, but he was not fool enough to think letting one’s wife buy a new pair of spectacles was at all romantic.

What did husbands give their wives as gifts?

Flowers? Jewelry? Promises they didn’t intend to keep?

Not for the first time, Valance wished his friend Markham were in town.

Markham had gotten married about a year ago.

If his sporadically written letters were to be believed, he was perfectly content living in rural Lancashire with his wife and child.

He might have been able to advise Valance on how a newlywed husband ought to treat his wife.

Many of the members of the Cambion Club were married, but most of the married men were older than Valance, and he tended not to know them well; certainly not well enough to ask for marital advice.

Poor Reverend Mr. Stephens wasn’t married, since he could not afford a wife.

Who else was? Thompson, perhaps? No, he was only engaged.

The only thing for it, Valance thought sleepily, was to write to Markham and hope he would respond more quickly than usual. He had a bad habit of letting letters languish unanswered for months. But Valance could think of no one else at all likely to advise him, so that would have to do.