The Plain Bride by Chasity Bowlin
CHAPTER NINETEEN
They were less than an hour into a ball that promised to drag on into the wee hours of the morning. While it was a ball in their honor, any married couple amongst the Ton was not expected to remain together at such an event. They were permitted to dance together for the opening set and would likely dance together for one more before the evening was out, but the rest of the time, they were all but sequestered from one another.
Thank heavens, Althea thought, that the Earl and Countess of Winburne were present. Had Sabine not been there to steady her nerves, she’d never have been able to endure it all. As if her thoughts had summoned him, Gray appeared, bearing two glasses of champagne, which he promptly handed to each of them.
“Mayville has been detained by Lord Ralston,” he offered with a sympathetic grimace. “I’m sorry to inform you, Lady Mayville, of your impending widowhood, as your husband will likely be bored to death by the man!”
“Gray!” Sabine protested. “He’s terribly nice. Dull, but still, so very nice.”
“I’ve never met him,” Althea confided, but she scanned the ballroom for a glimpse of Sinclair, hoping to see whom he was speaking with. She found them easily enough. Sinclair, taller than most men and with his elegant but indifferent posture, tended to stand out in the crowd. He was speaking with a very handsome young man who looked terribly earnest.
“What could they be talking about?”
“Rosedale Manor, most likely,” Gray supplied, snagging another glass of champagne for himself from a passing footman.
“The family seat? What interest could he have in an entailed property?” Althea wondered.
“Rosedale isn’t entailed,” Gray explained. “It likely would have been, but the entail was broken with Mayville. His grandfather and father both died so close together there wasn’t time to have the solicitor draw up the necessary paperwork to continue it. And I’ve no doubt whatsoever that Mayville will not do so. He’d be a happier man, I think, if he simply set a torch to it and walked away.”
Althea let that sink in. The enormity of what Gray had told her was staggering. He did not have to live in a mouldering estate that he hated with every fiber of his being. Rosedale Manor was a self-inflicted punishment. He was tormenting himself for some dark family secret by remaining there.
“I had no idea,” she admitted. “I just assumed that he stayed there because he had no choice in the matter. He despises it so thoroughly, I could not imagine doing so willingly.”
“He’s a perverse creature at times,” Gray said with a tight smile, clearly realizing that he had imparted problematic information. “Well, I shall leave you two and make for the card room. Perhaps I can rescue Mayville along the way.”
When they were alone, Sabine said softly, “They stick together, don’t they? But I suppose we do, as well. It doesn’t change anything, really. He’s not truly staying there by choice. Sometimes we make our own prisons, but they are prisons just the same.”
“I certainly did with my father. He constructed it, with his abuse and tyranny, but I could have left. I could have taken my chances. I chose the security of the bus that I knew rather than the unknown that waited for me,” Althea answered softly. “But I wish I could help him. Or, perhaps more correctly, I wish that he would learn to help himself. He should not bear the burden of others’ guilt.”
“None of us should, but we do just the same. Are things better between the two of you?”
Althea wasn’t sure how to answer that. “I think we might have reached a new understanding tonight, but it is too soon to say for certain. He told me that he could not ask me to stay with him, but he did say that he would never ask me to leave. Why would he phrase it that way—‘could not?’”
“Perhaps for the same reasons that he is punishing himself,” Sabine suggested gently. “A man who thinks himself unworthy will not ask to be loved. And when love is offered, he may very well turn away from it. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t needed just the same, or even reciprocated.”
A bitter smile twisted her lips. “What a pair the two of us are. He thinks he is unworthy of being loved, and I was half mad for him before he even knew I existed.”
“What?”
“I never told you. I never told anyone. But I would see him in the village, either when he was attending those wicked and scandalous prize fighting matches behind the butcher’s shop or when he was simply out riding while I was paying calls for my father. And I was so infatuated with his golden perfection that I could not even speak when I saw him. I would never have dreamed that I would be here, that I would be his wife. But, some days, I think I am further from him now than I was in Boston Spa, before he knew my name.”
Sabine leaned in close, “Wipe your tears, Althea. This is no place to shed them. They will only be used against you.”
She hadn’t even realized she was crying. Reaching up, she dashed them away quickly and turned away from her friend. She hadn’t taken two steps before Sabine halted her.
“Where are you going? You cannot leave. As difficult as this is, we both know this ball was a strategic maneuver on Lady Bruxton’s part. Everything you do is being monitored here!”
“I only need a moment. I’ll be in the ladies’ retiring room,” Althea insisted. “I won’t leave. I won’t do anything desperate or foolish. No matter how much I may wish it.”
With that, Sabine nodded and let her go. “I will find Mayville and Gray. It will be easier if we are all together, I think.”
Althea only nodded as she turned away and made her way, as quickly as possible, through the throng of guests. To call the event a crush was a gross understatement. The entire ballroom was simply teeming with people.
When she’d finally managed to escape the crowd, she found herself in a wide corridor flanked with ornately carved doors. At the end of that hall, she could see a group of giggling ladies. The retiring room, naturally, would be beyond them. But before she could even step in that direction, a door opened, and Lady Bruxton appeared before her.
“Lady Mayville…Thea. I may call you Thea, I presume?”
Thea.There was only one person who used that shortened form of her name. When had Mayville spoken to Charlotte about her? “I would prefer Althea, actually.”
“Oh! Of course. Thea is no doubt a diminutive only used by your most…intimate acquaintances,” the hostess offered with a smile. “I thought we should have a word about your arrangement with Mayville and what will happen when it is complete.”
A sick feeling rose in her stomach. “My arrangement?”
Lady Bruxton glanced over her shoulder at the giggling women, all of whom were watching them intently. “About your desire to have a child for him and then live separately after. Are you certain that is what you wish, my dear? Raising a child alone, a discarded wife, never free to move on and love again. I’m certain that a divorce could be obtained easily enough, given the strange circumstances under which your marriage occurred. Then you would be free to marry someone more of your own status. And, when I am widowed, Mayville and I would be free to show the world the true nature of our feelings for one another.”
“You want me to pursue a divorce from my husband so that if—if—you are widowed, you may have him?” Althea asked incredulously.
She became aware of several things then. It was an ambush. The giggling women at the end of the corridor were no longer laughing. They were all watching the exchange between herself and Lady Bruxton with rapt attention. Lady Bruxton had arranged to have an audience for their confrontation.
“Well, he does love me, Althea. He has since we were so very young. And I daresay that, whether he remains wedded to your or not, he always shall. Just as I will always love him. I would have married him had my family not intervened and forced me to marry Bruxton. He’s not a bad sort, but he’s certainly not the husband that a wife can fall passionately in love with, is he? And Mayville…Sinclair, well, he’s nothing if not passionate, is he? We had a very intimate exchange in Hyde Park not long ago, in the trees just off Rotten Row.”
“You’re lying.”
“How else would I have known about your arrangement, Althea?” Lady Bruxton reminded her gently. “He told me. He told me everything…and he’s too honorable to ask you for this himself, though we both know it is what he would want.”
It cut like a knife. She wasn’t even certain it was true, but just thinking of it—that he might have left her bed and immediately engaged in a tryst with another woman—cut her to the quick.
“I am sorry, Lady Bruxton. I find that I am feeling unwell and will need to retire from your ball,” Althea managed. “Good evening.” Immediately, she turned on her heel and headed for the ballroom. She needed to get away, needed to flee before she said something truly horrid or humiliated herself in some other way. As if she could be more humiliated!
Althea didn’t even stop to claim her wrap. Instead, she rushed past the stunned guests and made her way to the front doors. There, she pushed past servants and guests alike until she emerged into the cool night air.
“I need a carriage. A hack. Anything,” she said to the footman standing there. “I must leave here at once.”
“Take mine. I will walk. You are far too distressed to wait.”
Althea turned to see the man her husband had been speaking with earlier, Lord Ralston. He has very kind eyes, she thought immediately. Soft and brown, framed by thick, dark lashes, they held a warmth and a gentleness that surprise her. “You do not know me.”
“You are Lady Mayville, and your husband is an acquaintance,” he said. “Clearly, you are distressed, and I can be of assistance. I shall inform him that I have lent you the use of my conveyance to see you home.”
“No, please do not tell him. I will send word once I am safely home,” she said. She needed a reprieve. If he knew she had left, he might come for her. Then again, he might not. And she honestly could not fathom which outcome would be worse.
He frowned at that. “It is no trouble—”
“We’ve had a…disagreement. I fear if he comes home immediately that disagreement will only continue. It is better this way, sir, that we both might have time to cool our tempers.”
“Ah,” he said, his expression shifting to one of sympathy and understanding. “Then, I wish you a peaceful evening, Lady Mayville, and all the time you require to soothe your nerves. Allow me to assist you?”
He helped her into the carriage that waited at the foot of the steps and then gave the driver instructions. “See Lady Mayville home, and then you are dismissed for the night, Charles. I shall walk home.”
“Yes, my lord,” the coachman replied.
“Number 114 Park Lane,” Althea supplied. And then, within seconds, the coach was off, rolling slowly through the crowded streets of Mayfair, toward a house that she would never again call her home.
