Louise Allen - Regency Surrender - Passion And Rebellion

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 Susan as if she wasn’t totally convinced. ‘Mrs Romsey has shown them to the white drawing room.’

‘Oh!’ When she’d sent an invitation to call whenever they liked, she’d never imagined they would come at once.

As if they couldn’t wait to see her again.

Forgetting all her resolutions to behave like a lady and impress the servants, Mary hitched up her skirts and ran along the corridor to the room Mrs Romsey described as white, but which was in reality a patchwork of twenty years’ accumulation of stains.

Her cousins, Dotty and Lotty, were poking rather gingerly at the worn coverings on some spindly-legged chairs that looked as though they’d collapse if anyone sat on them. Her aunt was running her gloved finger along the mantelpiece, with an expression of disgust.

Mary had never been so glad to see anyone in her life.

‘Mary, my dear!’ Aunt Pargetter smiled with genuine pleasure. And then executed a clumsy curtsy. ‘I suppose I should address you as my lady now. Old habits die hard.’

‘Oh, no. No, you must never call me anything but Mary,’ she insisted. ‘I don’t feel a bit like a my lady.’

She felt her face crumple.

‘My dear girl, whatever is the matter?’

And Mary, who’d vowed that nobody, but nobody, would ever know what a mess she’d made of what should have been the perfect marriage, let out a wail.

‘I’ve left him!’

Then she flew across the room, flung herself into her aunt’s outstretched arms and burst into tears.

Chapter Fourteen

‘Whatever has gone wrong? Has he been cruel to you?’

Mary shook her head. ‘No. He has been very k-kind.’ How could she have forgotten the way he’d gone to fetch coal during the night, shirtless, just so she wouldn’t get cold? Or the way he’d praised her cooking? And told her she was an angel for putting up with his failings?

‘And g-generous,’ she wailed, suddenly remembering he’d promised her free rein to decorate this house, to buy as many clothes as she liked and not worry about the bills because he’d pay them all.

‘Th-that’s why I f-fell in love with him,’ she sobbed into her aunt’s shoulder.

‘But...so...why have you left him then, if he is so wonderful? And you’ve fallen in love with him?’

‘Because he doesn’t love me,’ she wailed.

‘Of course he does. Why, I’ve never seen a man so smitten. He couldn’t wait to get you to the altar....’

‘It wasn’t because he fell in love with me. It was because he was so sure he wouldn’t! He only wanted to marry me so quickly because of...because of...’

‘What do you mean, sure he wouldn’t?’

‘He wanted a certain sort of wife. A woman who wouldn’t give him a m-moment’s bother. He warned me not to expect affection from marriage. I’m the one who changed my mind about what marriage means to me. I’m the only one who wants more.’

‘Well, if that is true, running away isn’t going to endear him to you,’ said her aunt tartly, though she was still patting Mary’s shoulder in a comforting sort of way. ‘If you don’t believe he can ever love you, you must surely want him to respect you, don’t you? It would have been far better to stay with him and show him what a wonderful wife you can be. That your love needn’t make him uncomfortable.’

‘I know!’ Mary sat up and scrubbed angrily at the tears she couldn’t check. ‘I know that now. Only for a while I completely lost my head. Said things and did things he will never, ever, forgive. I’ve ruined everything!’

While her aunt had been soaking up Mary’s tears, Lotty had poured her a cup of tea and now pressed it into her hands.

‘Here. Drink this. And we’ll help you come up with a plan to win him round.’

Well, if anyone could, Dotty and Lotty could. They were such adept flirts they could probably make a living giving lessons in it.

‘I’m so sorry,’ said Mary, wiping her eyes with the handkerchief Dotty gave her. ‘I can’t think why I’ve become such a watering pot. I’m not usually prone to tears.’

Aunt Pargetter sat bolt upright.

‘Is it possible you are increasing?’

‘What?’

‘Well, every time I have been in the family way, I became a touch unstable. And this sort of behaviour is most unlike you. I always took you for a very sensible, down-to-earth sort of girl.’