Rival Desires (Properly Spanked Legacy 1)

“We all know that,” said August. “What kind of personal things do you know?”

His lips flattened in a line. “I know she’s the Earl of Halsey’s youngest, and that she has a brother and a sister.”

“Again, those are things anyone would know.”

“I know her favorite color. Daffodil yellow. She told me the night we married.”

“What else did you ask her that night?”

He glared at August. “What do you mean? It was our wedding night. I wasn’t out to learn her life’s story. I spent most of the time trying to convince her to let me bed her.” And spanking her when she did not. He chose not to admit that fact under his friend’s judgmental line of questioning. “But I did ask her favorite color, because I thought I should know something of her.”

“Something. One thing. And have you bought her any yellow things since?”

“Damn you, August. What kind of yellow things? What are you talking about?”

“He’s trying to help.” Marlow stood from his chair, stretching his arms before him and cracking his knuckles. “I think he’s saying you could try more friendly conversation with your wife, and less demands for sex.”

“If I was demanding sex—” He lowered his voice, trying to hold his temper. “If I was demanding sex, I would have gotten it by now, I assure you.”

“You should buy her a yellow frock while you’re in town,” August said. “Or a hat, if you don’t know her dressmaker. I guess you haven’t memorized her measurements?”

“Since when are you such a scion of courtship?” Wescott asked.

“I’ve thought on it a little,” he said, his own cheeks reddening. When the silence lengthened, he shrugged. “Why wouldn’t I? I’d like to make a decent marriage one day.”

Poor August, and his unrequited love for Felicity. It had been so long ago, the rest of them had been young and oblivious to the depth of his feelings. August probably knew a hundred more things about Felicity than Wescott knew about his wife. If he asked him, they’d probably pour out, like Townsend’s pronouncements of love for Ophelia.

“Maybe I don’t know how to love.” The words spilled from his mouth before he even thought to say them. They embarrassed him. “I mean, I don’t think I’ve ever loved anyone in a romantic way, the way my parents love each other. The way you…you cared for Felicity.”

August said nothing. Marlow looked uncomfortable.

Wescott felt bereft.

Maybe that was the real problem…that love wasn’t inside him the way it was for other people. Was there a cure for that? He was nothing like August, carrying around deep, long-held emotion, or Townsend, entranced to the point of obsession with a woman he’d never met.

What did he feel for Ophelia?

Mainly, he felt frustration that she didn’t like him, much less love him. He felt embarrassment and anger because his marriage was such a disaster. Those weren’t the emotions of a man who knew how to love. They were selfish emotions.

Fuck and bother. He was doomed, then. Their marriage was doomed. Maybe he ought to go out with his friends to the brothels for the evening, and work out those frustrations between some other woman’s thighs. Ophelia would never know.

But that would be giving up, wouldn’t it? He wasn’t to that point yet. There was more to learn about his wife than the damned color yellow.

“Why are women so complicated?” he muttered.

His friends stared back at him, confused as he was. Weren’t they a sorry lot? He’d made himself an expert in swordplay, but forgot about the chivalry, which might have been why all the dummy’s limbs were strewn across the floor.

*

Ophelia received a letter from her husband the fourth day after he’d left, which was, incidentally, the first day that his mother hadn’t needed to come rushing to her bed to wake her from a nightmare.

It was pointedly short, and not very sweet.

Dear Ophelia,

All is well in London. I’ve spent some time with August and Marlow, and attended to some business. Almost all the theaters have reopened since the fire. We saw a comic opera last night, The Barber of Seville. I could not imagine you singing it, but perhaps you have.

I trust all is in order at the Abbey, and that you have not endured too much rain. Be sure to direct the servants if you should need anything.

Yours,

Wescott

What did that mean, that he had attended to business? Why could he not imagine her singing The Barber of Seville? Was it an insult? A jest? Just a general comment? She had not sung the opera, as it had no soprano role for a performer her age, which he would very well know if he’d actually seen it.

She put down his letter and paced the room that had begun to feel like a prison. Oh, his family was all that was kind. His mother comforted her with cold compresses and hot milk when she woke from one of her nightmares, and his sisters Hazel and Elizabeth kept her company during the day, enticing her to cards or needlepoint, or charades with his parents. One afternoon his sisters brought her on a walk, and when they passed by the Greek temple in the garden, commenting on its beauty, all Ophelia wanted was to run away from the structure and never think about Wescott again.