“Precisely my thoughts,” Jason said through clenched teeth. “Perhaps, my dear, you should sit down in the carriage. We’d best be on our way.”
Allowing him to hand her into the carriage, Lenore held her tongue as Jason took his leave of Lord Newington and climbed in after her. Outside, the light had almost gone; in the shadowy carriage, she could not make out his expression.
He waited until they gained the main road before saying, “It’s my fervent hope, my dear Lenore—nay, my express wish—that in future, when I give you a direct order, you will obey it.”
Shaken by the violence of his feelings, Jason did not mute his scathing accents. He turned his head and saw that, far from appearing contrite, Lenore’s head was up, her chin tilted at a far from conciliatory angle.
“If that is the case, my lord,” Lenore replied, “I suggest you endeavour to instil your orders with more sense. You know perfectly well the wheeler would have broken a fetlock, if not worse, had I not calmed him.” That her husband should so repay her aid hurt more than she would have believed possible. But she was not going to let him see that she cared. “Lord Newington would never have reached him in time, and even then, I doubt his lordship would have had the strength to do the job. I did—and all ended well. I do not in the least understand why you’re so piqued. Surely not simply because I disobeyed you?”
Her sarcastic tone proved too much for Jason’s temper. “God grant me patience,” he appealed. “Has it not occurred to you, my dear, that I might, conceivably, be concerned for your welfare? That I might, just possibly, feel responsible for your safety?”
Lenore’s wide stare told him more clearly than words that such a notion had never entered her head. She was appalled by the idea. In her experience, people who felt responsible for one’s safety invariably ended by trying to proscribe one’s existence. The possibility that her husband harboured such feelings, in a proprietorial w
ay, was alarming. “But why should you?” she continued. “We might be married but I can hardly allow that to be sufficient cause to permit you to dictate my actions in such circumstances.”
“If your actions weren’t so damned foolhardy, I dare say I shouldn’t wish to dictate them at all!”
Lenore’s temper soared to dizzying heights. Putting her nose in the air, she stated, “I fail to see, my lord, why you should so greatly exercise your sensibilities over my poor self. Given the businesslike nature of our relationship, I really don’t see that you need feel responsible for me. If I take hurt as a result of my own actions, I do not believe that reflects on you. I consider my life my own concern.”
“Until you provide me with heirs you may forget that particular consideration.”
Deprived by his chilly words of any of her own, Lenore sat rigid on the carriage seat and uncharacteristically wished her life were over. She felt bereft, struck numb with despair. His tone, cold and hard and utterly uncompromising, confirmed beyond doubt how he saw their union. His only interest in her revolved about whether she could fulfil her role as his wife—giving him the heirs he sought was one part of the contract—a part she had yet to fulfil. Lenore blinked back the moisture welling in her eyes. She had wondered why he had dallied for so long instead of returning to his usual haunts in London. Now she knew. And once she had delivered on that part of her promise, his interest in her would evaporate—his statement implied as much—how much more clearly did she need to have it said?
He had married her for his reasons, there was nothing more to their marriage than that.
Her spine rigid with the effort of preserving her composure, Lenore was grateful for the enclosing dark. Hidden in its shadows, she pushed the hurt deep, reminding herself of the household, the position, the library she had gained through marrying Jason Montgomery.
The carriage was nearing the boundary of his estates before the red haze of temper lifted sufficiently for Jason to realise just what he had said. Appalled, by the fact that she could so overset his reason as well as by his apparent insensitivity, he rapidly cast about for some means to mend his fences. But what could he say?
His fury had been invoked by shock—but he could hardly confess to that. The fact she would do what she deemed right regardless of any danger to herself horrified him. How could he possibly feel confident leaving her if that was the way she might behave, even when he was there to order her otherwise? He had thought her liking for non-hazardous pursuits would have saved him any angst—obviously not so. Lenore preferred playing safe, but if that was not possible, she would do what was necessary. Unfortunately, she was clearly not prepared to take his ridiculous sensitivity into account in so doing.
Even more unfortunately, he felt prohibited from making said sensitivity plain, aware he had limited grounds for feeling so. Worse, she would doubtless see it as an imposition on her rightful freedoms. He had no wish to reward her exemplary efforts to fill the role of the Duchess of Eversleigh by placing what she would see as unwarranted constraints on her behaviour.
But he had to say something. The silence in the carriage had become darker than the night outside.
“Lenore…” For the first time in his entire career, Jason was lost for words. He could not explain what he felt—he did not know himself.
As it transpired, Lenore was not ready for explanations, her struggle not to cry consumed too much of her mind. She put a hand to her temple. “I’m afraid I have a headache. If you do not mind, I would rather we did not talk, Your Grace.”
Stiffly, Jason inclined his head in acceptance of her request. Resettling his head against the squabs, he wondered why her headache should hurt him so much.
Lenore managed to hold her head high as Jason handed her down from the carriage before the Abbey. She trod up the steps, her hand on his sleeve, but when they reached the hall, she murmured, “My headache, my lord—I believe I’ll retire immediately.”
Jason merely bowed, apparently indifferent, and let her go.
For the first time since coming to the Abbey, Lenore slept alone.
CHAPTER TEN
HOW COULD she have overlooked it? Appalled, Lenore stared at the pages of her diary, her mind numb, her fingers trembling.
She had woken early, but had lain, listless in her bed, for hours. Finally rising and ringing for Trencher, she had dressed for the day but had shied from facing her husband over the breakfast-table. Instead, she had sat at the little escritoire by the wall near one window and opened her diary to record the events of the previous evening—depressing though they were.
No words had come. No light comments to record her swelling misery. In an effort to ease her gloom, she had flipped back through the recent pages, filled with glowing happiness and an unstated hope she now knew to be forlorn.
It was then it had struck her.
They had been married in late July. It was now mid-September. August had been a blissful month, totally unmarred by the usual occurrence. For one who had been regularly afflicted ever since she was thirteen, the conclusion was inescapable.