Page 7 of The Inconvenient Compromise
FIVE
Sunday—The return…
They had left the inn very early that morning. After a brief stop in Carlisle to see the solicitors and take care of the necessary paperwork to claim his bequest, they’d set out once more. Rather than make the journey in the borrowed coach he’d been using, they had taken the mail coach. The overnight journey to London had been accomplished swiftly but at significant cost. By the time they reached the city, she was all but hanging her head out the window to avoid casting up her accounts.
“Are you ill? Does the swaying of the carriage upset your delicate constitution?” The question had been posed in the same slightly taunting tone she realized was simply his way.
“Delicate constitution?” She asked, her head whirling toward him.
“Well, yes. Given your fainting spell yesterday and now your pallor and apparent need for air, I can only assume that your health is somewhat fragile—”
“My health is not fragile. I’m quite well. Yes, I enjoy the air as I dislike being closed up in a carriage all day. But that hardly means I am plagued by traveling sickness.” But she was suffering from traveling sickness, and it was nothing more than her own foolish pride that prevented her from admitting as much. Still, she continued, “And as for my fainting after the ceremony, it was hunger and exhaustion, my lord. Nothing else. I simply had gone too many hours between meals and without sufficient sleep.”
He grinned. “Ah, yes. Having been privy to the quite lush curves of your rather comely form, I can attest to the fact that you do indeed enjoy a hearty meal… and I most heartily approve.”
Her expression shifted into a scowl that effectively conveyed her displeasure with him. Then, she simply turned back to the window and made it a point to ignore him. The other passengers in the mail coach had disembarked before London, leaving them alone in the vehicle. As such, there were no buffers to prevent their arguing and sniping at one another. “You insult my character. Now you tell me I am overly plump Aren’t you reputed to be charming?” Every gesture and expression was filled with pique. Her irritation with him could not have been more apparent.
Watching her, Lucian ducked his head to hide his grin. He wasn’t entirely certain why he enjoyed needling her so much, but he did. There had been an awareness of her before their meeting in his bed only two nights prior. He’d seen her at various social gatherings, part of Lady Bruxton’s circle of harpies. Pretty, but not too pretty. Charming, but not too charming. Fashionable but not so fashionable that her presence might draw more attention than the conceited cow whom she called friend. Lady Bruxton certainly had exacting standards for all of her minions, and those standards were based on one tenet alone—they must never outshine her in any way.
Noting his new bride’s manner of dress, it was quite apparent that she would never outshine anyone in such drab clothing. The limpid pastels are not at all suited to her vivid coloring. She should have been draped in rich jewel tones and lush fabrics. Instead, she was like a sad and forgotten doll in her pale, lifeless flounces. “Tell me, Fiona, who determined that you should wear that particular shade of pink?”
Fiona tugged uncomfortably at her traveling costume. The pink wool with all its silk fripperies was dusty from the road, but that did not alter the appeal of the gown positively or negatively. It was beyond help or harm at that point. She knew it looked atrocious on her and always had. But shading her own prettiness so that Charlotte could shine all that much brighter had become par for the course. “Lady Bruxton, of course. She insisted that my wardrobe was terribly insufficient for the Season.”
“I see. And does she dress all of her bosom companions in this manner?”
“Yes,” Fiona replied. “She sets the fashion, and everyone else follows.”
“Ah, but she’s not wearing that gown, is she? Have you noticed that all of Lady Bruxton’s companions tend to be plain, dowdy, or poorly dressed? She intentionally put you in garments that would not flatter you, Fiona, and she did so that you would never draw attention from her,” Lucian pointed out. “You’ve been duped by her false friendship, and I cannot fathom why. Clearly, you are too intelligent for all that! At the very least, I should hope you are, lest all the hours of marriage spent outside of the bedchamber will be very dull, indeed.”
She gasped in outrage. “Not only am I overly plump and possessed of a weak constitution, but now I am a dullard and a poorly dressed one at that,” she retorted. “I’m beginning to think that social ruin might have been more easily borne than your company.”
He shook his head. “It isn’t as if you did not know… I’ve never known a pretty woman so lacking in vanity, Fiona, that she did not know what colors and styles suited her. Once we are settled in London, we shall rectify the matter. Madame de Brouchard—although I suppose she’s now the Countess of Winburn. Damn. But her former shop is still operational and will undo this travesty Lady Bruxton has wrought. We need to get you something else in the immediate future so all of London does not see you looking pale and wan.”
“If I look pale and wan, perhaps it is the company I am keeping,” she snapped.
She was being intentionally obtuse in order to maintain the frosty distance between them. He’d had enough of it. “You are a very beautiful woman, Fiona. But that beauty has been hidden behind drab colors and unflattering garments… because Lady Bruxton was threatened by you. If you wanted, you could usurp her position entirely, and she knows it.”
Silence settled between them, broken only by the creaking of the swaying carriage and the thundering beats of the horses’ hooves. After a long moment, she spoke softly. “I have no wish to usurp her position. I never longed for that sort of power and position. I only ever cultivated a friendship with Lady Bruxton because my family lacks the means to make a good match for my sister otherwise. Our fortune was modest at best, and now it is gone entirely, thanks to my reckless mother and feckless father. We have limited connections and no position in society to speak of. I was to improve her chances, and now I have failed her terribly.”
“And making an excellent match for yourself? Was that not part of your agenda?”
“It mattered little to me so long as I could see Francesca settled and happy,” she looked away, her expression pensive. “She’s had a difficult time of things and has suffered many disappointments.”
Lucian considered the wording of her confession carefully. “In love?”
“In romance,” Fiona corrected mildly. “He was a scoundrel and a liar. Any feelings she had for him were based solely on a lie… and his were based on a desire to exploit a young woman’s trusting nature. You think me foolish and naive, but I understood only too well before ever joining society that people were not to be trusted and most are rarely what they seem.”
The words were surprising enough, but it was the tone of her voice—so world-weary and jaded—which he found to be so unexpected. Typically, he was the one beset with such ennui and cynicism. To find that in one so young and seemingly so innocent was a bit of a shock.
“You sound positively ancient… as if all of mankind has disappointed you,” he mused.
“Perhaps they have. Perhaps, it was easy enough to set my cap for the Earl of Kenworth because one husband is the same as any other… They are all destined to be unfaithful, disapproving, and discontent and to disappoint their wives in every way possible.”
Lucian blinked at her, somewhat taken aback by the venom in her voice. “And is this what you observed in your own parents’ union? Misery and disappointment?”
Her silence was answer enough.
“My parents had their own brand of misery,” he continued. “They weren’t married, but that hardly seemed to matter. We need not follow their example—either of them. We can create our own marriage, free of the ghosts of their unhappiness.”
