Page 94 of Temptations of a Wallflower
Ever since she had come to his room a week ago, he’d embarked on a campaign to revivify their marriage. Work and anything resembling work had been shunted aside. Everything had been about entertainment, enjoyment. He’d taken Sarah all over London, to as many amusements as possible. Astley’s displays of horsemanship were just one of innumerable diversions they’d attended.
They had strolled in countless parks. Attended a fair on the outskirts of Town, where they’d seen acrobats and racing. Visited museum after museum displaying everything from antiquities to Mr. Turner’s most recent paintings. They’d paid a call on Catton’s, stuffing themselves on cakes and tea. For entertainment, London could not be surpassed, and Jeremy was determined to take Sarah to everything. Whatever it took to make her smile.
And she did smile. Yet, while her lips curved and she sometimes even laughed, the gestures seemed . . . hollow. Sterile. Much as they did now, leaving Astley’s incredible performance. She looked up at him as they finally made it out of the theater, but only a shadow of Sarah shone in her eyes. She was somewhere else. This woman with him now was a changeling.
He’d managed to hold his father off, telling the earl that he’d been tracking down leads. Yet his fatherwouldn’t be deterred for long. He’d want results. Soon. Jeremy still didn’t know what to say, but he prayed nightly for solutions.
“Catton’s?” Jeremy suggested.
She shook her head. “The drums and hoofbeats fatigued me. Would it bother you overmuch if we went home?”
“Not at all.” He hailed a post chaise and carefully helped her inside. Her energy remained minimal lately. She slept late and could barely be roused for breakfast.
She was always too tired to make love, and a cold strain continued between them whenever they climbed into bed. Strangers had taken their place in the bedchamber.
They were silent for the ride home. Sarah actually dozed along the way and hardly stirred when he gently awakened her.
“Come, love,” he murmured, escorting her out of the carriage and up the front stairs. “Let’s get you to bed.”
He saw her inside, then helped her up to their bedroom. After tucking her in for a nap, he softly made his way downstairs. His destination was the study, but as he passed the drawing room, his mother’s voice called out.
“Please,” she entreated. “Come in.”
He did so, finding her sitting with her embroidery on a settee. After giving her a kiss of greeting, he sat beside her, fighting restlessness.
“It’s no better, is it?” his mother asked gently.
“What isn’t?” he wondered.
His mother shook her head. “I’m a month away from my fifty-second birthday, Jeremy. Far too old forgames.” She set her embroidery hoop aside. “The situation between you and Sarah—it hasn’t improved. I’d thought that once you two had started sharing a room again, things would recover. I’d see you both happy again.” She sighed. “But that hasn’t happened.”
Jeremy glanced away, knowing his expression would reveal the depths of his grief. “No,” he finally said. “It hasn’t.” For all that he’d done, despite the countless hours spent escorting her from one diversion to another, Sarah was miserable. There was no denying it.
“Why?” Lady Hutton pressed, clearly bewildered. “She’s got a husband who loves her, a fine home. I cannot understand it.”
Jeremy swallowed. “She’s suffered a loss. I can’t discuss it, but it’s devastated her.” Rubbing at his brow, he said in unhappy exasperation, “All the books I’ve read, all the theosophical texts I’ve studied, all the parishioners I’ve counseled—I can’t think of one thing to do to help my own wife.”
“You’ll figure something out,” his mother said with a consoling pat of her hand.
Yet her words and gestures gave no comfort. Nothing did.
Chapter 28
Many hours later, we lay together in my bed, intertwined from the acrobatics of our exertions.
“How did you find me?” I asked.
“Not without difficulty,” he answered with a smile, “but I am a resourceful man.”
“Have you come for this?” I held up my hand, showing where the pearl ring adorned my finger.
“Ma’am, if that’s what you believe, then you are far less clever than I’d believed you to be.”
“For me, then,” I said, my heart beating quickly, half in dread, half in hope of his answer . . .
The Highwayman’s Seduction
“Your guests have arrived, my lady,” the butler announced to Sarah as she sat in her bedroom.
