Page 30 of The Wicked Duke's Convenient Bride
Chapter 13
“Excuse me,” Tabitha said. “I require some air. I shall return in a moment.”
It was not even a lie. Her face was hot, and the theatre did not seem to have enough air. Tabitha’s heart raced, and there was no wondering why. She looked at Matthew, who had the audacity to return her glower with a look of wide-eyed innocence.
She left quickly, hurrying past her parents and the Dowager Duchess of Hillsburgh before they could notice how flushed she was and how quickly her breath came. Once Tabitha left the box, she could breathe a little more easily, but she still had a terrible, sneaking suspicion that everyone was looking at her and that they all knew about the salacious thoughts swirling about her head.
It was for the best that Matthew had stopped when he had. Surely, she did not wish him to continue before her parents, his mother, and whoever else might see them. Tabitha had been so very close to being undone, though. She had felt the muscles clench deep inside her and knew that she was approaching that same delightful feeling that she had on their wedding night.
She burst into the powder room, feeling hot and dishevelled. Tabitha pressed her back against the wall, using the smooth surface to steady herself. The door opened, and she prepared for a confrontation with someone—maybe her mother, maybe Matthew’s mother—but instead, Lady Miriam entered. She looked dishevelled, too. Her face was red.
“What happened?” Tabitha asked. She realized suddenly that Lady Miriam had left at nearly the start of the play, and she had yet to return. “You have been absent for a long time. Are you well?”
“Quite fine,” she said. “I apologize for making you worry. But how are you? We have not spoken since your engagement, and we are sisters now. Are we not?”
Tabitha blinked, noting the obvious change in the conversation. There was something that Lady Miriam was not saying, and that was likely because she wanted to keep it a secret. Tabitha desperately wanted to know what that secret was, but she also wanted to respect this woman’s privacy. It had not been so enjoyable when Tabitha’s own secret was revealed.
“It is fine,” Tabitha said. “He is a good husband.”
Lady Miriam hummed. “Spoken like every wife who is dissatisfied with her marriage.”
“He is your brother,” Tabitha replied. “Surely, you do not expect me to speak ill of him.”
“Not at all.”
“He—” It could not possibly be as warm as she felt like it was. Tabitha tilted her head back against the cool wall behind her. She felt as though she might be ill. “He vexes me. I do not understand him.”
Or the feelings he inspired in her. Oh, Tabitha had read things that a young lady should not, and she knew that certain sensations emerged when participating in the acts of the marriage bed. But no text had prepared her for this. Reading and experiencing were two completely different things.
“Sometimes, I feel like I am his mistress,” Tabitha said, “rather than his wife.”
Lady Miriam’s face suddenly lost all its colour, the change so startling that Tabitha felt a shiver of sombreness herself.
“I should not have said that,” Tabitha said quickly. “I apologize, Lady Miriam. I did not mean to sound so uncharitable.”
“No,” Lady Miriam said, sounding uneasy. “You do not sound uncharitable. I am sorry that you feel—that my brother has made you feel this way.”
“I am sure it was unintentional.”
“I am sure it was,” Lady Miriam said, “but that does not mean all is well. It may take my brother some time to realize the error of his ways, but I can assure you he will. That was part of why my mother pressed this marriage on him, truth be told.”
“I thought it was for an heir.”
“In part,” Lady Miriam said, “but Mother believed that his wife—Rosemary is gone. She is never coming back, even if she is still alive. If she wanted to return, she would have done so long ago. She would have sent some missive indicating where she was.”
“What did happen to her?” asked Tabitha.
She had been but a girl when the Duchess and her daughter disappeared, but the rumours had circulated for years. Everyone had searched for her throughout England and abroad. There had been talk of little else and so much fear for months. The men of the ton had feared that their wives and daughters might be victims of whatever fate had befallen Her Grace and her young daughter.
Some claimed that she must have been taken for ransom, and her abductors killed her either by chance or accident. Others thought that criminals of some manner had beset her and her daughter.
Rumours swirled about unsavoury servants, who may have aided some ill-intentioned individuals into abducting the pair and selling them to some corrupt individual for profit. But whatever the case, no one ever found the Duchess or her daughter. It was as if the pair had never existed.
Lady Miriam tilted her head. Her eyes darted about the room as if she feared they might be overheard. There was no one save the two of them, though. “You are not to tell my brother what I tell you now,” Lady Miriam said. “It will only upset him.”
“I understand.”
Lady Miriam took a deep breath. “Rosemary was a woman of loose morals, to put it delicately.”
