Page 38 of To Marry and to Meddle
Right on cue, Cecil meowed.
“Not now, hell-beast,” Julian murmured, lowering his head.
It was the last thing either of them said for quite some time.
Twelve
“I do not think anewlywed should look so dissatisfied,” Diana said a few weeks later. “Is Belfry neglecting you? Shall I challenge him to pistols at dawn?”
“You’ll never get to see Jeremy at St. George’s if you have to flee to the Continent, Diana,” Violet reminded her.
“A good point, Violet, a good point,” Diana conceded. “Shall I poison him instead?”
“I’d rather you didn’t,” Emily said calmly, applying jam to a scone with neat, precise strokes of her knife. “I’m afraid black makes me look somewhat sickly.”
It was a Wednesday afternoon, and Emily had invited Violet and Diana to tea. It was a novel experience, being hostess to her friends—for years they had been in the habit of gathering at either Violet’s or Diana’s houses, where there were no overbearing mothers lurking nearby to eavesdrop. Now, however, Emily had a house of her own to which she could invite her friends. With her husband frequently out, she had little company.
“You have not answered my question,” Diana said now, gazing at Emily shrewdly over the rim of her teacup. “What is the matter?”
“Nothing at all,” Emily said hastily, having long experience withDiana when she got that particular look in her eye. “Julian has been nothing but considerate and solicitous.”
“Darling, he’s a husband, not a footman,” Diana said. “I rather thought that marriage to Belfry would lend itself to more exciting adjectives.”
“It’s difficult to find marriage that exciting,” Emily said slowly, “when one is spending one’s day in drawing rooms taking tea with the exact same ladies one has spent one’s entire life taking tea with.”
“You’re not…” Violet trailed off, a look of dawning horror on her face. “Sick of tea?” She uttered the words in a hushed whisper, as though afraid to speak them into truth.
“No, I’m not sick of tea,” Emily said a trifle impatiently, lifting her teacup to illustrate her point. “But I’m sick of taking tea with Lady Weatherstone, and Lady Warwick, and Lady Wight.” These were just three of the society matrons Emily had paid calls upon that week—all of whom she’d known for years, thanks to their acquaintance with her mother, and none of whom was exactly scintillating company.
Diana wrinkled her nose. “I can’t say I blame you—why on earth have you been spending time with them?”
Emily sighed. “It’s all part of Julian’s plan,” she explained. “You will recall that he first invited you to the Belfry, Violet, because he was hoping to attract a more respectable clientele?” Seeing Violet’s nod, she continued. “He’s decided that, now that we are wed, the best way to lure ladies to the Belfry is for his oh-so-proper wife to form connections with various ladies of theton.”
“But whythoseladies?” Diana pressed. “Why won’twesuffice?”
Emily hesitated, not wishing to offend, but then realized who she was speaking to.
“You’re a bit…” She paused, searching for the most diplomatic way to phrase this. “Spirited.”
Violet, rather than taking offense, lifted a teacup in her direction in a sort of salute.
“That means we’reinteresting.”
“It does,” Emily agreed, because no one in their right mind could possibly argue on that point when it came to her friends. “But it also means that your attending a show at a theater with an unsavory reputation is more likely to be viewed as an eccentricity, rather than a sign that all the other ladies of thetonought to follow suit.”
“Fair enough,” Violet conceded, slumping a bit in her seat. She frowned. “So that is all that Belfry is having you do—take tea with dull ladies every day whilst he abandons you to see to the business of running the theater?”
“Noteveryday,” Emily said in the interest of fairness; she didn’t wish to confirm Diana’s fears that she was some sort of neglected wife. Indeed, she had the distinct impression that Julian was in fact spending more time at home now than he had done prior to his marriage—she had noted the looks of faint surprise on the faces of various servants when he returned home for dinner, something he must not have been in the habit of doing in his bachelor days. And she firmly refused to think how he might have passed his evenings then, too.
“But you’ve just married,” Violet protested, frowning. “Shouldn’t you still be so besotted with each other that you can barely tear yourselves apart for meals and bathing?” She spoke in the manner of someone with experience. Violet had had the good fortune to be in love with her husband when she married him, and their recent reconciliation had led to a second honeymoon of sorts.
Diana had said firmly, on more than one occasion recently, that she was afraid to visit Violet and Lord James’s house on Curzon Street unannounced, lest she interrupt a scene that, as she put it, “wouldprove too traumatizing to ever scrub from memory.” Considering that Diana herself was at present doing a terrible job of hiding the fact that she was sneaking off to her fiancé’s house at every possible opportunity to engage in activities that were frowned upon outside the bonds of matrimony, Emily didn’t really think she had room to complain, but ten years of friendship had taught her it was best not to argue with Diana on these matters.
“But ours was not a love match,” Emily reminded Violet, taking a sip of tea. The servants had seemed a bit befuddled by her custom of taking a pot of tea and a tray of delicacies around the same time each afternoon—it was not a habit that was in fashion—but Emily had grown accustomed to it after years of the practice with Violet and Diana, and now she found herself growing peckish around four o’clock every afternoon. And how refreshing it was to simply eat as much as she wanted, without being conscious of her mother’s eyes on her all the while. Emily had always been slender, but she had a voracious appetite, and her mother had seemed to find this a conspicuous moral failing in her only daughter.
Emily took a large bite from a blackberry tart, happily basking in the knowledge that her mother was nowhere near to comment.
“Even if it isn’t a love match, you’renewlyweds,” Diana said, leering a bit. “My first marriage wasn’t a love match, either, but I assure you that if Templeton had looked anything like Belfry does, I’d have ensured he never left the house.” Emily frowned at her, which merely had the effect of causing Diana’s mildly disturbing smile to widen.
