The Inconvenient Duchess

But the plan annoyed him, and he realisedhe’d hoped to find her idle. ‘And tell me, my dear, what room is next on your schedule?’
    She looked away. ‘The bedrooms.’
    ‘Perhaps we could look at them together.’ There. That must be plain enough.
    Her head dipped still lower. ‘If we must.’
    ‘Must?’ He bit his tongue against the outburst that was forming in his mind. Now, of all times, he must not lose his temper. ‘Miranda, I do not wish for you to feel that you must do anything to please me. As yet, you barely know me. If it would be easier if we postponed…’
    ‘For just a few days. A week, perhaps?’ she said.
    He nodded, forcing the images of ripe peaches far from his mind.
    And she continued, ‘Of course, I understand if this is not convenient for you… I know that you must have certain…needs,’ she almost whispered the word. ‘If you might wish to visit your mistress…I would not blame you for it.’
    He choked on his tea. ‘There are a few things we need to make clear, lady wife. Firstly, I do not wish you to discuss such things at all, but, if you must, you will not do so over the breakfast table. Secondly, if and when I seek to visit my “mistress” I will not ask, or for that matter, need your permission to do so. Thirdly, you should not even know of such things, and, if you do, I’ll thank you to keep the information to yourself. The last thing I want to do is discuss “my needs” with my wife.’ The last seemed to him so ridiculous a statement that he was momentarily struck dumb. No wonder, with an attitude like that, he’d sought to avoid the married state for so long. He looked at her, expecting tears at his outburst, or a knowing laugh, but was met instead with a militant glare. He could feel the temper rising within him again and started a fresh harangue.
    ‘Visit my mistress? My God, woman, what gave you such a crack-brained notion?’ Probably her own father. ‘You think I can’t control my animal lust for a few days without seeking release? Go to my mistress? And where am I keeping this woman, since you seem to know so much about her?’
    ‘I thought, when you went to London…’
    ‘Business,’ he snapped. ‘I went on business. That is all you need to know, and probably more than you would understand.’
    ‘A vague answer, your Grace.’
    He threw his hands into the air and bit his tongue. Now was not the time to announce to her, in a towering rage, that he knew all about her past. ‘I return with a carriage full of gifts for you, and still you are not satisfied?’
    ‘It makes me ask myself why a man with a clear conscience would waste the time on such extravagances.’
    He looked into her eyes and saw something unrecognisable. And then it hit him. Jealousy. Certainly not an emotion he’d seen in his first wife. When he’d finally turned in desperation to a mistress, she’d been relieved, not jealous. But he recognised the glint in his wife’s dark eyes from his own face in the mirror.
    He paused, savouring the novelty of it and trying not to smile in triumph. She was not ready for the bedroom, but she already cared where he’d been and who he’d been with. Cared enough to reject his gifts yesterday and to press him for details today.
    He walked slowly towards her and stood next to her chair. And she pretended interest in her breakfast, which had grown cold on the plate.
    ‘I can think of many reasons why a man might buy gifts for his wife. As a reward, perhaps, for a memorable wedding night.’
    She flushed.
    ‘It was certainly memorable, but not deserving of reward, I think.’
    She was hanging her head now, in embarrassment. But her lip still jutted out in a pout.
    ‘As a sop to a guilty conscience. Hmmm. The idea certainly has possibilities. After spending two weeks in the arms of another woman, what kind of trifles would I bring to silence my new wife?’ Now he saw another emotion on her face. Curiosity. And a heat rising that had nothing to do with embarrassment. ‘It would be a shame to purchase one set of expensive gowns for the mistress, and be required to bring still more home for the wife. Perhaps since they were never to meet, it might be easiest to duplicate the wardrobes, and have the dressmaker make the same styles, but in two sizes. But one does become jaded, after a while, of falling to sleep spent on the pillow of perfumed breasts spilling from an indecent décolletage, and when it is time to come home, one wants one’s