Violet by Jane Feather

Author:Jane Feather
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Fourteen

“THE CARRIER JUST DELIVERED A LETTER, MY DEAR. IT looks like St. Simon’s hand?” Sir Gareth Fortescue strolled into the breakfast parlor examining the letter in his hand with unusual interest. “Franked in London, by God! I thought your brother was in the Peninsula for the duration.”

He dropped the letter beside his wife’s plate and stared with a jaundiced air at the dishes arrayed on the sideboard. “I don’t know how many times I’ve told that damn cook I like my bacon crisp. Look at this.” He picked up a rasher on the serving fork. “It’s as white and soggy as a pig’s underbelly.”

Lucy Fortescue flushed and pushed back her chair with a little murmur of dismay. “I’m so sorry, Gareth, I didn’t notice. Shall I ring for Webster and tell him to bring some more?”

“No, don’t bother.” Her husband flung himself into his chair at the head of the table with an irritable grimace. “I’ll make do with the sirloin.”

Lucy hesitated, anxious to read her brother’s letter but equally anxious not to neglect her husband at this critical morning juncture. It was clear from his heavy eyes and less than glowing complexion that Gareth was suffering this morning. She wasn’t sure where he’d passed the previous evening, or even the night. It hadn’t been in his own bed and certainly not in hers. She didn’t enjoy what went on in the marriage bed, but it was essential to a marriage, and it couldn’t be right that her husband was so often content to leave her to sleep alone.

She sighed and then flushed again, afraid that he would have heard the little sound. Gareth detested it when she moped. He read into her unhappiness unspoken criticism and dissatisfaction with her lot.

Both of which were true. But Lucy swiftly buried that rebellious acknowledgment; her mother had told her more times than she could remember that a wife’s duty was to show her husband only unquestioning support and obedience and to accept cheerfully the life he chose to give her. And Julian, after her father’s death the only man whose opinions she’d been aware of, obviously shared her mother’s viewpoint. Besides, he’d been so much against the match in the first place, she couldn’t possibly expect his sympathy because marriage to Sir Gareth Fortescue wasn’t all that she’d dreamed it would be.

But it was very hard. Another little sigh escaped her. It was very hard, at eighteen and after only ten months of marriage, to be left alone day and night after day and night while her husband pursued all his old activities and relationships as if he’d never stood at the altar with her.

“Well?”

She looked up guiltily at this sharp interrogatory. Gareth was scowling, his hand circling a tankard of ale.

“I beg your pardon, Gareth?”

“Well, what does your brother have to say?” he demanded impatiently.

“Oh, I haven’t read it yet.” She offered a timid little smile and slit the wafer sealing the missive.

“Oh,” she said again. The letter was as

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