Once Upon a Tower

Page 8

Maybe it was the days of enforced rest, but her fingers didn’t stumble once, and her bow slid across the strings at the perfect angle, the music calibrated to make the listener’s heart sing.
At the end of the hymn, she heard Layla take a deep breath. Edie smiled at her, bent her head again, and swept straight into the “Winter” concerto of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, the piece she had been working on before becoming ill.
As she neared the end of the piece, and had (to be quite honest) forgotten about Layla altogether, the door opened. When she glanced up, her father stood in the door.
He was staring at his wife. Tumbled gold hair covered Layla’s face, but the handkerchief clutched in her hand told its own story.
Edie almost felt a pulse of sympathy for her father. He was tall and broad-shouldered and handsome, though he’d hate to hear that. He liked to think of himself as a statesman, rather than an ordinary mortal.
That was the real trouble. Logic mattered to him above any sort of emotion, even though when it came to Layla, he was often quite illogical. “That was well played,” he said, shifting his eyes to Edie. “Not perfectly, as the last movement is marked allegro. Your playing was not quite nimble enough.”
Edie looked at Layla, but her only response to her husband’s voice was to curl up more tightly.
“May I request a moment with my wife?” he asked, his voice as flat as his expression. At that moment his eyes fell to Edie’s legs, one on either side of her instrument, her skirts barely covering her knees. “Daughter!”
“Father.” She moved the cello forward and came to her feet, her skirts spilling back down to the floor. Then she tucked her bow under her arm and picked up the cello, turning to her stepmother. “Layla, darling, I shall be ready whenever you decide to retire to the country and commence on a life of unending debauchery.”
Her father narrowed his eyes, but she marched past him and out the door. A half hour later, after she had requested and eaten breakfast—another breakfast, as her first had been left untouched back in Layla’s chamber—she began work on Bach’s cello suites.
Irritation wasn’t good for music. She believed that it soured the notes. She had to start over three or four times until the notes finally carried the emotion Bach had written into the piece, rather than her own.
At some point, she stopped just long enough to eat the luncheon her maid brought her. By then she was working on a cello sonata by Boccherini that was so difficult that she had to stop over and over to look at the score.
Her right arm was aching by four o’clock in the afternoon, but she was suffused with a sense of deep satisfaction.
In spite of Layla’s tears, it was her favorite kind of day.
Five
Gowan stared in total disbelief at the pages before him. The letter was written in a strong hand, too strong for a woman. His grandmother had written in a delicate script, which she ornamented now and then with flourishes. There were no flourishes to this letter.
There was nothing feminine about it.
In fact . . .
His eyes narrowed. He almost didn’t believe it had been written by a woman. It was altogether too direct, too demanding.
Not the sort of letter that could have come from the delicate flower with whom he had danced, nor from the woman who had kept her eyes demurely lowered when her father announced that he had accepted an offer of marriage on her behalf. There hadn’t been a flicker of dissent or rebellion on Lady Edith’s face.
He picked up the letter again. In fact, it wasn’t rebellious, precisely.
It was . . .
It was contractual, that’s what it was. She used the phrase “I would request” when what she clearly meant was “I demand.”
I would request that you do not keep a mistress, nor engage in such frolicsome activities, until such time as we have produced the requisite number of heirs (such number to be decided amicably between us) and have ceased marital relations, as will happen in due course. I am most reluctant to contract a disease of an intimate nature.
He had already read that paragraph four times, but he read it again. Frolicsome activities? Mistress? Cease marital relations? When he was dead, perhaps. The fact that he hadn’t yet engaged in relations didn’t mean that he had no interest in doing so. He had a keen interest.
In fact, he had a running tally of things he was looking forward to trying. With his wife. Who apparently thought she would make love to him on a schedule, and a limited schedule at that.
As I have very little interest in pursuits of the flesh, I shall give you no reason for anxiety in that regard.
She sounded like a nun. All right, he didn’t mind that particular statement so much. He could tempt her into interest in pursuits of the flesh. Or he could spend his life trying.
But her next suggestion was a great deal more irritating.
I propose that we do not engage to produce an heir for three years, although five might be better. We are both young, and need not worry about age as a factor in procreation. I am not ready for that burden. To be frank, I simply don’t have the time.
He stared at that for a long time. She didn’t want children? What in the bloody hell was she doing all day that she didn’t have time for children? He was ready to have children now. His half sister, Susannah, was five years old and she would do better with siblings.
What’s more, the work of running the estate wouldn’t be any easier in five years.
On the other hand, he did like the next paragraph:
I am certain that your responsibilities are many and burdensome; I propose that we agree not to interrupt each other during the day. I have noticed that considerable unhappiness stems from the needful behavior of a spouse. I trust you do not take my suggestion here as an insult: as we have no knowledge whatsoever of each other, you will understand that I speak merely as a proponent of a wish for a happy marriage.
He agreed with her.
But it was a bit stuffy. No, more than a bit stuffy. Still, if he had thought to write something down—which he never would, because there was something unsettling about putting all this on paper—he might well have shaped that very paragraph himself.
Or something like it.
It was the final part of the letter that made him want to bare his teeth and growl at the page like some sort of madman.
Finally, I wanted to note that I much appreciate the way by which you dispensed with courtship. Although I was surprised at first, on further examination, I respect your good judgment in this matter. I assume that you hold the same understanding of marriage that I do: it is a contract enacted for the good of one’s lineage, and the general good of society. It is a celebration to be respected and mutually enjoyed. It is not a relationship that should provoke displays of inordinate emotion. I myself greatly dislike conflict in the household. I trust that we can avoid all manner of unpleasant scenes by making ourselves quite clear before we say our vows.
In short, she didn’t love him, she didn’t care to ever love him, and she thought love within marriage was rot.
The rage he felt was completely inappropriate, and he knew it. He was the one who had eschewed the idea of courtship, closed the door on a drawing room full of men, and essentially bribed her father into giving her hand to him.
But he felt insulted, nevertheless.
No: not insulted, enraged. Insult was something felt by paltry people whose feelings bruised easily. His feelings never bruised.