Page 42 of A Whisper of Desire
Maitland had suggested she and Priscilla retire when Sebastian took Beatrice home. The three men wanted to go over their plan one more time. They must have stayed drinking most of the night.
Or was it simply an excuse so Maitland could avoid facing her? Two nights in a row he had avoided coming to her bed, and she wanted to know why. If it was simply he did notneedrelease, she could understand that. They didn’t have to have relations every night, but she wanted intimacy. To be held in his arms while he slept.
Thinking about how aroused he’d been the other night, it was almost as if he was denying himself. The question was why.
Just then Susan knocked and entered the room. She carried a breakfast tray and a note.
Marisa ignored the food and quickly reached for the missive, only to be disappointed. It wasn’t from Maitland.
Dear Marisa,
I spoke to Maitland earlier last evening about your disguise for the club. I have an assortment of men’s trousers that I wear for riding at the estate, and I brought some with me to use on my way home when I stopped to see my family.
We are a similar size, although I’ll have to lengthen the legs of the trousers. I’m more than happy to give them to you. My lady’s maid is an excellent seamstress, so we can adjust and make your costumes.
I hope you don’t think this is presumptuous, but I’d like to help in some small way.
It will also give us a chance to get to know one another.
Your friend,
Priscilla
Marisa lay back on her pillow and sighed. Was Priscilla the reason why Maitland didn’t want to bed her? How did he feel about Priscilla being under the same roof as his wife?
She was trying to be generous-hearted when it came to Priscilla. When she’d whispered her suspicions that Priscilla was in love with Maitland to Beatrice last night, Beatrice reiterated that Maitland obviously didn’t love Priscilla back or he’d have married her, and perhaps we should feel sorry for her. Unrequited love was perhaps the most painful of conditions.
She tapped the note to her lips as she considered the saying “keep thy enemies close.” Was Priscilla an enemy?
She threw the covers back and called for a bath. Perhaps it was time to find out.
—
The fitting was going about as well as a wife taking tea with her husband’s mistress. Perhaps it was an omen.
With Priscilla’s lady-in-waiting, the seamstress Agatha, working on altering the clothes, there wasn’t much she and Priscilla could talk about.
It was curiosity that made her ask: “Tell me about Antonia’s father, your first husband.”
Priscilla shrugged. “I thought someone would have told you all about me. Iwasbriefly engaged to Maitland.”
At Priscilla’s raised eyebrow, Marisa felt her face heat, and she pointedly looked at Agatha.
“Agatha has been with me since before I married my first husband. She knows all my secrets.”
The elderly seamstress simply kept pinning the hems of the third pair of breeches.
“No one has told me anything, other than Maitland’s father abducted you and forced you into a marriage.”
“You want to know why Maitland allowed this to happen? Why he didn’t sweep in and save me?”
Marisa swallowed, but let curiosity make her agree with Priscilla’s statement.
“It’s a long and sordid story. I’ll need sustenance to get through it.” She rose and gracefully moved to pull the bell. Once tea had been ordered and delivered, Priscilla settled into a chair by the window, the sun giving her pale skin and fair hair an ethereal glow.
“My first husband was an arranged marriage by my father. So I have some sympathy with your situation. No woman should be forced to marry. Branton Whedon, Baron Ligonier, was not an unkind man. I married him because it never occurred to me to disobey my father. It was Branton who taught me I had the right to be happy. He married me because he genuinely loved me and was worried who my father might give me to if he declined the match.”
“You were not close to your father?”
