Page 8 of The Best Husband Money Can Buy

Chapter 4

The newlyweds had their first quarrel shortly after the wedding breakfast. Mr. Evans and Anthony’s groomsman left after they’d all shared an excellent meal in a private room at Grillon’s Hotel. Since Anthony’s bachelor rooms were hardly suitable for a new wife, he had engaged a suite at the hotel. One with two bedrooms. As he’d thought dryly when booking the rooms, the least he could do with Emma’s money was use it to ensure that she was comfortable. His valet and her maid had moved the necessary personal belongings into the suite, then been given the rest of the day off.

As Anthony escorted Emma up to the suite, he considered carrying her across the threshold. He decided against it since this would not be their home, and the gesture seemed entirely too intimate at their present stage of acquaintance. Ironic to feel that way about his wife on their wedding night.

He had another fleeting thought, this time about Cecilia. The only time he’d ever thought about wedding nights had been when he’d thought they would marry. She had been beautiful, small and graceful and blonde, the complete antithesis of Emma. He immediately suppressed the thought as disloyal.

As they stepped into their handsome sitting room, he said lightly, “Welcome to our temporary home, Emma Vaughn Stone Vaughn.” He smiled. “Lady Verlaine.”

Smiling, she removed her bonnet. “That’s rather too many Vaughns, isn’t it?”

“Exactly the right number.” He pulled a set of papers from inside his coat. “Here, Emma, a wedding present of sorts. The paid-off mortgages on Canfield.”

After a brief glance, she handed the documents back. “I’m glad.”

He set the papers aside. “With the mortgages cleared, the property will soon be producing a very comfortable income. I’m letting go the rooms on Bruton Street, but within a year or two, we should be able to afford a house here in town if you’d like that.”

“That would be nice, but for now I’m looking forward to living at Canfield.”

He nodded. “It will be good to be back. I thought we could go early next week.”

Her dark brows drew together. “Wouldn’t it be easier to go direct from London to Harley Castle? Canfield is almost the opposite direction.”

Startled, he said, “Harley? We aren’t going there.”

“We aren’t?” She stared at him in dismay. “Why ever not? It’s been ten years since I’ve been able to attend one of the Christmas gatherings. I…I’ve been looking forward to returning.”

His face tightened. “I haven’t been for nine years myself, and I have no intention of going now.”

She slowly sank onto the sofa. “All this time I’ve imagined you at the castle with the rest of the family every Christmas. Why did you stop attending?”

“I doubted that I’d be welcome,” he said brusquely.

She gazed at him with her large, changeable eyes, which were a smoky gray at the moment. “How could that be?”

Could she really not know? Remembering that her parents had died suddenly and she had disappeared from the family circle, he supposed it was possible. “You never heard that Cousin Cecilia married Brand?”

“Brand!” Emma exclaimed. “But I always thought that you and she would make a match of it. I…I did wonder what had happened when I learned you were unwed, but I had no idea that she’d married Lord Brandon instead.”

Edward Alexander Vaughn, Marquess of Brandon, their mutual cousin. Heir to the Duke of Warrington, and once, long ago, Anthony’s closest friend. “Why shouldn’t she marry Brand?” he said with acid humor. “He will have far more wealth and a much better title, and he always doted on her.”

Emma gazed at him, her eyes darkening. “I see.”

She probablydidsee; the damned woman seemed able to read his mind. It gave her an unfair advantage.

Her gaze dropped and she slowly peeled off her gloves. “I shall write the Dowager Duchess again and say that we cannot come after all.”

The dowager duchess was Brand’s grandmother, and the benevolent silver-haired despot of Harley and the whole sprawling Vaughn family. Anthony felt a pang as he thought of her elegant presence and dry humor. Since she no longer came to London, he hadn’t seen her in nine years. He missed her. “You’d already written an acceptance?”

“Yesterday. I told her of our planned marriage and said we would arrive next week.” Emma sighed. “I’m sorry. It never occurred to me that we would not be going.”

Despite her calm words, Emma’s disappointment was palpable. He prowled around the drawing room, feeling like a complete villain. Though he no longer went to Harley, he hadn’t suffered during the intervening years. He’d finished his education at Oxford, gone on a Grand Tour after Waterloo made the Continent safe for Englishmen again, and generally enjoyed the life of a privileged young gentleman right up until financial disaster struck.

During those same years, Emma had been living a miserable existence as a teacher and governess, probably sleeping in icy garret rooms and stoically enduring employers who weren’t worthy to tie her shoes. It was all too easy to imagine her secretly dreaming of happier days at Harley. And theyhadbeen happy days, the best of Anthony’s life. He felt another pang. God, why had everything gone so wrong?

Even as the question formed in his mind, he reminded himself that the fault for that was his. Nor did he have the right to deny his wife what she so much desired merely because he’d acted like an idiot many years earlier.

For a cowardly moment he considered telling Emma to go alone, but that would be contemptible and unfair to her. He stopped pacing and turned to her. “If you are set on the visit, I suppose we must go. I am too much in your debt to refuse.”

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