Page 4 of A Wicked Kind of Husband

She sighed and looked back down the deserted hallway. Sunne Park had stood for three hundred years, but she wouldn’t be surprised if it all came tumbling down, brick by red brick, right now, as she stood here. Their family had always seemed so solid, laughing, loving, beautiful, popular, with Mama and Papa at their center, and then Miranda and Charlie and Cassandra and Lucy and Emily. Yet one by one, everyone was disappearing, claimed by death or marriage or melancholy. She had been trying to hold the rest of them together, but they did not want to be held.

It was time for Lucy to go. Last Season, they were still in mourning for Papa, and Cassandra had been foolish, cowardly, and yes, selfish, to think she could delay yet again. First Lucy and then Emily: Sooner or later, they would both go and leave her here with Mama, and the sooner they went, the better for them. She and Mama would be fine here alone. She loved Sunne Park, and she loved her mother, and that was enough.

Most of the time.

* * *

Cassandra pulled herself together,walked around the corner to Mr. Newell’s room, and tapped on the door.

“Mr. Newell?” she called softly. “I know you’re awake. You cannot have slept through that.”

Faint rustlings and rumblings issued from within, and then the door opened to reveal her secretary, candle in hand, somber dressing gown fastened primly over his round middle. His kind face was creased with sleep and his nightcap was askew on his adorable bald head. He glanced nervously over her shoulder down the hallway. Not one of the world’s fearless soldiers, was Mr. Newell.

“Mrs. DeWitt? How can I be of assistance? Miss Lucy, is she…”

“We must make plans, you and I, to go to London.”

“London?” He straightened his nightcap, only to tilt it again when he pulled his hand away. “But Mr. DeWitt prefers you to remain here.”

“I believe his actual words were that he couldn’t have his wife running around the country and I ought to stay where I was put.” At least, those were the words in the letter that Mr. Newell brought after she last expressed a desire to go to London. According to Mr. Newell, Cassandra’s husband dictated all his letters to a legion of secretaries, who thoughtfully edited out the curses. “Unfortunately for Mr. DeWitt, the situation calls for me to be…” She paused dramatically. “Anuisance.”

“A nuisance. Yes. Ha ha,” Mr. Newell said, looking dismayed.

“Altogether too much of a nuisance:” That was the phrase Mr. DeWitt had used to describe Cassandra and her family in Mr. Newell’s letter of introduction, nearly two years ago now. Cassandra had not meant to be a nuisance to her husband. It was simply that her father’s unexpected death, less than a month after their equally unexpected marriage, meant that she—and therefore he—owned Sunne Park and she had naively assumed he might want to, well, if not actively manage the estate, perhaps, ah, visit it? Maybe, at least, say, once?

“I have four factories, three estates, one thousand employees, and a growing fleet,” had come her husband’s reply. “I do not have time to attend to one measly cottage in the depths of Warwickshire. Surely Mrs. DeWitt can figure out how to prune the rosebushes and feed the pigs all by herself.”

Never mind that Sunne Park was a fine Tudor mansion on one thousand acres of rich farmland, whose pigs were the most sought-after breeding stock in the middle of England.

Never mind that Mr. DeWitt was based in Birmingham, which was less than a day’s travel away.

“We agreed to a marriage in name only,” he had added. “Mrs. DeWitt has my name; I cannot see what else she can want from me.”

Nevertheless, he had sent Mr. Newell, newly hired as Secretary In Charge Of Matrimonial Affairs, along with a bright-eyed gray kitten, the latter included “so,” Mr. DeWitt wrote, “the wife doesn’t get lonely and do something foolish.”

Charming man, her husband-in-name-only.

Really, Cassandra was perfectly content to have nothing to do with him, as his letters indicated that he was ill-mannered, and the scandal sheets indicated that he was ill-behaved. She knew little more about him now than she had on their wedding day—the only time she had ever seen him. Joshua DeWitt was a wealthy widower and the illegitimate son of an earl, Papa had told her, when he sat her down in his study and asked her to marry Mr. DeWitt, a week after they learned that Cassandra’s betrothed, the cheerful and charming Viscount Bolderwood, had eloped with someone else.

“Joshua is a good man, for all his ways,” Papa had said. “I wouldn’t marry you off to someone I didn’t trust. With your brother Charlie gone, the lawyers insist the only way for a daughter to inherit this estate is if she is married, and I know Joshua will take care of you all when I’m dead.”

Cassandra had laughed at him. “Heavens, Papa! Why do you talk of dying? You are in excellent health.”

But Papa had pleaded, so she married Mr. DeWitt, and a month later, Papa was dead. Though if Mr. DeWitt was a good man, she had seen little evidence of it.

Yet she was grateful for Mr. Newell, whose avuncular manner and infinite patience made him a favorite with Emily and Lucy. As for Mr. Twit…

A soft head butted her knee and a pair of cat’s eyes gleamed at her in the dim light. Mr. Twit, purring vigorously, rubbed against her calves, telling her to go to bed.

“The fact is, Mr. Newell, it is past time to launch Lucy into London society. In the circumstances, I think it best that I seek my grandmother’s assistance. And as the duchess will be in London for the Season, there must I go too.”

Mr. Newell shifted uncomfortably. “You must understand that Mr. DeWitt—he does not mince words. Once he decides something, he expects it to happen. He was very firm in saying no to you before.”

Given how much control a husband could legally wield over his wife, Cassandra counted herself fortunate that Mr. DeWitt ignored her so thoroughly, and that his only requirements were that she ignore him back and stay where she was put.

Which she was willing to do. Most of the time.

“Unfortunately for Mr. DeWitt, Lucy’s need to be in society is greater than his need to pretend I do not exist.”

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