Free The Emperor by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles

to marry anyone else, but would remain a prisoner in her father's house for the rest of her life. And when her father died, what then? No, she must stay here, and behave submissively to James. That galled her pride abominably, and part of her wanted to go home to Papa, just to chew him that he could not govern her. But that would not be sensible, nor consonant with duty. It would be much more sensible to let James think he had won, and by behaving meekly towards him, to enjoy what freedoms she had.
    She remembered with an inward blush her recent folly in thinking that they might come to love each other. That was obviously impossible: he had married her, as he said, simply to get an heir for Morland Place, and now that he had one, he wanted nothing more from her than her quiescence. But she was sure now that there was some other underlying reason for his moodiness she had not found out; something in his past, which the family and servants must know about.
    By the time she went downstairs in answer to the summons of the dinner bell, she was completely calm. The bruises on her wrist were covered by the long sleeves of her sage-green silk dinner gown, and no-one could have known by looking at her that anything untoward had happened. When she entered the drawing-room, the first thing she noticed was that the pianoforte had gone, and the harpsi chord was back in its place, but she was so well under control that she merely raised an enquiring eyebrow towards Edward.
    ‘ James seemed to think it would be better upstairs in the long saloon,' Edward said apologetically. 'It will be the very thing when we have dances up there, and indeed, it was very large for this room. Too large, perhaps.'
    ‘ You are quite in the right,' Mary Ann said calmly, not glancing at James. She sat down in her usual chair and took her sewing from the little table beside her. 'It was too large. The harpsichord suits this room a great deal better.'
    ‘ I'm glad you think so,' Ned said gratefully, 'because, now I come to think of it, Mary would have been very upset to come home from London and find it gone. And you can always go up to the saloon when you want to play.'
    ‘ Yes,' she said serenely, taking the first tiny stitch of a long, long hem, 'I can always do that.’

Chapter Four
     
      By February 1796 Lucy had grown so large that moving around was difficult, and she began to stay in bed until late in the morning. It was a habit Chetwyn thoroughly approved, saying that for the first time in their married life, he could be sure where to find her. It became his pleasant custom to -visit her in her chamber, timing his arrival to coincide with her breakfast tray.
    Following the servant in one morning he paused on the threshhold to look at her with affection. Their marriage had been a contented one. After their wedding, they had consummated the marriage for the first few nights with some solemnity and a great deal of shyness, but as nothing had immediately come of it, they had left off, both having many more interesting things to do. Time had passed more quickly than they realized, as he had reminded her after the curricle race. They had slept together for a fortnight in a spirit of sober endeavour, and at the end of that time Lucy had been able to inform him in a brisk, matter-of-fact way, that their efforts had been rewarded. Since then they had resumed the relationship which seemed so much more natural to them both, that of brother and sister, of childhood friends.
    She looked up now and saw him, and gave him a welcoming smile which was more like an urchin's grin. Her short-cropped hair was sleep-ruffled into a crest, and the shawl she had pulled on was slipping from her shoulders. Her bed was a comfortable nest of letters and parcels and books and cats and handkerchiefs, and a hound puppy peace ably chewing one of her shoes; and for a moment Chetwyn was quite tempted to get in with her, for the sheer cosiness of it.
    Since she had been rendered