Free A Christmas Promise by Mary Balogh Page B

for love,” she said. “Perhaps I married you for your good looks, my lord. I am sure you must know that you have those in abundance.”
    “This is hardly the time or place in which to quarrel,” he said, frowning. “I am afraid that I must insist that you wear mourning clothes for at least a year, my lady. I have respect for the dead if you do not.”
    “It was his request,” she said, looking at him disdainfully. “His final request, my lord. That I not mourn for him long. That I put off mourning before Christmas. But of course, I owe obedience to you now, do I not? No longer to a father who is not even alive.”
    There was bitterness in her tone. And what further proof did he need that she cared not a jot for anyone but herself? He did not believe her. But how could he take the chance of not doing so? Would she forever hold against him the fact that he had not allowed her to honor her father’s last request?
    “Very well, then,” he said curtly. “But you will not be seen in public within the next year, my lady. Not in town, anyway. We will remove to the country—to Grenfell Park—and stay there. I am sorry you will have no Season next spring. I am sure you have your heart set upon it.” And she would too, he thought in cold anger. She would dance and make merry within months of her father’s death if he would allow it.
    “Ah,” she said, “but I will have Grenfell Park, my lord, and all the glory of being its mistress. I will take precedence over everyone else, will I not? Do you have a padded pew at church? I shall enjoy walking down the aisle, nodding condescendingly to all our neighbors.”
    “You have a wicked tongue,” he said. “Will any of your family be present for the funeral, do you suppose?”
    “No,” she said. “Most of my father’s family live in or close to Bristol. There will not be time for letters to reach them and the journey to London to be made. You may relax, my lord. You are not about to be surrounded by hordes of vulgar businesspeople and farmers. Just me and my father’s business associates from town. I am sure that that will be agony and humiliation enough.”
    He considered retreating into silence since they were quite close to home anyway. But he must begin as he meant to proceed, he decided. He did not intend to take cover in silence from the barbed tongue of a shrew.
    “I think we had better decide, my lady,” he said, looking directly at her, his voice stern, “to treat each other with courtesy. It seems that we both entered this marriage for less than admirable reasons, and it has become clear that neither of us feels even the smallest degree of affection for the other. But married we are, and married we will remain for the rest of our lives. Let there be civility between us, then. And civility of manner as well as word. No more sarcasm and biting setdowns.”
    The hostility gradually faded from her eyes as he watched her, to be replaced by wariness. “Very well,” she said at last.
    But any chance he might have had of comforting her for the death of her father—if she needed comforting—was lost. He handed her from the carriage when they arrived at Grosvenor Square and she disappeared into the morning room to write her letters while he retired to his own room to sleep for a few hours. And yet he found himself over-tired. He could not sleep.
    And he found himself wishing he could live the last few days over again. He wished that he had followed his own recent advice and established a relationship of mutual respect from the start between himself and his wife. He wished he could have his wedding night over again. He wished he could consummate his marriage with more gentleness and consideration. But perhaps things could not have been different anyway. Perhaps his wife was as cold and as shrewish as she had seemed so far in his acquaintance with her.
    And yet she was unexpectedly hot in some ways. He closed his eyes and remembered the wildness and the boldness