Free Lady Hathaway's House Party by Joan Smith Page A

approve of your coming here with Henderson,” in quite a sharp tone.
    It was the tone that had used to set her trembling inside, to see she was displeasing him, but she had no duty to please him now, and very little desire to do so. “That’s too bad,” she answered pertly.
    “It looked so very odd, and you notice that Dempster commented on it.”
    “Yes, and if I’d come alone Dempster would have commented that I was too sly to appear in public with my beau. I don’t care what she thinks. I explained all that. He was coming from Amesbury, and I was coming from home, less than a mile away. It would have been foolish to bring two carriages, and two teams of horses. Besides, Papa wanted our carriage at home.”
    “You have your own carriage sitting in the stables in London, gathering dust while the horses eat their heads off. And it’s probably a better carriage than his, too.”
    “Sell them,” she said. “I can’t imagine why you’ve kept them all this time.”
    “I kept them for you.”
    “I don’t want them. I never plan to use them. Sell them.”
    “You will want them when you come up to London. To visit your aunt, I mean.”
    “Aunt Rankin has a carriage. I don’t need yours.”
    “It’s not mine; it’s yours.”
    “Let me make it perfectly clear, Oliver. I don’t want anything from you but to be left alone. I don’t want those hideous gowns, nor a fur-lined cape in May, nor your jewels that are far too ostentatious for my taste, or the high-perch phaeton you so kindly gave me that scares the life out of me. You gave me what you wanted your wife to have, not what I wanted. A gift that is inappropriate is no gift at all, but only a waste of money. Get rid of the lot of it; I don’t want any part of your gifts.”
    Avondale had spent a good many hours selecting items he thought must please any lady of fashion, and to have it all tossed in his face as unwanted did nothing to calm his temper. “Then you have very poor taste,” he shot back.
    “I can hardly argue with you when I chose to marry you, but my taste improves every day. It has improved so much I wonder I ever thought I could live with you.”
    “Oh God yes, it has reached such a pitch of perfection that you can imagine Arnold Henderson a man, but you’ll not flaunt that underbred pup in the faces of my friends as your lover.”
    “How typical of you! You don’t care that I have a lover, but only that he is underbred! If I were carrying on with some blue-blooded duke or prince I suppose you would be pleased as punch.”
    “Then you admit he is your lover!”
    “I don’t admit anything of the sort. I’ve told you a dozen times he is not.”
    “Don’t try to tell me he’s trailing at your skirts without any encouragement from you.”
    “All right. I won’t try to tell you anything. It would be the height of futility. Think what you like.”
    “I am less circumspect, madame. I tell you frankly I will not have my wife flaunt herself in public with any man, blue-blooded or otherwise. While you bear my name, you will behave with propriety.”
    “It can be arranged for me to be rid of your name. Since you are here, and we are having this nice little chat, I might as well tell you I want a divorce.”
    “No! There will be no divorce!” he shouted, jumping to his feet to tower over her, glaring menacingly.
    “There will be no resumption of the marriage either, so don’t think it. I’m only nineteen years old, and I don’t intend to spend the rest of my life making up for one mistake. I will be happy to have a divorce, and let you get on with leading your own life. You will want a family, an heir for—”
    “There has never been a divorce in the family, and I don’t intend to be the one to set the precedent.”
    “Suit yourself.”
    “Belle, you don’t know what it would mean. A trial, the whole country prying into our private affairs—”
    “The whole country pries into them anyway, as far as I can see. They know