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London 1802 – Ten years later
Charles could hear the children enter Millie’s room on the other side of the adjoining door. Since they had stopped sleeping together two years ago, their children would come to her room every morning. They would talk and laugh as Millie ate breakfast in bed and was dressed afterwards. He had often felt like joining them but knew that it was impossible.
His valet, Wynn, handed him a shirt and Charles pulled it over his head as he was trying to listen to what was being said on the other side of the door. It seemed that Henry, their four-year old son, was telling one of his pirate stories again.
Their eldest daughter Charlotte, aged nine, would shush him, telling him that they had heard the story multiple times before, while Lucinda, aged six, would simply boo him. He could hear how Millie tried to smooth things over and in the end, Henry was allowed to tell his story.
Millie had turned out to be a perfect mother just as he had expected. In fact, she had turned out to be perfect in every way except in the bedroom. He had tried for the first month or two to make her like sleeping with him. He had tried every trick he knew, but she had always urged him to simply get it over with. Or those weren’t the words that she had used, but it had clearly been the intent of them. She had refused all conversations as to what she liked and disliked.
After the first couple of months, he had resigned himself to sleeping with her only once a week. It would probably take them longer to conceive, but he could not stand sleeping with her more than that when she clearly was not enjoying it. He had found a new mistress around that time as well in order not to have to bother her too much with his advances. He was not particularly proud of not honoring his marriage vows, but it seemed the best solution for both Millie and him.
Luckily, Charlotte had been conceived only four months into their marriage. He had stopped sleeping with Millie as soon as she told him that she thought she was expecting, and he remembered that it had been a relief. After Charlotte had been born, he had been anxious as to when they should resume their weekly... encounters, seemed an appropriate word.
But only four months after Charlotte’s birth, Millie had told him in a timid voice, and without looking at him, that she was ready if he wanted to start visiting her bed again.
As Charles sat down before his dressing table in order for Wynn to tie his cravat, he thought whether they were the correct words, but it really did not signify.
It had taken longer for them to conceive Lucinda who had been born three years after Charlotte. Henry was born two years after Lucinda and by then Charles had thought that Millie would not want him to come to her bed again. She had fulfilled her duty as his duchess and given him a son. But after four months she had again said that she was ready.
He had figured that since she had asked him, they might as well try for a fourth child. Every nobleman would like a spare to his heir, even though Henry was a strong and healthy boy. But two years had passed, and they had not conceived again. Charles had started to grow weary of their weekly appointments and had finally had it when Millie one night pulled a pillow over her head to cover her face.
After that he had apologized, but Millie had assured him, that she had not been hurt. All his attempts to talk about what he might do to pleasure her had been brushed off completely as if Millie simply refused to listen to him. It had been the final blow to his pride and what had finally driven him from her bed. There was no reason that he should put her through something that she clearly disliked when they already had a son.
There was a burst of laughter and both Charles and Wynn looked at the closed door to the adjoining room. Charles did not even know whether it was locked; he had not tried it for two years. Perhaps Millie had locked it to make sure that he would not visit her bed. The thought stung, especially given that his desire would not die down and he would be forever disappointed that she did not return it.
But he should not complain, he reminded himself, as he looked at his own reflection in the mirror, and Wynn resumed tying his cravat. He had become one of the most influential men in the kingdom; when he spoke in the House of Lords, people listened, and more often than not, the bills he supported were voted through.
And Millie was a perfect politician’s wife. She had helped him tremendously: She was always keen on hosting a party in order to better a cause. She was still good at charming and talking to people and had even derived a way over the years to make it seem like he was part of the conversation. So, what if he did not dare place a hand on her arm or her waist to show his appreciation of her because he feared she might think he was making advances on her.
If he needed help writing a speech or could not remember who the author of a certain quote was, she was always there to help. More often than not, she was able to recollect from memory who the author was. And he could live with the fact that the nights discussing books and philosophy that he had envisioned before their marriage had not come to be. They did still talk, although mostly about the politics, the estate and their children.
And their children. They were just as perfect as Millie. Before they’d had Charlotte, Charles had not given much thought to how it would be being a father. But after she had been born his whole perspective had changed, his whole world. She was the center of it and everything he could do to make her happy, he would give her or buy her.
She had the best nurses and nannies, and he would go visit her every day in the nursery. Even if he was home late, he would sneak in there and watch her sleep. He would place his finger in her palm and feel a warmth spread in his body as she closed her tiny hand around it.
Now that she was older, he would take her and Lucinda to the St. James’ Park. He and Charlotte would usually be conversing; even though she was only nine, she was interested in politics and what happened in the world. Lucinda was a much dreamier child, who lived more in her own imaginative world. She loved painting, and to support her fancy, he had hired the best instructor for her.
When they were walking in the park, she would ask him questions like:
“Papa, which colors would you mix to make that shade of green on the trees over there?”
He would squeeze her hand and ask her which colors she would mix, in awe that he had helped create a person that was so different from himself. She looked the most like Millie with her ice blonde hair and light blue eyes.
Charlotte’s hair had such a dark tone of blonde that it was almost a light brown, and Henry had the exact same color of hair as him. The same blue eyes too. Henry was wild and Charles enjoyed chasing him through the house and – when Millie laughingly started scolding them for that – the garden. He was teaching him how to ride and already tried to instill a sense of how a duke should behave towards other people. A great responsibility would one day rest upon Henry’s shoulders, and he wanted him to understand that it was as much a privilege as it was an obligation.
As if his thoughts of him had conjured his son, the adjoining door to Millie’s room was slammed open and Henry ran in there. Wynn had finished tying his cravat and Charles was now standing in the middle of the room, buttoning his waistcoat.
“Papa, Papa,” Henry said breathlessly as he ran around the room. “We need to go to the banks of the Thames. I dreamt that a pirate ship anchored there during the night. We have to see whether it’s true.”
Charles could not help but smile. Normally he liked to indulge Henry’s fantasies of pirates and highwaymen, so much that he had taken him treasure hunting in Hyde Park only a week ago. But today he had a busy schedule all day and then he was off to see his mistress, Delilah, in the evening. He supposed that he could have skipped seeing Delilah, but by then Henry would already be in bed, and there was no point in it.
“Not today, sport, I have too much to do,” he said.
“But if we go another day they will probably be gone,” Henry said. He had stopped in front of Charles, looking up at him with a pleading look in his eyes, that a puppy could not have mastered better.
“Henry, I told you not to bother Papa with the pirate ship,” came Millie’s voice from the open door.
Charles looked up to find her standing in her cerulean dressing gown in the door, an ice blonde braid hanging over one shoulder. The dressing gown was completely normal, no frills, or laces, and definitely not see-through, but still it allowed him a view of her body that her clothes normally did not. Her bosom and her hips had increased after she had had the children, but it only suited her. Charles could almost feel what it would be like to place his hands on her hips and feel the soft skin over the harder bones.
He quickly turned and looked away. He couldn’t be thinking about his wife like this. He had closed that door of their marriage and he had no intention of opening it again. It would only be cruel to her when she did not enjoy it.
“Henry, come here, right now,” Millie scolded from the doorway, clearly not aware of Charles’ reaction to her.
Henry ran to the other side of the room as if he knew Millie would not enter Charles’s bedroom.
“Young man, you have to do what your mama tells you,” Charles said as he buttoned the last button in his waistcoat and made sure not to look at Millie.
“Even when what she tells me is boring?” Henry enquired.
“Even then,” Charles said and had to refrain from smiling.
Henry started to walk as slowly as possible through Charles’s room. So slow, that Millie clearly became impatient and said:
“Henry, now,” in an ominous voice that would have made Charles do what she said immediately.
At that point Wynn entered from the dressing room with Charles’s coat. Millie hurried out of sight and Charles let out a long exhale. He had not even been aware that he was holding his breath. Henry had reached the door by now and Millie’s arm came into view as she grabbed hold of his shoulder and practically dragged him inside her room.
As she was closing the door, she peaked through the opening, only her head showing. Her intent light blue eyes met his.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “We should probably lock the door, so that he won’t disturb you in the future.”
“It’s fine,” Charles said and smiled.
For a moment he felt that Millie lingered, and he hoped that perhaps she, for some insane reason, had felt the same spark that he had. But then she simply smiled curtly, nodded, and closed the door.