That should set the high and mighty duke back on his heels. Rebecca had no intention of marrying anyone, let alone a man who resembled a man she’d half fallen in love with when she was but a green girl still stuck at Miss Greensley’s School of Comportment for Young Ladies of Quality. What a disheartening notion. She jerked the door open and almost knocked heads with Gabriella. “Still listening at keyholes, my friend?”
“I suppose I should be ashamed,” Gabby said softly, trying to peer around Rebecca, but Rebecca quickly shut the door behind her. “But I’m not.” She shot Rebecca a sheepish grin. “Besides I couldn’t hear a thing.” Gabby put her arm through Rebecca’s and pulled her up the stairs and down a wide hall. “So, you must tell me everything.”
“There’s not much to tell.”
“You jest, my dear. I’ve never seen my brother so out of sorts.”
“Ha. Your brother is never out of sorts.” Except that business about Damian Bellamy, she decided. “He is, I’m sad to say, as pompous as I remember him from our school days and beyond.”
“Yes, well, one doesn’t change overnight. Most especially, my brother.”
“It’s been nigh on a decade, Gabs. I doubt the man will ever change.” They entered a suite of rooms where clothes were strewn everywhere—stacks in a rainbow of colors. Her friend hadn’t changed either. Rebecca had forever been shoving aside clothes to find the chair beneath, as she did now. “What’s going on, Gabby? Why are you in Dorchester instead of up north with your husband? You’ve been married barely a month.”
Gabby avoided her gaze, going to her vanity, straightening her brushes, her pots of moisturizer, smoothing doilies over wood surfaces with her fingers. Everything but answering Rebecca’s question.
“Gabs?”
“He’s not what I thought, that’s all.”
Rebecca frowned. “I don’t understand. Did he step out on you?”
She gasped. “No!” Then scowled. “At least I don’t believe so. Not… yet.”
“Not yet? I don’t like the sound of that.” Rebecca shuddered. Exactly the reason she had no desire to marry. Men had too much control in her opinion. They did not need saving or a champion in their corner. Still, she suspected Gabby’s reasons went deeper than she was letting on.
“It’s the marriage bed. I hate it.”
“Hate it? But you adore Huntley.” Rebecca was thoroughly confused. “What is there to hate?”
Gabby snorted. “Have you ever had intercourse?” She went to the door and locked it, then moved to the settee next to Rebecca’s chair and shoved the stack of silks to the floor and plopped down. “You mustn’t say a thing to anyone. I mean it, Rebecca. I would be humiliated beyond words. I would have to swim out to sea and drown myself.”
Nothing like a little Gabriella drama, but Rebecca was more than curious now. And a little hurt. She’d never in a million years betrayed Gabby’s trust. Ever. “You know me better than that.”
She let out a sigh. “I’m sorry. You’re right. I do.”
“So what is the problem, darling?”
“It’s painful.”
Rebecca rubbed her temples with a thumb and index finger, her weariness hitting her with driving force. “The truth is always painful. We learned that well enough when we were younger.” The cute stable boy in Matford came to mind. The scar on her arm tingled.
“I’m talking about the conjugal relations.” Gabby’s voice had dropped to a whisper. “The act is painful.”
“I’m sorry, Gabs,” Rebecca said gently. “You’re going to have to explain. I’ve never…” Her voice trailed off, her face flaming. But she’d never backed from a challenge, and she wouldn’t now. Not if her closest friend needed her help, even if that help was just listening. Admittedly, Rebecca was in way over her head.
Gabby dropped her head in her hands and sobbed. “Oh, Rebecca. It was horrid. It was clumsy and it hurt! And then he… left.”
“Left! Where on earth did he go?”
“I don’t know. He was gone when I woke the next morning. Without a word,” she wailed. “He hates me.”
“How long have you been gone?”
“I-I left as soon as I realized he wasn’t coming back.” She sniffed at her tears and looked about for a handkerchief. Then grabbed the closest muslin and blew her nose.
“Oh, Gabs.” Rebecca was at a loss. She had no idea what to say to reassure her friend. She’d never had marital relations. She rose and moved next to Gabby, wrapped an arm around her shoulders and did the only thing she could. Gave her friend her shoulder to cry her heart out on.
“I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I-I never want to see him again. And Sebastian is going to demand answers.” She cried harder. “I can’t possibly talk to my brother about this. You’ve got to help me, Rebecca. I have no one else to turn to.”
“Darling, you have three married sisters. They surely know more than me.”
In an abrupt move, Gabby jerked away from Rebecca. “They don’t know me. Not like you do. They’ll say things like: Is that all, Gabriella? This is a woman’s lot in life. Or, you make the tiniest thing an issue, Gabriella. It’s time you grew up. But, Rebecca, he left and didn’t say a word. How am I supposed to react to that?”
Rebecca would have been furious had the same happened to her. She would have chased the man down with a dueling pistol in her hand. But Gabriella was much more sensitive and cognizant of the dictates of society. Her brother was a duke. Rebecca had no such strictures.
A sense of helplessness settled over Rebecca that was overwhelming. It appeared there were two problems at hand: the marital relations aspect, and Huntley’s mysterious departure.
She was used to situations with a clear purpose. Something substantial she could use the proverbial sword to knock obstacles from her path. A clear villain to slay—yet was Huntley a villain? There must be some reason he’d deserted his wife the morning after their wedding.
Gabby’s concerns with intercourse were out of Rebecca’s realm, let alone her level of comfort. Huntley’s actions, however, were not. That was a dragon she could slay. “You know I’ll do what I can to help. I’m just not sure what it is.” She reached over and squeeze Gabby’s hand. “We’ll come up with something.”
“Just your being here means everything.” Gabby hugged her. “Thank you for coming.” She rose, went over to her vanity and found a scrap of lace, and dabbed at her tears. “I’ll be fine, of course. Let’s talk about you. Truly, you should consider a suit from my cousin. The squire is quite well off. He would be an excellent match for you. Sebastian is clearly a fool.”
Rebecca groaned. “Gabs, you’ve been pushing me at your brother for years.” Literally, in fact. “Your handprint is an indelible print on my back.” She drew in a breath. “Darling, I have no intention of going after your brother or your cousin.” No matter what she’d told Ryleigh.
“But, Rebecca, you must marry, and Sebastian, I mean Thomas,” she quickly corrected, “is ideal for you.”
“At the risk of bringing up recent unpleasantness, I’m compelled to remind you of your own unhappy situation—” She was interrupted by a knock on the door.
Gabby was there instantly but had apparently forgotten she’d twisted the lock. After a short fumble, she got the door open and was handed a note. She read through it. “And so it begins,” she said, striding over and handing the missive to Rebecca.
She scanned it. Gabriella, I request your presence in my study. Will four of the clock suit your schedule? Humbly, Ryleigh.
“Humbly, my arse,” Gabby said.
“Touchingly personal, isn’t it?”
“A note, Your Grace.”
One didn’t have to be a mind reader to know the response Sebastian was just handed was from his younger sister, raising her fiery head. He could practically feel the flames singeing his fingertips. Things had not changed an iota from Gabriella’s schooldays when Rebecca Thatcher happened in the vicinity.
The door crashed back and Gabriella stood in the arch, her expression unsurprisingly furious. “What!” she demanded.
“Where is your defender of all things terrible?” he asked with a grim smile.
“Resting.”
He held up her note. “You say here four did not work for you.”
“I wish to rest before supper as well and chose to get this business over with you earlier rather than later.” Her lip poked out in a petulance he hadn’t seen since she was practically an infant, or, at the least, since Miss Greensley’s School.
The sight annoyed him. “We need to talk. First and foremost, what is this nonsense about not wanting to be a countess any longer? Surely, I needn’t point out that is not an option. Your marriage was consummated, I assume?”
Red stained her cheeks, and she crossed her arms over her chest. “I don't wish to discuss it.”
As tempting as it was, he couldn't very well kick her out of the family homestead. He let out a labored sigh. “I can't help you if I don't know the issue, my sweet.”
She put her nose in the air. “It's really none of your affair.”
Clearly, this conversation was going to go nowhere. “Will your husband be coming after you?”
“I sincerely doubt it.” She strolled over to the windows, her back to him, though he heard a suspicious sniff. “It's over, Sebastian.”
“Gabriella, marriage lasts a lifetime. There will be ups and downs. I suggest you resign yourself to the fact.”
“You are a man, Sebastian. You know nothing of what a woman must endure.”
Something sharp pricked him in the chest. He tugged out his handkerchief, went over and put it in her hand, and wrapped his arm around her. “Has Huntley done something to harm you?”
She lean her head against his shoulder and looked up at him. Tears welled, squeezing his lungs. He hated seeing her like this. Hurting and not knowing what to do to make things better. She wasn’t a small child to crawl in his lap any longer. Those days were long gone.
Sebastian would kill Huntley if he did anything to injure his sister. She had been a precious gift to the household when she was born. He squeezed her up against him. “Of course, you are welcome home anytime, my dear. Whatever it is, we shall get through it.”
She nodded. “Rebecca said much the same.”
Of course, the all-knowing Rebecca Thatcher had said as much. Sebastian was blasted sick of Rebecca Thatcher. She was everywhere. In his house, in his brain, in his dreams. Hell-fire, he couldn’t escape her. Done. He was done with her! And he would not be accepting Thomas’s invitation to supper. He absolutely refused.
Sebastian brushed the butler-acting-as-valet’s hand away to finish tying his own cravat into simple knot with all the frustration of a sex-deprived fiend, then groaning, as that was exactly how he felt—a sex-deprived fiend. The only place Rebecca wasn’t was in his bed. He would be dining at home.
A glance at his fob watch showed he was too late for his pre-dinner sherry, and he detoured to the dining hall.
Perhaps the invitation was for a few nights hence—his heart thumped in anticipation—of seeing Rebecca.
He entered the room, but the only one seated at the table was Gabriella, sipping a glass of wine. “It’s just you and I tonight, Sebastian. Where have you been? I’m famished.”
“Where is your devoted friend?”
“Oh, she received her invitation to dine with Thomas and the twins. I chose not to accompany her. I think Thomas and she will suit admirably.”
He bit back an oath. The pounding against his ribs felt pricked with thorns. “I take it Lynnwood sent his carriage for her,” he said instead.
“Yes. But the fool girl turned it down. Her driver arrived this afternoon with hers. Apparently, she’d had a broken wheel. Is that how you and Rebecca ended up traveling together?”
Good God. Again, Rebecca Thatcher threw out all sense of propriety. “It was. Your friend has no common sense. She had planned to wait with her driver at the Wild Rose until the carriage was repaired but I insisted her party accompany me since we were bound for the same destination. I told her driver to follow once the repairs had been made.” He frowned. “She didn’t put up too much of an argument. Perhaps she feared—”
“Feared what?”
“For the, er, boys’ safety.” Had she worried the man was after them? She must have, though she hadn’t said as much. Even someone as unconventional as Rebecca would have realized Ryleigh’s title alone would protect them. A thought that set his mind at ease… a little.