Mary Balogh - The First Snowdrop

But she had a chance to be Kate for two weeks. And she would be playing opposite Alexander. She would be only acting, of course, but she could also fantasize, pretend that she really was Kate behaving thus to her lover. Everyone would think that she was merely acting. No one would suspect what she was really doing, playacting in earnest. Now that the shock of the duchess's announcement had had a chance to wear off, Anne found within herself a growing excitement. She was going to learn her part so thoroughly that she would not have to think about the words or when she was to say them. Then she would be able to concentrate all her energies on bringing the part alive on the stage. She would be able to concentrate on stooping to conquer Alexander, even,if it were only in her imagination.

Merrick was in his room, sitting sideways on the window seat, one leg propped on it, his forearm resting across his raised knee. The air felt delightfully cool through the open window. He would have loved to change into his riding clothes again and take his horse out for a gallop. But he had to stay here and learn this damned part. He might have guessed that Grandmamma would come up with some such harebrained notion. No one in his right mind, of course, would accept the theory that the idea and the command had originated with Grandpapa. No one was fooled by that myth, but she seemed to delight in keeping it alive.

If only she had given him a different part, or given Anne a different part. She really did have a fiendish mind. He had always thought so but had never had such glaring proof as he had now. She knew that they were estranged. She must know that he had been less than pleased to find his wife in residence when he had arrived yesterday. It was all her doing, of course. Grandpapa, left to himself, would have taken a thousand years to conceive the idea of using his position as head of the family to override the command of a man to his wife. She was trying to bring them back together, but her tactics were so obvious that she was like to make them the laughingstock.

Merrick did not have to read the play that lay open before him to the first page. He had seen it performed several times. He had always enjoyed it and would normally have fallen in with the duchess's plans-if not with enthusiasm, at least with willingness. But he would have to flirt with Anne, even to the extent of stealing a kiss, before an audience. He wondered if his grandmother had chosen the play with the fact in mind that the situation between the two main characters resembled to an uncomfortable degree his own first meeting with his wife. In the play, Charles Marlow mistook the daughter of the house for the maid because she was dressedin countrystyle. He attempted to seduce her and discovered the truth only when her father and his own intervened. Merrick ground his teeth. He certainly did not need the play to remind him of how he had acted the fool.

If he leaned slightly forward toward the window, he could see Anne below him, sitting in the rose arbor, reading. Was she, too, realizing the parallels between the play and her own experience? He was going to find it impossible to act with her. All the others would be watching them, wondering about the true state of their marriage. Sometimes he could contemplate horrible tortures for his dear, interferinggrandmother.

What was the state of his marriage, anyway? He was still shaken by the change in her. He hated to admit it, but she was quite beautiful now. Had he recognized her immediately the afternoon before, perhaps he could have protected himself from that feeling of powerful attraction that had swept over him. But yet again she had unwittingly put him into the position of feeling very foolish. How could a man speak to his own wife for a whole minute or two without knowing her? His embarrassment had very quickly converted into anger. Perhaps he had been unfair, but she should have revealed herself sooner. Was he always to appear at a disadvantage before her?

Merrick put his head back against the wall behind him. Why had he gone to her last night? It was really a foolish thing to have done. He had resumed the marriage and perhaps given her the argument she needed to be taken back with him when he returned to London after the anniversary ball. It would have been far better to have stayed angry, to have concentrated his mind on that punishment he had promised her. But punishment for what? She had only obeyed a command from an old woman whom even the strongest man had never been able to withstand for as far back as Merrick could remember.

He could not understand his own feelings. He had almost always felt in command of himself where women were concerned. Even when he had been about to betroth himself to Lorraine, he had made a conscious decision, weighing all the advantages of such a match. He always chose his mistresses with care, considering their beauty, social position, tact, and intelligence. He had never allowed himself to be swayed by emotion alone. With Anne he could be sure of nothing. For a long time he had felt guilty, pitying her alone on his run-down estate. He had felt that he should return to her, if only to make her a decent settlement and set her free to choose a more congenial place to live.

Now his mind was totally confused. He had had no willpower the night before to stay away from her. He had hidden his own perplexity behind a mask of cold cynicism, but he had wanted her with an ache that was not to be denied. And as soon as he had touched her, he had been back in their wedding chamber, where he had surprised himself with the strength of his own desire for her. He had blocked that memory from his mind, as it was totally inconsistent with his general feeling of distaste for a bride whom he had seen as dull and almost ugly. But there had been no holding back the memory the night before. She had smelled of the same wholesome soap as she had before, and her body had responded with the same heat and eager surrender. She was undoubtedly, and surprisingly, a woman of great passion. He had completely lost control of his own reactions. He had not been able to make love to her as if he despised her, but had taken her as if she were his very life.

Would he go to her again tonight? And tomorrow night? If he wished to retain any control over his own life, he must stay away. He could not allow himself to be ruled by a little mouse of a woman who somehow always seemed able to make him look foolish.

Damn Grandmamma! Merrick picked up his copy of the play, slammed it closed, and hurled it onto a table that stood a short distance from the window. He felt better for a moment.

Three days later tempers were becoming somewhat frayed. Prudence, forgetting her early excitement over being given a big part, grumbled to Anne that Great-Aunt Jemima had gathered them all together under false pretenses. They had been invited to a two-week house party, but instead they had been recruited as a slave gang. All she had wanted was free performers for an entertainment for all her guests on the night of the ball. She could easily have hired a group of players to come and act at the house. She could well afford it. Everyone knew what an old moneybags Great-uncle Roderick was. A girl should be in London already, waiting for the Season to begin in full swing. A girl should be having fun, especially when she was only nineteen years old. It was fine for Constance, maybe. At sixteen, her sister could not expect much social activity. She might well think it fun to be involved in staging a dramatic production. But for everyone else…

Jack was loud and indiscriminate in his complaints. Grandmamma had clearly forgotten what it was like to be below the age of forty. Did she really believe that one could derive entertainment from cavorting around a stage all day and all night, bullied and harangued by a dry middle-aged stick who would be satisfied with no less than perfection? It would not be as intolerable, perhaps, if one were not surrounded so exclusively by one's cousins. Hortense was pretty enough, and Prudence had a certain spirit that one might admire. Constance was too young to be noticed, though she promised well. But how could one get excited about females with whom one had romped as a child?

He did not add aloud to anyone that the only female who might have brightened his stay was proving quite elusive. She made life interesting, of course, but one never quite knew where one stood with old Alex. He had married the girl a few years before, Jack gathered, because he had felt he had compromised her in some way, and then he had left her and presumably forgotten her very existence. It was only fair that another fellow should be free to try his luck with her. But Alex had jumped to her defense that first afternoon, and he had a disconcerting habit of turning up at the wrong moment, just as if he were any ordinary jealous husband.

There had been the afternoon before, for example, when Claude had announced that he needed only Maud and Martin for rehearsal. Jack had seen Anne, book in hand, wander off along the tree-lined driveway toward the main gates almost two miles distant. He had been quick to follow and to catch up with her out of sight of the house.

"Anne," he had said, favoring her with the smile that usually brought color to the cheeks of any female, "I see that you too feel the need for air and exercise. Do you mind if I walk with you?"

"Not at all, Jack," she had said in the quiet voice that had come to intrigue him. And he was gratified to note that she had blushed.

He had given her time to get used to his presence, walking silently at her side and looking up into the treetops. "Are you happy to be here?" he had asked. "The grounds are quite splendid, are they not? I imagine it is quite a welcome change for you to be here after living at Redlands for so long. A drab old place, as I remember."