He was trying to beget an heir with her, and she was trying to enjoy the short encounters. She hoped he was having more success than she was. He always returned to his own room as soon as he had finished. Always he thanked her as he left.
He treated her with civility, but it was cold enough to draw a sigh and a comment from his mother after he had left the breakfast parlor one morning. "I /so /hoped Elliott would be different," she said. "Different?" Vanessa looked at her with raised eyebrows. "The Wallace men are always as wild as sin before they marry," the dowager said, "and meticulously respectable afterward, at least as far as outward appearances go. They always choose their brides with care and treat them with unfailing courtesy ever after. They never marry for love. It would be beneath their dignity and would restrict their freedom too much to allow themselves to feel any such emotion. It is difficult for a man to break with family tradition, especially when the family is as illustrious as this one is. I thought Elliott might do it, though.
Perhaps one always believes one's son will be different from his father.
And of course one always wishes desperately for his happiness." It was a chilling speech. "I still intend to make him happy," Vanessa said, leaning forward across the table. "It is I who have made him /unhappy, /you see. Or at least I have wounded his pride or something else that is important to him. Three days after our wedding he gathered daffodils with me - great armfuls he could hardly see around. And when we returned to the dower house he filled the pots and vases with water for me and helped sort the flowers and carry them into each room and position them in just the right place and at just the right angle." "Elliott did this?" The dowager looked surprised. "And the very next day," Vanessa said, "he found me in tears. I was weeping over a portrait of my late husband because I had been happy for three whole days and felt guilty and feared I might forget him." "Oh, dear," her mother-in-law said, frowning. "Did you explain to Elliott?" "I did," Vanessa said. "At least I /think /I did. I was not sure how to explain it even to myself. But clearly he did not understand. I will make him happy yet, though. See if I don't." It would have been very easy just to fall into the busy pattern that life took on as soon as they arrived in town. There were a hundred and one things to do every day - go shopping, go to the library, pay afternoon calls with her mother-in-law and sister-in-law, call upon her siblings after they had arrived at Merton House on Berkeley Square, pore over the masses of invitations that arrived at the house every day and ponder which she wished to attend - after her presentation to the queen, of course. And there was that presentation to think about and worry about - and the ball that would follow it in the evening. It was a ball intended primarily for Cecily's come-out, but in a sense it would be Vanessa's too - and Meg's and Kate's.
There were people to meet and faces and names to memorize.
Most of them were female pursuits. Indeed, it seemed to Vanessa that ladies and gentlemen of the /ton /lived largely separate existences and came together only for social events like balls and picnics and concerts. The come-out ball would be one such occasion.
She might have thrown herself into the new life and virtually ignored Elliott, who did she knew not what with his days.
But she missed him. They had talked a great deal during the three days of their honeymoon. They had done things together. They had made love frequently and at satisfying length. They had slept together.
It had been a less-than-ideal relationship even then. She had felt his reserve, his unwillingness to unbend and simply enjoy life. She had noticed that he never smiled or laughed. But it had been only a partial reserve. It had seemed to her that those had been happy days for him too, even if he would never have used that exact word.
At the very least then there had been the hope of more.
Now he was /not /happy - not when he was at home anyway.
And it was all her fault.
She /might /have been contented with half a marriage, then, and she /might /have been contented with the busy nature of her days.
But she was not.
On the morning of the day before her presentation, she heard him leave his dressing room. It was still very early. He always got up early in order to spend some time in the office with Mr. Bowen before going about whatever business kept him from home for the rest of the day.
His mother and sometimes even Cecily took breakfast with him. So did she, but there was no chance of any private conversation there.
Vanessa hurried into her dressing room, hauling off her nightgown as she went. She did not ring for her maid. She washed quickly in cold water and dressed hastily in a pale blue day dress. She pulled a brush through her hair, checked herself in the full-length mirror to make sure she did not look an absolute fright, and followed her husband downstairs.
He was in the study next to the library, as she had expected. He had a letter open in one hand though he was not reading it. He was talking with Mr. Bowen. Dressed immaculately in riding clothes and top boots, he looked very handsome indeed.
He turned as she appeared in the doorway and his eyebrows lifted in evident surprise. "Ah, my dear," he said. "You are up early this morning." He had taken to calling her /my dear /in public. It seemed ludicrously inappropriate. "I could not sleep," she said, and smiled. She nodded to Mr. Bowen, who had risen to his feet behind the desk. "How may I be of service to you?" Elliott asked. "You may come into the library or the morning room with me," she said. "I wish to speak with you." He inclined his head. "I will dictate an answer to this one later, George," he said, waving the letter in his hand before setting it down on the desk. "There is no particular hurry for it." He took her by the elbow and led her into the next room, where a fire was already burning merrily in the hearth. "What may I do for you, Vanessa?" he asked, indicating a leather chair beside the hearth and going to stand before the fire himself, his back to it. He was all courtesy with a hint of impatience.
She sat down. "I thought we might talk," she said. "We hardly ever have the chance to talk to each other anymore." He raised his eyebrows again. "Not at dinner?" he asked her. "Or in the drawing room afterward?" "Your mother and sister are always present too," she said. "I meant alone, just the two of us." He regarded her steadily. "Do you need more money?" he asked. "You may ask George for that anytime. You will not find me tightfisted." "No, of course not," she said, waving a dismissive hand. "I have not spent any of what he gave me two days ago. Oh, except for the subscription cost at the library. I looked around the shops, but there was really nothing else I needed that would not have been a pointless extravagance. I already have more dresses than I have ever owned in my life." He continued to look down at her and she realized at what a disadvantage he had set her - deliberately? She was seated while he stood. He towered over her. "It was not about money I wished to speak," she said. "It was about us - about our marriage. I think I hurt you." His eyes grew cold. "I believe, ma'am," he said, "you do not possess the power to do that." It was proof positive that she was right. People who were hurt often felt the need to strike back - only even more viciously. "If that was all you wished to say," he said, "I will bid you - " "Of course it is not all," she said. "Good heavens, Elliott, is the rest of our married life to proceed this way, as if we are nothing to each other but coldly polite strangers? Just a few days ago you were skipping stones across the water at Finchley Park and I was rowing us in circles and we were gathering daffodils. Did all that mean nothing to you?" "You surely did not expect that those days would be more than a mildly pleasant interlude before the real business of the rest of our married days began, did you?" he asked her. "Of course I did," she said. "Elliott - " "I really must bid you good morning," he said. "May I escort you to the breakfast parlor? Perhaps my mother will be down by now." He offered his arm. "Those three days and nights - /four /nights - were the most wonderful of my whole life," she said, leaning forward a little in her chair and fixing her eyes on him.