‘I would rather have you all to myself,’ he said at last, looking at her with a smile that did not quite tally with the look in his eye.
‘I fear that you are ashamed of him, and don’t want me to know him. Please, I assure you, you need not worry. Duncan Weekes is now my father too, after all, and I should very much like to come to know him…’
‘You only say so because you don’t know what he’s like.’
‘Perhaps. But a wedding is a time for family, don’t you think? He seemed kindly… a touch disordered, perhaps, but-’
‘No,’ said Richard, and there was such a note of finality in his voice that Rachel didn’t dare press the matter, for fear of souring the mood.
So they feasted alone, and once the Constantia was finished more wine was brought in by the serving girl, Sadie, along with a huge platter of roast lamb cutlets, a whole trout in butter and parsley sauce and a dish of curried root vegetables. Richard emptied his glass thrice for each time Rachel emptied hers, and soon his cheeks were flushed and his eyes were bright, and his voice as he spoke grew blurry. He told her about his business, and how he hoped to grow it; how soon it would be before they were able to move to better accommodation; how their son would join him in the wine and spirits trade, and their daughter would marry a baronet.
‘I fear that you may find our rooms somewhat… less than you are used to,’ he said at one point. ‘I hope you will not be disappointed.’
‘What right have I to be disappointed?’ said Rachel. ‘I who have near nothing, save the clothes I stand up in? Hartford Hall was not my home, and my family home was lost to me years ago. All that you have you have worked for, and got for yourself, and that is far more than I can claim. And you would share it all with me… I shall not be disappointed.’
‘And yet, in truth, you are accustomed to fine surroundings, fine food and the company of well-mannered people…’
‘I am accustomed to the company of bad-tempered children,’ she said, taking his hand and squeezing it. ‘That was not the life I wanted. This is.’ She smiled. Love, whispered the echo in her head. Love is what’s needed, and what you should become accustomed to. So love him.
Richard kissed her hand, all pleased and relieved, and Rachel wondered at a strange feeling of detachment that grew in her as the evening progressed.
She felt slightly as though she was watching a scene in which she had no part; watching things that were happening to another person altogether. Some important part of her had slipped away, and gone in search of other things. It was the same odd numbness that had begun with the first death in her family and grown through each one that came after, and she had hoped that the way Richard had touched her heart when he proposed had marked the beginning of its end. At length Rachel pushed her glass away from her, and held her hand over it when the girl came to fill it. A few drops of wine splashed from the jug onto her fingers, and she looked up to remonstrate with Sadie only to find that it wasn’t the dark-haired girl who poured it, but a red-head. A pretty girl with elongated, broad-set eyes that looked clever and too knowing. She had a short nose, tilted up at its tip; brown eyes and a wide mouth shaped by a lazy curve. Her hair was a coppery colour, like autumn leaves, and long strands of it hung down from her cap. She had halted in the act of pouring the wine, and stood quite still, staring most peculiarly; her gaze seemed to pass right through Rachel, and settle on some other place or time entirely.
‘What’s the matter?’ said Rachel, her own tongue loosened by the wine she’d drunk. The serving girl blinked; shut her mouth with an audible click of her teeth.
‘Beg pardon, ma’am,’ she said, in a low voice.
‘Your cloth, please, to dry my hand.’ Rachel held out her hand for the dish rag hanging over the girl’s shoulder.
‘I’ll take some more.’ Richard pushed his glass towards the girl, and looked up. He too seemed to notice that this was not their normal server, but he said nothing. He only watched the girl guardedly, and for a moment all three were locked in mute immobility.
‘Your cloth, if you please,’ Rachel said again.
‘Beg pardon,’ the girl repeated. She set down the jug with a thump, turned abruptly and left the room.
‘Well! What on earth got into her, I wonder?’ said Rachel, but Richard didn’t answer her. He picked up his glass to drink, found it empty, and put it back down irritably.
‘Sadie!’ he bellowed towards the open doorway, and moments later Sadie reappeared to take up the wine jug. Rachel kept an eye out, but the curious red-haired girl did not return. The house on Abbeygate Street was all in darkness when they entered. Richard lit a single candle to guide them up the stairs to the bedchamber, so Rachel could form no impression of her new home other than of a clinging coldness on the lower floor; narrow, creaking wooden stairs and a spacious but low-ceilinged upper room with a rumpled tester bed at its centre. The air smelled as though the windows had been a long time shut; the bed as though the sheets had been much slept upon. All of which is only the lack of a woman’s touch, Rachel assured herself. Richard put the candle down on the nightstand and came to stand opposite her at the foot of the bed. He laced their fingers together, swaying slightly on his feet; in the candle’s glow his face was soft and smiling. Rachel’s smile was more uncertain, and she wished then that she’d drunk more wine at dinner. She’d wanted to be fully aware of this night, of this crucial moment in her life. There were only her and Richard to remember it, after all, but now it came to it she was afraid and didn’t know what to do, and wished to be less aware than she was. Richard kissed her gently, opening her mouth with his, and Rachel waited to feel something other than the urge to recoil from the wine gone sour on his breath, and the taste of lamb grease on his lips. Mother did not love Father at first. And Father was a good man. Richard’s kisses grew harder, and more insistent, and soon he was pulling at her clothes.
‘Rachel, my sweet wife,’ he murmured, kissing her neck. Unsure how to behave, Rachel reached up and began to unpin her hair, as she normally would before bed. The pins pattered onto the floor as Richard swept her from her feet, and crumpled onto the bed on top of her.
She would have liked more time to become acquainted with his body. The differences with her own intrigued her – the heft of it, the breadth of his shoulders, the fairness of his skin across which, she could just make out in the candlelight, freckles were scattered. He was so solid, so warm. She sank her fingers into the flesh of his upper arms, and pictured bones as thick and smooth as the mahogany arms of a chair. The weight of him pressed on her chest and made it hard to breathe. She would have liked to see the thing between his legs, to know how it behaved, to feel it with her fingers before it touched her elsewhere, but she had no chance to. Breathless and still muttering disjointed endearments, Richard pushed his way into her, remembering only too late to be gentle. He groaned as he moved, to and fro, and Rachel clasped his shoulders tightly, screwing her eyes tight shut at the discomfort and the strangeness of it. He is my husband. This is proper. She studied the sensation, which by the end was merely uncomfortable, and tried to feel satisfied that this was a duty done, a milestone reached. A pact sealed, irrevocably. I am his now, she thought, and only then realised how strange and limited a kind of freedom marriage might be.