Mr. Palmer put his jug of ale down on the cloth and set his hands on his hips. “I didn’t arsk ’er to get in the family way, now, did I, Letty?” he said. “Am I ’er keeper? What are they doin’ out in this weather anyway if she’s close to ’er time?”
“ ’Er man’s in search of work,” Mrs. Palmer said. “What shall we do with ’em, Joe? We can’t turn ’em away. They’ll drowned.”
Joe puffed out his cheeks, practicality warring with compassion.
“I won’t ’ave ’em in ’ere, Letty,” he said. “There’s no room for ’em and I won’t risk ’aving ’em steal all our valuables. And all these qualities’ valuables. They’ll ’ave to move on or stay in the stable.
There’s an empty stall.”
“It’s cold in the stable,” she said.
“Not with all ’em extra ’orses,” the innkeeper said. “It’s there or nowhere, Letty.” He picked up his jug and turned determinedly to the quiet gentleman. “They comes ’ere expectin’ a body to snap ’is fingers and make new rooms appear.” His voice was aggrieved. “And they prob'ly don’t ’ave two ’a’pennies to rub together.”
The quiet gentleman merely smiled at him. Poor devils, the marquess thought, having to sleep in the stable. But it was probably preferable to the muddy road. He would not think of it. It was not as if the inn itself offered luxury or even basic comfort. The dinner they had just eaten was disgusting, to put the matter into plain English.
“Poor people,” Lady Birkin said quietly to her husband. “Imagine having to sleep in a stable, Henry. And she is with child.”
“They will probably be thankful even for that,” he said. “They will be out of the rain, at least, and the animals will keep them warm.”
She stared at him from her dark eyes with an expression that never failed to turn his insides over. She had a tender heart and carried out numerous works of charity, though she always fretted that she could do so little. She was going to worry now about the two poor travelers who had arrived at safety only to find that there was no room at the inn. He wanted to reach across the table to take her hand. He did not do so, only partly because they were in a public place.
“Will they?” she said. “Be warm, I mean? The landlord was not just saying that? But it will smell in there, Henry, and be dirty.”
“There is no alternative,” he said, “except for them to move on. They will be all right, Sally. They will be safe and dry, at least. They will be able to keep each other warm.”
Her cheeks flushed slightly, and he felt a stabbing of desire for her-the sort of feeling that usually sent him off in search of his mistress and an acceptable outlet for his lust.
“I am going back upstairs,” she said, getting to her feet. He walked around the table to pull back her chair. “Are you coming?”
And impose his company on her for the rest of the evening? “I’ll escort you up,” he said, “and return to the taproom for a while.”
She nodded coolly, indifferently.
Her movement was the signal for everyone to get up except the quiet gentleman, who continued to sit and sip on the bad ale. But Lord Birkin did not wait for everyone else. He escorted his wife to their room and looked about it with a frown.
“You will be all right here, Sally?” he asked. “There is not much to do except lie down and sleep, is there?”
“I am tired after the journey,” she said.
He looked at the bed. It did not look as if it were going to be comfortable. He was to share it with her that night. For the first time in over three years they were to sleep together, literally sleep together. The thought brought another tightening to his groin. He should have slept with her from the start, he thought. He should have made it the pattern of their marriage. Perhaps the physical side of their marriage and every other aspect of it would have developed more satisfactorily if he had. Perhaps they would not have drifted apart.
He did not know quite why they had done so, or even if drifted were the right word. Somehow their marriage had never got properly started.
He did not know whose fault it was. Perhaps neither of them was to blame. Perhaps both of them were. Perhaps she had really been as fond of him as he was of her at the beginning. Perhaps they should have put their feelings into words. Perhaps he should not have given in to the fear that she found him dull and his touch distasteful. Perhaps he should not have treated her with sexual restraint, as his father and other men had advised, because she was a lady and ladies were supposed to find sex distasteful. Perhaps he should have taken her with the desire he felt-surely it was not disrespectful to show pleasure in one’s wife’s body.
Perhaps.Perhaps and perhaps.
“I’ll be up later,” he told her. “Don’t wait up for me.” You may sleep.
I’ll not be demanding my conjugal rights. He might as well have said those words too.
She nodded and turned away to the window, waiting for the sound of the door closing behind her and the feeling of emptiness it would bring. And the familiar urge to cry. It was Christmas, and he preferred being downstairs drinking with strangers to being alone with her.
She looked down into wet darkness and shivered. Those poor people-trying to get warm and comfortable in a dirty and drafty stable, trying to sleep there. She wondered if the man loved his wife, if she loved him.
If he would hold her close to keep her warm. If he would offer his arm as her pillow. If he would kiss her before she slept so that she would feel warm and loved even in such appalling surroundings.
She wiped impatiently at a tear. She did not normally give in to the urge to weep. She did not usually give in to self-pity.
The Misses Horn were busy agreeing with Mrs. Forbes that indeed it was dreadful that those poor people had to find shelter in a stable on such a wet and chilly night. But what could the husband be thinking of, dragging his poor wife off in search of work when she was in a, ah, delicate situation? There was a deal of embarrassed coughing over the expression of this idea and furtive glances at the gentlemen to make sure that none of them was listening. She would give the man a piece of her mind if she had a chance, Miss Amelia Horn declared.
The Marquess of Lytton got to his feet.
“Allow me to escort you to your room, Miss Wilder,” he said, offering her his arm and noting with approval that the top of her head reached his chin. She was taller than she had appeared when she entered the dining room.
She looked calmly and steadily at him. At least she was not going to throw a fit of the vapors at the very idea of being conducted to her bedchamber by a rake. He wondered if she knew enough about the world to recognize him as a rake, and if she realized that all through dinner he had been compensating for the appallingly unappetizing meal by mentally unclothing her and putting her to bed-with himself.
“Thank you,” she said, and rested her hand on his arm, a narrow, long-fingered hand. An artist’s hand. Either she was a total innocent or she had accepted the first step of seduction. He hoped for the latter.
He hoped she was not an innocent. It was Christmas, for God’s sake. A man was entitled to his pleasures at that season of the year above all others.
“This is an annoyance and a discomfort that none of us could have forseen this morning,” he said.
“Yes.” Her voice was low and sweet. Seductive, though whether intentionally so or not he had not yet decided. “Do you suppose they are dreadfully cold out there? Was there anything we could have done?”
“The couple in the stable?” he said. “Very little, I suppose, unless one of us were willing to give up his room and share with someone else.”
She looked up into his eyes. Hers had a greenish hue, though they had looked entirely gray from a farther distance. “I suppose that was a possibility,” she said. “Alas, none of us thought of it.”