But perhaps he could lessen the blow?
Cresswell had said that Fleur and Marie-Claire would be gone for two weeks. That wasn’t going to work, but a week could be managed. He could have his sisters fetched home after only seven days; that would be easy enough to arrange. His aunt lived but twenty miles away.
And in the meantime . . .
One of Richard’s many regrets was that he had not had the time to properly court his new wife. Iris still did not know the reason for their hasty marriage, but she was no idiot; she could see that something was not quite right. If Richard had had just a little more time back in London, he could have wooed her the way a woman ought to be wooed. He could have shown her that he delighted in her company, that she made him laugh, that he could make her laugh. He could have stolen a few more kisses and awakened the desire that he was certain lay deep in her soul.
And then, after all that, when he dropped to one knee and asked her to marry him, Iris would not have hesitated. She would have gazed into his eyes, found whatever sort of love she had been longing for, and she would have said yes.
Maybe thrown herself into his arms.
Blinking back tears of happiness.
That would have been the proposal of her dreams, not the shabby, calculated kiss he’d thrust upon her in her aunt’s hallway.
But he’d had no choice. Surely, when he explained everything, she would understand that. She knew what it meant to love one’s family, to want to protect them at all costs. It was what she did each year when she played in the musicale. She didn’t want to be there; she did it for her mother, and her aunts, and even her eternal-thorn-in-the-side sister Daisy.
She’d understand. She had to.
He had been granted a one-week reprieve. Seven full days before he had to come clean and watch her face grow even more pale at his betrayal. Maybe he was a coward; maybe he should use this time to explain it all, to prepare her for what must come.
But he wanted what he could not have before the wedding. Time.
A lot could happen in seven days.
One week, he told himself as he went to collect her for their first supper together at Maycliffe Park.
One week to make her fall in love with him.
IRIS SPENT THE entire afternoon resting in her new bedchamber. She’d never quite understood how sitting in a carriage could leave a body so weary when sitting in a chair in a drawing room required no energy whatsoever, but the three-day journey to Maycliffe had left her utterly exhausted. Maybe it was the jostling of the carriage or the poor state of the roads this far north. Or maybe—probably—it had something to do with her husband.
She did not understand him.
One moment he was charming, and the next he was fleeing her presence as if she carried plague. She could not believe he had had the housekeeper show her to her room. Surely that was a new husband’s job. But she supposed she should not have been surprised. Richard had avoided her bed at all three inns they’d visited on the journey north. Why should she think he might behave differently now?
She sighed. She needed to learn to be indifferent to him. Not cruel, not unkind, just . . . unaffected. When he smiled at her—and he did smile at her, the cur—her whole being seemed to fizz with happiness. Which would have been lovely, except that it made his rejection even more puzzling.
And painful.
Honestly, it would be better if he weren’t so nice to her most of the time. If she could dislike him— No, what was she thinking? It would not be better if he were cruel or ignored her completely. Surely a complicated marriage was better than an unpleasant one. She had to stop being melodramatic. It was not like her. She just needed to find some sort of equilibrium and maintain it.
“Good evening, Lady Kenworthy.”
Iris started with surprise. Richard was poking his head through the partially open doorway that led to the hall. “I did knock,” he said with an amused expression.
“I’m sure you did,” she said hastily. “My mind was elsewhere.”
His smile grew more sly. “Dare I ask where?”
“Home,” she lied, then realized what she’d said. “I mean London. This is my home now.”
“Yes,” he said, and he entered the room, quietly shutting the door behind him. His head tilted slightly to the side, and he stared at her for just long enough to make her fidget. “Have you done something different with your hair?”
And just like that, all of her vows to remain indifferent went out the window.
Iris nervously touched her head, just behind her right ear. He’d noticed. She had not thought he would. “One of the maids helped me to dress,” she said. “She’s rather fond of . . .”