Regency Rogues: Wicked Seduction: Her Enemy at the Altar / That Despicable Rogue

Chapter Seven

Fortunately, their paths only crossed briefly for the next few days. Connie wiled away the hours reading or embroidering in her own little sitting room, a place that had become both her sanctuary as well as her prison, and longed to go outside and ride as her new husband did. Aaron, on the other hand, disappeared for several hours every morning, surveying the estate. It apparently took up a great deal of his thoughts as well because if he was not out riding around it, he was ensconced in the library or his bedchamber reading about farming methods or animal husbandry or some other such endeavour. But he never invaded her private space and she never invaded his.

Connie was hopelessly lonely. She missed her mother and her brother dreadfully and was desperate to speak to them, but the one letter she had written, and risked sending to Redbridge House, had been unceremoniously returned unopened. The Wincanton servants were polite but understandably wary of her and, because she did not have a particular maid designated to her yet, Connie’s only real conversations occurred with her husband. As they were still virtual strangers, and had been brought up to be mortal enemies, those conversations were hardly meaningful.

They met every evening for dinner, and occasionally over lunch, in the small family dining room. When they did, their interactions followed much the same pattern. He would flirt and she would parry haughtily until the pair of them were issuing mindless barbs to top the other. With nothing else to do, those interactions had quite become the highlight of Connie’s miserable day. Aside from that they had little to do with one another. Connie had not yet plucked up the courage to broach the subject of an annulment.

A maid disturbed her foray into self-pity. ‘Viscount Ardleigh requires your presence in his study, Lady Constance.’

Connie had been dreading the return of Aaron’s father. Now it appeared that he was here. ‘Is my husband back from his ride yet?’ Bizarrely, she did not want to face the viscount for the first time without Aaron, although it was a sorry state of affairs that she desperately wanted his comfort at all when he had made it quite plain he would never want hers.

‘Not yet, Lady Constance. Shall I send someone out to find him?’

Connie shook her head. Viscount Ardleigh would see that as cowardice on her part. No matter how terrified she really was about meeting that dreadful man on her own, she would rather walk over broken glass barefoot than let him know that. The last time she had laid eyes on the viscount he had been cruelly laughing at her ruination in front of a room full of onlookers and congratulating his son for doing it. She had been stunned and ashamed.

Vulnerable.

Pathetic.

This time, he would see the unyielding and defiant Constance Stuart.

With a deliberate lack of haste, Connie rose and made her way to the study. It was a room she had only glimpsed from the hallway and, like his bedchamber, Viscount Ardleigh had decorated the walls with the heads of dead animals. She found his love of taxidermy both disturbing, and a little intimidating, but fortunately it was only confined to those two rooms. Outside the door, Connie drew herself up to her full height and composed her features into an indifferent mask. First impressions were important and this one would serve to set the tone of her relationship with her father’s worst enemy.

‘Enter.’ The voice was deep and stern, not at all like his son’s seductive, mellow tones that turned her to pudding. Connie grasped the handle and glided inside with her hands folded primly in front of her and her nose ever so slightly in the air because, despite her unfortunate marriage, she was still a Stuart.

‘You wished to see me, my lord?’ Because politeness dictated that she defer to his title, she inclined her head as little as possible, then looked him straight in the eye. The first thing that she noticed was how like Aaron he was, except much older. The once-dark hair was now more grey than black—but the eyes were almost exact replicas. Almost. Where Aaron’s were warm and filled with mischief Viscount Ardleigh’s were hard and cold.

‘Come closer, girl, so that I can get a proper look at you.’ Her new father-in-law made no attempt to disguise the fact that he was looking her up and down. Connie did her best to endure his scrutiny stoically. ‘You are so very tall close up, aren’t you? But not a dead loss. You have quite good birthing hips and you look fertile enough. Turn around, girl.’

It was like being an insect under a magnifying glance and Connie refused to lower herself further. ‘I am not an exhibit in a side show, my lord, therefore I will not turn around and behave like one.’

His grey eyebrows lifted slightly at her refusal. ‘You have spirit, I will give you that, Constance Stuart, but I cannot pretend to be happy about this match. I had never thought to have to tolerate a Stuart under my roof. But Aaron is stubborn and I suppose your womb will do as well as any other woman’s. However, I must say I am pleased that your betrothal to the Marquis of Deal did not come to fruition, so I suppose I must be grateful for that. Your idiot father must be spitting feathers.’ His sharp, angry laugh grated.

There were a hundred spiteful retorts that she wanted to make so it was difficult to know which of his points to take umbrage with first. ‘I can assure you, quite emphatically, my lord, that I will not be the mother of your grandchildren.’

To her delight that seemed to bring him up short and he glared at her. ‘The servants have told me that you keep to your own chamber at night. That will have to stop, missy. I want a grandson!’

‘And I want to be a million miles away from you and your dreadful family. It seems that both of us are doomed to have to deal with some disappointment.’

Aaron had not been having a particularly good morning, not that any morning started particularly well any more. He had woken himself up with his own screaming an hour before dawn, drenched in sweat and tangled in the damp bedcovers. As usual, completely shaken and exhausted, he had crawled out of bed straight away to escape the images that haunted him. Bitter experience had taught him that he would not go back to sleep again, not with his heart pounding like a blacksmith’s hammer against his ribs and the horrifying memories so fresh in his mind that he could smell the metallic tang of blood as if he were still surrounded by it. Covered in it.

When he had first started having the nightmares after his regiment had stormed Ciudad Rodrigo, Aaron had thought that they would only be temporary. As the war went on, the business of keeping the rest of his men safe had occupied most of his time, the dreams still plaguing him infrequently. They had been awful when they came, but he had been able to separate them from his daily horrors, almost as if he had locked them in a box to keep them for another time. Unfortunately, his box bore a striking similarity to Pandora’s. As soon as his feet had stepped back on to English soil it had opened and steadfastly refused to close again. Every painful, horrifying memory had gushed out, demanding atonement. The nightmares were incessant and vivid, coming nightly with alarming regularity. To begin with it had bothered him. Now that he had been home for a few months when so many of his comrades had been left behind to rot in foreign soil, he accepted the nightly ordeal as penance. Under the circumstances, he deserved the torture. He had caused death, therefore like every murderer he should pay.

This morning, Aaron had washed and dressed quickly, saddled his own horse and had been galloping across the estate as the sun’s rays first appeared over the horizon. The exercise never made the horror disappear, but it did serve to exorcise the worst of it from his mind so that he could function. Just after dawn he had collided with one of the estate’s tenants and the man was not very happy. Once he had noisily aired his grievances Aaron conceded that the man made a valid argument. Apparently, under the terms of his tenancy agreement he had to grow whatever crop the estate wanted him to grow and had to use the seed given to him. Quite rightly, he had wanted to know why the promised seed had not yet been forthcoming, especially as it should have been sown weeks ago. Aaron wanted to know the answer, too, and had promised the poor fellow that he would seek out Thomas, the estate manager, but the man was nowhere to be found.

It confirmed all of Aaron’s worries about the future of the estate. He might not yet be an expert on farming, but even he could see that they were unlikely to turn a profit if their crop was so late in the ground. With a growing sense of foreboding, and to have more proof to take to his stubborn father, Aaron had spent the rest of the morning and most of the afternoon checking on the other tenants. All had similar complaints—however, for many the lack of seed was merely the tip of the iceberg. It also appeared that while their revenues were consistently falling each year, the rents that they were charged were rising significantly. Many farmers complained that they were close to not being able to afford to continue. Already, several farms lay abandoned, their fields choked with weeds that would not make any money. Such gross mismanagement was not going to turn around the estate’s ailing fortunes any time soon.

Aaron walked his horse into the stable yard, tired and completely worn down, but broke into a run the moment he spied his father’s carriage parked outside. The old man had come home early to spite him and probably to cause mischief. The last thing he wanted was his father rubbing Connie up the wrong way, especially as she was showing some signs of civility towards him. Both of them needed a mediator when they collided or likely all hell would soon break lose. Unfortunately, as soon as he stepped foot in the house he heard his father practically roar and realised that he was too late. Hell had already broken and was running loose all over his father’s study with its arms waving.

Aaron skidded to a halt outside the open door just in time to witness his fiery wife standing toe to toe and eye to eye with his snarling father. Her elegant hands were curled into her signature angry fists at her sides and Aaron found himself scanning the immediate vicinity for heavy objects in case she was tempted to throw something again. The woman had an excellent aim and a very strong arm. ‘I see you have already met?’ he said breezily as he walked towards them, smiling as if nothing whatsoever was amiss. Both sets of eyes swivelled angrily in his directions, but neither dropped their combative stance.

‘Your wife needs to learn her place, Aaron!’

‘Your father needs to learn some manners!’

Someone had to behave like an adult. ‘Sit down, the pair of you.’ To emphasise that his words were an order, not a request, Aaron forcefully pointed at two empty chairs with each of his hands.

Connie sniffed, but retreated regally to one of the chairs, sitting primly as if butter would not melt in her tart mouth. His father looked a little blue around the gills and his breathing was more laboured than Aaron wanted to hear, but once Connie was sat he reluctantly did the same. He was going to have to tell her, he realised, and hope that she understood. As difficult and beastly as his father was, he was in no state to endure daily combat, no matter how much he might deserve it.

‘Has anyone rung for tea?’ Convinced that the answer was going to be no, Aaron walked towards the bell pull and gave it a hefty tug before sitting down himself. ‘I appreciate that this is an awkward time for all of us,’ he began with forced calmness, ‘but we are a family now and, therefore, we must find a way to live together peaceably.’

‘Then I suggest that your father desists from treating me as if I am a brood mare up for purchase. He has done everything except check my teeth!’ Connie’s usually plump lips were drawn into a thin line and he could feel the outrage radiating off her, so incandescent was her barely controlled anger.

‘She says that she refuses to have your children, Aaron. How dare she?’

Aaron felt his spirits sink from despair to despondency. How typical that the pair of them would go for the most controversial of topics straight away. Even the most skilled of diplomats would struggle to find a way out of this bed of thorns and Aaron knew that there was absolutely nothing that he could say, here and now, that would please both of them. Under the circumstances, that left him with only one option and he just knew that he was going to pay dearly for it.

‘Connie, could you go to your room, please?’ Aaron tried to say it as kindly, yet as adamantly, as he could, but still her smart mouth opened to argue. Much as he hated to do it, he held up his hand to stop her. ‘I said go to your room, Constance! We will discuss this later.’ And he would probably feel the full weight of The Complete Farmer on his cranium, too, but it couldn’t be helped. Aaron had to separate them in order to deal with this issue effectively.

Connie’s green eyes widened, then he watched them harden into sharp emeralds as she glared back at him with barely disguised contempt. She stood abruptly and flounced out of the room, slamming the door behind her exactly as a true shrew would.

Aaron turned to his father. ‘How did you come to be discussing procreation with my new wife?’

The old man had the decency to look a little contrite. ‘I merely mentioned the need for a grandson and she took it badly.’

Aaron sincerely did not believe it was quite as innocent as all that. Knowing his father’s blunt way of speaking, he suspected he had probably been downright insulting. As usual, the stubborn old man started to bluster to cover his obvious guilt. ‘I know that she has denied you your conjugal rights since you married, boy. The servants have told me. Do not bother denying it. I was merely setting her straight. I told her that she needs to open her bedchamber door and her legs for you promptly. The girl has to do her duty!’

‘The poor girl has lost her family and her fiancé in one fell swoop, and been publically humiliated in the process. Do you not think that she might need a little time to adjust to her new situation first?’

This was met with belligerent silence.

‘Connie is not a bad sort when you get to know her, Father. Yes, she is a little quick tempered...’