But having admitted as much to herself, she had tried to think of any other way in which she loved her husband. There was nothing. He had never shown her any kindness but had, in fact, often been unnecessarily cruel. He had been deliberately and brutally insulting the morning after their wedding and had left her for more than a year in a home that he obviously disliked himself. He had refused to allow her to visit Sonia or to come here for the two weeks with his grandparents. He had not spoken a kind word to her since his arrival. Yet he did not even have the integrity to leave her entirely alone, but must come to her each night, to degrade her, she supposed.

No, Alexander certainly did not deserve her love. And he did not deserve her respect. Her decision had been made during those ten minutes. He was her husband. She could not disobey him. She could not deny him whatever he demanded of her. But she was not going to allow him to destroy the very fragile sense of worth that she had built so painfully in the year and few months since he had abandoned her. He could use her, he could insult her, but she would not allow him to break her.

In future, he would not find her so docile and so inclined to be teary-eyed before him. She would live out the nine days. She would enjoy looking at Alexander while she acted with him, and she would enjoy making love with him at night-she was not going to try to pretend to herself that she found his attentions distasteful. And when the nine days were over, she would go back to Redlands and concentrate on making the inside of the house as beautiful and as tasteful as she had made the gardens. She would make it her home and live contented with the respect of the servants and the admiration of the neighbors. She would be known as Anne Stewart of Redlands, Viscountess Merrick. And she would not in any way be in her husband's shadow. He was almost unknown there.

Anne raised her chin and looked at herself in the mirror. Yes, she decided, she even felt like a great lady already. She did not need Alexander; she did not even like him. And she certainly did not have to feel self-conscious about walking into a room where he happened to be. She swept resolutely from her bedchamber and down to the drawing room to join the guests.


************************************

"Do be a sport, Anne," Jack was saying later that evening after rehearsals were over for the day. "It is a beautiful evening, far too lovely to waste indoors. And you cannot accuse me of trying to seduce you, you know. Stanley and Celia, Freddie and Connie are coming too. But, you see, when there are three males and two females, one of those males has to walk alone. And I fear that fate will be mine if you refuse to save me from the ignominy."

Anne sighed. "You do make it sound as if it is my duty as a humane person, Jack," she said, "but I would far rather be lazy and relax in a stuffy drawing room."

"I perceive that you are weakening," he said. "Now, you cannot expect me to let the matter rest, Anne. Let me send your maid upstairs for a shawl."

"It is utter madness to go walking in the darkness," she protested.

"Nonsense," Jack replied cheerfully. "There is a near-full moon, and you must remember that four of us almost grew up here. We could find our way to the bridge blindfolded."

"Is that where you are all planning to go?" Anne asked. "The bridge across the swamp?"

"Grandmamma's claim to immortality," Jack said with a grin. "She insisted, you know, when she was a young bride that Grandpapa spend half his fortune having it built, though he protested that the bridge would be merely an expensive ornament. It really serves no useful function, you know. There is a much more convenient way around the marsh by road or footpath."

"But I agree with Grandmamma that it is a work of art," Anne said. '.'Very well, Jack, I shall come."

He smiled and left the room in search of Bella and her shawl. Anne was rather enjoying the situation. Alexander had sat down to play a hand of cards with the duke and Maud and Sarah a few minutes before, but he was obviously very much aware of the situation developing behind his back. He had stiffened and his head had turned to one side, as if he were listening. She was not deliberately setting out to provoke him or to make him jealous, but the new Anne was reveling in the freedom of making up her own mind about what she wished to do. She was no longer treading carefully, afraid of angering a stern husband. She had no particular wish to go walking with Jack-or with anyone else, for that matter-but she would do so just to show Alexander that she did not fear him. There was, after all, no impropriety in her acceptance. It was a family group that was going walking, and she was part of the family.

If Jack intended to monopolize Anne's attention, he was certainly to be thwarted during the walk down the long, sloping lawns and along the bank of the stream until it widened into a marshy lake that was spanned by an elegant triple-arched stone bridge.

Freddie immediately approached her and held out his arm. "Hold on to me, Anne," he said. 'Might be some stones in the way. Wouldn't see them in the darkness. Don't be afraid of falling. I never stumble. Don't have too many brains, y' know-not like Alex- but always could see in th' dark. Cats' eyes, Mamma used to say. I don't make much conversation, mind. Not very intelligent, y' see. Nothing very important to say. But I like listening. You talk to me, and I'll try to learn. Trouble is, don't have a good memory. You'll be safe with me, though."

Jack, finding it impossible to step in between his large cousin and Anne and equally impossible to interrupt Freddie's humble monologue, helped Celia adjust her shawl and took her arm. Stanley took Constance's arm through his and patted her hand in fatherly fashion.

"What did y' think of Ruby?" Freddie asked. "Very pleasant sort of girl, I think. She don't mind that I'm stupid. She likes me."

"Oh, Freddie," Anne said, giving his arm a little squeeze, "you aren't stupid. Maybe you cannot learn or remember things as well as your cousin, but that does not make you worthless, you know. You are sweet and kind, and I believe that one might depend upon you. I am proud that you are my cousin by marriage. And you have learned the part of Diggory in the play very well."

Freddie beamed. "Damme, but you're right," he said eagerly. "Didn't make one mistake this afternoon. Jack had to be prompted three times, and Martin didn't know one scene all through."

"You see?" Anne said. "In some things you can do better than the rest of your family, Freddie."

Freddie, his self-esteem bolstered for the second time that day, picked his way along the bank of the stream with exaggerated care so that his charge would not stub her slippered toe against an unexpected stone.

"Oh, it is lovely!" Anne exclaimed as they came upon the bridge around a bend in the stream. "I have not seen it this close before."

"You have to stand exactly above the second arch to know why Grandmamma wanted the bridge built just there," Jack said, expertly maneuvering so that the six of them came up together and changed partners without anyone's seeming to realize that it had happened. Anne found herself being led onto the bridge by him. The others did not follow but continued to stroll along the footpath that would eventually circle around and take them back to the house again.

"There, you see?" Jack said triumphantly, and Anne could see in the moonlight the marsh, which looked more like a lake from this vantage point, the elm trees, and beyond them the upper lawn and the house spread out in all its majesty.

"Oh, it is perfect," she said. "How did Grandmamma know that that magnificent view of the house could be got from just this spot?" She turned inquiringly to Jack, who bent and kissed her squarely on the lips.

"I think she had it made because she thought this was a romantic spot," he said quietly. "She and Grandpapa have always been almost indecently in love, you know."

Anne moved back a step and glared. "Jack, you must stop that," she said. "I have not given you permission to take such liberties."

He leaned one elbow on the stone parapet of the bridge and smiled at her. "Can you blame me for trying, Anne?" he asked. "You are a lovely and an intriguing woman. You are such a delightful mixture of shyness and reserve on the one hand, and firmness and fire on the other. Would not a mild flirtation brighten up your time here as it would mine?"

“No," she said, "it most certainly would not."

"A pity," he said. "It's old Alex, I suppose. I never could quite see what he had that I do not, but he always had a great deal more success with the ladies than I ever had. You love him, I suppose?"

"He is my husband," she said.

He looked at her long and levelly before straightening up and offering her his arm again. "We had better catch up to the others," he said. "I would not mind the glares of Grandmamma and the glowers of Alex if I really had achieved some success with you, but it seems such a waste to be in everybody's bad books when I have merely tasted your lips and been soundly set down for doing so."

They arrived at the house arm in arm but in company with the other four. Merrick was still playing cards when they all entered the drawing room and crossed to the tea tray at which the duchess presided.

Chapter 10

Freddie had been taken up one afternoon by Miss Fitzgerald in her gig. She was out taking the air and needed a companion who was more inclined to listen than to talk, she said. Jack had stolen away the same afternoon and later made a comment about Rose Fitzgerald, that could have been made only by one who had seen her the same day. Anne had been borne off to the schoolroom one morning to join in an exciting game of blindman's buff with the children. And they had all played endless games of cards and billiards, and played or listened to the pianoforte, and told and retold all of the previous week's on-dits from London. But on the whole, life at Portland House kept to its relentless course. Even Claude was beginning to be hopeful that they would not all make utter cakes of themselves on the night the play was to be performed.

But Merrick was thoroughly tired of the whole business of his grandparents' anniversary. Really, Grandmamma had behaved shockingly, bringing them all there under quite false pretenses. He had known that until the day before the ball, anyway, the only house guests were to be the family, and there was nothing remarkably exciting about the prospect of spending two whole weeks with one's relations. But, really, she might have been expected to exert herself to see that there was some entertainment for them. There were enough families within traveling range that visits, dinners, informal parties, might have been arranged. And he had assumed that he would be free to come and go as he pleased during the daytime.

Crafty old Grandmamma had got them there merely so that she could organize theatrics and dazzle all her acquaintances with the talents of her family. Did she not realize that they were all grown up now and that playacting no longer held the magic for them that it had done when they were all children? She should have got those children of Stanley's to put on some performance. All her guests on the night of the ball would have been suitably impressed.

Anne seemed strangely attached to the children. There had been that afternoon when he had found her almost in the arms of Jack and had found out only when he was thoroughly enraged that she had been up in the tree rescuing a ball, of all things. And several times since, he had seen her in the garden in conversation with one or other of the little ones, usually that strange, grave elder girl. When Claude had demanded to know her whereabouts the previous morning because she was needed for a scene that he wanted to go over, Celia had said that she was upstairs playing with the children. Merrick had not pictured his wife as a woman who might be fond of children.

He was still angry with her. He had not talked to her except when necessary or as part of the dialogue of the play since three evenings before when she had gone out walking during the evening with Jack. It had been a deliberate taunt on her part, he felt sure. She had agreed to go only because she realized he was listening. She seemed intent on making him jealous or angry; he was not quite sure what her motive was. Did she really think she had the power to make him jealous? She was his wife, that was all, to be used for his own convenience for the few days that remained before he could send her back to the country again and return to the more congenial company of Eleanor. But he was going to make his displeasure known to her as soon as a convenient moment presented itself.