Regency Rogues: Wicked Seduction: Her Enemy at the Altar / That Despicable Rogue. Virginia Heath
Mrs Wincanton, are a seething cauldron of different emotions. I never quite know which to expect from one moment to the next. You are as changeable as the weather. Therefore, I simply refuse to call you Constance. Which leaves me in a bit of a quandary. You do not like Mrs Wincanton and I could not help noticing that you winced a bit when I affectionately called you wife. So that leaves me with Connie, which was always my preferred choice.’
Connie was still reeling from being compared to a seething cauldron of emotions, but worried that he might elaborate on that observation more if she did not concede, so she rolled her eyes and looked down her nose at him. ‘Call me what you will.’
Finally, he stepped away from the door and offered her his arm. ‘Shall you call me Aaron or husband? Or perhaps my dear or my darling?’ His voice had dropped conspiratorially, giving it a seductive edge that set her traitorous pulse fluttering faster. Why did the man always have to resort to flirting? He must know that it was unsettling. Connie had never quite known how to react to it from anyone at the best of times, seeing it as a ruse to get to her dowry or as something disingenuous that was only done because that particular gentleman flirted out of habit. But from him, it was even worse. Whilst he did have a habit of flirting with every woman, he certainly was not flirting with her to get her dowry. It was too late for that. But when Aaron flirted with her, he had a way of staring deeply into her eyes as if he wanted to see into her very soul and truly understand her, which was a completely ridiculous notion. As if he cared one way or another about her soul. But he did have an intensity in his eyes that made her wonder nevertheless. It made her feel all at sea and so pathetically grateful that he had bestowed her with some attention that she did not quite know herself at all.
She limply took his arm, but avoided looking at him. It was easy to picture his smug expression well enough as she felt another ugly blush stain her wan face. ‘Lead the way, Aaron.’
And now he had just seen her be petulant, too—and she just knew that he was smiling.
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