Page 44 of To Winter at Wildsyde

She nodded and swallowed hard, having to force the words out. “He’ll try to make me.” To her dismay her voice quavered, and she swallowed again, trying to keep a hold on the calm the walk to the castle had given her.

If she’d believed this conversation had been the biggest shock she would receive today, she was mistaken. Mr Clugston reached out and took her hands. He held them in his, squeezing the fingers with quiet strength.

“Ye are nae alone, lass,” he said, a resolute expression fixed on her that gave weight to his belief. “Ye have friends here that will stand for ye. More than ye may think. I hope ye may count me one of them.”

Ruth made a small sound somewhere between a laugh and a sob, but she smiled at Clugston, hoping he could see how deeply his assurance had touched her, for she could not have spoken a word without weeping. As it was, she held her emotions in check with difficulty. The remarkably tender scene was abruptly shattered.

“Take yer hands off my wife.”

Ruth jolted as Gordy’s furious voice came from behind her. She went to snatch her hands away, but Mr Clugston held them a little tighter, staying the movement. He took his eyes from where they’d focused on Gordy and returned to her.

“Don’t forget, Mrs Anderson,” he said, taking his time to release her hands and give her a courtly bow before nodding politely at Gordy and walking away.

“What the devil did he mean by that?” Gordy demanded.

Ruth stared at him, at the way his gaze followed Mr Clugston across the courtyard. Jealous, she realised with a start. He was jealous. If she’d been another woman, she might have used that, perhaps she was foolish not to, but she had no wish to cause her husband any distress. Besides, the simple knowledge that he was capable of such an emotion chased away any desire to punish him.

“Mr Clugston was kind enough to thank me for the changes that have been made to Wildsyde,” she said, speaking to him with the kind of soothing tone she might use on a fractious child. “I explained that it was your doing and that I only provided the money to make it possible, but he was very kind.”

Her husband snorted at that and slanted a curious look at her. “Aye, ye have done nothing at all to improve matters, have ye, wife? Do ye think me a halfwit? Do ye think I dinnae see how my staff look to ye for instruction instead of me?”

Ruth stiffened at the frustration behind the questions, at the oblique attack she had not seen coming. “You told me I was to do as I liked with the interior of the castle, Gordy, and on the occasions I have sought your opinion, you’ve refused to offer one. Isn’t that true?”

“Aye. Reckon,” he admitted, honest at least.

“Have I done something wrong, Gordy?” she asked, softening her voice and wishing he would only speak to her.

A muscle in his jaw worked as he wrestled with that. “Nae,” he said, though she was not deaf to the grudging way in which it was uttered.

“Are you quite certain?” she pressed, frustrated that he wouldn’t just give an opinion, even if it revealed that he hated everything she’d done.

He stared at her for a long moment, and then turned and walked away without a word.

***

Gordy stalked back towards the castle. He was unaccountably angry and all on edge. What the hell was wrong with him? It was all that bloody woman’s fault, he raged inwardly, trying his best to focus his anger upon her. It was she who was undermining his authority, giving the constant rise to the refrain, oh, but Mrs Anderson has already seen to it, or, Mrs Anderson said it would be better this way, or even, I already discussed this with Mrs Anderson and we decided….Ruth was right though, he had given her leave to do as she wished so he had no right to act indignant now. He’d give it a go though as the alternative explanation for his anger bothered him a deal more. Try as he might, his frustration slipped away and it was truly not this indignity that made his head pound along with his heart. The real emotion, an unpleasant tangle of anger and jealousy and fear, had blossomed on seeing Clugston holding Ruth’s hands, the obvious admiration in the bastard’s eyes and the answering smile on his wife’s lips.

He remembered all the things she’d said to him that night in the nursery, her promise that she would stay, that she would never leave him, no matter what, but she’d said a lot of nonsense that night. She’d blethered on about not being a lady, about not being feminine or being too big, or some outrageous claim. Surely to God, she did not expect him to believe such things? There could not be a man alive who could look at her and not see she had the bearing of a queen, an empress. You’d have to be blind to look at her lush landscape of curves and consider her anything but feminine; womanly and ripe and as dangerous to a man with a pulse as a siren’s call, luring him into deep water.

Any man would want such a prize.

She’ll leave you. You know she will. Why would she stay with you?

He batted the question away, unwilling to think of it. Good. He wanted her to go. That wasn’t the issue. He needed his heir and a spare and he wanted no doubt that the children were his, that was all. She would not be taking a lover before he had his two sons. The thought that she might do as she pleased once he’d sent her away stuck in his throat, lodged uncomfortably and impossible to swallow around. Once she was back in London, she might have any number of lovers and he’d be none the wiser. Hot fury tinged with something unbearably like fear rose in his chest. No. She would not have lovers; he would not allow it.

And what will ye do about it, ye damn fool? If ye send her away, she will nae look back.

Yet he had to send her away, had to send her before she went of her own accord and took every ounce of hard won pride he’d scraped together with her. He’d survived when his mother turned her back on him, survived when his sisters followed. He’d survived his father’s loathing and determination to see him reduced to the gutter, and his real sire’s determination to pretend he didn’t exist at all. He’d clung on to the bloody castle as revenge, with a furious desire to show them all that he didn’t need them, didn’t want them, and now… now when he was so close to being able to stand back and gloat at his victory, she was taking the power away from him all over again. It was intolerable, but he didn’t know how to stop it, and he felt a sick fury at his own impotence.

Though he wanted to send her away so she could no longer trouble him, he could not until she was carrying his child. Though he wanted to use her as though she was nothing more than a vessel for his progeny, he could not, for he longed for her touch, dreamt of her hands upon him. Though he’d refused to spend the night with her again, every time he left her bed it was more difficult to summon the will to do so. He ached for the soft words she gave him, the little kindnesses she gave out so effortlessly, wanting to linger beside her like a cur begging for the scraps of her affection, and he despised himself for his weakness.

Well, he would just have to try a damn sight harder.

Chapter 18

You are right of course, a man who has been treated so abominably by his family will keep running rather than risk trusting someone again. You are conquering something wild, Ruth. You must think of him in such a way, like taming a wolf, teaching him that there is not always a blow awaiting him if he gets close enough to touch.

― Excerpt of a letter from Mrs Ethel Stephens to Mrs Ruth Anderson.