Cora (Virtue & Vice #4)

Chapter 28

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

CORA

S till floating from her lazy morning with Gideon, Cora was brought rudely down to earth when Martha Wentworth arrived for an early afternoon visit.

“We are planning an event,” she informed Cora with a scathing sidelong glance. Cora wasn’t one to be embarrassed easily, but heat flashed over her skin. She was still in her dressing gown with a thick silk robe over it.

“You shall wear the fawn brocade,” Mrs. Wentworth was saying. “Are you paying attention?”

Cora snapped out of her reverie. “The fawn looks terrible on me. Why not the blue?”

“Blue is showy.” She sniffed. “Blue is the color of women who desire attention. Men’s attention, in particular.”

Countess Oreste often wore blue. It suited her icy beauty—black hair, blue eyes, and creamy skin. Her mother-in-law wanted her to dull her shine, not sparkle the way Belladonna did. Whether Martha intended it as a slight against the missing countess, or not, Cora wasn’t entirely sure. Despite having only just resolved not to engage in tests of wills with her mother-in-law over trivial things like clothing, Cora found herself doing precisely that.

For clothing was not trivial. What and where one chose to wear spoke volumes about one’s position in Society. Martha wanted her to follow her lead and be good enough to be respected but not outshine titled ladies.

Cora wanted to shine.

“Blue suits me. It is the color of purity and fidelity.” Which meant she had no right to wear it any more than she had to the white wedding dress she had so dreaded. She poured tea, set down the pot and raised her dish to her lips, blowing on it to cool it before taking a sip. Martha’s unsmiling face crinkled at the corners. “Gideon likes it when I wear colors.”

“The Queen, however, will not.”

“Queen Victoria has greater things to think about. The attempt upon her life yesterday, for example.”

“The Queen thinks of money when she looks at one of us. We cannot afford to stand out, should she make an appearance at tonight’s event.”

Insight flashed into her mind like the flare of a match. “Hence your request that I wear a gold dress, the color of money and wealth?”

Martha nodded. “Finally, you begin to understand.”

She should apologize for not wearing it. The words “I’m sorry” were on the tip of her tongue when Martha interrupted her, and they died on her lips.

“The point of marriage is the production of children,” she said acerbically with a pointed glance at Cora’s stomach. “The point of children is to pass on accumulated wealth.”

“How dreary.” Cora set down her tea cup. “No wonder so many families are unhappy. All obligation and no love is no way to live.”

“Do not speak to me of love,” her mother-in-law snapped. “Love is for fools. Money cements connections. Children carry those connections forward. What does romantic love matter in the face of worthy self-sacrifice?”

Titi came over and pawed at her skirt. Cora patted her lap. The little animal jumped up.

“Love is the only thing that makes life worth living, Martha.” She bussed a kiss between Titi’s ears.

“Animals are not children.” The woman’s lip curled at the way Titania settled beneath Cora’s gentle strokes. “I never took you, of all people, for a romantic. The one advantage was that you were a practical sort. Or so I thought.”

“I do not consider myself to be a romantic. Remember, though, that I am the product of an incredibly happy union.”

“There was no union between the duke and your mother,” Martha said flatly.

“That’s right. My father was trapped in a marriage of obligation until the day he died. He never had a chance to grant her the respectability she deserved.” Not that Florence Wilder had ever cared what Society thought of her long-term affair with a married duke. “His son and heir paid the price.” As had she and Eryx, socially, but she would take paternal love over social acceptance any day. “My half-brother, the current Duke of Gryphon, grew up with social adoration, being the heir, but deprived of human affection. Do you know what that does to a child, Martha?”

Her companion huffed, but her gaze slid away. Cora pitied her. Martha cared deeply about her family, yet all her love had been unable to protect Reggie and her husband from ill health. It hadn’t prevented Gideon from marrying a woman she believed was unsuitable in every possible way. She recognized her mother-in-law’s hardened, brittle shell. Lysander was locked inside one, too. He’d grown up caught between feuding parents who treated him as a weapon in their stalemate of a marriage. For Lysander, his mother’s love had been a weapon, while his father saved all his affection for the half-siblings he didn’t meet until adulthood.

Gideon carried those expectations, too. He felt responsible for the success of the whole family. Now that she understood why he’d humiliated her, she refused to carry that resentment any longer. She had forgiven him, and they were moving forward.

He had, after all, chosen her. Despite their painful and awkward beginning, she was not going to give in to bitterness, nor would she create a family on that. Which meant she needed to grit her teeth and find a way to be nicer to Martha.

“Returning to our original topic, Gideon has requested my assistance in arranging a surprise for you.” Mrs. Wentworth’s mouth actually tipped up at the corners for once. Was that a smile?

“What sort of surprise?”

Cora wished Gideon’s mother didn’t have almost exactly the same eyes as he. It was very disconcerting to see smug triumph creep into those brown depths. The cold disdain was too reminiscent of the way he looked at her before she knew he’d loved her all along.

“My son has arranged for you to give a performance. Naturally, I have invited Her Majesty the Queen.” Mrs. Wentworth sipped her tea. “I do hope you’ve been practicing lately.”

Titania squeaked and leaped to the floor as Cora surged to her feet and strode out.

* * *

Gideon

“Where is my husband?”

Gideon winced at his wife’s panicked tone. Faux tried to deter her, but Gideon waved him off. He wasn’t going to start shutting his wife out of his life now.

“What have you done?” Aghast, Cora stared at him. A thread of self-doubt wormed into the back of his mind.

The piano had been a gift. One she didn’t appreciate at first, but she had come around to that, and she would come around to seeing the merits of giving a performance, too.

“I have arranged for you to play at The Royal Albert Hall.”

She pinched her temples.

“I do not wish to perform again. For anyone.”

Gideon took her by the shoulders. “You have done so well this Season. Making headway with the highest echelons of the ton . Sponsoring Miss Kingston has been kind of you. Even my mother is pleased, and you know how difficult she is.”

A smile ghosted over Cora’s lips. “You wouldn’t know it to hear her speak.”

“She expresses her approval as criticism. I know it requires some getting used to. But this is a mark of my confidence in your ability to shine, Cora. I know you can give a great performance. Once you do, no one will ever think about that disastrous night at the Pindells’ ever again.”

Her throat worked.

“Think about it, darling. You, in front of an exclusive, hand-selected crowd, playing three or four of your favorite songs. You’ve been practicing for weeks.”

“For myself, Gideon. For me. And for you, because I know you enjoy hearing me play.”

“Playing for me is the greatest gift you could possibly give, songbird.” He took her hands and lifted them to his lips, brushing a kiss across her knuckles. “I want to share your talent with the world. This will prove to everyone that your light is undimmed.”

She squeezed his fingers and slowly withdrew.

“Gideon, I have nothing to prove to anyone.”

His heart skipped. “That is simply untrue. You said yourself you wanted to prove yourself to Society.”

“Because you destroyed my one chance to thrive, but I have what I wanted now. You are the one who feels the need to prove to the world that I can be something I am not.” She touched his arm, pleading. “I am glad to be your wife. I was wary of you, at first. But you’ve shown me that there is a good man behind this constant scowl. Why am I not enough for you?”

“You are. I want the world to see you the way I do.”

“You cannot erase what happened all those years ago by commanding me to give another performance. It is a fantasy, and one that will cost me dearly to indulge.”

“I am not commanding you to perform for anyone. I thought you would enjoy the idea. I wanted it to be a surprise.”

“It is certainly a surprise.”

She scooped up Titi. Gideon was suddenly jealous of a dog.

He wanted to be her comfort.

“I’ll cancel it,” he declared. Doing so would only make things worse for her in the eyes of Society, though. Drawing attention to her performing was dicey. Why hadn’t he considered that before setting this course?

Because he had been in a risk-taking frame of mind. Once his first gambit to force her to the altar had paid off so spectacularly, he’d recklessly made a second bet without consulting her. She was right. He wanted to show off the prize he had won.

When all this time, he could simply have asked her questions instead of going to absurd, Machiavellian lengths to get her to do what he wanted. Gideon was beginning to feel like an idiot.

“Gideon, do you make snap decisions like this at your bank?” Cora asked with exasperation.

He felt his jaw twitch and realized he’d clenched it. He rolled his shoulders in an effort to release the tension. “I do not.”

“Then please give me time to process this momentous ‘gift.’ I would rather have been consulted first, but this is clearly important to you, and I am willing to consider it. Just give me a chance to think it over. Please.”

“If you talk it over with Miss Caldwell, the news will be all over London in no time. There will be no backing out.”

“I know how to handle Honora. Trust me, Gideon. I will decide in plenty of time to change our minds, if that is the direction we choose to go.”

Our. We. He kissed her, unable to put into words the way her choice of words made him feel.