I have given thought to your request for a meeting but I’m not sure it is possible.
The letter ended there, still in progress, a note she had written to another man perhaps moments before he arrived at her bedroom to lie with her. He remembered her pensive, faraway look as she stood at the window. “Not sure it is possible” indeed. With shaking fingers he opened her desk drawers, finding other letters in the top left one. Stacks of letters, all from him, this “Michael.” Mr. Michael Thomas Burgermeister. Why did that name sound familiar?
How busy she had been, to have such packets of letters. I look forward to them with a fervor you cannot believe. When had she begun this acquaintance with her prolific Mr. Burgermeister? Perhaps before she and Court had even wed. He took the entire stack of letters and crossed back into his wife’s bedroom.
“Wake up, Harmony,” he said, nudging her shoulder. How innocent and sweet she could look in sleep, the little deceiver. All this time she’d been withdrawing from him, he’d blamed himself for being an inadequate husband, for being too strict and unbending to suit her, while she’d been writing letters to some mister who lived in Brook Street—the street where she used to live. “Harmony, awaken at once,” he said as she stretched beneath the sheets. In his bed, beneath his sheets.
She blinked and raised her head. “What is it? What’s the matter?”
He threw the pile of letters on the bed before her. She sat up, gathering them before they could slide to the floor. “What on earth?”
Court made a sound that betrayed far too much of his pain. “You won’t pretend you don’t know what these are.”
She looked up at him, her brows gathered in those little thinking lines he used to find so sweet. “I know what they are. I don’t know why you have dumped them on me at this hour of the night.”
“Pardon me for not waiting until morning to confront you about your paramour.”
She burst into laughter. “Mr. Burgermeister? My paramour?”
By God, he did not enjoy being laughed at. “You called him Michael in your letters,” he said, pointing at the messy stack. “The one you were writing mentioned a meeting.”
“You read my letters? What were you doing? Snooping about my desk?”
“Yes,” he snapped, annoyed that she would attack him when she was the one who had behaved—yet again—so poorly. “Yes, I was trying to discover what it is that has so set you against me. Now I understand that another man has secured a place in your affections.”
“My affections? Mr. Burgermeister is a scholar, a historian, not some paramour of mine! And if you wish to know what has set me against you, you are exhibiting a prime example of it right now. Will you always expect the worst of me?”
“A scholar?” Court scowled down at the pile of letters. “He has an exorbitant amount of time to write, for one engrossed in studies.” A confusion of facts in his mind snapped together. “Michael Thomas Burgermeister. That damn book Lightmore brought you.”
“I’d been meaning to explain—”
“Has he been ferrying notes for you two? Is Lightmore involved in this?”
“Involved in what?” Harmony sat up straighter, grasping the sheets to her chest. “We’ve been corresponding by post, and that is the extent of it. I’ve hidden nothing. Well, not intentionally.” Her lips pressed into a sullen line. “I didn’t realize I was supposed to apply to you for permission to write to those of my acquaintance.”
“A man of your acquaintance,” he pointed out. “You cannot imagine it was appropriate to carry on this sort of relationship without my approval.” He gestured to the packets on the bed. “There are fifty or more letters here.”
“Surely, not so many,” she said, looking down at the pile.
“I don’t believe I’ve ever written fifty letters to anybody.”
“Well, you haven’t many friends, so why would you?”
He made a warning sound. “Do not test my patience, Harmony. You should be begging my forgiveness.”
“For writing to a friend? Did you read them? We only spoke of Greece, of ancient history. Mr. Burgermeister is planning an expedition and he hoped I might become a patron of his. You’ve plenty of money. I was going to ask you about it.”
“Ask me to finance this man’s travels?”
“His historical expedition. It’s a worthy endeavor. He is planning to go to Athens and Delphi, and Peloponnesia to study ancient villages and ruins. It is too costly without the aid of charitable patrons. We spoke of nothing inappropriate.”
“If that’s so, why the secrecy? You hid these letters from me.”
“They were not hidden,” she said. “The latest note was on my desk. Before you accuse and shame me, why don’t you read them?” She picked up a handful and flung them at him. “Read them all if you wish, if I’m not to have any privacy or trust.”
“Trust?” He waved a hand at the mess on the floor. “So many letters to a gentleman not even of my acquaintance. Don’t you understand why this discomposes me? Who knows of these letters, of this correspondence between you? Lightmore? He will tell everybody—”
“Is that all you ever care about? What everyone will think? Meanwhile I cannot converse with another person on a topic I’m interested in?”
“This isn’t conversing on a topic. This is a prodigious collection of letters, in which you address him familiarly as Michael!”
“In later notes I did, because we becam
e so…familiar.” She seemed to realize, at last, the impropriety that upset him. The blush deepened across her cheeks. “But we spoke of nothing but history. Niceties and news now and again, perhaps, as friends will do. But nothing torrid or in poor taste. We’ve done nothing to be ashamed of!”
“Haven’t you? How different our morals are. And I daresay you will feel ashamed indeed when Mr. Lightmore and his foppish group spread rumors of your affaire de lettres with this thrice damned ‘historical scholar.’ The truth doesn’t matter, only the gossip. You of all people should realize that.”
“Oh, I realize about gossip, and I don’t care. I am sick of it!” She threw another handful of letters at him. “Burn them, then. Do what you will. I will never speak to him again if it pleases Your Grace, and he shall never go to Greece or anywhere. I hate this. I hate these letters. I hate society and gossips, and your accusations. I hate this horrible house and I hate that I ever met you. I hate being your wife. I hate you! Now get out and let me sleep if you will not let me be happy. At least give me peace.”
He could not say precisely what made him snap. Hurt feelings? Jealousy? How small of him. Perhaps he was only incensed by the boldness of her tirade. “I don’t think I’ll give you peace, Harmony. Not if you will persist in behaving like a disordered child.” He crossed to her and pulled her from the bed, grabbing her nightgown from the nearby chair. “If you cannot be reasoned with, if you cannot behave as a thoughtful and respectable wife, I will not treat you as one.”
She fought him as he worked to pull her garment into place. He felt ridiculous grappling with his wife but if he released her now, she would not respect his authority. He tightened his hand on her arm and gave her a sharp shake.