August’s eyes narrowed. “I thought you said—”
“I did, but I lied to you. Do you think it’s easy to admit you’ve had no success bedding your own blasted wife?”
Marlow and August exchanged glances. “We’ve come to the crux of the problem,” said August. “The source of all the frustration.”
“Nothing at all?” Marlow looked shaken. “You were always such a treat for the women at Pearl’s. Doesn’t your lady know what she’s missing?”
“Well, she knows,” August said. “Unless things didn’t go so well that first time, when you thought she was an actress?”
Wescott stared at his reflection in his sword’s blade. “Things went fine, except they resulted in a marriage she didn’t want, so now she refuses me.”
The men fell silent in commiseration with their friend. He was relieved they didn’t rib him, or play it all for a laugh.
“Whatever.” He lowered his sword’s tip to the ground. “I’ll figure it out. I’m just taking some time to think.”
“If you’d like to ‘think about things’ with a more accepting woman,” said Marlow, “we’ll have to find someplace besides Pearl’s. It’s still not reopened, though August and I have been making discreet inquiries as to the location of Misses Ellie and Berta while the parlor’s being rebuilt.”
Wescott dipped a cloth in the water, massaging the back of his neck. “I barely married Ophelia a week ago,” he said bitterly. “It’s too soon to take myself off to whores.”
“Then bed your wedded wife,” said Marlow with a shrug. “If you can destroy a half dozen canvas dummies with a sword, you can bed one reluctant woman. Romance her, and show her that Wescott charm. If she still refuses you, spank some sense into her and get on with things. A sound spanking always works with the girls at Pearl’s.”
“You keep referencing Pearl’s.” Wescott gave the dummy one last, desultory whack. “I fear you have a vastly misguided view of the marital state. Wait until you marry, and try to treat your wife like ‘the girls at Pearl’s.’ She’ll have something to say about it.”
“Not with my cock in her mouth.” Marlow made a vulgar pantomime of his comment. “I think you’re letting her talk too much, and not demanding enough respect.”
“Demanding things from women is a tricky business,” said August. “Unless you’re paying them some amount of money.”
“How do you approach her in the bedroom?” Marlow asked, ignoring August’s comment. “Are you demanding? Kind? Patient?”
“Damn it, of course the man’s patient,” August retorted. “He hasn’t got relief in over a week.”
“I have to hold her at night.” Wescott picked up the dummy’s head and replaced it on the wooden frame. “She has nightmares about the fire, so I hold her until she quiets. I hold her right against my body.” He remembered the close embrace he subjected himself to every time she woke up screaming. “I can feel every curve of her body against mine, every breath. But I can’t…”
His two friends waited. Then August said, “Why can’t you?”
“Because she doesn’t want me to. I…” He tapped the point of his sword into a crack in the floor. “I believe she’s afraid.”
“Afraid? Of you?” August tsked.
Marlow shook his head. “How strange for her to be afraid. Do you take a haughty tone with her?” he asked. “Do you make her call you ‘my lord,’ even in the bedroom?”
“Of course I don’t.”
“Do you make her curtsey when you enter?” August asked. “And insist she speak to you with proper deference?”
Wescott felt his cheeks redden. He might have spanked her for speaking crossly on at least one occasion.
“I’m a perfectly reasonable husband,” he said. “I don’t know why she fears me, and fights me.”
“Does she know your favorite color?” asked Marlow.
August stifled a laugh. “Do you know his favorite color?”
“Well, I’m not married to the man, am I?” Marlow turned back to Wescott. “Have you told her you’re a swordsman? She’d swoon over that. Have you told her your favorite dishes to eat? The cities you visited when we toured Europe? Have you told her why you wear your hair so long?”
“Why do you wear your hair so long?” asked August. “I’ve always wondered that.”
Marlow affected a pose. “Because Wescott’s hair is too thick and lustrous to wear short. Can you imagine him with short hair? It’d be sticking out all over the place.”
Wescott returned to the window, looking out at the busy London thoroughfare. What did Ophelia know of him? Nothing. But that was her fault, because she didn’t want to know anything. And if he’d been overly lofty or authoritative in disciplining her, well, women needed guidance, didn’t they? Otherwise, she’d be leading him around by the stones, strong willed as she was.
“What do you know about her?”
August’s question brought him back to their conversation. He turned, ready to tell him off. “I know plenty about her. I know she’s a singer. I know she studied in Vienna.”