In the Dark
Violet
The smell had been in the house a fortnight, and Violet was the only person in it who could not smell it.
She found that out on the stairs, at approximately ten o’clock, a book she had come down for in her hand and four of her husband’s oldest friends laughing in the hall below. She had got no further than the turn of the stair, because one of them was talking, and what he said stopped her where she stood.
“No, but Iredell, in earnest.” A deep, hoarse voice said with a slight slur. “What is that smell? I have been trying half the night to place it.”
“It is nothing.” Henry’s voice rumbled low and steady.
“It is absolutely something. It is revolting, and I know it from somewhere.” A pause, then a bark of pure delight. “Tallow. By God, it is tallow. Your house smells of mutton-fat like my grandmother’s gamekeeper.”
Someone else laughed. “Has it come to that? Are we economising?”
“Leave it, Clarence.”
“I only ask because I’d hate to think a duke could not run to a wax candle.” The deep voice said with a chuckle. “Or is it the new one? They say she came to you with nothing but the gown she stood in. Perhaps she has brought her habits in with her. Tallow in the sconces, and turnips for—”
“Enough!”
Violet jumped at the sudden explosion.
“You will not utter one word, not a word of offence toward my wife. In fact, keep her out of your thoughts entirely. She is infinitely too good for you.”
“Iredell, steady on. A man may—”
“On your feet!” A chair scraped back. “All of you. The night is finished. Hurst, get him out of here before I put him through the window.”
No one argued. Violet heard the scramble of it, the boots, the muttering, and then the door slammed hard in its frame, and the cold came up the stair. She heard the voices outside fade then the carriage rattle away.
Her stomach turned over with unease. Violet placed a hand on her stomach to settle her nerves. She had announced to the whole of Mayfair exactly what she was and where she had come from.
Her husband returned and their eyes locked. He was breathing hard, and his colour was up.
For a moment she wanted to go to him. He had put four friends out of his own hall for an offending remark against her, and she wanted to wrap her arms around his neck and hug him. Be held by him.
Then she saw that the anger had not left with Clarence. It was coming toward her now.
“I am sorry. I gave the order. Mrs Greer told me it would be noticed, but I did it anyway. I thought I was saving six pounds each quarter this way.”
He stood two steps below her and gripped the railing until his knuckles turned white.
“Six pounds. You humiliated me for six pounds.”
“I did not think anyone would notice. I did not notice it myself. Six pounds is not nothing.”
“Itisnothing to me! Insignificant enough that I would rather be without six pounds per quarter than to become a laughingstock to my peers!”
“I know that now. It will not happen again.”
“The damage is already done. By noon tomorrow every house between here and St James’s will know the Duke of Iredell burns mutton-fat because he married a woman who cannot tell wax from tallow.”
Violet tilted her chin up and crossed her arms. “I had good intentions. And if you cannot survive one mishap, your reputation must have been in question.”
“We both know how precarious both of our reputations are. And I will not have a wife who turns my house into a…”
He clenched his teeth together abruptly and turned his face away.