A Loveless Marriage

Chapter 9: Fred

"You seem capable of little else but talk," she said brattily.

I pounced and she squealed, my fingers digging deep into the softness of her arms. Whimpering like a beaten spaniel, she stuttered out shallow words to placate me. Creatures like her scared easily, too often their history was filled with pain and violence and it took little to make her cowed.

"I will make it better, I promise," she said beginning to caress me.

I pushed her away roughly and moved from the bed as if I could escape from my failure as a man. She did not dress, but watched me with interest as I pulled my own clothes on with bitter disappoint burning within me. Wordlessly and still naked, she crossed the room and poured me a class of champagne.

"You must love this girl very much," she said shrewdly.

"Don't be ridiculous," I said. "I barely know her."

"Well you feel something," she said shrugging and pulling on a chemise.

"What would you know of it?" I asked.

"Tell me then," she said.

"I'm not discussing my wife with a damn whore," I said.

An arch of the eyebrow and a wicked grin came over her face. I had told her more than I wanted too and yet it was tempting to sit and discuss my woes with someone who was discreet for a living.

"Is she beautiful?", she asked.

"Incredibly beautiful," I said truthfully. "But she has a heart of ice."

The laugh that came from her lips was genuine, probably the first true laugh I had ever heard in this place.

"If she is cold then you must thaw her," she said with a shrug. "Isn't that what you are good at? Making all the women melt like puddles at your feet."

Sitting down on the gilded chair, I held out my glass for more champagne and drank deep. My feelings toward Mary were spurred by her indifference, I decided, once I got between her legs that gnawing feeling would be washed away. Seduction was the one thing I was really good at and my failure with Mary was eating away at me.

"Of course a wife is very different than a mistress," Giselle said pulling on her stockings. "The usual tricks won't work."

"What do you mean?" I said as I watched her cunning little face.

"Women want different things from a husband than they would a lover. Don't you want different things from your wife than you do me?" came her clever reply.

"And what do you think she wants?" I feigned nonchalance.

"A good husband," she said.

The simplicity of her words did not reflect the complexity of the deed. I had no template for becoming a good husband, my father had been a rotten husband and Uncle George had been a confirmed bachelor. I had trod the paths of both, enjoying the sensuous company of women without burdening myself with the responsibility of matrimony. Now I had all the pains of marriage and none of the pleasures.

I walked along the Seine, troubled my marital situation. I knew with certainty why I had married Mary, it had been the money pure and simple, but the question of why I had insisted on her playing the role of my wife was more complex. Granted a beautiful young wife like Mary would do a lot to cement my place in society and I felt her strict morals could go some way to ameliorate my bad reputation, but there was something more. It was the moment I saw her in that slummy boarding house in Bethnal Green, her exquisite vulnerability hidden beneath her strength. Fragile as a butterfly's wing and proud as a duchess, unnervingly beautiful as she sat surrounded by the decay of poverty. I saw that she was alone in the world and I felt that I had been given her to protect.