Tess straightened. “What do you mean?”
“Touching you in public,” she said disdainfully. “Caressing you. I know we didn’t grow up with a governess, Tess, but really, you must learn to tailor your behavior to that of proper society, or no one will wish to know you.”
“Coming from someone who was saved from a Gretna Green marriage by my husband, your censure seems out of place,” Tess said. “You certainly didn’t consider tailoring your behavior, nor the effect that your elopement might have on Annabel’s and Josie’s future marriages!”
“Since Draven and I did not marry in Scotland, the question is moot,” Imogen said icily.
“I fail to see what was so improper about Lucius’s farewell,” Tess said, trying to keep her temper. Imogen was unhappy. She wasn’t sure why, but she could see it well enough.
“If you don’t realize, I’m sure it’s not my place to tell you.”
“No, it isn’t.”
Imogen sniffed. She leaned forward out of the window, and said, “I’m almost certain that the Cup is about to begin. This box is all very well, but one can’t hear any of the announcements.”
Tess swallowed a violent desire to tell her sister to go stand at the rail if she didn’t like the box.
Horses were pacing slowly toward the starting line. Tess always thought the jockeys looked so precariously small, perched on the great backs of the horses.
“I can’t tell,” Imogen said. “It might be the last race before the Cup. I don’t see Draven’s colors anywhere. What are Felton’s colors?”
“I don’t have any idea,” Tess said, realizing that she’d visited Midnight Blossom, but ignored the rest of Lucius’s stables. “He’s running Something Wanton, though. Do you see him?”
They both squinted off toward the starting line, but it was well around the curve. The royal box was beautifully situated to see the end of a race, but not its beginning.
“I find it hard to believe that you don’t even know your husband’s colors,” Imogen said. She could feel the meanness uncurling in her heart; it wasn’t fair that Tess should marry a man who kissed her like that. In public, without a thought for what others thought. And who looked at her in such a way as if—as if—she shrugged away the thought.
“We haven’t discussed his stables,” Tess said.
“Well, if you want to have that sort of marriage,” Imogen began.
But her sister cut her off. “To what sort of marriage do you refer?”
Imogen curled her lip. “The type in which the wife spends her day consulting with the housekeeper, which certainly appears to be your daily routine. The husband’s wishes and deepest ambitions are never discussed. His true life happens outside the house, outside the marriage.”
“My goodness you’re dramatic,” Tess said. She had a haughty, older sister expression that further inflamed Imogen’s temper.
“I know every dream in Draven’s heart!” Imogen said, knowing she should feel sorry that Tess had no real understanding of her husband. Their relationship was shallow. But it was hard to feel sorry when Lucius Felton looked at his wife that way. It wasn’t fair.
There was a distant sound of a pistol shot, and they both glanced toward the starting line. The huge mass of colored horses were milling about, rearing in the air.
Tess could hear whickers from the horses and shouts from the jockeys. She certainly didn’t know all the dreams in Lucius’s heart. In fact, she doubted she knew any of them.
“A false start,” Imogen said. “Draven says half of the false starts are because the legs are trying to exhaust a given horse and stop it from winning. Blue Peter would never be exhausted by such shabby tactics.”
“I doubt Something Wanton would either,” Tess said.
“Not that you would know. Have you even bothered to tell Mr. Felton about Something Wanton’s likes and dislikes, so that he has the slightest chance of winning the race?”
“Likes? Dislikes?” Tess cried. “What does it matter? Something Wanton never won a race for Papa, for all the fact that he was so certain the horse liked apple-mash. And no, I haven’t spent a moment discussing that horse with my husband.”
“I forgot,” Imogen said spitefully. “You need to discuss important matters like the linens and the household accounts.”
“If I lived with my mother-in-law as you do, I undoubtedly wouldn’t have to bother with the accounts,” Tess snapped, finally exasperated beyond all measure. “What is the matter with you, Imogen?”
“Absolutely nothing,” Imogen said primly, straightening her back and pretending to take a great interest in the horses pounding around the nearest curve on their first circle about the grounds.
Tess ground her teeth. “You told us repeatedly that you would expire if you weren’t able to marry Maitland. And you did it. If you have rethought your position, there’s no need to be rude to me.”
Imogen bristled all over like a cat cornered by a terrier. “I have rethought nothing! I adore Draven. He is the very air I breathe!”
Tess stared at her. “I believe you. I simply begin to wonder whether breathing that air is poisoning your character.”
“That is such an unpleasant thing to say,” Imogen said slowly. So slowly that Tess had time to feel a pulse of heart-stopping guilt.
“You’re right, and I’m sorry,” she said in a rush.
Imogen was gripping the window ledge in front of her and staring blindly out at the horses rounding the curve for the second time in a dazzling sweep of pounding hooves and flashing colors. “I’m being a beast, Tess,” she said. “And it’s not because I regret marrying Draven. I love Draven.”
She turned and Tess saw that truth raw in her eyes. “I adore him. I—well you know about me. I worship the ground he walks on. He…he doesn’t feel precisely the same for me.”
“Oh, dearest,” Tess whispered.
“He cares for me,” Imogen said. “It’s just that he cares for his horses more.” She said it fiercely, and when she looked up, her eyes were shiny with tears. “He talks about them in his sleep. He can’t help talking about them all the time. He can’t help it.”
“I know,” Tess said. “Papa was just the same.”
“I thought of that,” Imogen whispered. Her gloved fingers were clenching on the wood again and again. A light rain was beginning to splatter down on the track, dampening down the puffs of dust that blew in their direction. “But I don’t think that Mama was unhappy, was she?”
“No,” Tess said instantly. “She wasn’t. I remember her quite well. She loved us, and she loved Papa. And I don’t think she minded for a moment that she’d given up—well, the chance at a marriage in England, and the season, and all those gowns.”
“I don’t either,” Imogen said. “I don’t either!”
“Of course you don’t—” Tess began but there was a sudden howl from the crowd, a primitive scream or moan that made both of their heads jerk back to the track.
“A horse is down,” Imogen said, gloved hand to her mouth.