Pillow Talk

by Dynapink

Summary:

Wide awake after a party, Lady Glencora shares her views on some friends with her husband.

Notes:

• For gorseflower.

In the few short years he had been married, Plantagenet had had to learn many surprising things about his wife. Glencora was, not to put too fine a point on it, perhaps the most surprising person he had ever met in his life. There were so many things about her personality and her interests which were utterly foreign to his own experiences and character.

She liked a party, for instance. Any sort of party. That alone was enough to confound Mr. Palliser, for whom social gatherings were an unpleasant necessity, to be endured for the sake of political expediency. But his wife positively thrived – not only thrived, but made the experience vastly better for everyone present. Whenever people gathered together, “Lady Glen” had only to be in the middle of things for almost everyone present to have a better time, to behave themselves more graciously than they might otherwise be inclined to do, and to go home with a generally pleasant recollection of the time they had just spent.

Her husband was the very opposite. Even the smallest gathering tired Plantagenet and left him longing for peaceful solitude and the solace of his work. He was, ironically, perhaps the only person in London who was immune to her skills as a hostess. Her parties were just as tiring to him as anyone else’s had ever been, and he was at a loss to imagine how it could possibly be different for anyone else, including Cora herself. He had been genuinely concerned about her health tonight, worried that this much exertion might be too much for her so soon after the birth of her child. And as he looked down at her sleeping face, he felt justified in his views.

At that instant Glencora opened her eyes and smiled up at him.

“I’m sorry, my dear, I didn’t mean to wake you.” He moved the candle farther away from her. “Would you prefer me to sleep in my dressing room tonight?”

“That’s all right, Planty. I am not tired in the least.” She pulled the blankets down on the other side of the bed and motioned for him to join her. “Now, do come to bed and let’s talk over everything that happened tonight. Oh, how I’ve missed hearing all the news firsthand!”

“You mean gossip, Cora,” he rebuked her. He lit the bedside lamp from the flame of his candle and settled in beside her. He knew well enough that if she were this excitable, he must resign himself to a good deal of conversation before he found slumber.

“I do not. I said news and I meant news. All I ever hear from you is the latest bill in Parliament and the smallest details of your precious decimal system.”

“I thought you were interested in what happens in the House, Glencora.”

“And so I am. But the House is made up of people, Plantagenet, as I have had to remind you more than once. And as some of those people are our closest friends, I think it’s hardly surprising that I should like to keep informed of the events in their lives. And that, as you know, has been quite difficult these last few months.” She gave him a saucy look and continued, “Why, you’ve kept me almost as much a prisoner since before Gerald was born as Mr. Kennedy keeps his wife at Loughlinter.”

“Come now, Glencora!” he responded angrily. “Even in jest you go too far. I’ll not have you slandering a perfectly respectable and upstanding member of Parliament.”

Glencora was unrepentant. With a sniff, she said, “If that is slander, then Mr. Kennedy is slandered by half the lips in London. And it is true that poor Lady Laura is hardly allowed out of his sight. It is said that since our visit to Loughlinter the poor girl has had less and less freedom, and now is hardly allowed to talk to anyone outside her own family.”

“I daresay there is a great deal of exaggeration in the claim,” said Plantagenet, completely forgetting his disapproval of gossip.

She shrugged. “Perhaps, perhaps not. But we’ve seen for ourselves that the match does not seem to be a happy one. I wonder whether Lady Laura mightn’t sometimes wish she had married Mr. Phineas Finn when she had the chance. I think they would have been a good deal more suited.”

“No, I don’t think so,” Plantagenet disagreed. “I have the utmost respect for Mr. Finn, as you know, but I cannot consider him a suitable prospect for a young woman such as Lady Laura. He’ll be out before you know it, sooner rather than later if he persists in affiliating himself with this Irish nonsense. No, I believe Mr. Kennedy is the steadier man.”

“If not the more agreeable one. Oh, I do feel sorry for Mr. Finn, though, Plantagenet. So unlucky in love. Thrown over first by Lady Laura, and now Violet Effingham. Perhaps he should set his sights on Madame Goesler next – I daresay she would soon have him on the straight and narrow path.”

Plantagenet paid no attention to her idea of matchmaking. He smiled at her and patted her hand. “You would happily see Madame Goesler wed to a dustman, so long as there was no danger of her ever marrying my uncle and giving him an heir.”

“That is very true, I would,” she admitted, completely without remorse. She thought about the woman she had frequently regarded as an adversary, and found herself unexpectedly smiling. “And yet, do you know, I believe she and I couuld be friends if not for the Duke.”

“Yes,” agreed her husband, so rapidly that it seemed to catch her by surprise. “Yes. She has a keen mind. Why, just tonight I was telling her about my system of decimal currency, and she asked several of the most insightful questions I have ever had put to me.”

Glencora leaned in and gave him a quick kiss on the lips. “Oh, bother your decimal currency,” she said affectionately. “You and Madame Goesler can have it; it’s putting me to sleep.”

“Good night, Cora. Sleep well.”

Plantagenet put out the lamp and lay back, thinking about one or two of those insightful questions which had been raised tonight. In a little while, he drifted off to sleep, still thinking about the decimal system.