As soon as was polite, he excused himself, leaving the two ladies to amuse themselves as best they could with cards and parlour games. He knew he was behaving badly. Perhaps Beatrice had been right to fling those insults at him, during the last of the seemingly endless string of quarrels. He could remember every angry word they had exchanged.

“I wish I had never allowed Papa to persuade me to marry at all,” she had cried, wiping her eyes on a scrap of lace and peeping through lowered lashes. “Indeed, you are quite unfit for polite society. My friends are all so sad on my account, cooped up here so far from London, with hardly any society at all.”

“Am I not enough society?” Hugh asked. How far he must be from the dashing husband she had expected.

“All you care about are those ridiculous tenants, who are all so muddy and smelly that it makes me quite unwell when I have to visit their dirty homes. You care nothing for me. Why, any other man would allow balls and parties, and invite all the neighbours.”

“You mean, invite that jackass, Muldrow?” Hugh, enraged, took a step towards his wife. “If you think I will encourage that snivelling creature to my house, you are greatly mistaken, Madam. I saw more than enough of the wretch when at Oxford. I have no wish to continue the acquaintance beyond what is necessary.”

Beatrice’s eyes glinted green. “I do believe you are jealous.” She spoke deliberately. Hugh laughed, his voice rough. “I would as likely feel jealousy towards the rats that steal corn from the barns as towards such a deceitful poltroon as Muldrow. If you had seen the man’s cruelty towards others, by heaven, you would want nothing of him and be less inclined to spend so much time in his company, I assure you.

“Why, he accused poor Jessop of holding a horse back in races and tried to have the poor lad—” Hugh broke off, biting his lip to keep from setting more of Muldrow’s faults before Beatrice. He did not even tell of the suspicion that Muldrow deliberately lamed young Jessop’s favourite chestnut the night before the race, so that poor Jessop failed to win the badly needed prize money. The poor boy had to leave the University at the end of the year.

Such reticence mattered little to Beatrice. Hugh saw his exasperation reflected in his wife’s face. “I will try to make your life more pleasant,” he said, at last, keeping his feelings under control. “Say what you would like.”

“I would like to leave this dark and dingy old house and go back to London,” Beatrice snapped. “I hate it here. I hate you, this horrid house and everyone in it.” She stamped her neat little foot and flounced away to her room, leaving Hugh seething with an impotent fury.

Next morning, Beatrice rode out for the last time.