Someone to Romance

by Balogh, Mary

  Jessica was a bit teary eyed, as she had warned. But he did not believe they were unhappy tears. He hoped not. All their wedding guests streamed out of the dining room after them to wave them on their way. It did not help her composure.

  It had been an eventful wedding day. And it was not over yet.

  Seventeen

  The carriage Gabriel had purchased for his wedding day and the journey to Brierley Hall had indeed been denuded of its floral decorations and metallic noisemakers before it left Archer House. Even the remaining traces of the flower petals with which he and Jessica had been showered outside the church had been thoroughly removed. Those facts saved them from attracting undue attention on their way to his hotel. They did not, however, save them from a grand reception at the hotel itself, where Gabriel had been putting up since his arrival in London.

  He had informed the manager that Mrs. Thorne would be joining him to spend the night here. Perhaps that bare announcement had raised an alarm, for during the weeks of his stay he had given no indication that he was a married man. Perhaps the manager, who had bowed to him with the utmost respect this morning, had feared that the hotel was about to fall into disrepute. Whatever the reason, he or his minions had done some swift research and had come up with the astonishing news that Mr. Thorne, a wealthy gentleman late of Boston, America, had that very day married the sister of no less a personage than His Grace, the Duke of Netherby.

  The red carpet was out. Literally. It had been rolled down over the wide, shallow steps outside the main doors and across the pavement. It was in such pristine condition when Gabriel’s carriage rocked to a halt at the curb beside it that it seemed probable no other guest had been allowed to set foot on it but had been put to the inconvenience of using a side door.

  The ornate brass handles on the outer doors had been polished until they rivaled gold in brightness. The manager and footmen, whose jobs respectively were to register newly arrived guests and carry in their baggage, were suddenly resplendent in uniforms so stiff and spotless that they must be reserved for the most special and rare of occasions. The owner of the hotel, who looked as if he had dressed for an audience at court, stepped out through the doors and executed a bow that would not have shamed him had he been making it to the Prince of Wales himself. As soon as the newly arrived guests had stepped down from their carriage, he delivered a brief, pompous speech, which had been either written inaccurately or memorized poorly. He welcomed to his humble hotel Lady Jessica Archer and Mr. Archer. With one practiced sweep of his arm he invited them to step inside.

  And there in the gleaming foyer waited two straight lines of hotel employees, also clad in their special-occasion best, smiling and, at a cue from the manager, applauding. At another cue, the clapping stopped abruptly, the men bowed, and the women curtsied.

  They must have spent all day rehearsing, Gabriel thought. They would have done a military parade proud—except for the smiles. He ought to have taken a suite at the Pulteney instead of at this perfectly comfortable but obviously second-tier hotel. At the Pulteney they must be accustomed to the aristocracy and foreign dignitaries flitting in and out. There would have been no fuss or fanfare at all there but, if anything, an even greater discretion than usual to preserve the privacy of their guests.

  For the first time Gabriel saw the results of his careful reasoning about the choice of a bride. He had thought to choose someone who would fit into the role of Countess of Lyndale at Brierley as a hand would fit into a glove. He had chosen Jessica within half an hour of his first encounter with her. At the time it had not occurred to him that she would also ease his way back into his London hotel on his wedding day.

  She had sat beside him in the carriage on the short journey from Archer House, her hand in his, her cheeks flushed, her eyes bright as the two of them looked back over the past few hours and commented upon several details they had found particularly memorable or touching. She had been Jessica.

  But the moment the carriage door was opened outside the hotel and she summed up the situation at a glance, she became a different person—the one he had met at that inn on the road to London. She became the haughty yet gracious daughter of a duke that she was. She became Lady Jessica Thorne, Countess of Lyndale.

  She waited for Gabriel to alight first and then set her hand in his and descended to the red carpet with regal grace. She ignored the two footmen who stood on either side of the carpet—it was, Gabriel realized, a serious faux pas to acknowledge their existence, as he did with a brisk nod for each—and ascended the steps as the owner delivered his speech. She afforded him a gracious inclination of the head and a murmured thank-you—similar to the one she had given Gabriel on their first encounter—while she offered her hand at the end of a fully extended arm to discourage the man from moving any closer. Then she swept inside while Gabriel was giving the owner a more conventional—and less aristocratic—handshake.

  The applauding lines of servants did not throw her off stride for a single moment. She stopped walking, waited for the performance to come to an end, and smiled down the length of her nose while she looked unhurriedly along the women’s line and back along the men’s before nodding to both lines and speaking.

  “Thank you,” she said. “What a lovely welcome.”

  And to a man—and woman—they almost melted with pleasure at her words, all six of them. They could not have looked more gratified had she presented each of them with a gift.

  And she looked unerringly toward the manager, who jumped forward, bowed, indicated the wide staircase with a sweeping arm gesture, and then led the way up to Gabriel’s suite as though he would not be able to find it unassisted. Gabriel meanwhile nodded and smiled at the employees, most of whom looked familiar to him by now, and followed his wife.

  She was extraordinary.

  “Thank you,” she said again as the manager, his chest puffed out with importance, paused outside the suite and opened the door—somehow it was unlocked.

  And she swept inside, turned toward Gabriel as the door closed behind him, and . . . became Jessica again. And the thing was, he thought, she seemed unaware of the two roles she had played in the last ten minutes. Being Lady Jessica Archer—or, rather, Lady Jessica Thorne—was so much second nature to her when she was in a public setting that she did not even have to think about it.

  “I am sorry about that,” he said. “I did not announce this morning that I was off to marry the daughter of a duke. And I do not believe Horbath would have announced it either—my valet, that is.”

  “Gabriel.” She laughed. “You must have been in America too long. Servants, employees, often know things about their employers or paying guests before those people know those things for themselves. There is no keeping anything secret from one’s servants, you know. That is why it is important to engage their loyalty and even affection. It is why it is important to treat them well.”

  He was not sure it was quite the statement of equality for all that was so touted in the New World, even if it was not a perfect reality there. But he was in England now, where the class system was still alive and well and perhaps always would be, and where it would work comfortably for all, provided there was mutual respect along the spectrum. It was not perfect. But what was? And these were not thoughts he needed to be having at this precise moment.

  “Horbath?” he called. He was not sure whether his valet was in the suite or not.

  “Sir?” Horbath stepped out of his bedchamber.

  “You may take the rest of the day off,” Gabriel told him. “Until after dinner anyway. Let us say half past nine?”

  “Yes, sir,” Horbath said. He bowed to Jessica. “Does my lady wish me to take my lady’s maid with me?”

  “Ruth is here?” she asked. “Yes, by all means, Mr. Horbath. Thank you.”

  Horbath disappeared. There was the murmur of his voice and a female’s before another door to the suite that was outside the sitting room opened and closed, and there was silence.

  “Perhaps,
” Gabriel said, his eyes moving over Jessica’s wedding dress and straw bonnet, “I ought to have consulted you before sending your maid away. Perhaps you will need her sooner than half past nine tonight.”

  “I can manage without,” she told him.

  “And,” he said, “I can be an excellent lady’s maid. Not that I have had any experience, I hasten to add. But I can brush hair and I can undo buttons on a dress that are inaccessible to the wearer.”

  Her cheeks flushed. “Thank you,” she said. She did not add, he noticed, that she could manage without.

  He looked at the clock that was ticking on the mantel. It was half past four. An awkward time. Three and a half hours to dinner. A little too late to plan anything. Too late to go out. Besides, if they went out, they would probably throw the downstairs staff into consternation. It was too early to—

  He stepped forward, took her in his arms—one about her waist, the other about her shoulders—and kissed her. Hard and deep. Her mouth opened and he pressed his tongue inside. Her hands, still gloved, came to rest just below his shoulders. She made an inarticulate sound in her throat.

  “It is still afternoon,” he said when he lifted his head. “Daylight.”

  “Yes.” The color in her cheeks had deepened. She was still wearing her bonnet as well as her gloves.

  “Will you consider it in very poor taste,” he asked her, “if I take you to bed now, rather than wait until tonight?” Waiting would be a severe trial. What else was one to do in three and a half hours with a new wife whom one found damned attractive, to say the least?

  “I think perhaps,” she said, “that in some part of the world it is night, Gabriel.”

  “Where?” he asked. “India? China? Where shall we imagine we are?”

  “Either,” she said. “But we had better both decide upon the same place. It would be too bad if you were in China and I were in India. Join me in India, if you will.”

  “Done,” he said. He was still holding her against him. He could feel the warm, slender shapeliness of her from the shoulders to the knees. The soft femininity of her. He could smell the same subtle perfume she had worn when they sat together on the pianoforte bench at her cousin’s party.

  “There are two bedchambers,” he told her. “Will you come with me to mine? Will you allow me the pleasure of brushing out your hair and unclothing you?”

  He watched the color deepen yet more in her cheeks as her teeth sank into her lower lip, leaving the upper to curl upward very slightly—and very enticingly. He watched her consider her options and glance briefly at the window, through which the sun was beaming from a clear blue sky, still very far from sinking over the horizon.

  “Yes,” she said, and even in speaking the one word she sounded breathless. But quite decisive.

  “Come.” He took her by the hand and led the way.

  Jessica had imagined a nighttime consummation with darkness and bedcovers and the white silk and lace nightgown, only very slightly daring, which she had purchased for the occasion. She had imagined Ruth getting her ready and leaving her room a discreet five minutes or so before the appearance of her bridegroom in his nightshirt and brocaded dressing gown belted at the waist. She was eager for the experience. She was hardly nervous at all except for a bit of anxiety that she would be awkward and not know quite what to do. But that was a foolish fear. Though she did not know for sure, she would be very surprised if Gabriel did not have a good deal of experience. She hoped he did, though she did not—thank you kindly—want to know any details.

  But now it was to happen in the daytime with bright sunshine beaming through the rather large window of the bedchamber into which he took her. He did not even cross to it to draw the curtains.

  It was a large square room with another door. But that must lead into a dressing room only large enough for essential private functions. There was a dressing table in here as well as a great marble washstand.

  The masculinity of the room struck her immediately. Two pairs of large boots—riding boots and Hessians—stood neatly beside the wardrobe. There was shaving gear spread out on the washstand, a set of man’s brushes on the dressing table as well as a neat pile of starched neckcloths. The room smelled faintly and enticingly of something distinctly male—his shaving cream, perhaps, or his cologne, which was in a dark glass bottle on the dressing table. It was something she smelled whenever she was close to him—something that always made her want to burrow closer. There were three leather-bound books on one of the bedside tables, a handkerchief folded in the top one, presumably to keep his place.

  There was no sign of any of her things. They must be in the other bedchamber. Ruth probably had everything laid out ready in there.

  There was no Ruth either, she thought, not until half past nine tonight. She had left the suite with Gabriel’s valet.

  There were just the two of them and this room and bright daylight. And a large, high bed.

  She was still wearing her gloves, Jessica saw, looking down. And her bonnet. And her wedding dress.

  She drew off her gloves and looked around for somewhere to put them. He took them from her, dropped them—oh dear—on the floor, and came to stand directly in front of her. He pulled loose the bow beneath her chin and removed her bonnet, using both hands. He looked into her face the whole while, those dark eyes of his roaming over it. He dropped the bonnet. Her hair must be squashed.

  “My hair must be squashed.”

  His eyes came directly to hers. “I will give myself the pleasure of withdrawing the pins and brushing it out,” he said. “The first part may not be as easy as it sounds. It is a work of art.”

  “Ruth is good with hair,” she told him.

  “We will have to see,” he said, “if I am better.”

  His voice was low. She seemed to hear it less with her ears than with some location low in her abdomen. What a foolish thought to be having. And now something down there was aching and pulsing and she swallowed.

  “Perhaps,” she said, “I ought to have hired you as a lady’s maid instead of as a husband.”

  “Ah,” he said, “but you did not hire me as a husband, did you, Jessie?”

  And why did the sound of that particular variation on her name almost take her knees out?

  “Besides,” he added, “we are not sure yet, are we, that my skills surpass those of Ruth.”

  “Are you good at ironing?” she asked him.

  He gave her a look that implied a clear no. “Come,” he said.

  He seated her before the dressing table, and she watched in the mirror as he removed all the pins from her hair. He placed them in a neat pile on the dressing table, she was relieved to see, rather than sending them to join her gloves and bonnet on the floor.

  He was in no hurry. But something struck her. He was already making love to her. His fingers untangled each curl as it was freed of its pins, and his knuckles caressed her scalp each time. He kept his eyes on what he was doing rather than on her image in the glass. He had a brooding look on his face. No, wrong word. But she did not know what the right word was. He looked wholly intent, wholly engrossed. He was in no hurry at all.

  And then all the pins were gone and her hair was in a riot of untidiness about her shoulders and she swallowed again. Strange men ought not to see one with one’s hair down. But he was not a stranger. He was her husband.

  For the first time he looked into the mirror.

  “It is horribly untidy,” she said.

  “Gorgeously disheveled,” he said.

  “Is that not a contradiction in terms?” she asked.

  “No.” Just the one word.

  He picked up his own brush from the dressing table and began to draw it through her hair with long, slow strokes from the roots to the tips. Smoothness replaced the riot and her hair shone in the sunlight, which was beaming directly on them. He was still fully dressed in his wedding finery. Lace half covered his hands. There was a strangely enticing contrast between the femininity of the frills and the
masculinity of the hands. He might have been a businessman, but she doubted he had spent all or even most of his working days behind a desk.

  He put the brush down and drew his fingers through her hair at the temples to draw it back behind her shoulders. He held her eyes with his own before he dipped his head and kissed the side of her neck. Her toes curled up in her slippers. His hands closed about her upper arms, and he drew her to her feet, still facing away from him. Then he swept her hair forward over one shoulder and unbuttoned her dress down the back, from her neck to her hips. He moved it off her shoulders and down her arms. It whispered down her body and pooled about her feet and he left it there. Ruth would have a fit.

  Her stays went next. He untied the laces and let the stays fall on top of her dress. Only her shift and her stockings—and shoes—remained. As well as her pearl necklace.

  Oh my. It was a short shift. It did not even reach her knees. Neither did her stockings from the other direction. Her knees were bare. He turned her and looked her over without even trying to respect her modesty. He seemed very fully clothed in contrast to her. Apart from the lower halves of his hands there was not the merest hint of bare flesh from his chin on down.

  She was going to die. Of mortification? Or . . . of something else?

  His eyes were heavy lidded. Even when they looked back up into hers. And then—oh goodness me—he went down on one knee before her and began to draw off one garter and roll down one silk stocking to the ankle. He lifted her foot—she braced herself with one hand on his appealingly solid shoulder—and removed first her shoe and then her stocking with the garter. They landed on top of her dress and stays. The other garter and stocking and shoe joined them in the next minute or so. He really was in no hurry. He stood up.

  And while she watched, he shrugged out of his coat. It was a tight fit. It was more like a second layer of skin, she thought, than a garment. His silk waistcoat followed it to the floor. Was his valet the sort of man to have a fit? He removed his neckcloth. Then he pulled his white shirt free of his knee breeches, crossed his arms, and drew it off over his head to drop onto the heap of their combined garments. And . . .