Marry in Scarlet

by Anne Gracie

He gave her a blank look. “Why would he run away? He has everything he needs. More to the point, where would he go? Lakeside Cottage is a few miles the other side of Quainton in Bucks. There is nowhere to run to.” He shook his head. “My guess is he’ll be hiding. I did much the same when I was a boy.”

  “For three days?”

  He nodded. “Yes. You can please yourself what you do while I’m gone—stay here in Everingham House—you might want to talk to Rose and Lily about redecorating it. Or you could return to your uncle’s house, or visit one of your aunts. Whatever you like.”

  “Wait in London?” Be set aside like a parcel until he was ready to collect her again? She could imagine the gossip that would arise from that—the duke, abandoning his bride the morning after the wedding. As for redecorating the house . . . “I’m going with you.”

  He frowned. “Are you sure? It’ll probably be quite dull.”

  “I don’t mind.”

  “I’ll have to leave straightaway. I’d planned to ride. It’s a solid day’s ride from here.”

  “Oh, dear, and I’m so awkward on horseback,” she said dryly.

  He gave a huff of amusement. “I was thinking of the rain.” He gestured to the window, where rain had just begun to spatter against the glass. “So much for the morning sun.”

  She shrugged. “I won’t catch cold from a little rain.”

  “Probably not, nevertheless, if you’re coming, we’ll take the traveling chaise. It won’t take much longer, and if we need to, we’ll hire mounts in Quainton.” He tossed his napkin aside and rose from the table. “How long will it take you to be ready?”

  “Half an hour.”

  He gave her a skeptical look. “Most women would take two hours at the very least.”

  “I’m not most women.”

  His slow smile warmed her. “Indeed you’re not.”

  * * *

  * * *

  The carriage left exactly thirty-one minutes later. The extra minute was for Finn, as George’s maid, Sue, had brought him with her, and George couldn’t leave him alone in a strange house. “Besides, it’ll be good to have his company,” she told Hart as Finn clambered into the carriage and sprawled across his feet.

  “I’m sure it will,” he responded with unexceptional politeness and a distinct lack of enthusiasm. He eyed Finn and added in a severe tone, “And you’d better not have gorged on leftovers from the wedding breakfast, my lad, or you’ll be riding on the roof.” Finn wagged his tail.

  As they drove out of London, George asked Hart how he had come to be the guardian of a small boy and trustee of his estates.

  “I’ve no idea. The boy’s father is a distant cousin, and the first I heard of these arrangements was after he’d died. He certainly didn’t ask me. I suppose he assumed that as head of the family it was my duty.” He sounded irritated.

  “Didn’t you want the responsibility?”

  “It’s not the responsibility so much as the mess my cousin left things in. He was a hopeless gambler—and I use the word ‘hopeless’ advisedly. Despite his losses, he couldn’t break the habit. In the ten short years since he inherited, he managed to run a decent estate into the ground, leaving his son with nothing but debts to inherit.”

  It was that last that was responsible for the suppressed anger in his voice, George thought. Leaving the boy’s inheritance in a mess.

  “Do you gamble?” A lot of men did, she knew. And some women.

  “Rarely. Sometimes I do when I’m playing cards, and I bet on my horses when I race them. When I do gamble, I generally win.” He glanced at her. “You don’t need to worry about me—I never gamble more than I can afford.”

  “Horses? I didn’t know you raced horses.”

  He nodded. “Are you interes— Foolish question. Of course you are. The next time I have a horse running I’ll take you to the races.”

  He was being remarkably kind. And surprisingly open, George thought. Was that because they were married? Or was it because of the intimacy established through their activities in bed?

  She’d always been unsettlingly aware of him, but since their wedding night, that awareness had sharpened. It was as though her skin had become extra sensitive, and every touch, even the brush of his sleeve against her skin, sent a small reverberation through her. The same went for his scent, the clean tang of his shaving soap, the cologne he used, the smell of freshly washed and ironed linen—he was fastidious—and beneath it all the dark, musky man-smell of him.

  He stretched out his legs, crossing his boots at the ankle, and she was intensely aware of the muscled thighs beneath the snugly fitted buckskins.

  He cracked his knuckles and a shiver ran through her as she recalled the way he’d stroked her nipples with those same knuckles.

  She forced her gaze elsewhere and tried to focus on the conversation. “What happened to the boy’s mother?”

  “Died giving birth to him.”

  “And there was no other family he could go to?”

  “No.”

  Poor little boy. George knew what it felt like to grow up having no family—none that she knew of at the time, anyway, thanks to her father keeping her existence a secret. She was eighteen before she knew she had a family—one who actually wanted her.

  “Couldn’t he—I didn’t catch his name—couldn’t the boy live with you?”

  “Phillip? With me? In London? The city is no place for a child. Besides, I know nothing about children. No, I moved the boy to one of his father’s minor properties that I gather had been quite overlooked in his scramble to sell all he could. I’m in the process of reorganizing the main estate and one other that was stripped of all valuables and mortgaged to the hilt. If all goes as planned, by the time the boy is of age, he should have a substantial inheritance.”

  She nodded. To repair the damage Phillip’s father had done was admirable, of course, but to move a small boy to a new place, when he’d just lost his father . . .

  Silence fell. He gazed out the window, tapping his fingers impatiently, drumming a soft tattoo on the seat leather. He was restless—he probably would have preferred to ride and feel more active. George watched the long, strong fingers and thought about the unexpected sensations they had coaxed from her. A warm ripple of remembrance clenched her insides. He seemed to know her body better than she did.

  “Why did you move Phillip away from all that was familiar to him?”

  He frowned. “I didn’t—at least that wasn’t why I moved him. He should be away at school by now, but according to his tutor he’s delicate, and academically he’s not yet ready for school, so this place is temporary. Besides, the boy’s home brings in far more in rental than the small house he’s in now.”

  “But he’s a small grieving boy.”

  He looked at her, surprised. “I did it for the best. I’m doing all I can to ensure that by the time the boy reaches his majority, he won’t inherit his father’s massive debt. I moved him out of his family home because it’s a large house at the center of a huge estate—an estate that ought to be prosperous but instead is in debt. I’ve put in a new manager, made a raft of changes and innovations and rented out the house to a wealthy cit who has a fancy to live like a gentleman. And, yes, he wanted to buy it, but I’m determined to save it for the boy.”

  She nodded. “I can see that, but what about Phillip?”

  “What about him? I’m doing this for him.”

  “He’d just lost his father.”

  He shrugged. “I don’t suppose the boy knew his father any better than I did. Neither of my parents spent much time at Everingham Abbey, where I grew up. My mother loathes the country and only ever went there on sufferance. And, of course, my father indulged her.”

  So both his parents had been more or less strangers to him, George thought.

  He continued, “As far as I know Phillip�
��s father spent most of the time in London gambling hells or at country house parties. Besides, at that age, servants are the most important thing in a child’s life. But he was too old for a nanny, so I hired a tutor who would prepare him for school.”

  “So he had nobody familiar?”

  “What does that matter? As I said, he’ll be starting school as soon as his health improves, and there will be nobody familiar at school. I didn’t know a soul when I started there.”

  “How old were you?”

  “Seven.”

  She was horrified. “Seven? But you were still a baby.”

  He snorted. “Tell any seven-year-old boy he’s still a baby and he’ll hate you for it. I managed.”

  “Did you like it?”

  He thought for a minute. “Does anyone like school at first? I got used to it, eventually. Once I’d made a few friends there, things were a lot better.” He glanced at her. “Some of those friends are still my friends today—Sinc, for instance. Johnny Sinclair. We met on the first day, but it took us a while to take to each other. Sinc has a knack for making friends easily.” He grimaced. “I don’t.”

  She could understand that. She was beginning to understand why he was so reserved and cold seeming. He’d grown up not being able to trust the people he should have been able to believe in, and he’d been raised by servants. Not by someone like Martha, who had loved George for herself and had stayed on even though there was no money, but by people who cared for a small boy only because they were paid to.

  “You said you’d hidden away for several days when you were a child. Why did you do it?”

  “A puppy. I was only found because he barked and gave us away.”

  “A puppy?”

  “I’d cadged a puppy from a nearby farm and hid with him in the attic.”

  “Why?” Why would he have to hide?

  “Mother didn’t like dogs, so I wasn’t allowed to have one.”

  But he’d said that his mother rarely visited him in the country. What sort of people wouldn’t allow a lonely small boy to have a dog? A dog was the best companion in the world.

  “What happened to the puppy?”

  He glanced away and said in a flat voice, “He was taken away.”

  The pup was probably destroyed. George stared out of her window and thought evil thoughts about the duke’s mother, and sad thoughts about a lonely small boy and a doomed puppy. It wasn’t exactly the privileged upbringing she’d imagined. She changed the subject. “When did you inherit the title?”

  “The dukedom? My father died when I was nineteen, but I’ve always been titled. I was born a marquis.”

  That would be a barrier from the start, she thought. There would be boys who would be jealous and want to bring him down for his imagined superiority. And some boys would toadeat him, wishing to be friends with a titled boy. Few of them would see who he was, himself—by all accounts a shy and lonely boy.

  And as he grew older, women would be added to the mix, wanting him for what he could bring them, not for who he actually was. And all most people would see was his position and his titles and his assumed advantages.

  As she had at first. Seeing only the arrogant-seeming, self-contained man.

  She thought about the time five years before, when he’d knocked her off her horse, after she’d disrupted the hunt. She’d mentioned it to Martha at the time, and Martha had made inquiries. He’d been staying with Michael Stretton. Of course.

  Martha had been scathing. Those Strettons invited the duke, hoping to snare him for one of their daughters. She’d snorted. That lot think so much of themselves, a duke in the family would be just what they think they’d deserve. I don’t know exactly what happened, but by all accounts the duke really fell out with his friend and stormed off in a temper.

  “I heard you left Michael Stretton with a broken nose,” she said.

  He frowned. “What made you think of that? It was years ago.”

  She shrugged. “Did you? Break his nose, I mean.”

  He glanced away. “I didn’t wait to see the result, but it was a good solid punch, so it wouldn’t surprise me. Serve him right for—for what he did. I don’t like being lied to.”

  Because Michael Stretton had sent the duke to punish her for ruining the hunt? And lied to him, suggesting she was male? She recalled the duke’s horror when he realized he’d roughly dragged a girl off her horse.

  He’d broken his friend’s nose for her. It shouldn’t have pleased her, but it did. Immensely.

  “Thank you.”

  “For breaking Michael Stretton’s nose?” He gave a quizzical half smile. “You didn’t like him?”

  “No.” But she wasn’t going to explain. There was no need to tell him of her embarrassing infatuation with Michael Stretton when she was a green girl, how she’d thought him the handsomest boy in the world, the best rider.

  She’d watched him from afar, adoring him from a distance, expecting nothing from him, knowing she was well out of his class in all the ways that counted. They’d never even talked.

  And then came the night of his twenty-first birthday. His family held a ball. Hidden in a tree, George had watched through the long ballroom windows as he’d danced with all the prettiest girls in the district. She wasn’t even jealous—perhaps a tiny bit envious, but more wistful, really. And admiring.

  And then he’d come outside with a friend to smoke a cigarillo, standing below her tree. And the way he’d talked about some of those girls—girls she knew were decent, virtuous girls—had shocked her. She must have dislodged a twig or something, because his friend had looked up and said, “I say, there’s a girl up there in your tree, Stretton.”

  George had frozen, mortified.

  And then Michael Stretton said, “I know. She follows me everywhere, the dirty little slut. She’s too scrawny to screw yet, but her day will come.”

  George’s infatuation had shriveled and died on the spot. And when a year later he’d come sniffing around, presumably deciding she was no longer so scrawny, she’d rejected him emphatically.

  Later, when he discovered she was the one disrupting the hunt, his anger had become personal. And vindictive.

  So the thought that the duke had been responsible for Michael Stretton’s broken nose delighted her.

  “It wasn’t the first time Stretton had crossed your path, then?”

  “No. He and his friends often tried to run me to earth, threatening to give me a thrashing. And worse.” There was a grim look in her eyes as she added, “They almost had me one time, but the dear old squire came roaring up, waving his whip and threatening to horsewhip the lot of them for treating a lady so.” She smiled reminiscently. “A lady. I was in breeches and boots with mud on my face and hands, but the old squire, he was a gentleman.” She grinned. “Michael and his friends ran like frightened little rabbits.”

  He took her hand in his and squeezed. “Sounds like the squire was a good man.” She made no move to pull her hand away.

  “He was, and a force of nature to boot. For all that Michael and his friends thought themselves so much better born than the squire, the old man was a true gentleman—something that they could never be. He didn’t leave it there, either; he visited each of their parents and told them what he’d seen, and what he promised if he caught them at it again. His threats worked too. They never bothered me again.”

  Instead Stretton had tried to get Hart to do his dirty work. Hart wished now that he’d given Stretton a good thrashing, instead of just a broken nose. His hand tightened around hers.

  She smiled, a mixture of triumph and smugness. “That nose never healed properly, you know. It’s permanently crooked. And Michael was always so vain about his good looks. So thank you.” She leaned over and kissed him. Her lips were sweet and soft.

  “Now that’s an idea,” he said and pulled her across his la
p. He pulled up her skirt and discovered something interesting. “Going old-fashioned today, are we? I like it.”

  She pushed his hands away. “In the carriage?” she said sounding shocked. “We can’t do that here.”

  “Why not? We’re married.” He cupped her chin and added, “If you don’t want to umm, George, just say so.”

  “It’s not that.” She looked away, blushing rosily. “But people might see.”

  He followed her gaze out of the window. “You’re right,” he said as if much struck. “There’s all those sheep, for a start. And cows too. We wouldn’t want to shock them, would we?” He reached past her and drew the curtains on her side of the coach, and then did the same for those on his side. He closed the back curtain as well. “There now, that’s better, isn’t it? There’s nothing worse than a shocked sheep or a blushing bovine.”

  “Cows don’t blush,” she said, trying not to smile.

  “No, but you do, George, don’t you?” he murmured.

  “You can’t possibly see—I mean, it’s too dark. I can’t see.” She was jumpy, a little embarrassed but he knew if she really didn’t want this, she’d have no hesitation in stopping him. She was modest, that’s all. The thought did not displease him.

  He placed a finger under her chin, and turned her face toward him. “Then just feel.” And he lowered his mouth to hers.

  * * *

  * * *

  Afterward, she fell asleep and slowly tipped over against him. Hart lifted his arm and drew her against his chest, tucking a rug around her. He gazed down at her sleeping face and stroked a lock of silky dark hair back from her face. What the hell had he got himself into?

  He hadn’t meant to make love to her again, not so soon. He’d always prided himself on his control. But with George . . . He shook his head. Apparently he was insatiable.

  The carriage slowed as it labored up a hill. It was getting colder. One handed, trying not to disturb her, Hart pulled out a travel rug from a side pocket and tucked it around her.

  It wasn’t meant to be like this. He hadn’t planned to have . . . feelings. It was supposed to be a convenient marriage—his own convenience at that. He’d wanted a woman who attracted him and wouldn’t be a hardship to bed, a woman who wouldn’t hang off his coat sleeve all the time, who would and could live independently. And who would give him an heir.