Sally MacKenzie Bundle

by Sally MacKenzie

  She wouldn’t call Lady Dunlee mealy-mouthed, but it was true she’d been in London too long. She wet her lips. She was so glad John eschewed nightshirts, preferring to sleep in the buff. The glow of candlelight on his skin—on the strong column of his neck, the sweeping line of his shoulders, the thick graying hair curling across his chest—demanded that she paint him…after she did other things, of course.

  She loved his body. She’d loved it when they were newly married, and she loved it now when he’d passed his sixtieth birthday.

  “Not everyone ignores the proprieties like Jane and Edmund,” he said. “And it’s a little difficult to be busy between the sheets if you’re busy puking your guts up. I’m sure they’ll get around to attending to matters once they are both healthy.”

  “I don’t know. Johnny can be very…pigheaded.”

  “Not that pigheaded. He is a man, Cecilia. Leave him alone and he’ll do his duty.”

  “And what is Meg to be doing while she’s waiting for Johnny’s animal instincts to get the better of him?”

  “Just that—waiting.”

  “Pshaw! Meg has a very strong personality. I doubt she’ll be willing to sit around netting or embroidering handkerchiefs while the idiot boy makes up his mind to be a husband.”

  John shrugged. “If she’s so bloody strong-willed, she can seduce him. I assume the door between their rooms works in both directions.”

  “Seduce him? Are you—” Wait, why couldn’t Meg seduce Johnny? It was not the way most virgins climbed into their marriage beds—and she did indeed think Meg was a virgin, no matter what the London gabble grinders whispered—but that was not to say it wouldn’t work perfectly well. Of course it would. As John had said, Johnny was a man. He might not be a rake, but he knew how the relevant organ operated. He did have a mistress in the village.

  Cecilia frowned. “Do you suppose you should have a word with Mrs. Haddon?”

  “Definitely not.” John scowled at her. “You are not supposed to know of her existence.”

  “Of course I know of her existence. I make it a point to know everything I can about my children.”

  He snorted and turned back to his poetry. “Stop meddling, Cecilia.”

  “Hmm.” She smiled slightly. Perhaps the mistress was not an issue. She must remember the way Johnny had watched Meg in the London ballrooms. He just needed a little encouragement. A little privacy. A little seduction.

  She could teach Meg a thing or two about seduction. She loosened her dressing gown and let it slide off her shoulders. “Perhaps you are right. Having Meg seduce Johnny might work.”

  “Of course it will—” John sat up, closing his book with a snap. “What do you have on?”

  “Just a little something I found in London.” A very little something. The sheer scraps of willow green barely covered her crucial parts. She spread out her bare arms and turned, feeling the silky cloth slide over her breasts and flutter around her thighs. “Do you like it?”

  “It is indecent.”

  “Of course it is—but do you like it?” She made certain she had the fire behind her.

  John growled and pulled the bedcovers back.

  “Come here and I’ll show you just how much I like it.”

  Chapter 20

  “What a beautiful baby.” Lady Felicity—Lady Bennington, now—cooed at the Honorable Winthrop Jonathan Smyth, Lord Motton’s new son and heir. The Honorable Winthrop Jonathan Smyth, reclining in his mother’s arms, yawned.

  “He’s a good baby,” Jane said. “He sleeps most of the night already.”

  Meg repressed a smile. Jane, who had been complaining vociferously about entertaining “that leg of mutton dressed as lamb,” was now beaming at Felicity as if she were her new best friend. And Felicity did seem genuinely taken with the baby.

  “You are so fortunate to be delivered of such a healthy boy,” Felicity said. “I’m hopeful of presenting my husband with an heir as soon as may be.” She giggled. “Bennie is certainly very eager to be a papa—and very conscientious in his efforts to realize that goal.”

  Meg dropped her gaze quickly to her hands, folded in her lap. To think of Lord Bennington’s slug-like lips in close proximity to her person—ick! She was certainly glad she did not have to suffer that man’s attentions.

  She did not have to suffer any man’s attentions. It had been three weeks since her marriage and still the door between her room and John’s remained closed.

  She shifted in her chair. It made perfect sense, really. Things had been very unsettled. She had been sick—it had taken her a while to recover completely from the revolting illness she’d caught from Charlie—and then John had been sick as well. Jane had had her baby. There’d been estate business for John to deal with—his father delegated to him the running of the Priory. A new shipment of exotic plants had arrived while John was in London, so he’d spent a lot of time in his greenhouses cataloguing and coddling his new acquisitions.

  She would have liked to have helped him with that at least. She might not be as knowledgeable as he, but she was far from a total ignoramus. But he hadn’t asked for her assistance. In fact, she’d gotten the very clear impression he wanted her to stay as far from him and his plants as possible.

  She sighed. The situation could not continue as it was. She had to talk to him. She would…soon.

  Felicity leaned over and touched her knee. “Sighing over your husband?”

  “Uh…” Meg looked to Jane for help, but her sister-in-law was concentrating on nursing her son. Her lips were pressed tightly together, her jaw clenched. She obviously wished to let loose her normal string of curses when the baby latched on to her breast, but refused to do so in Felicity’s presence.

  Mrs. Parker-Roth had assured Jane her nipples would toughen up any day and then breastfeeding would cease to be such torture. Jane was not mollified. She was not a terribly patient woman.

  Felicity was sighing herself. “I find I like married life much more than I could ever have imagined.” She shook her head as if in wonderment. “Bennie may seem dull as ditchwater on the surface, but he’s not. Well, I suppose someone else might find him so, but I don’t.” She grinned. “And he’s surprisingly satisfying in bed. Of course, it helps that he has an impressive coc—”

  “Yes, well, indeed, I’m glad you are so happy.” Surely the woman was not going to discuss what went on behind the closed door of her bedchamber?

  Felicity frowned. “You sound like a virgin.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. I’ve been married three weeks.”

  “You are a virgin, aren’t you?”

  Wild horses would not draw that truth from her lips. “Do you miss London?”

  “Of course not.” Felicity rolled her eyes. “You had your own scandal brewing, so I’m sure you didn’t pay attention to the tittle-tattle about my father. He fled England under a cloud of debt. I won’t be returning to any London ballrooms until I’ve presented Bennie with his heir.”

  “I see.”

  The worst of Jane’s torture must be over. She was smiling now and running her fingers through the baby’s thick brown curls, but she still wasn’t attending to the conversation.

  “Let me give you some advice,” Felicity said, leaning close. “Technically, I was a virgin on my wedding night—well, my wedding trip—but I’ve had extensive experience with men. They are simple creatures. Unless Parker-Roth is…odd, he just needs a little encouragement to do his duty.”

  “Encouragement?” Meg had once counseled Lizzie on how to bring Robbie up to scratch. She’d spent hours and hours observing the social interactions of men and women. She’d thought herself an expert, but she was not. Being a participant was vastly different from being an observer.

  “Yes. It is not terribly subtle, but I guarantee it will do the trick.” Felicity grinned. “Just show up naked in the man’s bed.”

  “No hard feelings, are there, Parker-Roth?”

  Bennington stood on the other side of the study
. He could not have put more distance between them had he tried—and he had tried. The moment his foot had crossed the threshold, he’d moved as far from Parks as he could, which suited Parks perfectly. With any luck, Felicity would get tired of admiring Jane’s baby soon and take her husband home.

  “Hard feelings?” Of course there were hard feelings. Bennington hated him—and he’d have to admit, he didn’t care much for Bennington. Though besides the fact the man was avoiding him, the viscount seemed surprisingly mellow. Marriage must agree with him.

  He wished he could say the same for himself.

  He smiled and clasped his hands tightly behind his back.

  “Why would I harbor any hard feelings?”

  Bennington raised his eyebrows. “If I hadn’t been out in Palmerson’s garden with Miss Peterson—I mean, your wife now, of course—you would not have found yourself compelled to offer for her.”

  “Are you suggesting I was forced into marriage?” He had been, but he did not care for Bennington saying so.

  Bennington blinked. “It’s not precisely a secret, though now that I consider the matter, the events at the Palmerson ball are not those mentioned when your nuptials are whispered about. Lord Peter scribbled something about you kissing Fonsby—”

  “Good God, are you mad?! I bloody well did not kiss Lord Fonsby! The thought is revolting. Repugnant. Loathsome.” The English language did not contain a word strong enough to describe the horror that mental image evoked.

  “I didn’t think you had—Lord Peter has a terrible scrawl. But I’d say something unusual happened. Tundrow, whose hand is quite legible, wrote to say you’d been tossed out of the Horticultural Society.” Bennington couldn’t suppress his grin, though he did try. “Sorry to hear it.”

  Right. “It was only a misunderstanding. I’m quite confident I can have my membership reinstated should I choose to do so.”

  “Oh? Might you choose not to?”

  Parks shrugged. The thought of going back to London was more unpleasant than ever, but in a few months his mother was certain to want to see her artist friends again. And his…wife…might want to go, as well. He should make the effort to establish her in society, especially since their marriage had been—was still, apparently—such an on-dit.

  “I suppose I might—when I get around to it, of course.”

  “Of course.”

  Bennington smiled briefly, then turned to examine the bookshelves. Parks examined the carpet.

  What was he going to do about his wife? The door between their rooms might as well be nailed shut.

  She had not wanted to marry him. She’d wanted a title to match the title her sister had captured. Any woman would. She’d just been unlucky that Lady Dunlee had stumbled upon her with him in Palmerson’s garden. If he’d left her to her own devices, she might be a viscountess now. And though dressing as a man and attending the Horticultural Society meeting had been beyond shocking, she would have escaped unnoticed if he hadn’t chosen to maul her in front of half the ton.

  It was really his fault she was condemned to be merely Mrs. Parker-Roth instead of Lady Somebody.

  Claybourne stuck his head into the study. “My lord, Lady Bennington is ready to depart.”

  “Ah! Thank you, Claybourne.” Bennington bolted for the door. “Glad we spent this time together, Parker-Roth. Cleared the air, heh?”

  “Well—”

  He was left addressing only the air.

  Did Bennington really believe he would attack him with amorous designs? Unbelievable—though apparently most of London believed it.

  He needed to have things out with Meg…but not quite yet.

  He slipped out the side door and headed for the main greenhouse.

  It really didn’t matter that Meg had had her heart set on a title. She was married to him now. And he was married to her. They had no choice—they must just make the best of it.

  It was his duty to take the first step. He had only to open the damn door between their rooms—Mac had threatened to open it for him any time this past week.

  He didn’t want to do it.

  What was the matter with him?

  It wasn’t that he didn’t want Meg. God, he needed to drug himself with brandy to fall asleep, and even then he woke hard as a poker in the middle of the night. His dreams were…

  He wouldn’t think about his dreams.

  He couldn’t even visit Cat for relief. Not only would it be a betrayal of his marriage vows, but she’d already found his replacement. He’d stopped by her cottage to give her her congé and a diamond necklace he’d bought in London to assuage her exacerbated sensibilities, and discovered she was planning to marry the blacksmith.

  Did no one care for him?

  He stepped into the greenhouse and took a deep breath of the warm, moist air, full of the calming scent of dirt and growing things—only he didn’t feel calmed today.

  “What the hell are ye doing here, Johnny?” Thomas MacGill frowned at him from the potting table.

  “It’s my greenhouse, Thomas. I think I’m entitled to be here if I wish.”

  MacGill grunted and went back to repotting a fuchsia plant.

  Parks looked around. He had work to do, lots of work…he just couldn’t decide what to do first.

  “How are the new plants coming?”

  “Fine.” MacGill sent him a disparaging look. “Better than yer new wife is, according to William.”

  “Thomas!” Not for the first time Parks considered the disadvantages of having his valet’s twin as his head gardener. “My wife is neither yours nor your brother’s concern.”

  “But she is yer concern, Johnny.”

  “Thomas…” He also wished he’d had the foresight to hire proper English servants and not these upstart Scots who did not know their place.

  “She was in here the other day.”

  “She was?” He should take Meg for a tour of his gardens. She would enjoy it. “Well, that’s not surprising. Meg is very knowledgeable about plants, as I’m sure you discovered.”

  MacGill nodded. “Aye, I did that. And I discovered something else.”

  Why did he have a bad feeling about this? MacGill looked far too serious—very much the dour Scot. “What was that?”

  “Yer wife’s not happy, Johnny.”

  Parks felt like he’d been punched in the gut. “Now, Thomas—”

  MacGill glowered at him. “Don’t ‘Thomas’ me, Johnny. It’s been three weeks since yer wedding. Ye need to be fertilizing something besides yer rose beds.”

  “Meg, may I speak with you?”

  “Of course, Mrs., um…”

  “Call me mother, dear.” Mrs. Parker-Roth patted Meg on the arm. “I do think of you as one of my daughters, you know.”

  “Oh. Um. All right. M-mother.”

  “Let’s go down to my studio. We can have a comfortable coze there without fear of being interrupted.”

  An interruption might be a good thing, depending on the conversational topic, but Meg went along without protest.

  Mrs. Parker-Roth’s studio was in a cottage orné on the other side of an ornamental lake.

  “John—my husband, John, that is, not your husband—often comes here to concentrate on his sonnets,” Mrs. Parker-Roth said as they approached the building. It was larger than Papa’s vicarage. “He says the walk clears his head—and makes everyone else consider carefully whether they really need his attention. When the children were young, they’d run to him to settle their fights. When they reached the lake, though, they’d get distracted. The girls stopped to gather wildflowers; the boys, to skip stones. It saved John a lot of interruptions.”

  Mrs. Parker-Roth took a large key from her pocket and unlocked the door. “I like it because I can leave my paintings out and know they will not be disturbed.” She grinned. “And, frankly, Johnny thinks many of my paintings are not appropriate for the children.” She laughed. “Well, for anyone, really. Johnny is so easily embarrassed.”

  Meg follo
wed Mrs. Parker-Roth into the darkened entry. The smells of paper, ink, paint, and turpentine enveloped her.

  “Over here is my husband’s study—you can see it’s much larger than the one in the house.”

  It was indeed much larger—and just as messy.

  “And here is my studio.”

  Meg looked into a large, airy room filled with sunlight. Canvases lined the walls.

  “Would you like to see what I’m currently working on?”

  “Yes, please.” Why did John’s mother have that glint of mischief in her eyes?

  Mrs. Parker-Roth threw off the sheet that was draped over a large painting in the middle of the room. Meg stared at the image of a naked man reclining on a chaise-longue, legs carelessly bent to display his…well, fortunately that part of his anatomy was only sketched in broad outlines. Meg’s attention traveled to the man’s face.

  Good God. She squeezed her eyes shut. It couldn’t be. She cracked an eye open. It was.

  Her father-in-law gazed back at her, a very sultry expression on his face.

  Her mother-in-law giggled. “I’ve been trying to finish this painting for weeks, but, well, I, um”—thankfully she covered the canvas again, unfortunately she gestured toward the red and gold upholstered piece of furniture against the wall—“get distracted.”

  Meg took the long way back to the main house—the very long way. She was in no hurry to be among people. She listened to the roar of breaking waves and smelled salt in the air. She climbed a hill and gazed out over the sea. Storm clouds hung heavy in the sky; the water was gray and turbulent. Just like her thoughts.

  What was she going to do about her marriage?

  Her mother-in-law told her to seduce John, but could her opinion really be trusted? She had naked paintings of—Meg shook her head in a vain attempt to dislodge the image.

  Felicity had said essentially the same thing, but Felicity was hardly a pattern card of respectability.

  What did Meg know of seduction anyway? It was ridiculous. John would laugh himself senseless should she be foolish enough to attempt it.