Frustrated and worried, she finally wrote to Mr. Thornapple, asking after Mr. Travis and the ironworks, and requesting his help in learning about some of her old friends there. In the least she hoped Mr. Thornapple would find out for her if Michael Bowman still worked there, supporting Katy and improving his craft, or whether he had been arrested and tried.
Mr. Thornapple’s response arrived on her sixth morning in Surrey. His letter both encouraged her and disheartened her. After reassuring her that Mr. Travis still performed his duties, he reminded her that the particulars regarding the business were her husband’s concerns now. He politely but firmly suggested that she devote herself to her domestic responsibilities.
She needed to go home, of course. It was the only way to learn what she wanted to know. She would have to cajole Hawkeswell into allowing it. It vexed her that fulfilling even part of her plan would now rely on his permission. She had hoped that she could at least learn a few things by letter while she arranged that journey, but fate was not cooperating.
She was folding away Mr. Thornapple’s letter when a very fine carriage rolled up the lane. She watched from a drawing room window as a lovely woman stepped out, a vision in white punctuated by one red plume in her straw hat. Colleen had arrived, and she had not come alone. An older woman in her late middle years, narrow as a reed in her ensemble of Prussian blue, emerged too.
Verity sent for Hawkeswell. He had sequestered himself in his study with his land steward. He had been almost invisible to her these last few days while he tended to this estate. He rode out early and sometimes returned late, his boots covered with mud.
He joined her just before the ladies entered the drawing room.
“Colleen,” he said in greeting. “Aunt Julia, welcome. Darling, this is Mrs. Ackley, my mother’s sister.”
“You must address me as Aunt Julia too, my dear. I shall address you as Verity. Our family does not hold with formalities among ourselves.”
Verity was not sure she wanted to call this woman Aunt anything. Her narrow face wore a wizened expression of scrutiny. She looked to be a thinner, older, less friendly version of her daughter Colleen.
“I know that you said you would call on us soon, Hawkeswell,” Colleen said when they had all seated themselves. “However, Mrs. Pounton said she had called here, and that she was not alone in being received, and Mama would not be put off any longer.”
“Those calls themselves delayed us, along with my duties,” Hawkeswell said. “I intended to pack Verity off well before anyone intruded tomorrow and bring her to you, Aunt Julia.”
Mrs. Ackley acknowledged the intention as her due. They gossiped about Mrs. Pounton and a few other local people. Then Mrs. Ackley turned her attention pointedly toward Verity.
“So, my dear, where were you all this time?”
The question, posed so baldly, startled everyone in the room except Mrs. Ackley herself.
“The others dared not ask, and of course you could not be expected to answer if they did, but I trust that you will both indulge me and count on my discretion.”
“Mama, please,” Colleen said, casting Hawkeswell a glance of apologies.
“Aunt Julia, all that matters is that she is here now,” he said. “I will not have her quizzed by anyone, including you.”
Aunt Julia retreated, but her pursed lips displayed displeasure at his scold. Colleen rushed to ask what improvements Verity planned for Greenlay Park.
“I was visiting with friends, Mrs. Ackley,” Verity said. “Hawkeswell has met them, and he knows the truth of this. As we trust your discretion, so can you trust my explanation.”
Mrs. Ackley tasted that morsel. “Friends, you say.”
“Yes. Lady friends.”
“Odd that you visited so long.”
“I expect so,” Verity said. “I was claimed by a childish impulse.”
“I trust there will be no more such impulses, let alone one that lasts two years.”
“I do not expect there will be. Now, perhaps you will advise me on that which your daughter asks. How should I improve this noble house?”
Aunt Julia had a very long list of improvements to recommend. It took her a quarter hour to list them. Then she moved on to Hawkeswell’s London house and, finally, to her own properties.
“My London house has been closed a year now, Hawkeswell. You must promise we will open it again. I will send Colleen up to town when you go, to begin the refurbishment.”
“We will talk about that, and the long list of expenditures that you have advised, another day, Aunt Julia. I have responsibilities to others who are more in need than anyone present in this chamber now.”
His aunt did not take the rebuke well. She turned a keen eye on the newcomer among them. “You are a very quiet young woman, Verity. One might forget you are even present.”
“She can hardly contribute to talk of redecorating a house that she has never seen, Mama,” Colleen said.
“As a countess, you will have to learn to converse even when you have nothing to contribute. Otherwise you will get the reputation for being too proud, Verity, and with your background that would not sit well with society at all.” She bestowed a sympathetic expression. “Being a countess frightens you, doesn’t it? That is why you left. Have no fear, my dear. Colleen and I are going to help you rise to your station to the extent that is possible, so that my nephew will not be embarrassed more than cannot be helped.”
“You are too kind.”
“Yes, too kind,” Hawkeswell said. “Excessively so, which is why we must decline your generous offer. Take time from your considerable obligations to tutor Verity? No, I will not hear of it. I doubt that I will ever be embarrassed more than cannot be helped, so the schooling you have in mind is unnecessary. As for Verity’s silence during your visit today, I too have been silent. As has Colleen. Your eloquence has always left others tongue-tied and in awe.”
Mrs. Ackley’s surprise at this soliloquy turned into vague suspicion. She peered at Hawkeswell, trying to determine whether an insult were buried in all that verbiage.
Colleen stood. “We must take our leave now. Come, Mama. You wanted to call on Mrs. Wheathill today, and the afternoon is passing.”
While Hawkeswell escorted his aunt to the reception hall, Colleen stole a private moment with Verity. “I wrote to your cousin, as requested. The response came yesterday. The Thompsons are shocked, of course, but also overjoyed. They will travel to London next week and are hoping that you will go up to town too, so they can call on you and express their relief and happiness.”
“It is my intention to go to town soon, so perhaps I will indeed meet with the Thompsons.”
“You must inform me when you plan to depart. I will join you, and make introductions to a few friends of mine who reside there all year. There will be little other good society in the summer, but perhaps that is best for such an odd homecoming. It will also leave us time to plan all the decorating we intend to do. It will be great fun.”
Verity remained noncommittal, but gracious. She hoped that Colleen’s plans did not fill every day. There were other things she needed to do this summer besides decorate and make morning calls.
That night they dined in the great chamber with the huge banquet table. The vast surface of the polished table struck Verity as humorous, dwarfing as it did the two places they had at one end. Rain pattered on windows in a gentle downpour that had begun an hour prior to the meal.
Hawkeswell addressed the matter of his aunt and cousin while they ate pheasant in a good brown sauce. “I have never understood why relatives believe a family relationship permits one to be rude. My apologies, Verity. My aunt can be trying on the best of days. Her pique that we dallied before calling to pay homage made her forget herself this afternoon.”
“I do not think she forgot herself at all. I am glad she spoke as she did. Now it is said, and need not be said again. Speaking one’s mind, even to the point of rudeness, avoids misunderstandings.”
“You handled her splendidly, no matter what her mind.”
“No, you did. If you had not put her in her place, she would have pecked and pecked. I thank you for defending me.” It had touched her when he did that, and the gratitude she expressed was heartfelt. He could have allowed her to dangle instead, like a toy for his aunt’s amusement.
“Colleen would like to be a good friend to you, I think.”
“Because I handle her mother splendidly?”
“Perhaps. Maybe she suspects what was behind your absence, and feels some responsibility.”
Might Colleen’s ready offer of friendship be a way to make amends? She had still sounded like an ally of the Thompsons this afternoon. More likely Colleen did not begin to comprehend Bertram’s character, and had been an innocent pawn herself.
“She had written to my cousin as promised and received a response,” she said. “They would like to call on me in London.”
“Would you prefer that?”
“I do not want to receive them at all, either here or in London. If I must do it someplace, however, let it be in town. I certainly do not want them as houseguests here.”
“Then we will go to London in a few days. I need to go anyway. There are some matters to settle.”
“I assume that you will be calling on my trustee, Mr. Thornapple.”
“Yes. There will be papers to sign.”
“Should I accompany you?”
“That is not necessary.”
Of course not. She no longer had any say in the use of her inheritance. In the eyes of the law, she had ceased to exist. Mr. Thornapple’s letter had all but said so outright.
Going forward, her husband would receive the income from the company, along with whatever had accumulated in the trust into which that money had been placed since her father’s death. That trust disappeared upon her marriage and it all went to her spouse now, with no diversion at all.
She had intended to meet with Mr. Thornapple on her own, to seek counsel for a petition of annulment. There would be no reason to do that now. She could hardly claim lack of consent to a marriage when she had given consent to its consummation.
Which she had. Try as she might the last five days, she could not lie to herself about what had happened that night.
He had seduced her, to be sure, when he knew she wanted to avoid marital intimacy. He had taken advantage of her ignorance and her innocence, but he had not forced her to do anything.
That intimacy had changed the way they treated each other these last days. Hawkeswell wore the confidence of a man who had settled an important matter. She in turn suffered an increased disadvantage, with him and with herself, while she decided how to live this life she was never supposed to have.
“Are they dependent on you?” she asked, returning to their visitors. “They spoke as if they expect you to lay out a good deal of money now.”
“My mother asked me to see to her sister’s care, so I do. Aunt Julia married an army officer, and he left her very little. Ladies can be quite expensive, so fulfilling my promise has caused strains.”
“I am sure that you did all you could. They are very well turned out, so you were probably very generous.”
“I have regretted not being able to enhance Colleen’s fortune. Her trust is very small. It is fortunate, I suppose, that she has expressed no desire to marry. She still grieves for the fiancé of her girlhood, who had the misfortune to die from a fall from his horse.”
“Perhaps now that a larger settlement can be arranged, young men will woo her out of her grief. I will see if I can encourage that.”
“It would please me if you did. She and I have been very close since we were children, and I think of her like a sister.”
“Then I will do my best to see her as your sister too, as long as I do not have to think of your Aunt Julia as a mother-in-law.”
“Heaven forbid.”
The rain caused dusk to come early, and shadows had gathered in the chamber by the time their meal was finished. Verity rose. “I think that I will retire to my apartment and listen to the rain while I enjoy a good book.”
He took her hand, so she could not depart at once. He gazed up her length. At the pale dinner dress and the Venetian shawl. At her bodice, and the neck that had never again worn those pearls. Finally he looked in her eyes.
“Verity, in your dressing room there is a door. It opens to a narrow corridor. Have you noticed it?”
“Yes. It is an odd little passageway with no purpose, but it has a window with a lovely prospect.”
“That passageway has an important purpose. It connects our apartments.”
She puzzled out the lay of the chambers in her mind. It had seemed to her that his were much farther away.
“Verity, I would like you to be sure to unlock the door at your end of the passageway tonight.”
“Yes, of course.” She was not surprised. She had no idea how often these things happened, but she knew it was just a matter of time before it happened again.
He kissed her hand, and released her. She went above, to prepare for another ravishment.
He expected that the door would probably be unlocked, but with Verity, one never knew. So he was pleased when the latch turned without incident.So he was She had behaved oddly these last days. Her demeanor
She had behaved oddly these last days. Her demeanor had turned formal, as if, now that being the countess was inevitable, she summoned all those drills and spent the days rehearsing them. She had acquitted herself admirably during those calls from the county neighbors, and even managed a bit of imperious hauteur with Aunt Julia. Unfortunately, she treated him with the same cool distance.
Desire’s howling winds had swirled in him for six days now. She would sit there at meals, back rod straight, lifting her fork in a slow, studied ritual, but a part of his mind had been on explicitly erotic considerations. Now, as he faced the pitch black of her bedchamber and tried to remember just where the furniture was situated, a raging storm wanted to break inside him.
He waited for his eyes to adjust, but the chamber remained an inky void. It entered his mind that she might have planned this, and set out chairs and trunks designed to trip him. He laughed to himself at the idea she might plot such revenge, but went back to his own dressing room and fetched a small lamp anyway.
Its light revealed that no traps waited. Verity was in bed, her dark hair streaming over the white sheet that covered her.
He reminded himself that tonight’s goal was to give her pleasure, that he had some amends to make. Wife or no, rights or no, wisdom dictated that he ensure she never thought of this as a painful chore. He approached the bed while he fought a rear guard action against the effects of an erection so hard it amazed him.
She was little more than a shadow under that sheet. Her eyes were closed but their thick lashes fluttered. He set the lamp on a far table, shed the robe, and walked to the bed.
To his surprise she opened her eyes. She watched him. Examined him. She was a mere six days away from being an innocent, and she observed his nakedness with the frank curiosity of a practiced courtesan.
He slid under the sheet and reached for her, and had another surprise.
“You are undressed already.”
“As are you.”
“Yes. However—”
“Was I supposed to wait in my dinner dress? Or an undressing gown? No one explains these things, at least not to me. You tore my favorite dress the last time. My girl plies a good needle, but it will never be right again. If I have made a mistake, I am sorry, but I thought to spare my wardrobe from your impatience.”
“Your solution is both practical and welcomed.” He gathered her soft warmth close to his body. “There will be no impatience this time, and it is only uncomfortable for women the first time. You will know pleasure to the end tonight, Verity. I promise.”
Warmth. Strength. Flesh pressing flesh and frightening physical intimacy that assaulted all her senses. She hid her shock, but his
naked body touching hers in so many ways kept stunning her, as if her own nakedness had not expected the boldness to go both ways.
It was different for her from the first kiss. No feeble protests. No attempts to collect herself. No struggle to deny the power. She had accepted how it would be when she dismissed her girl, removed her favorite nightdress, and climbed into this bed.
He took his time anyway. He lured and seduced with deep, claiming kisses. His hand caressed with a mastery that demanded her whole body join her decision to surrender to the inevitable.
The sheet fell down their bodies so nothing covered them. She was exposed to the light he had brought in, and to his gaze. She watched his kisses move over her, forming tiny brands on her, each one making a thrill enter her blood. Awkwardness faded under the onslaught of sensations that woke and captivated her body.
She watched his hand move over her. A very masculine hand, strong and hard and darker than her skin. He caressed around her breasts while he kissed her neck and shoulders in ways that created a pulse far below, where her body trembled from the memory of what was to come.
Desire. That was the meaning of that tremble. All the pleasure encouraged its spread and growing intensity. She noted what was happening, how every caress and kiss lured her with titillations that soon preoccupied her consciousness.
She did not resist the descent into pure carnality. There was no reason to anymore. She released the last of the awkwardness. She submitted with both relief and resignation. As with the last time, pleasure banished the guilt for a while. Later, perhaps, most likely, she would contemplate how she had betrayed her hopes, her legacy, even her very life by succumbing to this man. Later she would think of Michael and his crooked smile with nostalgia and worry about his fate.
When Hawkeswell’s fingertips started teasing at her hard, sensitive nipple, she closed her eyes so nothing distracted her from the delicious excitement he gave her. His head lowered and he intensified the effect with his mouth and tongue and teeth on her other breast. She held on to him, clutched at his shoulders and arm. Her back arched and her breasts rose and she begged for more with her body and thoughts.
Provocative in Pearls Page 14