by Mary Balogh
He paused to notice the effect of his words on his audience. They were looking at him politely and with some curiosity.
And then the door opened and the reason he had spoken of and the something of great importance walked into the room, a spring in her step and a smile on her face and a muslin dress of vivid sunshine yellow on her person.
“Darling,” she said, her eyes sparking into his, “I was as quick as I could be. Have I taken forever?”
She took the hand he had reached out for hers and raised her face for his kiss. He kissed her—on the lips—and was aware that no one else in the room had moved.
“Mama,” he said, gripping Abigail’s hand, dazzled by the ray of sunlight she had brought into the room with her, stunned by the way she was putting into practice the suggestion he had made at the breakfast table, “may I present Abigail to you?” He saw the blank look on his mother’s face. “My wife.”
Abigail smiled at Lady Ripley and curtsied. “I see you have been taken completely by surprise, ma’am,” she said. “Had Miles said nothing to you before my arrival? How very slow of him. And I was rushing abovestairs to change into a more becoming dress, thinking that you would be impatient already with the long wait to make my acquaintance.”
The earl squeezed her hand more tightly. “My mother, Lady Ripley, my love,” he said, “and Pru and Connie, my sisters.” He indicated them one at a time.
“I am very pleased to meet you,” Abigail said, curtsying again. She smiled at Prudence. “You are Miles’s married sister, aren’t you? He has told me about his nephew and niece. He did not tell me that there is to be another soon. How excited you must be.”
“Your wife?” Lady Ripley was setting her cup back onto its saucer, her movements slow and deliberate. “Your wife, Miles?”
His two sisters seemed to have been permanently silenced for once in their lives, Lord Severn thought.
“We should have waited, I suppose,” he said, gazing down into Abigail’s eyes as if he longed to devour her, “knowing that you would be here sooner or later, Mama. But it seemed too good an idea to waste no time but to marry by special license without delay.” He raised his wife’s hand to his lips.
“We were impatient to be together,” Abigail said. “We could not bear the thought of even one day’s delay.”
Lady Ripley set her cup and saucer down carefully and got to her feet.
“You are married, Miles?” she said, her voice unnaturally calm. “This is your wife? It is not one of your more bizarre jokes?”
Lord Severn could not remember indulging in any kind of joke with his mother, bizarre or otherwise.
“And when did this . . . event take place?” she asked.
“Yesterday,” he said. “We were married by special license yesterday morning, Mama.”
“And this has all happened within two months, Miles?” Constance had found her tongue again. “You did not even know Miss . . . er, your wife before that time?”
“We met three days ago,” Abigail said with a bright smile one moment before the earl could say that it had been six weeks. “We fell violently and insanely in love, did we not, Miles?”
He grinned at her, feeling a flash of quite inappropriate amusement. They were his very own words, but they certainly had not been intended for his mother’s ears.
“Yes, my love,” he said, drawing her against his side with one arm about her waist. “We did.”
“Three days ago.” Lady Ripley’s voice was steady, expressionless. “Four days ago you did not know each other, yet now you are married? And you fell insanely in love, you say? I believe you.”
“You are angry with Miles,” Abigail said, “and have a disgust of me. That is quite understandable, ma’am. I can hardly blame you. And if Miles had told me before this morning that you were expected in town so soon I would have persuaded him to wait, hard as it would have been for both of us. But you must not blame him entirely, you know. Doubtless he would have waited for you and for the banns too if I had not been about to be thrown out bag and baggage on the street from my place of former employment.”
The earl closed his eyes briefly and inhaled slowly. He should have spent part of the day, he realized now, agreeing to some plausible story with Abigail.
“But what about your other plans, Miles?” Constance said, her voice gaining strength. “Did you completely forget? Does Miss . . . does your wife know about them?”
“My wife’s name is Abigail, Connie,” he said. “And I had no other plans, you know, apart from spending some time with you and Mama and Pru when you all arrived. My marriage will not prevent my doing that. We will both spend time with you. Won’t we, my love?”
“Oh, dear,” Abigail said, drawing away from the earl’s side and smiling brightly. “This is a difficult moment, is it not? I perceive that you are all quite ready to throttle Miles and to boil me in oil. Shall we all sit down and discuss the matter sensibly? I shall ring for fresh tea.”
“I am quite capable of ringing, thank you,” Lady Ripley said icily.
Abigail smiled at her. “Do sit down, again,” she said. “It is my duty to entertain you, ma’am, now that I am Miles’s wife and Lady Severn.”
The earl pursed his lips and waited for the explosion. And he watched in some fascination as his mother sat down, her back ramrod straight, and Abigail pulled the bell rope and smiled and looked as thoroughly at her ease as if she had been his countess for twenty years. His sisters were regarding her rather as if she were a fascinating sideshow at a country fair.
“Do sit down, darling,” his wife said to him, looking at him with that glow in her eyes that proclaimed her a master actress—a mistress actress? “Take the sofa so that I may sit beside you. And you must give your mother and your sisters a full account of the past three days. And none of us will interrupt you even once, for after all, you are the man of the house and the head of the family. You and I will answer questions when you are finished.”
His mother’s and his sisters’ attention was riveted on her, the earl saw with a glance at each of them. None of them spoke a word.
“Alistair,” his wife said, smiling again when the door opened, “you may take this tray back to the kitchen, if you please, and instruct Cook to prepare us a fresh pot of tea and some cakes if she has been baking today. Has she?”
“Yes, my lady,” he said. “Currant cakes and scones. Cook’s scones are the best in London, my lady.”
“Mmm,” she said. “A plate of each, then, Alistair, if you please.”
She waited until he had picked up the tray and disappeared from the room with it.
“I am starved,” she said. “I hope Alistair’s boast was no idle one. Now, darling.” She sat down close beside her husband and took his hand in hers. She looked up at him almost worshipfully.
He laced his fingers with hers, cleared his throat, and began speaking. His mother and his sisters had never ever been such a quiet audience. The only interruption during the next several minutes was caused by the arrival of the tea tray and his wife’s smiling but silent indication to the butler and footman that it be placed before her and the plates of cakes and scones handed around.
ABIGAIL HAD TAKEN granted that her mother-in-law and her sisters-in-law would be taking up residence at Grosvenor Square. But it appeared not. Lady Ripley had her own establishment in town, and Constance stayed with her there. Mr. Kelsey had rented a house for the Season and was to join Prudence and their two children there within a month.
“The only reason I brought the children visiting with me this afternoon,” she explained to Abigail before she left, “was that we are newly arrived and I thought Barbara would be frightened if I drove off without her. And if I were to bring Barbara, then it seemed only right to bring Terrence too.”
Prudence was the one who thawed most noticeably before taking her leave. She even kissed Abigail’s cheek and asked for the name of her modiste.
Constance was polite, though she protested to both the earl
and her mother that she could not remember any Gardiners in the family.
“Yes, there were some,” her mother said unwillingly. “Though we never had any dealings with them, Constance.”
Lady Ripley herself accepted the inevitable with a cold graciousness. “This will appear like a ramshackle affair,” she said. “I must take you about with me, Abigail, and see to it that you are presented to the right people. It must seem that this match has my approval.”
“I hope it will not merely seem so,” Lord Severn said. “I hope our marriage will have your approval, Mama, once you have recovered from your shock.”
Abigail smiled determinedly. “When you see how I love Miles, ma’am, and how I will use every effort to make him comfortable,” she said, “then perhaps you will be less unhappy. It must be dreadful to lose a son to a stranger—and so suddenly. I am sure I would not wish it to happen to any of my sons.”
She blushed at the implications of what she had said. Her husband, who was holding her hand at the time in preparation for escorting their visitors to the door, squeezed it tightly.
“Well,” the earl said to her after the door had closed behind his mother and younger sister and they had ascended the stairs back to the drawing room, “that ordeal is over. You did very well indeed, Abby. I was proud of you.”
“They are used to running your life for you, aren’t they?” she said, and watched his rather shamefaced grin bring the dimple to his cheek. “But I think it will not happen any longer, Miles. You stood up to them beautifully and forced them to be quiet and listen to you. I am glad you decided to tell them the full truth instead of making up a more plausible-sounding story that they would have been bound to discover was a lie. I was afraid that you would say perhaps that we had met several weeks ago. But you had the courage to admit that it has been only three days.”
“I think it was you who said that,” he said, still grinning.
“Was it?” she said. “But I could see that that was what you wanted. Miles, you have spent the whole day with me. But you must not feel obliged always to do so. You must go out this evening if you wish. Do you belong to any of the clubs? I am sure you must. You would feel more comfortable spending an evening at one of them, would you not, and relaxing with your friends? I will be quite happy to find the library and take my embroidery there. I shall find a good book and not feel at all neglected.”
“What I would really like to do,” he said, “is spend the evening in the library with you, Abby. A nice quiet read sounds like the perfect way to relax. Will you mind my company?”
“What a foolish question,” she said. “This is your home, after all.”
“And yours,” he said.
And so they spent the evening together, exchanging scarcely a word once they had adjourned from the dining room to the library, which was all wood and leather and brandy bottles and masculine coziness. Abigail loved it.
She could not, after all, read, she found. Her brain was teeming too actively with all the new facts and events of her life. She had never been an avid needlewoman, though she had been forced to acquire a taste for embroidery when living with Mrs. Gill. The woman spent most of her days indoors and inactive.
But she enjoyed stitching that evening and looking about her at this most cozy room of her new home and at the sprawling and oblivious figure of her husband, his attention entirely focused on the large tome that was open on his lap.
She was beginning to feel less intimidated by his good looks. After two days and a night spent in his company, she was growing more familiar with him and more comfortable with him.
She was seated at her dressing table, brushing her hair, when he came through his own dressing room later that night. She was thankful that it was not the night before—very thankful. This night she could look forward to with some pleasure. She smiled at him and set down her brush and preceded him into her bedchamber. She lay down on her bed while he removed his dressing gown and blew out the candles.
“I think perhaps your mother and your sisters do not wholly dislike me,” she said. “They will get used to me, won’t they, once they have got over being vexed with you for marrying without consulting them and once they have recovered from their disappointment in not having a chance to help you choose a bride. That is what their plans were for this Season, weren’t they? That is what they were referring to?”
“Of course they did not dislike you,” he said, joining her on the bed and settling one arm beneath her shoulders. “Why should they? They do love me, after all, and you put on a splendid show of being deeply infatuated with me, Abby. You had me almost convinced. Are you less nervous tonight?”
“Oh, yes,” she said. “I was very foolish. It scarcely hurt at all, and even then only for a moment.” She lifted her hips so that he could raise her nightgown to her waist. “It was more the fear of pain than pain itself—the feeling of ‘Oh, oh, here we go—pain on the way,’ and then the realization that it was over already.”
He found her mouth in the darkness and kissed her. “I am glad,” he said. “Hurting you is the last thing I would wish to do, Abby.”
His hand had slid up beneath her nightgown and was fondling one breast. His thumb was rough against her nipple, his palm warm as it covered the hardened tip and made circular movements over it.
“That feels good, Miles.”
“Does it?” he said, moving his hand to perform the same magic on her other breast.
“And as for its being unpleasant,” she said, “that is so much nonsense. I heard it from wives when I was still living at home, and I heard it from Mrs. Gill and her friends. They would sit for hours conversing about their children and the miserliness of their husbands with money and of how very tedious and unpleasant that part of marriage was—always spoken with nodding heads and widened eyes and lowered voices and a significant emphasis on the that. One woman actually commented once that she pitied mistresses since they have to perform the duty ten times as often as wives. But she received such a look from the other women present that it is amazing she was not immediately transformed into an icicle.”
He was laughing softly against her mouth. “Abby!” he said, while his hand moved down between her thighs and his thumb found a part of her and rubbed lightly over it and sent that sharp ache shooting up into her throat again.
“Ah,” she said. She enjoyed the sensation for a few silent moments and parted her legs slightly to give room to his hand. “I think those women were silly. I don’t find it at all unpleasant, Miles, and certainly not tedious. And it is silly to call it a duty, like dusting the furniture or emptying the chamber pots.”
He was doing a great deal of laughing, she thought as he brought his weight over on top of her at last and she parted her legs for him, bending her knees and sliding up her feet to rest on the mattress on either side of his hips, lifting her own so that he could slip his hands beneath her.
“Do you have a mistress?” she asked a moment before gasping as he came into her.
“Why do you want to know?” he asked, his mouth against her ear.
“Just idle curiosity, I suppose,” she said. “Though perhaps more than that. I would not like the idea, Miles. And if it is just this that you go to her for, then I would prefer that you do it with me.”
“Would you?” he said, beginning to move in her as he had the night before and creating that growing physical excitement that had been the only disappointing part then because it had led nowhere and had forced her to spend several minutes after he was finished, imposing relaxation on her body. “Even if I wanted you several times during the day and several times during the night?”
She thought for a moment and almost lost the trend of her thoughts in the pleasure of what he was doing to her body, though he was moving slowly and without the depth that she had particularly enjoyed the night before.
“During the day?” she said. “Is it not embarrassing?”
“Because we would see each other?” he said. His voice sounded am
used. “I don’t think either of us has a body we need feel ashamed of.”
“Well,” she said briskly, “I would rather a little embarrassment, I suppose, than the knowledge that you also did this with a mistress.”
“Abby,” he said, his mouth finding hers again, “I have no mistress, my dear, and have no intention of doing this with anyone but you for the rest of my life. Can we discuss the other possibilities you have brought up at some other time? I find it somewhat difficult to hold a conversation and make love at the same time. And if one of those activities has to go, I would prefer it to be the conversation.”
“And so would I,” she said.
She lay still and quiet with her eyes closed, enjoying the physical sensations of his lovemaking, hoping that it would not end for a long time, not at least until she had reached beyond the achings and yearnings that were quite out of her control.
But it did not happen. And perhaps it never would, she thought sadly, putting her arms about him as he lay still on her finally, the whole of his weight relaxed on top of her. Perhaps there was nothing else. Perhaps it was that fact that had soured those silly women in Mrs. Gill’s parlor.
But no. They had spoken with some disgust about the necessary but unwelcome male attentions that were a lamentable part of marriage. Not with regret and longing, but with disgust.
He moved away from her with a sigh of what sounded like satisfaction and drew her with him, onto her side, against his relaxed warmth.
At least, she thought, he was going to stay for a while. Perhaps if she remained very quiet and very still he would stay for a long while. Perhaps he would do it again.
“But you have had mistresses, haven’t you?” she said.
He sighed again. “I was not a virgin last night, Abby,” he said.
“I must seem very inexperienced and unsatisfactory,”she said.
“Inexperienced, perhaps,” he said. “But if you think I am not satisfied with you, Abby, you have not been paying attention. This is not to be a lengthy conversation, is it?”