The Runaway Heiress

by Brenda Hiatt

"I wouldn't count on it," Violet said. "After all, she and Father scarcely knew each other when they wed, and she never tires of telling about how it turned into a love match after all." She gave a sentimental sigh. "It may not have appeared that way in the library just now, but they really do dote upon each other. I only hope my own marriage will be as happy, when the time comes."

  "There will be more chance of that if you refrain from running off with chance-met fortune-hunters," her brother pointed out.

  Violet made a face at him. "You're a fine one to talk, considering that I knew Mr. Plunkett rather better than you knew Dina on your wedding day."

  Now they were on uncomfortable ground again, Dina felt, for she and Thor could make no particular claim to a happy marriage. Indeed, what they had could scarcely be called a proper marriage at all. Certainly it was no model to be emulated.

  It appeared Thor's mind was similarly engaged, for he said, "Ours is a special circumstance, and well you know it, Minx— especially as you were an instigator in bringing it about."

  Violet only looked from one to the other of them with a mysterious smile. "Special case or no, I have a feeling that your marriage will turn out even better than Mother's and Father's. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'd like to go up to my room and my maid to rest and freshen up before dinner."

  With a saucy wink, she flounced out of the parlor, leaving Dina alone with her husband.

  "I, ah, I'm sorry that you will be moving from your accustomed bedchamber on my account," she said after an awkward pause.

  He shrugged. "It's no matter, really. I've not visited Plumrose more than half a dozen times over the past two or three years, so any attachment I may once have had to any particular room no longer exists. I'm far more familiar now with my chamber at Ivy Lodge, in Leicestershire."

  "Ivy Lodge?"

  "Lord Anthony Northrup's hunting box—though I suppose now it should be considered Rush's, as he's leasing it from Anthony."

  Dina realized afresh how little she knew about her husband. "Leicestershire. Do you hunt with the Quorn, then?" Like all Englishwomen, she knew something of foxhunting, though she'd never had opportunity to observe one.

  "Aye, the Quorn, the Belvoir, the Pytchley and one or two others. It's fascinating to see how the different packs perform under various conditions." His expression became more animated. "Given the bloodlines of my newest litter, I'd wager they'll grow up to be both fast and tenacious on the scent."

  "You have your own pack of foxhounds?"

  "Not quite a pack yet, but—"

  "I do apologize for rushing off like that," Lady Rumble exclaimed, reentering the parlor just then. "But now I have dinner ordered up, and your rooms should be ready for you as we speak, though of course we'll be adding some touches to them over the next few days. Come along up, Dina, and see whether your chamber meets with your approval."

  She continued to chatter as they both followed her from the room and up the stairs. "Grant, your valet is transferring your wardrobe and other effects to your new room, but you'll need to tell him if you wish any furniture or artwork moved as well. You will share a dressing room with Dina, which I assume will present no difficulty, as that is how your father's chamber and mine are arranged and it has worked well for us all these years."

  "I'm sure it will be fine," he replied noncommittally.

  Dina nodded in agreement, glad that the conversation was on a relatively impersonal topic at the moment. Foxhounds would offer another neutral subject, should they exhaust the current one.

  "Here we are," Lady Rumble said then, flinging open a door near the end of the west wing. "This will be your room, Dina, and Grant's is the next one along, at the end. Your trunks and your maid are already within."

  They both thanked her and she smiled from one to the other. "Now, I'll leave you two alone again, for with Violet along from the moment of your wedding, I'm sure you've had precious little privacy. You'll need plenty of that, if you're going to give me all of the grandchildren I'm counting on."

  With a parting wink, she turned in a swirl of mauve and perfume and headed back down the hall, leaving them more awkwardly alone than ever.

  Chapter Nine

  Thor cleared his throat, trying to will his color not to rise. "Why don't you see if your room is acceptable," he suggested. "I'll, ah, do the same."

  "Yes. Yes, of course," Dina replied, her own face scarlet. She seemed eager to ignore the implications of his mother's parting words— though he feared they would hear more of the same, all too frequently.

  He waited in the hall while Dina stepped into her room and glanced around, greeting her maid in what he thought was a tolerably composed voice, under the circumstances. After a quick survey of the chamber, she turned back to him, though she did not quite meet his eye.

  "It is lovely. Please convey my thanks to Lady Rumble, if you see her again before I do."

  "Of course." With a quick nod, he moved to his own new chamber before he could give into the temptation to join her in hers.

  His mother's words had clearly not had the same effect on Dina as they'd had on him, and he felt a distinct need to be alone, to get his errant body under control before she could guess the direction of his thoughts.

  Entering the corner room, he closed the door behind him and gave the chamber a cursory glance. "Quick work," he said approvingly to Spooner, his valet.

  He'd sent the man here from Ivy Lodge upon setting out after Violet, knowing he'd be returning here one way or another before going back to Leicestershire.

  "Thank you, sir," Spooner replied. "May I take this opportunity to offer my congratulations on your nuptials?"

  Thor didn't care to think what sort of speculation must be rife in the servants' quarters over this unexpected development, and refused to add to it. "Thank you. I'll be changing for dinner in an hour or so. You're at liberty until then."

  With a respectful bow, Spooner left him and Thor crossed to the window to stare sightlessly down at the grounds, drab and gray in the fading December twilight. A faint noise next door recalled Dina's presence there —not that he was likely to forget it.

  "Damn," he said aloud to the empty room. This constant awareness of his new wife's presence, not to mention his growing attraction to her, was inconvenient, to say the least.

  He had hoped that once they were released from the close confines of the traveling coach, his body's unruly reaction to her nearness would subside, but if anything the opposite had occurred. When his mother had mentioned grandchildren just now, his first, instinctive reaction had been embarrassing in the extreme. He only hoped that Dina had not noticed it.

  Perhaps not. She had been embarrassed herself, though obviously not for the same reason, and so had avoided looking at him— luckily. He would have to get his physical urges under control before they went down to dinner, however, if he was not to frighten her out of her wits.

  She was so small, so delicate, so . . . feminine. That must be why he felt so protective, in a way he never had with any of the healthy, strapping women he'd been with in the past. Protective was fine. This growing desire was not, and he was determined to get the better of it, as it threatened to undermine the very protection he intended.

  A light tap on the dressing room door interrupted his ruminations and he turned with a start. "Yes?"

  Though he expected Dina's maid with some question or other, it was Dina herself who entered. Her hair had been brushed out and tied with a loose ribbon that allowed the red curls to cascade down her back, he noticed, though she was still clad in the same rather fetching blue gown she'd worn on today's journey.

  "I'm . . . I'm sorry to bother you," she said, taking a tentative step into the room in a way that reminded him of a doe at the edge of a field. "One of my trunks is missing and I thought it might have been brought to your room by mistake."

  "Oh." Was that the best he could do? Feeling oddly awkward —and inconveniently aroused all over again —he turned half away from her to glance around his c
hamber. "Is that it?" He gestured toward a small trunk that he didn't recognize, next to the clothespress.

  "Yes, thank you." She moved toward the trunk, but he was there before her.

  "Let me get it." Surely she didn't think she could lift it herself? He bent down and indeed, the trunk was unusually heavy for its size. "What do you have in here, books?"

  To his surprise, she colored slightly. "Er, yes. Books, among other things. Really, you don't have to—"

  "It's no trouble —and far too heavy for you, in any case."

  With a heave, he swung the trunk onto his shoulder in what he felt must be a rather impressive manner. Now, why should he care about impressing her? She was already his wife, after all. Besides, he'd never been given to obvious displays of strength.

  Rather than looking impressed, however, Dina's pink lips were pursed in an expression that looked almost peeved. "I could have dragged it," she pointed out.

  He blinked. "Um, yes, I suppose so, but there was no need, as I'm here to carry it for you. Where would you like me to put it?" The trunk was getting heavy for his shoulder.

  "Oh, ah, in here."

  She retreated through the dressing room and into her chamber and he followed, turning sideways to avoid banging the trunk against the door frame. Really, it would have made more sense to simply lift it in front of him by its handles, though that would have been a less dramatic display of his strength.

  Crossing her room to set the trunk in the corner she indicated, he noted in passing that this chamber suited her, with pink and ivory curtains at the windows and a matching ruffled counterpane on the four-poster bed. He caught himself staring at the bed and turned abruptly.

  "Will that be all, then?"

  "I . . . yes."

  He turned to go, loath to leave her but knowing he needed to get away before he said or did something foolish.

  "No," she said then, making him pause. "There is something else."

  Reluctantly, fearing that she might somehow divine the ache she seemed to be producing within him, he turned to face her.

  "What should I . . . that is, how formally does your family dress for dinner?" Her eyes— those amazing green eyes —met his, stirring him anew.

  Belatedly, the meaning of her words sank in and he frowned. He'd never paid much attention to matters of dress, leaving that sort of thing to his valet.

  "Not terribly formally, as I recall," he said after a moment in an admirably detached tone of voice. "Mother did say something about a special dinner tonight, however, so I'd not be surprised if she, at least, decks herself out in her finest."

  "Yes, she does seem rather determined to make an occasion out of it." Dina sounded distinctly worried. "I'll dress accordingly —and I hope I won't do anything to embarrass you in front of your family."

  Startled, Thor looked directly at her. Her eyes were now wide and concerned and incredibly alluring. "You? I've no fear of that. We can probably count on my mother to say things that will embarrass us both, however, and I'll take this opportunity to apologize in advance."

  She smiled. Surely he was imagining an unspoken invitation in the curve of her lips? "You've no need to apologize. I hold you no more responsible for your mother's behavior than I hope you hold me for my brother's."

  "Point taken," he replied, belatedly returning her smile. "We will both simply have to remember that words alone can do nothing to us—and try to bear up."

  Now, why had he used that particular phrasing? In his present mood, it took on quite another connotation than he had intended. Only for himself, of course. Dina merely nodded, showing no sign that she had read anything untoward into his words.

  "You're right, of course. I will try not to let anything she says unsettle me. After all, we know how absurd her assumptions are, even if she does not yet understand that our marriage was a business arrangement rather than a love match."

  "Exactly." Thor swallowed, wondering why Dina's simple reiteration of the truth should suddenly make his chest ache. "Until dinner, then."

  With a crisp half-bow, he turned on his heel and disappeared through the dressing room, closing the door behind him.

  Dina frowned at the door, trying to decipher the odd expression that had flitted across his face at her words. She had deliberately chosen nearly the same words he'd used on their wedding day, the ones she had not been able to forget. Her intent had been to prove that she regarded their marriage in the same light he did, that her emotions were not engaged.

  It was a lie, unfortunately. Perhaps his grimace meant that he'd recognized that. Or perhaps the word "business" had made her sound so mercenary that she had disgusted him? She honestly didn't know, but suspected that she had only made her situation worse. It was done, however, for there was no recalling the words.

  Letting out a breath she hadn't realized she was holding, she turned briskly to her maid. "Come, Francine, help me to unpack this trunk."

  Pulling a key from her pocket, she unlocked the steel-strapped wooden box and opened it. It was a mercy, she supposed, that Thor had not asked to see the contents. At least there were two books within, so she had not— quite— been guilty of falsehood when she had verified his assumption.

  Dina knelt to remove the two gowns she had carefully placed on top of the other contents against a cursory inspection and handed them to her maid. Then she reached into the trunk and pulled out three pairs of dumbbells of varying weights. She'd paid a Litchfield merchant extremely well to obtain these for her from London without her brother's knowledge, and had made excellent use of them in the three or four years since then.

  "Here, Francine, put these next to the bed." She would keep them under it, as she did at home. Her maid complied, using both hands for each dumbbell. Francine was no weakling, for Dina had exhorted her to follow her example when the weights were not in use, but she did not train as diligently as her mistress, having little incentive to do so.

  Next, Dina extracted a heavy leather bag filled with sawdust, which at Ashcombe had been hung in a corner of the cow byre, where Silas would never think to go. She had used it to practice the boxing moves Uncle Kendall had taught her, and to keep her reflexes quick.

  "This may as well go under the bed, too, for I certainly can't use it anytime soon," she said regretfully, handing the bag to her maid.

  Finally, she pulled out the two books —not the novels or sermons most women would be likely to have among their possessions, but a treatise on the physical training of the ancient Greeks and The Gentleman's Guide to Fencing and Pugilism, rescued from among Silas's discarded texts when he had finished his schooling.

  She glanced about the room, but saw no better place of concealment than behind the decorative pink bedskirt, which reached to the floor. Shrugging, she rose and tucked the books there, along with her other equipment. There. Now she could begin to feel as though she belonged here.

  Directing her maid to see about having a half-bath brought up, she carefully locked the dressing room door against any unexpected visit from Thor, unlikely though that seemed, stripped down to her chemise, and picked up the first set of dumbbells.

  By the time Francine returned with a copper of hot water and a large basin, she had restored her equilibrium with an abbreviated session of weight-lifting and some stretches. It was gratifying to discover that she had lost almost none of her strength by the interruption of her routine over the past week, though she suspected she might be a tiny bit sore the next day.

  "Thank you, Francine," she said as the maid laid out basin, washcloth and towels. "Lay out my lemon silk for me while I wash."

  Half an hour later, fresh, fit and confident that she looked as well as her limited wardrobe allowed, she opened her door to Thor's knock to accompany him down to dinner. She was determined not to be put to the blush, either by his overwhelming maleness, which affected her more than she cared to admit, nor by anything Lady Rumble might say over the course of the meal.

  "I see you have put your time to good use," he sai
d, casting what could only be an appreciative glance over her ensemble, "though it might have been better to use it resting, after all of the traveling we've done of late."

  "I might say the same," she replied with a slightly breathless smile, noting that he had spent no small effort on his own appearance. It was the first time she'd seen him in evening wear, and the effect of his superb physique in well-fitted breeches and coat of deep blue superfine was rather overwhelming.

  He acknowledged the compliment only with a twinkle of his blue eyes before extending an arm to her. "Since we are both well armored, let us go down and face the dragon, shall we?"

  Dina could not suppress a startled chuckle. "Surely, you are not referring to your mother as a dragon? Really, she has been exceedingly kind to me, particularly given the circumstances."

  "Perhaps 'dragon' is too strong a term, though she can be as relentless as any mythical beast on certain topics. Our task will be to evade, not to slay, of course— though that may well take more skill and effort."

  Still chuckling, Dina took his proferred arm, determinedly ignoring the shiver of awareness that went through her at the contact. A quick glance upward showed a firm jawline and handsome profile apparently unmoved by any similar awareness. As she had expected.

  They descended in silence, on Dina's side because she could think of nothing to say that would not reveal her emotional state. Not only was she nervous about the coming inquisition —for such she regarded it—but she was increasingly worried that Thor would somehow divine her growing attraction to him. And that would not do at all.

  "Why, how prompt you two are," Lady Rumble exclaimed when they reached the parlor. Neither Violet nor Lord Rumble were yet in evidence. "You'd have been forgiven for any tardiness this evening, you know."

  Did the woman never tire of winking? Dina wondered with a trace of exasperation. At least she was able to refrain from blushing this time, steeled as she'd been for just such a comment.

  "Mother, you should know that Dina and I met for the very first time on the day of our wedding," Thor said then. "We are still getting to know each other, and your continual insinuations are not precisely helping matters."