Which belonged to Lady Gladys.
Smiling with both pleasure and relief, she rose from the stool and addressed the waiting footman. “Harry, please tell Lady Gladys I’m most certainly at home to her and show her to the morning room.”
“Yes, m’lady,” the youth said, speaking as if he’d just been given a most serious and vital mission before he turned and left.
Smoothing down her dress, Thea glanced at her reflection in the tall looking glass. Some of her new dresses had arrived, including this one in a very pretty light blue with tucks around the hem and white ribbon about the neck. With her new dress and fashionably arranged hair, she felt the equal of anybody.
“Please go to the kitchen and have some tea sent to my morning room,” she said to the maid who was already tidying the dressing table. “I’ll probably be some time with Lady Gladys.”
“Yes, m’lady,” Alice returned before Thea departed and hurried down the stairs.
She looked for any sign of her husband’s return, but saw none. Since it was a fine morning, with the sun doing its best to warm the autumn air, she suspected it would be some time yet before he finished his ride. Then he would appear as suddenly as a genie from a magic lantern, a genie in well-cut riding clothes and shining boots, his hair ruffled by the wind and speed of his horse. Sometimes he had a hound or two at his heels. She wasn’t used to dogs, but his were well trained and sat upon command. They never stirred again until told to, or given a wave of his hand. Otherwise they simply sat regarding their master with tongues hanging out, panting, their adoring eyes focused on his every move.
An attitude, she had realized, not unlike her own. Once that had occurred to her, she took pains to act less like a beholden servant and more like his partner in business, as apparently she was, although he hadn’t quite adhered to all the provisions of their marriage bargain.
When she entered the morning room, the well-dressed Gladys rose swiftly from a chair near the French doors leading to the terrace. Her bonnet was covered in cream-colored silk that matched her pelisse, which was decorated with silk flowers in pink and light green. Its cream-colored trim also matched Gladys’s cambric gown.
“Good morning!” Gladys exclaimed, hurrying toward Thea, her skirts brushing an ebony table and nearly knocking it over. Fortunately she caught it in time, then carried on as if that was nothing out of the ordinary for her, as Thea rather suspected was the case. “I do hope I’m not calling too early, but it was such a lovely morning—just perfect for a walk—and I thought I’d come for a visit.”
Thea gave her with a warm smile and gestured for Gladys to sit on the nearby sofa. Like all the décor and furnishings of this room, the sofa was pretty and feminine, upholstered with green brocade. A few delicate figurines stood on the white marble mantelpiece and the top of the walnut secretary. On the walls were pictures of pleasant country scenes. However grave and grim Sir Randolf had been, he had an eye for decoration, or perhaps Dev had it wrong, and his mother had been given some say over the choices for her own rooms.
“I’m very glad to see you,” Thea said as she joined Gladys on the sofa.
She’d been finding life rather lonely. Dealing with servants and planning menus was not the same as talking with a friend, and while her new maid was most agreeable, there was still the barrier of rank between them.
“I find fresh air invigorating,” Gladys continued. “Indeed, I like nothing better than a brisk walk.” She lowered her voice to a confidential whisper. “Unless it’s a dip in the fishpond on a hot day.”
Even Thea’s vivid imagination couldn’t quite conjure that. “Don’t you worry that somebody will see you?” she asked. “Or that you’ll catch cold?”
“The pond’s quite secluded and I’m the picture of health,” Gladys replied as Ella appeared with the tea tray and cakes.
As she set it down on the table in front of the sofa, Gladys continued as if they were quite alone. Unlike Thea, she was clearly used to the presence of servants and was able to ignore them.
“I’ve always been healthy,” Gladys said, taking the cup of tea Thea poured for her after Ella had withdrawn. “Not like poor Papa. He’s never recovered from that last voyage to America. We had considerable property there once. Gone now. Still, we’re better off than many, for we have the estate here and the house in London and the cotton mills.”
Gladys suddenly frowned and leaned toward her, squinting through her spectacles. “You’ll forgive me for my impertinence, but I must say you’re looking a little peaked.”
“I’m rather tired, that’s all,” Thea replied. That was not unexpected when you stayed awake for hours waiting for a husband who didn’t arrive.
“Ah!” Gladys said with a smile whose significance Thea could easily guess.
“As far as I’m aware, I’m not with child.”
Gladys flushed and set down her teacup. “I’m sorry! I’m always jumping to conclusions and saying things I shouldn’t. Not that I’d be surprised if you were in that way, not with such a husband. I mean, I should think you’d want to...that is, it wouldn’t be a hardship...”
“I quite agree,” Thea said, coming to the red-cheeked Gladys’s rescue and then changing the subject. “Did the lace for your gown arrive?”
“Indeed! Poor Papa nearly fell into a fit when he saw the cost, but Mater was a dear about it. She always is. I think she lives in hope that fine feathers will help me catch me a husband.” Gladys grinned with frank good cheer. “Poor Mater! I’ll never marry a man who cares more about my clothes and my fortune than my feelings.”
Thea felt compelled to point out she was fortunate to have that choice. “Not all women are able to ignore the practicalities of a good match.”
Gladys colored once again. “Oh dear, I didn’t mean to offend.”
Thea immediately regretted her words and hurried to reassure her. “I’m not offended. I applaud you for your willingness to put love above all else.”
“Yes, well, it’s the most important thing of all, isn’t it?”
“It is,” Thea agreed, even if not everyone was able to marry for love. But she was the one who’d made a bargain to wed without love, so she couldn’t complain about a lack of it now.
Gladys sighed as she set down her teacup. “I suppose I shouldn’t have said anything about a bad match in this house, not after what happened between Develin’s parents. The late baronet might come and haunt me.”
Her own disappointment momentarily forgotten, Thea said, “I know very little about my husband’s parents. He never talks about them.”
Gladys frowned and pushed her spectacles back into place. “Oh dear. Perhaps I shouldn’t, either.”
“I wish you would. It would help me to understand him and be a better wife,” Thea said honestly.
If she couldn’t have her husband’s love, she could at least aim for mutual comfort and consideration.
“Since you put it that way, I don’t suppose it would do much harm. After all, it’s no secret, not among the local gentry. His mother was the only child of a very rich merchant. I heard her dowry was nearly fifty thousand pounds, money Sir Randolf—Develin’s father—badly wanted. Sir Randolf had a title, though, and that’s what her father wanted.”
“Was she compelled to marry?” Thea asked, having visions of a distraught young woman beaten and locked in her room until she surrendered.
“Not at all. Mater says she was quite delighted at the time, for Sir Randolf was very handsome, too. Sadly their happiness was short-lived. He wasn’t a complete brute, but he was hardly sweetness and light, especially when she didn’t give him any more children after Develin. His birth was quite an ordeal, so Mater says, and the poor woman nearly died, but that didn’t seem to matter to the baronet. Mater heard him say he wanted one son to inherit the estate, one for the army and one for the church, so he would
have influence in every sphere.” Gladys lowered her voice again. “He really was a most unpleasant fellow. I’m not surprised Develin stayed away from here for years. And I once heard him say he didn’t care if he ever had children. I assume he meant beyond an heir.”
Given his absence from her bedroom, Thea wondered if he even wanted an heir.
But he had made love to her on their wedding night, and he had been the first to mention children the day they made their bargain. “It’s my understanding that he wouldn’t be sorry to have more than one child,” she ventured, hoping that was true.
“Is that why his solicitor was here the other day? Papa said he saw Mr. Bessborough in the village. He supposed Develin was making a will or revising a previous one because he’d gotten married. That would be a sensible thing to do.”
Even though Dev’s solicitor hadn’t come to the hall or been introduced to her, that was no reason to suspect anything was wrong, Thea told herself. The earl was probably right. After all, a lawyer’s visit was surely about a business matter, not a social call.
Gladys’s eyes widened. “Oh, dear me, have I done it again? Did you not meet...? Papa could be wrong, you know. Perhaps his eyesight isn’t what it was, although Mr. Bessborough is quite a striking personage and Papa can still hit a quail...but that was last hunting season. Maybe it’s deteriorated in the interim. He’s not getting any younger, after all.”
Thea tried to put Lady Gladys, and herself, at ease. “Yes, perhaps he was mistaken, or if Mr. Bessborough wanted to speak to my husband about a legal issue, there was no need—”
“Good day, ladies. You’re up and about bright and early, Lady Gladys.”
At the sound of Develin’s voice, the two women started as if they’d been caught raiding the larder and simultaneously turned to see him standing in the doorway. He still wore his riding clothes, and his casual attitude seemed to suggest he’d have been equally at home when noblemen were much less constrained by the rules of society, able to take what they wanted when they wanted it.
How long had he been standing there? Long enough to hear what they’d been talking about?
If he had been, he gave no sign as he tossed his crop on the nearest table and gave them both a charming smile, civilized once more.
The blushing Gladys rose in a rustle of fabric. “If you’ll excuse me, my lady, I think it’s time I took myself off.”
“There’s no need to rush away,” Thea protested as her husband strolled into the room.
“By all means, stay, Lady Gladys,” her husband seconded. “We see very little of society.”
Thea shot him a sidelong glance. What did he mean by that?
“Oh, but I must. Lots to do, you see,” Gladys said. “I have to see Mrs. Lemmuel about another gown, for one thing. Mater’s insisting that I have one for the duchess’s dinner party.”
Obviously they had not been invited, Thea realized with dismay. She glanced at her husband and discovered he didn’t seem surprised or disturbed by the snub. Or else he hid it very well.
Whatever her husband was thinking and while she wasn’t completely sorry she’d been rude to the duchess, she did regret not finding a less blunt way to make her point.
“No need to see me out. I know the way,” Gladys continued, heading in the general direction of the door. She knocked over another little table and, bending to right it, hit a chair with her elbow and sent it crashing to the floor as well. “Oh dear! Pray forgive me!”
“There’s no damage done,” Thea assured her.
“Quite all right,” Dev added, righting the chair.
“Yes, well, good morning!” the flustered young woman cried as she hurried out the door.
“I do believe the adage about a bull in a china shop might have been coined with Lady Gladys in mind,” her husband noted dryly after she had gone.
“I think she’s only clumsy when she’s anxious,” Thea said.
“Which is often, unfortunately,” her husband unexpectedly agreed.
Thea had supposed a man would be impatient with Gladys’s nervousness.
“There’s not a bit of malice in her,” he went on, coming to stand by the sofa. “She can ride as well as any man, too, and run like the wind. She’s the only person who could ever beat Paul in a footrace.”
Dev’s fulsome praise came as something of a shock—not his admiration for athletic prowess, but that the usually clumsy Gladys possessed any.
Yet when Thea considered Gladys’s long legs and other physical attributes, she realized the young woman’s speed and ability ought not to be so surprising.
However, it was not of Gladys she most wished to speak. “Are you upset we’re not invited to the duchess’s dinner party?”
As she waited for her husband to answer, Thea got the second surprise of the day, for he actually looked...sheepish?
“As a matter of fact,” he said, eventually meeting her gaze, “we are. The duke invited us the day after we returned.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” she cried before the answers came to her.
Because he doesn’t want to go. Because he’s ashamed of you. Because you were rude to the duchess.
“I thought the duchess would rescind the invitation after your...encounter...in the village,” he replied, telling her she had guessed correctly.
“She has not?”
“No. Not yet, at any rate.”
“Do you still expect her to?”
He ran his hand through his black hair already disheveled from his ride. “Perhaps.”
“And if she doesn’t?”
Now he looked surprised. “Since the duke himself invited us, we should go.”
He made no reference to her previous insolence, and for that she was grateful, and emboldened enough to broach something else troubling her. “I suppose we should expect to have more visitors soon,” she ventured, trying not to sound as if she was seeking any specific information. “You will tell me when you invite anyone.”
“Of course.”
“Even if they’re men of business, like your solicitor?”
His brow furrowed and his expression grew guarded. “If there’s a reason for you to meet Mr. Bessborough, you’ll meet him.”
She regretted the change in his manner, yet she had to find out more or she would worry for hours. “I understand he’s already been to Dundrake since we returned.”
Cleary he wasn’t pleased to hear that she knew of the solicitor’s visit, yet he answered nonetheless. “I had informed him of our marriage and he came to discuss it with me. A change in one’s marital status does have legal ramifications, after all.”
“A new will might be in order,” she agreed, “with provisions for children.”
Dev’s frown deepened.
“You did say you wanted children when we discussed our bargain,” she said, coming to stand in front of him and trying not to think of the first kiss they’d shared.
“I do.” His dark orbs seemed to pull her closer. “Very much.”
Thrilled and even more encouraged, she softly noted, “We’ll have to make love to get them.”
“I’m aware of that. Very aware,” he replied, and as he spoke, she saw a yearning in his eyes that matched her own.
She slid her hand up his arm. “Like we did on our wedding night. That was enjoyable, wasn’t it?”
He nodded.
“I’ve been hoping to enjoy such...activity...again. I’ve been waiting for you every night.”
He didn’t reply, but neither did that look leave his eyes.
“Don’t you want me, Develin? Don’t you want to make love with me?”
He didn’t answer with words.
Chapter Eight
Dev’s arms went around Thea and he pulled her close to kiss. No tentati
ve wedding night kiss this, but a passionate, heated embrace, almost primal in its intensity, as if the veneer of the civilized man was dropping away.
Or the last of his restraint cast off.
Yet for all his passion, it was Thea who deepened the kiss and insinuated her tongue between his lips, she who held him tight, leaning against him as if there was nothing more important in the world than being with him.
She didn’t care where they were or what time of day it was. It seemed far too long since she’d been in his arms, kissing him and being kissed in return. Too many lonely days and anxious nights had passed during which she’d wondered if he still wanted her.
And now he was with her, holding her with what seemed desperate, growing need.
He drew her to a nearby chair and pulled her down onto his lap. Still kissing her, he pushed up her skirt and petticoat and eagerly caressed the soft skin of her thigh above her stocking. Her fingers went to his cravat, all but tearing it off in her haste. He slipped his hand into her bodice to stroke her breast while she undid the buttons of his shirt and thrust her hand through the opening to explore his chest. Shifting, she felt the evidence of his arousal through their clothing, a sensation that made her hot and moist, ready and anxious, to have him inside her.
She broke the kiss to undo his trousers, the hoarse sounds of his breath in her ear as he urgently kneaded and fondled her breasts. She freed him and swiftly straddled him before lowering herself. Gasping, he took hold of her hips, bringing her forward and not incidentally her breasts to his mouth.
As she rocked and ground her hips against his, glorying in the feeling of his erection deep within her, he laved and sucked her pebbled nipples until he threw back his head and growled with release. In the next moment, she cried out for the same reason.
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