by Gaelen Foley
By teatime, watching the children finally begin to settle into their new home, Max put his arm around Daphne and pressed a kiss to her head. “How could I have failed to understand you?” he whispered as she wiped away a sentimental tear at the sight of her mission accomplished. “To think I gave you sapphires? There are no jewels perfect enough to add one iota to your beauty.”
She turned and hugged him tightly. “Thank you—for all of this.”
“I was glad to do it.” He was silent for a moment, remembering the pain of lack during his own childhood, she suspected. “I think, in all, they’re going to do quite well here.”
“Yes, indeed. Between Oliver Smith and my stepmother, I sincerely doubt that any detail shall ever fall between the cracks.” She tilted her head back and gazed lovingly at him. “Now,” she added, “we can go to Worcestershire.”
And so they did.
They took the Oxford Road out of London the next day, passed the dreaming spires of the university town, and pressed on westward through Cheltenham, where he pointed out the elegant new terraces with an array of shops as fine as any in London, and the spas like those in Bath, where one could take the medicinal waters.
From there, they proceeded north to the capital of his county. He showed her the medieval grandeur of Worcester Cathedral and the open Market Hall that had sheltered trade of all kinds since the Renaissance.
Daphne was eager to see her new home, however, so they did not linger in the big town, but headed into the surrounding countryside.
October in the Midlands offered green rolling panoramas in the rain-soaked pastures, and tree lines painted with all the patchwork colors of the autumn.
Berries adorned the hedgerows, attracting large flocks of rooks, while partridges, woodcocks, and wild turkeys pecked among the stubble corn. The wild fowl, in turn, drew the hunters. They saw the rosy-cheeked huntsmen trudging through the fields with their fowling pieces at the ready and their bird dogs bounding along with them, ready to retrieve any feathered game that the hunters brought down for their supper tables.
Quaint villages along the way were blocked out with rows of stone cottages, roofs either of gray slate tiles or of traditional cozy thatching. Here and there stood a timber-framed house of Tudor origins, tidily maintained since Shakespeare’s day.
To while away the time on their long journey, Max discussed with her a little about his investments in the local textile mills, potteries producing high-quality ceramics, as well as his shares in a few canals and an ironworks farther up the Gorge. He also owned the land on which a great wool merchant raised his herds of sheep, which in turn produced wool for the textile mills.
Hearing him speak so ably and authoritatively on matters that other males of the aristocracy would consider hideously beneath them helped her to understand another reason that, perhaps, the ton had viewed him as an outsider.
But for her part, she respected his initiative and was intrigued by his affection for the ordinary people, whom he called the backbone of England. He nodded to some peasants picking apples in a distant orchard as they drove, others plowing the soil to get the fields ready for the sowing of the winter wheat.
The countryside hummed with all the activities of another year drawing to a close. Beekeepers taking in the honey, a shepherd boy minding his flock. A rustic, red corn mill sat alongside the river, its huge round stone grinding flour, powered by the busily turning waterwheel that dipped again and again endlessly into the water’s placid but relentless current.
“We’re almost there,” Max said, nodding ahead as the driver turned his traveling chariot off the country road, through a pair of giant, wrought-iron gates.
A long drive lined with large, graceful beech trees led up to a house of giant proportions.
A perfectly uniformed staff streamed out of the princely entrance of the house and rushed into formation to welcome their lord and his new lady home. Footmen in powdered wigs were clad in dark red livery coats and black breeches; the maids wore black dresses with neat white aprons and caps.
When the chariot halted, Max handed her down and presented her with her new home. He announced her to the staff, introduced a few key members, and then led her into the black and white marble entrance hall.
It was mainly white, with occasional black diamonds in the floor and large black greenery urns, a stunning formal contrast of creamy walls with scalloped niche alcoves, each housing a life-sized statue of black bronze.
The dazzling entrance hall set the tone for the whole house, she soon found out: painted ceilings, colorful patterned rugs, fine furniture, and porcelain on display. She saw the same Maltese white cross displayed in the family chapel, along with the ceremonial shield and helm of the first Baron Rotherstone, whose broadsword was on display in the Town house.
Then Max led her out onto the terrace that overlooked the extraordinary formal gardens. The sweeping expanses and precise lines of the exquisitely manicured formal gardens awed her. Conical topiaries flanked the graveled walks. Triangular parterres were packed with colorful masses of autumn marigolds and phloxes, Michaelmas daisies and China asters.
Beyond that lay a sprawling park bounded, in turn, by woodlands crisscrossed, he said, with pleasant walking paths.
Max stood with her and explained that it was a working estate with three villages, twelve farms, two churches, three schools, two pubs each brewing its own varieties of celebrated ale, and one market. The dowager cottage, he added, had been converted into a pension house for wounded veterans returning from the war against Napoleon.
The crops had been harvested, but the pastures were filled with the estate’s prize cattle, plump sheep, and the dozens of horses that populated the Rotherstone stables. He explained that he fostered friendly competition between his farms to produce the best livestock.
The whole estate, she thought, was a gleaming jewel of excellence in the English countryside.
The fact that Max had been absent so much of the time made it even more remarkable how well everything ran, from his lands, to his investments, to casting his absentee votes in the House of Lords even while he was off traveling the Continent, expanding his business ventures and collecting works of art.
At least now it made sense to her how he had prepared his so-called bride list. It seemed nothing was lost on the man. No detail was too small to escape his notice.
She was beginning to think this new husband of hers was altogether remarkable. But in light of all this, the one thing that made less and less sense to her was his wicked reputation. None of this fit with the usual devil-may-care neglect of a libertine.
They went back inside, and she walked around agog at all she saw. She could not have imagined it, and even now that she was looking at the Rotherstone holdings, it had never sunk into her brain before now they would be like rulers of a tiny kingdom, or that she would be living almost like a princess, just as Papa had claimed when he had first unveiled the arranged match.
In the dining room, Max showed her the formal chimneypiece with a bare spot above the mantel that awaited, he declared, her official portrait.
“My picture, there? But, my lord, any guests we have will think me terribly immodest.”
“No, they will think you terribly beautiful, and me, rightfully proud to have snared such a prize. Come.”
As their tour of the house continued, they came to the drawing room that had a gleaming pianoforte in front of a bank of windows overlooking a beautiful farm view of the horses in the meadows. Daphne gazed wistfully at the graceful instrument.
“Another pianoforte,” she remarked. She had seen one in the morning room as well.
“I told you, I’m an avid listener.” Max gestured to it. “Why don’t you give it a try?”
“But I don’t play.”
“That’s not what your father told me.” He cast her a knowing smile and walked away. “Let me show you the upper floors.”
“I am certain I shall get lost in here,” she remarked, her head spi
nning after the dizzying ascent up the cantilevered staircase that seemed to float, weightless, in the air. “How many bedrooms does the house have?”
“Thirty bedchambers, my lady,” said the taciturn head butler, Mr. Chatters.
She flicked a devilish look in her husband’s direction, and whispered to him, “That should keep us busy for a while.”
“You haven’t even seen the gardens yet,” he answered just as softly, a lecherous gleam in his eyes.
“Are you sure no one can see us?” she panted a while later as their garden stroll took a naughty detour.
“They can’t, nor would they dare to try.”
With an admitted ulterior motive, Max had brought her to the far end of the pleasure grounds, into a garden room bounded on all sides by ten-foot boxwoods, and shaded by an ornamental pear tree.
The main attraction of the private garden room was the low-walled goldfish pond with its little center fountain.
When she bent forward to peer down at the well-fed koi swimming about beneath the lily pads that floated on the surface, Max had eyed the beckoning curve of her derriere and found his lovely bride beyond tempting.
He had laid his coat down on the ground for her to kneel on; she had braced her hands against the sun-warmed stone wall around the fountain as he had lowered himself onto his knees behind her.
“I want you…just like this.” He breathed his words softly in her ear. “I want to make love to you with the sunshine on your face. Your body one with mine.”
Drowning deliciously in the golden silk of her hair, he lifted her skirts and took her from behind. Facing forward straddling his lap, she moved with him, enjoying the ride as he took her with a leisured thoroughness. His hands on her waist guided her motions. With a honeyed moan, she rested her head back against his shoulder, draping her arm languidly around his neck.
High above them, a hawk circled in the blue sky.
Max nibbled her earlobe, but as she let him have his way with her, he found himself growing ever more crazed with his passion for her.
His hands ran up and down her body through her clothing. Needing to feel her skin, he reached under her skirts and grasped the creamy thighs draped over his, her lithe muscles working as she balanced on her knees, her hips lifting up and down, riding him into a lather.
He uttered an epithet of helpless need at the pleasure she stoked in him with her willing innocence. He stroked the fine curls between her legs and caressed her clitoris ever so lightly while he kissed her earlobe. He felt her surging response as his fingers played against her mound, and her wet core clenched him like a sweet, silken glove.
When she moaned aloud with pleasure, he quickly muffled her noise with a hand over her mouth. “Shh,” he whispered in her ear.
She obeyed; indeed, the light restraint seemed to arouse her all the more. The sleek, wet grip of her fiery core quivered against his throbbing cock. The lower moan that escaped her from behind his hand begged him for release.
Max gripped her shoulder as he impaled her with slow, relentless strokes, plunging into her, until her soft groans of pleasure frayed the last of his control. He bent her forward, reveling in wild lust as he took her in total, claiming possession. Never had he had it like this before, with this white-hot intensity, never fully sated; the more she surrendered, the deeper he craved, as if she had tapped a well of desperate need in him so long ignored, a thirst that only she could quench. The moment she reached her climax, he surrendered to his own shattering orgasm. It swept through him like a firestorm, each profound pulsation emptying him into her. She was everything.
A fragment of a thought trailed through his dazzled mind: He wondered with a shiver how Lord Starling had ever survived the death of his first wife. If he had felt anything like the near-obsession Max felt for Daphne, by all rights, he should have lost his mind.
“Oh, Max.” She stayed where she was on his lap, just savoring the feel of his still-swollen member inside her. Reaching up, she dragged her hand wearily through his hair in a dreamy caress.
He loved her touch. He turned his face and kissed her wrist as she petted his head. He never wanted to leave her body.
“I can’t believe I ever fought you on this,” she whispered. “You have every right to say you told me so. You never doubted,” she whispered to him, her tone tender and confiding. “It took me longer to see it, but now I know that I was made for you. You were right. A thousand times, you were right from the start and I was wrong.”
“My darling Daphne,” he answered barely audibly, “I only hope that one day I might actually deserve you.”
“Oh!” she murmured, a chiding sound of softhearted protest at his words. But with her very yielding, she conquered yet another hardened fortress in his heretofore impregnable heart.
As October wore on, the weeks that passed were a heady time of making their plans for the future, meeting all the people around her new home, and becoming familiar with all the aspects of her new life as Lady Rotherstone.
There were social calls to be made to her new neighbors, many thank-you notes to be written to all her wedding guests back in Town, and a harvest home to plan for the whole estate, with three days of work off for everyone.
She was soon considered a local authority on all things concerning London and the fashions. Back in Town, she knew, Parliament would have reopened for the autumn session, with the more intimate social occasions of the Little Season under way.
Among the local gentry, meanwhile, there was talk of the annual assizes, the county judges making their rounds to hear any new criminal cases or other disputes that had arisen.
An invitation arrived for a hunt ball in November, but each day proved that her friends’ information had indeed been wrong. Country life was not at all dull. All around the estate was a hum of activity, some new thing to see and learn about. The estate’s mill was busily churning out several types of flours, grinding down the corn and rye and wheat; the distillery fires crackled away, producing an array of potent libations. Daphne watched the workwomen simmering down the ripened fruits of summer with large amounts of sugar to ferment them—cherries, raspberries, currants. Each was boiled down to a thick, sweet syrup to be used in creating different flavors of brandy and wine.
The kitchen staff was on a mighty campaign of pickling and preserves; the field hands hung the new hay in the barn to dry; the gardeners were trimming back the faded perennials and planting more spring bulbs; the stable managers pampered the broodmares already expecting next spring’s foals.
Meanwhile, to Max’s amusement but Daphne’s dismay, the house was so vast that she kept getting lost, until one day, she walked into the central staircase hall and found a waist-high fingerpost sign that her cheeky husband had made for her. It had thick, painted arrows pointing in various directions: Drawing Room, Music Room, Dining Room, and so on.
Numerous servants peeked to see her reaction as she stood laughing at the prank and blushing with embarrassment, calling for her husband, whom she knew at first glance was behind it. “Where is that scoundrel?”
“I solved your little problem for you,” he replied as he sauntered out of the library with a grin.
“You!” She chased him, and he ran with a devilish laugh. He hid from her, for, after all, it was an excellent house for playing hide-and-seek. She stalked him into one of the upstairs bedchambers, and when she finally found him, he seduced her.
It became a bit of a game for them, but there were many other activities afoot. While Max went out for a leisurely bit of shooting, she corresponded with her family, who would be coming to stay with them at Christmas.
She was particularly keen for her two young stepsisters to get a taste of country life.
She wrote to Carissa, too, recounting with some humor the whole process of being measured for her court robes of crimson velvet with miniver trim, as well as for the dainty coronet that was now being made for her, with the silver balls and strawberry leaves of her new rank.
Afte
r all, as Max had said, with “Farmer” George in such ill health, likely to pop off at any moment, she would need the full regalia of her new rank for the Regent’s coronation, whenever God saw fit to summon their poor mad king to his reward.
Attendance on that day in the proper traditional attire would, of course, be mandatory for the entire aristocracy. Max being Max, he insisted on being prepared well in advance for the inevitable occasion.
He had also made arrangements with the famous portrait artist Sir Thomas Lawrence, who was now scheduled to come early next year and stay with them until he painted her for posterity. When her portrait was done, it would hang above the mantelpiece in the dining room, and in time, she supposed, be added to the gallery of her husband’s illustrious family ancestors.
With every day that passed, she felt prouder to have joined his august line. She knew, of course, that his father and grandfather had both been intemperate men with an unhealthy attachment to the cards and the dice.
But whatever people might think of her so-called Demon Marquess back in London, here in the country, Daphne saw all around her, it was a drastically different story.
Perhaps here in the countryside they did not know he was a leading member of the Inferno Club. Or perhaps here he was more at ease and could be himself. All she knew was people for miles around loved him and held her husband in the highest regard.
All of which brought new questions to her mind. The mystery of him only seemed to deepen, and the more she loved him day by day, the more determined she was to eventually solve it.
As October turned to November, she still felt she had not quite figured him out. If she dwelled on it too much, it worried her, in truth.
She knew she had a whole lifetime to grow into a fuller understanding of him. No doubt in a few years’ time, they’d be finishing each other’s sentences. But for now, as happy as they were together, she felt as if she kept running up against an invisible barrier inside him. As if he was happy to welcome her into his heart—but only up to a point.