She was staring at him pensively still and he couldn’t help noticing how her large, soulful eyes had an otherworldly quality about them, a touch of the spiritual. John Donne would have surely written a poem about them, Gareth mused, if the poet had known her. Madeline’s large, luminous eyes were celestial orbs worthy of metaphysical contemplation.
“Gareth? What are you thinking about?”
“How much I would like to climb into bed with you right now.” He said it more to break the train of his thinking than anything else. He did not want to regard her too highly or think too well of her; that would certainly be a mistake. It could only lead to greater hurt for him.
“That is a most rude notion,” she said. “Besides, I promised to help Gwenda with her harpsichord practice after lunch. I believe I shall go now.”
“Your notion could most assuredly be postponed,” he said, grinning wickedly as he ran his large hands suggestively along her slender arms.
“I don’t think it would be proper,” she responded, trying to rise.
He put his arms around her waist and held her to him. “There’s been nothing proper about our relationship until now so I don’t suppose we should change anything.”
How wonderful she smelled, like fresh lilacs. He had an overwhelming desire to taste of her as if she were a sweet, juicy summer fruit. He had wrapped her into his arms and just begun kissing her when a knock sounded at the door.
“Madeline, are you awake?”
It was Gwenda’s voice and it caused Madeline to push him away. He gave Madeline a leering mock grin that promised much and then allowed her to move away from him. She called out for Gwenda to come in. As soon as his sister saw him sitting on the bed, she flushed slightly.
“If this is not the best time for me to be here, I could leave,” she offered in a diffident voice.
“No,” Madeline responded firmly. “Of course it’s fine. I was just telling Gareth about our practicing music together. It’s been some time for me.”
“I wish I could say the same,” Gwenda replied. “I have no musical talent whatever, but Aunt Lydia says I must practice in an effort to develop all the abilities expected of a young lady.”
“She’s quite right, of course. A lady is admired for her accomplishments. My Maman insisted that I play, sing, paint and even write poetry, besides working at my studies. However, my embroidery leaves much to be desired.”
Gwenda laughed, completely put at ease by Madeline’s friendly manner. “I’m not much good at that either,” Gwenda confided.
“Then we shall get along extremely well,” Madeline said with a smile.
“May I escort you two beautiful young ladies downstairs?” Gareth asked, extending an arm to each.
“I need a few moments to freshen myself,” Madeline said, “but I will join you presently.”
“Aunt Lydia says it is time for the midday meal, so we have a brief reprieve on our music practice.”
As Gareth and his sister left Madeline’s chamber, Gwenda turned to him. “She’s incredibly nice, Gar, genuinely warm and vivacious. ‘Tis wonderful to have her here.”
He did not reply but was glad that Gwenda was getting on with his wife – now if only he could manage the same feat.
♥ ♥ ♥
The main meal of the day was generally served between noon and one o’clock. Often, it was lamb since they did raise sheep, and today was no different. A joint of lamb was being served with boiled potatoes and green beans. There was in addition, a fillet of veal with mushrooms and a cucumber salad. The cooking was rather plain fare but that was Lydia’s preference, as he well knew. They began with a clear consommé while waiting for Madeline to join them.
He and Gwenda were soon joined by his aunt and Madeline. He wondered if Madeline would comment on the bland fare, but she seemed determined to be pleasant to his aunt and avoid interfering in the running of the household. He wondered how long that might last. Madeline, as his wife, was now mistress here, after all. Yet she was young and inexperienced, how much could she know about running a large house such as this? Perhaps she would be just as content to abdicate such responsibility to his aunt. Then too, Lydia could be quite formidable and intimidating at times, especially for a young girl.
As lunch progressed, Gareth observed that his aunt was treating Madeline as if she were another child, in fact, speaking to Madeline in just the way she spoke to Gwenda. He frowned deeply, but he realized that it was not up to him to intercede on her behalf with his aunt. The two women would have to come to some sort of mutual understanding on their own.
“And when will you be eighteen?” Lydia asked Madeline.
“In another month,” his wife responded.
“We are little more than a year apart,” Gwenda observed.
Lydia gave him a sharp look that he comprehended perfectly but chose to ignore; it suggested that he had snatched his wife from the cradle and ought to be ashamed of himself.
“I noticed that you arrived without a maid. Do you want us to provide you with one or will you be requiring someone of your own choosing?”
Gareth marveled at how his aunt had an eye to every detail. He himself had not considered his wife’s need to have a personal servant.
“Where is that woman of yours – Marie, wasn’t it?”
She turned to him anxiously. “Marie was my mother’s maid. I left her at the house in London.”
“Would you like me to send for her?” he asked.
“Mais non!” she responded hastily.
He wondered at Madeline’s response and then thought she probably didn’t want the woman to see into what reduced circumstances she had married. He tended to forget that Madeline was the daughter of a French count and as such would have lived in grand style in Paris. That, of course, was one of the many things they had never discussed. How she must despise him for turning her life upside down! He was beginning to doubt his ability to win her; though why he should care to, he did not understand.
Gareth concentrated on his meal instead of the conversation which was decidedly too feminine for his tastes anyway. With disdain, he pushed aside the custard he considered an appropriate dessert only for invalids and announced he would be taking some exercise. Then he went out for a ride, leaving the women to their own devices. He was relieved to be away from the house and the fresh autumn air did him a world of good. He rode out and checked on each of the tenants, something he had no opportunity to do in a very long time. He was welcomed warmly by most of them, although many had concerns they wished to discuss with him.
“‘Tis good to see the squire back home.” Dan Phillips, his manager, clasped his arms, welcoming Gareth warmly.
“How’s the farm been doing?” he asked.
“Well enough, though some years are better than others. This mixed farming you have us doing works out much better than the old ways. The wheat and barley aren’t always good, but then the livestock makes the difference.”
Gareth had spoken with each tenant farmer at length, realizing that his time away had led to neglect of his responsibilities. It was nearly teatime when he returned and he was feeling satisfied with himself.
As he entered the house, he encountered beautiful strains of music filling the large entry hall. He followed the sound to the drawing room, listening to the sweetest soprano he had ever heard in his life. It was with some surprise that he saw Madeline playing at the harpsichord, her incandescent eyes in a separate world as she sang. She had never looked or sounded more like a seraph and yet she stirred in him the most carnal of reactions. The earlier sexual frustration he’d been forced to endure came back with a vengeance. He felt a powerful surge of need when he looked at her.
Suddenly, she became aware of his presence, flushed becomingly, and stopped playing and singing altogether.
“That was so beautiful,” Gwenda exclaimed. “Please continue.”
“Perhaps another time. I sometimes get carried away by music; it tears my emotions in the extreme.”
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“Gwenda is right,” he observed. “Your lovely voice filled the room with sweetness. I venture neither nightingale nor thrush ever sang as well.”
Madeline laughed at his comment. He thought the trill of her laughter as silvery as her eyes.
“Such high praise, I did not think you a music lover. I am sure my talents are only middling at best.”
“Do play and sing some more for us,” Gwenda urged. She sat beside Madeline on the bench.
“I quite concur,” Lydia said. “You’ve real talent.”
With a shy look to him, Madeline continued her performance. He thought her sensitive in a way he hardly fathomed, for music usually did not hold much of an interest for him nor did it generally effect his emotions. Yet he enjoyed her performance more than he could say. It was all the passion that went into her playing and the velvet smoothness of her voice. He could not recall desiring any other woman as much.
Suddenly, he realized that she was done and they were all looking at him, waiting for him to say something. “I did not intend to interrupt,” he said in a deep, thoughtful voice.
“You haven’t,” Madeline replied, the ethereal gray eyes meeting his directly.
He looked away, trying to maintain an air of relative detachment. He did not like the way her very look could stir such strong feelings in him; it was frightening. The smoke-eyed siren must never discover the power she had over him.
“Ladies, would you care to go for a walk with me?” Gareth asked.
“Take your wife,” Lydia said. “Gwenda and I have a vigorous routine in the early morning and evening, two miles rain or shine. I have always felt that walking aids the digestion and the complexion. Madeline should most certainly be taking a stroll around the park; it will do a world of good in building up her strength.”
Gareth often found his aunt opinionated, but he did concede that she was probably right. Her outspokenness did not seem to phase Madeline in the slightest, and so there seemed nothing for it but to take his wife for a stroll.
Madeline, it seemed, very much liked the garden. “English gardens are so lovely,” she told him enthusiastically.
He picked a late blooming rose and handed it to her. “That’s probably the last one we shall see until next spring,” he said.
“Gareth, your finger!”
He looked down at the source of her concern and saw that a thorn had caught his finger and it was bleeding. Strange, he had hardly noticed until now.
“You remind me of this rose,” he told her. “The perfumed fragrance of it is like your scent, the petals smooth as the velvet of your cheek, the color just as crimson, and when I draw too close, you both prick me with your thorns.”
“I have no thorns,” she denied hotly.
“Indeed, my love, your tears are like thorns to me.”
She sat down on a gracefully carved, white marble bench and looked down, her eyes obscured by her dark, sooty lashes so that he could not read the expression in them.
“If I ever hurt you, it would never be intentional,” she said in a subdued voice.
His lips twitched at the childlike candor of her exclamation.
“I sometimes behave in an impetuous manner. The nuns at the convent chastised me for my impulsive disposition.”
With that, she rose as quickly to her feet as her altered condition would allow and hurried off down the lane ahead of him.
“Mind, don’t you go getting lost in that maze for it’s been many a year since I’ve gone through the hedges and I’ve forgotten the way.” He was beginning to think her headstrong enough to do exactly the opposite of what he told her just to prove her independence.
Sure enough, she followed a path through the garden maze. It seemed as if he had a wife who rashly courted trouble more surely than any raw recruit who had ever served under him in the army. He had managed to live as long as he did, a veteran of many battles, because he was cautious and did not hanker after unnecessary danger. He kept his nerves cool and his mind alert. Madeline, he decided, would have made a dreadful soldier, though he could never doubt her courage.
He let her hurry on ahead of him, losing herself ever more deeply. He wanted her to be very sorry for ignoring his advice and so he gave her plenty of time. Let her beg for him to rescue her. Wasn’t it about time that she came to appreciate his concern for her?
He waited at least five minutes, although it seemed much longer, but there came no call for help. He plunged into the maze, no longer able to hold back. Where was she?
She was nowhere to be found, and with some alarm, he soon discovered that he was very lost within the confines of the labyrinth. He began calling out her name, each time a little louder. He was as angry as a bull addressing a red cape and allowed that he felt very much like the Minotaur caught and confined. It was with some chagrin that he finally found his way out only to be faced with the beautiful, flushed face of his bride.
“What took you so long?” she asked innocently.
“Have you gone through there before?” he demanded suspiciously.
She began to laugh at his discomfiture. “No,” she replied, “but we have such things in France too, and I have a very good sense of direction – better than many men.”
“Do you? Then perhaps you would guide me up to your room and show me to your bed? I think I require a rest.”
“I think I should know you better before I invite you into my boudoir,” she teased.
He sighed deeply in exasperation. “How could we know each other any better?”
“There is so much that we do not know about each other.”
He reached out to catch her in his arms, but she giggled and eluded him, hurrying away from him and back toward the house.
“Talk to me,” she said to him over her shoulder as he followed after her. “Tell me about your farm. It is so pretty; you must be proud of it.”
He caught up to her, slipping his arm around her waist, thinking how very pretty she was with her cheeks rosy from exertion. “There really isn’t much to say,” he said with a shrug of his broad shoulders. “I’ve been practicing mixed farming methods for years now, raising a variety of crops and animals. I’m convinced that would work well in the Highlands of Scotland as well as here. What’s wrong there is that nothing’s changed for the last thousand years. There’s an agricultural and industrial revolution going on in England that those proud, backward people know nothing about.”
“How can we help them?” she asked in a concerned voice.
“I would go and show them what can be done, but that assumes they would listen to an Englishman.”
“Andrew would listen,” she said with conviction.
He suddenly felt a surge of anger at her simple assertion of faith in the other man.
“Not after he learns that we are wed.”
Madeline lowered her eyes and looked terribly sad. He knew that his words had hurt her and, worse still, that it had been deliberate on his part. He brought her close to him, breathing in her heady scent.
“Perhaps I can help them. We shall see.”
She smiled again, her innocent gaze caressing his own eyes. He outlined her prominent cheekbones with his index finger. God, how he hungered for her.
“You surprised me with your rare talent. But then you are always surprising me I find. Come upstairs with me, my little blackbird, and we shall take a rest together. You haven’t seen the master chamber yet.”
“I’m not certain that I should,” she replied carefully.
He lifted her into his arms and ignored her protests and her pummeling of his chest.
“Overbearing brute,” she cried.
“Nonsense, I’m just seeing to your welfare, love. You should be off your feet for a while.”
He held her to him, nuzzling her neck, stroking her back in a soothing manner. She quickly quieted and leaned into him, placing her hands around his neck. When he got to the master chamber, he opened the door eagerly and then kicked it shut behind them with great effi
ciency. All he could think about was how badly he wanted her. The very act of removing her clothing and then his own seemed to take an agonizing amount of time. He was unbearably hard with need for her as he ripped open the buttons of his breeches.
“Give yourself to me, my sweet blackbird.”
Madeline did not speak. Instead, she closed her eyes and allowed him to run his hands over her naked body. And she gave him what was impossible for her to deny. He made love to her with the utmost gentleness and care until long shadows formed, and it was dark even after he pulled back the velvet hangings which surrounded the huge four poster bed. They lay together and Madeline slept in his arms for close to half an hour.
When she woke, he caressed her long, dark hair and kissed her warm cheeks.
“Are you happier now?” he asked.
“You smug, strutting cock! You know very well you pleasure a woman greatly in bed.”
“But do I please you, love?”
“There is more to a true meeting between a man and a woman than what happens beneath the sheets.”
He lifted himself from the bed angrily. “For God’s sake, what would you have from me? Would you leech all the blood from my veins? There is no satisfying you! I do not understand you, girl.”
And then it happened, she began to cry, just as she had the last time. He could not bear it a moment longer.
“You still consider me a rutting swine? I think you a dissembler. You tremble when I touch you. Your woman’s flesh weeps in welcome to me. I shall not return to you until you ask me, until you are honest. Until then, enjoy your cold, empty bed.”
Hurriedly, he tossed on his clothing and left the room, slamming the door behind him. She was quite impossible. Never before had a female behaved in this manner with him. It was not to be endured.
He did not have dinner with the family that evening; his mood was too grim. He thought that if he saw Madeline he might well throttle her. He wished to speak with no one.
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