She was glad of the diversion as the thought of Marcus having spent any time with the magistrate terrified her. He sent the man off unsatisfied, but she still didn’t know what secrets their apparently heated conversation revealed. Emily’s gusty sigh interrupted Adelaide’s thoughts.
“You are Selridge. It is your duty to deal with Sir Delbert, just as it is your duty to deal with any of the hundred other little things you have avoided since Julius…” Her voice caught, but when she looked up her eyes were clear, her face resolute. Adelaide was overcome with a wave of admiration for this dainty titan. “Since you came into the title.”
Marcus put down the half-eaten tart and squared his shoulders. His hands rested flat on his thighs. Adelaide watched as they twitched and fought the urge to clench.
“I haven’t avoided anything, madam. I am Selridge and I have dealt with things as I have seen fit. My complaint is not that I had to deal with Finch, but that I had no choice in the matter. This is my house and I will decide if I am at home or not. Do we understand each other?”
Adelaide was horrified. How could he speak to his mother in such a fashion? A look at Emily gave her pause. The dear woman was smiling at him. If Marcus ever spoke to her in such a manner she would burst into tears. Or more likely, clout him one with the nearest heavy object. A momentary glimpse of something moved across his face. She thought even he had been a bit taken aback by the way he had spoken. Still, Emily smiled.
“There,” she said. Her voice was firm, with a lilt of amusement to it. “I knew you could do it. This is splendid. Both of you are. Just splendid.”
Marcus looked at his mother. He turned to look at Adelaide, who shook her head. She had no idea what Emily meant.
“What exactly does that mean, Mother?” Marcus asked.
Adelaide couldn’t stand it. She retrieved a linen napkin from the tea tray and proceeded to wipe the jam from his face. He started to say something until she held the red stained linen up for him to see. He scowled.
“It means that I am officially retired, my dears. I have been the Duchess of Selridge for nigh on forty years now and I have had quite enough.” She folded her hands in her lap and looked at them with an air of triumph.
“It is impossible for you to have been duchess for forty years, Emily.”
“Adelaide, my dear, I always knew you were the most intelligent member of your family.” She laughed softly. “I was seventeen when I married Marcus’s father. Eighteen when Julius was born. I will be fifty-six in December. So, it is most definitely possible.”
“Mother, this really wasn’t necessary. I know my duty and Adelaide will learn hers. You make it sound as if you are going to toddle off to some refuge for old duchesses, never to be seen again.”
Adelaide wanted to punch him. She would “learn” hers. Hadn’t he heard a word his mother had said?
“Not at all, Marcus. I am simply going to leave all of the decision making to the two of you. I am going to do only the things I want to do from now on and sometimes I am going to do nothing at all.” She beamed at them from her cashmere strewn throne. “I fully intend to enjoy my retirement. The only thing that would make it perfect is for your father to be here to share it.”
“Mother—”
“Emily—”
“Run along now.” She shooed them with her hands. “I am quite overcome.” A lace trimmed handkerchief appeared as if from thin air. She daubed at her eyes dramatically. “This talk of your dear father. Go on now. I leave you to it.”
Marcus sighed heavily, grabbed Adelaide’s elbow and hauled her to her feet. With another wave of her hands, the dowager dismissed them. They were barely out of earshot when Marcus leaned in and whispered in her ear.
“Trust Mama to use my dead father to get her way.”
“I would say the tactic runs in the family,” Adelaide replied saucily as she went through the door he held for her. “Rather like using one’s dead brother to get a woman to accept one’s proposal.”
“It worked, didn’t it?” His grin was unrepentant in the extreme.
“My affection for Julius is not why I married you, Marcus.”
He tugged her arm to pull her into a tight embrace. She stared up at him and tilted her head. His eyes were bright; the gold flecks sparkled in their sea of green. He brushed his lips softly over hers and then brushed again, more urgently.
“Why did you marry me, Addy?”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Why did you marry me, Addy?
A dozen answers came to mind. Unfortunately, the fact he had to ask rendered several of them impossible to use. Even as his eyes burned with the tantalizing glow of passion, she knew he was not yet ready to hear the truest answer to his question. Her every venture into the arena of emotional expression was met with disbelief, a diversion or silence.
It would be the perfect moment. He held her in his arms. His lips hovered over hers, a sweet delicacy she already craved as bees no doubt craved nectar. She had simply to close her eyes and say the words. Yet something in his expression stayed her. There was a challenge there and more. She never backed down from a challenge. It was the more, which slipped around her heart like an icy hand. Too soon.
“Come now, Addy,” he teased. His hand crept up to caress her neck. “Tell me. Am I the only man ever to propose to you? Did you accept me to escape spinsterhood?”
“I will have you know I have been proposed to by dozens of men.” She tried to affect her most haughty expression and tone. She was relieved he didn’t press for an answer when the only one she had was one he would not want to hear. “I have been breaking their hearts for years.”
His eyes narrowed. He seemed oblivious to the fact they were standing in the hall in each other’s arms. “Oh really? Name one.”
“Name one? You don’t believe me?” Her indignation was only a little feigned.
“Of course, I believe you. Name one.” He threw down the gauntlet. She would not cry craven now.
“Dylan Crosby has proposed to me on three different occasions, I’ll have you know. He is heir to an earldom, if you will remember. At least until his brother marries.”
Marcus’s entire demeanor changed. The warmth faded from his eyes. Their green was hardened to almost black. The hand which caressed her neck stilled. His body was stiff and unyielding around her. “And what did you say to Crosby’s proposals?”
Addy stood perfectly still. Inside she shivered, but not in fear. She would never be afraid of Marcus. The dread which crept over her was the knowledge winning Marcus’s heart might be more difficult than she thought. She ran her thumb across his bottom lip. “Actually, I don’t believe I said anything at all.” Her thumb continued its gentle caress as she felt his body relax just a bit. “I pushed him into a mud puddle and climbed a tree to get away from him.”
His expression was priceless. She struggled in vain before she collapsed on his chest in a fit of laughter. “Oh, Marcus,” she said when she recovered enough to speak. “If you could see your face. I was eight, Marcus. Dylan was twelve and I was highly insulted. He told me I was just a girl and I would have to marry some day so I might as well marry him. He promised not to beat me unless I needed it and said I could have treacle tarts on Sunday provided I did not spend all my pin money on bonnets.”
For a moment, she feared he would not see the humor in it. A slow smile spread over his face. “Well played, duchess.” he said.
She laughed softly until his sudden sharp smack to her bottom made her struggle in his arms. “If you think I am going to stand here and let you strike me for no reason, Your Grace—”
He cut her struggles and protests off with a ravenous kiss. She felt as if he might devour her where she stood and found it impossible to do anything but respond in kind. A flicker of triumph burned in her at his rough groan. It wasn’t until his hands covered her still smarting bottom she began to realize where they were and what had just happened. Once again, he had covered all talk of how he felt with passion. His
reaction to Dylan’s name was palpable. Her confession of their ages at the time of her friend’s proposal cut off what might have been a real chance at Marcus telling her how he felt.
The trail of growls and hot kisses he blazed down her neck made further contemplation of the subject impossible. Adelaide tilted her head back to allow him better access. As a result, she had a perfect view of the two upstairs maids and the footman who stood in shocked disbelief at the top of the stairs.
“Marcus.” She tapped his shoulder. “Marcus, we are in the hall. Your Grace.”
“What?”
“We are in the hall.”
“Woman, I know where we are.” He raised his head and glared at her. “Why do you feel it necessary to constantly remind me of our location?” She nodded in the direction of the staircase. Immediately the maids curtsied and the footman bowed before they scurried back into the upper floor of the house. “You might have warned me, Addy.”
“My mouth was in use, Selridge.” She took a step away from him. His arms loosened, but did not release her completely. “And don’t think I have forgotten that smack on my …” He raised his eyebrows. “person.”
“Perhaps you should have accepted Crosby’s proposal when you had the chance. Unlike him, I never promised not to beat you.”
“Ooooh, you… you, man, you.” Adelaide’s pique was not genuine. It was, for the most part, for his benefit. He smiled so little she could not resist the opportunity to give him leave to laugh at himself. Even if he was unaware he was doing so. “I should have made you propose seven times.”
“And then shoved me into a mud puddle?”
“Absolutely.” She gently pushed his arms away and turned on her heel. He caught her hand with his. The power in his grip spoke of some need he would not voice. She faced him and squeezed his fingers. If he noticed, he gave no indication of it.
“What did Crosby’s letter say?” She wondered if this was the voice he had used to command his troops. Neither loud nor overtly forceful, it was the kind of tone that did not brook refusal. It was too bad Adelaide was not a soldier.
“Exactly what your mother suspected. He expressed his congratulations and best wishes for our happy and successful marriage. Nothing more.”
“Nothing more?” His disbelief was quite apparent. “From the man who threatened to cut out my heart at our wedding breakfast?”
“It is my understanding my brothers expressed similar sentiments. You seem to evoke similar reactions from all of the men in my life.” She favored him with another of her sweet smiles. The ones she used when she hoped to get ‘round her father.
“The men in your life.” Marcus’s eyes narrowed again. “Yes. I see. So that is all Crosby had to say?”
“Yes, Marcus. What else would he say?” She could not fathom where these questions were leading.
“I’m sure I don’t know.” He raised her hand to his lips, turned it over and kissed her palm before he nipped the tip of her finger. The entire time his expression remained as cool and detached as a judge. “I’ll see you at dinner?”
“Of course.” His moods were as mercurial as the weather. She closed her hand around his kiss and started toward the stairs. She was halfway up before he called to her.
“Oh, Addy?” She stopped and looked down at him. His boyish grin had returned. It disarmed her at once. “Why did you marry me?”
“For your seven sets of china, of course,” she replied.
Marcus watched her disappear down the hall. The more he heard about Addy and Dylan Crosby the less he liked it. There was far more to this than she was telling him. He fully intended to get to the bottom of it. He needed to do so quickly. There was still the matter of the blackmail letters and the threats against his brother’s good name. A few long strides and he arrived back in the conservatory. A few more and he stood in his mother’s somewhat startled presence. He slowly bent to retrieve the book she dropped and handed it to her.
“Where was Crosby expected to go from here?” He asked the question with no hint of preamble.
“Crosby? Why on earth does it matter? Marcus, what is wrong with you?”
“It doesn’t matter. I want to know. And nothing is the matter. Where was he going?”
“London, I believe.” She paused to study his face as only a mother could. He’d spent the last six months in pursuit of the emotional control and the schooled expressions of a man with no discernable temper. He felt he’d succeeded when she continued. “The Season will be starting soon. Perhaps he is going in search of a wife. He is Wessex’s heir, after all. Wessex certainly won’t find a bride hiding out in Sussex the way he does.”
“He won’t fall into a hole with one there either. His hiding is beginning to make a great deal of sense to me. London, you say?”
“Yes. Selridge, dear, do these questions have a point?” His only answer was to lean down to kiss her cheek and head back through the foliage whence he came.
“Do we really have seven sets of china?” he asked without turning around.
“Yes, dear.”
“Good God.”
Seated in the elegant, but intimate family dining room, Adelaide wished she had married a stupid man. Heaven knows she was courted by a number of them during her first Season on the Marriage Mart. Actually, it had been her only Season. Nevertheless, she’d had a wide variety of less than clever gentlemen from which to choose. Had she married one of them her life would be much easier right now.
Marcus knew something. She did not know what exactly, but his choice of conversation topics at dinner left it in no doubt. Whatever Sir Delbert Finch said before Marcus had him all but tossed from the house had set the wheels in motion in her husband’s head. If Adelaide was not careful those wheels would roll right over her.
Emily cleared her throat and Adelaide looked up from her soup to discover every eye in the room on her. Dash it all, what did they want? Fosters, bless him, raised an eyebrow and tilted his head toward the kitchen. Of course, it was time for the remove. The butler could not allow the footmen to deliver the next dish until she gave him leave to do so. She nodded and settled her hands in her lap to allow the footman access to her bowl.
Whilst her mother-in-law smiled at her little faux-pas, Marcus’s raised eyebrow and cool, green-eyed gaze pinned her like a butterfly on a specimen board. She’d always felt sorry for those lovely creatures in the British Museum. Now she was one.
“Is there something wrong, my dear?” She hated that superior, unhurried tone of his.
“Not at all, Selridge.” The use of his ducal name was deliberate. The thin line of his lips indicated he knew it. “What could be wrong?”
“I am sure I don’t know.” The arrival of the eel casserole silenced him for a moment. Once it was served, he picked up his earlier conversation topic. “As I said, Finch seems to think some of our younger wedding guests may have stolen his dogs as a lark and his son showed up and it went terribly wrong.”
“Oh really, Selridge, does he realize how ridiculous that sounds?” Emily asked. Adelaide sent up a brief prayer of thanks for her unwitting ally. “Who on earth would come to a wedding to steal dogs? The man is an idiot.”
“He may be an idiot, Mother, but he is also the local magistrate. Apparently, the dogs were quite valuable. Thievery is a serious crime. Even if it is done as a lark. And if young Dickie doesn’t turn up soon matters will take a serious turn. When exactly did Crosby arrive for our wedding, my dear?”
It was a deliberate tactic—the sudden insertion of this pointed question. It worked quite well. Adelaide’s fork stopped in midair. This was not the confused prick of a guilty conscience. There was a point to this question, which made her answer all the more important. It was a shame his ambush wiped all intelligent thought from her mind. Her solution was unique, if not inspired. She stuffed the contents of her fork into her mouth and managed a smile whilst her jaw worked to chew it.
“You know very well he arrived with your friends Creighton and Tilden
bury,” Emily said. Immediately Adelaide elevated the woman from the rank of ally to saint. “Creighton brought him up especially as he knows what a very great friend of Adelaide’s family he is. Isn’t that right, dear?” Adelaide nodded and quickly took another bite of food.
“As he is such a close friend, I thought perhaps he had visited Adelaide before the wedding. Perhaps earlier in her visit here in Yorkshire?” Adelaide’s fork clattered onto the Wedgewood plate. The room had grown so quiet a bell-like echo was the result.
“Why would you think that, Marcus?” Decorum flew out the window as her conscience battled with her temper. “Exactly what is it you insinuate?”
His expression would have done any of her brothers proud. If an air of complete innocence was their intention, that is. “Nothing at all. I merely thought he might have ventured here for the grouse and stopped by to call on you and your parents before he returned to Sussex and met up with my friends. It was not my intention to upset you, my dear.”
“I am not upset. I simply wonder why you are so interested in Dylan’s whereabouts.” She punctuated her statement with another stab at the hapless dish on her plate. Her nerves were stretched so taut she could not possibly identify what she had just forked into her mouth. She attributed its rubbery taste to the combination of fear and guilt that threatened to overwhelm her at any moment.
“What exactly did Sir Delbert say, Marcus? I will confess I, too, am curious what Crosby’s whereabouts have to do with anything.” The dowager duchess was no fool. She knew there was far more going on between husband and wife than polite dinner conversation. Wonderful. Now Adelaide had to worry about her mother-in-law’s suspicions in addition to those of her husband.
“Actually, his theory is not without merit.” Marcus seemed insistent on staring at Adelaide even as he answered his mother’s question. “He seems to think some of the younger wedding guests were responsible for the theft of his dogs. And as most of the younger guests are friends of Addy’s he wanted to question her about their activities.”
Lost In Love (Road To Forever Series #1) Page 25