Veil of Honor

by Cooper-Posey, Tracy

  He was wearing an evening suit, the cravat perfectly tied, as always. His shoulders always strained any jacket he wore, which secretly pleased Bridget. She went up to him and touched the cravat. “I must get you a bow tie. They are the most fashionable thing in London, now, I’m told.”

  “Really?” He smoothed the cravat down. “Well, we must follow fashion, I suppose.” His gaze moved over her dress, more than once. “I don’t think you are in any danger of falling behind, however. Is that local tweed?”

  “It is.” She turned, letting him see the full dress.

  “I don’t think I realize quite how…versatile it could be,” Will said.

  “It isn’t only for hunting jackets,” she replied.

  “Clearly. It looks good on you.” His gaze shifted away from her. “Shall we go in?”

  Bridget took his elbow and let him walk her through to the dining room, her chest tight. Will was still remote and hard to reach. The dress was not melting his shield the way she had hoped it would.

  He held her chair for her as she sat down and when she turned her head up to thank him, she saw his gaze was on her shoulders. No, on her décolletage. From that angle, his view would be unobstructed. Her breasts were larger than they had been, now she was feeding Elizabeth.

  Will silently moved to his chair at the head of the table and sat. He picked up his brandy glass and swallowed the contents in two big gulps.

  The meal was almost silent. With Morgan absent, Will’s usual quietness was more than noticeable. Bridget didn’t want to talk about business. It would set the wrong tone. Only, what could she talk about? What would make Will respond?

  The main course, lamb pie, was served as Bridget cast desperately about for a way to draw Will out. It vexed her that he had already refilled his brandy glass three times, too.

  Finally, in despair, she cut into her pie and said, “I think I may have to buy more looms for the factory.”

  “Do they cost much?” Will asked, his brow lifting. “Can you fit them in with the looms you are renting from the weavers?”

  “A normal domestic loom is expensive. I was thinking, though, we should invest in two of the big looms they use in the mills in Yorkshire and Durham.”

  “I can walk to the shed tomorrow and look at the placement of the looms again. There might be a better way to arrange them so more can be added.” Will frowned. “More room will be a constant problem,” he added softly. “It will limit your production.”

  “When I have a production level at all, we can worry about increasing it,” Bridget replied.

  Will gave a small shrug and picked up his glass again.

  Silence descended once more.

  Her heart sank. This evening was not going at all the way she wanted it to. She could not wrest Will’s attention even with talk of business.

  The rest of the meal was the same. She attempted several times, with a range of subjects, to engage Will and make him talk to her. Each time, he would rouse and answer, then lapse back into silence.

  At last the meal was at an end. No excuses were left to remain in the dining room. Will normally settled in the library after supper, while she sometimes returned to her office, or moved to the drawing room to read.

  Bridget could think of nothing to prevent that from happening again tonight. She moved with reluctant, heavy steps into the drawing room, where Bakersfield was laying a teacup for her. The candle stand she usually read by was already lit. Apparently, their separate evenings were so established even the staff could anticipate them.

  Bridget stopped short of the comfortable armchair by the fire, her heart working far too hard and her breath hurried.

  “My Lady?” Bakersfield asked, the teapot hovering over the cup.

  “Not right now, thank you, Bakersfield,” she said, the polite phrase emerging without thought. Then, barely considering her actions, she turned on her heel and walked back out to the front hall and through the wide corridor to the small library and walked in.

  She shut the door behind her.

  Will stood at the window, both hands pressed against the frame, his shoulders tense. When he saw her, he dropped his arms. His eyes narrowed suspiciously.

  Bridget turned the key in the lock. The sound of the lock falling into place was loud. Her heart jumped at the sound.

  Will drew in a deep breath and she could hear that, too.

  She walked across the library to the window, moving directly, keeping her gaze on Will’s face. Her train whispered across the floor. When she reached him, she made herself keep moving. To hesitate now would destroy what little courage she had.

  Bridget reached up on her toes and kissed him.

  His mouth was unmoving, although his lips were as soft as she remembered and she sighed into them and pressed herself against him. The flat front of the dress made that sensation a delightful one. There were no hoops to get in the way.

  Will stirred. He pulled his mouth from hers and pushed at her shoulders, separating them. “What are you doing?” His breath was unsteady.

  “Kissing you.”

  “Why?”

  “Because…well, that is why you moved back to Kirkaldy, isn’t it?”

  His gaze roved over her face. “That damned agreement…” he muttered.

  “Then…you don’t want to?” she asked, her heart thudding. She had not considered this possibility. Perhaps her baby-altered figure was now repulsive to him.

  “You do?” he shot back. He sounded more surprised than she.

  She stepped back, putting distance between them so she could look at him without craning her neck. “Why would I not want to?” she asked. Her cheeks grew warm. “I have always wanted to. Has something changed that would make me lose…interest? Do you think Elizabeth has changed me that much?” It was close to speaking aloud her worry that he no longer desired her widened hip and larger waist.

  Will’s scowl descended. “Elizabeth?” he repeated blankly.

  Bridget considered him. “Not Elizabeth, then…” she said slowly. “Not me,” she added, sorting it out. “You, then,” she finished. “What has happened, Will, to make you think I would not want you?” She made herself speak the direct words without stammer or hesitation, despite her embarrassment, sensing that only this type of direct talk would get to the truth.

  He didn’t just shift his gaze from her face, or drop it to his toes. He actually turned his head away, his eyes closing. “You know about…me.” The agony in his voice was acute.

  Bridget breathed out her dismay and her understanding in one shaky breath. Of course Will would feel inadequate once his secret inability to read numbers was known to her. “Oh, Will,” she whispered. “Knowing that about you doesn’t diminish you in my eyes. On the contrary. You have made a successful life despite the problem. You are an admirable man that the family and the world adore. Why would I feel any different?”

  “I nearly brought the family to ruin,” he muttered.

  “But you did not, in the end. You have turned things around, Will.”

  “I had nothing to do with it,” he said, his voice low. His gaze came back to her. “It was all you.”

  “You have done more than your share,” she replied, her heart thudding hard with more than anticipation. “It is you who thought of the hay shed, who has worked to prepare it. I’ve seen you laying plaster with your own hands. You have dealt with all the local tradesmen and suppliers when I cannot. They have melted and jumped to cooperate, because of you. This business will succeed because of you, not despite you, Will.”

  He bent and kissed her. It was a tentative touch, as if he was testing her, to see if she would accept him.

  Bridget wound her arms around his neck and pressed her mouth to his. She let her body show how eagerly she wanted him.

  Will groaned and pulled her against him. His hands ran over her body and stroked the length of her thighs through the satin. “No hoops,” he muttered against her mouth. “God help me, this new fashion will drive me out of
my mind.”

  He gripped her hand and strode across the library, unlocked the door and threw it open.

  Bridget hurried to keep up with him as he led her directly to the stairs and climbed. Her heart soared.

  He pulled her into her bedroom and locked the door and drew her back into his arms. His lips roamed over her face and neck and shoulders, every inch of bare flesh, making her shudder and her heart to work even harder.

  “How do I get this off?” Will breathed against her jaw, his hands fumbling with the back of her dress.

  “There are hooks at the back, the same as always,” Bridget murmured.

  “Then, as always…” His hand shifted to the top of the back of her dress and his fingers twisted the edges, making the hooks pop free. Then he tugged the fastenings of the skirt undone, while Bridget untied the bustle at the front of her waist, as eager to remove the beautiful gown as he was.

  Will stripped her with practiced hands, then carried her to the bed and placed her on it. He didn’t take his eyes off her while he removed his own clothes.

  Bridget trembled as she watched his naked body emerge. It had been so long! Yet nothing had changed about Will. Everything that had been her personal delight about him was still there. His gleaming, rounded shoulders and strong arms. His tight hips and powerful thighs…and his cock, which jutted as firmly as ever, the tip almost purple with the heat of his lust.

  She thought he would take her in his arms once more, so she could feel the glory of his flesh against hers. Instead, he pushed against her shoulder, pressing her into the bed and separated her thighs with his knee. The heat in his gaze was stronger than she had ever seen it.

  “I can’t wait,” he muttered and pushed into her.

  Bridget smothered her cry at the taking. It was a heavenly feeling, to be possessed like that. It addressed the aching emptiness.

  Will gripped the top rail of the bed frame, his arm flexing, as he drove into her over and over, his jaw rippling.

  Before Bridget could even begin to respond, he stiffened and groaned, his climax shuddering through him.

  Disappointment touched her, although she fought to hide it.

  Will relaxed over her, his body sagging. Then he bent his head and kissed her. “Now that is out of the way…” He rolled onto his side, bringing her with him so she rested against his chest. “Now I can be of undistracted service to you.” He kissed her again, his hands roaming over her back and hips and thighs, even the cleft of her behind. Her body rippled, stirring.

  Sometime later, she cried out at her own good, strong climax, her hands desperately scrabbling at the bedcover, her body writhing against Will’s hands and mouth. It was only the first time that night he brought her to the shuddering pinnacle.

  The moon was low enough in the sky to beam directly into the bedroom window, bathing them both with ghostly light, when Will at last relented and drew her up against him as he used to do.

  Still his hands roamed, stroking and smoothing and exploring. His lips brushed against her neck as he said softly: “I must say I do like this new shape of yours. Especially…” His hand cupped her milk-swollen breast.

  “They will not always be like that,” Bridget warned him, even though his little compliment wiped away the fear that had remained in her since he had removed her dress. “Only while I am nursing the baby, will they be so…”

  “Beautiful,” he finished, as she hesitated. “I confess I’m confused, though. Is it not the practice to hire a wet-nurse for that? I don’t believe I’ve ever heard of a lady tending to her own baby.”

  “I rather doubt that is a subject that comes up frequently at the club,” Bridget said dryly. “It’s not the usual practice, Will. I wanted to, though.”

  “So you did it, anyway.” His tone was warm.

  Silence grew. The hated silence. Bridget’s heart sank.

  Will stirred and cleared his throat. “I have something to say,” he said, his tone strained. “Only, it is not exactly the romantic sweet nothings a woman has a right to hear after…afterward.”

  Her heart picked up speed again. “Perhaps you had better say it, now that you’ve revealed your hand,” Bridget said. “I will worry, if you do not.”

  He blew out his breath. “It is stupid, Bree. I should be thinking of anything else, only I just got the idea…I don’t know where it came from, honestly, but I was thinking…we should build a road from the house to the hay shed, so no one crosses Divvy’s land to get to it.”

  Bridget turned in his arms. “Yes! I was thinking the same thing, although we ought to build a carriageway from the main road, not the house, so that supply carts and the charabanc can reach it directly. A good, solid road, with a proper bridge over the ditch, so it doesn’t become impassable in winter.”

  “We’ll build both,” Will said and kissed her. “You taste like brandy,” he added.

  “As only you could know,” she whispered.

  His mouth drew down her throat to her shoulder. “The loft could be used for storing the bolts before sending them out.”

  “And for inspecting them and stamping them. Ah..!” She caught her breath as his lips closed around her nipple.

  The tiredness dragging at her limbs fled.

  Chapter Thirteen

  After that night, Bridget forgot how much she feared the silence between them, for it seldom rose…and usually only when Will was thinking hard.

  Will was good at thinking, she discovered. He would arrive at unexpected solutions to problems she or Morgan were facing, often when he was on his walks about the estate.

  Will’s walks grew infrequent though. Once the women Bridget hired started working in the shed, under the supervision of Judy Barr and Adele Adair, Will spent more and more time wandering the big shed, observing and absorbing. He shifted the positions of the looms for more efficient access to every side of them, as well as moving them about to fit in more looms, for the demand for Kirkaldy Tweed zoomed higher than anyone, even Bridget, had anticipated.

  Madame Therion alone would have brought their entire first quarter production, if Will had not traveled to York to purchase the two commercial looms Bridget had been wishing for. The demand did not stop with Madame Therion, though.

  The way the mills in Lancashire and Manchester tended to sell their cloth was to send swatches and samples to merchants and tailors in London and wait for them to order directly.

  Bridget, instead, had shawls and bonnets and other small garments that did not require a perfect fit made up in their best tweed. She sent the items as gifts to every woman she knew, especially those who were the most fashionable, including Sharla and Bronwen in Denmark. Along with the gifts, she enclosed samples of other colors and patterns and suggestions for ways the tweed could be used for larger garments, including jackets and coats, skirts and dresses, walking suits and all manner of gentlemen’s outfits, especially hunting clothes and outdoor wear.

  The orders for entire bolts and multiple yardages flooded in, often by return mail.

  “You cannot establish a solid business based upon individual orders like this,” Morgan pointed out over dinner. “They seem like large orders, although in the grand scheme of things, fifteen yards of cashmere tweed is nothing. You must cultivate the large clothing manufacturers and the tailors and garment stores.”

  “Patience, Morgan,” Will said. “Bridget has a plan.”

  Morgan shook his head. “It is as well your other concerns are coming into the black once more, Will. You may yet need them.”

  “Pessimist,” Will said, with a smile.

  Barely three weeks later, Bridget received a letter from Mr. Henry Poole of Poole and Company on Saville Row, complaining in polite terms that he had been harangued by his customers into obtaining “some of this newfangled Kirkaldy Tweed” for their suits.

  Bridget showed Morgan the letter. “Mr. Poole will not be the only one,” she added.

  Will crossed his arms and raised his brows, looking at Morgan.

&nbs
p; Morgan seemed to be trying to repress a smile. “Very well, I admit I was wrong,” he said. “I forgot for a moment that I was dealing with a woman and a woman’s perspective. You were right to connect directly with the end consumer, Bridget. You’ve created the demand you need.”

  Christmas, then the beginning of 1870, came and went. The opening of Parliament and the first session of the year brought a letter from Vaughn, suggesting Will represent Vaughn in the House of Lords this year, for Vaughn had no desire to attend the Season.

  When Bridget finished reading the letter to Will, he shook his head. “No,” he said flatly. “Maybe in future years but this summer is critical. I won’t gad about London with the fops and leave you to stabilize the production schedules all by yourself.”

  Bridget moved around the desk and kissed him. “Thank you.”

  He pulled her into his lap and kissed her properly, his hands roaming where they should not in the middle of the afternoon and in full view of an open door.

  “Will, the door…” she said breathlessly.

  He put her back on her feet. “Tonight, then,” he growled, making her shiver and her body tighten. “Now, about the dyes…”

  Finding new dyes, in different colors, was a constant problem. So was the issue of space. It was clear that the hay shed would soon be too small to accommodate the burgeoning number of workers and looms and the always-busy sewing room.

  “I need a room for myself, anyway,” Will said. “Something with walls and a door that can shut out the sound of the looms clacking, so I can speak and hear what is spoken to me.”

  Will and Morgan quartered Inverness, looking for any building at all that might suit their needs, or could be converted to suit, while Bridget managed the production. By the end of summer of that year, she pointed out a troubling trend to Morgan and Will over dinner.

  “Our sales have dropped,” she said. “I only noticed when I compared actual yardages against last month and the month before, because we seem to be dealing with such fantastic numbers.”

  “It is summer. The need for tweed would droop over summer,” Morgan said.