“I’m not remotely offended,” Lady Wickenden assured him. “I lived all my life here until my marriage, so it seems perfectly normal to me. I suspect you find it dull.”
“Not so far,” Daxton said, rubbing his forehead.
“Then you should come to the Assembly Room ball tomorrow night,” Lady Wickenden told him. “We shall be there—along with all the local gentry and the cream of the town’s visitors.”
Willa turned eagerly to Daxton, who was looking appalled. A provincial assembly ball would be unutterably dull for him. He met her gaze and blinked.
“Perhaps we will,” he said unexpectedly. “If you’d like to go, Willa?” His eyes gleamed. “The Shelbys might be there.”
“You’re a married man now,” Wickenden said with mock severity. “You can’t go picking fights with people in public and causing your wife embarrassment.”
“Lady Shelby is my aunt,” Willa said hastily. “I lived with her until…my marriage.”
“Well, the Assembly ball is a very popular event in Blackhaven,” Lady Wickenden said. “We have two a month now, and even waltz there.”
“That’s a point.” Daxton swung on Willa. “Can you waltz?”
“Sort of,” she said dubiously.
“Don’t worry, we’ll practice,” Daxton said, drawing her hand through his arm once more. “Do you want to go to this gallery and see Tamar’s daubs?”
“Oh yes, and then if we’ve time, perhaps we could see the harbor and walk on the beach? It might help clear your head.”
“Can’t do it any harm,” Daxton agreed, with a casual wave of one hand by way of farewell to his friends who gazed after them in some bemusement.
*
“I’ve never heard a wife be quite so understanding about her husband’s thick head,” Gillie, Lady Wickenden remarked in amusement, as she watched the Daxtons saunter down the road together. “Though I expect it will wear thin. I rather like her. She isn’t at all the sort of woman I imagined would elope with Daxton.”
“She’s a poor relation of the Shelbys,” Wickenden said. “And she must have been desperate, judging by the way Shelby treated her. And the suddenness of her departure with Daxton.”
“I expect Dax was sorry for her,” Gillie said.
Wickenden drew her onward in the direction of her old home. “That’s what I like about you, Gillie. No one else would imagine Dax sorry for anyone. And I doubt it was pity.”
“What, then?” Gillie asked with a teasing glance. “True love? More like true lust, knowing Daxton, and she is very pretty.”
“And what exactly do you know about Daxton’s lusts, Lady Wickenden?” her husband mocked.
Gillie wrinkled her nose. “Only what the rest of the world sees. Opera dancers and Helena Holt. And poor Serena, though I’m inclined to believe him merely careless in that scandal.” She frowned. “No one will cut the new Lady Daxton, will they?”
“I should think his rank protects her from that.”
“Still, I don’t envy her dealing with all Daxton’s baggage! Especially not his women. Plus, did it seem to you, she likes him?”
“It seemed to me he likes her,” Wickenden replied. “And, trust me, that is much more interesting. Now, it’s time I took you home to rest.”
“Rest?” Gillie said a trifle breathlessly.
“Rest,” he said firmly. “Although I have in mind a most enjoyable way to relax you…”
*
For Willa, the afternoon was delightful.
At the gallery, Daxton seemed surprised by how good his old friend’s paintings were.
“Maybe we should let him paint us,” he suggested, moving on to the next batch of pictures. “We can send it to my father as a gift. What the devil is this meant to be?”
“Hush, it’s quite clearly a horse,” Willa whispered.
“Well, I’ve never seen one with a head that size,”
Having agreed that the paintings were of mixed quality, they bought one of Lord Tamar’s wilder seascapes and arranged for it to be sent to Daxton House. Then they strolled round to the old harbor, admiring the colorful fishing boats tied up there. Finding their way down to the beach, they walked in the sand. Unselfconsciously, Daxton kicked off his shoes and stockings and walked barefoot, and as soon as they were free of the town from where anyone could see, Willa did the same.
The first shoe was easily removed, especially as Daxton held her arm to balance her. Only then, her fingers faltered on the hem of her new gown. Blushing, she glanced up at Daxton. “Avert your eyes, if you please.”
“I don’t please.” He lifted his gaze with peculiar slowness from her foot to her face. Then he turned his head to the side. Hastily, she reached under her gown, unfastened the garter, and pulled off her stocking before switching to the other foot.
Before Willa could, Daxton swept up her shoes with the stockings and garters stuffed inside. He examined the shoes with disfavor. “You need new everything, don’t you? Including dancing slippers.”
“Oh dear, I didn’t think of that. I seem to be rather more of an expense than you bargained for.”
He blinked. “You’re not a damned expense. Look, those rocks over there, under the castle. Isn’t that the scene in Tamar’s painting?”
“Oh, I believe it is! Where did you want to hang it?”
“You can choose, when we’re at Daxton. You might want to change everything around anyway. I haven’t done much with the place, though it’s in a decent enough state of repair.”
“I thought you regarded it as your home,” she said in surprise. “You seem so eager to go there.”
He shrugged. “My father handed it over to me a couple of years ago. As it stands, the revenue isn’t enough to do more than keep the place ticking over. It swallows most of my allowance, too, in basic repairs for my tenants.”
She frowned. “Then how do you afford to live as you do?”
“Credit, my dear,” he said wryly. “Everyone knows my father will cough up in the end. And even if he doesn’t, I’ll inherit the earldom one day. If I live long enough. But the point is, Daxton could be so much more than it is. Now that I can get my hands on my inheritance, I can make the improvements the land needs. My tenants will be far better off in just a few years, and so will I. More than that, my father will have to take note and be persuaded to do the same on all the estates.”
This was a side to Daxton she’d never seen before. “What kind of improvements?” she asked unwarily, and was immediately deluged by detailed agricultural theories and modern practices, only half of which she understood. What impressed her was how much Daxton obviously grasped, and how much he’d noticed of his people’s difficulties. Difficulties he was determined to eliminate.
After several minutes, he stopped talking and cast her a rueful glance. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to bore you rigid.”
“I’m not bored,” she assured him. “I’d just like to understand more.” She didn’t only mean the science either. There was clearly far more to her hedonistic husband than people realized.
“I’ll show you when we go there.”
“Do you want to leave at once?”
“Not really, now I think about it. We’ll need to give the solicitors time to sort out the money. In the meantime, we might as well enjoy our wedding trip. And it’s pretty enough here if you’re happy to stay.”
They walked on in pleasant companionship until the incoming tide drove them closer to the shore. Spying a path that led up to the road, Daxton sat on a rock, dusted off his feet, and replaced his stockings and boots, before he glanced up at Willa, who was hovering uncertainly.
He patted the rock beside him.
“I’m afraid of spoiling my new gown,” she confided. “It’s so pretty and the muslin is so fine, it might catch and tear on the rock.”
His lips twitched. “We can buy another,” he pointed out, shocking her. But then he took off his coat and spread it on the rock for her.
She sat gratefully and reach
ed for her shoes. But again, he surprised her, drawing one stocking from the shoe she’d stuffed them in and crouching at her feet.
“Oh no,” she said in sudden agitation. “You mustn’t.”
“Don’t be silly,” he said impatiently. “Give me your foot.”
His manner, much more that of the boy she remembered than that of a rake, soothed her enough to reluctantly proffer her foot.
He rolled the stocking on with a degree of expertise that should have bothered her, smoothing it over her sole and ankle and up over her calf. His fingers were cool and sure, and yet for some reason, their touch heated her skin. She wanted to beat his hands away, and she wanted them to stay, to roam higher. She remembered only too well those wild moments of abandon in the carriage…
Worse, she wondered if he were remembering them, too, for his deft fingers slowed, lingering over the last couple of inches as he reached for the garter, wound it around her leg and tied it. Then, almost delicately, he slipped the worn old shoe over her foot and fastened it, too.
She swallowed. “Thank you,” she got out. “I can manage the other.”
“Be still,” he retorted, though he no longer sounded impatient. Instead, his voice was strangely husky, sending pleasurable little shivers up her spine. This reaction took her so much by surprise that she let him take her other foot and roll on the stocking with agonizing slowness. She was afraid to breathe. Tying the garter, his fingertips brushed the inside crease of her knee, and she swallowed back a gasp.
With the same slow deliberation, he eased on her shoe and, the foot still resting on his thigh, he raised his gaze to her face.
She remembered that clouded heat in his eyes, at once so exciting and so weakening. He liked women. By all accounts, he liked them a lot and they reciprocated. She could understand that only too well. But she was his wife. Whatever her vulnerabilities or her desires, she had to be more than those other women. She didn’t just want to gain his attention. She wanted to keep it.
With an effort she tore her gaze free, slid her foot off his lap, and jumped up, snatching his coat off the rock and shaking it out, just to give herself something to do, to hide the trembling of her foolish body.
“There. Respectable again,” he observed sardonically.
Chapter Five
As it happened, Willa didn’t have to wait until the ball to encounter her aunt.
She and Dax had taken possession of their new rooms at the hotel, which provided a bedchamber for each of them, a tiny room for a servant, and a sitting room. Since the first of Willa’s new evening gowns had been delivered, Daxton proposed they dine publicly in the hotel, and show the world they were married. Willa rang for a hotel maid to help her dress—a brief visit to Clara’s room having found the girl sound asleep, which was probably the best thing for her. Then, duly laced and stayed, Willa dismissed the maid and admired her new gown in the glass from every angle she could. She felt rather strange in the new stays, but they certainly gave her chest more shape. The maid had brushed her hair until it shone like burnished chestnuts, though the girl was not so good with the pins. Willa re-pinned it and examined herself doubtfully.
In the glass, she met Daxton’s gaze. He stood at the half open door.
“Will I do?” she asked nervously.
He blinked. “You look beautiful. But then, you always do, you know. Shall we go down?” The carelessly thrown compliment made her blush.
She’d never felt remotely beautiful before—mostly either awkward or invisible, depending on the company. Daxton looked as handsome as ever in fresh black evening clothes with a snowy white cravat. A few tight lines around his eyes were the only visible aftereffects of his recent spree.
“Oh,” he said, stopping in the middle of the sitting room and lifting a small box from the table where he must have dropped it earlier. “I found this among my things when Carson unpacked again. I bought it for someone else and never gave it, but you might like it tonight at least.”
It was true she had no jewelry apart from the new turquoise set which seemed too elaborate for the occasion, and the red-trimmed cream evening gown did leave her neck and chest somewhat bare. Opening the box, Daxton took out the contents and dangled a gold chain from his careless fingers. On the end of it was a shining round pendant, a small ruby surrounded by a spiral of diamonds.
Her eyes widened, for it was a beautiful and expensive trinket, and could not have been the casual gift he’d made it sound. He’d bought it for a mistress.
“I never gave it,” he repeated. “Until now.”
She smiled. “It’s beautiful, Dax. Since I ran away with you, I seem to be showered with gifts.”
“The wages of sin,” he said with a quick grin and walked behind her to fasten the fine gold chain around her neck. She shivered at the brush of his fingers on her sensitive skin. Then he stepped around her, examined her critically and nodded approval. “Just the thing.” He offered her his arm.
The public areas of the hotel were busy with guests going out for the evening or, like Dax and Willa, heading for the dining room. As they descended the staircase, looking down on the foyer, several heads turned toward them. Willa even saw an elegantly bewhiskered gentleman nudge his companions to draw their attention. Involuntarily, Willa’s fingers grasped Daxton’s sleeve.
“It’s just curiosity,” he murmured. “The rumor mill will have been spinning about both of us. Brazen it out and it will pass. And remember, you have nothing to be ashamed of.”
It was true, she hadn’t. The marriage mart was called so for a reason. All members of the ton bought and sold into matrimony for money, land, political influence, and social ambition. She and Dax were not so very different.
An inconvenient flash of memory popped into her mind—the abandoned interlude in the carriage that had given her a taste of physical pleasure. And absolute clarity. She’d known she would fight for him, for a life with him if she could. And today had shown her that it was possible. At the very least, they could be friends…
“Shelby ahead,” Dax murmured in her ear. “He’s just entered the front door.”
Snapping her attention back to present reality, she saw her cousin Ralph in evening dress, make his way across the foyer to his mother and sister who seemed to be waiting for him impatiently. He looked grumpy and put-upon. But then, he generally did.
“Ready for a little fun?” Dax inquired. “Or shall we give them the cut direct?”
“No,” she decided. “I owe my aunt a private explanation at the least. Let us be civil.”
Besides, there was an undeniable if reprehensible pleasure in watching her family’s faces as they caught sight of her approach. No one could swagger quite like Dax, and he attracted more attention than the Shelbys did. But Ralph saw him first. Emotion flashed across his face. It might have been annoyance, or even fear, for after all, the last time they’d met, Dax had challenged him and knocked him down.
Then Ralph’s lip curled in contempt. He said something to his mother as he made to turn his womenfolk toward the dining room door. Only then, finally, he recognized the well-dressed lady on his enemy’s arm and his jaw dropped spectacularly.
Her aunt’s eyes widened impossibly. She clutched Elvira’s arm.
Elvira goggled. “Good lord, it’s Willa.”
The cut-direct, however, seemed likely to come from Willa’s aunt, who began to turn furiously aside.
Dax refused to allow it. “Ah, Lady Shelby,” he called, when they were still a yard or so away. “Well met. My wife was eager to assure you of her safety and wellbeing.”
Since most of the foyer must have heard that, her aunt could do little but turn back and incline her head stiffly to Daxton.
“Wife?” Elvira blurted in undisguised dismay. She had, after all, married a mere esquire, although he was the heir to a respectable fortune.
“Were you hoping to be an attendant?” Dax asked her. “We preferred a quieter ceremony.”
“I’ll bet you did,” Ralph s
aid nastily.
Dax regarded him consideringly. Alarmed, Willa opened her mouth to try and smooth over the situation before Dax knocked her cousin down again. Then it struck her that she didn’t actually care. On the whole, she rather wished he would. So, she merely dropped his arm so as not to impede him.
The action was not lost on her aunt, who clutched her son’s arm instead. “Lady Daxton,” she got out between closed teeth.
“Aunt,” Willa said pleasantly. “Good evening, Elvira.”
“Please, go in,” Dax said, reclaiming Willa’s hand and placing it back on his arm. “Let’s not stand on precedence. It’s not as if we’re dining together after all,”
Ralph all but stalked inside with his rigid-backed mother on his arm, leaving Elvira to trot behind them.
“Neatly done,” Willa approved, swallowing back the laughter.
“I was about to say the same to you. They really thought I was going to punch Ralph on the nose.”
“Were you?” she asked with interest.
“Say the word and I still will.”
At first, Willa found dinner somewhat nerve-wracking, Very aware that she and Daxton were the center of most diners’ attention, she found it hard to think of anything else. Gradually, however, Daxton’s charm began to work its magic, and she relaxed in his company, resuming the conversation and banter of earlier in the day.
Dax was clearly on his best behavior. He barely touched his wine and drank only one glass of brandy when the meal was finished. Willa couldn’t help the comfortable sense of wellbeing creeping over her. Of course, it was the first time she’d sat down to an undisturbed dinner for years. Her aunt and cousins had sent her on constant, minor errands during most meals, and the result was she’d eaten little and emerged exhausted.
“That was delightful,” she said warmly. “Thank you, Dax.”
“It’s only dinner,” he said, in surprise. “And only tolerable at that. Apart from the company.”
She laughed. “Well recovered,” she mocked.
He grinned, unrepentant. “I meant it. Shall we stay longer or retire?”
The Wicked Husband Page 6