“Ha,” she said to the empty room, and closed the door.
Her bedroom was far more to her taste, even if it did adjoin his. It had once been her mother’s, and just setting foot in it made her step lighter. So many happy memories here, of listening to stories at her mother’s feet . . . practicing her lessons while her mother sewed . . . showing Mama her own embroidery here, as proud as anything of her work even though she despised embroidery.
The sadder memories Bianca had always tried to ignore. That she’d spent so much time in here with Mama because her mother’s health was never robust. The numerous vases of flowers, because Mama could not go outside anymore. How many handkerchiefs had been scattered around the room, ensuring there was always one at hand when a coughing fit seized her mother.
Cathy had obviously wanted to banish those memories as well. She’d chosen a buttery yellow for the walls, with pale green bedcovers and brocaded upholstery. The windows faced west, and the afternoon sunlight made the room glow like a spring day after the rain.
Jennie had already unpacked her things. Bianca had changed earlier out of her morning finery into one of her everyday linen dresses, lacing up herself and tying on a much-mended apron. Now she brushed out the curls and pinned her hair into its usual twisted knot, peering into the small beveled glass to secure it.
There. She smiled at her reflection. That was better.
A stream of servants brought more things from Perusia. She supervised and organized and set up the rest of the house. It was hard not to think of her mother here, as she directed them to push the settee next to the front windows, where Mama had used to sit in the summer with her sewing.
This was her house, she decided then. It had been her home as a child and held her memories. She might have to share it with St. James, but it would never be his.
Chapter Seven
Max made his way home in the dark, lantern in hand. A neatly graveled path led down the gentle hill, just far enough away from Perusia, to the half-timbered farmhouse. Poplar House wasn’t as grand as Perusia Hall but it was the finest house he’d ever been able to call his own—the finest, and the first. Tate had presented him with the deed this afternoon as a wedding gift.
He wasn’t fond of old houses as a rule, but in this instance, he was prepared to make an exception.
The stout door was a cheery blue, a surprising note of color against the dark timbers and white plastered walls. A long wooden bench sat beside that door, its swaybacked seat hinting at generations who had sat there before, smoking a pipe and watching children chase a hoop across the grass. Max let himself in, savoring the prospect.
The door opened into a central hall, long and narrow. To his right was a wall of stone, with a fireplace set in the middle. A banked fire smoldered there, chasing away the late spring chill in the night air. Through a partly open door at the far end of the room, he could hear muted laughter and voices over the splashing sounds of dishes being scrubbed. The scent of freshly baked bread lingered on the air. It was all so . . . homelike.
Slowly Max set the lantern on the mantel.
He pushed open the door to his left and found the parlor—it was too comfortable and lived-in to be called a drawing room. A bank of windows set high in the wall looked out toward the hill he’d just descended. The candles in the wall sconces were out, but the linen draperies were open, letting in enough moonlight to see. A pair of wingback chairs stood drawn up before the hearth, and a long settee was beneath the windows, heaped with plump cushions. A round table was off to one side, holding a vase spilling over with flowers.
Max regarded it in silence. How easy it was to picture himself reading in front of that fireplace, his foot on the fender and a glass of claret on the table beside him. He had no idea if the wind whistled through those windows or if that chimney smoked—for all he knew, this room was beastly hot in summer and an ice house in winter—but it was his. Reverently, he closed the door.
He didn’t go to the back of the hall, where the servants were still moving about in the dining room and the kitchen beyond, but up the doglegged stairs behind the main door. Tate had warned him the house was old; Max narrowly avoided banging his head on the low ceiling as he climbed the stairs.
A broad corridor stretched in front of him, two doors to the left and two to the right. A massive chest sat between the doors on his left, beneath a large portrait of a family from some decades ago. As he took it in, a maid popped out of a disguised door at the far end, an ewer in her hands. She gave a startled gasp and bobbed a quick curtsy at the sight of him. Max nodded once, and she hurried through the door at the near right.
Candlelight shone across the dark planks of the floor in the corridor, glinting off the sconces on the wall. Female voices spilled out, including one Max identified immediately as Bianca’s.
How he knew this with such certainty, he couldn’t say. He’d never heard the maid speak. But somehow he knew it was she, in her bedroom, preparing for bed, and his feet led him there without any decision by his brain to go.
She sat at a dressing table, her back to him as she ran a brush through her hair. The maid was emptying the ewer into the basin in the corner, relating something about a pig in an animated voice.
Max folded his arms and rested his shoulder against the doorjamb. Bianca was smiling as she brushed and plaited her hair, listening to the maid’s silly story. He could see it in the small mirror in front of her. In the light of the lamp on her dressing table, her hair glowed with amber glints. Each stroke of the brush made the long, loose curls bounce.
Another homelike moment. His house. His wife.
She turned toward the maid then, caught sight of him, and promptly burst that thought like an errant bubble of soap. Stiffening in her seat, she gave him a frigid glare. “Did you want something, Mr. St. James?”
“To wish you a good evening, dear wife,” he returned. The maid whirled to stare at him, clutching the ewer in both hands, her mouth hanging open. “You may go,” he told her, stepping aside as she scurried out of the room. He closed the door behind her and faced his bride.
He’d spent the day with Tate in the pottery offices, reviewing the marriage contract and concluding all the business related to it. A piece of his brain, though, had been working away all day at the question of Bianca. Things had not begun well between them, and Max was quite sure he would have to make the first effort if he wanted their relationship to improve. But he also sensed that any appearance of craving her good opinion would only inspire contempt, not the amiable regard he wanted.
Nor, it must be admitted, the physical desire he craved. He wanted her, and he wanted her to want him.
Bianca wound a strip of linen around the end of her braid and tied it. “There was no need to frighten off Jennie.”
“Did I frighten her?” He affected surprise. “If I did, she takes fright very easily. Might as well get it over and done with, I suppose.”
“None of us here know you,” she replied. She rose from her seat and tugged the ties of her dressing gown tighter. “Nor you, us.”
“Ah. Yes. That will change.” He clasped his hands behind his back and strolled toward her. She watched him, her expression calm if a shade condescending. “We are married, after all, until death shall us part.”
“Well.” She smiled sweetly, looking coy and mischievous for a moment. Max’s sangfroid faltered. She was rather . . . bewitching like that. “At least there is an end in sight.”
He laughed. “No, really? I was counting on another forty years or more.”
“And I’ve already begun counting them down,” she replied as if struck by delight at the coincidence. “What do you want?”
He lowered his gaze at that question. “What any husband might want, with his new wife.” Idly he picked up one of the delicate little pots from her dressing table and opened it. “To become closer acquainted.”
She made a sound like a faint snort. “It will take very little effort for that, since we aren’t acquainted
at all.”
“And yet, we aren’t entirely strangers, either.” The pot was crafted to look like a ripe plum, deep pinkish-purple with a pert pair of leaves on a stem forming the handle on the lid. It was very finely made, and Max removed the lid. It glowed translucent green when held in front of the candle. The pot itself was delicate porcelain, and held a fragrant salve of some kind. He inhaled the scent of sweet almonds, honey, perhaps lavender. “What is this?”
“A remedy for pernicious itching in sensitive places,” she said evenly. “Do you need some?”
Max’s gaze jerked up, startled.
“A balm for my hands,” she said, an impish smile tugging at her lips. She was pleased to have wrong-footed him, the minx. “The clay can be quite abrasive.”
“Right.” He studied the little pot. It was as dainty and lightweight as an eggshell. It bore the Tate mark on the underside—or rather, a variant on it. Not the usual, stately Roman TATE encircled by a laurel wreath, but the name, scripted, enclosed in a rosette. If he had to guess, it was Bianca’s personal mark. He put down the jar of balm. “You work in your father’s office.”
Her lips flattened. “I work in my own workshop. I am a Tate, too, you know.”
Max cocked his head. “Not any longer.”
At that, temper flashed in her eyes and she brushed past him. “Don’t be so certain of that.”
He only smiled.
“Since you’re here, you might as well sit down.” She took a seat in the wingback chair by the window and nodded at the opposite chair. “There’s a great deal you need to learn.”
I might say the same, he thought as he accepted her invitation to sit. “Should I fetch a quill and paper, to make notes?”
“Only if you’re too simple to remember.” She eyed him dubiously. “On second thought, perhaps you should.”
“Why do you think I’m simple?” He leaned back in his chair and crossed his legs. Max was frivolously vain of his legs, and he smiled as her gaze flickered to his calves in their silk stockings for a moment.
“Let’s see.” She put her head to one side and ticked off her fingers. “You coldly proposed marriage to a woman you didn’t know. You married a woman you knew even less, after pondering the question for a matter of minutes. You—”
“And how long, pray, did you ponder that same question?” he drawled.
She took his meaning at once. Her slate eyes turned flinty. “Are you suggesting I planned to marry you?”
Max lifted one shoulder. “It must be considered, you know. Perhaps that bit about your sister running off with another fellow was a convenient story. Perhaps you envied her. Perhaps you schemed to bring this about.”
“Good God, why would I?” she exclaimed in horror.
Max spread his arms wide, as if to display his person, and smiled engagingly.
He did not think Bianca had engineered their marriage. He did not really think Tate had done so, either, not after the way the man blustered about it all afternoon. But the switch of brides had been done with breathtaking speed, requiring a healthy bribe to encourage the curate to read the proper lady’s name and amend the license. It was all very suspicious, and while Max didn’t regret his own actions—he rarely wasted time on regret—he was curious about hers.
Her mouth fell open and her brow creased indignantly. “You!” she cried. “You? You think I wanted you?”
“It must be remarked,” he said in a low, silky tone, “that you got me, while so many other women have failed.”
A bright flush rolled up her neck. “Would that any of them had succeeded!”
Max shrugged. “To your great benefit, they did not.”
He wasn’t sure why he felt compelled to needle her. It might be a dreadful mistake. Sometimes it was better to let someone vent their spleen, get their shouting done, and then stealthily work his way into their good graces.
But he just couldn’t, not this time, not with her. Regardless of how and why, she was his wife, the supposed helpmeet of his life. He found her intriguing, if challenging, and there was that bloody inconvenient charge of attraction that went through him every time he saw her.
And most importantly, he sensed that if he ever let Bianca trample over him, he would never, ever win her respect. That would be the single greatest mistake he could make, and Max wasn’t about to make it.
“My benefit!” She stared at him as if he’d gone mad. “Of all the—”
“You know, I took care to discover what sort of wife your sister would be,” he said idly. “No one said aught of you. Perhaps you wish to tell me yourself?”
“It doesn’t matter,” she replied in the same careless tone after a moment’s pause. “We aren’t much of a husband and wife, are we?”
“Now that is where you’re wrong.” He clasped his hands over his stomach and let his gaze drift toward her bed for a moment. “We are most certainly husband and wife.”
A fine flush of pink colored her face again. “Bollocks.”
His brows shot up, half-surprised, half-amused. “I say, madam!”
“You say.” She shot to her feet, her dressing gown swirling around her legs. “You say! All this time, it’s been what you say, and what you want. I must tell you, sir, that shan’t continue.” Pacing a path in front of the fireplace, she eyed him narrowly. “You might as well acclimate yourself to a few truths, Mr. St. James. I may be your wife before the law, but I do not belong to you. This marriage was, and is, merely a business arrangement. My father, fool that he is, made you a partner in the pottery works, but I daresay he didn’t tell you how much of its success is due to my efforts—efforts which I intend to continue. And if you have half a brain in your head, you’ll not argue.”
“I see,” he murmured.
“In addition, this is my bedchamber, and I’ll thank you not to walk in and out as if you own it.”
He did own it. Max said nothing, entertained beyond measure.
“And lastly . . .” She sat in the chair again, this time leaning forward, her gaze intent on him. “When my sister returns to Marslip, you’ll not say one word to her about our discussion in the church.”
“Our discussion in the church . . .” He pretended to think. “I don’t really recall much of one. Your father said she was gone, you declared she had run off on some great love affair, and that was it.”
“There was your coldhearted willingness to marry a perfect stranger on the spot,” she said, two spots of pink burning brightly in her cheeks.
Slowly Max leaned forward until their faces were barely a foot apart. He could see the flecks of blue in her eyes, and the damned beauty mark on her breast. Her pacing had dislodged the sash of her dressing gown, and it gaped open just enough for him to see that tempting spot.
“Was it?” he asked softly.
A line of bemusement appeared between her brows. “Was it—was it what?”
This time he openly surveyed her, not hiding his brazen appreciation of her flushed skin, full bosom, long legs, and dishabille. God help him, why did he find temper and passion in a woman so mesmerizing? He’d tried to choose a demure, quiet wife who wouldn’t provoke him, who would make it easy for him to leave her be.
Instead . . .
“Was it coldhearted?” he whispered. “Are you certain, Mrs. St. James?”
She blinked. “Obviously—”
Max clicked his tongue. “Don’t be so sure. I’m not as simple as you want me to be.” As she stared in amazement, he got to his feet, bowing low in the same motion to keep his face near hers. “Until tomorrow.”
Unhurriedly he rose. There was a door beside her bed, which could not lead to the corridor or to the back stairs to the nursery. Tate had showed him the house, and Max vaguely remembered this door led to the master’s bedchamber. He hadn’t taken much notice of it at the time, not thinking he would use it often. “This connects us, I take it?” He opened the door and gave her one last lazy smile. “How convenient.”
“Go!” She snatched a cu
shion from her chair and hurled it at him. Max caught it and flipped it onto her bed, then let himself out. He paused, waiting, and heard her exclamation of disgust when she realized the door had no lock.
“Good night, my dear,” he called.
His only reply was silence. But Max still thought things were already improving between them, all things considered.
Chapter Eight
Bianca went to bed in a rage but woke the next morning restored to her calm, practical self.
So Mr. St. James would not back down quietly; she was silly to have thought he might. That man was trouble, and even worse, he was clever and canny. From what he said last night, he was pursuing a long game.
“Forty more years, indeed,” she muttered as she tied on her petticoat. With his sly smiles and blatant suggestion that she must want him because he was so incredibly attractive, he’d be lucky if she didn’t poison him within forty days.
It was tempting, once she’d put on her shoes, to stomp about loudly and disturb his rest. The other room was still silent, and she pictured him holding a pillow over his head to drown out the sounds of her own toilette. In the end she decided against it, on the idea that it was better not to let him believe she thought about him at all. She cast one last baleful glance at the door to his bedroom as she left. Perhaps one of the men from the workshop could come over the hill and nail it closed.
She went downstairs, absently reaching up to tap her knuckles on the low ceiling where the stairs turned. When she and Cathy were small, she used to jump off the top step and try to touch that bit of ceiling. Once she jumped too hard and fell head over heels down the stairs to the hall, sending Cathy running, screaming for their mother. Mama had held her and kissed her and made her stay in bed for three days to settle her brain and let her bruises fade—but she’d sat by Bianca’s bedside for those three days, telling her stories and singing songs.
This had been such a happy house then.
She went into the dining parlor. It adjoined the kitchen and as such was much too informal to be called a dining room. Unlike the dining room in Papa’s house, with its tall windows and silver chandelier, this room was just as worn and cozy as the rest of the house, with floors that sloped and uneven whitewashed walls and a fireplace permanently blackened by the many years of fires. It was still furnished much as it had been in Bianca’s youth. None of the furnishings had been fine enough for Papa’s grand new Perusia Hall, not the walnut dresser and plate rack, nor the ordinary oval table and spindle chairs, and especially not the tall-backed settle by the fire. It had all been as Bianca remembered it, when she explored the house yesterday.
About a Rogue EPB Page 8