by Eloisa James
“Under those circumstances well-known amongst my family, it is unlikely that my first son shall have a lawful male heir. Therefore, I earnestly enjoin my youngest son, Peter John, to marry with all expediency, reminding him that the lineage of the Dewlands is a long and noble one. I also request that his brother, Erskine Matthew Claudius, single out his brother for his affectionate respect, in light of the fact that Peter John will be viscount after him. As my children are aware, I have long held the fixed belief that a gentleman should not work for his living, although I have compromised my principles in the case of Erskine Matthew Claudius. In the event that his brother’s income is not sufficient to support Peter John in the manner of a viscount’s heir, I enjoin upon Erskine Matthew Claudius to share the profits of the said business endeavors with his brother and heir.”
A moment of silence followed the reading of the will. Mr. Jennings busied himself with arranging sheaves of parchment into a neat stack.
“Father was always remarkably good at spending other people’s money,” Peter finally said, a note of wry apology in his voice. “He had no right to give me the Henley Street residence. Didn’t you pay for that, Quill?”
Quill shrugged. “I have no need of it.”
“I daresay Jennings is right and Thurlow would have crossed out that codicil had he lived,” Lady Sylvia commented. “I don’t like the fact that he put in that comment about you working for a living, Erskine. Smacks of hypocrisy. Everyone knows that money flowed through Thurlow’s hands and that he was liable to find himself on queer street until you became so flush.”
“He did not consult me,” Kitty said, “or I would have told him that darling Erskine has always shared what he has with his brother. Even when they were little boys.” She sniffed disconsolately.
“I apologize for him,” Peter said with some dignity. “Father should not have slighted your endeavors, Quill. And he need not have instructed you to aid me.”
At that, Quill smiled wryly. “I’m not taking it to heart. Besides, Father was right in his own way. I have a vulgar habit of making money, and I refused to reform when he asked me to. That is what really bothered him. Why shouldn’t I give it to you? I don’t need it.”
“Thurlow gave Peter a very generous settlement,” Lady Sylvia snapped. “He can live nicely on the rents of the Henley Street properties alone, regardless of his life interest in the Kent estate. You’ll be handing that money to your own children, Erskine.”
Quill visibly started and flashed a look at his wife. Gabby smiled at him. She hadn’t said a word during the entire proceeding, so it was no wonder he forgot her existence. Let alone that of their unborn children.
“Well, we got through that pretty well,” Lady Sylvia was saying, gathering up her flimsy reticule and a fluttering black handkerchief, clearly designed for show rather than for use. “Thank goodness Thurlow didn’t indulge himself in too much advice. Why, I heard that the Marquess of Granby went so far as to write in his will that his nephew’s escapades with his mistress were ludicrous and that’s why Granby was leaving the nephew only three thousand pounds per annum. And this was read aloud in front of the nephew’s wife, mind you.”
Quill didn’t move from where he stood. Gabby had risen and was helping his mother to do the same.
He stared at the burnished gleam of his wife’s hair. His mind was chaotic with images of Gabby holding a small child. He, Quill, had been alarmingly stupid. He had paid no mind to the future. After his accident, he had mentally excised the possibility of a wife and children. What woman would marry him, given his injuries? And yet…he had enticed one to do so.
Because she had no idea of your injuries, said a small, sharp voice in his mind.
Yet Gabby showed no particular concern once she knew. She didn’t blink an eye. She didn’t appear offended, and she didn’t threaten to annul the marriage.
Moreover, she was still peeking at him. Quill had taken to cataloging every time Gabby looked at him secretly from under her eyelashes. He reckoned those glances indicated that she was smoothly transferring her affections from Peter to him. He didn’t inquire why the transference was so important to him.
As he stood frozen in the library, his mind kept offering him an image of Gabby, holding a small scrap of baby in her arms and smiling at the babe the way she smiled at him—as if nothing he could do would ever shake her faith in him. The very idea gave him a strange sensation in his chest, an exultant flush of feeling, an unfamiliar, prideful joy.
Jennings cast one look at the new viscount and decided to approach him at a later date about a few of the more complex issues to do with settling his father’s estate. The man looked perturbed. Likely he took that little codicil of his father’s the wrong way. Not, Jennings thought to himself, that there was a right way to take it. Practically stated outright that the viscount was incapable.
The party separated at the stairs and retired to their various rooms until dinner. Gabby walked slowly toward the magnificent bedchamber designated for the viscountess. Kitty had gracefully relinquished it when they arrived at the manor, and when Gabby had protested, she pointed out that she had no reason to wish for a connecting door with her son. Gabby had blushed and ignored the door as best she could.
Now Gabby walked into the chamber, an airy room hung in sea-green silk, and stared at that same connecting entryway. It was just a door. But on the other side was Quill’s bedchamber. How did he feel, sleeping in his father’s bed? How did he feel, knowing that she was just on the other side of the wall? The door was a solid, imposing one made of mahogany. Gabby chewed her lip.
The funeral was over. The viscount was buried. But if they made love tonight and Quill succumbed to a three-day headache, how would he see his mother off to Southampton? And she had the strong sense that he wished to return to London immediately. Presumably he couldn’t travel while in the grip of illness.
For the first time Gabby began to grasp the parameters of Quill’s medical problems. Exactly when would Quill decide that he could afford to relinquish three days in a row? From what she had seen in London before their marriage, he worked every day. And he liked working. Would he ever be willing to give up three days?
She looked up when the solid mahogany door opened and Quill strolled in.
“Hello, wife,” he said.
Gabby blushed. She hadn’t seen him in private since the afternoon in Bath, after they were married. Does one curtsy to one’s husband even in the privacy of the bedchamber?
Quill’s eyes were shining with a wicked appreciation that made all of Gabby’s worries fly out of her head.
He walked toward her like a tiger stalking a goat. And Gabby danced backward, just as a goat might dance on its nimble hooves in the spray of the Indian Ocean.
“The bell will ring for dinner in a few minutes,” she said nervously.
Quill was grinning at her. “So it will,” he replied. His voice was deep and sent tendrils of heat down Gabby’s spine. “Perhaps we should have a small meal here, in your room,” then he corrected himself, with a glance at the adjoining door, “or perhaps in our bedchamber?”
Gabby’s mouth felt dry. “Quill,” she said, before she lost all capacity for speech, “we need to have a rational discussion.”
“Do you know, you request rational conversation quite regularly?” Quill was laughing at her.
“My father believes that women are unable to be rational,” Gabby explained. “I’m afraid that I adopted the phrase out of desperation.” And then she added, “My father’s conversation is often incoherent.”
Quill ambled toward her again. “You must tell me all about your father someday,” he said, his voice as smooth and liquid as silk. “He sounds like a fool.”
“He isn’t,” Gabby protested, nervously retreating a step. “Quill, I meant it when I said we need to speak! Before we…do anything further.”
A chill touched Quill’s spine, but he courteously stood still. “Have you decided that you would prefer to annul t
he marriage?” he asked, quite as he would ask for a cup of tea.
Gabby frowned. “Rational conversation, Quill,” she said pointedly. She turned her back and walked toward the fireplace, sitting down in an upholstered rocking chair.
Quill sat down opposite her and steepled his fingers. “All right, Gabby, what have we to discuss?” He was well-aware that he had limped throughout the funeral. His leg was dog-tired from days of walking the estate. During the reception, he’d heard more than one muttered speculation about the extent of his injuries. Likely Gabby hadn’t realized just what a useless cripple he was until today.
“I am worried about consummation,” she said, stumbling over pronunciation of the last word.
“Are you concerned about my fitness to do the task?”
“No! That is …”
Quill got up and walked to the window and stood with his back to Gabby. It was evening, and fingers of yellow light fell from the house windows. Quill noted without thinking that the rosebushes had not been properly pruned. “It would be understandable if you wished to annul the marriage, Gabby, now that you’ve had time to consider the consequences.”
To Gabby, his voice sounded indifferent.
“To be honest, I am not concerned about whether or not I produce an heir,” her husband continued. “No one will blink an eye if you annul the marriage. I could instruct Jennings to start the proceedings immediately.”
When there was no reply, he turned around, reluctantly.
Gabby was glowering at him.
“Well?” He kept his tone flat and polite. “This needn’t be an unpleasant conversation, Gabby. We are friends, as you have said in the past.”
“In that case, I would request that you return to your chair and do not stalk around the room in that melodramatic fashion.” Gabby stuck her chin in the air. “We are going to have a rational conversation, Erskine Matthew Claudius!”
Quill smiled without humor. “If you were listening to the will that closely, you must have noted that my father believed my injuries would prevent the conception of children.” But he walked over and sat down. His heart felt like a cold lump in his chest.
“When I said we needed a rational discussion, I simply meant that…before we …”
Quill waited politely. He wasn’t going to make it any easier for her, clearly.
“Oh, I can’t say these things aloud,” Gabby cried in frustration.
Before Quill could move, she jumped up and sat down on his lap, wrapping one of her arms around his neck.
She felt the surprise throughout his body, but then he relaxed against the back of the chair. Gabby leaned against his shoulder. From here she couldn’t see his face, and it was considerably easier to speak.
“First, I should like you to stop making corkbrained suggestions regarding annulment,” she said. “While I may well wish to murder you at some date in the future given your tendency to jump to absurd conclusions, I have been anticipating this—” She broke off and added, crossly, “You’re not stupid, Quill, so don’t talk drivel.
“Second, I should like to point out that if we consummate our marriage tonight, there is a good possibility that you will not be able to accompany your mother to Southampton. Third—” She couldn’t remember exactly what her third point had been. He smelled wonderful, her husband. He had an indefinable masculine scent overlaid by soap and clean-pressed linen. “Third,” she said hastily, “I think that if our marriage is to be a success, we need to come to an understanding.”
“An understanding,” Quill echoed. He felt as if she had dealt him three or four sharp blows to the stomach. “Gabby, do you always say precisely what you are thinking?”
“No,” Gabby replied meditatively. “In fact, although I admit this only because you are my husband, I have quite a reputation for telling fibs back home.”
“You can lie to whomever you want as long as you don’t lie to me,” Quill said, tightening his arms around her rather fiercely. “And this is home.”
“Mmmm,” his wife replied, rubbing her head against his shoulder like a lazy cat. “Not yet, it isn’t.”
“What would make it home?”
She lifted her head and looked up at him.
A delirious shot of heat went down his backbone at the look in her eyes. Quill sighed. “All right,” he said, shifting her weight slightly to avoid a potential injury. “What sort of an understanding do we need? I warn you, Gabby. If you make me wait even one more day, there’s no telling what the consequences might be.”
“All I am suggesting is that we proceed with caution,” Gabby said. She started ticking off her fingers. “We know that kissing doesn’t give you a headache.”
“True,” Quill muttered, suiting action to word by kissing the top of her head.
“And we know that caressing my chest doesn’t give you a headache. Well, what does?” She looked at him expectantly. “Because if we knew precisely what the action was, we could simply avoid it.”
Quill was nonplussed. “Gabby,” he said slowly, “how much do you understand about conjugal intercourse?”
“Almost nothing,” Gabby said promptly. Then she blushed. “I know that you are going to look at me. Will that give you a headache?”
“Never.” Quill had been seized by an odd trembling sensation, almost as if a joyous laugh was trapped in his bones and couldn’t get out.
Gabby was looking at him with narrowed eyes. “What did you expect? As I’ve already explained, my mother died when I was born. And the servants in my father’s house were most punctilious in their conversation. My father is particularly fierce about female concupiscence.”
“Female concupiscence. Why not the male version, or plain old English lust?”
“Women are the devil’s handiwork,” Gabby remarked. “They exist primarily to drive men into sin.”
Quill looked at her sharply and was relieved to see a slight smile on her face. “You’re a good exemplar,” he said, his hands irresistibly slipping under her arms to the front of her gown. “You can drive me into sin any day, Gabby.”
“I thought so,” she said happily. “My father always said that I had my mother’s sinful body and, although I never told him, naturally I thought it might be a useful inheritance.”
Quill broke into laughter as he began nimbly undoing the small pearl buttons at the back of her gown. Gabby tried to pull away. She clearly wasn’t done with rational conversation.
“Gabby,” Quill said, appalled to hear how hoarse his voice had become. “There are certain times when conversation, rational or incoherent, is not helpful.” He picked her up and carried her over to a bed hung in watered silk.
“This is one of those times.”
EMILY EWING WAS DISMAYED to discover just how much she missed Lucien Boch’s conversation. It had been over three weeks since Lady Fester’s ball, during which time Mr. Boch had called four times. She had refused to see him each time, steeling her heart with the thought that she could not raise Phoebe in a house of shame. And she had completed her account of the Fester ball with no mention of an amber-colored gown fashioned of Italian gauze, or of a former marquis, for that matter.
Unfortunately, Bartholomew Hislop had taken the news that she had accompanied Mr. Boch to a ball as a sign that he should be graced with the same attention. It was hard to contemplate, she thought numbly. This morning Hislop was tricked out in primrose trousers that were so tight as to cause him obvious discomfort. Even if she hadn’t ever met Lucien, even if she had no one with whom to compare Hislop, she wouldn’t have wished to be seen in public with him. At any rate, it was too late, too late, too late. The words rang dully in her head. She had met the elegant Mr. Boch, she had met him and she had—almost—succumbed to his practiced seductions. Yet virtue was a cold comfort, faced as she was with the bumptious and lusty Mr. Hislop.
“I wish you to accompany me to the balloon ascension tomorrow afternoon,” Mr. Hislop was saying, with more than a hint of petulance leaking into his tone.
“I am afraid that I must decline,” Emily replied. “I write in the afternoons, and I cannot take excursions of this sort.” Too late, she realized that she had played directly into his hand.
“Fine!” he chortled. “In that case, we shall spend the evening at the theater. An intimate evening will cheer you up.”
When she opened her mouth to refuse, Hislop’s flabby lower lip puffed out. “Or I won’t be helping you any further, Mrs. Ewing.” He placed one stubby finger on the stack of foolscap balanced on the table. “It took me time, it did, to gather all this information. Quid pro quo, as they say in the legal profession.”
Emily swallowed and opened her mouth to answer, but Hislop held up his hand. “I will give you time to consider,” and he leered at her again, eyes lingering on her chest. “I will leave you with this thought: You need me, Mrs. Ewing. For example, no one but the most fashionable will be invited to the Countess of Strathmore’s ball. You need me and”—he giggled naughtily—“I need you.”
Emily pressed her hand hard to her roiling stomach as the door closed behind Mr. Hislop. Finally she lowered herself into a chair and concentrated, hard, on not crying. She didn’t even jump when the door to her study burst open and Phoebe came running in.
“Mama, Mama! Sally and I went to visit Kasi Rao, and Mrs. Malabright was packing everything!”
“Packing?” Emily tried to shape her face into lines of sympathy.
“They are leaving. Mrs. Malabright said that you must tell Miss Gabby, because she doesn’t dare write a letter. She said that men want to take Kasi back to India.”
“What?”
Phoebe nodded, her blue eyes round with fear. “They would make him go out in public, Mama. Around strangers. Kasi cannot talk to strangers!”
Emily took a deep breath. “Goodness, how surprising. Where is Mrs. Malabright taking Kasi Rao?”
“To her brother’s wife, who lives in Devon,” Phoebe said. “She told only me, Mama, and you are to tell Miss Gabby just as soon as she returns to London.”