Amanda Scott (10 page)

“Dramatizing,” he said, urging her through the sitting room toward her bedchamber. “Sally adores Cheltenham theatrics. Villiers ought to beat her weekly to cure her of such nonsense.”

Adriana stopped short in the bedchamber doorway, turning her head to look at him, to see if he meant what he said. He was grinning. She said, “He wouldn’t dare raise a hand to her.”

“Then, more fool he,” said Chalford, still grinning. “Are you going to stand there all night long, sweetheart? Your arms are all over gooseflesh.”

“There is no need to change my dress,” she said, not moving from where she stood and suddenly determined, like Sally, to go her own road. “The great hall is quite warm if one—”

“If one stands with one’s head in a fireplace,” he finished for her. “Don’t be childish, Adriana. You are going to change your dress if I have to change it for you. You are unaccustomed to the damp air, and I don’t mean to lose my beautiful wife to an inflammation of the lungs before I’ve been married a full week.”

“Nor, indeed, until after she provides a proper heir to your precious Thunderhill,” she retorted sharply, glaring at him, once again surprised by the strength of her vexation. What was it about the man, she wondered, that stirred her to such emotion? When he returned her glare with an even, unwavering look of his own, she added defensively, “I have never been on this part of the coast before, Joshua, to be sure, but I am never ill in Brighton, which must be much the same climate.”

“Brighton harbor is more protected from the elements than Thunderhill,” he said.

“All the more reason to go—”

“Go to your dressing room and change your gown, Adriana.” The words were measured, and a muscle twitched high in his cheek, but his voice remained cool and steady, and its very steadiness acted as a breeze to her kindling temper.

“I don’t wish to change my gown,” she snapped. “’Tis unnecessary. Moreover, Nancy is not here to help me, and if I ring for her, it will be a full quarter-hour before she can get here from wherever it is in this pile that she takes her supper.”

“I’ll help.” Giving her a nudge, he urged her across her candlelit bedchamber into the dressing room, where two oil lamps burned low upon the dressing table, their light reflected in the gilt-framed looking glass. Chalford stepped away from her to turn up the wicks and to open the wardrobe. After riffling through the gowns that hung there, he glanced back at her with a frown. “You must have at least one with sleeves.”

“They all have sleeves.”

“Don’t quibble. You know what I mean. Those little puffs cannot be called proper sleeves, and as for the rest, you’ll catch your death if you go about this place with everything above your waist as bare as can be.”

“I’ll have you know, my lord, that these gowns are all the crack. Even Alston didn’t complain of them, except, of course,” she added conscientiously, “for their cost.”

“He clearly did not think about what our weather is like,” Chalford said, frowning heavily at the dresses in the wardrobe.

“If he did, he probably thought it would be as balmy and comfortable as Brighton is when he visits,” she retorted.

Chalford looked silently at the floor for a long moment, and she waited, watching, wondering if at last she had pushed him too far. But when he looked up, it was only to turn his attention back to the wardrobe, to search again through the dresses hanging there. Then finally, taking out a dark-green gown, he said calmly, “Here, this one is velvet at least, and you must have some sort of shawl with which to cover your arms.”

Her eyes widened. “No one wears shawls, sir, who does not wish to be stigmatized for a dowdy.”

“If you do not have a shawl, one of my aunts can lend you one,” he said. Then, looking directly into her eyes, he added, “Or if you prefer it, I will find you a woolen cloak to wear.”

His demeanor was as calm as ever, but Adriana found herself repressing a shiver, as though there were once again thunder in the air. Swallowing carefully, she nodded and turned so that he could unfasten the many tiny buttons down the back of her dress.

His fingers were nimble, and the task was quickly finished, but when she felt his warm hands on her bare shoulders, felt them pushing the flimsy material aside and down, she stepped quickly forward and turned, clutching at her bodice. “I can do the rest, Joshua, thank you. That velvet dress fastens up the front.”

“As you wish, my dear,” he said. “I’ll wait.” He turned, and she thought he meant to retire to her bedchamber, but instead he sat upon her dressing chair.

She opened her mouth to tell him to leave, then shut it again with the words unsaid when she realized that he would refuse to go. Marriage, she decided, had a number of unexpected pitfalls for the unwary. With a sigh, she slipped off the amber dress, stepped out of it, tugged her short silken chemise into place—for she had not altogether ignored the chilliness of the castle’s corridors and chambers—and quickly pulled the heavier gown over her head. As she wriggled, she heard him chuckle, and when she emerged from the folds of green velvet, she found him standing again, directly in front of her. Obligingly, he helped her smooth the velvet into place.

“Joshua, really, I—”

“I like velvet,” he said, his big hands moving down her ribs to her waist and hips. “It’s soft, wants caressing.” His fingers touched the lowest gold frog fastening, several inches below her natural waist, many inches below the gown’s.

“I can do that,” she said hastily, pushing his hands aside.

He let her fasten the first one, then shook his head at her. “You move too quickly, sweetheart. I’ll show you how such a task ought to be done if you would please a lover.”

She looked at him, saw the amusement in his eyes and something else that made her breath catch in her throat. She found herself unable to resist when he pushed her hands away again, unable to protest when his hands moved beneath the velvet dress to touch the silken chemise, to gather it upward until he could caress her bare hips, her waist, her …

“Joshua,” she gasped, “Sally and George are—”

“Right,” he said. He sighed, straightened her chemise, and turned his attention to the remaining frogs. As he fastened the last one, however, at the point of her deep décolletage, he allowed himself one lingering caress, making her gasp again; and, when she turned her face up to his, he kissed her, putting his arms around her and drawing her body tightly against his.

All wish to resist him vanished, for the moment at least, and Adriana melted against him, savoring the warm sensations that rushed through her. When he set her back upon her heels, she drew another long breath and looked at him.

Chalford smiled at her and moved to the wardrobe again, searching, then reaching for something on the top shelf. When he turned, he held a soft white woolen shawl. Still smiling, this time with satisfaction, he shook it out and held it for her.

Responding automatically to that smile, she allowed him to drape the shawl over her shoulders, catching it up with her elbows, adjusting it until her looking glass told her the effect was not too dreadful. The shawl was old, a little shabby, and certainly unsuitable for evening wear. She refused to think of what Sally would say, but whatever was said, she had no wish to quarrel further with Chalford that night.

More guests arrived the following day and the day after that, including Mr. Dawlish and Mr. Bennett, two young gentlemen who had been favorite flirts of Adriana’s in London. Her friend Sarah and Lord Clifford also arrived, and others, but nearly everyone was on his way to Brighton, and with the races starting Friday, no one wished to linger. Even Alston, arriving late Tuesday afternoon with his sister, his wife, and her brother, Mr. Ringwell, would stay only until Thursday morning. The viscount had wagered heavily on one of the entries in the Brighton races.

“Some nag called Houghton Lass in the Somerset stakes,” Miranda told Adriana soon after their arrival. “That’s the first race, so I’ve no doubt he’s made wagers on others as well. Of course, he has said I may not spend any more money this month. I have spent my allowance, he says, and that is that.”

“Well, have you done so?”

“To be sure,” Miranda admitted. “Who would not have spent such a pittance? I might have got more out of him, I suppose, only he was angry with me.”

Adriana, encountering a grin from Sarah Clifford, engaged some yards away in animated conversation with Sally, grinned back, then said, “In the briars again, Randy?”

“Oh, only for flirting, but he had said I was not to speak with the gentleman. He was never so strict with you, Dree.”

“I obeyed him, my dear. You do not.”

“You flouted his authority often! I remember—”

“Ah, but I never did what he specifically told me not to do. His intent might well have been different from his order, like when he told me I was not to demean myself by going with Lady Ashford to a public ball at Vauxhall. After I went anyway, with Miss Bennett and her mama—and her handsome brother, of course—I pleaded confusion over the exact meaning of his order, which made Alston feel superior—to a poor, stupid female, you know—so he forgave me.” She smiled. “Mama was used to say that if one put a brick wall before us, I would find a way around it while you would attempt to bash your way through. You haven’t changed.”

“Nor you, I think. But imagine, Dree, I shall have to be in Brighton a full week before I shall be allowed to purchase so much as a new ribbon. And say what you like, our brother is an unconscionable pinchpenny, and that is all there is about it.”

“Come with me,” Adriana commanded, nodding and smiling to her other guests as she led her sister through the dining room to the stair hall. Moments later, Miranda exclaimed her approval of the marchioness’s sitting room and bedchamber while Adriana moved swiftly through the latter to open a carved wooden box on the table by her bed. “Here,” she said, holding out a wad of folded notes. “Buy yourself something pretty.”

“Adriana!” Miranda moved forward, not taking her eyes from the money. “Such a lot!”

Adriana grinned at her. “’Tis less than half of what Joshua gave me, but there has as yet been no opportunity to spend it hereabouts. If we go into Hythe, as I am certain we will, he will go with me, so I shall not have to pay for anything, and since we do not go to Brighton—”

“Are you truly not to go at all?”

Adriana shrugged. “I mean to do what I can to change his mind, but so far he’s proved adamant. I flew out at him last night, I’m afraid, after I’d made myself a solemn promise I wouldn’t do any such thing. He had come up with me so that I might change my gown for a warmer one, and we no sooner returned to the hall than Sally mentioned Prinny’s birthday celebration. When I said that perhaps we might join them on such an important occasion, he contradicted me on the spot. I was mortified.”

“Goodness, Dree,” exclaimed Miranda, “never tell us you ripped up at him in front of Sally Villiers!”

Adriana shook her head. “Of course not. I am not such a fool. But, I promise you, I did tell him as soon as Sally and George had retired for the night and we were alone that he ought not to have contradicted me as he did.”

“And what did he say to that?”

“That I ought not to say things I know are not so if I do not wish to be contradicted. That’s when my wretched tongue ran away with me. I told him that no one could blame me for not realizing that he was blind to what he owed his rank and position in society, or that he wanted only to bury himself away from everyone else. I said that to avoid the prince’s celebration was to tell him we had better, more important things to do. Then I said he was lucky that princes no longer hold the power of life and death over their subjects, for I was sure that Prinny would take our absence as a monstrous affront to his dignity.”

“Adriana, you never said such things to Chalford!”

“I did.”

“Then I am surprised you were here to greet us this afternoon. I’d expect, at the very least and regardless of his strong feelings for you, that he’d lock you up in one of his towers on a diet of bread and water for speaking to him so.”

Adriana shrugged. “I think you are wrong about his having strong feelings, Randy, though I confess I did expect my tirade to enrage him. It didn’t. He stayed maddeningly calm—just told me not to talk nonsense and asked me if I intended to sleep in his room or in my own.”

Miranda, tactfully, did not ask which she had chosen—indeed, there was added color in her cheeks when she turned rather quickly away to look out the window—so Adriana felt no urge to tell her that she had rapidly come to regret her prompt decision to sleep in her own bedchamber, that for several hours she had tossed and turned, her body still tingling from the memory of his earlier caresses. And when the second thunderstorm had come, just as he had predicted it would, she had begun to shiver, squeezing her eyes shut, hugging her quilts to her chin, wishing the curtains at her windows were heavier, that they would shut out the noise and the flashes of lightning.

She had lain there, trembling, for ten minutes—only that, though it had seemed much longer—before the door to her room had opened and Joshua had come in. He said not a word to her, and her attention was so fiercely concentrated upon the storm that she did not realize he had come in until she felt his weight upon the bed. But when he climbed, naked, beneath the covers and drew her into his arms, she took shelter there without thought of protest, grateful for his presence, for his thoughtfulness in remembering that she would be afraid. And when the fury of the storm had abated and his hands had begun to move over her body in a way not meant to solace fear, she had responded at once and with all the passion he could have desired.

Tuesday morning when Nancy had drawn the curtains to reveal gray skies and the promise of more rain, Adriana had felt uneasy when she remembered the things she had said to him before the storm, things to which he had not once referred. Her disquiet deepened when she realized she was alone in her bed. Chalford, Nancy had informed her, had gone riding with Viscount Villiers.

She had not spoken privately with Joshua since then, but she said none of this to Miranda, who was still feigning interest in the view of the Channel from the bedchamber windows. Adriana turned to shut the carved box.