The Countess (24 page)

Christiana nodded wide-eyed and allowed him to lead her to the sideboard.

Where George had insisted on a variety of foods available to him in the morning, it seemed Richard had requested a much more conservative selection. This morning the sideboard held breakfast items she was more used to, plum cake, baked eggs, sausages, and hot rolls. Smiling she picked up a plate and quickly made her choices, bypassing the baked eggs but taking one of everything else.

“No eggs?” Richard asked as she reached for a slice of plum cake, having to rise up on tiptoe to reach over the rest of the food to the plate on the back of the sideboard.

Christiana tensed and sank back on her feet, but said, “I don’t care for baked eggs. Our cook used to boil them for me.”

“Sorry, I didn’t realize. I prefer them baked myself, but I’ll tell Cook to make both in future.”

Christiana relaxed and smiled at him, then turned back and rose up on her tiptoes again to get a slice of the plum cake.

“Er . . . Christiana, I think you forgot something.”

She glanced toward him in question, and then down toward her feet as she saw where he was looking. Realizing that her position revealed her bare feet, she released the cake and dropped self-consciously back to her heels again.

“I doubt she forgot,” Robert said with a laugh, piling sausages onto his plate next to Richard. “She was forever running around barefoot at Madison.”

Recalling Grace’s words, when Richard glanced at her with surprise, Christiana straightened her shoulders and said, “My feet get hot. I’m more comfortable barefoot and most of the time see no reason to don shoes unless I’m leaving the house or have company.”

Richard nodded. “I see. That’s fine. I just thought in your rush that you had forgot them. If you’re more comfortable without, then don’t wear them.”

“Really?” she asked doubtfully. “You don’t mind?”

“Why would I mind?” he asked with surprise.

“Well, George said—”

Richard silenced her by catching her by the chin and urging her to meet his gaze, and then said solemnly, “I am not George.”

She met his gaze, and then nodded equally solemnly. “No, you aren’t.”

Smiling, he turned back to the sideboard and Christiana watched him for a moment, and then let her breath out and turned away to head to the table, thinking that maybe Grace was right. Maybe she could be herself with this man. Maybe he wouldn’t hate her for it as George had.

“Christiana?”

She paused and turned back, and then glanced down with surprise when he set a piece of plum cake on her plate. “I
know
you forgot this. You tried to grab it twice before being distracted.”

Christiana smiled wryly and murmured, “Thank you.”

There was little conversation as they ate. Christiana supposed no one wished to discuss either the blackmailer or the murder of George when they suspected a member of the household staff might be involved. They were also apparently eager to get on with their individual tasks for the day and were soon finished and excusing themselves from the table.

“Shall we head out?” Daniel asked Richard as the group left the dining room.

Christiana noted the distaste on her husband’s face as he glanced to the wrinkled dark coat he wore and wasn’t surprised when he said, “I need to change my clothes first. I should have sought out a change of clothes on awaking, but so loathe wearing what’s available that I put it off. I won’t be a minute though.”

“I shall wait in the parlor,” Daniel said with a nod and turned into the room as Richard started up the stairs.

Christiana watched Richard jog lightly up the steps, and then glanced to the side when Suzette touched her arm.

“When do you want to start interviewing the staff?” her sister asked, glancing toward the parlor after Daniel.

“We will wait until everyone leaves,” Christiana decided. “Why do you not go keep Daniel company? I want a word with Richard about how he wishes us to proceed with the staff anyway.”

Suzette smiled and immediately slipped into the parlor. She also pulled the door closed, Christiana noted and briefly considered opening it and reminding her sister that unmarried ladies did not stay alone in a closed room with men. However, she simply let it go and turned to head upstairs. The two would be married soon enough.

She found Richard in the master dressing room, contemplating George’s wardrobe with a less than pleased expression. Christiana supposed she could not blame him. George had dressed like a dandy and Richard just was not a dandyish man.

“Oh, Christiana,” he said and smiled wryly when he noted her entrance. “Is something wrong?”

“No,” she assured him quickly, running a hand absently over a pair of pink knee breeches. “I just wondered how you wished us to proceed with the interviews. I presume you don’t wish us to give away what we are trying to learn?”

“You presume right.” Richard frowned. “We don’t want whoever hired them to realize we are on to them before we sort out who it is.”

“No,” she agreed.

“I suppose you and Suzette have the hardest task of the bunch of us. I’m sorry about that.”

She smiled faintly and shrugged. “It will not be hard to carry out, just hard to succeed at. We might manage to be able to cross servants off the list, but I doubt we will learn exactly who could have poisoned the whiskey. It could have been put in at any time between the day he died and the last time he drank from it before that. George didn’t allow anyone else to drink his special whiskey.”

“True, which suggests there was no urgency to seeing him dead,” he murmured thoughtfully. He shook his head, apparently unsure what that meant, and then held up a pale green cutaway frock coat. “This appears to be the best of the lot.”

“Yes,” she agreed and watched him shrug out of the dark coat to pull on the lighter one.

“Do I need to change my trousers?” he asked as he buttoned the coat over his cravat.

Christiana glanced to the buff trousers and hessian boots and shook her head. They went with pretty much everything. It was why the color was popular.

“Good.” Richard sighed and started past her. “I had best go then.”

“Before you do,” Christiana said, catching his arm as he started to pass her.

He paused and glanced down at her in question.

Christiana hesitated and then blew out her breath and said, “I wanted to thank you for trusting me to interview the staff.”

His eyebrows rose slightly, and then he frowned and took her by the shoulders to turn her until they faced each other. “I am not George, Christiana. I realize you are an intelligent woman capable of many things. You are also my wife and partner. Trust is important in such a relationship. We must learn to trust each other if we wish this marriage to succeed.”

“Yes,” she acknowledged. And while she knew it was true, it was just so hard. She had little confidence in her ability to inspire love after life with Dicky.

The thought made Christiana blink in surprise as she realized that it wasn’t really that she worried Richard would change, but that she feared she wasn’t worthy of love anymore. It was something she’d been confident of while growing up surrounded by family and friends who loved her. But somehow that foundation had been washed away, leaving her floating in a sea of uncertainty . . . because George hadn’t loved her and she’d assumed it must be due to some flaw in her. If she’d just been smart enough, pretty enough, charming enough he would have loved her. In truth, she’d spent the last year trying to earn that love, and almost lost herself in the process.

“I should go,” Richard murmured, peering at her worriedly. When she managed a smile and nod, he bent to press a quick kiss to her lips. At least, she suspected he’d intended it to be a quick parting kiss. However, it didn’t end up that way, because Christiana did what she’d wanted—and had been too afraid—to do that morning. The moment his lips met hers, she went up on her toes to wrap her arms around his neck, pressed her body against his and opened her mouth to him.

Richard stilled, obviously taken by surprise, but then his own arms slid around her back and he pulled her close and deepened the kiss. Christiana breathed a little sigh of relief into his mouth. She had followed her instincts and he had not rejected her, berating her for unladylike behavior. It was a small first step, but a step just the same, she thought and then let go of her worries and merely enjoyed the kiss as he caught her head in hand and tilted it to allow him more access as he tried to devour her with his mouth.

When he clasped her bottom through her skirt and lifted her to press her against the hardness growing between them, Christiana breathed a little moan and curled her fingers into his hair. Heat was already pooling in her lower belly and spreading outward to answer that hardness, but he then lowered her back to the floor and broke the kiss.

“Temptress,” he growled, leaning his forehead against hers.

“Are you tempted?” she asked in a pleased whisper.

“You know I am,” he said on a humorless laugh.

“Do you mind?” she asked next, holding her breath as she waited for the answer.

“Mind that my wife tempts me to take her in the dressing room amongst the hatboxes and breeches?” he asked with amusement. “No, I don’t mind at all. But Daniel probably would if I succumbed.”

“Suzette is with him.” She slid one hand from around his shoulder and let it drift down to press against the proof of how she was affecting him. “I don’t think he would mind a short wait.”

Richard growled as she ran her hand over him through the cloth of his trousers. “Still, I should—”

His words died on a gasp as she suddenly slipped her hand inside his trousers and clasped him.

“Witch,” he breathed and oddly enough it didn’t sound like an insult. In the next moment he was kissing her again, his own hands beginning to move over her body through her gown, cupping and caressing her breasts, squeezing her behind and then dragging her skirt up to slip beneath and move over the skin of her outer leg and hip as she undid his trousers to be able to caress him more fully. Christiana had just got the last button undone and taken him in hand again when his own hand slid between her legs to press against the center of her. They groaned in unison into each other’s mouths then, the sound and vibration merely adding to their excitement.

Christiana felt the dressing table press against the backs of her thighs through her dress and realized he’d backed her up, but was taken by surprise when he removed his hand from between her legs and suddenly lifted her to sit on the spindly legged piece of furniture. His hand returned to her then, caressing and urging her legs wider so that he could move between them. When he urged her hand away, she released him and clutched at his shoulders. Richard then took himself in hand and rubbed his shaft against her teasingly and Christiana gasped and wiggled her bottom to the edge of the table, her legs wrapping around his and urging him closer.

“Witch,” he repeated, breaking their kiss, and then he clasped her bottom and pulled her even further forward on the tabletop and finally gave up his teasing to thrust himself into her.

Christiana cried out and clawed at his shoulders, her heels pressing into his behind and urging him deeper. She lifted her face to his, seeking his lips again and then kissed him desperately. Richard withdrew, and then groaned as he plunged into her again, his tongue thrusting into her mouth at the same time. She was vaguely aware of a banging sound as he moved and realized the table was moving with them and hitting the wall with each thrust, but didn’t care and simply held on as the sound became a rapid tattoo.

As fast as it had started, it ended just as swiftly, both of them crying out as one and clutching at each other as they were rocked by the explosion. Christiana then sagged back against the wall, taking Richard with her. He leaned his head against her shoulder for a moment and then gave a shaky laugh.

“What?” she murmured, raising one languid hand to brush the hair from his face in an effort to see his expression.

Richard raised his head and smiled at her wryly. “I was just thinking, whatever his faults, George had excellent taste when it came to choosing a wife,” he admitted almost apologetically, and then cupped her face, pressed a gentle kiss to her lips, and whispered, “Thank you.”

Chapter Sixteen

T
hat went well.”

Richard settled back in the carriage and merely nodded. They had just finished making arrangements for the funds to pay the blackmailer. He was hoping that wouldn’t be necessary, but was prepared if it was. Richard was glad to have the business out of the way. He’d spent the past hour constantly worrying that someone was going to stand up shouting, “Imposter!” He supposed that was foolish since he was the true Richard Fairgrave, Earl of Radnor. However, George had been impersonating him for over a year and it was he everyone was used to. Richard had been sure someone would notice something different about him, courtesy perhaps, or a less caustic attitude. He was actually surprised and even a little insulted that they hadn’t. He liked to think he was different enough from his brother that someone would have noticed something, and couldn’t help his slightly disgruntled tone as he commented, “No one seemed to notice anything amiss or different about me.”

Daniel smiled wryly and shrugged. “People see what they expect to. Besides, while you were thanking the clerk for your tea I commented to Lord Sherwood that I was glad to see you finally shaking off the strange mood that had claimed you this last year since your twin’s death,” Daniel admitted. “He said he’d heard you were finally coming around and had even attended a ball. So I wouldn’t worry too much. It appears everyone will just put down any oddity they notice to your finally getting over the grief that has supposedly plagued you this last year.”

“Well, that’s something anyway,” Richard said wryly, tugging at the sleeve of his pale green coat and grimacing. He detested the color, but it had been the best of the lot. “I really need to improve my wardrobe.”

“George always did have terrible taste in clothes,” Daniel said dryly, eyeing his outfit. “Why do we not stop at the tailor’s on the way back to the townhouse?”

Richard hesitated, his conscience making him feel that he should head right back to the townhouse and try to further their investigations. But he didn’t want Christiana to think he didn’t trust her to interview the staff, and he could hardly gain gossip on himself. There seemed little reason not to stop, so he nodded and ordered the driver to change direction.

“How are you finding marriage so far?” Daniel asked as Richard sat back in his seat.

“It has not even been a full day yet,” he pointed out with amusement.

Daniel shrugged. “Christiana appears terribly wary. I think she fears you will suddenly begin criticizing and berating her as George apparently did.”

Richard nodded, not surprised his friend had noted the wariness that often clouded Christiana’s eyes. It was seldom missing. The only time it seemed to him that she managed to completely shed it was when he stirred her passions. Then she managed to forget everything but the pleasure they were enjoying together, and to trust him with at least her body. It gave him hope that eventually she would trust him with more and he said, “Time will help undo the damage George did. When she sees that I do not change and do not try to change her, she will relax and be more herself.”

Daniel nodded and said with a grin, “She made a good start this morning racing Lisa downstairs barefoot.”

Richard smiled at the memory. That had surprised him. Christiana had been so polite and stilted when she first awoke, the complete antithesis to the warm passionate woman he had made love to just hours earlier. In truth, he’d been disappointed when he’d kissed her that morning and she’d not kissed him back. It had made him worry about what it might indicate for their future together. Would she be one woman at night, a warm passionate lover in their bed, and then another woman, the cautious, wary proper lady during the daylight hours? Not that that would have been the worst thing in the world to deal with, many men were not even fortunate to have the passion. However, Richard wanted more from Christiana. He wanted her to trust him and to be as unguarded and warm with him all the time as she was in their bed. He wanted the easy affection he saw her shower on her sisters and even Robert. He wanted her as a friend as well as a lover.

Much to his relief, the episode in the dressing room before he and Daniel had left had gone a long way toward reassuring him, however. She hadn’t been a proper lady then, and they hadn’t been in their bed either, but in the closet in broad daylight. Richard wasn’t sure what had caused the difference in her, but was grateful for it. He was truly beginning to believe they would more than make a go of this marriage. They might actually have a sterling one like his own parents had enjoyed. Theirs had been a love match and while he’d never really thought about it before, Richard now decided he would like that for himself as well.

“Here we are.”

Daniel’s words drew his gaze out the window to see that they’d arrived on the street where the tailor was. A glance along the busy lane told him his driver wouldn’t be able to find a spot close to the tailor’s without some difficulty and he commented, “It looks as if we will have a bit of a walk to reach the tailor’s.”

“I don’t mind,” Daniel said. “After spending all yesterday and last night in a carriage, I shall enjoy the brief walk.”

Nodding, Richard banged on the wall of the carriage. Moments later they were disembarking and making their way along the crowded walk toward the tailor’s.

“You’ll need a whole new wardrobe,” Daniel commented as they swerved closer to the road to avoid a small party of women walking the opposite way.

“Yes,” Richard agreed dryly. “Fashion is one of many things George and I did not have in common.”

“Did you have
anything
in common?” Daniel asked with amusement.

“Taste in women,” Richard answered promptly.

“Ah.” Daniel grinned. “I’ll take that to mean you are not displeased to have Christiana for a wife.”

“If Suzette is half the woman Christiana is, we can both count ourselves lucky men,” Richard assured him.

“Hmm. Suzette mentioned that Christiana had followed you upstairs, and I did notice a certain spring in your step when you found me in the parlor
some time later
. I wonder what could have happened to cause that?”

“You can keep wondering,” Richard said dryly and led the way into the tailor’s.

As he’d hoped, his time with the tailor was short. The man was swift and efficient, taking Richard’s measurements and his order with a speed that spoke of the years of experience he had. Much to Richard’s relief, the man assured him he could have several of the items to him by week’s end. He also did have a couple of cutaway coats, a pair of trousers and a pair of breeches available right away. One of the coats was a perfect fit and could be taken at once, the other items needed a bit of tailoring, but the man promised to fix them up right away and send all four items along to the townhouse by the day’s end.

“Well that went well too,” Daniel commented as they stepped out of the tailor’s and started up the walk in the direction of the Radnor carriage. “Perhaps we shall be lucky and arrive back at the townhouse to find that everyone has had such a successful day, and the identities of the blackmailer and poisoner have been discovered so that we need only round them up.”

“We should be so lucky,” Richard said wryly.

“Was it not you who said just as we entered the tailor’s that we were both lucky men?” Daniel asked cheerfully.

Richard glanced around at Daniel’s words and opened his mouth to respond, but froze as he spotted the carriage careening toward them. The first shout of warning went up then, but Richard was already grabbing Daniel’s arm and throwing himself to the side, out of the way of the oncoming vehicle. They crashed to the ground amid a cacophony of screams and shouts as the people around them noted the danger and tried to get out of the way, and then there was a moment when the only sound Richard could hear was that of the horses’ hooves and the trundle of the carriage’s wheels as it raced past, the breeze of its passing telling how close they’d come to being trampled.

“Are you all right, my lord?”

Richard glanced around at that alarmed question and sighed when he spotted his driver just reaching and kneeling beside him. Nodding, he rolled onto his back to sit up, and then glanced toward Daniel, who was as of yet unmoving.

“Woodrow?” he asked with a frown.

Daniel groaned and pushed himself to a sitting position, but said, “Yes. Thanks to you.”

“It was a yellow bounder, my lord,” the Radnor driver said grimly, glaring in the direction the post chaise had gone. “Probably rented. The postillion didn’t even try to steer clear of ye. In fact, it looked almost like he was aiming for the two of ye.”

Richard grunted at the man’s words, suspecting he was right. George had been murdered after all and they had expected the murderer to try again. He definitely had to be more careful in future.

Richard got to his feet even as Daniel did and then paused to brush down his clothes, frowning when something dripped down the side of his forehead.

“You’re bleeding,” Daniel said quietly. “You must have knocked your head as we fell.”

Richard raised a hand to his forehead, grimacing when he felt the scrape there. Sighing, he wiped the blood away and started toward the carriage. Daniel and the driver followed.

“Where to now, my lord?” the driver asked solemnly as he held the carriage door for Richard and Daniel to get in.

“Home,” Richard answered abruptly as he settled back in his seat.

Nodding, the man closed the door.

“What are we going to do now?” Daniel asked as he settled across from him.

“Find out who wants the Earl of Radnor dead, and fast. I should like to accomplish it before Christiana is made a widow . . . again.”

“This is a waste of time,” Suzette hissed with frustration as Christiana led her from the guest bedroom Robert and Daniel had shared the night before. They had gone there to have a little chat with the upstairs maid who had been making the bed and cleaning the room. The problem was that was all it had been, a chat, Christiana acknowledged. They could hardly ask flat out if she had been paid to poison George’s whiskey. They didn’t want everyone on staff to know about George’s attempt to kill Richard, his stint as his imposter and that George was now dead . . . again. That being the case, they couldn’t ask much of anything useful really, and instead had been forced to ask each person general questions about how long they’d worked for Lord Fairgrave and where they’d worked previously, what their family situation was like and so on.

“It isn’t a complete waste of time,” she assured Suzette. “I am pretty sure we can cross most of the staff we’ve talked to off the list of suspects, and that is a good thing.”

Suzette sighed with exasperation. “Why am I not surprised you are looking at the bright side?”

Christiana glanced at her in question. “What do you mean?”

“You have been Miss Bloody-Cheerful-and-Optimistic ever since
talking
to Richard upstairs before the men left,” she said with disgust.

“And you have been Miss Glum-and-Pessimistic just as long,” Christiana said wryly. Suzette had been surly and cross throughout the interviews.

“Aye, well I suspect that would be because I didn’t find the same satisfaction you obviously did before Richard came into the parlor and interrupted us.”

Christiana paused and whirled to gape at her. “By satisfaction you do not mean . . . ?”

Suzette rolled her eyes and urged her to keep moving toward the stairs. “Of course I do. Anyone could tell what the two of you had been up to. If the banging from upstairs hadn’t given it away, then your wrinkled skirts, the smile on Richard’s face, and your utterly replete relaxation and good cheer since would have.”

Christiana felt herself color with embarrassment and glanced anxiously down at her skirt, self-consciously brushing at the wrinkles she hadn’t noticed until now as they started down the steps.

“What was the banging by the way?” Suzette asked. “If it was your bed, you should have the servants shift it away from the wall, else no one will sleep tonight.”

Christiana stiffened at the taunt, but rather than answer, narrowed her eyes on Suzette and asked, “What do you mean by the satisfaction
you didn’t find
before Richard interrupted you?”

“Exactly what you think I mean,” she assured her. However, despite Suzette’s attempt to sound blasé about it, a pink flush stole up her cheeks.

Christiana gaped at her. “But you are—”

“An unmarried woman, pure and innocent and completely ignorant of what a man and woman do behind closed doors,” Suzette said dryly, urging her to continue down the stairs. “Heavens, Christiana, this is the nineteenth century. Women need not go to the marriage bed completely ignorant.”

“I did,” she muttered, half embarrassed and half annoyed.

“You never read any of those books Lisa constantly has her nose in.”

“And you did?” Christiana glanced at her with amazement as they stepped off the stairs and started along the hall. Suzette had never been much of a reader.

Suzette shrugged. “It gets a bit boring in the country now that you are not there. Lisa is always reading, and Robert has been in town the last year, while trying to discover what was going on with your marriage. There were days when I think I would have gone mad without something to read.”