The Marriage Bed (28 page)

A scratch on the door was the only warning before the door opened and Tate came marching in with a bundle of letters in her hand. "The morning post, my lady," she said, and looked up. When she saw the mistress of the house sitting on top of her husband, naked, with the sheets only partly covering them, she flushed a deep scarlet. "Oh!" she gasped, and promptly dropped the letters on the floor. "I'm so terribly sorry!"

She rumbled for the doorknob and backed out of the room, closing the door behind her.

"Did you see her face?" Viola whispered. "Good heavens. What a shock we've given her. I'm sure she thinks we're most improper to be making love in daylight. And me without my nightgown on."

John
rolled on top of her, feeling the cool air of the room on his back and the warmth of her body beneath him. "Forget about Tate. Where were we?"

"Hmm, let me think." Her eyes half closed, she tilted her head back. "I think you were kissing me."

"Ah, that was it." He bent his head and tasted her mouth. "I wish I had some blackberry jam."

As if in answer to this request, another scratch was heard on the door and a maid came in, rattling dishes.
"Early tea, my lady.
Oh!"

"Lord, have mercy,"
John
muttered, and the maid hastily deposited the tray on a table,
then
vanished, pulling the door shut.

He heard some voices murmuring in the corridor and a few shocked giggles, no doubt commenting on the fact that no man ever slept all night in his wife's room.
John
waited until the sounds died away just to be sure another maid wasn't about to come in with coal for the grate, then resumed his pleasurable explorations of his wife's luscious body.

"Don't you want any tea?" she asked, pushing him back to give him a smile that was downright wicked.

"Unless it's something I can kiss off of you, forget it," he said, and slid his leg between both of hers.

The door from the corridor into his bedchamber opened.
"My lord?"
Stephens called as if looking for him. "Mr. Stone is downstairs, waiting to see you."

"Stephens," he shouted through the open doorway to his room, "get out of here!"

"Yes, my lord."

John
heard the door close, but his valet proved to be one interruption too many. The moment was lost.

"Remind me to have a little talk with our staff about the morning routine,"
John
muttered, and rolled onto his back, giving it up.

Viola laughed and got out of bed. Swinging her loose hair back over her shoulders, she picked up her nightdress and robe and put them on. "Maybe you are just too greedy," she said as she tied the sash of her robe.

"Greedy, am I?" He jumped up and came after her. She gave a shriek of laughter and dodged out of reach, but he caught her around the waist and hauled her back. "You are the one who almost starved me last
night,
you couldn't get enough of me."

"What?
Oh, how outrageous!"
She pushed at him.

He kissed her neck. "Admit it."

"I shan't! You are too conceited as it is." She pulled out of his hold and tugged the bell pull for her maid. "Besides, your secretary is waiting for you, and I have to go back to town today, so we'd best stop lazing our day away and get on with things."

"Why do we have to go to
London
?"

"I have a ball to attend.
My charity ball for the hospitals."

He groaned. "Do we have to go? I hate these Fancy Dress affairs."

"My charities are very important to me. Besides, I missed it last year. I cannot miss it twice. And I don't know why you're complaining anyway," she added. "You can't go."

"Why not?"

She
grinned,
sure she had the upper hand for once. "I never sent you an invitation."

"Doesn't matter," he said, and grinned right back at her. "I finagled one from Lady Deane ages ago." He kissed her and started for his own room. "No wonder you're so bad at chess," he said, shaking his head.

He closed the door, and from the other side he heard her say, "I can't believe I married such an impossible man!"

"Glad to see you've recovered from the measles, Stone," he said, and circled the desk. A long time, he thought, since he had used this desk. It felt good to stand behind it.

"T
hank
you, my lord." The secretary opened his dispatch case. "You have quite a bit of correspondence to answer."

"I'm sure I do with you lazing away in Clapham for the past week and a half at my expense.

Stone had worked for him long enough to recognize that he was teasing, but the poor fellow, alas, had no sense of humor. He did not change expression.
"My apologies, my lord."

John
sighed and gave it up.
"Anything important?"

Instead of replying, Stone turned the opened case around so
John
could see the contents. It was full.
Completely full of small, folded, sealed sheets of pink paper.
Emma.

John
stared at the letters and all his amusement faded. A mild irritation took its place. "Good God," he muttered, "How many are there?"

"Fifty-nine, sir.
All addressed from
Calais
."

"All in the past ten days?" He picked up a handful, wondering what manner of woman did something like this. He strove to think back to the woman who had been his mistress through the autumn and winter, and he could remember only vague things, unimportant things.
Red hair.
Green eyes.
A sweet sort of charm easily enjoyed and quickly forgotten.
"What does she hope to gain by such a barrage of correspondence?
More money?"

Stone did not answer, since he knew the question was rhetorical. He simply waited for instructions.

"Stone, I want you to—"

The opening of the door interrupted him.

"
John
, when do you want to leave for town?" Viola stopped in the doorway, her gaze fixed on the bundle of pink letters in his hand. Her face went pale and her eyes went wide, and
John
could read her thoughts at that moment as if they were written above her head.

"Viola—"he began.

"I'm sorry," she said. "I did not mean to interrupt you. Forgive me." She pressed a hand to her mouth, turned around and walked away.

"Viola!" he called after her.

She stopped,
then
continued on without a backward glance until she turned and disappeared from view.

John
dropped the handful of letters back into the case. "Burn these damn things," he said, loud enough for Viola to hear him as she walked away. "Better yet, send them all back to Mrs. Rawlins with a letter telling her I'm not paying her a farthing more and never to contact me again. Understood?"

Without waiting for an answer, he went after Viola. He found her on the terrace, staring out at the river that curved and glittered in the distance. She must have heard the tap of his boot heels on the flagstones, but she did not turn around and look at him as he approached her.

"Those are love letters, aren't they?" she said, then made a chiding sound. "What am I saying?

Of course they are. Pink
paper,
and I could smell the perfume on them from the doorway."

"The woman writes to me," he told her. "I do not write to her."

"I see." She nodded, but continued to stare out at the river without turning around.

The very fact that she was so calm impelled him to speak.
"I am not with Emma. I ended it months ago."

"You don't have to explain."

"Damned right I don't. There's nothing to explain. It is over."

She wrapped her arms around herself and turned her head slightly in his direction. "From the amount of correspondence she sends you, it seems Mrs. Rawlins does not realize that fact."

"She should. I made it clear. I paid off her contract. I set her aside months before Percy died. You are the only woman I have been with since then."

She turned and looked at him. "I believe you," she said, but there was a cool, polished hardness in her face that hurt him.

Don't
, he thought.
Don't do this
.

"Is Emma Rawlins in love with you?"

"Love?"
His voice was harsh, contemptuous of such a notion. She winced, and he gentled his voice at once. "She was a mistress, Viola. She was paid. Love has nothing to do with such arrangements. Don't you see that?"

"I think it is Mrs. Rawlins who does not see that," Viola said, and turned again to look out at the view.
John
stared at his wife's rigid back for a long moment, but he did not know what she wanted him to say. He did not know what she wanted him to do. With an oath, he turned and walked away.