The Outcast Earl (13 page)

“I was—no, I am—concerned,” Abigail mentioned hesitantly, “that there may be some anger towards me for marrying you when the local maidens must have wanted the position. I did not have an opportunity to question Mrs Danvers on the subject, however.”

Meriden ushered her towards the stairs, his arm around hers in an increasingly familiar and oddly comfortable way. “No doubt you’ll know tomorrow when they start calling,” he said after a moment of silence. “I’m afraid there’s no help for it, and I do plan on being present to lend you support, but”—and there he paused awkwardly for a moment—“in this arena, Margaret Danvers is certain to be the authority, and I know she’ll be present. Still, I do not think the local ladies unpleasant.” He paused again, then grimaced. “Actually, I do not think of the local ladies much at all,” he confessed.

At the top of the stairs, Abigail hesitated as Meriden began to turn her towards his sitting room. She remembered the morning incident, and exhaustion was welling up in her now they were alone. She supposed it was natural to be subject to fatigue after such a day, but even more so, she needed time to regroup and rethink her approach to Meriden. He seemed to have a talent for discomposing her when she least expected it.

“It’s not that I’m lifting objections,” she eventually said, her mind full of the encounters of the day. “Indeed, I’d have to say that my time in that room has been more than pleasant. It’s only that it’s late, and I have not slept well for a week, and—truly—I’m simply exhausted.”

She looked up to Meriden with that truth written on her face, praying he accepted it. Franklin had warned her that a great deal of the next day must be spent nursing her aunt, and Meriden had just confessed that he believed the local women were likely to descend on her in a horde of callers by mid-morning. Even with the prospective help of Meriden and Mrs Danvers, Abigail found the proposition challenging.

Deeper, however, was the unsettled idea that Meriden wanted—perhaps needed—something from her that she might be unable to provide. Kissing—even furtive kissing—she could accept as normal husband and wife behaviour. The notion of lying around on a sitting room sofa, draped in nothing more than a linen sheet, and feeling it to be perfectly normal—or even desirable—was so foreign as to be positively laughable, and he had admitted that he found it not only acceptable, but expected behaviour.

Still, Meriden appeared to see the dimmed brightness of her eyes and the falling muscles of her face. Solicitously he turned her towards her door, still keeping her arm firmly tucked inside his. When they arrived, she gave a small smile and turned to him. “You’ve been very patient with me today. Thank you,” she said, sighing. “And I suspect that I am going to sleep tonight whether I wish it or not. In fact, I’ll even promise to.”

Meriden smiled, pushing open the door, then guiding her inside. “I’m a very considerate man, if not a humble one,” he pronounced after a moment. Abigail smiled, then swayed. He immediately led her to the chair and seated her. “Goodnight, my darling. I hope to see you at breakfast, if you’re up.”

Abigail blinked, reached up and pressed a hand to his cheek. “All right, if I’m up.” Smiling a tiny bit, she added, “Goodnight.”

Obediently, he kissed her softly, briefly, then departed.

* * * *

Charles frowned as he finished breakfast the next morning. It was past nine, and Grady had said that Lady Abigail had risen before eight.

She’d promised to join him for breakfast, assuming wakefulness. He was not a man for whom patience came naturally, but he forced himself to remain at the table and curtail the urge to force his way into her room—again.

It required two complete cups of coffee and the reading of one full news sheet before Abigail appeared, at half-past nine. She looked at him and openly grimaced when she saw his frown. “I’m sorry,” she offered immediately, spreading her hands in a gesture of acknowledged despair. “You said there would be callers so I had to bathe, of course, and have my toilette, and I’m afraid it takes so very long. Annie is not trained for it, and although she’s learning quickly she simply has to do it slowly to get my hair right and the gown ironed properly—”

Charles held up a hand to stop the flow of nervous words, his irritation dissipating as she freely approached him. “It matters not.” He shrugged, looking her up and down as he stood politely. It was true that he had been annoyed by her delay, mostly because it interfered with his own plans to pleasurably occupy the remaining few minutes left to him. Still, Abigail was stunning. She was already garbed in an elegant, pale blue silk creation that would by far outshine any costume entering the drawing room that morning, and her hair was piled on top of her head in an exquisite array of burnished, shining locks. They seemed slightly darker than they had the previous day, but perhaps that could be attributed to the colouring of her intricate headdress of gold leaves and twining gold braid. Charles had never pretended to know the details of how women dressed or pampered themselves. He was more interested in working out how to remove said accoutrements, but he knew what he liked.

He liked Abigail—a lot. He’d like her even better with her bodice loosened and tugged down so that her nipples would lift up and out of the gown, and with her hair falling down around her neck and her skirts brushed up, so that his hands could roam freely beneath them.

Instead of undressing Abigail, he watched her fill her breakfast plate. She glanced at him nervously from time to time, and he wondered why—but then, she could very well be discomfited by the simple fact that his eyes were on her.

Abigail sat and ate what Charles considered to be an insufficient breakfast of sausage, bread and melon. She sipped on a cup of tea, remaining quiet as he finished reviewing a letter from Rutherford that had arrived that morning while he had been out riding. Reaching the end, he set it aside and caught her attention by the simple expedient of smiling at her.

“Rutherford is redrawing the marriage contracts. He expects we’ll have them by tomorrow afternoon. You can sign for yourself—as soon as they arrive back in London, he will have them signed again by Winchester. He felt, as I did, that we had time to do it legally. He’s also reworking my will to conform to the marriage contracts. Obviously, until recently, there was no reason to include you.”

Blinking, he waited while she considered his words. “Rutherford is your solicitor?” she clarified.

He nodded. “His office also handles my finances, as much as any man of affairs would do.”

“I should think,” she said, hesitating a bit, “that I ought to be realistic and think of doing the same. I mean about a will. One never knows, does one? And I seem predestined for childbed and nursery cases of scarlet fever and measles.”

Charles felt a bit like he’d been kicked in the gut, but Abigail hastily continued, “Oh, I’ve had almost everything a child can get,” she assured him. “And, without a will, everything of mine would revert to you anyway, wouldn’t it? That would be only natural. Still, it would be nice to remember my sisters a bit. Do you think your Rutherford would facilitate that, or is it not the done thing to have the same solicitor?”

Blinking, Charles had to manufacture a barely polite smile through the sudden stiffness in his face. “I can’t see why he would refuse. As you say, it is only sensible to be prepared for any eventuality.” He paused, then said bitingly, “Even one that damn well won’t happen.”

“Of course not,” Abigail returned evenly, daring to reach across the small morning room table to filch the London paper from where he’d discarded it. “I assume yours will provide for your mother and I, as well as bequests to the servants. Are there any unusual particulars of which I should be aware?”

“No,” he growled abruptly, still distinctly uncomfortable. Setting his chin and breathing deeply, he managed to say, “There’s nothing to be done about Meriden Park and the house in Mayfair, of course, as my grandfather entailed them. Supposing I die without children—for you there would be everything in your trust to manage directly, including Aston Manor, as well as capital and properties in Boston, New York, Jamaica, New Zealand and Australia. There’s also Aston House in Birmingham, and an unusual but acceptable residence between Richmond and Twickenham that I purchased as somewhat of a secret retreat to avoid Mayfair and politics when I am in London on business. I also have an ancient castle in Wales that my father acquired in payment of a debt some years ago. My mother would inherit the European properties for her lifetime, with you acquiring them upon her death—and on that topic, until recently, I felt she was unlikely to return to England unless someone dragged her back by the hair on her head. However, once we are married, she may very well feel otherwise.”

Abigail paused in her perusal of the society pages to look up at him. “I had wondered about that,” she admitted. “You hadn’t said anything. I did not know if she approved. Or not.”

With a sigh, Charles stood and moved around the table, lifting her to her feet easily when she shifted to look at him. “She and my grandmother had a very rocky relationship, which is the true reason my parents lived in Birmingham, and my grandparents lived here.” He led her across the room, through a sitting area, and motioned to the two portraits, each portraying a couple, that hung on the opposite wall, between windows now opened to admit sunlight. “These were painted just after my birth. Grandmother was very much a woman of her time, as liberated and independent as it was possible to be when devoutly loyal to the interests of the title and estates. When it came to the family and Meriden Park, her rule was absolute—even over Grandfather. My mother was exactly the opposite of her mother-in-law. Mother could never understand Grandmother’s gregarious manners or dramatic scenes, and she was appalled at the demands Grandmother made on both my father and grandfather, without regard for their opinions. Grandmother was equally at a loss to comprehend Mother’s quiet reclusiveness or even accept that my father found her quiet reserve attractive. It was only when he died that she saw my mother passionate about anything, and then Mother was passionately angry—angry at my grandmother for insisting he come out in the middle of the night, in the rain, for no better reason than a hunting party the next day. I confess, I had never seen anything like that scene, nor have I since. I didn’t know my mother had it in her. About three months later I took her to Italy and then joined up with my unit in Spain.”

He paused, remembering the implosion of his family upon his father’s death, and knowing the emotions of that time were flickering across his face. Eventually, he added, “I was injured in August of ‘13 in Spain. I couldn’t travel until near the end of the year and arrived in London in January of 1814. Rutherford advised me to come up here but I could hardly move by then.” He sighed. “When I arrived in February, it was two days before my grandfather died. Grandmother was so shocked by my condition and Grandfather’s death that she went into a slow decline. As I improved, she got worse.”

Charles felt his lips twist, and lifted Abigail’s hand to kiss her knuckles. He’d kept his voice dispassionate through the tale, as if he were reminiscing a simple memory, but he was far from unfeeling on these matters. “I asked Mother to come back and take up managing this house, but she replied that she’d never done it during my father’s lifetime and didn’t feel obligated to do it now that he was gone. And, she pointed out, the weather in Italy is so much better than middle England. In truth, I think it was her subtle way of suggesting that I find my own bride to do the work instead of appealing to her to rescue me.”

“Likely.” Abigail smiled. “Although you must know that most young ladies, while trained to do the absolutely necessary, are not generally educated in how to manage such a great house as this with any sort of efficiency. The time to learn is after the wedding, from one’s mother-in-law.”

“A valid point,” he acknowledged, then looked at her with a twinkle in his eye. “Of course, you’re no average young lady, by any stretch of the imagination, are you?”

“Now, how would you know?” Abigail returned indignantly. “I am only twenty-one with a bare three seasons under my belt, and no country house that I might retreat to in order to learn more than the basics of household management.”

Charles stared at her a moment. He reached out and pressed a hand to the back of her gown, guiding her closer before leaning over and whispering against her nose, “Mrs Carlton was pleased as punch when you quizzed her over the contents of the stillroom. Your quest for chamomile, lavender and rose hips for your aunt has given you away.”

“Ah,” Abigail started to say, but Charles kissed her instead.

She had just reached up to cup his head, her body shuddering and drifting into his, when Grady opened the door and waited silently. A frustrated growl escaped his throat and he lifted his head to utter, “Grady, get out.”

“Mrs Danvers and Dr Franklin are coming up the drive, my lord,” Grady reported, so Charles sighed and released Abigail in defeat.

Soon after Grady had greeted the pair at the door, the house became busy with activity. After Abigail and Charles consulted with the doctor over Lady Arlington’s condition, Charles watched Abigail transform into a seemingly practiced hostess as one lady after another came, as he’d predicted, to call. Many were his grandmother’s age or a bit younger, though a few matrons were accompanied by married or spinster daughters. Charles came and went, careful to greet each one and play the proud host to those who came to welcome his choice.

Only in one set of callers—Dame Mitchell and her two daughters—did he detect any insincerity. Upon greeting them, he became sure she had fostered fond, if unrealistic, hopes for the two sickly looking chits who followed her around. Charles hadn’t known their names when they’d arrived, and couldn’t remember the colours of their hair five minutes after they had been introduced.

All were shocked to hear of her Aunt Betsy’s condition, but seemed to accept Margaret’s determined placement by Abigail’s side as a public promise of prudish morals, if indeed they had felt any approbation at all. Most abided by the expected thirty-minute calling limit—only a few were left in the drawing room when Grady entered to tell Abigail that she was wanted in the sickroom.