Amanda Scott (20 page)

“Do you, Anne?” His hand was still at the back of her neck. He moved it slightly, urging her toward him. “I hope you do not think always to rule the roost, my dear.”

She swallowed hard. “No, sir.”

“I think I would prefer your submission to my will—in some ways, at least.”

“Do you, my lord?” She resisted the pressure against her neck, albeit not so much as to make him think her unwilling. “I think I would prefer a partnership.”

He chuckled. “Partnerships are for tradesmen, little wife, not for marriage. I think you must be satisfied to have won your point yesterday and to have disarmed me today.” He drew her slowly nearer.

She certainly did not want to debate partnerships with him, for she wanted to know what he meant to do next, and wondered if she ought to remind him yet again that Hermione still waited.

His lips were but inches from her own when the pressure against her neck relaxed. “Kiss me, Anne,” he said, the expression in his eyes challenging her to refuse.

“A command, my lord?”

“If you want it so.”

“And if I dislike commands?”

His gaze held hers for a long moment. Then he said, in exactly the same tone as before, “Kiss me, Anne.”

Though she continued to wonder what he would do if she refused, she did not think she wanted to know just then. Their relationship was still too new and untried, and she had seen enough of the St. Ledgers temper to last her for a time. Then, too, this was a new side to him, one she had not been privileged to see before, and she rather thought she liked it.

He was waiting. His hand was light against the back of her neck. Submitting to a delicious new sensuality within herself, she leaned back against his hand, smiling at him, teasing him in a way she had never been stirred to tease a man before. Her eyelids drooped, and she licked her lips slowly, seductively. “Take your kiss if you want one, sir. I do not give them away so cheaply that I bestow them upon every knave who demands one.”

He did not wait for a second invitation but caught her hard against him and took his kiss. The pressure of his lips was hard, demanding a response, and though he had never before kissed her in such a way, having exchanged only token kisses with her in the performance of his connubial duty, she responded as though she had done such things all her life. The thought crossed her mind that he might actually think her more experienced than she was, but she did not care, and when his tongue sought entrance to her mouth as it had their first night, she welcomed it, her curiosity sufficient to overcome any lingering aversion, had she chanced to think about it.

His other hand moved from her shoulder to her waist, holding her close, and she felt his body stir against hers. He set her back on her heels, looked down into her eyes again, and said, “I think we have more to learn about each other, Lady Michael.”

“Yes, my lord,” she said with mock submission.

He chuckled. “I could wish Hermione at the devil, but I own that I too have duties to attend this afternoon. Tonight, however, we shall begin to become much better acquainted.”

“Shall we?”

“Don’t flutter your lashes at me like that, or you’ll pay no calls today, madam wife. Or get any dinner, for that matter.”

She chuckled. “I think you had better leave if you truly mean to do so, sir, so that I can let Maisie in to help me change my dress. I have been thinking these past five minutes that Hermione is likely to burst in on us at any moment.”

“What are you doing in my room anyway?” he demanded, as if the realization had just struck him that she was not in her own.

She explained, and he went to the door to her dressing room and pulled it open, calling, “Maisie, come help your mistress dress. Hello, Hermione. Yes, you may come in, too, and you needn’t look daggers at me. I haven’t eaten her. I’ll see you later, Anne.”

He turned to leave by the gallery door, but he no sooner opened it than he found John on the point of knocking. “What is it?” Michael demanded.

“My lord, Mr. Bagshaw thought you would wish to know at once that His Grace has suffered a slight mishap with your lordship’s racing curricle, and … and with the bays as well, sir.”

“The devil he has! If he’s harmed those horses—”

“Was he hurt?” Anne asked quickly.

John, still looking at Michael, said, “According to what your groom told Mr. Bagshaw, sir—for, knowing the bays to be your favorites, he did ask—they suffered no permanent damage.”

“Just what did that young rascal do to them?”

“Was he hurt?” Anne demanded again.

Trying this time to answer them both, John said, “His Grace was apparently attempting to drive to an inch, sir, through a rather too-narrow gate, but fortunately, madam, he was not hurt.”

“Fortunate, indeed,” Michael said grimly, “but if he’s so much as scraped the knees of those bays or the paint on that curricle, he will not boast long of that good fortune.”

A
NNE TURNED QUICKLY TO
follow Michael, but Lady Hermione caught her arm, saying firmly, “Now, my dear, there is no good you can accomplish by interfering in that business.”

“But he’s furious. He’ll murder poor Andrew.”

“Nonsense, he will do nothing of the sort. Moreover, he will summarily order you from the room—as, indeed, he should before he rakes Andrew down—and you will have nothing to do but obey him.”

When Maisie seconded Lady Hermione’s advice, Anne bowed to their counsel and scrambled into a gown suitable for paying calls. But when they reached the front hall to discover Lord Ashby on the point of going outside, she said urgently, “Have they come in yet?”

“No,” he said, “I just got word of Andrew’s mishap and thought perhaps I’d take a toddle down to the stable.” Glancing warily at Lady Hermione, he muttered, “Hope I ain’t too late, by Jove.”

Lady Hermione demanded, “What’s that you say?”

“Spoke plain enough. Not my fault you don’t choose to hear.”

“I suppose you mean to interfere, Ashby. If you will take the same advice I gave Anne, you will do nothing of the sort.”

“Don’t want your advice. Boy needs protecting if he’s damaged Michael’s rig or upset that first-rate team of his, for it’s not right that Michael should be so hard on the Duke of Upminster, by Jove, not right at all. If the boy’s a bit arrogant, it’s because he knows his worth, which is exactly how it should be. And if he’s ordered out Michael’s horses and rig, it’s because he believes he’s entitled to use anything in his own stable.” He glared at Lady Hermione, adding, “And who shall say he ain’t entitled.”

“I agree that Michael is too hard on the boy,” she said, “but Andrew asks for it. He may be Duke of Upminster, but unless you want him to turn into another Edmund, you’ll let Michael go to work with him.” She paused indignantly. “You’re not listening to me, Ashby. What on earth are you staring at?”

“That housemaid,” he said frankly, indicating Jane, who was wielding a feather duster at the back of the hall. “By Jove, when she turns her head like that, she looks dashed familiar. Can’t put my finger on it. Know she’s new, and I don’t think I know her from somewhere else. Still and all, there’s something about her that stirs a memory. Don’t suppose you’d know what it could be.”

“No, I don’t, but you take the palm,” Lady Hermione said, exasperated. “Here we are, in the midst of a disagreement, and you pay more heed to a fool housemaid than to what I’m saying to you.”

“Nothing odd about that,” he retorted scornfully. “Ain’t my fault you don’t say anything I want to hear. You’re dashed quick to criticize and to give advice, Hermie, but when it comes to action, I’m the fellow that’s wanted.” With that, he strode out the door without giving her a chance to reply.

“Well, if that doesn’t beat all,” she said. “Whatever has got into him, may I ask?”

But Anne was looking at Jane Hinkle. “She is very pretty, of course,” she said in a musing tone. “Do you suppose that is the only reason she seems familiar to him?”

“My goodness me, child, I don’t know. All the maids at the Priory are pretty. Always have been. One thing about dukes of Upminster is they’ve a fine eye for females. And not just the dukes but their younger brothers, as well. Not that I mean Michael does—Well, he does, of course, or he would not have taken you for his bride, but I didn’t mean—” She broke off, clearly feeling she had got into rocky territory, then added decisively, “We’ll take my carriage. No use taking Agnes’s landaulet, for all it’s more the fashion. I don’t like knowing the coachman can hear every word I say, and though Wilfred’s coach may be ancient, we’ll have proper privacy to talk as much as we like.”

Discovering from the porter that her carriage had not yet been brought round, she added when he had stepped outside to keep watch for it, “We’ll go first to Maria Thornton. The woman gives me a pain and puts me all out of patience, but you must return her call, and we might as well get it over with. She has some cause for her megrims, God knows, what with six children to look after and a husband with a roving eye. They say he keeps a doxy right down in the village, if you can believe it.”

“I do,” Anne said. “Michael told me. What is it, Jane? You have been hovering about for some minutes now. Is there something you wished to say to me?”

Jane Hinkle, looking self-conscious, said, “As to that, ma’am, I’d take it most kindly if you could spare just a moment to speak with me. I-I’d like very much to thank you properly … That is, there is something I’d like to …”

When she hesitated for the second time, Anne said quickly, “There is nothing you need say, truly. I did very little. All you need do now is show everyone that I was right to support you.”

“But I did wish to explain, ma’am. That is …” She glanced doubtfully at Lady Hermione.

Anne said firmly, “We are going out to pay calls now, Jane. Perhaps later you and I can talk if you still wish to do so.”

“Yes, please, ma’am,” Jane said, effacing herself when the porter returned to tell them Lady Hermione’s coach was at the door.

No sooner were they settled inside it than Lady Hermione said, “What was that about?” When Anne hesitated, she added firmly, “There is no use trying to snub me, you know. I’m as nosy as a Peeping Tom and much more difficult to ignore. That is the second time today I’ve heard you put that girl off. I collect she must have something to do with the business you mentioned earlier.”

“Yes,” Anne said, seeing that there would now be no avoiding the issue. “Jane came in a half hour after the maidservants’ curfew night before last and walked bang into Bagshaw. Nothing could have been more unfortunate, I’m afraid. He told her on the spot that she was to be turned off without a character.”

“And you overruled him.”

“Not so easily as that,” Anne said with a rueful laugh. “He insisted we put the matter to Michael’s judgment, and … and fortunately for Jane, Michael sided with her.”

Lady Hermione’s gaze was shrewd, but she did not press for details. Instead, she said curiously, “Then why have you avoided letting her express her thanks to you?”

Anne drew a breath, then said, “That she feels obliged to me makes me uneasy, you see, for I do not think I deserve that. In point of fact, ma’am, I have come to believe that I stood up to Bagshaw—and to Michael too, for that matter—for myself, not for Jane, and the thought is a rather lowering one.”

“Good God, child, why?”

“Because I don’t want to admit even to myself that I used Jane’s predicament to further my own cause.”

“Poppycock.”

Anne smiled weakly. “I only wish it were poppycock.”

“Well, it is, and I’ll tell you why. You did need something to stir you to rebellion, my dear. You had been saying yes and amen to everything anyone said to you. No man wants a wife who is no more than a decorative cipher. He mayn’t know it at the outset, but he wants someone to share his burdens, and strong though he may be, and capable, he is never so proficient that he requires no help. Even so, he will never ask for it. In my experience, the creatures are too stuffed up with pride to ask. My own husband, rest his soul, was as puffed up in conceit as any of them, but he soon saw that I was as strong in my way as he was in his.”

“I don’t doubt that, ma’am.”

“Well, don’t smile like that. It wasn’t easy teaching him to heed me. Men always think they know everything, and even when they learn that they don’t, they hate asking a female for help.”

“Most people dislike asking for help,” Anne said.

“True, but now, you listen to me, my dear. You let that young maid express her thanks to you properly. There is nothing to be lost in the exercise, and everything to be gained by it. The servants here, for the most part, are inbred and uncommunicative, except with one another. You won’t easily break that linkage, but what you
can
do is develop your own lot amongst them, as and when you find opportunity, who will be loyal to you.”

Knowing that advice to be sound, Anne found her thoughts returning to Lady Hermione’s words throughout the afternoon that followed. Their calls were pleasant, even at Thornton House. Sir Jacob was not home, but his absence was not missed.

Anne had met Lady Thornton only once, when her ladyship had paid the obligatory bride call and sat with her the obligatory twenty minutes, but she found that on home ground Lady Thornton was perfectly amiable. She did not complain about her health above once or twice, and took evident pleasure in making known to Lady Michael her two eldest daughters, both handsome young women who would soon emerge from the schoolroom.

After visiting other homes in the neighborhood, Anne and Lady Hermione ended their day with the squire’s wife, a close friend of Lady Hermione’s, who, to Anne’s delight, was addicted to gardening.

“I am so glad to hear you are putting the gardens at the Priory to rights at last,” Mrs. Hazlitt said.

“I only wish the work could go faster,” Anne said. “I can see just how everything ought to be, but although the kitchen gardens are in better trim now, we have not yet hired more men to begin in earnest on the lawns and borders.”

“False economy,” Mrs. Hazlitt said, not mincing words or pretending to misunderstand her. “It will cost a good deal more to replace lawns and shrubbery that die from lack of attention than it will to tend them properly now. Indeed, it oughtn’t to cost much at all. Let me see,” she added thoughtfully, “what you need is an excuse that will galvanize your own people to action. When does Lord Michael plan to open the house to the public again?”