Amanda Scott (28 page)

The chuckle bubbled again. Suppressing it with difficulty, she said, “Not at you, sir, only at some foolish imagining.”

“And what were you imagining, madam? Come, tell me. This sounds promising.”

“Well, I daresay you would approve, at that, but I do not think it would be good for you to hear it. You are altogether too arrogant and sure of yourself as it is.”

He regarded her speculatively for a moment, then said gently, “Are you ticklish, Anne?”

She gasped. “You wouldn’t dare.”

“Not if you tell me what you were thinking.”

“A person’s thoughts are private, sir.”

“A woman should have no secrets from her husband.”

“Should she not? I daresay I shall have any number of them, and I certainly do not mean to tell them all to you.”

“Not all—certainly not tonight—but you will tell me what made you laugh just now.” He shifted his hands to her ribs.

She stiffened warily. “I loathe being tickled.”

“Then tell me what I want to know. I will only tickle you a tiny little bit, like this”—she shrieked—“and this …”

“Enough, Michael! I’ll tell you anything you want to know.”

Settling her more comfortably on his lap, he said, “You’re too easily bested, sweetheart. An enemy would learn all your secrets in a trice. I daresay that is the reason women are not sent to war, you know. It has nothing to do with their imagined fragility or lack of a true fighting spirit. Heaven knows, Charlotte or my younger sister, Hetta, for that matter, would be a match physically for any puling Frenchman, so it cannot be general lack of strength. It must be because women are all so ticklish, and give in so easily.”

Knowing he was only teasing her, Anne said with the same air of thoughtfulness that he had assumed earlier, “All three of my brothers are much more ticklish than I am, sir. Indeed, Harry has only to see a pair of hands with wiggling fingers to capitulate at once, and he is a grown man, not a boy.”

A twitch of Michael’s hands reminded her that he was still waiting for her to tell him why she had laughed, so she said, “Very well, I will tell you, though I still think you will make too much of it. When you picked me up just then, I had the oddest vision of a hero in one of those foolish romances Catherine is always reading—the conquering hero. Do you know the sort?”

“Well, I don’t actually, since I have never read the sort of book you mean,” he said, “and if only your sister Catherine reads them, I fail to see how you can know much about them either.”

She chuckled again. “She is on the subscription list of every publisher in England, and receives her books as soon as they are printed. I confess, I have read several, but she reads every day and I don’t have that much time, on my hands. Moreover I like to read other things as well, when I do have the time.”

He reached behind her, and for a moment, she thought he meant either to tickle or to kiss her again, but instead he picked up her wineglass and, handing it to her, said seriously, “You need not fear that I will mistake myself for a hero out of a book, Anne. I have far too many things to do to have time to rescue damsels from dragons. I’m afraid any afflicted damsel of my acquaintance would be well advised to rescue herself rather than wait for me to ride to her aid on a white charger.”

She sipped her wine, watching him over the edge of the glass. The port was stronger than what she was accustomed to drink, but she liked the sensation of it on her tongue, and when she swallowed, she could feel it going down, warming her all the way. She took another sip, then said, “I am not so certain that you know yourself as well as you claim, sir. You have too strong a sense of duty to allow anyone for whom you feel the least responsibility to tilt alone at dragons. And since you seem to have a strong aversion to delegating your authority to anyone else, even in areas where you ought to do so, I think you would drop everything, snatch up your sword, leap on your white charger, and ride like the wind to the fair damsel’s rescue.”

This time he chuckled. He had taken up his wineglass, and he sipped from it, holding her easily. She saw increasing arousal in his expression and was not surprised to hear a new note in his voice when he said, “Finish your wine, Anne.”

Setting down his glass, he laid his hand casually on her breast, watching her face as if to judge her reaction. His touch made it hard to pay heed to the wine and she swallowed hastily. The gown she wore opened down the front, and her chemise had a pale blue silk ribbon threaded through the edging of the bodice, gathering it
à l’enfant.
She barely dared to breathe when Michael opened the gown and untied the little bow, freeing her breasts. His fingers played lightly over their soft contours.

She still held her glass, but her thoughts were suspended. She could not think what to do with it. Awkwardly, she moved to set it down.

“Keep it,” he said. “I want you to drink more wine.”

“I don’t want to get drunk,” she said. Her voice sounded sultry, unlike herself, as if she talked through smoke.

“You won’t get drunk,” he said. His fingers tantalized her more, arousing sensations that radiated from her breasts to the rest of her body. “A little intoxication won’t harm you. It will merely heighten your awareness, and I want you to feel everything that I do to you tonight.” Without waiting for a response, he reached for the decanter and poured more wine into her glass. Smiling wickedly, he added, “Believe me, sweetheart, I don’t want a drunken female in my bed, just one who will relax and enjoy herself.”

“I feel like a wanton with my gown gaping open like that,” she said, but she sipped obediently. She was relaxing, to be sure, but she did not know that the wine had much to do with it. Michael’s expert touch and her own curiosity had much more to do with her feelings. When he eased her gown and chemise from her shoulders and bent to kiss her breasts, she sighed with pleasure, arching her back, welcoming his caresses. And when he had taken her clothing from her, one piece after another, and commanded her huskily to help him remove his, she obeyed gladly, even impatiently. And when he possessed her the first time right there on the hearth rug, she met his passion with her own, and wondered at the delightful new feelings he inspired in her.

By the time he swept her up into his arms again and carried her to the bed, she knew that she had been greatly mistaken to think the physical side of marriage held little excitement. She hoped her husband had much more to teach her, and that they would have many years together to explore new possibilities. In bed, she soon found there was more to learn that very night, and long before they slept the huge fire had burned to glowing embers.

T
HE NEXT DAY BEING
Sunday, Anne attended the Communion service in the village with Michael, sitting in the private Upminster pew with him and the rest of the family. Mr. Pratt, Foster, and Maisie Bray accompanied them to the little steepled church facing the village square but sat nearer the rear with several of the other Priory servants. After the service, Anne stopped to exchange pleasantries with persons who approached her to comment on the success of the public day. She noticed that Michael, Lord Ashby, and Andrew were doing the same thing.

She had hoped to see Mrs. Flowers, but was not really surprised when the woman was nowhere to be seen. Lady Hermione and Cressbrook were there, as was Lady Thornton, with three of her daughters, but Sir Jacob was not. Andrew had been in higher spirits than usual when they set out for the village, and even now, although he had reverted to his customary attitude, he appeared to be enjoying himself. He kept a protective eye on Sylvia, however, and Anne realized that she had never seen him direct his arrogance toward his little sister.

When they met Cressbrook and Lady Hermione, Lord Ashby said cheerfully, “I say, Wilfred, just you wait till you cast your glims over our new aerostat, which, now that the dibs are in tune again, will be stitched and delivered before Anne’s cat can lick a paw. We’ll call her the
Great Britain,
by Jove, for great is what she’ll be. Modern valves, new design—dashed if I won’t have ribbons woven into the wicker to match the overhead netting. What colors do you favor? By Jove, you ought to have a say-so, since you’re laying out most of the blunt for the thing.”

Cressbrook regarded Lord Ashby with a fascinated eye and said, “Damme, Ashby, I don’t want to be troubled with the details of the thing. Just said I’d like to be part of the venture, don’t you know, not master of it. Said you could use the money, didn’t you, and since Hermie said—”

“Oh, Anne, what a charming gown that is,” Lady Hermione exclaimed, stepping right between her brother and Lord Ashby to take Anne’s arm. Looking back over her shoulder as she urged her away from the others, she said, “Wilfred, if I stroll for a few minutes with Anne to tell her how much we enjoyed ourselves yesterday, you won’t forget you did not come alone, will you?”

Her brother, looking bewildered, said, “How could I forget, my dear, when for the entire distance you kept interrupting what I was trying to tell you about poor Mrs. Medbury to bore me with your opinion of how much nicer the spring season is in England than in Ireland? What was I just saying? Damme, but I forgot.”

“But it is nicer here,” Lady Hermione said. “Not nearly so much rain, you know, and one never knows when one goes to bed at night what delights the next morning will hold. Come along, my dear Anne; and, Wilfred, do stop gabbling about your housekeeper. I daresay she’s simply fallen in love with that nice doctor who’s been looking after her mama. You were about to tell Ashby he needn’t look to you for an opinion of every little step he takes, since you know he is the expert on aerostats. Was that not it?”

“Stap me, but so it was. Dashed amazing female,” the viscount added. “Always knows just what a fellow wants to say.”

Moving away with Lady Hermione, Anne said with a chuckle, “I doubt if you diverted Lord Ashby’s thoughts, ma’am, as easily as your brother’s. And if he thinks, as I do, that you had anything to do with Cressbrook’s decision to subscribe to his venture—”

“Poppycock,” Lady Hermione said. “Even if Ashby thinks such a thing, he won’t mention it, because he don’t want to take a chance that Wilfred might change his mind about the money if he teases him. I just didn’t want Wilfred thoughtlessly suggesting that I had persuaded him to make his decision.”

“But you did, did you not?”

“Oh, a little, perhaps. I must say, my dear, the men in your family are looking unnaturally cheerful this morning. I had got quite accustomed to them all going about with Friday faces, but to look at them today one would think they had been granted royal, or even divine, favor. I understand Ashby’s delight, but what’s got into the other two?”

Anne smiled. “As to Andrew, I haven’t a notion, but as to Michael—Lord Michael, I should say—you hit the mark yesterday when you suggested that he was troubled. It was not that, exactly—more like being unhappy—and I cannot tell you the whole, of course, only that a slight misunderstanding between us has been set right.”

Lady Hermione nodded wisely. “That is just what I thought. I must say, it’s good to see him looking relaxed again. That heavy look he’s worn the past six months don’t suit him at all. Oh, look, there’s Jake Thornton! How wicked of him to have missed Mr. Dailey’s excellent sermon. Looks a bit gray, don’t you think? Usually, his complexion is quite florid, but no doubt he drank too much last night, out carousing as he no doubt was. I’ve a notion to tell him what I think of his behavior. Sure as check, Maria won’t dare even to take him to task. I’ve never known such a meek marshmallow as that woman. If my husband had treated me the way Jake treats her, I’d have bashed him over the head with an anvil, damme if I wouldn’t.”

“Ma’am, really!” Anne stifled a gurgle of laughter.

“Oh, don’t heed my unruly tongue, my dear. I’m just all out of patience with the woman. It’s all very well to moan about her poor health and to wish her husband understood her need for constant comforting, but if I were she …”

“Yes, I know what you would do. You’d bash his head in.”

Lady Hermione grimaced. “I daresay I wouldn’t, you know, any more than she has. But I’d like to think I would. Now, what do you suppose that confrontation is in aid of?”

Anne looked in the direction of her ladyship’s frowning gaze and saw Michael speaking earnestly to Sir Jacob. Sir Jacob shrugged, whereupon Michael’s countenance hardened in a way that she recognized only too well. The look was gone in an instant, however, and just then other movements caught her eye. Mrs. Flowers appeared as if from thin air and approached the minister, while at the same time, Andrew turned abruptly from the man with whom he had been speaking, and moved toward Mrs. Flowers.

Making a hasty excuse to Lady Hermione, Anne started after him, only to find that she had not shaken off her companion.

“What is it?” Lady Hermione demanded, striding alongside.

“I must keep Andrew from speaking again to that woman,” Anne said in an urgent undertone.

“What woman? Oh, that woman. Good gracious, my dear, why do any such thing? It isn’t as if he’s got Sylvia with him. At the moment … yes, there she is yonder, with your Maisie.”

Still keeping her voice low so as not to be overheard by anyone else, Anne said, “That woman is Sir Jacob’s mistress, ma’am, as I told you yesterday. Michael won’t approve of Andrew’s enlarging his acquaintance with her.”

“Are you certain of that?”

Amusement underscored the words, and stopped Anne in her tracks. She stared at her friend in astonishment. “What can you mean, ma’am? That woman is no better than she should be, and Andrew ought not to associate with her.”

“My dear, I know all about her now. After I talked to you yesterday, I quite unscrupulously assaulted Wilfred and made him empty the budget to me. You’d be surprised what Wilfred knows. A quiet fellow for the most part, and never stirred a step over the mark in any way that I know about—except, perhaps, for wagering more than he ought when he makes his annual treks to Newmarket and the York races—but he does keep his finger on the pulse of the county, for all that. He said Fiona Flowers hails from a Chesterfield bordello, that she was actually running the place when Sir Jacob found her there and bedded her. He was so smitten, he moved her to the village, bag and baggage, where he’s kept her ever since—in fine style, too, by what Wilfred said.”