The Hazards Of Hunting A Duke (24 page)

There was a moment’s hesitation, then the sound of her leaving his room.

An hour later, Jared joined Ava in the salon. She had changed her clothes, and was wearing a

cream-colored silk gown embroidered with dark green leaves that made her look a bit like an angel. Around her throat was a triple strand of pearls that matched tho se clipped to her ears and strung in her hair. He had thought her pretty once, but the more he saw of her, the more he found her to be uniquely beautiful.

She was pacing a little when he walked into the salon, oblivious to the two footmen who attended her.

She jerked her gaze to him when the door closed behind him, her eyes quickly taking him in as she walked across the room to him. She dropped a very quick curtsy, and just as quickly, rose up on her toes to peck him on the cheek.

He smiled wryly. “Been in the whiskey again, have you?” he teased her. “Not as yet.

Should I begin?” she asked sarcastically.

He hated that look on her face; he wanted to see her sunny smile again. “You may do as you like. You won’t mind if I have one, will you?” Indeed, one o f the footmen was moving toward the sideboard as he spoke. He motioned for Ava to take a seat on the settee, and sat beside her.

When the footman had presented him with the whiskey, he held it up to her in silent toast.

“A very lovely gown,” he said, taki ng it in. “Quite fetching.”

She smiled thinly and sat rather stiffly next to him. Neither of them spoke. His bride, always so exuberant, was very subdued.

“Does the abbey meet with your approval?” he asked idly, hardly caring of her answer, wanting only to break the cold silence that was enveloping them.

But she looked at him as if he were mad. “Very much, my lord.”

He glanced at the arm of the settee. “Did Dawson look after you while I was away?” he asked as he plucked absently at the seam in the f abric.

“He did, indeed. Miss Hillier, too. She’s very fond of you.” “And I of her,” he admitted.

“She was my nursemaid.”

“Yes,” Ava said, glancing away. “She said as much. She told me how you were five years before you could pronounce the letter s.”

He shook his head. Miss Hillier could drive him quite round the bend on occasion. “Did you have a nursemaid?” he asked for sake of conversation.

“Several. My mother couldn’t seem to keep them employed for very long. I suppose we were so terribly spoiled that no one could bear us.”

He could well imagine the three of them torturing some poor nursemaid. “Spoiled?”

“Oh, dreadfully!” she exclaimed, and seemed to relax as she began to tell him tales, in great animation, of

her life at Bingley Hall. It was odd, he thought, that a person could swear his devotion to a woman and know so little about her. The years at Bingley Hall were obviously her fondest memory, and he wasn’t even certain where it was.

But at least the memory of it animated her, and he enjoyed watching her talk, her hands moving expressively, her green eyes glimmering with tales of what seemed a happy childhood. When Dawson announced s upper, and he escorted his wife to her seat, she told him again of her mother’s death and

how suddenly it had come. His heart went out to her —his own mother had been gone a long time now,

but he remembered that deep sense of loss, the hole in him that his mother’s love had once filled.

“Oh dear,” Ava said, dabbing at the corner of her eye with her napkin. “I beg your pardon, my lord…I

don’t know what’s come over me.”

He reached for her hand. “She was very dear to you, obviously.”

She nodded, and when she ’d regained her composure, she turned her attention back to her plate and took a bite of pike. “Do you remember your mother?”

“Of course,” he responded. But he didn’t tell her that his memory of her was fading more with each passing year.

“If I may…where is Redford?” she asked.

Just the mention of his father’s estate and his childhood home caused him to flinch inwardly. “North,” he said tightly.

“What was it—”

“It is nothing but a distant memory now that I really don’t recall,” he said, interrupting her before she could quiz him endlessly on a period of his life he’d just as soon forget.

She looked at him with surprise.

He could see that the tone of his voice had upset her—really, almost everything he’d done since marrying her—with the exception of bedding her —had upset her. He sighed wearily and put aside his fork. “Do forgive me, but I don’t recall a particularly happy childhood. As you can imagine, my father was quite… stern,” he added.

She asked nothing else, and they continued their meal in silence. It seemed to Jared to stretch into hours.

He ate and thought of London, of the many things he would be doing were he there, and how he could not bear to wile a way the days here in pursuit of some elusive domesticity.

When supper was finished, and the footman had cleared the last of the dishes away, Jared reached into

his coat pocket and extracted a cheroot. He held it up to Ava. “If it offends you, I shall step outside.” “No,” she said, shaking her head, and gestured for him to smoke it.

He lit it, exhaled a ring of smoke, and smiled at her. “You must be tired. If you should like to retire, then

by all means, you must do so.”

She smiled. “I’m not tired,” she sa id. “I can stay as long as you like.”

That was precisely what he was afraid of. Just looking at her now, her cheeks rosy from the dinner wine,

her long, tapered fingers dancing on the stem of the glass, he felt a tug of desire to take her to his bed.

And once again, that desire unnerved him, and put him on uneven ground. He didn’t want to physically desire her at all, for that only made the situation more difficult.

He had determined, during the long stretch of day, that he would do his duty by her, b ut no more than

that. How could he? Anything more would feed expectations, and the less they expected of one another,

the happier they would both be.

He ground the cheroot out, stretched his hands on the table before him, and said evenly,

“You needn’t wait for me, Lady Middleton. There is some correspondence I must review before retiring.”

She blinked, glanced uneasily at the footman. “Won’t you call me Ava?” she asked softly. “Lady

Middleton seems so…formal.”

“Ava,” he said reluctantly. The formality served to hold her at arm’s length, where he wanted her. “If you will excuse me, I have some correspondence I must review.”

But before he could go, she shifted in her chair, closer to him, and leaned forward, obviously aware of

the footmen. “But…but can’t you see to it on the morrow?” she whispered. “I thought perhaps we might read, or —”

“It cannot wait,” he said curtly.

Her disappointment was clearly evident, and it pricked him much more sharply than he cared to admit. After a moment, she sagged against the back of her chair and released a long sigh.

“Is something wrong?” he asked calmly.

“Not at all, other than I rather thought that as we’d only joined together in matrimony day before yesterday,” she said, lif ting her gaze to him, “we might spend at least a bit of time together.”

He’d been so certain she understood their match, so certain she would be little trouble when she had

what she wanted. Now he felt pressed to explain when he really couldn’t explain hi mself at all because he couldn’t understand what was happening inside him.

The situation perturbed him; he glanced at the two footmen. “That will be all,” he said, and waited for the two men to quit the room. When they had gone through the pocket door leading to the next room, he

turned an unwavering gaze to his wife and said, “I prefer we not discuss the details of our private lives before the servants, Lady Middleton.”

“Private life? As we have not as yet established any sort of life, I do not deserve y our admonishment.” His gaze narrowed. “We do indeed have a life, and it is none of the servants’ concern.”

Ava shrugged and looked away.

Women, he thought with an internal sigh. “Lady Middleton,” he said quietly but firmly,

“look at me.” She lifted her ch in, just like a child, and refused to look at him.

“Look at me,” he said again, his voice brooking no argument.

She glanced at him from the corner of her eye. He leaned forward, put his hand around her wrist, and

held it tightly. “We had an agreement, you and I,” he reminded her. “We agreed to further one another’s ends.”

“I understand—”

“I don’t think you do,” he interrupted. “We made a bargain that came with certain defined expectations

for us both. Beyond those expectations, there is nothing more, and you should not wish for it.”

“I hope you will forgive me for pointing out that you were far more charming before we married,” she said, yanking her wrist free of his grasp. “I understood our mutual expectations, my lord, but I did not think we’d be complete strangers to one another.”

He snorted at that. “We are no longer strangers, madam, and well you know it. But I would advise, for

the sake of your happiness, that you do not ask of me what I cannot give. Do you understand? I can give you a name, and my protection, and extend that protection to your family, all in exchange for your

bearing me a son. That was our tacit agreement and that is all I can give you.”

Ava’s green eyes went wide. She blinked, with an ger or hurt or perhaps both. But before she could

argue the point, he stood up, walked around the table to her, put his hand on her shoulders, and leaned down to kiss her cheek. “Sleep well, wife,” he said, and walked out of the dining room.

A nother sleepless night, and Ava was up just after dawn, staring forlornly out her window—which gave

her opportunity to see her husband ride out on his brown horse as the sun was rising, his speed reckless.

She pulled her dressing robe tightly around her as she watched him disappear down the road. When she couldn’t see him any longer, she walked back to her bed and flung herself on it. She’d never felt so lost,

not when her mother died or Greer left. No, nothing had prepared her or warned her for the loneliness of marriage. She felt as if she were wandering aimlessly, seeking any direction.

This was most certainly not what she had bargained for. It was not what she’d expected, not what she wanted, and not something she thought she could possibly bear.

Granted, she’d been fully prepared to live a life separate from her husband —except for the relations they would have to produce children, obviously, and, all right, except for the fabulous routs she had dreamed

of them hosting—but then again, she’d not expected to feel so differently about it all after her wedding night.

That was something her mother had neglected to tell her —that strong emotions would accompany

relations with a man so handsome and dashing as he r husband. Ava had never suspected she could feel

so tender of heart that she would need to see him, need to touch him, need to bask in the warmth of his smile.

This was not the carefree existence her mother had touted. This was not pleasant, nor was it convenient.

It was, in fact, quite painful. Ava felt like a fool, like a trollop who had carelessly and foolishly traded her happiness for wealth and social position.

Worse, she had absolutely no idea what to do about it and no one to help her. She could scarcely

confide in Miss Hillier—she didn’t know the woman, and besides, she clearly loved Middleton like a son. There was simply no one to whom she could unburden herself.

“Well, then,” she said to no one, “you must endeavor to think quite hard on it, Lad y Middleton.”

She frowned at the sound of her new name. She found it distasteful when he said it, as if she were more a mistress than a wife, and hardly a mistress at that.

All the moping was making her restless. She’d never been one to mope, actually , and made up her mind

she would not start now. A walk —that is what she needed. A walk to help her think.

She marched to her dressing room, where all her clothes had been pressed and put away by a staff so efficient that she was actually beginning to thin k that if she did do something entirely on her own, they would be highly offended. After rifling through the few gowns she’d brought, she found a serviceable, somber day gown.

At her solitary breakfast, Ava inquired of Dawson if there were any walking pat hs to which he might point her.

He looked surprised by her question. “There are some walking paths, madam, but the gardens are much more enjoyable.”

“Thank you, but I would prefer a good walk with sun and fresh air.”

Dawson frowned lightly. “I would not think his lordship would want you to walk alone, my lady. Perhaps you might wait until he returns?”

Just the mention of his absence rankled Ava, and she abruptly stood up, smiled brightly at Dawson, and shook her head. “I think not, sir, for he could very well be gone quite some time. Days, even. I should

like to walk today.”

Dawson hurried after her to show her the path, pleading with her not to go alone. But Ava fit a bonnet on

her head and asked, “What is there to f ear, Mr. Dawson? Cows?” She laughed at her own joke. “There is nothing to fear, Lady Middleton, but you might twist an ankle —”

Ava gestured for the footman to open the door. “I assure you I am quite capable of walking, and frankly,

I think I do it rather well. I will be quite all right. Is there a chance I might stumble on a village or some such thing?”

“Madam,” he said, clearly mortified, “you cannot mean to go as far as Broderick!”

“Can’t I?” she asked airily, fitting her hands into her gloves. “How far can it be? Three, perhaps four

miles? I shall return this afternoon. Oh do stop looking so alarmed, Mr. Dawson!” She patted his arm. “I

assure you, I will be quite all right. Where is the path, then? To the east? The west?” Mr.

Dawson frowned and reluctan tly pointed out the path.