She stood up. “Very well. If that is what you would prefer.”
“Yes. Definitely.”
He heaved a sigh of relief when the door closed behind her.
“Jane and the baby are doing well, Cecilia?”
“Splendidly. Jane was very brave, John.” Mrs. Parker-Roth poured some water into the wash basin and chuckled. “Well, perhaps it was more that she was desperate not to be pregnant any longer. I’m just happy I made it home before the baby was born.”
Her husband snorted. “I’m certain Jane would have managed well enough without you.”
“No doubt, but a mother belongs at her daughter’s side during such a time.” She splashed water on her face. To think she might have stayed in London and missed the birth of her first grandchild! Thank God for the scandal and the hurried wedding. Still, she’d been certain she’d had another couple weeks. “I think Jane must have miscalculated.”
“I think Jane must have anticipated her vows.”
“Of course she did. They were caught in a very compromising situation. Still, I admit to being a little surprised. I didn’t think Edmund would have…I mean, he’s not the kind of man to…” She shrugged. “Well, that’s neither here nor there. Everything turned out for the best.”
John grunted. “At least Motton got here in time. Claybourne told me he arrived with the midwife.”
“Yes, indeed. Jane was delighted to see him. She spent every breath she could spare cursing him. Quite took her mind off her worries.”
“Then it’s a good thing she didn’t have a knife at hand. The man might have found himself separated from his testicles. Jane has not been a very pleasant companion these last few weeks.”
“Poor thing. I’m sure she was most uncomfortable.”
“She was not the only one.”
“John, you need to have some sympathy.”
“I had some sympathy. It left about a week ago.”
Cecilia paused in washing her face. John’s voice was decidedly testy. She smiled. She knew exactly what he needed. She was too excited to sleep anyway.
“How did Motton hold up to her abuse?”
“Well enough,” she said. “He seemed not to take offense. He knows her—and I think he knows how hard his absence has been for her.” She dried her face.
“Jane had best watch that her waspish tongue doesn’t send him into some other, more congenial bed.”
“My, you are in a bad mood this evening.”
“I’m not.”
“You are.” She picked up her brush. For a poet, he was not being terribly eloquent. No matter. She would shortly give him plenty of opportunity to show how nimble his tongue was.
She shivered in anticipation. She had missed him, too.
“I assume Motton’s aunt finally cocked up her toes?”
She laughed. “No. Edmund said she had a miraculous recovery. She’ll probably stage another deathbed scene when she gets lonely again. He did promise to bring the baby by so she could see him—that’s what made her perk up.” She pulled her brush through her hair. Perhaps she would not do a hundred strokes tonight. A different part of her body longed for a different kind of stroking. She would just get the worst of the tangles out. “Oh, John, the baby is so precious. Can you believe he has a thick head of brown curls? He must get that from Edmund’s side.”
“Didn’t ours have hair?”
“Of course not! Don’t you remember? They were all so bald, we couldn’t tell what color their hair was until they were a year old.”
How could the man not remember? Well, it was many years ago. Lucy, the baby, was already fourteen. Where did the time go? She looked at herself in the mirror. There were definitely more wrinkles around her eyes and lips; more gray in her hair. And now there was a grandbaby. One…maybe more…
“What do you think of your new daughter-in-law?”
“She seems nice enough. She didn’t get the best introduction to the Priory, though. Claybourne dumped her in my office when you all deserted her. And then Jane came in to complain, in excruciating detail, about the woes of pregnancy.”
“I am sorry about that. I should have stayed with Meg, but I felt so dreadful. I do hope Pinky is on the mend.”
“You know John doesn’t like to be called Pinky, Cecilia.”
“Johnny, then.”
“And Johnny is over thirty. He’s well past needing a mother.”
“Everyone—every man—needs a mother, at least until he is married.” She put down her brush. Meg and Johnny were married, but there was still something keeping them apart. What? Why had Johnny fought the match so hard? Any clod pole could see they were meant for each other—any clod pole besides her son, apparently.
He wasn’t really still wearing the willow for Lady Grace Dawson, was he? Had he sworn off all women because he’d been left at the altar? Surely not. Yes, it had been a very unpleasant experience, but it had happened years ago. It was in the past. He needed to look to the future.
She turned to face her husband. He was propped up in bed, reading a book—more poetry, no doubt.
She loved looking at him, as her many paintings attested. Agatha was correct in that regard. She had fallen in love with a pair of broad shoulders—and with the man who came with those shoulders. He understood her as no one else did, and he’d given her six children whom she loved beyond life. How could she have chosen art over marriage?
And she had her art, just not in the single-minded way she would have if she’d done what Agatha had advised.
Was Johnny choosing work over love—was that the problem? He was safely married now, but he was stubborn enough to deny he felt anything more than lust for his wife—if he would even admit to that emotion. She sighed. She almost wished a fire would sweep through his blasted gardens and greenhouses, so he would pull his head out of the compost long enough to see the world around him.
“What’s the matter?”
“I think we need to come up with a plan to bring Johnny and Meg together.”
“They are together, Cecilia. They are married. How much more together can they be?”
“Well, yes, they’ve said their vows, but they aren’t together, if you know what I mean.”
John pushed his spectacles up his nose. “No, I don’t know what you mean.”
“Don’t be such a nodcock. I’m quite sure they haven’t consummated the marriage.”
“Well, why didn’t you just say so instead of beating around the bush? You’ve been in London too long. You’ve picked up their mealy-mouthed ways.”
She wouldn’t call Lady Dunlee mealy-mouthed, but it was true she’d been in London too long. She wet her lips. She was so glad John eschewed nightshirts, preferring to sleep in the buff. The glow of candlelight on his skin—on the strong column of his neck, the sweeping line of his shoulders, the thick graying hair curling across his chest—demanded that she paint him…after she did other things, of course.
She loved his body. She’d loved it when they were newly married, and she loved it now when he’d passed his sixtieth birthday.
“Not everyone ignores the proprieties like Jane and Edmund,” he said. “And it’s a little difficult to be busy between the sheets if you’re busy puking your guts up. I’m sure they’ll get around to attending to matters once they are both healthy.”
“I don’t know. Johnny can be very…pigheaded.”
“Not that pigheaded. He is a man, Cecilia. Leave him alone and he’ll do his duty.”
“And what is Meg to be doing while she’s waiting for Johnny’s animal instincts to get the better of him?”
“Just that—waiting.”
“Pshaw! Meg has a very strong personality. I doubt she’ll be willing to sit around netting or embroidering handkerchiefs while the idiot boy makes up his mind to be a husband.”
John shrugged. “If she’s so bloody strong-willed, she can seduce him. I assume the door between their rooms works in both directions.”
“Seduce him? Are y
ou—” Wait, why couldn’t Meg seduce Johnny? It was not the way most virgins climbed into their marriage beds—and she did indeed think Meg was a virgin, no matter what the London gabble grinders whispered—but that was not to say it wouldn’t work perfectly well. Of course it would. As John had said, Johnny was a man. He might not be a rake, but he knew how the relevant organ operated. He did have a mistress in the village.
Cecilia frowned. “Do you suppose you should have a word with Mrs. Haddon?”
“Definitely not.” John scowled at her. “You are not supposed to know of her existence.”
“Of course I know of her existence. I make it a point to know everything I can about my children.”
He snorted and turned back to his poetry. “Stop meddling, Cecilia.”
“Hmm.” She smiled slightly. Perhaps the mistress was not an issue. She must remember the way Johnny had watched Meg in the London ballrooms. He just needed a little encouragement. A little privacy. A little seduction.
She could teach Meg a thing or two about seduction. She loosened her dressing gown and let it slide off her shoulders. “Perhaps you are right. Having Meg seduce Johnny might work.”
“Of course it will—” John sat up, closing his book with a snap. “What do you have on?”
“Just a little something I found in London.” A very little something. The sheer scraps of willow green barely covered her crucial parts. She spread out her bare arms and turned, feeling the silky cloth slide over her breasts and flutter around her thighs. “Do you like it?”
“It is indecent.”
“Of course it is—but do you like it?” She made certain she had the fire behind her.
John growled and pulled the bedcovers back.
“Come here and I’ll show you just how much I like it.”
Chapter 20
“What a beautiful baby.” Lady Felicity—Lady Bennington, now—cooed at the Honorable Winthrop Jonathan Smyth, Lord Motton’s new son and heir. The Honorable Winthrop Jonathan Smyth, reclining in his mother’s arms, yawned.
“He’s a good baby,” Jane said. “He sleeps most of the night already.”
Meg repressed a smile. Jane, who had been complaining vociferously about entertaining “that leg of mutton dressed as lamb,” was now beaming at Felicity as if she were her new best friend. And Felicity did seem genuinely taken with the baby.
“You are so fortunate to be delivered of such a healthy boy,” Felicity said. “I’m hopeful of presenting my husband with an heir as soon as may be.” She giggled. “Bennie is certainly very eager to be a papa—and very conscientious in his efforts to realize that goal.”
Meg dropped her gaze quickly to her hands, folded in her lap. To think of Lord Bennington’s slug-like lips in close proximity to her person—ick! She was certainly glad she did not have to suffer that man’s attentions.
She did not have to suffer any man’s attentions. It had been three weeks since her marriage and still the door between her room and John’s remained closed.
She shifted in her chair. It made perfect sense, really. Things had been very unsettled. She had been sick—it had taken her a while to recover completely from the revolting illness she’d caught from Charlie—and then John had been sick as well. Jane had had her baby. There’d been estate business for John to deal with—his father delegated to him the running of the Priory. A new shipment of exotic plants had arrived while John was in London, so he’d spent a lot of time in his greenhouses cataloguing and coddling his new acquisitions.
She would have liked to have helped him with that at least. She might not be as knowledgeable as he, but she was far from a total ignoramus. But he hadn’t asked for her assistance. In fact, she’d gotten the very clear impression he wanted her to stay as far from him and his plants as possible.
She sighed. The situation could not continue as it was. She had to talk to him. She would…soon.
Felicity leaned over and touched her knee. “Sighing over your husband?”
“Uh…” Meg looked to Jane for help, but her sister-in-law was concentrating on nursing her son. Her lips were pressed tightly together, her jaw clenched. She obviously wished to let loose her normal string of curses when the baby latched on to her breast, but refused to do so in Felicity’s presence.
Mrs. Parker-Roth had assured Jane her nipples would toughen up any day and then breastfeeding would cease to be such torture. Jane was not mollified. She was not a terribly patient woman.
Felicity was sighing herself. “I find I like married life much more than I could ever have imagined.” She shook her head as if in wonderment. “Bennie may seem dull as ditchwater on the surface, but he’s not. Well, I suppose someone else might find him so, but I don’t.” She grinned. “And he’s surprisingly satisfying in bed. Of course, it helps that he has an impressive coc—”
“Yes, well, indeed, I’m glad you are so happy.” Surely the woman was not going to discuss what went on behind the closed door of her bedchamber?
Felicity frowned. “You sound like a virgin.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. I’ve been married three weeks.”
“You are a virgin, aren’t you?”
Wild horses would not draw that truth from her lips. “Do you miss London?”
“Of course not.” Felicity rolled her eyes. “You had your own scandal brewing, so I’m sure you didn’t pay attention to the tittle-tattle about my father. He fled England under a cloud of debt. I won’t be returning to any London ballrooms until I’ve presented Bennie with his heir.”
“I see.”
The worst of Jane’s torture must be over. She was smiling now and running her fingers through the baby’s thick brown curls, but she still wasn’t attending to the conversation.
“Let me give you some advice,” Felicity said, leaning close. “Technically, I was a virgin on my wedding night—well, my wedding trip—but I’ve had extensive experience with men. They are simple creatures. Unless Parker-Roth is…odd, he just needs a little encouragement to do his duty.”
“Encouragement?” Meg had once counseled Lizzie on how to bring Robbie up to scratch. She’d spent hours and hours observing the social interactions of men and women. She’d thought herself an expert, but she was not. Being a participant was vastly different from being an observer.
“Yes. It is not terribly subtle, but I guarantee it will do the trick.” Felicity grinned. “Just show up naked in the man’s bed.”
“No hard feelings, are there, Parker-Roth?”
Bennington stood on the other side of the study. He could not have put more distance between them had he tried—and he had tried. The moment his foot had crossed the threshold, he’d moved as far from Parks as he could, which suited Parks perfectly. With any luck, Felicity would get tired of admiring Jane’s baby soon and take her husband home.
“Hard feelings?” Of course there were hard feelings. Bennington hated him—and he’d have to admit, he didn’t care much for Bennington. Though besides the fact the man was avoiding him, the viscount seemed surprisingly mellow. Marriage must agree with him.
He wished he could say the same for himself.
He smiled and clasped his hands tightly behind his back.
“Why would I harbor any hard feelings?”
Bennington raised his eyebrows. “If I hadn’t been out in Palmerson’s garden with Miss Peterson—I mean, your wife now, of course—you would not have found yourself compelled to offer for her.”
“Are you suggesting I was forced into marriage?” He had been, but he did not care for Bennington saying so.
Bennington blinked. “It’s not precisely a secret, though now that I consider the matter, the events at the Palmerson ball are not those mentioned when your nuptials are whispered about. Lord Peter scribbled something about you kissing Fonsby—”
“Good God, are you mad?! I bloody well did not kiss Lord Fonsby! The thought is revolting. Repugnant. Loathsome.” The English language did not contain a word strong enough to describe the hor
ror that mental image evoked.
“I didn’t think you had—Lord Peter has a terrible scrawl. But I’d say something unusual happened. Tundrow, whose hand is quite legible, wrote to say you’d been tossed out of the Horticultural Society.” Bennington couldn’t suppress his grin, though he did try. “Sorry to hear it.”
Right. “It was only a misunderstanding. I’m quite confident I can have my membership reinstated should I choose to do so.”
“Oh? Might you choose not to?”
Parks shrugged. The thought of going back to London was more unpleasant than ever, but in a few months his mother was certain to want to see her artist friends again. And his…wife…might want to go, as well. He should make the effort to establish her in society, especially since their marriage had been—was still, apparently—such an on-dit.
“I suppose I might—when I get around to it, of course.”
“Of course.”
Bennington smiled briefly, then turned to examine the bookshelves. Parks examined the carpet.
What was he going to do about his wife? The door between their rooms might as well be nailed shut.
She had not wanted to marry him. She’d wanted a title to match the title her sister had captured. Any woman would. She’d just been unlucky that Lady Dunlee had stumbled upon her with him in Palmerson’s garden. If he’d left her to her own devices, she might be a viscountess now. And though dressing as a man and attending the Horticultural Society meeting had been beyond shocking, she would have escaped unnoticed if he hadn’t chosen to maul her in front of half the ton.
It was really his fault she was condemned to be merely Mrs. Parker-Roth instead of Lady Somebody.
Claybourne stuck his head into the study. “My lord, Lady Bennington is ready to depart.”
“Ah! Thank you, Claybourne.” Bennington bolted for the door. “Glad we spent this time together, Parker-Roth. Cleared the air, heh?”
“Well—”
He was left addressing only the air.
Did Bennington really believe he would attack him with amorous designs? Unbelievable—though apparently most of London believed it.
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