by Cheryl Bolen
“I am greatly looking forward to it. Rebecca said you’ve been sewing the cast’s costumes yourself,” he said.
She nodded. “My timing could not have been more perfect. I finished the last one this afternoon.”
“Then will we have the privilege of seeing your masterpiece tomorrow?” He looked hopefully at her.
She glared at Peter. “Will you be able to honor us with your presence tomorrow, Peter?”
“Seeing as how I’m to be the star,” he said facetiously, his eyes glittering as he watched her, “I shall be available tomorrow evening.”
“Tell me,” Aynsley said to him, “how is it you’ve become...darker in my absence?”
Peter hesitated a moment before he responded. “I have discovered I wish to be out of doors. No more idle days for me.”
“Of course there’s no title for you, young man!” Ethelbert shouted. “My nephew’s the earl. Just like my brother was, God rest his soul.”
“What I said, Uncle,” Peter said in a much-elevated voice, “is I don’t wish to be idle. No more sleeping the day away.”
“So what are you finding to amuse yourself?” Aynsley asked his nephew.
“I would imagine it has something to do with horses,” Emily said, narrowing her eyes with displeasure.
“I have always been horse mad, but I’ve learned my lessons about wagering.” He shook his head. “No more races at Newmarket for me.”
Perhaps Peter was maturing. “A wise decision.”
Spencer and Alex told their sister how much they had enjoyed their visit to Wey. Aynsley was surprised she did not show more enthusiasm. Surely she was not so jealous of Rebecca that she resented her successes with the lads! He was very disappointed in his daughter.
“Can I interest you and Rebecca in a game of whist after dinner, Uncle?” Peter asked Aynsley.
All Aynsley really wanted to do after dinner was to be alone with Rebecca. He had stored up so many things he wished to share with her.
And he was anxious to acknowledge the love that had grown between him and his wife.
“Certainly,” he said. “We must allow Rebecca time to read to the lads. She goes to them every night before she meets me in the library.”
“Are you still reading Ivanhoe?” Peter asked Rebecca.
“Indeed, I am.”
“Papa, when will we get our bows and arrows?” Alex asked.
Aynsley smiled at his redheaded son. “I did not forget. I ordered some fine ones before I left London. You should have them in a few days.”
The boys’ faces brightened.
He drew in his breath. He’d been waiting for just such a pleasant moment as this to make the announcement that might offend his children. “Tomorrow I am sending the portrait of the late countess to Fordyce. I believe the heir should have his mother’s portrait in his lodgings at Oxford, and after he inherits, I daresay the portrait will be restored to Dunton Hall.”
Emily’s head whipped around to face Rebecca. “You’re behind this!”
“Emily!” He could not remember when his tone had ever been so severe with his daughter. “The idea is mine. Dunton has a new mistress now, and I demand that you show her the respect that is her due.”
Peter scowled at her. “Your father’s right, Em.”
Rebecca spoke in a soothing voice. “Emily’s done nothing for which she should be upbraided, and I beg that you not do so.”
“Never liked the late countess,” Uncle Ethelbert said. “Snooty duke’s daughter’s what she was! Thought she was too good for a mere earl, if you ask me.”
“No one asked,” Aynsley shouted. “That will be enough talk of the late countess.”
* * *
He wanted to extricate himself from the game without offending his daughter or nephew, without declaring he was ready for bed, either. He and Rebecca had won the first rubber, and they were now on the second, which looked as if their opponents would win. “I believe this will be the last rubber,” he finally said.
Peter eyed him. “You must be tired to death after riding all day.”
“That I am, but I also have much to impart to my wife before we go to bed.”
“I daresay my sister has tasked you with volumes to report to me.”
Thank God for Rebecca’s quick thinking. “Indeed, she did.”
Peter took the last trump, and they called the evening an even match.
“I should like a chance to annihilate you at a later date,” Peter said, peering at his uncle.
“There will be a rematch, but you mistake the victors,” Aynsley said, smiling at his nephew and daughter.
Once he was alone with Rebecca, he suggested they move to the sofa in front of the fire. He sat next to her and drew her hand within his. Contentment reached deep within him like the warmth of the fire.
“You must tell me all about the passage of the tax bill,” she said.
“A lot of my success came at your sister’s. She had assembled a great many Members of Parliament.”
“Were you the one who introduced the topic at her table?”
He nodded. “As a matter of fact, I was.”
“Pray, how did you begin?”
“I prefaced my remarks by telling them I had never once supported a tax increase, and I’ve been in Parliament half my life—in Commons before I succeeded my father.”
“A very good way to begin.”
“Then I proceeded to tell them why we need the additional taxes.”
“I would imagine the most persuasive argument was the war. If we can’t arm forces to beat Napoleon, there’s no telling how much more men of property—men like those dining at my sister’s—would stand to lose if the French win this wretched war.”
That Rebecca’s thoughts so closely mirrored his own never failed to amaze him. He was prodigiously glad she was possessed of intelligence, too. “I believe you’re right.”
“I’m so very proud of you, John. And I think I may not dislike Lord Sethbridge as much as I once did, owing to the fact he values you as you should be valued.”
She called me John. Upon her lips his Christian name was to his ears the sweetest endearment. “Spoken like a prejudiced wife.” His eyes softened as he stroked her cheek with a knuckle.
She favored him with a smile. “I am so very happy to be your wife.”
“And I am happy that I’ve found you.”
“Pray, don’t leave me again.”
“I assure you I don’t want to. Dunton’s the place I love best.” He loved her, too, but he wouldn’t tell her just yet. She likely was experiencing too many new, unfamiliar feelings to comprehend them all. He stifled a yawn.
“Peter is right,” she said. “You must be whipped after riding all day. Why do you not go to bed early and promise to take me riding with you in the morning? Seeing Dunton as the green is being restored to the trees and lawns will do your heart good.”
“Springtime at Dunton is wonderful. I do look forward to seeing it with you after breakfast.” He rose, then offered her his hand.
They climbed the stairs and came to her bedchamber. Leaving her there at the door was going to be one of the hardest things he had ever done. He did not want to leave her ever again. He wanted to let her know how much he had come to love her.
She stopped and faced him, one hand on the ornate doorknob.
He moved closer and lowered his head to her for just a taste of her sweet lips, then he forced himself to pull away. “Good night, my love.”
He could tell she watched him as he strode down the corridor to his own chambers.
* * *
Rebecca fairly danced into her chamber. John is home! My husband is home!
What in heaven’s name had gotten into her? She had launched herself into her husband’s arms that afternoon, and if that weren’t bold enough, she had most willingly lifted her face to his for a kiss right there on the steps to Dunton Hall!
While that had not been the first time her husband had kissed her, tha
t had been the first time in her eight and twenty years a kiss had affected her so profoundly. Maggie had told her. Verity had told her. But Rebecca never had believed them when they told her she would enjoy being kissed by a husband with whom she was in love.
She stopped in her stride midway between the door and window where she had placed her new desk. In love? Frozen to the broadloom carpet, she was completely, utterly, devastatingly dazed.
How could she have been so foolish not to have understood this wondrous transformation that had come over her these past several weeks? She was in love with her husband. That explained why she had been so forlorn during his absence. That explained the gladness that filled her soul when she beheld him standing in front of Dunton that afternoon. That explained why she wanted to be with him, to speak to him, to touch him, every day of her life.
She loved him. She loved every single thing about this noble man she had married. At the dinner table that night she realized she loved to look at him, at that face that was still boyish despite his maturity. She loved that he was possessed of a fine mind and keen sense of intelligence. She loved that he was an honorable man who could never neglect his duties. She loved that he was a good man and a fine father. She could have looked over the entire earth and never found a man so well suited to her.
The revelation that she had fallen in love with her husband lifted a heavy burden from her. Since the day she had spoken her wedding vows, she had felt a fraud. She had been ashamed to have pledged herself only halfheartedly during that somber, religious ceremony.
She had known the Lord had guided her to John. She should have known that the Lord would see her to the natural completion of this most sacred sacrament.
She collapsed onto the sofa in front of the fire. What if John did not feel the same? Her thoughts flitted back over the evening’s proceedings. Hadn’t he said, “I am happy to have found you”? Hadn’t he called her my love just minutes ago? Hadn’t he tenderly kissed her?
Perhaps he did not yet realize he was falling in love with her. Please, God, let him love me, too. Let us fulfill our wedding vows.
What was she to do now? The former Rebecca Peabody was a fish out of water when it came to matters of the heart.
If John did not return her love, she would just die. Such sentiment seemed like something a pretty young thing—not the mature married woman she had become—would think. Even if he could never love her, she would be grateful just to spend her life with him.
She watched the flames until her fire went cold, then she undressed and went to bed, but she could not sleep. Every thought centered upon the wondrous discovery that she was in love with her husband.
Her last thought before finally falling asleep just before dawn was that rain was softly drumming against her windows. Now she wouldn’t be able to ride with him. How would she contrive to be alone with him? How would she be able to tell him her wondrous news?
Chapter Fifteen
Neither the gray skies nor the soft patter of rain against her windows the following morning was going to dampen Rebecca’s spirits. She sat in front of her looking glass, put on her spectacles so she could see, then instructed Pru to make her pretty.
She stared into the glass, profoundly disappointed in what she saw. How could she look so much like Maggie, yet lack her sister’s beauty?
It was the spectacles. Uncle Ethelbert was right. No woman wearing them could ever aspire to true beauty.
Sweet heavens! Why was she—a woman who’d always fancied herself a bluestocking—contemplating her own nonexistent beauty?
Because she did so want John to think her lovely.
“Yer always pretty, milady.”
Rebecca frowned. “Pray, don’t address me in that way.”
Pru brushed out her mistress’s lustrous locks, then began to pin the thick dark hair away from Rebecca’s face. “Yer husband must be the most tolerant man in the kingdom to put up with yer stubborn ways. Any other man would be wounded that his wife did not want to share his title.”
Could John possibly be wounded—or even angry—over her refusal to be known as his countess? He had told her he was proud of his family, proud of being the Earl of Aynsley. Was it possible he found her aversion to titles a slap in his face? The very notion of offending him upset her. She was proud of her husband. She was proud to be married to him. She was the Countess of Aynsley, and she should be proud to be known as John’s wife.
The use of his title had been one of those marital compromises they had agreed upon at the start of this marriage. What a different person she had been then than she was now.
“Do you really think it bothers my husband that I don’t wish to be known as his lady?”
“I couldn’t say, but I know it bothers the servants that you’re not proud of their master. He’s much beloved.”
Especially by me. Rebecca had never done a rash thing in her life. She never made a decision without analyzing it for a considerable period of time. But in the past few seconds she had been conversing with her maid, she came to the decision that she had been wrong to eschew her husband’s title as well as her own. “Perhaps I should reconsider my abhorrence of titles.”
“Does that mean I can call you milady?” Pru stood back and examined Rebecca’s hair.
“I suppose it does.”
“Milady looks very lovely today.”
“I will need a dress with pockets.”
“Why do you need pockets?”
Rebecca shrugged. “I may wish to slip my spectacles in them from time to time.”
“Yer acting like a debutante in love.”
“Just a countess in love.” That was the first time Rebecca had ever referred to herself as a countess, and she suddenly felt as if she were wrapped within her husband’s protective arms. It was also the first time in her eight and twenty years she had admitted to being in love. “What a pity the rain will keep me from riding with my husband this morning.”
“Oh, I almost forgot. I’ve got a letter for you from his lordship.”
Even before she opened the missive, Rebecca knew that she would not get to spend the morning with John. She unfolded the letter and began to read.
My Dearest Rebecca,
I’m disappointed the rain will prevent us from riding together this morning. I have donned my great coat and oilskins and will meet with my steward, as there are a great many things we need to go over after my long absence. Unless the weather turns much worse than it is this morning, I will likely be with him most of the day. I’m looking forward to seeing the children’s production tonight.
A.
What did it matter now if she contrived to look pretty? John would not see her. She felt worse than a child whose plum pudding had been snatched away.
Peter was in the morning room when she arrived. It was the first morning she had seen him since he had accepted her proposition. “You’re just the lady I wanted to see.”
Rebecca poured herself tea, took a slice of toast and came to sit next to him. “I confess I’ve been anxious to speak privately with you to see how the farm goes, but you’re never here.”
“Farming is arduous work.”
“Indeed it is.”
Emily entered the chamber. “I declare, Peter, this is the first time I’ve seen you in the morning in weeks!”
He shrugged. “The rain forces me to stay indoors.”
Emily’s face brightened. “Perhaps we could all play whist?”
“Alas, your papa could not be dissuaded from meeting with Mr. Stanley,” Rebecca said.
As Emily filled a plate and came to sit across the small table from her, Rebecca offered her the marmalade. “Will there be a dress rehearsal?” Rebecca asked.
“Yes, this afternoon.”
“Your father and I are very much looking forward to seeing the production. It seems an awful lot of effort for just the two of us to see. Would you mind if I invited Mrs. Cotton and Miss Seton?”
Emily gave her a rare smile. “That wo
uld be a splendid idea. I’m sure the lads will enjoy the opportunity to perform in front of a larger audience.”
Peter and Rebecca finished their toast before Emily. “Pray, Rebecca, there are a few matters I wished to discuss with you,” he said. “Would you be kind enough to stroll with me in the gallery?”
Oh, dear, she hated anything that would exclude—and possibly alienate—Emily, but she knew Peter would want to keep her informed about the farm. “If you can be quick about it. I have other pressing matters.” Not that writing to Maggie was particularly pressing, but she did not want to keep Peter from being with Emily. “What a fine day it is for you and Emily to set up the chessboard in front of the fire.”
Despite her efforts to placate her stepdaughter, Emily glared at Rebecca as she left the room with Peter.
When she reached the doorway, Rebecca turned back to Emily, desperate to say something to cull her favor. “By the way, I have decided I no longer have an aversion to titles, Lady Emily.”
“Does that mean that you dislike me addressing you as Rebecca?” There was malice on Emily’s tongue when her stepmother’s name rolled off it.
“I have no preferences. I should like you to feel free to call me whatever you like.”
In the gallery, she and Peter strolled its one-hundred-foot length to the accompaniment of the pattering of rain upon the chamber’s wall of windows.
“How goes our project?” she asked.
“It’s been very hard work. I’ve been preparing the soil for planting.”
She was remarkably ignorant about farming. “And how does one do that?”
“By tilling and amending the soil.”
“Oh, dear, did you even have any equipment?”
He nodded. “There was some, antiquated though it might be.”
“When will you be ready to plant?”
“That’s why I needed to speak to you. I need to buy seed...”
“And of course you shall need money. How much?”
“Fifty guineas should cover it since the farm’s not that large.”
