‘Sadly, that task fell to another,’ she said, then ruthlessly changed the subject before Lady Fenella had a chance of discovering that she had not even the vaguest of notions during which action he had sustained the devastating injury. ‘Is this my room?’ She indicated the doorknob to which Lady Fenella was still clinging.
‘Oh! Yes!’ She flung open the door, and led the way into a room that was shrouded in gloom. ‘Oh, dear, the maid should really have come in and drawn the curtains this morning.’
As she fluttered across to the bell pull by the fireplace, Aimée strode across to the window and yanked the curtains open herself.
‘I am so sorry,’ gulped Lady Fenella as a cloud of dust burst from the yards of faded velvet. ‘We had so little time to prepare. N-no idea of the day you would arrive …’
Aimée turned to her, brows raised. ‘But his lordship must have informed you, last time he visited, that he intended to bring his bride here. Surely that was the signal to begin making preparations? ‘
Lady Fenella looked ready to sink through the rather motheaten hearthrug on which she stood. ‘I do not expect you to understand, but the thing is, Mama got it into her head that you would not come. I do not know why!’
Aimée thought she did. Septimus had told her that the Dowager might have begun nosing about into his first wife’s background. Had the woman discovered he was a widower, after all? If so, she would have thought he was bluffing when he told her he was bringing his bride with him this time.
Oh, dear! No wonder she had looked so furious when Aimée had walked into the faded glory of her sitting room on his arm.
‘Never mind,’ she said, flinging up the sash to let in some fresh air. ‘I will not be needing to use the room straight away.’
When Lady Fenella frowned her confusion, Aimée added, ‘I shall be sharing his lordship’s bed, you see.’
Lady Fenella blushed crimson.
Aimée hid her amusement by going over to the wardrobe, opening the door and peering inside. The floor was littered with dead moths.
‘I will need somewhere to store my clothes, though.’
‘O-of course!’
Right on cue, there came a knock on the door and Nelson strode in with one of her trunks balanced on his shoulder.
‘Thank heavens,’ said Aimée. ‘I am supposed to be using these rooms, but they are in a dreadful condition. Do you think you can get a fire lit, so that at least the place may air out a little? And find somebody to clean out the cupboards? And the drawers,’ she added. ‘I suspect they may be harbouring all kinds of creepy crawlies.’ She was loathe to offer her beautiful, brand new clothes up to all those hungry little jaws.
He nodded. ‘I’ll see to it. Me and the lads will have the place spick and span in no time.’
It was only once he had left that she noticed Lady Fenella had shrunk into a corner and was staring at her wide-eyed with admiration.
‘H-how can you bring yourself to give orders to that great hulk of a man?’
‘Because he is Captain … that is to say, his lordship’s servant, of course.’
‘Y-yes, but would it not be more … appropriate for you to have a maid to look after you? To do your hair? And dress you? And launder your things?’
‘It has occurred to me more than once, just lately, that now I am married to an Earl, I should engage somebody. Although I have never employed anyone before.’
‘What, never?’
‘No.’ She laughed. ‘I have never had so many clothes that I needed somebody to launder them for me. Perhaps … could you recommend somebody who would know what to do for me?’
‘M-me?’ Lady Fenella’s plump white hand fluttered to her throat.
‘Well, you have lived here all your life, have you not? And you know all the staff, and what their capabilities are.’
She saw the remark sink into Lady Fenella’s brain and work a transformation on her entire demeanour.
‘Yes,’ she said, ‘I could help you. And I shall!’
For a moment she looked so triumphant, Aimée would not have been surprised had she added, ‘So there!’
A maid arrived then with the tea tray, which Lady Fenella directed her to place on a low table before a faded sofa. Then she sat down and kept up a stream of chatter while Aimée steadily cleared her plate.
As Aimée had already guessed, she had spent all her life at the Manor, excepting for the two occasions she had visited London for the Season. It was easy to nudge the conversation away from her own past and back to Lady Fenella’s extremely restricted existence, whenever she ventured into dangerous territory. It was as though she had never had anybody willing to sit and listen to her before.
‘Oh, how I have rattled on,’ she exclaimed as the clock on the mantel struck four. ‘I must go and change for dinner. It would never do to be late!’ She leapt to her feet. ‘But I have enjoyed meeting you so much.’ To Aimée’s surprise, Lady Fenella bent down and kissed her cheek. ‘I just know we are going to be great friends!’ she said and practically skipped out of the room.
Aimée slumped back into the cushions and blew out a gust of breath. The way Lady Fenella had declared they would be friends was the kind of thing a little girl would say, not a grown woman!
Though Aimée was not so sure anything would come of that. She had the feeling the Dowager would disapprove of her daughter fraternising with the enemy, so to speak.
She pushed herself to her feet and went to prepare for dinner. Not that she cared for herself, but somehow she knew that Lady Fenella would bear the brunt of the Dowager’s displeasure, should she be late. She smiled at herself. How easy it was to slip into the role of protector when it came to Lady Fenella. She supposed this must have been how Septimus had felt about her on his last visit. She could now see exactly why Septimus had not wanted to insult her by going straight out and openly advertising for a wife. The poor girl had quite enough to contend with.
She had no difficulty getting changed without the assistance of a maid. In spite of the Harrogate modiste’s protests, she had had the fastenings of all her gowns situated so that she could manage them herself.
A butler came to escort her down to the gilded saloon where, he informed her in a not unfriendly manner, the family was in the habit of gathering before dinner. She supposed she ought not to have been surprised to find only the Dowager and Lady Fenella there. It might be their habit to sit there before dinner, but she could not see Septimus bowing to anyone else’s conventions, not unless it suited him.
‘Come, girl, and sit by me!’ said the Dowager from her sofa. ‘And tell me all about yourself. I must admit, I was pleasantly surprised when I heard you speak earlier. I had thought your voice would be quite coarse. Have you had elocution lessons, perchance?’
Aimée smiled serenely as she sashayed across the room. The Dowager must have deliberately separated her from her husband, assuming that without him there to protect her, she would be able to prise her open like an oyster. From the remark about her diction, it sounded as though Septimus had not yet informed the Dowager she was his second wife. She glanced at Lady Fenella, bearing in mind Septimus’s wish that she not be put to the blush.
‘Oh, no more than any young lady,’ she replied.
Thank heaven for her mother’s rigorous training, which enabled her to maintain her poise no matter what the provocation. And, ironically, her father’s own example. The trick, he had taught her at a very young age, when in a ticklish situation, was to avoid answering any questions directly. Imply much. Confirm nothing.
And, when all else failed, turn the conversation back upon the interrogator.
This last worked like a charm. The Dowager was the kind of self-absorbed woman who naturally assumed everyone else would find her fascinating.
By the time Septimus arrived, she had learned a little about the Dowager’s girlhood in Sussex, a good deal about the brilliance of her Season, and far more than she had wished to hear about the foibles and failings of her late
husband.
The Dowager had not even managed to discover her maiden name!
The verbal duel would have continued throughout dinner, had Aimée been capable of keeping up her end.
But the moment Septimus had entered the room, everyone else faded to the periphery of her consciousness, for the look he sent her way was so smouldering, it was all she could do not to suggest they skip dinner and go straight up to bed.
The Dowager had to content herself with maintaining a flow of small talk while the servants efficiently served an excellent meal. Aimée paid scant attention to it. Septimus was sitting directly opposite her, and all she had to do was raise her eyes from her plate to be able to drink her fill of him.
He was so … manly, she sighed. Vibrant, and vital and virile. She could just picture him, striding about the quarterdeck, bellowing commands to the myriad minions who rushed to obey him. Standing firm under a hail of cannon fire as the deck splintered all around him. She noted that Lady Fenella avoided looking directly at him and recalled her saying that the sight of his ruined face made her stomach turn over.
It did not have that effect on her at all! On the contrary, the visible proof that he had fought and bled for his country made her go all weak-kneed with admiration for his bravery. And made her totally aware of how very masculine he was.
There was, suddenly, such a deep silence that it woke her from her daydream.
By the way everyone at table was looking at her she gathered somebody must have addressed a remark directly to her.
Septimus came to her rescue. ‘My wife is tired,’ he said. ‘We have been travelling hard for several days now.’
‘And where, exactly, have you travelled from?’ the Dowager asked.
The woman never gave up! Aimée quickly hid a smile behind her gloved hand, under the pretext of stifling a yawn.
‘Oh, please do forgive me, my lady,’ she said. ‘These last few days have indeed been exhausting.’
Her husband got to his feet. ‘I apologise for breaking with tradition, but I really think my wife should go to bed, rather than sit about drinking tea until all hours.’
Bed. The mere mention of the word made her whole body suffuse with heat. Getting to her feet, she said, her voice unusually husky, ‘Yes, please do excuse me, Lady Bowdon, Lady Fenella.’
‘Outrageous behaviour,’ she heard the Dowager mutter as they drifted from the room, arm in arm. ‘Staring at each other as though they could eat each other up! Not the behaviour of a well-bred lady. Not the thing at all! And you say she admitted she has never had a maid?’
Aha, so that was it! The Dowager would make use of Lady Fenella’s wish to befriend her by making her repeat everything she learned.
She would have to watch what she said to the girl.
‘We should have agreed on the story we were going to tell them,’ Aimée said as Septimus shut his bedroom door behind them.
She had not seen him between entering Bowdon Manor and the dinner hour. It was clear that he would have many demands upon his time, so she needed to make the most of this opportunity to get some things straight.
‘Story?’ he grated, tugging impatiently at his neckcloth.
‘Yes, it only occurred to me once I was alone with the Dowager that you had not told me what you wished me to tell them.’
‘Why should you tell them anything?’ He had no wish to discuss his pestilential family right now. And how could she be thinking of anything but getting into bed? He scowled as he tossed his neckcloth aside.
‘Do not frown at me so. I am trying my best to be the kind of wife you want!’
‘The kind of wife I want right now,’ he growled, ‘is one who will stop talking and get her clothes off!’
Aimée gasped and turned bright red.
Septimus turned from her, cursing under his breath.
He should not have been so blunt. She was still a virgin, and, moreover, one with more than her fair share of modesty. He needed to be gentle with her. Lead her by the hand, step by step.
‘Forgive me,’ he said, raking his fingers through his hair in exasperation with himself. ‘But I have been waiting for this moment since this morning, in the inn.’
‘So … so have I,’ she replied in a voice so husky it made him more aroused than ever.
He heaved a sigh of relief. She was shy, yes, but she had responded to him with enthusiasm this morning. And he was not some callow boy who did not know his way around a woman’s body. He had the experience to make this first time good for her.
‘You may have heard that it can be painful for a woman, the first time,’ he said, turning round.
Whatever he might have said next stuck in his throat as he saw Aimée dutifully fumbling open the buttons of her gown.
‘You won’t hurt me,’ she said, shrugging out of the bodice, then shimmying off her skirt.
‘You are so beautiful,’ he said, when a look of uncertainty flickered across her face. Miranda had always demanded he pay her extravagant compliments before she would let him take her to bed. But there was no need to be insincere with Aimée. She was so beautiful it damn near took his breath away.
‘I thought so the very first moment I saw you, all wet and windswept where you stood in the road.’
But now his breath was growing ragged as he took in the curve of her shoulder where the silk had slipped free of her skin. The line of her collarbone was exposed, but lace-edged undergarments still concealed all but the upper swell of her full, creamy breasts.
‘N-not like a drowned rat?’
He shook his head. ‘I was angry when I said that. I did not mean it. Here,’ he said, because her supply of bravado seemed to have run dry, ‘let me remove that for you.’ Or was it just that his hands were itching to close around those tantalising mounds of flesh?
‘No!’ she gasped, stepping back smartly. ‘Y-you asked me to undress for you. L-let me do this myself. I w-want to please you!’ she finished, with an air of desperation.
‘You do please me,’ he said, a slow smile spreading across his face as he backed his way to a chair and sat down without taking his eye off her. Who would have thought she would have taken up his challenge like this? She was an amazing woman.
Aimée smiled at him nervously. She had averted one disaster, only to plunge herself into utter embarrassment. Had he begun to undo her stays, he might have felt the telltale bulges where she had sewn all the money she had got from Lord Matthison. And that would have made him ask questions she could not face answering now, if ever! No, she never wanted this upright, honourable man to find out about the shameful details of that nightmarish time in London. He was beginning to like her. Really like her! And she wanted nothing to tarnish the image he seemed to be forming of her. Not yet.
Which meant that now she was committed to stripping for him!
She fixed on her brightest smile, fluttering her fingers about the tapes that held her stays closed, hoping to distract his gaze from going anywhere but where it was safe for him to look.
Swiftly she bared her breasts, sighing with relief when he kept his eye riveted there, and not on the undergarments which she slid off swiftly and kicked under the bed. But she could only withstand the heat of that look for a second or two before shyness had her darting to the bed and diving under the covers.
Septimus got to his feet, crossed to the bed and began to unbutton his waistcoat. ‘You do not need to do anything that makes you uncomfortable,’ he said gently. ‘I never intended to make you strip for me, not this first time …’ but then a wicked grin curved his mouth ‘… though I cannot deny I enjoyed witnessing that brief display of daring.’
She smiled back at him shyly, and settled down more comfortably into the pillows as he swiftly removed his own clothes.
Lord, but he was well formed! There was nothing disappointing about finally seeing what her mind had been imagining all day. His shoulders were satisfyingly broad and his arms delightfully well muscled. His stomach was taut and firm, and his. She
blushed, glancing away at the bed hangings as he removed his last item of clothing. She ought not to want to stare at that. It surely was not the behaviour of a lady!
But, she gasped, as Septimus threw back the covers and climbed in beside her, her husband was no gentleman. She did not know quite what she had expected, but it was not that he should immediately place his hand between her legs and begin to stroke her most secret parts.
Fortunately, he kissed her at the same time, so that the caress was not quite so shocking as it might have been. In fact, after only a very little while, she decided he must be the most knowing man she had ever met. All day, she had been feeling achy, and sort of full, down there. And the way he stroked and caressed her was so exactly what she needed, somehow managing to be both soothing and stimulating at the same time, that she very soon forgot any awkwardness and just gave herself up to sensation.
Lord, but she was good for him! To feel the essence of her, slippery on his fingers from the very moment he got in beside her, before he had even started to stimulate her! He had shocked her, at first, by touching her down there. But her excitement had steadily increased until, when he probed right into her wetness with his fingers, she had lifted herself off the bed and pressed her open mouth to his throat. He pushed her back into the pillows and sought her mouth with his own.
This was the greatest compliment she could have paid him: to be unable to hide how very much she wanted him, enough to cast aside her modesty and perform that jerky little striptease. Had it excited her, as it had excited him?
Or had she, like him, been thinking about this moment, all day long?
He raised himself a little and watched her in fascination as she panted and writhed beneath him, her eyes half-closed, her little hands fluttering inquisitively all over his body. She was really, really enjoying exploring him, which was immensely flattering.
He simply had to kiss her neck. The line of her collarbone. And then the fullness of one breast. Each kiss had its effect, but when he closed his mouth around one pouting nipple, her entire body arched off the bed. He nipped at her with his teeth and she cried out. Though not in pain.
Captain Corcoran's Hoyden Bride Page 14
