Billy poured his hot water and laid out his shaving things in his usual methodical way. It helped Septimus to calm down, somewhat.
As Billy lathered his face, Septimus shut his eye, leaned back and tried to consider his dilemma rationally.
So, Aimée had a great deal of money concealed about her person. Did that necessarily mean she had committed a crime? Billy made the first sweep of the razor across his cheek, cleansing him from the night-time’s growth.
Bitterness settled over him like shrugging into a familiar coat. He was a grown man with one failed marriage behind him already. What kind of idiot fell prey to the same kind of feelings that had led him so far astray in his youth? He should have known Aimée could not possibly be as perfect as she would have him believe. Should never have let her creep under his guard.
He heard Billy rinsing his blade in the washbasin, and lifted his chin so that the man could attend to his throat next. Thank heaven he had found that money before he had fallen completely under her spell. Now he knew she was as deceitful as any other woman, he could write off those foolish feelings he’d had last night as a temporary burst of insanity, or something. Yes, he had got a bit carried away, after having the best sex he had ever had. But he was in command of himself again now.
As his man deftly swept lather and bristles from his face, he reminded himself that the very fact that he had immediately tried to search for reasons to exonerate her from any wrongdoing showed him how close he had come to following the same path as he had done with his first wife. He had seen only what he wanted to see, back then. Love was blind, so they said.
As Billy finished his task, and tidied away the shaving equipment, Septimus glared balefully at his clean-shaven reflection. He was not blind. He might have only one eye, but that would not prevent him from facing the truth head on. Facing reality was never pleasant.
But what he knew was this: Aimée had so much money on her that she’d not had any need to apply for that fictitious job. She had let him buy her any amount of clothes she could easily have afforded herself. Made him think she was utterly dependent on him.
She had made him consummate the marriage, so that he could not easily put her aside. She was using him for some purpose of her own that he had yet to discover. So he would have to watch her. Literally.
He accepted the towel Billy handed him, and patted his face dry.
He would not have time to do it himself, so he would have to set his men to watch over her, exactly as he had done from the first moment she had arrived at The Lady’s Bower. That time, it had prevented her escape. This time … He shook his head. He had no idea what she was up to. What he did know was that he could not let his men know he had become suspicious of his wife. Not only had they all fallen under her spell, to one degree or another, but none of them was bright enough to fool her, should she discover he was having her watched.
No, he would have to let them think they were protecting her from some unknown menace. That would be the reason he gave for wanting to know where she was, and what she was doing, every hour of every day.
As Aimée yawned and stretched, she could not help smiling. Last night had been wonderful! It was strange to think that though she had feared intimacy all her life, she had instinctively known that with him she would be safe. Her mouth quirked into a saucy grin. Safe! That was not the word she could use to describe how Septimus had made her feel last night. Reckless, and wanton, and … oh, so lucky!
He had been so careful to see to her pleasure before taking his own. And she knew how rare that was. She had overheard plenty of conversations that she ought not to have done, which had given her a pretty good idea of just how disappointing men could be between the sheets.
She gathered his pillow to her, burying her face in it to inhale the scent that still lingered where her husband had been lying.
Her husband!
She hugged the pillow tighter, her smile growing wider.
He was everything she had ever dreamed of finding, all wrapped up in one handsome, vital package. Kind and decent and, yes, rich. She was not going to be hypocritical about it. She did not think she would be feeling quite so deliriously happy this morning if the man she had married did not happen to be so wealthy.
She would be able to buy as many gowns as she wanted, he had said! In which case, she was definitely going to need a maid, to do all her laundry and mending, so that she would be free to enjoy leisure pursuits, like. She flung herself back on to her own pillows, giggling aloud. What did wealthy, titled ladies do all day? Well, she would soon find out. Now that she was not going to have to go to market to haggle for bargains, and keep her rooms clean, and do her own laundry, and cook her own meals.
Her life, she sighed, now that she had married an Earl, was going to be just like a fairy tale!
The trouble with fairy tales, she soon remembered, was that there was always a wicked witch lurking in the background somewhere. In her case, it was the Dowager, who was sitting in the breakfast parlour where she had gone to search for Septimus.
‘His lordship went out about his business, some considerable time ago,’ the kindly butler informed her with what looked like a gleam of approval in his eyes.
‘One thing to be said for him,’ said the Dowager, around a mouthful of kipper, ‘and that is that he takes his duties very seriously. Cannot fault the energy that he devotes to his new position.’ She bit into a slice of toast. ‘Even if he is often so misguided as to where his duties truly lie.’
Aimée ignored the thinly veiled reference to her marriage, walking across to the sideboard and making a selection from the tempting array of dishes she found there, as though she had not even heard. She took her plate to table and sat down opposite Lady Fenella, thinking that at least she was not averse to her presence.
But Lady Fenella barely lifted her head from her plate, doggedly ploughing her way through her food and making no attempt at conversation at all.
‘When you have finished,’ the Dowager said with a malicious gleam in her eye, ‘I have arranged for Mrs Trimley, the housekeeper, to show you around what you have become mistress of.’
‘Oh. Well, thank you,’ Aimée said, wondering what had prompted this apparent volte-face.
It was not long before she suspected that the Dowager’s sole aim in insisting Trimley showed her everything, every last state room and porcelain collection, and attic and cellar and linen cupboard, was a deliberate attempt to overwhelm her. She certainly ended the tour feeling as though running such a vast and complex household was a task well beyond her capabilities.
After lunch, all she wanted to do was escape to her room and hide there until it was time for dinner, but Lady Fenella invited her to go to the flower room with her to help her with the arrangements for the hall, which, she said, were sadly in need of refreshing.
Septimus was still out somewhere, and Aimée was feeling a little lost. She had no idea how she was supposed to fill the long hours until dinner, and Lady Fenella was at least offering her some form of amusement.
‘This will be such fun,’ said Lady Fenella, once the door was closed behind them. ‘We shall be able to talk and talk, and really get to know one another. Mama always goes for a lie down in the afternoons.’
That was what she should have done, said she needed a lie down! It was clearly an acceptable way for a lady to spend the hours between luncheon and dinner. Though even as the idea occurred to her, she dismissed it. She was used to being active. Lying down during the hours of daylight seemed such a criminal waste of time.
‘Would you like to do the arrangement for the large stand?’ Lady Fenella offered.
Aimée shook her head vehemently. ‘I have never done any flower arranging before.’
‘Oh?’ Lady Fenella turned away, a blush staining her cheeks. She picked up some heavy-duty scissors, and became very busy chopping away at the stems of some rubbery-looking foliage.
‘P-perhaps you would like me to show you how to do such things?’ she s
aid tentatively, after a prolonged and awkward silence. ‘I mean, if I have learned to do it,’ she said self-deprecatingly, ‘I am sure you can.’
But somehow, in spite of following Lady Fenella’s instructions to the letter, Aimée’s arrangement looked as though a casually passing drunkard had thrown it into the vase. The Dowager was going to enjoy learning about this! Even if Lady Fenella had not managed to unearth any dark secrets about her past, through the incessant questions she had peppered her conversation with, she could at least report back that the new Countess of Bowdon was a stranger to the art of floristry.
‘Oh, dear,’ said Lady Fenella, standing back to assess the outcome of her tutorial. ‘Perhaps if I were to just …’ and with a few deft twists of her nimble fingers, a work of art sprang, fully formed, like Athena from the cloven head of her father Zeus.
Catching sight of Aimée’s expression, she kindly said, ‘You must not expect to be able to learn everything, all at once. Why, I have been brought up here, have spent my whole life learning how to do all that is required of a lady to run such an establishment. And I still,’ she added, casting Aimée a sideways glance, ‘prefer to leave things to Mama.’
The hint that this was what Aimée ought to do, too, did not escape her.
And in some ways, she could see Lady Fenella’s point. She was out of her depth here. A fish out of water.
And she missed Septimus.
Ached for him, to tell the truth. For the last few days, she had spent almost every waking hour in his company.
And she did not like the way he had just left her to her own devices all day. It felt as though a part of her was missing.
She frowned. She had been used to doing things on her own for years. She had never felt as though she missed having a man to lean on. But now, after knowing him less than a week, she was pining for the mere sight of him.
She sat down quickly when she finally managed to escape back to the sanctuary of her rooms, gripping the arm of her chair. Was she falling in love with him? Were these feelings that she was developing for Septimus the same kind that had made her mother run from the safety of her home and family? Lady Aurora had cast aside respectability and security because she could not bear to be apart from the charming, charismatic man who had inveigled his way into her heart.
She shut her eyes, shaking her head. There was no need to panic! Her case was quite different from her mother’s. Her father had deliberately seduced her mother for the money he thought she would bring to the marriage. Septimus was the one in this relationship with the money. And he would always look after her. He had promised.
Even though he did not love her.
Her stomach seemed to contract as she remembered him warning her that he was not marrying for love. That after the way his wife had betrayed him, he had no intention of repeating his youthful mistakes.
She thumped the arm of her chair, rising to her feet and tugging on the bell-pull for the maid Lady Fenella had told her would be available to her from now on. It was time to change and dress for dinner.
She walked into her bedchamber, checking on the threshold at the transformation Nelson and his men had wrought in the space of one day. Clean and aired, it was no longer a gloomy, musty, oppressive space. It was bright and welcoming. They had somehow even managed to find some pretty, flowery curtains to replace the dusty velvet swags that had been hanging there the night before.
Yes, she thought bitterly, it was amazing how much could change during the course of just one day. Her mood, particularly, could not be more different from the way she had felt when she had woken up. In the afterglow of her first sexual experience, she had stupidly thought she was living in the middle of some great romance.
Silly, silly girl, she thought, giving the neatly made bed a contemptuous glance. She, better than anyone, should know how dangerous it was to trust a man you barely knew, and imagine you were going to live happily ever after. Her mother’s fate should have been sufficient warning.
She flung her shoulders back and pulled open the door to her armoire.
So what if her husband did not love her! That did not necessarily mean he was going to break her heart. Not intentionally, certainly, for he was essentially a good, decent man. And, now she thought of it—and to tell the truth, she had thought of little else all day—it was not just she who had enjoyed their first night together. He had woken her up, gently yet insistently, and taken her a second time. He would not have done that if she had not pleased him the first!
Nor had he taken her swiftly, as though he was simply experiencing an animal urge he had to satisfy, but slowly, as though he was savouring every second of the encounter.
Her case was not hopeless.
She was the last one to reach the salon that night. She had never spent so much time fussing over her appearance. Or felt such a fluttering in her heart as she checked herself in the mirror, one last time, before going down. She so wanted Septimus to like the way she looked!
Silly of her, perhaps, but she could not help it. His opinion mattered to her. She wanted him to like, more than like, every single thing about her.
She lifted her chin and squared her shoulders as the footman opened the door and announced her.
She was going to prove herself a worthy bride for the Earl of Bowdon, see if she didn’t! The Dowager might have succeeded in making her feel completely inadequate, for a while, but, as Lady Fenella had inadvertently pointed out, she was not an imbecile.
It was true, she had no experience of running a large household such as this, but there was no reason why she could not learn. She would just show the Dowager, and Lady Fenella, and all the household staff, who had regarded her with frank curiosity as she explored the furthest reaches of her new domain, and probably sniggered at the extent of her ignorance, that Septimus had not made an error in choosing her.
But most of all, she would prove it to her husband.
Chapter Ten
Do tell me all about your family,’ said the Dowager the moment they had taken their places at table. ‘Your father was some kind of dockworker, was he not?’
Aimée looked across the table at Septimus, silently begging him to give some indication how he wished her to respond. To her consternation, he began to drink his soup as though he was completely indifferent to anything the Dowager might say or think.
Perhaps he was. He had said only last night that he did not care what they thought of him. It looked as though it was entirely up to her how much to reveal.
Admitting she was his second wife could be a bit awkward. He had not wanted Lady Fenella hurt, which was why he had not openly advertised for a wife. On the other hand, if she were to reveal her true parentage, it might take some of the pressure off him. At least the Dowager would no longer be able to complain that he had brought a commoner into the bloodline!
So she smiled and said, ‘Oh, no. My father never soiled his hands with manual labour.’
The Dowager made an impatient gesture with her soup spoon. ‘Ran a shop of some kind in the dockyards, then.’
‘No, as a gentleman’s son, he would have thought such an occupation entirely beneath his dignity,’ she said a little wistfully. If only he had not been too proud to take up some honest work to support his wife and child!
‘A gentleman’s son?’ The Dowager’s eyes darted from her to Septimus, who was suddenly very busy trying to attract the attention of one of the footmen to refill his wine glass.
‘He must have married beneath him, then.’
‘On the contrary. My mother’s family felt that she had married below her station.’
‘How is this? I am sure I was informed that there was some kind of shopkeeper amongst your antecedents.’
At this point Septimus, who was now leaning back, sipping from his replenished wine glass, put in, ‘You are thinking of my first wife’s family. Her father, as you appear to have discovered by some means that did not involve asking me, is a ship’s chandler.’
For once,
he was not averse to the Dowager’s tendency to pry into what was really none of her business. He wanted to find out more about his wife’s past as much, if not more, than she did. But he had already decided he was not going to yield to the rampant curiosity she roused in him and beg her for details.
‘First wife?’ said the Dowager, her eyebrows rising so high they almost disappeared into her coiffure. ‘You mean to tell me you have remarried? And this woman is your second wife?’
He would have liked to tell her that he meant to tell her nothing, but it did not suit his purposes to cut her down to size just now.
‘She is,’ he said, turning to the butler and signalling that he should clear the table, since everyone appeared to have lost interest in the soup.
Aimée was relieved that he had paved the way for her to tell them all the truth, or, at least, as much of it as would not cause embarrassment to anyone. If he did not mind anyone knowing she was his second wife, she certainly did not! The Dowager, she noted with amusement, was quivering with barely suppressed curiosity throughout the bustle associated with the removal of one set of dishes and the introduction of the next.
‘When did this marriage take place?’ the Dowager demanded imperiously, the moment the second course had been set out. ‘And why did his lordship not inform us of it before?’
‘I really did not see that it was any of your business,’ replied Septimus curtly.
To deflect the Dowager’s curiosity from the details she knew Septimus did not want revealed, Aimée swiftly said, ‘But I can, of course, see why you made the mistaken assumption it was my father who was some kind of a tradesman.’
The Dowager was still glowering at Septimus, and so Aimée added, ‘But I can assure you, Papa would never have taken up a trade. He had a great deal of pride, even though he was only the younger son of quite an obscure family. Though my grandfather still did not approve of such an unequal match. Forbade it, in fact. Which was why,’ she said, playing her ace card, ‘in the end, I am afraid to tell you, my parents eloped.’
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