Derek closed the door leading into the domed cigar room to ensure no smoke escaped into the corridor lest the footmen come running thinking there was a fire. After all, no one had lit a cigar in the house since 1823. Letting out an exasperated breath, he turned to Clementine. He couldn’t believe she had covered her entire mouth with both hands when he tried to kiss her. He had checked his breath. It wasn’t that. Hell, he’d strategically eaten a piece of candy and given her one for a reason.
Their wedding night was going to be rough. For both of them.
He eyed her.
She had already set aside her beaded reticule and lit her cheroot as if showcasing her every right. Depositing the extinguished match into the ash pan on the marble side table, she glanced around the Turkish-styled blue and gold room. The fullness of her chartreuse morning gown that emphasized generous hips that had nothing to do with her corset, followed her sweeping movements.
She regally seated herself in one of the cane chairs directly before him, holding up the lit cheroot between two bare fingers. “The poor ash pan on the side table doesn’t even appear to have been used. When was the last time anyone actually smoked in this room?”
He tried not to notice that the lace on her bodice was unusually high for a morning gown. Only the base of her throat and an expensive-looking emerald and gold necklace was showing. Despite the overly modest cut of her attire, the well-fitted material of her gown still couldn’t hide the sizeable breasts stuffed into her corset. She was flat no more. It was amazing what a few years could do to a woman’s body.
“Did you wander off to another land?” she prodded.
Yes. Tit land. “I uh…” He cleared his throat. “Never mind. It’s not like you would want to hear what goes on in my mind.” She’d probably panic. “My father was actually the last person to make use of this room. He was in here almost every night, smoking his jolly heart away. When he died, so did the custom. I don’t smoke. I personally never cared for it.” He was quiet for a moment.
Her features notably softened. “You miss him, don’t you?”
His throat tightened. “Yes. He was a great man.”
“I hear many stories about him. My father was incredibly fond of your father and speaks of him as if he were a brother.” Her full lips encased the end of the cheroot, her blue eyes watching him intently. She slowly pulled it away, letting a small ring of white smoke rise from those lips and glide toward him.
He lowered his chin. He’d never seen anyone control smoke like that before. It was like watching a dragon entertain itself with its own breath. “You seem well versed in the art of smoking. I sincerely hope you’re better versed in running a household.”
She took in another puff of smoke, still watching him. “Why not sit down, Banfield? This is going to take a while and you and I need to talk.”
“Now, now, there is no need to say everything to each other in the first five minutes. I say we take our time.” He grabbed another cane chair and set it directly before her, allowing enough distance for her skirts. Heaven forbid he step on those again. Pushing aside his coat tails with a hand, he sat. “Might I ask what father would allow his own daughter to smoke as if she were a man? In my opinion, he ought to be hanged.”
She sighed. “Please don’t insult my father. He did the best he could. I was the one who had to raise him. And I think I did rather well given the circumstance.”
What an odd thing to say. “Since when do daughters raise their fathers?”
She averted her gaze and shrugged. “When Mama died, he struggled quite a bit. More than I thought he would. Although they always argued, they were still oddly close and the first few weeks after she died, all he could do was sit in her room with a hand on the pillow she used to sleep on.” A glazed look of despair overtook her face. “Even as a child, I felt sorry for him. I always did. He reminded me of a wounded pup.”
She made it sound as if she had spent her entire life playing mother to a man incapable of being a father. It sank his soul. Derek softened his voice. “Do you want to talk about it?”
Her startled gaze met his. “Why would I want to do that?”
He held her gaze. “Because I would hope you can talk to me about anything. Just like we always did in our letters.”
She hesitated. “Whilst I appreciate your concern, Banfield, I don’t want you judging my father. You’re already judging me merely because I smoke.”
He snorted. “That is because smoking isn’t very common amongst women here in England. You do know that, yes?”
“Nothing about my life is or ever was common. I’ve been smoking for years. So don’t think you’re protecting me. You aren’t.”
He lowered his chin. “Years? As in how many? Since birth? Or recently?”
She rolled her eyes. “Since I was eighteen. It was my way of bonding with my father. He always had a cheroot in his hand and what girl doesn’t want to be like her father? Especially when she has no one else in her life but an overly stern governess? He was never a bad father, he simply endured a lot and wasn’t ever capable of…” Her voice trailed off. She lowered her gaze. “I really don’t want to talk about this. Can we talk about something else?”
He decided not to prod. In time, she’d tell him everything he wanted to know about her. They had their entire marriage for that. “Of course. What would you like to talk about?”
“Us.”
The way she said it made him feel stupidly weak in the knees. “What about us?”
Her cheeks flushed. “Well…after you tried to kiss me in the receiving room, I…it made me realize we needed to discuss a few things.”
Oh, now this he had to hear. He shifted toward her in his seat, setting his hands on his knees. “Go on. I’m listening.” He paused and added, “Intently.”
She averted her gaze, her flush fading to subtle pink. “Aside from your over-enthusiastic nature toward me, you’ve still been kind.” She stared at nothing in particular. “I notice kindness. I wasn’t around it very much. My father was loving, but my mother and my governess were both incredibly judgmental. They claimed I was too somber, too forward and stubborn in nature to ever be molded into what society defined desirable in a lady. My mother died before I could prove her wrong, but my governess was surprised when my father had announced our engagement back in ’23. The woman started treating me with more respect, merely because I was going to be a lady, regardless of what she thought. So in many ways I have you to thank. It made the years tolerable. Not necessarily perfect but tolerable.”
It was like peering into the world she had been trapped in all these years. A world he had only imagined. He’d always thought her curt ways was an extension of all the money she was worth. Not anything she had endured. It was humbling. “I didn’t know that about you.”
“There is a lot you don’t know, Banfield.” She drew in some smoke before letting it out through full parted lips.
God did he ever want to make those lips whisper his name with the same longing and reverence he’d felt for her all these years. “In private, call me Derek. And if you don’t like the idea of calling me Derek, feel free to call me any other endearment you like. Make it worth your while and mine.”
She smirked. “Oh, now, don’t encourage me. Or you’ll end up with a name like Adonis.”
That sounded like an insult, not an endearment. “And what is that supposed to mean?”
“Women probably find you very attractive. Don’t they?”
He supposed some did. Well…no…many did. He knew he was attractive. Certainly far more attractive than most of these lanky, buck-teethed, over-bred men walking around London. And various widows, in particular, always feigned to call on his mother, when, in fact, they were trying to call on him. Of course, he never acted on it. Setting aside his devotion to Clementine, acting on every woman’s interest only led to the pox. One of his own friends from his days back at Eton had come down with bed-related diseases after shagging well over thirty women. It wasn’t
pretty.
He shrugged. “What can I say? Most of the men here in London make me look good. I’m young, my teeth are straight, and my biceps bulge in the proper direction.”
She pursed her lips. “I’m so glad to hear you aren’t completely conceited. I was beginning to wonder.”
It was like worshipping stone. Her regal, cool façade was the same and never changed. He only ever remembered it changing once. When he’d sent her into a panic after he’d used his mouth to take the candy stuck to her glove. “I suppose all that really matters is that you find me attractive. Which I know you do. Hell, when we first met, I took your breath away. You had trouble breathing around me, didn’t you?”
Her pale face slowly flushed.
He grinned, watching that flush. “A woman only ever blushes when she realizes she can’t hide the truth.” He adjusted his coat, trying not to boast too much and gestured toward her gown. “Since we’re on the subject, allow me to say you’ve become incredibly ravishing. Though I will admit that your…uh…décolletage is rather disappointing. It gives me nothing to look at. I’m assuming that you’re entertaining American fashion, because even the most respectable women here in London show more cleavage.” He cleared his throat and pushed on. “And since you wouldn’t let me kiss you, and we still have a few hours ahead of us, do you think you could…” He whistled and pretended to tug the air downward.
Her eyes widened. “Are you insinuating that I lower my décolletage?”
“Just by a touch. I’m not asking to see nipples.”
She gasped and rigidly pointed at him with her cheroot, causing a few ashes to scatter. “You haven’t changed a bit. All that talk in your letters about being a refined gentleman, indeed. You’re still the same seventeen-year-old trying to lure me into the library to do things.”
He smirked. “You make it sound like such a bad thing.”
“And you make it sound like it’s a normal thing.”
“You’re flattered by my advances and you damn well know it.” He pointed at her half-finished cheroot. “Are you done? I want to show you the rest of the house.” He caught her gaze. “How about I show you my bedchamber and its rooms next? Are you wanting to see it? We can sneak over.”
She pressed a hand against her throat. “No, I don’t…I’m not—” She winced and quickly brought her cheroot to her lips, dragging in a breath and letting it out. Twice. “You and I have quite a bit to discuss, Derek. So if you don’t mind, I plan to smoke at least one more. I need to.”
The little devil. “Absolutely not. I’m being incredibly generous by allowing this much. Smoking not only bloody stinks everything up, but ruins the wallpaper. You should have seen this room before it was redone. It was disgusting. The layer of soot from my father’s cigars on the ceiling were almost a quarter of an inch thick. Which is why…the one you are smoking is your last. In fact, I want you to hand over whatever you have in your reticule right now.” He held out his hand and wagged his fingers toward her. “Be a dear. Your husband commands it.”
“Commands it?” Her features turned incredibly serious. “You obviously think I am yours to command, and I am informing you, my lord, that you are very mistaken.”
He shifted his jaw. This woman was dangerous. She acted like a wide-eyed prim and proper miss, but at heart, she only followed her own orders. Leaning forward and toward her, he announced, “You are not smoking another one in my presence.”
She fingered her cheroot. “I wouldn’t worry about my smoking if I were you. You and I have other things to talk about.” Her voice was decisive and firm.
He fell back against the seat. It was obvious he needed to stop pushing and start impressing. Because he wasn’t all push. He had some give. “Fine. How about we take this outside the cigar room? Because I actually wanted to show you the music room. I had this rather brilliant idea, when we were talking earlier, as to what we should do with it. No one makes use of it anymore, and given that you love to paint and that my mother is moving out, we should turn it into your own personal gallery. A place where you can paint and have your own space. There is more than enough room in there to display at least several dozen paintings on the walls alone. What do you think? Is that something that would please you? Do you want to go see it?”
She was quiet for a moment. She closed her eyes, then opened them. Her voice softened. “That is very kind of you, Derek, but I would rather we stay in here and talk.” She glanced around. “I don’t see a clock. How much time do we have?”
It was obvious she was counting down to the minute of when her father would return. Was he really that boring? Digging into his waistcoat pocket, he yanked at the fob and pulled out the gold watch attached to it. He glanced at the instrument. “It’s after two o’clock. Which means we still have a few hours.” He tucked the watch back into his pocket.
“I see.” She was quiet for a moment then blurted, “Might I ask how your brother is?”
His stomach dropped at the mention of Andrew. He honestly didn’t know how his brother was fairing. His mother, who visited his brother every week, offered only superficial information. Like what Andrew was wearing and what they had for supper. “I imagine he is well.”
She paused. “You imagine? Don’t you know? I thought you and he were close.”
He shrugged. “We are, but it’s complicated.” For all he knew his brother had already married his birch mistress but was keeping it a secret so their mother wouldn’t find out. “We had a falling out. A bad one. He and I always have our arguments, as brothers do, but it usually rolls away in minutes. And this…I haven’t seen him in almost two months.” It hurt.
“I’m sorry.” She tilted her head of pinned black curls and quietly observed him. “I remember him always writing. Did he ever publish a book?”
“One. But given its violent content, no publisher on Paternoster Row was willing to touch it. So he hired a printer and published it himself. Only it turned out to be far more expensive than he anticipated.”
“Is it any good? Did you read it?”
Derek cringed. His brother, God love him, wrote books no human ought to read. Just like Derek’s own paintings that needed to be incinerated from existence for lack of creativity and talent, so did his brother’s books. The Banfields were known for their good-looks, wit, and charms, but not their artistic talents. No one could be good at everything. “In all honesty, and I never had the heart to tell him, the book isn’t any good. He used to write romantic books that were actually quite decent but after his horrid luck with women, he started slathering blood into it. It’s stupid and violent. Lopped heads everywhere with no real purpose other than to showcase blood.”
She lowered her cheroot to the arm of the chair, her dark arched brows going up. “People’s tastes in reading varies. He might have an audience he simply hasn’t found.”
He snorted. “Yes, well, his audience is probably hiding in prison or in hell, because in my opinion, the content was created to entertain savage men bordering on insanity. I couldn’t finish it.”
She sat up and took another long breath of smoke before letting it drift from her lips. “Oh, now I have to read it. What is the title? I’ll buy a copy later today. I have some shopping to do and will be about anyway.”
He pointed. “I am not telling you the title or the name he is writing under. I wouldn’t be much of a gentleman if I allowed you to read a book slathered with more gore than one finds in a mortuary after a city riot. Hell, I couldn’t sleep for a week after I read it. A week. And I’m a man. You would faint and break a bracelet or an earring or something.”
Her lips parted. “Break a…” She averted her gaze and stiffly rose. “Yes. I…thank you for gallantly pointing out that my sex is too weak to consume anything worthy of a man. I needed to be reminded of that.” Walking over to the ash pan, she extinguished the small tip of what remained of her tobacco and sighed. “Derek, I think it’s time we admit that you and I have never been well-suited. You have incredibly strong
opinions toward everything, as do I, and I am only referring to the simplest of our conversations, which have thus far only included books and smoking. We haven’t even gotten around to weightier topics. Such as children or…life. We simply don’t have anything in common. We never did.”
He sat up. “What do you mean?” He swiped the tips of his fingers against his chin, trying not to get agitated. “I disagree with you on a few random subjects and all of a sudden we’re not well-suited?” He set his hands on his knees. “I can assure you, heiress, on our wedding night, you won’t have any complaints.”
Her eyes flashed imperiously, but as always, the rest of her façade remained cool and calm. “I don’t appreciate you teasing me, Derek. I’m being very serious. And I am asking you to be serious for once.” Her blue eyes returned once again to its full composure. “We deserve better than what our parents wanted for us. We deserve to take paths that serve who we are as people so we may honor our character and in turn, our lives.”
Why did he sense their conversation had suddenly veered into a dark forest with cackling goblins? “So what are you insinuating? Exactly?”
She sighed. “Wouldn’t you have wanted the sort of life you could create and mold on your own? One you’d be able to better understand because the choices you made were your own? As opposed to the choices our parents agreed on and pushed us into when we were mere youths?”
What the hell was this? It was as if she was trying to brush aside what they shared. “I am creating the life I want. Having strong opposing opinions within a marriage is necessary to create anything worth holding onto. If we agree on everything, what would we be teaching each other and our children? Absolutely nothing. We’d be bored three minutes into the marriage.”
Her brows flickered. “You clearly don’t understand. What I’m saying is…wouldn’t you have wanted to choose the bride you were going to marry?”
“I did choose you.”
She stared. “You did not.”
“I most certainly did.” His entire body was obnoxiously warm just thinking about it. “Did our first meeting not prove that? Hell, I wanted you well before I even knew we were engaged. Are you telling me that doesn’t count for anything in your eyes?”
Night of Pleasure Page 9
