The fight in question had arisen when Adam agreed to take Mia and the girls riding. When he and Mia arrived at the stables, they found two of the three girls neatly and attractively dressed and waiting. Eva, on the other hand, had arrived for the ride late and in a wrinkled and too-large habit, one of her sister Catherine’s castoffs, he surmised, her hair loose and wild, no hat, and filthy gloves with one finger protruding.
Whether his children liked it or not, they knew Adam despised unpunctual behavior and did not tolerate a slovenly appearance. He sent her back to the house, telling her she could arrive on time and properly dressed in the future, or not ride.
What had ensued had been the kind of scene that turned Adam’s blood cold. By the time Eva stormed back to the house, he’d been emotionally drained—and frightened.
The subsequent ride had been subdued. Catherine and Melissa, both generally well-behaved and pleasant girls, had barely spoken a word. Even Mia’s irrepressible good humor had not been able to lighten the atmosphere.
Mia had come to him later, after talking with Eva, who was refusing to leave her room in protest.
“She won’t come out of her room, Adam,” Mia said, as if the matter were Adam’s doing.
“That is an excellent place for her,” he said coolly.
Mia was not put off by his words or demeanor. Indeed, Adam noticed, with no small alarm, Mia no longer appeared repressed by his disapproving looks or tone. Instead, she responded to his cold contempt by wedging her body between him and his desk.
He sighed and leaned back in the chair. Undaunted, she moved closer, pushing apart his legs and standing in between his thighs, smiling down at him.
Like the well-trained dog he’d become, he began to respond.
“She is a very sensitive girl, Adam. More so than Cat or Mel.” She’d been here less than a month and already had pet names for the girls. And the girls absolutely loved it, and her.
“I was so much like her as a young girl.”
Adam’s eyes ran up and down his immaculately dressed wife and he snorted. She ignored him.
“I was, darling,” she insisted, wiggling between his thighs in a most intriguing manner, guaranteed to attach his interest. His hands drifted toward her hips, as if they had minds of their own. He was only vaguely aware of her words as he stroked her slim body through her plain but enchanting morning dress.
“Don’t you think? Adam?”
“I beg your pardon?” He reluctantly dragged his eyes away from her body and looked up at her inquiring face.
“You aren’t listening to me.”
“Of course I’m listening to you, but it’s very distracting to crane my neck. Here, sit, my love.” He pulled her down onto one leg, flexing his thigh against her small, tight bottom, bouncing her slightly up and down, smiling at the charming picture she made.
“Adam,” she said, her tone meant to be threatening.
“Yes?” he asked absently, unable to resist cupping her small breast as he dandled her on his knee.
“You must listen first, and then you can play with me.” She grabbed his hand and held it.
He gave an exaggerated sigh and crossed his arms. “Speak, you redheaded harpy.”
She nodded happily. “Eva tries very hard to please you. She adores you, Adam. Can you not look beyond her torn and muddy frocks and see the girl who lives for your approval? She’s a spanking rider, very good with horses, and she knows every inch of your land as well as you do. If she were a son you would think her famous, wouldn’t you?”
Adam was startled by her insight. She was right. Eva would make the perfect son. Well, apart from her appalling emotional outbursts. But Mia didn’t know about those and what they might mean. Coward that he was, Adam was not ready to tackle that subject.
“You may be right, Mia, but she is not a man and cannot expect to be treated as one. You do her no favors if you encourage her in her belief that she can carry on as if she were my son.”
Mia was already shaking her head halfway through his sentence. “I am not arguing that you should treat her as a boy and she does not want such treatment in any case. I am asking that you are more forgiving of her failures as a girl. She is messy and often disheveled, but she will grow past that. Please, can you not try to let some of her failings pass? Try for a short while; if things between you do not improve, you can always revert to your old ways.”
Adam had studied her for a long moment. Could she possibly be as perfect as she seemed? He looked into her clear green eyes, seeking any sign of deception or guile, and found none. But would he be able to see deception even if it were there? He was so bloody besotted, he was all but blind.
He pushed the question aside for another time and considered her request. It was practical and kind. It behooved him as a parent to rise above the childish urge to fratch with his own daughter.
“I shall implement your advice. I thank you for having such a care for my children. I know it cannot be easy for you to inherit three nearly grown girls.”
She shook her head at his words. “Pooh!”
“Pooh?” He cocked an eyebrow at this new addition to her vocabulary, undoubtedly the gift of one of his daughters. “And where did you learn the term ‘spanking’? I’ll wager from the girl under discussion. If you use that term in polite society you will get a spanking,” he promised.
She ignored the threat. “Now,” she said, getting up off his lap and looking down on him, “I have something I would like to show you, my lord.”
Adam’s stomach lurched with joy at the two small words.
“I think you might find it interesting,” she continued, standing on her toes and putting her bottom on his desk, dangling her feet as she slowly inched up the hem of her gown.
“Oh?” Adam asked faintly, unwilling to trust his voice any further than that.
“Yes.” She nodded. “I found it this morning when I was getting dressed and I immediately thought of you.”
Adam’s eyes followed the rising hem, holding his breath as she slowly pulled the skirt over her knees and then all the way back to her hips.
As usual, she was not wearing any drawers.
“Ah,” he said, his voice choked. “I think I may have seen something like that once before.” He’d lowered a hand on each of her knees and gently pushed.
“Perhaps you need a closer look to be certain, my lord?” She slid her hips closer to the edge of the desk—to him.
“Adam. Adam?”
At the sound of his name, Adam shoved the erotic memory into the increasingly overcrowded corner of his brain where he stored such treasures.
Mia had come to stand before him, an amused look on her face, her glance flickering down to his bulging buckskins, which she was strategically hiding from the curious faces behind her.
“We were speaking of frocks, Adam.”
He frowned, looking past his wife’s shoulder and then back. “We were?” He cleared his throat. “Yes, I mean we were. Speaking of frocks. What an excellent idea. I suppose that means a trip. Will Brighton satisfy you? Or need we take an armed frigate to Paris?” He tried to sound resigned to his fate, but actually found the idea of a trip to Brighton appealing.
The room erupted in female chatter and Adam hastened to escape as the women returned their attention to the magazine on the table. Just as he closed the door he caught his wife’s eye and she gave him a smile of pure joy that rocked him to his core.
It had been a long time since Adam had placed his happiness so fully in the keeping of another person. The realization of what he’d done sent a ripple of anxiety through the otherwise pleasurable wave he’d been riding. He’d learned long ago that happiness was a two-sided coin—and the other side was pain.
Chapter Twenty-One
While many women—especially step-mamas—would have found the company of three girls for six hours in an enclosed carriage torture, Mia found their company both delightful and liberating. After months spent with adults in London, whose notio
ns of propriety and decorum never matched hers, it was a relief to be with three people who admired, rather than despised, her temperament and manners. The same could not be said for their disapproving governess, Miss Temple, who thankfully rode in the second carriage.
Mia had tried to persuade Jessica to join them on a trip that promised to be pleasure-filled and of not too long a duration, but her sister-in-law—generally so retiring on most subjects—had adamantly refused to join the party.
“It might be selfish, but I would rather enjoy some time to myself,” Jessica had admitted before giving Mia one of her rare smiles. “But I have no qualms about sending you off with a long shopping list.”
The three girls were more than a handful and Jessica had given selflessly to them. Her new daughters were sweet and unspoiled girls. Even Eva, whose high spirits might have been viewed by outsiders to be a sign of overindulgence, was thoughtful and kind to both her sisters and the people on Adam’s estate.
They sat crowded in the seat across from her, bickering about some book Catherine had brought to entertain them on the journey. Two jet-black heads and one sandy-blond.
Mia had guessed almost immediately that Melissa could not be Adam’s child. Unlike her two older sisters, whose delicate bone structure and dark hair were the very image of their father’s, Melissa was fair and plump, her button nose, full mouth, and brown eyes demonstrating no sign of the marquess, her aunt, or any of her sisters.
To give Adam his due, he dealt equally with all three of his daughters. That was to say, equally distant. Mia could not understand why he held his children at such a remove. Beneath his façade of cool disdain was a loving and generous man. It had taken Mia a shockingly short time to discover the real man beneath the thick façade. But, try as she might, she could not expand the circle of warm affection the two of them shared to include his children.
She simply could not understand his remote attitude toward his daughters. Her love of Jibril was such an overpowering emotion, she could no more hold him at arm’s length than she could survive without breathing. She knew Adam loved his daughters, even the one who was not his own blood. She’d seen the affection in his eyes in those brief moments when his guard lowered and he allowed his love for them to show. But those moments were always short, and seemed to be followed immediately by an expression she could only describe as dread.
She had tried to probe the matter a few times, but his face had become shuttered, as closed and hard as it had been the first weeks of their acquaintance. Mia had recoiled like a coward, terrified the intervening weeks of loving and passionate companionship had been nothing but a vivid product of her imagination.
She shuddered at the strength of her emotions. She could no longer hide from the truth. For the first time in her adult life, she was in love; in love with her husband.
He rode beside the carriage, acting as outrider, his elegant form in no way diminished by the mist that covered his black curls and handsome caped coat. He glanced toward the carriage and saw her watching. His mouth curved slowly into a smile that caused her entire body to thrum. As if he knew what effect he had on her, he turned to face the road, his attractive profile smug.
Mia realized that Eva was gazing fixedly out the window, her eyes raw with yearning as they followed the man who rode so close at hand, but was always beyond her reach. Watching the mute suffering on her face, Mia resolved to get to the bottom of the marquess’s reserve. The next time she broached the matter with Adam, she would not let the threat of ruining their growing intimacy turn her from her purpose.
* * *
Adam was in his study, staring blankly at the bills and letters that cluttered his desk, once again marveling at his sudden good fortune.
He’d been pleasantly surprised by the Brighton house when they’d arrived two weeks earlier. He’d not stayed in Brighton, or visited the house, since the year before Veronica’s death. After she died Adam had arranged to have the entire house stripped and redecorated; her taste in décor had been as repugnant to him as her taste in entertainment.
The rooms, once draped in dark reds, were now hung in blues and greens with touches of warm brown or gold, the combinations making the rooms feel light and comfortable.
The chambers he shared with Mia were much smaller than those at either the castle or Exley House. It mattered little, as she refused to sleep alone and he no longer wanted to go to bed without her.
He smiled to think of his once impeccable bedchamber, now strewn with all the signs of Mia’s occupation: the omnipresent cushions, rugs, articles of her clothing and footwear discarded on a whim.
To Adam’s surprise, Sayer seemed quite satisfied with the new arrangement. Although Adam had almost suffered a stroke the first time Mia wandered half-naked into his dressing room while Sayer was clothing him.
She had no qualms about interrupting his dressing, offering suggestions or observations and generally upsetting what had been a quiet, predictable routine of long standing.
He’d been stunned when he’d caught a glimpse of his normally staid valet’s face in the mirror during one such session. For the first time in Adam’s memory Sayer’s face wore a smile at some outrageous suggestion his wife had tossed over her shoulder before Adam sent her back to her room to finish dressing. He’d heard her laughter as the door closed, a single slipper left behind in the middle of his room as proof of her presence.
Adam never would have believed it, but he loved the myriad invasions. He supposed it was the natural result of the life she had led. It appeared her existence had been a communal one in which she spent most of her time in the sultan’s palace naked with a hundred women and children. As a result, her need for privacy was almost nonexistent.
The only area in which Adam drew the line was with his intimate business, firmly requesting her to leave one small screened portion of his rooms off limits. She’d smiled at his request, as if it were eccentric.
She regarded her own intimate habits as anything but, shocking him to near stupefaction with her casual approach to her body as well as his.
It was because of their unusual level of intimacy that he noticed Mia’s sudden illness. While she might look dainty and frail, Adam had learned she had an iron constitution.
She ate more than any other woman of his acquaintance and never seemed to lack for energy. The only area in which she showed any laziness at all was in her unwillingness to leave the bed if he was still in it. As long as he was beside her, she was contented to lounge and sleep. He had learned to rise while she was still sleeping, take care of any pressing or necessary matters, and then slip back into bed without her ever knowing he’d left.
Adam had woken early several mornings before, intending to complete some letters about work on the London property. He’d immediately noticed she was not in bed.
He went to their shared sitting room and then her room. He didn’t see her at first and was turning to leave when he heard a retching noise. He found her on the far side of the bed, naked, of course, sitting cross-legged on the floor with a basin in her lap.
He dropped into a crouch beside her. “Darling, are you ill?”
She’d laughed weakly and then retched again.
Adam located the water pitcher and a cloth and knelt beside her on the floor, pushing back the spirals of red hair that had come loose from the casual knot she favored. Using a damp cloth he wiped the sweat from her brow and neck. She collapsed back against the bed with a heavy sigh.
“Why don’t you let me put you in bed? I’ll tuck you in and send for the doctor.” He stroked the side of her wan face as he looked into her eyes, noting the small wrinkles of pain at the corners.
She took his hand and brought it to her lips, kissing the tips of his fingers and meeting his eyes with a tired smile. “I don’t need the doctor, Adam.” She pressed his hand against her face, where the skin was hot to the touch.
“Nonsense, Mia, you must have caught the influenza. He will at least give you something to soothe your
stomach and allow you to get some sleep.”
“I don’t have the influenza, Adam. There is no cure for what I have.”
Terror stabbed at his heart and stopped his breathing. “What do you mean?” His voice was cold, almost hostile.
“Sleeping powders won’t help me. I’ll just have to wait nine months.”
He was stunned, his mind counting the weeks since they’d married.
“Darling,” he finally said, unable to come up with anything more intelligent. His eyes dropped to her bare stomach, its gentle swell unchanged. His fingers went to the belly ring he found so arousing and he stroked her, meeting her eyes.
“Don’t worry, Adam.” A wicked smile flickered across her lips. “This doesn’t mean we need to stop trying.”
He had laughed immoderately, his brain flooding with relief at her reaction, so very different from Veronica’s when she’d learned she was breeding.
Adam’s hands tightened on the wooden arms of his chair at the memory of Veronica’s rage. He’d worried around the clock when she’d been pregnant with both Eva and Melissa, terrified she would do something to harm her unborn children.
He would not have those worries this time. Mia’s face glowed with the knowledge she carried a child. In spite of an inability to keep food down, she looked happier than ever.
Adam had ordered every delicacy from the kitchen that he could think of that morning, hoping something would soothe her stomach. Part of him knew he was acting ridiculously, but another part refused to listen, not caring how foolish he might appear. He’d been overjoyed to learn that what pleased her most was simply the feel of his hands on her.
“Mm, yes, stroke my stomach,” she’d murmured, making contented sounds as he rubbed her flat belly. “I am feeling better already,” she promised, her face indeed looking less taut and pale.
In the days that followed he could not stop marveling that she not only allowed his touch, but sought it. Veronica had hidden herself from him as though she were obscene.
Mia, on the other hand, seemed even more determined to spend all their time naked, speculating about what he would think of her when she was big and round. Laughing and teasing him when she saw he was more aroused by her than before, something he’d not believed possible.
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