by Julia London
“Who is that?” she asked, squinting at the chestnut, held by one of two stableboys.
“Bilbo,” Middleton said.
“He doesn’t seem very sturdy on his feet.”
“I assure you, he is. He’ll be gentle with you.”
She glanced at Middleton sidelong and thought the better of responding too pertly to that. “Where are we going?”
“The west fields. They are fallow and level.”
Ava looked again at Bilbo, wondering if he could even make it as far as that. “Am I to ride him there?” she asked, stepping a little closer to Middleton.
“That was my intent.”
She instantly shook her head and stepped even closer to her husband. “Please, allow me to ride with you,” she said. “He’s so big and…” And old…! “He’s frighteningly big.”
Middleton put his hand on her waist. “You mustn’t be afraid.” He then looked at one of the young hands from the stable and said, “Bring Bilbo to the west fields. Lady Middleton will ride with me.”
With that, Middleton guided Ava to the mare and urged her to stroke the horse’s nose. “You must be very careful,” he said to Ava. “She’s young and not fully broken.”
“Oh,” Ava said sweetly, “I’ll be very careful.”
He looked at her oddly, but then easily lifted her up onto the front of his saddle. He swung up behind her and put one arm around her middle. “All right?”
“All right,” she sighed, and sank back against him. There was nothing quite like the security of being in Middleton’s muscular arms, his hard body at her back. Truly, nothing in the world felt quite as safe as that.
As they rode out, Middleton pointed out some of the cottages belonging to tenants who farmed crofts of his land. And then he asked her how she found Broderick Abbey, if it was to her liking.
“Very much, my lord,” she said, although she really didn’t care for it in the least. It seemed too formal, too cold. “It’s very…large.”
He choked on his surprise. “It’s large? Is that all you would say of it?”
“No,” she said with a smile. “I might also say that it’s awfully cold at night,” she said, slanting a look at him. “There’s a bit of a draft.”
“A draft!” he said with mock indignation. “Then we must have the entire east wing brought down and put back up again.”
“I hardly think that is necessary. I should think a bit of grout, or whatever it is you stuff in cracks.”
“Then I shall have a mountain of grout brought round. No crack will go unpunished.”
She laughed and tossed her head as Sally had suggested.
“Is there any way we might repair the problem of the abbey’s size?” he asked playfully.
“I don’t think so. Better to leave it large than ruin its appearance.”
“Well, then…is there anything else I might do for you? Anything to make your time at Broderick Abbey easier?”
She shook her head and sank deeper into the curve of his arms.
He bent his head and touched his lips to the top of her ear. “It seems there is something on your mind of late, Lady Middleton. Something that, if I knew what it was, I might mend for you.”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“Perhaps,” he said, his breath warm on her ear, “there is something about our arrangement that concerns you. If you tell me, I might repair it.”
All thoughts of flirting coyly flew out of her head. She sat up and turned so that she could see his face. “Something that you might repair?” she asked, incredulous that he might think a marriage, or an adulterous love affair, for that matter, might be fixed up with a bit of grout and plaster.
But Middleton nodded and gave her a patronizing smile. “You seem to be a bit out of sorts.”
“How so?” she demanded.
He tightened his hold of her and pulled her back against him once more. “You have seen fit to dine without me. And you left me last night,” he said quietly. “And, furthermore, you didn’t seem to want to come along this morning.”
He had determined the rules, and now he would complain about them? How quickly she forgot Sally’s caution to flirt and keep herself just beyond his reach. “All right, here you are: I thought we agreed we were suited for marriage.”
Middleton’s brows dipped into a frown of confusion. “We are suited, and we’ve set a perfectly acceptable arrangement—why aren’t you happy with it?”
Ava heard Sally’s voice in her head urging her to make light of it, to tempt his curiosity and leave him wanting more. And suddenly, perhaps for the first time, she saw the wisdom in Sally’s words. The man took far too much for granted. She smiled devilishly and inclined her head demurely. “Of course I am happy—how could I not be? Far too often, marriage seems to be the cause of much misery. But as we have come together as the result of fortune and standing, and not silly feelings of love or companionship, or, apparently, even felicity, there is no reason we shouldn’t be happy. I daresay we shall succeed handsomely, for we’ve no particular attachment to one another…have we?” she asked, peering up at him.
“No,” he agreed, all too readily.
Her anger soared and her smile became brighter. “We should be very thankful, really, that we are so agreeable in this. The common marriage is much more complicated than ours. We shall suffer none of the uneasiness when we are apart. Or dream of one another. No, my lord, we shall sleep quite soundly.”
He looked, she thought, far too agreeable.
Dear God, what had she done in marrying him? She turned away from him, sitting up, her back stiff, her body as far from him as she could possibly get on the back of that mare. “What a lovely day! The air is cleaner here, I think. Do you?”
“Yes,” he said, but he sounded as if his thoughts were elsewhere.
Ava hardly cared—she was so flustered and angry she wanted to scream. It seemed almost savage that two people could come together and share such intimate and personal acts without feeling something more enduring than the need to “repair” whatever ailed her with plaster or money.
When they reached the west field, she jumped down before Middleton could help her. But when he dismounted and stood at his horse, looking so majestic and as if he didn’t quite know who she was, she couldn’t resist the feeling that was growing stronger in her each day. She could not look at him and not want to be with him. She couldn’t see the smile in his eyes and not yearn to win his heart and possess it. So when he asked her to get on Bilbo, she complied.
She complained that she felt she was in a precarious position, but he smiled happily at her, melting her anger away with it, and told her she was doing marvelously well as he led her around a big circle like a child on a pony.
Yet he seemed so pleased that Ava might have gone on all day for the pleasure of his smile had not Lady Kettle arrived, riding hard across the field, reining to a perfect stop before them.
“Look who’s riding!” she cried happily, and allowed Middleton to help her down from her horse by putting her hands on his shoulders and laughing when he caught her at the waist and lifted her down.
He said something to her that Ava did not catch, and kissed her cheek. Lady Kettle smiled up at him so beautifully that Ava’s heart clenched. She was in love with him. She could tell by the way her eyes sparkled when she looked at him, and the blush in her cheeks when she smiled at him.
When she had quite finished drooling over Ava’s husband, Lady Kettle turned a bright and, all right, a beautiful smile to Ava. “You are doing very well, Lady Middleton!” she said. “I knew you’d find Middleton an excellent teacher!”
“Yes, he is,” Ava said, trying to seem completely unaffected.
“Do you know that he taught himself to ride?”
“That’s hardly true,” Middleton said with a laugh. “I had many instructors when I was a young boy.”
“But you did,” Lady Kettle said, playfully grabbing his arm and turning her face up to him again. “Do
you remember how we’d come up here to these very fields with that old gray, and you would ride round and round, practically falling off every time he swished his tail, until you could ride him with your eyes closed?”
Middleton laughed. “I suppose I do remember something like that. I am surprised you remember it as well, Veronica.”
Veronica.
Ava didn’t know what made her do it—maybe it was simply the use of Lady Kettle’s given name. Or the fact that her husband and Lady Kettle were laughing and reminiscing like lovers. Whatever the reason, Ava chose that moment to ruin her ruse of not knowing how to ride just so that she might spend time with her husband, and kicked Bilbo in the soft part of his belly to send him bolting.
She heard the shouting behind her, but as Bilbo ran—surprisingly fast for his age with another well-placed kick—Ava laughed like the devil. She yanked the reins right, headed him into the forest, and heard the shouting behind her again as she leaned over the old horse’s neck. When they had crashed into the thicket—which she hoped she made all the more exciting by shrieking—she reined Bilbo up, jumped off, and with a slap to his rump, sent the horse running again. She instantly dropped down, landing a little hard on her bottom, and then lay down on her back and squirmed about a bit before standing up.
She wasn’t satisfied that she looked properly thrown, and picked up a handful of dirt and twigs and, wincing at the unpleasant necessity, rubbed them about her gown.
By the time Middleton reached her a few moments later, she looked, she thought, rather abused. He swept off the mare before he’d even reined her to a halt and strode forward so fast and so sternly that for a moment Ava feared him and took a step backward. But he caught her up in his arms, picking her up off her feet as he grabbed her and held her tightly to him.
“Are you all right? Are you harmed?”
“No,” she said, her voice muffled against his shoulder, he held her so tightly. “A bit bruised, but I’m really all right.”
He released his grip of her, grabbed her by the shoulders, and pushed her back, examining her face. “You’re certain you’re all right?”
She nodded.
“You didn’t harm yourself?” he asked as he put his hand to her chin and moved her head from side to side.
Ava shook her head.
He frowned slightly, put his hands on her ribs, pressed gently, then slid them down and around to her derriere as he watched her eyes. Ava blinked as he cupped her bottom, but said nothing. He moved his hands up her rib cage again to the sides of her breasts. “You seem no worse for the ride,” he remarked, pressing against her breasts, letting his hands linger there longer than was necessary to ascertain if she’d been injured.
Ava swallowed. “I’m really all right.”
He smiled a little crookedly and stroked her temple with the back of his hand. “And Bilbo? You didn’t harm Bilbo, did you?”
“Bilbo?” she repeated. “No…he’s…he’s fine.”
His smile widened, and he pulled her to him, wrapping his arms around her. “Come on, then, Lady Middleton. We’ve had enough riding for one day.”
They emerged from the forest a few moments later, Ava securely in the circle of Middleton’s arms atop the mare. The stableboys had easily caught Bilbo, who hadn’t run very far at all, having seen a patch of grass to his liking.
“Dear God, are you all right?” Lady Kettle asked as she pulled up next to them, looking quite concerned. “You gave us all a fright!”
“I am. Thank you,” Ava said, and pressed her cheek against Middleton’s shoulder. “I’m just a bit tired, that’s all.”
“Do rest, Lady Middleton. That must have been very frightening.”
Ava nodded that indeed it was, and smiled sweetly as Middleton bid Lady Kettle a good day and headed back to the abbey. Once, on the ride back, she thought she heard him chuckle, but when she looked at him, his face was full of concern. Twice, he put his hand to Ava’s cheek and kissed her temple. At the abbey, he helped her down and pulled a twig from the shoulder of her habit. “Not to worry, Lady Middleton. In spite of today’s setback, I think you will become a fine horsewoman.”
“Really?” she asked hopefully.
He laughed softly and kissed her lips. “I am certain of it,” he said. He put his arm around her shoulders and led her up the steps to the main entrance, and Ava might as well have been walking on air. But as they walked into the main entry, Dawson met them. He took Middleton’s cloak and extended a silver tray. “The post, my lord.”
Ava saw Lady Waterstone’s letter on the very top, the distinctive curve of her handwriting burned like a brand on the back of her eyes. She glanced up and saw the recognition of the handwriting pass across Middleton’s features, too.
“Put them in the study,” he said, and glanced at Ava. “I will have the pleasure of your company at supper, madam,” he said, his voice brooking no argument.
“Yes,” she said tightly. “Of course.” With a smile pasted on her face, she walked away, all the lovely, summery feelings inside of her gone and replaced by a cold blast of winter.
Twenty-three
A va walked straight to her suite, shut the door, and yanked the bellpull as hard as she could. And again. And every few minutes until Miss Hillier appeared, looking rather startled.
“Lady Middleton? Is everything all right?”
“Where is Sally?” Ava asked.
Miss Hillier pressed her lips tightly together disapprovingly. “I beg your pardon, my lady, but there is a rather indelicate predicament about which I must speak with his lordship.”
Miss Hillier’s expression alarmed Ava—something had happened to Sally. “What predicament?” she asked.
“I’d rather not say—it’s rather vile. But it involved your lady’s maid.”
“Tell me, Miss Hillier!”
The woman’s displeasure was pinching her face. “She was seen…cavorting…with one of the footmen.”
“Cavorting?” Ava echoed, not understanding immediately. She pictured them running about the garden, playing at horse or some such foolishness.
But Miss Hillier narrowed her eyes and spat, “Cavorting,” in a manner that clearly relayed her meaning.
Lord God, Sally! Not here! Ava’s mind raced—she made a tsk-tsk sound and shook her head. “You mustn’t pay her attention, Miss Hillier. Sally is indeed rather flirtatious, but she’s quite harmless, I assure you.”
Miss Hillier’s face was now a very deep red. “One can hardly term her behavior harmless. You must remember, Lady Middleton, that you are the wife of a marquis now. Your actions—or those of your servants—reflect on him.”
Her actions? What of his deplorable actions? “I am well aware,” Ava bit out. “But you must remember that Sally is from London. It’s different there. What is improper here is often tolerated in London.”
“Be that as it may, this is certainly not London.”
The old battle-ax had no bloody idea how true that was. “No, it’s certainly not,” Ava calmly agreed in spite of her racing heart. “But might we give Sally a day or two to acquaint herself with the habits here before punishing her?”
Miss Hillier seemed to think about that for a moment. But then she shook her head. “I can’t let that sort of behavior go unremarked. And I must mention it to his lordship. I’ve known him since he was but an infant. He’s suffered so much in his life, and particularly at the hands of unscrupulous servants, that I take it as a personal mission to ensure nothing ever sullies his honor.”
Suffered? He had no idea what it meant to suffer! And besides, Ava failed to see how Sally’s indiscretions might dishonor Middleton in any manner, but it was apparent that she would get nowhere with his mother hen. “Very well,” she said stiffly. “I will speak to my husband about this matter later. Now, then, will you send Sally to me?”
“I’m afraid I can’t, Lady Middleton. She has been dispatched to the village.”
“The village?” Ava cried. “What in God’s na
me have you done, Miss Hillier?”
“I did not turn her out,” Miss Hillier said icily. “I merely sent her home with the cook’s daughter. She will have a roof over her head until Lord Middleton has made his decision.”
Ava couldn’t contain herself any longer. “I beg your pardon, but do you mean to imply that Lord Middleton will make a decision about who is to be my lady’s maid?”
The witch actually looked surprised by the question. “Why, of course! Is he not lord and master of this house? Is he not the benefactor of all of us?”
“He is my husband, not the bloody king of England!” Ava cried. Her heart was pounding so hard that she could scarcely breathe.
Miss Hillier gasped; she was truly offended.
Ava put a hand to her heart and sank wearily onto the edge of her bed.
“Shall I help you dress?” Miss Hillier asked tightly.
“No,” Ava said, shaking her head. “I will manage.”
Miss Hillier wasted no time in leaving her room, which suited Ava very much. How had this happened? How had she gone from fairy tale to nightmare so quickly? She had to manage her way out, think what to do. In the meantime, she wished to God in his heaven that she could see her mother once more and tell her how wrong she was about marriage.
My darling, I wake every morning filled with thoughts of you. I spend my days walking about like the dead, intoxicated by the memory of you. My soul aches to be near you, my heart is full of such love for you that it sets my blood afire….
The knock on his study door prompted Jared to toss Miranda’s letter in the fire.
It was Dawson, who bowed deeply as he stepped inside. “I beg your pardon, my lord, but Miss Hillier requests an audience.”
“Oh?” he asked idly.
“It would seem there is a bit of trouble with the new lady’s maid.”
That got his attention. “Show her in.”
When Miss Hillier entered, he could tell from her expression that she was very displeased. He was not surprised, really, for Miss Hillier was often displeased—if the flowers weren’t cut fresh daily, or a portrait hung a little crookedly on the wall, she was displeased. More often than not, she brought her displeasures to him.
