by Sue London
"Take a groom with you if you plan to ride," he said shortly. At Kellington she had just ridden with him. Which was unusual now that she came to think of it. At her family's country house she had ridden whenever the mood had struck her, which was quite often.
"I prefer to ride alone," she said softly, wondering why her husband's attitude had shifted dramatically from the night before. Had he taken her not waking as a rejection?
"Well, you won't be doing so anymore." A groom had come up to take Falcon. Gideon jumped down from the large horse with his usual grace.
Jack felt a prickle of annoyance. "I always did at home."
Gideon spun on her with an expression that almost made her back up a step. Pride had her raise her chin instead. "By home," he said acidly, "I assume you mean your father's house. Well, you weren't a countess at your father's house. Now this is home and you are a countess and you will not ride alone."
She could feel her heart pounding in reaction but something her mother used to say came back to her. She said the best advice that her successful merchanting father had ever given her was that when someone provoked you don't get angry, get curious. What do they hope to gain? What are they afraid to lose? She realized now that Gideon had been provoking her at almost every stage in their relationship and she began to wonder why. Some of her speculation and curiosity must have shown on her face as his expression became fierce.
"I can see those wheels turning in your brain. Don't think that you will find a way around my command. Within the hour every groom at Kellington will know of it. Within the week every groom on my estates will know it."
It was extraordinarily difficult not to react to his autocratic approach but Jack clung to her curiosity. Surely her marriage would be the most important business transaction of her life, and if there was ever a time to follow her clever grandfather's advice it was now. What did he hope to gain? What was he afraid to lose? Those questions would most likely preoccupy her for the rest of the day, and she and her husband couldn't spend it out in the stable yard staring at each other.
"Have you had breakfast yet?" she asked.
It wasn’t the response he was expecting and his expression became wary. "No."
"Then let's go in to eat, shall we? You must be starving after little to no dinner last night." She wrapped her hand around his elbow and, although stiff with irritation, he behaved as the gentleman he was and led her back toward the manor.
"I ate the plate of food left in my room last night," he admitted.
"Good, I'm glad,” she said. “I was concerned that you hadn't had lunch."
"Just a bit of it at the tenant farm."
She felt him stiffen even more at the memory. "What happened yesterday?” she asked. “You never did say."
He looked down at her, appearing very grave, then looked away again as though considering whether to tell her. He finally blew out a long breath. "I had to evict a family."
"Oh Gideon!"
"I didn't want to." He looked grave and a bit forlorn. "But it was necessary. The Hobbes. Mr. Hobbes passed away after an accident last year. His wife and two eldest sons have tried to keep the farm up but they haven't been able to without him."
"That doesn't seem fair, not giving them time to put the farm to rights."
"They've had this year, Jacqueline, and it looked that they were falling further and further behind. It's one of the larger steads on our land."
"This is over profit? You would turn them out because they made one of the larger farms unprofitable?"
"It's not that. Or not just that. Certainly at some point you need to think of the business of it. But they couldn't hope to keep up with such a large plot of land and with the low yield... The family was near to starving and the boys, Jacqueline, the boys are fourteen and twelve. They would spend all day in the field to come home to a meal of gruel unless a neighbor took pity and dropped by with something more substantial. Mrs. Hobbes was beside herself feeling that she owed her neighbors more than she could ever repay."
"Where will the family go?"
"Right now they are at the vicarage. I'm hopeful to find positions for at least Mrs. Hobbes and the boys so that the family can afford housing. Then the eldest girl will have to take care of the five younger children."
"How old is she?"
“Eleven.”
Now she understood why he had seemed bleak and withdrawn when he had returned last night. She remembered very clearly the year she was eleven. The Haberdashers had held their own contest that summer to test which of them was best at various weapons. It had been a secret contest, of course. But looking back she knew that year had been silly, innocent, and free of responsibility. She tried to imagine her eleven-year-old self responsible for five younger siblings and couldn't picture it. At that age she could barely stand it when Sam had tried to tag along on Haberdasher outings. Since then she had met more children and knew that Sam was as sweet as anyone's little sister could be. No, an eleven-year-old Jacqueline Walters would have been a miserable nanny to five younger children. This girl might be better suited to it, but was it even a fair task to ask of such a child?
"Isn't there anything else we can do?" Jack asked.
Gideon handed Jack into her seat at the dining table and took his customary place. "Not that I can think of. Even a poor struggling mother and her eight children have their pride. She insisted on preparing that lunch. Poor fare as it was, it probably represented a week's worth of food for her and the children. And she kept a stiff upper lip as Phillip and I explained what we needed to do. The only time she came close to crying was when she told me about the charity of her neighbors and her inability to do them a good turn."
"I should like to visit them in the vicarage."
Gideon nodded. "I can take you tomorrow."
"Not today?"
"I have some other business to attend to today that will keep me from being able to make the trip." He stopped in the midst of cutting his meat to eye her. "And if you should decide to make the trip on your own you will take the carriage with at least two attendants."
"Did you presume that after breakfast I would leap on my steed and dash off to the vicarage on my mission of mercy?"
"Let's just say that I wouldn't consider it to be beyond you."
"How very challenged the Earl of Harrington must be with his headstrong new wife."
"I shall pretend to ignore that. But your instincts are good. Visiting the Hobbes at the vicarage is very much the correct thing for a countess to do. And I’m sure Mrs. Hobbes would appreciate it,” he added. “Speaking of the correct thing, that reminds me that we have been at Kellington for over a fortnight and will be expected to join the local society soon."
"I thought it was a honeymoon,” Jack said, “not a honey fortnight."
Her tart reply managed to thaw Gideon enough that he smiled. "We can make it a honeymoon if you like, but we should begin planning now for a ball."
"A ball? You mean we should hold a ball? Here? Soon?" She felt stunned.
"Yes, that would be the customary thing. A ball to celebrate our new marriage."
"I'm sorry, sir, but you have the wrong Walters sister."
He placed his hand over hers on the table.
"I don't have a Walters sister, I have Jacqueline Wolfe, Countess of Harrington. We must have a ball. It is expected." She must have looked as shocked as she felt because he squeezed her cold, tense hand and then leaned closer to whisper in her ear. "Perhaps after the first waltz we can rendezvous in the library."
As he pulled back, Jack looked up into his eyes. "Last night did I... sleep through something important? My friends can tell you that I'm famous for sleeping through everything."
Gideon's expression became guarded again. "If you sleep through that then I have sincerely done something wrong."
"One time they put me on the roof."
"They what?" Gideon asked, startled.
"Sabre and George. They considered it a challenge to find out how ma
ny things they could do without waking me."
"These are your friends? They could have killed you if you had rolled off."
"Oh, they tied me up there,” Jack said. “In my blanket. Snug as a bug in a rug. When I woke up I couldn't get out and started screaming for someone to help me. That was one of the times Mama found out so they got in some real trouble."
"The other times you didn't tell on them?"
"Of course not, they're my friends."
"Darling, I don't know how to tell you this,” he said, “but those aren't friends."
Jack raised a brow. "You're telling me that you and the duke wouldn't have tested such a weakness if you had found it in the other?"
Gideon laughed as he considered it. "Oh, Quince would have woken up tied at the top of a church steeple. Naked. Honestly I shudder to think what his fertile imagination might have come up with if the tables had been turned."
"Exactly. Friends can't help but to tease one another."
"Well, but you're..."
"Girls?"
Gideon shrugged. "Exactly."
"We may be women but we were never girls. Not the way you mean it."
"I knew there would be dangers in marrying a free-thinking bluestocking."
"I offered to break the engagement," she said with mock sweetness.
He looked at her speculatively. "Yes. Yes you did."
After breakfast the earl withdrew to his study and Jack decided to take a walk as she had much to think over. The book for one, the contents of which still made her blush just to think about. She couldn't imagine discussing it with Gideon but there was certainly no one else to talk to about it. Her husband's moods for another, how he seemed to alternate between drawing her closer and pushing her away. And last but not least how she was going to handle the social obligations of being the Countess of Harrington. She realized now that this fortnight had indeed been a honeymoon period and that she would not be allowed to continue on with as few responsibilities.
Chapter Sixteen
Gideon had not enjoyed the emotional tumult of the last few days and was relieved to be back in his study dealing with problems he could solve. Financial decisions, business decisions, agricultural decisions, governance decisions. He was finishing off a letter to Pitt and staring out the tall windows that afforded him a magnificent view of the front lawn when he noticed a wagon coming up his drive. It was a bit unusual to receive a delivery at this time of the day, especially as the driver seemed to come towards the front of the house rather than go around to the side entrance, but he thought little of it and merely watched the wagon idly as he considered his words to the Prime Minister. Idly, that was, until he saw his wife running up the driveway. And saw the driver break the wagon and jump down to catch her as she flew at him with the joy of a child. The man spun her around while she laughed and they looked for all the world like reunited lovers. Gideon was out of his chair and pounding down the hallway to the front door before he had put together a coherent thought.
Jack stepped back, still laughing. "Look at you, Justin! I can't believe how much you've grown. I have to look up at you now."
The young man blushed and looked at the ground. "I suppose I should be bowing and calling you milady."
She grabbed his hands. "Don't be silly. We shall always be friends, regardless of anything else."
Still staring at the ground, he said, "It's alright Miss Jack-ma'am-milady. I know my place."
"Poppycock. You are Sabre’s brother and that makes you my brother as well, just like Robert and Charles. But why are you here?"
"Sam wrote and said you would probably like to have your trunks when it was convenient."
Looking at the wagon Jack almost melted. "Oh Justin. You brought my trunks? From the attic? That couldn't have been convenient."
"Anything for you, Jack."
The earl's voice cut through their conversation like a steel blade through soft flesh. "Take your hands off my wife."
Justin jerked away from Jack's hands like he had been burned and immediately started bowing to the earl. "Begging your pardon my lord."
"Gideon!" Jack admonished. "Justin is one of my oldest and dearest friends."
The earl continued advancing on the young man who was now cowering back towards the wagon. "And how dear a friend is he?"
Jack grabbed Gideon's arm and began tugging him back before he had Justin pinned completely against the wagon. When she gave one particularly vicious tug Gideon turned his gaze on her and she decided his expression was most likely the one the devil wore when you showed up in perdition. It made her realize that this wasn't just an irritating situation but one that was rapidly becoming dangerous for her young friend.
"Gideon!” she said. “That is Sabrina Bittlesworth's little brother and if you hurt so much as one hair on his head I swear to you that I will open up those boxes he brought down here and I will have at you."
When he looked at her this time he at least wore a more rational expression than before. "The Bittlesworths only have two sons and I know both of them."
"Justin is their half-brother."
"I see. And what is Justin to you?"
"Family," Jack said staunchly.
Gideon had been propelled out onto the lawn with a fury greater than any he had ever known. It was a miracle beyond reckoning that the young man in front of him wasn't lying as a bloody mess at his feet.
"Stand up," he said to the boy who was cowering against the wagon as though he knew exactly what kind of violence Gideon had been capable of. Justin very slowly stood to his full height, looking like a wary fox ready to bolt at the first howl of the hounds. Tall. Taller than Robert and Charles and younger than Gideon had first guessed. He could see some of the Bittlesworth features in the boy's face and that at least bore out Jack's claim about his parentage. "What is your business here?"
"De-delivering items to Jack, er, the countess. Milady."
"What items?"
At that the young man seemed to bristle. "Her property."
Jack sighed. "It's alright Justin. My weapons, Gideon. He brought my weapons."
Gideon felt his world tilt slightly. "He brought your what?"
"My weapons." She was at the edge of the wagon peering in with the expression most women used when gazing at babies. "Bows, swords, knives, staves, chains. And guns, of course."
"You have chains?"
"Have you ever seen chain fighting? It's quite spectacular. I'm not nearly as good at it as George but I could at least give you a passable demonstration."
"Why do you have weapons?" he asked, still feeling dumbfounded.
She smiled up at him as though he were daft. "Why do you have weapons, Gideon?" Turning her attention to Justin she said. "Let's get these in the house and then we can settle you in."
As the young man moved the wagon away to the front door of Kellington, Gideon held Jacqueline where they stood. "He is not staying here."
Rather than arguing with him as usual his young wife slipped her arms around his waist, leaned into him until their bodies were aligned from chest to thigh, and looked up beseechingly into his eyes. "Please?"
Oh bloody hell. He'd known this day was coming from the beginning but he hadn't thought she would figure it out this fast. Brilliant woman, his wife. Brilliant, warm, soft, beautiful... He felt his cock twitch and harden as he looked down into her forest green eyes.
"Kiss me, Gideon," she said. As his lips descended to hers, he admitted to himself that the bloody bastard was staying.
Jack was so excited that she could barely contain herself. Her weapons had arrived! She thought she would at least need to wait until the Bittlesworths got home from tour and then politely ask Sabre in a letter if she wouldn't mind terribly sending someone whenever it was convenient. But her adorable little sister had cut through all of that by appealing to the one person who could execute the plan without anyone else's approval. And although he said he would do anything for Jack, she knew it was really that he would do any
thing for Sam. Justin was a full year younger than her little sister and had worshipped the ground Sam walked on for as long as anyone could remember. It was sad in a way since it was unrequited love, and even if it weren't, it wasn't as though their father would let Sam marry the bastard son of a viscount.
When Gideon started kissing her she had put all of her joy from this unexpected delivery into her kiss and he had responded to her enthusiasm with a searing intensity. Within moments Jack had forgotten all else in the world other than Gideon's taste, his heat. She wanted to crawl inside him, crawl all over him. Her body pressed itself even more flush to his of its own accord. One of his arms wrapped around her and his hand stroked her bottom, then pressed her closer still where they joined.
He finally tore his lips away, panting. "We need to stop."
"Why?"
"Otherwise I'm going to make love to my wife on the gravel of the front drive. As well as being uncomfortable it is likely to generate a great deal of talk."
"Let them talk."
"We can do this later, Jack."
She gave a frustrated growl. "Whenever later comes we either argue or find some other reason to avoid it."'
He rubbed his nose against hers. "Try not to be impatient."
When she looked up at him she assessed that he was the good Gideon again, not the arrogant, autocratic, moody Gideon. She decided to tell him the truth. "I don't want to lose you."
He looked surprised. "I'm a bit large to be misplaced."
She snuggled into his chest and said irritably. "You know what I mean."
He kissed the top of her head. "Yes I do know what you mean, but what I don't know is what put that thought in your head."
She paused, not sure if she should tell him all but decided that it was usually best to be forthright. "I heard some of the servants talking. They said that you had dismissed your mistress but they didn't know why since it was obvious we weren't... having relations."
