His Reluctant Lady

by Aydra Richards

Mr. Plessing had not even glanced up. His teacup hovered several inches from his lips, unattended as his eyes scanned the page before him, thoroughly engrossed. A long moment passed in silence, but at last he laid the pages down upon his knee and turned his attention back to Poppy.

  “A tad morose, my dear,” he said, sipping his tea.

  David felt a skirl of guilt slice through him, recalling the discarded page that Poppy had balled up and cast at him. Morose because she had been morose; her ill-fated heroine tromping through mud and snow, helpless and hopeless, echoing Poppy’s own inner turmoil. Was she melancholy still? Or had she begun to acclimate to her changed circumstances, finding her feet once more?

  He itched to snatch the pages from Mr. Plessing’s hands, to read through them himself in an attempt to glean Poppy’s own feelings through the words she’d written there.

  “It’s a Gothic novel.” Poppy’s voice contained a snap of defensiveness. “The readers would be disappointed were it not to contain some level of melancholia.”

  “Hmm,” Mr. Plessing said, noncommittally. “Never mind; it will make for a good end for the second volume, I feel. A touch of despair to leave the reader wondering.” His head jerked up as he noticed David standing in the doorway at last. Hefting himself from the chair, he extended his hand. “Ahh, and you must be Lord Westwood,” he said. Beneath his heavy mustache, his mouth widened into a jolly grin. “Good of you, my lord, to permit Miss Fairchild to continue her career. Such a prodigious talent should not be squandered.”

  David allowed the slip, given that he could see from the man’s disposition that it had not come as a deliberate slight but rather through years of longstanding acquaintance that did not readily yield to changed circumstances. “Somehow I have the feeling,” he said, clasping Mr. Plessing’s hand in his own, “that even if I were to forbid it, she’d have done it anyway.”

  Mr. Plessing laughed, a cheery sound. “I see you’ve taken her measure already, my lord.” His blue eyes twinkled in his face. “Tell me, have you read her work?”

  “No,” he said. “I’m afraid I haven’t had the pleasure.” It would have seemed somehow callous to say that his interests did not lie heavily in ghosts haunting ancient manor houses, or vacuous ladies skittering about deserted corridors, fleeing from tortured, malevolent gentleman.

  “Oh, but you should. She’s got a rare talent, a rare talent indeed.” Mr. Plessing released his hand and stuffed the bundle of papers into his leather folio case. “Quite my highest seller. She’d be the toast of the Ton if she would allow me to print her new name.”

  David’s gaze sheared to Poppy, who looked prim and unruffled, sipping her tea placidly. And yet something about her, perhaps the stern set of her shoulders, visible even through the harsh lines of her gown, suggested a sort of awkward tension.

  “She won’t?”

  “Doesn’t want the attention,” Mr. Plessing clucked. “I’ve told her and told her, it can only be good for her career, but she won’t hear of it.”

  Her throat worked, a strenuous swallow far too large for a mere sip of tea. “I don’t wish to use a title to gain an audience,” she said.

  Mr. Plessing, the estimable man of business, merely glanced at David with the sort of long-suffering look of a man surrendering a great deal of profit to placate his most valuable asset.

  “Surely if the countess changes her mind, you will be the first to know, Mr. Plessing,” David said. He canted his head toward the hallway. “Might I speak to you privately for a moment?”

  Poppy’s eyes shot up to his, suspicion narrowing them to slits. “What business do you have with my publisher?” she inquired icily.

  “No business at all,” he said. “Merely…a request. Mr. Plessing? A drink in the library?”

  Mr. Plessing grinned again. “Of course. Can’t say as it would have been appropriate to partake of anything stronger than tea with Miss Fairchild, but so long as you’re offering.” He chortled to himself, pleased as punch.

  David pointed the way to the library, hanging back just long enough to spear Poppy with a meaningful glance. “You,” he said, shaking a disapproving digit at her. “No spying.”

  At least she had had the good grace to flush.

  ∞∞∞

  David poured a measure of brandy into a couple of glasses, offering one of them to the gentleman seated across from him.

  “I say,” Mr. Plessing began, “I do hope you don’t intend to retract your approval in private. Miss Fairchild would be crushed.”

  “Not at all,” David said, because Poppy would be crushed. And furious. And very likely murderous. “It’s…different, for a woman, isn’t it?” he inquired. “Publishing, that is.”

  “Oh, I should say so,” Mr. Plessing replied, sipping his brandy. “Fully half of my female authors publish under pseudonyms, or anonymously. Even some of the married ones don’t wish to put themselves too far forward, you understand. There’s a fine line between fame and notoriety.”

  David nodded, staring down into his glass. “I can’t imagine,” he said, “what it’s like to put your work into the world and not be able to claim it as your own.” To hear people fawn over your prose, but to know those same people might very well savage you if they had the slightest inkling of who had written those very words.

  Mr. Plessing heaved a sigh. “The public is fickle,” he said. “And well she knows it. And Lady Westwood is a far more impressive figure than plain Miss Fairchild. There would be no scandal at all, not with the protection of your name and title, my lord.”

  No, there wouldn’t be, especially if David made it clear that he supported his wife’s career. But she was bound and determined not to use the title—which she had not wanted, anyway—and thus found herself constrained to her pseudonym, to hiding behind the false name she’d chosen.

  “I would like to order a bound set of her works,” David said. “For her use only, you understand. All past and future editions, authored under her own name.” Poppy Kittridge, Lady Westwood.

  Mr. Plessing choked. “My lord, such a thing is—well, prohibitively expensive. A single printing? It’s unheard of.”

  “I purchased her a single strand of pearls that cost well over five hundred pounds. I assure you, I can bear the cost of printing a single edition.” He set aside his glass and cast his arm over the back of the couch.

  “Perhaps you ought to have tried diamonds instead.”

  David laughed. “Perhaps I will. But I don’t think she’s a woman who cares much for jewelry.” No, the jewels hadn’t swayed her. She was not a woman whose affection could be won with the promise of finery, with shopping expeditions or an invitation to try her hand at relieving him of his fortune with the purchase of mere material goods. Though he didn’t pretend to have gained a thorough understanding of his wife in the short time they had been acquainted, he could say that much for her—she would not be impressed with a gift inspired by a surfeit of money but requiring little thought or consideration. She had lived too long beneath the burden of squeezing pounds from pence to appreciate an ostentatious gift.

  The pearls had not been unwelcome—only unnecessary. Jewels were inconsequential to Poppy, who had spent every spare coin she had upon her sisters, and wore eight-year-old gowns herself.

  “I can’t say as I’ve ever known her to wear jewelry m’self,” Mr. Plessing said. “But I suppose one has to maintain certain standards when one wears a title.” He polished off the last of his brandy.

  It was true enough. Certainly she’d need some new gowns and various other accoutrements to befit her station, but Jilly had suggested that Poppy might take poorly to another visit to her modiste—she’d borne their prior visit in pleasant enough humor, but she had clearly not been a woman in the throes of rapture at the prospect of spending her day poring over fashion plates and bolts of fabric. A nebulous thought began to form in his mind, a sort of middle-ground, which would satisfy her desire not to waste her time with something she regarded as a form of torture,
and which would also see her properly attired.

  Mr. Plessing cleared his throat, attracting David’s attention once again. “I do hope you’ll take no offense, my lord, but Miss Fairchild—she’s a sensitive girl. You’d never know it to look at her, but she is.” He heaved a sigh, torn between the desire to speak his mind and the likelihood he was speaking out of turn. “The whole of London knows you were forced into marriage, but there’s no reason that just because the wedding wasn’t desired, the marriage must in turn suffer.”

  Although David had already decided as much, Mr. Plessing rose in his esteem for his defense of Poppy.

  “If I weren’t old enough to be her father, I’d have offered for her m’self,” Mr. Plessing continued. “She’s had a poor enough hand dealt to her in life already. She needs a good turn. Says a lot for you already that you won’t stifle her talent, but—there’s no harm in the asking, now, is there?”

  “Indeed not.” David suspected that Mr. Plessing had substituted himself in as a sort of surrogate father-figure, and his mind would not be relieved until he had received the answers he desired. “Mr. Plessing, Poppy is my wife. I assure you, she’ll be treated with every kindness.”

  Mr. Plessing’s bushy eyebrows bobbed. While it was not precisely displeasure that lurked in his eyes, it might’ve been something akin to disappointment. “Should be love, m’boy,” he said. “Should be love.”

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  “Well, really,” Poppy snipped at David as Mr. Plessing left the house. “You ought not be having secret meetings with my publisher.”

  And he, unmitigated reprobate that he was, had the absolute nerve to simply lift his eyebrows and say, in all innocence, “Perhaps I wished to consult with him on the possibility of pursuing my own literary career.”

  That drew her up short, and she blinked in surprise and said, “Really?”

  “No, of course not.” He laughed at the stupefaction scrawled across her face. “I haven’t even a smidge of literary talent. Were I to attempt prose, I’d bore you to tears.” A sly grin flashed across his face, disarming in its intensity. “But I’m not going to tell you, and that’s that.”

  That’s that? “You can’t—you can’t simply refuse to tell me.”

  “Poppy.” He chucked her affectionately beneath the chin, like one might a child. “Of course I can.” And he turned away, bounding for the staircase. She hurried behind him in hot pursuit, hindered by the heavy skirts of her gown. For once she wished, just for a moment, for one of those light, airy gowns that would have been almost practical in just such a situation.

  “You haven’t forbid Mr. Plessing to do business with me, have you?” she called after him, her concentration mostly directed to ensuring she didn’t accidentally tread on the hem of her gown.

  “Not at all,” he replied, with a vague gesture, still proceeding down the hall away from her. “I rather liked him, if you must know. He may have a standing invitation to come to call, if you like. Invite him to dinner sometime.” He jerked open a door and strode inside.

  “David, I really must insist—” The words died on her lips as she flew into the room. Her room—but David had disappeared.

  The door snapped shut behind her, and she jumped at the sound, whirling around. Her husband lounged against the wall, where he had been hidden behind the door. “You, madam, were not in my bed when I woke this morning.”

  She blushed, then straightened her shoulders to combat the flustered feeling that skittered in her chest. “What rubbish,” she said. “I’ve never been in your bed.”

  “Hmm.” His gaze drifted over her, very nearly predatory. “A mistake to be rectified.”

  Oh, now, really. Poppy only just resisted taking a step backward. “I had an appointment with Mr.Plessing. Some of us can’t afford to simply lounge around in bed all day. Would you prefer I chose not to honor my commitments?”

  “I would prefer,” he said, “for my wife to be gracious enough to at least give me a greeting before she abandons my bed.”

  “It wasn’t your bed!” It seemed such a feeble defense, the distinction inconsequential at best. And, really, she should have taken a step back. Several steps. Big ones. He’d lured her here; she had gathered enough wits about her to realize it now. He’d been counting on her curiosity, using it against her to get her where he wanted her without a fight. And she had risen to the bait beautifully.

  He combated her hedging with a parry of his own. “Are you sore?”

  She drew a shocked breath. “It is entirely inappropriate to ask such a thing!”

  “But are you?”

  “No,” she said, flushing to the roots of her hair. “That is, I was—but I had a bath, and it was much relieved.”

  “Good.” He erupted into a flurry of motion, snagging her wrist and dragging her through the connecting door into his room, and she hadn’t even a few seconds to take in her surroundings before she found herself toppled into his bed. She caught her breath, scandalized. The curtains wreathing the windows were open, letting the early afternoon sunshine spill into the room. And before she could even form a sensible rebuke, he was crawling over her.

  “I made you a promise at the Throckmorton ball,” he said at her ear. “Do you remember?”

  Her breath sailed from her lungs on a shaky exhale, and she found herself at once hesitant and titillated. Really, where was the harm? They were married. Even if it was the middle of the day, it was hardly any more scandalous than anything else they’d engaged in.

  When she lifted her arms, it wasn’t to push him away, but to draw him closer.

  He let her watch.

  And then he made her burn.

  ∞∞∞

  “Why have you never taken up your seat in parliament?” Poppy asked, some time later. She was wrapped in his sheet, reclining against the mound of pillows she’d propped behind her. If she had any objections to him trailing his fingers through her sleek hair, she’d not voiced them.

  He gave a snort. “Really. Can you imagine me as a statesman?”

  “Yes,” she said. “I think you’d be rather good at it.” It was an absent reply; she had been scanning the room as she gave it, her attention diverted by the sedate furnishings. Still, there had been the unmistakable thread of absolute honesty running through it, and he marveled at it, wondering what it was that she saw in him that no one else ever had.

  He let his fingers meander from her hair to the silky skin of her shoulder. “I’m afraid you’ve got a bit too much imagination, then,” he said. “I assure you, I’ve been mediocre my whole life. No one expects a damn thing of me, much less to fulfill some sort of hereditary obligation that I’d no doubt make a muck of.”

  “Why let someone else’s expectations of you rule your life, then?” she inquired. Her brow furrowed as her gaze slid across his furniture, the solid mahogany paneling lining the walls, the writing desk tucked away in the corner, its uncluttered surface polished to a high shine. “You can be quite persuasive. If you chose to turn your mind to politics, I imagine you’d be a force to be reckoned with.”

  “Mm,” he said, slipping his fingers over the delicate dip of her collarbone. “And would you write my speeches for me, then?”

  “So long as I agreed with your positions.” She batted his fingers away. “This isn’t your room.”

  He pulled back in surprise. “Of course it is. It’s the earl’s bedchamber.”

  “But it’s not yours.” Her brows drew together. “That is…you haven’t made it yours. Nothing in here belongs to you.”

  She was correct, of course. He’d never bothered to redecorate it to his own taste. The furnishings had been his father’s. It had seemed a senseless task to him; why bother to expend the energy on such a thing, when the room was fine as it was? Why pour what insignificant shreds of personality he possessed into something so pointless as furnishing a room?

  “You’re living in the shadows of other people,” she said, with that artist’s perceptiveness that bot
h amazed and infuriated him. “You don’t know who you are.”

  Stung, he pulled away from her. “And you do?” he cast out viciously, wanting, perversely, to hurt her as she’d unintentionally hurt him.

  She blinked. “No,” she said. “No, of course not.” But the words were soft and less than truthful, as if she believed she’d taken the measure of him well enough. The vague pity swimming in her eyes scored him, had him shoving himself out of bed and thrusting his legs into his discarded trousers.

  She had been right, of course, in a sense. He did know who he was—a pretty face, a fine dancer, a man who spent his hours in idleness. He’d never tried to be more. He’d squandered every opportunity that had ever come his way, and it was far too late now to make more of himself than he’d been. If she had expected him to have hidden depths, she would find herself disappointed.

  A knot of jealousy formed in his gut, glowing like an ember. Poppy knew exactly who she was—a woman of bold determination, struggling against the currents of fate, willing to do whatever was necessary to pull herself and her sisters out of the ruin they’d been cast into.

  In a similar situation, he would have floundered. He had floundered, in point of fact. With all of the wealth and prestige at his disposal, with all of the tools that had been laid into his hands to wield at his will, still he had buckled beneath the weight of his responsibilities.

  A pretty face. Nothing else.

  “I know just who I am,” he snapped, dragging his shirt over his head. “Don’t go looking for looking for some sort of latent profundity in me, Poppy, because it’s not there.”

  “Oh, David,” she said. She stretched her hand out toward him, and he stared at it as if it were a creepy-crawly sort of thing, distasteful and horrifying. “I didn’t mean—”

  But he was already striding for the door, and it closed behind him on her sigh.

  ∞∞∞

  It had been easy enough to avoid his wife. She had not sought him out, after all. What she had done with her day, he didn’t know, but he had heard the girls’ delighted chatter sometime in the evening, then the tell-tale sounds of them fluttering out the door, no doubt bound for some engagement or another.