Instead of examining that particular anxiety, she reviewed the events of her honeymoon, taking the time to linger over the pleasurable details. She squirmed in her seat at the arousal coursing through her body and knew she needed to redirect her thoughts soon or it was going to be a long and uncomfortable ride. Glancing over at her husband, she noticed his large hands holding those papers from his blasted solicitor, and Amelia remembered what else his hands had been holding a few hours earlier…
Amelia gave up. It was hopeless to avoid thinking about her handsome new husband, and if she wanted to fantasize about him, there was nothing wrong with that. After all, he was her husband, a point he took pride in mentioning every morning after awakening her with slow, languid kisses. Many times, they hadn’t left bed until late morning.
While mornings were passed in exploring their mutual passion, their afternoons were filled with intimate outings in which they had spent much time in deep conversation. At first, the two exchanged small parts of their lives in halting conversation. She had revealed parts of herself never before shared. She suspected the same was true for Tavis, as well.
Now she was going to be mistress of Ballywith, an estate she knew nothing about. The one time she asked Tavis about it she distracted him in the most pleasurable way possible.
Darn it all! Her attempt to redirect her thoughts from her husband only led to more of the same. She sighed again, but this time in complete annoyance at her wayward thoughts.
“If you sigh like that again, Wife, you’ll likely blow all my papers out the window.”
Startled, Amelia looked up to find her husband regarding her over the papers he held in his hand.
“Care to tell me what’s on your mind?”
“I was actually wondering what Ballywith was like. If you recall, the last time we tried to discuss your home, other things came up.” Amelia couldn’t resist aiming a pointed stare at his groin.
“Ah, yes. You distracted me quite shamelessly from my husbandly duty to inform you of what awaits at Ballywith.” Tavis set aside his papers in his valise, which he stowed on the seat next to her. Patting the now empty seat next to him, he said, “Let me remedy that, Wife.”
Amelia joined her husband, having mourned the loss of his touch since they left that morning and he became immersed in his papers. He wrapped his arm around her waist and pulled her into his side, where she snuggled her head into the crook of his arm.
“What do you wish to know?” he asked as he placed his chin comfortably atop her head.
“Tell me how big it is and what it looks like and how many servants you have,” she rattled off.
“Ballywith…”
“Oh, and the history of it, too, and how many tenants you have, and…”
“Peace, woman! I will stop your words with a kiss!”
Amelia turned her head and pursed her lips in expectation, but when no kiss was forthcoming, she cracked an eye and saw Tavis watching her with amusement. “What? No kiss?” she asked through her puckered lips.
“You’ll not distract me again, woman, with your witchy ways!” At her disgruntled pout, he laughed. “I’ll make it up to you tonight when we arrive home.”
“Promises, promises,” she sniffed, resettling her head on his arm.
“As I was saying, Ballywith is really an old castle, quite small, actually, built in the valley of Ballywith Mountain, so named by my illustrious forefathers. I imagine since Ballywith was built in front of the ben, they decided to name it the same. Not very imaginative, my ancestors.”
“And the castle itself? How many rooms are there?”
“Several hundred, I believe, but I could be off by a dozen or so.”
“Several hundred? That’s what you call small?”
“By most people’s standards it would be considered small, petite.”
“Your definition of small and mine are obviously different. Why, a castle of one hundred rooms in England would be considered quite large for most ancestral homes.”
“Aye, I noticed what you English consider large”—here he placed his hands a small distance from each other—“we Scots would call small, even tiny.” Now he held his thumb and forefinger together to indicate a much tinier size.
Amelia stifled a snort at Tavis’s estimation of English sizes, knowing full well what he was comparing. “Yes, well things must simply be larger in Scotland.” She felt Tavis shifting under her. When she looked, he had widened the spread of his legs and was grinning at her in smug male satisfaction.
Covering a grin with the back of her hand, she smoothed out her features and looked at him in wide-eyed amazement. “Your horses are positively monstrous! I’ve never seen horses so large before.”
“There are certainly large beasties in Scotland,” he said with pride. “Our mammoth horses being only one of them.”
“Oh, I would agree. One could even say the horses are bred to fit the men, you all being so very large.” She let the back of her hand brush over the largeness she knew lurked behind that flap in his breeches. If he took notice, he didn’t let on he had felt her casual caress.
With her hand resting on his thigh, she pretended to ponder something before saying, “But now I understand from whence that expression came.”
“And what expression would that be?”
“Why to be hung like a horse.” Amelia held back her laughter as he blustered about.
“Amelia, that’s not exactly—”
“I didn’t realize what a compliment it was until now, Husband, but knowing how highly such largesse is valued in Scotland, especially that of horseflesh, I am sure everyone I meet will be pleased to learn I have acquired such a well hu-hung hu-husband…” Her voice warbled as her attempt to hold back her fit of giggles failed. “They will consider me the lu-luckiest of women and will be positively green with envy.” She burst out into peals of laughter at Tavis’s incredulous look.
All of a sudden his blustering stopped, and he grabbed her around the waist. Hauling her up on his lap, he attacked her ribs in ticklish retribution for her apt tease about his size. “You little wretch!” He laughed. “I’ll teach you to joke about your husband!”
“Wait until I write my sister and let her know her pre-marital talk was for naught and I would have been better prepared had I gone to the stables and watched the stallions service the mares.”
Tavis flashed her a wicked smile. “You weren’t complaining last night, Amelia mia, when I had you on your knees and your plump arse in my hands as I serviced you like the stallion I am.”
She curved her arms around his neck and inhaled deeply, loving the musky scent wafting off his skin. “Hmm. I never said I minded, Tavis, and fortunate woman I am, I’ll be the only one who ever knows.” Taking his mouth in a deep kiss, she reassured him how much his size didn’t bother her in the least.
“Aye, well, I suppose I shouldn’t have teased you so about your home,” he said when they broke apart. “Are you very sad to be leaving England? In all the rush, I never thought to ask you if you minded much.”
“A little. Nervous, too, and when I get nervous my tongue tends to run away with itself. It’s an old habit and a bad one that I am trying to change. I am sorry, too, Tavis, for my tease.” She wound her arms around his neck and asked in a little-girl voice, “Forgive me?”
He nodded, and she rested her head on his chest, nestling there in contentment.
“I’m almost afraid to ask, but wherever did you hear such language? I imagine it’s not something most young ladies are privy to.”
“I often heard my father’s associates use language like that. Often much worse, actually.”
“What? Your father allowed them to speak like that in front of you?”
“Oh, no, Father would not have allowed that.”
“Then how did you come to hear it?”
She squirmed a little on his lap, an uncomfortable feeling of shame settling over her.
“Do you not want to tell me? You don’t have to if
you don’t want to.”
“No, it’s all right. I was just embarrassed because I probably shouldn’t have been listening in the first place. Next to my father’s study is a smaller room, not much bigger than a changing room, really. It’s comfortably furnished with a small desk and a chair, and it’s lined with books from floor to ceiling. Aside from the stables, it was my favorite spot at home.”
“And you could hear your father speaking to his associates through the walls?”
“Usually, yes. Sometimes they spoke too quietly for me to hear, but other times their voices carried clearly through the thin walls to my little nook.”
“Is your room hidden?”
“Not hidden exactly, but yes, I could see how someone might mistake it for another section of wall. If you don’t know where to look for the latch to open it, I imagine it could easily be overlooked. As far as I know, no one except me ever entered it.”
****
Upon hearing Amelia had been privy to her father’s private conversations with his business associates, Tavis’s mind raced at the possibilities of what she had heard. He wished he had known about the little room when he searched the study. It was odd that Meeks hadn’t said anything to him about it when they had debriefed the night of the ball, but if it was as small as Amelia claimed, then it was possible Meeks had missed it also. It sounded like the type of room known only to those intimately familiar with the house.
“And that’s where you heard them speaking in such vulgar terms?”
She nodded and laughed. “When I could hear them, they only ever talked about horses. They always talked about this one horse called Big Harry. On more than one occasion I heard them laughing loudly about how the females always liked Big Harry because he was hung like a horse, and I remembered thinking to myself how odd it was for them to laugh about Harry being hung like a horse when he obviously was a horse, so how else could he be hung? It didn’t make any sense to me. I asked Bea about it, and she laughed and said I would understand once I was married.” Amelia lifted her head off his chest to give him a mischievous look. “And now I’ve seen you, I completely understand what they were talking about. I blush at how naive I was, for it is clear to me now they must have been speaking of a man.” Her expression turned to one of absolute befuddlement. “Though why gentlemen discuss another man’s appendages is beyond me.”
He chuckled. “Yes, well, we gentleman are a strange lot, and luckily for mankind, you women are willing to put up with us.”
“Hmpf, you most certainly are!” She gave him a quick peck to the mouth and resettled on his chest. Tavis stretched out his leg on the seat bench to better accommodate holding her. While he stroked her hair, his mind reeled in excitement.
Could Harry the Horse be Westby’s contact? Is it possible this man had been to Westby’s house? What about the men Amelia heard in Westby’s office, his associates? Were they always the same men she heard? And how many were there?
“Amelia,” he said, touching her shoulder to rouse her. When she remained still, he tried again. “Amelia, sweet, are you awake?”
Her deep breathing and sleepy murmur were his only response. Tavis blew out a frustrated breath. He needed answers, and the sooner the better. He couldn’t keep up this charade with Amelia much longer. She was too perceptive by half and would soon discover what he was hiding before he was ready for her to know, potentially endangering her, a risk he was not willing to take.
Leaning his head against the seat back, Tavis mulled over the letters he had been reading, particularly the one from Wickes, which had awaited him at the inn in Gretna Green. Before he and Amelia left London, he had made sure to inform Wickes of his change of plans. Unsurprisingly, Wickes was not pleased by his elopement, but he said they would discuss further in two weeks when he traveled to Ballywith. Tavis was not looking forward to their discussion and would rather have it done and over with. He recalled Wickes’s strongly worded censure and recalled his own experiences with Wickes when he was angered. Tavis shuddered. Then again, maybe not. Though he hated to do so, this time he could wait.
At times like these, he questioned whether his decision to disobey direct orders was worth the impatience he’d had in making Amelia his bride. Had he waited and followed the plan, they would be engaged and he would be able to investigate Amelia’s secret room for himself at his leisure, a fact that rankled more as the miles increased between him and Amelia’s London home. Looking at his sleeping wife, Tavis pushed aside his guilt and decided the risk was worth it. This first week of marriage had been the most rewarding of his entire life. Every day he learned something new about her, and every day she burrowed more deeply into his heart.
To his great joy, he found she enjoyed being in the outdoors, something he had never deemed important until they discussed it. Amelia was also an avid reader, and he discovered they had read many of the same books, the works of Shakespeare being a favorite for both of them. Through their talks regarding some of their reading, Tavis was delighted to find she possessed a keen and assessing mind and looked forward to testing that mind, during the long winter months, over many a competitive game of chess.
It was also a time of great peace for him. In Amelia he found a kindred spirit, someone who because of her unique curse was also familiar with loneliness and feeling out of step with society. Being with her and knowing she was his filled an empty hollow inside him with warm contentment and belonging. It was a heady experience for a solitary man, and one which brought him fits of anxiety, especially when so many things remained unresolved.
Tavis stared out the window, worrying about what the future held, until he spied the familiar jagged peaks of Ballywith and the densely wooded forests surrounding the estate. He looked down to Amelia to awaken her and marveled yet again that this beautiful passionate woman was his. Forever.
Quite suddenly, a heavy weight settled in Tavis’s stomach. His insides churned and went hollow all at once, and the foreign emotion that struggled up from all that riotous churning had him queasy, lightheaded, and elated, all at once. It was only through intense concentration he was able to push away whatever it was and regain his equilibrium. Or so he hoped.
With a little trepidation at triggering a repeat of those emotions, he shook Amelia’s shoulders to rouse her. “We’re home.”
Amelia yawned and stretched. Wiping the sleep from her eyes, she pressed her nose to the window and admired the beauty of her new home. After several moments of silent delight, in which Amelia gazed at the rolling hills, towering peaks and wooded forests of Ballywith, all softly illuminated for her wondering eyes by the amber light of the fading day, she finally turned to him with shining eyes. “Oh, Tavis! How wonderful to be starting our lives together in such a magical place!”
He had felt fine watching Amelia take pleasure in seeing her new home, had again thanked his lucky stars for giving him such a woman, but as soon as she flashed those sparkling eyes in his direction and smiled at him, that unfamiliar sensation rose up again, threatening to choke the air from his lungs. His stomach clenched, and he briefly questioned if he had contracted some sort of fatal illness.
Swallowing through the tightness constricting his throat, he croaked, “How wonderful.”
She turned away and continued to gaze out the window, exclaiming at everything she found to be interesting or beautiful.
He thought it was odd how he only felt ill when looking upon his wife. With her back turned to him, he felt peaceful and comfortable. The moment she looked at him and he saw the vibrancy of her very soul staring back at him with such honest intensity, well, it was as though he were drowning with no promise of survival. It is almost as if…
The carriage hit a large bump as it pulled around a curve, and the castle was visible in all its glory. Whatever was struggling to surface in his mind was lost, and the moment was gone.
The Earl and Countess of Stanton were home.
Chapter 14
Walking to the windows of her new master suite, Am
elia gazed out onto the grounds, hoping the serene beauty of her new home would help lift her flagging spirits. But as she watched, dark clouds covered the sun and plunged everything into deep shadows. More depressed than ever, she turned away from the window to wander about the room, bemoaning Tavis’s absence.
Ever since arriving at Ballywith over a week ago, Amelia had felt a chilly reserve from Tavis that hadn’t existed since their marriage. In fact, they had only just arrived at Ballywith when he made his apologies to her and left to attend to some business while she remained behind to rest and get settled in by herself. She wanted to spend some time with him, had in fact asked him to stay, but he placed a chaste kiss on the top of her head and told her his business could not be delayed.
She hoped once he had settled his immediate business on the estate he would be able to spend more time with her, yet each day he seemed to have more and more work to do. Sometimes she awakened to find him gone for the day and it wasn’t until the evening meal that she saw him for the first time. Tavis was always apologetic, yet he still remained distant. The passionate spontaneity of their honeymoon had disappeared. Amelia missed the loss of their intimacy, but she mourned the loss of his company also and wondered if her honeymoon was well and truly over.
Shaking her head to dispel her gloomy mood, she thought perhaps a nap would help clear her head. Remembering her new dressing room had a cozy fire already built up and a comfortable chaise to relax on, Amelia went into her dressing room and stopped in surprise.
Upon entering, she noticed several large changes to the room. Previously, only a few of her meager belongings were present, only those things she had been able to carry with her, yet now she saw all her familiar items lining the lavish vanity. On the walls were other of her possessions, including a beloved painting her sister Evie had done for her as a present on her last birthday. She spied her own silky dressing gown and matching slippers, as well as other clothing she had left behind.
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