‘I… am sorry. I want to, but I want it to be perfect and at this minute I feel… so tired, and rather… ill.’ She pulled a face. ‘So very sorry.’
‘My poor darling. I have waited this long. I can wait a little bit longer.’ His body was denying this, but his head and heart understood. ‘Yesterday I thought I would never… Shall I ring for anything?’
‘No. I just want to lie still, with you, and go to sleep.’ She managed a tremulous smile, and he smiled back.
‘Do you want to undress?’
She frowned, having not even thought of it.
‘I am not sure moving that much would be a good idea.’
‘At least let me help you from your pelisse, and I will fetch a blanket.’
It was at this point that Kitty took some cognisance of her surroundings.
‘Which room…?’
‘We are in my mother’s room. I virtually threw you out of it, when we first came here, because… my father and I never entered it in all these years. I came here yesterday, and today… it felt right.’
‘Oh.’ She gripped his hand. ‘Thank you. I think if I sat up very, very slowly…’
He helped her sit up, though she decided against standing, and removed her pelisse, then went silently to his own chamber and hauled the counterpane and blankets from the bed, which confused the maid next morning. When he returned, Kitty had her eyes closed. He covered her tenderly and slid beneath the coverings to hold her. He did not want to sleep, just enjoy her in his arms in the soft deepening of a May night, but his repose the previous night had been poor, and the day eventful, and slumber claimed him quickly.
*
He awoke in the very early morning, some time, as he judged, about five, feeling jaded in his clothes but wonderfully at ease with himself and life in general. Kitty was still asleep, one hand beneath her cheek. He was curled possessively about her, and part of him wanted to remain there until she wakened, but the rest of him wanted a shave and a change of clothes. He extracted himself very cautiously from the bed, and padded, boots and coat in hand, to the door. It was an exceptionally early hour to ring for Whicham. In fact he doubted any of the upper servants were even climbing out of their beds. However, he did not want his wife to wake and find him gone from her, so he pulled on his boots and went downstairs into the silence of his house. The servants’ domain was virtually unknown to him since youth, when boyish blandishments had won treats, but he knew his way about enough to go directly to the kitchen, where he saw the new and gleaming range that was Cook’s pride and joy. There was a copper kept upon it so that there would be hot water in the morning, though finding a receptacle for the water was more problematic. Failing to find pitcher or bowl, his lordship ‘stole’ a large earthenware bowl in which Cook made cakes, ladled enough hot water into it that he might wash but not spill it on his journey upstairs, and returned to the upper regions of the house. He placed the bowl upon his mother’s dressing table, and went to fetch his razors.
Kitty woke to the soft rasping sound of blade upon stubble, a sound with which she was totally unfamiliar. She sat up. Her husband was sat upon a dressing stool far too feminine for his muscular form, stripped to the waist, and in the process of removing lather from his chin. He rinsed a line of soap from the blade, and saw her reflected in the mirror.
‘Good morning. Do you feel better?’ He sounded free of care.
‘Better, yes, but very jaded, and my mouth… Eugh!’
He laughed softly, and got up, drying his face with a towel, and came to sit upon the bed.
‘You at least are clean and sweet smelling.’ She touched his cheek with her hand, and he turned his face to kiss the palm.
‘You are “my sweet” and I mean it, my love, my only love. You said once I should not use that term until I did, and I do.’
‘Oh George.’ He leaned down and kissed her cheek as she turned her face a little away from him. ‘I am really not fit to kiss.’
‘Let me be the judge of that. I want to kiss you, love you, and then we will go back to London and show the world that gossip lies.’
He moved to kiss her properly but she started suddenly.
‘London! Oh my goodness!’
‘What?’ He looked startled.
‘The date. What is the date?’
‘Er, must be the fourteenth.’
‘And our party is on the fifteenth. Everything will be arriving and I will not know if all is going to plan, and poor Syde must be unsure if there is a party at all…’
‘We can be there this afternoon. If you wish to bathe your face my shaving water is still hot, and then we can make love and…’
Kitty was sat bolt upright now and wide awake.
‘But I cannot make love if I am wondering whether we have enough poussins ordered and the flowers are arranged correctly and…’
He laughed again, though shakily.
‘I could make you forget.’
‘You think I am… making excuses?’
‘No, but…’
‘If our party fails, the gossipmongers will say that rumour was true. I want to stand at the top of the stairs with you beside me and receive our guests certain all is in place. So very many things have come between us and our “real” consummation. I have feared disappointing you and…’
‘You will not, cannot.’
‘I know, now.’ She placed a finger on his lips. ‘But this is the last thing. If all is in place… I so want to be a true wife to you.’
Her sincerity was touching. He gave in. After all, he told himself, it was only ‘yet another’ few hours.
‘But we do not have to wait until after the party do we?’ There was a tinge of desperation in his voice.
‘No, my patient husband.’
‘Thank the Lord for that.’ He stood up, reached to take her hands and drew her from the bed. Her gown was crushed and stained, but she had not delayed her departure any longer than it took to put on her pelisse and hat so she would have to manage in the same clothes. ‘It is a glorious morning. Wash your face, my love, and I will have an early breakfast prepared and the horses put to, and I will drive you to London in my curricle. We will be there before two.’
He almost bounced from the room. Kitty was left with nothing to do but obey his instructions.
*
Kitty was not a nervous rider, nor passenger, which was fortunate, since Lord Ledbury drove to the inch, and at pace. The quicker they reached Town, the quicker she would be all his.
‘It is very clever, my lord, but do we really have to go quite so fast?’ gasped Kitty, as they overtook a mail coach.
‘Yes.’ He grinned in what she decided was his most ‘wicked devil’ manner. ‘We get to Ledbury House. You see all is well. I make love to you.’
She laughed. ‘But we need to reach London in one piece, sir.’
‘We shall.’ He turned his face to her for a moment. ‘You do not think I would drive above my capabilities with you beside me?’
She blushed, and shook her head.
When they reached the outskirts of the metropolis, Lord Ledbury had, perforce, to amend his pace, to his frustration, but they still arrived just after two o’clock.
His lordship jumped down and handed his wife carefully from the vehicle. Her legs buckled a little from stiffness, and he held her for a moment, looking down into her eyes with a glitter in his own.
Syde opened the door with a look of such patent relief the earl feared he might clasp him to his bosom.
‘Oh my lord, how glad I am to see you, and your ladyship also. We have been that worried, and then there was not knowing whether the party was to be cancelled, and how that could be done and…’
‘Yes, yes, but we are here now and all is as it should be. Now, tell me how many poussins Cook is preparing.’ Lord Ledbury interrupted him.
‘Poussins, my lord?’ Syde blinked.
‘Yes. The damned birds have been agitating her ladyship all the way from Rutland.’
; Kitty stifled a giggle.
‘His lordship exaggerates somewhat, Syde. However, I was most anxious to return to ensure you knew that the party is very much going ahead and to oversee the last-minute preparations.’
‘Yes, my lady.’ Syde sighed with relief.
‘But not just now,’ interjected Lord Ledbury, sweeping his wife into his arms, and heading up the stairs.
‘George!’ She dropped her voice to a whisper in his ear. ‘What are you doing? The servants are watching us. You did not really mean…’
‘I am taking my wife up to bed, and if the servants see us, so be it. You have ascertained the party has not been cancelled, delayed, or in any way ruined, so now you can forget about everything except me making passionate love to you.’
‘You can’t. It is barely gone two o’clock.’
‘Yes I can. I am a womanising devil, remember, and womanising devils often bed women in the afternoon.’
‘But not their own wives, my love.’
‘True. I may start a trend. And say that again.’ He looked down into eyes that glistened with tears of merriment and now a sparkle of passion.
‘My love.’
He halted upon the half landing, and kissed her very thoroughly. Her response could not be misread, and it was firing him the more.
‘You know, this could become a daily routine, like our ride in the park,’ he murmured, thickly.
‘But George, your cousin, Lady Barnham, is coming tomorrow at three.’
‘Then you will have to cry off, because, devil that I am, there are limits, and I’ll be damned if I will have her there to watch.’
Kitty’s arm tightened about her husband’s neck and she giggled somewhere in the region of his left ear as he reached her bedchamber door, and contrived to open it whilst running kisses down the line of her throat.
The door closed behind them, and he set her, briefly, upon her feet as he removed her hat and unbuttoned her pelisse with some fumbling urgency. Kitty knew no fear of failure, only the thrill of his touch, his kisses. That first time he had been a stranger to her, but now he was truly her husband, her lover. Just as he reached the point at which her gown had been cast aside, there came the most perfunctory of knocks and Wootton, determined to see that her ‘lamb’ was indeed safe and well, and deaf to Syde’s remonstrations, entered the chamber.
‘Not now. Get out,’ roared his lordship, in the process of pulling his shirt over his head, and then cast it in the direction of the affronted tirewoman.
The maid opened her mouth, and then shut it again, as Kitty prevented any further outburst by kissing her impassioned spouse. She bobbed a curtsey of acquiescence and removed herself immediately. Lord Ledbury paid no attention to her capitulation without a fight. He was breathing rather fast, but managed one attempt at sounding casual and in command.
‘I am glad we found wallpaper you liked, you know, because you are going to become very familiar with this room, just as I am going to become very familiar with you, my Kitty.’ Then he broke. ‘At last, my love. If you knew how much…’
‘I do know, George,’ she whispered, a catch in her voice, ‘and desire you as greatly, my darling, darling devil.’
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