Innocent in the Regency Ballroom. Christine Merrill
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think he wished to bed her, or that the servants had assumed that he would? ‘It is all right. We will work things out between us, somehow.’
He nodded. ‘Do you wish to change? You are welcome to use my room. There is a basin of fresh water. And clean towels. I could send for a maid to help you … Oh, damn. If you need help, I suppose, I …’
She imagined the feel of his hands at her back, undoing buttons. ‘No. Thank you. I have become most adept at managing for myself, if there is no one to help me. If you will give me but a few minutes?’
He nodded and stepped aside, allowing her access to his room.
As the door shut behind her, she went hurriedly to the portmanteau on the floor and chose a fresh gown, struggling briefly with the closures at her back and slipping out of the travelling dress. Then she splashed some water from the basin on to her face, slipped into the new gown and used her brush to arrange her hair as best as was possible.
She could not help it, but glanced in the mirror behind her, examining the room. The man they had rescued from the street was obviously wealthy, but had seemed to have little care for health, his own cleanliness or welfare.
But the room behind her was orderly and immaculate. A sign of good housekeeping, perhaps. But there was more to it than that. The items in the room were expensive but well used and well cared for. The style and arrangement were elegant but simple. The whole suggested a well-ordered mind in repose. It gave her some level of comfort, knowing that her new husband’s private rooms looked as they did. This was what she had expected from the Duke of Bellston.
She opened the door to the wardrobe and examined the line of coats and neatly hung breeches and trousers, and the row of brightly polished boots. Expensive, but not gaudy. The man was well tailored, but not a dandy. If he had sunk his fortune because he was prone to excess, there was no indication of it here.
From behind her, he cleared his throat.
She whirled, shutting the wardrobe door behind her.
‘I am sorry. I knocked, but obviously you did not hear. Is there something you needed?’
That would cause her to snoop in his closet? He did not finish the sentence, allowing her a scrap of pride to hide her embarrassment. ‘No. I am quite finished, thank you.’
‘Then I would like to use my room as well, if you do not mind …’ There was a hint of challenge there, but his face showed bland inquiry.
‘I’ll just wait downstairs. In the sitting room?’
‘Thank you.’
She turned and exited the room before he could see the blush on her cheek, retracing her steps to her room on the first floor.
Adam waited for the click of the door latch before struggling out of his coat. It would be easier to call for his valet and admit that he had spoken in haste when releasing the staff. But he could manage to do for himself, if his wife had done so. And a day of leisure for the servants would unite them in support of the new mistress, and quell fears of upheaval and negative gossip. The minor inconvenience would be worth the gains in goodwill. He untied his cravat and tossed it aside, washing his face in the basin. Then he chose fresh linen, managing a sloppy knot that he hoped looked more Byronic than inept. He glanced behind him at the open door of the wardrobe.
She’d been searching his room. The thought should have annoyed him, but instead it made him smile. His new bride had a more-than-healthy curiosity. He walked over and pulled a coat off its hanger to replace his travelling clothes. Then she’d likely have been disappointed. There was nothing to see here. No skeletons. And not, fortunately, the bodies of any previous wives. Perhaps he should reassure her, lest she think him some sort of Bluebeard.
He glanced at her portmanteau on the floor beside the bed. Two could play at that game. Although what he expected to find, he was not sure.
He laid his hand on a spare gown, a clean chemise, a night rail, trimmed with embroidery and lace. It was all to be expected. Neatly folded and cared for, even though his wife travelled without a maidservant. The case was large and very heavy for only a few days’ travel. But that was very like a woman, was it not? To pack more than was absolutely necessary. His hand stopped short of the bottom of the bag.
Books. Homer. Ovid. A book of poetry, with a ribbon tucked between the pages so that the reader would not lose her place. Not the readings of a mind given to foolish fancy.
He replaced things carefully, the way he had found them, and turned to go to meet her in the sitting room. She was as studious as she claimed, if she could not manage a few days without some sort of reading material. And it was well that she had brought her own to his house. There were many books he fully intended to read, when he had leisure. But for the life of him, he could not think what they would be, and he certainly did not have anything to read in the London house that held any enjoyment. It probably made him look a bit odd, to be without a library but well stocked in Meissen shepherds. But there was little he could do to change that now.
He approached her room in trepidation. The door was closed. Should he knock or enter freely? It was one of many decisions they would have to make together. If they did not mean to live as most married couples, then boundaries of privacy would have to be strictly observed.
At last, he settled on doing both: he knocked and then opened the door, announcing himself and thinking it damn odd that he should need to do it in his own house.
His wife looked up from a book.
‘You have found something to read?’ he said, and wished he did not sound so surprised at the fact.
‘There were a stack of books on the shelf, here. Minerva novels. And Anne Radcliff, of course.’ She glanced around her. ‘Overblown and romanticised. They are most suited to the décor.’
‘They are not mine,’ he said, alarmed that such things even existed on the premises.
‘That is a great comfort. For I would wish to rethink our bargain were they yours.’ There was a twinkle in her eye as she said it. ‘But if you favour melodrama, I suspect that this afternoon’s meetings will be quite entertaining.’
And she was correct in what she said, for the trip to his wife’s bank was most diverting. He was not familiar with the location, which was far from Bond Street, nor did the men working there know him. But it was obvious that they knew his wife and held her in respect. She was ushered into a private office before she even needed to speak her request.
When her bankers entered the room, she wasted no time on introductions, but straight away announced that she had married, and that all business matters must be turned over, post haste, to her new husband.
He could not help but enjoy the look of shock on the faces of the bankers. There was a moment of stunned silence, before the men sought to resist, arguing that the union had been most impulsive and possibly unwise. They eyed him suspiciously, and hinted at the danger of fortune hunters where such a large sum was involved. Was she sure that she was making the correct decision? Had she consulted her brother in the matter?
Adam watched as his new wife grew very still, listening in what appeared to be respectful silence. Although there were no outward signs, he suspected the look of patience she radiated was a sham. And at last, when they enquired if she had obtained her brother’s permission to wed, her cool exterior evaporated.
‘Gentlemen, I am of age, and would not have needed my brother’s permission if the decision to take a husband had taken a year instead of a day. In any case, it is too late now, for I cannot very well send the man away, explaining that our marriage was just a passing fancy on my part. Nor do I wish to.
‘May I introduce my husband, and manager of all my finances from here on, Adam Felkirk, Duke of Bellston.’
He did his best to maintain an unaffected visage, although the desire was strong to laugh aloud at the sight of the two men, near to apoplexy, bowing and calling him ‘your Grace’, and offering tea, whisky or anything he might desire, hoping to erase the words ‘fortune hunter’