Love Then Begins (8 page)

“
L
ADY
B
AUGHAM, YOU HAVE A
truly gorgeous bottom.”

The lady wriggled said bottom vigorously in an attempt to shake off her admirer. “Stop it,” she said when she felt his lips against her curves, “you are distracting me. You are much better at this than I am and you promised not to do it.”

“I must have something to do while I wait for you to deliberate on your next move,” he defended himself and resumed his activities.

Despite herself, Holly smiled. His hands were warm and his touch was delicious on her bare skin. He busied himself for a while tracing the soft flesh and then trailing the slope to the small of her back and the fingering of her vertebrae where her spine rose up again. Then he gently placed his hands along the curves down towards her thighs and let his thumbs rest for a while in the creases.

Holly stared at the chess board in front of her and tried to remember what she was about to do.
Bishop just lost . . . protect the King . . . use the Mount . . . the mount . . .
His lips were now on the small of her back and his hands reached lower and pried her legs apart to reach the soft flesh between them. Now his hands felt cool against her warmer skin. She threw a hasty glance backwards over her shoulder.

“That’s so unfair,” she pouted.

“No. What’s unfair is the time you are taking and leaving me with all this temptation and nothing else to do. Idle hands and minds, my love, idle hands and minds . . .”

She looked back at the game resting in the middle of the unmade bed. Four games lost and four claims for reward granted to her husband.
I didn’t know I could be such a good loser
, she smiled to herself.

Then she sighed and let her hand hover over the board before she hastily moved her one remaining Bishop a few paces.

“There,” she said and turned around. “I’m done. Your turn.”

Baugham took one look at the board and with one finger he pushed his Queen halfway across it.

“Now, about that bottom . . .” he said.

“My turn already?”

“I think you’ll find,” he said, tracing the line of her shoulder with his kisses, “that you have been check-mated, madam.”

“Again,” she sighed despondently. “Will you ever just
let
me win?”

“Not at chess, no. But there are other games I’m certain you could best me easily.”

“I wonder . . .” she said wryly.

“I think we should stay here the whole day.”

“You are shameless,” she sighed against his neck.

“Well then,” he said while tracing the soft heaviness of her breast with his lips, “let’s be shameless together then, shall we . . .”

“
A
ND JUST WHAT ARE WE
going to do while out on this fine winter morning?” his lordship asked his wife as she was putting the finishing touches to tying her bonnet strings into a perfect bow and pulling on her gloves. The day had dawned cold, but sunny and clear, and Holly was determined to make good on her stated desire to visit her old familiar places.

“We are going to face the world,” she replied. “You may call me as childish as you like but I want to go into a shop in Clanough, be addressed by someone as ‘my lady’ and then buy something. There was a shawl in Mr Hibbings’ window—a lovely warm, thick thing that I had my heart set upon but . . . ”

She stopped, remembering the reason she had stood so long and stared at that particular item, listening to Miss Primrose Tristam and her sister’s vicious conversation speculating over the circumstances of her engagement. She shook off the sinking feeling in her stomach. That was so long ago now . . . well, two weeks ago at least. But it was longer than that really. She smiled at her husband leaning on the banister. Another lifetime, really.

His lordship insisted on taking the carriage, despite Holly’s protests, declaring, “at this is my first chance to take you out in public and show you off as my wife, I will not have you afflicted with a bright red nose or the sniffles simply because you are stubborn enough to want to walk the five miles to Clanough despite the freezing wind.”

He took her directly to Mr. Hibbings’ shop where she was indeed greeted as “my lady”. In addition to the shawl she had long admired, her husband insisted that she take immediate possession of a beautiful fur-trimmed cloak that had caught his eye while the first purchase was being wrapped. When he learned that Hibbings also had a matching hat and muff in the back, he turned a deaf ear to her worries over extravagance and purchased those as well. Despite his initial reluctance to leave the warm seclusion of Clyne Cottage and interrupt their honeymoon, his spirits rose as he looked around him, and he remarked how odd it was that he had never before realised how much fun shopping could be.

“Now then,” he said briskly, eyes darting brightly around as he escorted her back to the street, clad in her elegant new outerwear, “Is there such thing as a dressmaker in Clanough?”

Holly replied in the affirmative, but added that he certainly needed no such direction. Baugham persisted, refusing to budge another step until he was told, so she had to give in. She loved leaning on his arm as they walked down the street, she loved being addressed as “your ladyship” or “Lady Baugham” by the people they passed, and—she had to admit—she loved, just a little bit, the way he spoilt her once they arrived at Mrs Gilley’s fine establishment.

“That brown velvet,” he declared after looking around for only a moment at the fabrics on display, “Something soft and long-sleeved, I should think, for winter. And not too much of that frilly, lacy thing around the neck . . . ” Any further instructions hung in the air as his attention was taken by something in the back.

“Is that . . . ?” he strode through curtain that separated the public area from the workroom and fingered a bolt of fabric balanced against a table. “It is!” he cried in triumph, calling his wife back to see.

“Holly, look at this green! Now, I think I should like to see you in a dress of this colour.”

“You have,” she replied dryly.

She let him cast about in his mind for a time before relieving him of his confusion.

“At the Tristam’s.”

He still looked confused, so she prodded him a little further.

“Remember? The
soiree
-
musicale
?
The one and only time you saw me at the Tristam’s?”

“Ah,” he said as understanding slowly dawned, “no wonder I like this colour. You
were
very beautiful that night.”

His words made Holly flush with pleasure nearly as much as his second order for “something pretty for everyday” made Mrs. Gilley do the same, but she did insist on two dresses being quite enough and that it was high time for tea.

“Now you see,” she added smugly, “walking out with me is not as absurd as you first thought, is it?”

“That is not it at all,” he said and leaned close while Mrs Gilley turned away for a moment, “it just means I am bored with undressing you of the same garments day after day . . . ”

He had to laugh as she blushed furiously but a kiss on the cheek placated her and she took his arm again. He escorted her outside once more and they walked around the corner to the tea shop where, to her ladyship’s dismay and his lordship’s delight, they ran into the very family they had just been discussing.

“Lady Tristam! Sir Torquil!” Baugham called, smiling broadly as he determinedly led Holly across the room directly to their table. “Miss Patience, Miss Prudence,” he nodded in greeting. The couple was showered with greetings, squeals of delight and good wishes, but then he turned his attention to the eldest daughter who was uncharacteristically quiet.

“Miss Tristam?”

Singled out as she was, Primrose Tristam could not help but return the greeting.

“Lord Baugham,” and shifting her eyes to Holly, “my lady.”

Suddenly Holly realised this was one of those moments every woman has dreamt about, and Holly was no different in that respect. The particulars had perhaps not been clearly defined, but the circumstances fit the bill exactly. It was a golden opportunity to actually live and speak the words that had carefully been formed and perfected in the privacy of her bedroom, fuelled by righteous feelings of indignation and contempt after countless polite but fuming confrontations with Miss Primrose Tristam.

“Oh,” Holly said sweetly, “how do you do, Primmie? I do wish you could call me Holly still. After all, we were always such good friends, were we not?”

Miss Tristam raised her eyebrow and gave Holly a searching look. In return Holly graced her with her warmest smile and a truly condescending look. Primrose opened her mouth to speak but she had hesitated too long, just like Holly knew she would and her father stepped in to perform his part exactly according to Holly’s crafted script.

He practically leapt over his eldest daughter to reach her ladyship and, giving small bowing motions, clasped her hand in his. “Oh, my lady!” he said. “No, no, she couldn’t! Really, of course she would not dream of it. But is so good of you. Really,” he muttered, already embarrassed by the thought that her ladyship could ever think that his daughter . . . She had been raised to respect and reverence and knew how to conduct herself properly. “Such kindness!”

His wife joined in and sent Primrose an anxious look while the two younger sisters put their heads together and whispered.

“Well of course, Primmie, I quite understand, but it is hard, isn’t it?” her ladyship protested and then turned to her husband, saying so the entire party could hear, “Miss Tristam was always so ready, as the most prominent young lady in the village for so long, to offer the most sincere friendship and kind advice.” Turning back to the family she fixed her eyes upon Primrose and gave a beaming smile.

“Why, I remember one day after church, when you were so thoughtful and kind as to advise me on . . . ” She broke off, her smile changing into an apologetic expression, “Well, I suppose not everything goes the way we think it will, does it Miss Tristam?

“But I do quite depend on maintaining our friendship, so I will write to you when my husband takes me away to Town, or to our estate in Cheshire. And you must promise faithfully to write me back, Primmie. Won’t you please?”

“How very kind of you, my lady . . . ” Primrose began quite gracefully considering her teeth were tightly clenched and the tea cup was in danger of shattering in her grip, but she was overwhelmed by her mother’s protestations.

“Why, of course she will, Lady Baugham.” Lady Tristam nearly swooned, “Imagine that Primmie! As you write letters to the friend you have known from a young girl, you will actually be corresponding with a Countess!”

Holly smiled benevolently and stepped a little closer to her husband, holding on to his arm again.

“Very well then, Miss Tristam,” she said. “I quite count on hearing from you often.”

And she let her new flowing cloak give a graceful sweep as her husband led her away. Lord Baugham smiled down at her and gave her an adoring look as she sat down at a table—hastily cleared for their lordships—at the other side of the room.

“Yet more proof of how good you are when you are bad, my love. Tell me,” he said, “is Miss Tristam still sending daggers our way and am I performing my role of an adoring husband to your satisfaction?”

She smiled and demurely took off her gloves as he pulled his chair closer to her.

“Yes,” she said, “on both accounts. You are very good at that,” she observed as he took up one of her gloves and put it to his lips, “if a trifle exaggerating.”

“If anyone should wonder, I will tell them it is done in Town by any man who has lost his heart and mind over a woman and never wants either of them back again.”

She gave him a coquettish smile. “Then I encourage you to do just that whenever the opportunity presents itself.”

He was clearly amused at her act. Actually, she relished in it, too. It was a liberating experience to be able to act on the privilege and situation of a married lady—a lady married to a lord. An unmarried schoolteacher could never have dared say and do what she had just done—except when practising set-downs and icy retorts in front of her own mirror in the privacy of her bedroom, of course. In a provincial little town like this, one must always be careful, always expect to be the subject of conversation and be thankful if that conversation was not spiteful or hurtful, but no longer. Now she was safe.

L
ORD
B
AUGHAM PULLED HIS WATCH
out of his pocket and sighed. It was now three hours and twenty minutes since he had last seen her. Even longer since she had left their bed. That thought comforted him slightly as he recollected the morning’s events and a smile spread across his face when he recalled her unexpected daring. When he questioned her afterwards, the way she had blushed and claimed innocence made him laugh. He supposed it was true, which only delighted him more since it was proof of exactly the sort of female intuition and spontaneity he most appreciated in her.