Amanda Scott (19 page)

Lady Hermione raised her eyebrows. “Dear me, did I miss something? You are indeed different today, my dear.”

“Am I? I suppose I am, at that.” Seeing her friend’s bewilderment, she laughed and said, “I cannot tell you the whole, for there are bits that are not mine to repeat, but I can tell you that Bagshaw wanted to sack one of the housemaids and I prevented it. Perhaps that does not sound like much to you, but it felt like a very great victory to me.”

“I’m sure it did,” Lady Hermione said. “He is very strict, and I know he has discharged other maids for small offenses, for Ashby has said as much to me. There was one last year, in fact, whom Ashby said was an excellent chambermaid. I assumed that meant she was pretty—considering the source, you know.”

“Most of the maids here are very pretty,” Anne said, “so it would not be odd if she was. In this case, I simply thought the infraction was too small to warrant the punishment. I would not have been able to influence the outcome, however, had Lord Michael not agreed with me.”

“Ah, but I suspect there is more to the matter than that,” Lady Hermione said, “for I no longer see the careful, submissive wife I have grown to know and sympathize with. I believe you have taken a step forward, my dear, and I congratulate you.”

“Let us say only that I won a minor skirmish, ma’am, and hope that larger battles do not lie in wait for me ahead. Do you not think blue curtains will look well in here?”

“I do, indeed.” Apparently accepting the abrupt change of subject, she gestured toward the gaudy carpet. “Are you having this awful thing taken up, as well?”

Relieved that Lady Hermione seemed disinclined to demand further explanation, Anne said wistfully, “I would certainly like to banish it to some other room, but I don’t know if I dare throw out everything. I’m concerned about Sylvia’s feelings.”

“She will survive,” Lady Hermione said. “In my opinion, you should finish the whole business now that you have begun it. Only think how much more difficult it will be to take up the carpet after you have attended to everything else and find that you simply cannot bear to live with it.”

Half convinced, Anne said, “I did think the blue and cream Aubusson in the salon off the upper hall would look well here, for I want softer colors throughout. But I’ve already robbed that room of its curtains, and if I put the red curtains and carpet in there, it will be nearly as garish as this room was.”

“No, it won’t, for the walls there are cream-colored and the molding is picked out in gilt. All those colorful tapestries will be elsewhere, and as I recall them, the furnishings in that salon are dark with cream-colored upholstery. I think you should do it. That floral Aubusson is the very thing for this room, and if I am not mistaken, there is a similar one in one of the guest bedchambers in the northeast wing, where I slept some years ago. In my opinion, that one would do very well for your bedchamber.”

Anne needed no further urging, and when Jane Hinkle passed through to the bedchamber a few minutes later, carrying a silver-embroidered pale blue satin bedspread and matching pillow covers, Anne gave the necessary orders to have the carpets taken up and replaced. Jane smiled, her approval unmistakable, but instead of hurrying to execute Anne’s orders, she said diffidently, “I wonder if I might speak a moment privately with your ladyship.”

“Not just now, I’m afraid,” Anne said. “As you see, Lady Hermione has come to call. I will speak with you later.”

Within minutes, two under-footmen were rolling up the gaudy red and purple carpets in each room. Watching them, Anne said suddenly, “Good gracious, I quite forgot that I shall have to change my dress if I am to pay calls with you. What am I to do?”

“Use Michael’s dressing room,” Lady Hermione advised promptly. “You’ve only to have Maisie carry your dress in there and post one of the other maids as a look-out to keep Michael’s valet out until you are decent again. Go ahead. I’ll wait for you here and keep things going while you’re dressing.”

“I can’t ask you to do that, ma’am.”

“Nonsense, I shall enjoy myself hugely. I can see just what effect you are attempting to create, so I shan’t do anything you won’t like, and I shall enjoy feeling needed, you know. My brother don’t let me give many orders, for he’s a crusty old bachelor, set in his ways. I thought he’d welcome a female to run his household, particularly since he complained before I came that his housekeeper seemed more and more taken up with the needs of her ailing mother than with him, but since my arrival, she has been most dependable, so he just wants things to go on as they have these past twenty years and more. Though he never misses the races at York or Newmarket, and frequently takes a bolt into Chesterfield on affairs he does not see fit to confide to me, I’m afraid Wilfred has not the least sense of adventure.”

Anne grinned at her. “What a pity, ma’am, when yours must be as great as ever Lord Ashby’s is. Well, you may give any orders you like in here, and if anyone questions them, just send them to me. Maisie,” she added, “pray, collect what clothing I will require to pay formal calls, and bring it to me in Lord Michael’s room.” Then, asking Frannie, who returned just then from her previous errand, to stand guard at the gallery door to that chamber and warn away anyone who might attempt to enter, Anne stepped from her dressing room into her husband’s.

She enjoyed the sensation of being alone in his room, where the very scent was different from her own. The windows stood wide open, inviting the fresh spring breeze to enter. The hearth was clean, with a new fire laid ready to light later, and when she peeped into the adjoining bedchamber, she saw that its windows, too, stood open to the elements. The high bed was curtained with dark blue silk hangings, which, except for being embroidered with the ducal arms and bordered with strawberry leaves, matched those at the windows. She wondered if Lord Michael felt any sense of awe, sleeping in the ducal bed, and was a little surprised that Andrew had not insisted upon occupying the late duke’s bedchamber.

A light citrus scent wafted on the breeze, reminding her of the Hungary water Michael frequently used, but the lingering scent of wood smoke reminded her only to speak yet again to Mrs. Burdekin about the extra fires in the public rooms, and even a modern fireguard for the kitchen. Perhaps now, she thought, her suggestions would be heeded. If they were not, she would insist, and hope Lord Michael would remember his promise to support her.

The sound of a door opening in his dressing room took her quickly back into that chamber, expecting to find Maisie with her clothing. Instead, she discovered her husband standing in the doorway from the gallery, glaring at her, with Frannie peeping around him from behind, looking disconcerted and apprehensive.

“What the devil is going on?” Michael demanded. “I no sooner step into the house than I am greeted by the astonishing news that all the family rooms are being turned inside out, and that new furnishings are to be ordered for them all.”

“Then you were misinformed,” Anne said calmly.

He did not seem to hear her. “Look here,” he said angrily, “I know I said you were mistress of the house, but I expect you to discuss any extreme changes with me before you order them put into effect. You cannot possibly know how much such alterations will cost, but I can tell you, because Edmund wrote to tell me how many thousands he had spent refurbishing these same rooms. I can’t and won’t have that sort of thing, Anne, and I should have thought you would realize that. With things here in the tangle they are in—Not that I expect you to understand that exactly, for I don’t, but you ought at least to have asked permission before you turned this entire floor into an almighty cataclysm.”

While he continued to rant and rave, Anne saw the door from her dressing room open a crack and shut quickly again. Lord Michael had not seen it. “I know you will say I should have explained matters more thoroughly to you,” he said at last, “but the fact is that I have had neither the time nor the inclination. Though I’m finally coming to have a better notion of how Edmund’s affairs stand, that knowledge has not come easily, for he did not trust his affairs to one solicitor as most men do. He dealt with several, and when he died, I was not skilled enough in such matters even to know what questions to ask them. I still am not skilled enough to know which of them I can trust. Nor am I in the habit of explaining business affairs to females. Damn it, Anne, at least Bagshaw understands that nothing new can be acquired for the house just now.”

“As do I, sir.”

“And furthermore—What did you say?”

“I, too, understand that you do not want to spend money unnecessarily. I have spent none. Nor do I intend to spend any on these rooms at present.”

“Well, good God, woman, why didn’t you say so at the outset? You ought to have spoken up at once.”

“Not only did you give me no chance to do so, sir, but I have discovered through experience with Papa and my brothers that it is as well to let a gentleman get all his blustering over and done before one tries to explain matters to him.”

“Oh, it is, is it?”

“Yes, for then he is more likely to listen to what one wants to say. You did not listen to me at the outset, you know.”

“Nonsense, you said nothing to me.”

“But I did, sir. You said that you had been informed that all these rooms were being turned out and new furnishings ordered, and I said that you had been misinformed.”

“I don’t recall your saying that at all.”

“No, sir, for you did not pay me any heed.”

“Then you ought to speak up louder,” he said with a reluctant twinkle in his eyes. “Did you really say that, Anne?”

“Yes, I did.”

“Then I am a knave for not listening.”

“I should not call you so,” she said demurely.

“Should not, or would not?”

She smiled.

“Very well, we are agreed that I have behaved badly. Can we begin this conversation again, civilly?”

“Certainly,” Anne said. “Let me see, the first thing you said was, ‘What the devil is going on?’”

He bit his lower lip, then narrowed his eyes and said, “Do you remember every word I said?”

“Yes, of course.”

“There is no ‘of course’ about it, and I do not think I want to hear more of my unmannerly phrases on my wife’s soft lips.”

“Do you not, sir?” A new, unfamiliar tension had entered the room. The way he looked at her now not only told her he was no longer angry, but sent tremors racing up her spine. He looked as if he were seeing someone he had never seen before. She said quickly, “Truly, sir, you need not be concerned about the cost, for there will be none. I have merely taken furnishings from other rooms of the house to replace those I do not like in my own rooms. Surely there can be no objection to that.”

“None,” he said, still looking at her in that odd fashion. He stepped toward her. “You may do as you please in your own rooms, certainly.”

“May I?” Her throat seemed oddly constricted.

“You may,” he said, his voice unnaturally low. He reached toward her, his hand touching her cheek, feeling rough against her sensitive skin. He looked right into her eyes, searching them, as if he had never seen them before. Clearing his throat, he added, “I told you, you are mistress here for as long as I am master.” As he spoke the last word, his eyes seemed to darken. He moistened his lips, as if they had felt too dry.

Aware suddenly of her own parched lips, Anne wet them, still watching him, overwhelmed by his size and the blatant desire emanating from him. “I-I must change my dress,” she murmured. “Lady Hermione is waiting for me in the next room.”

“Perhaps I will send her away,” he said, still looking at her in that odd fashion, his hand still gentle against her cheek.

“Y-you mustn’t,” she murmured. But when he moved his hand slightly, caressingly, she felt warmed from tip to toe, and she wanted him to go on touching her, not just on her cheek but other places as well. She imagined him touching her ear, then her neck, pulling her nearer so that he might kiss her, and although she wondered at herself for having such wanton thoughts, she made not the least attempt to suppress them.

As if he read her mind, Michael did move his hand along her jaw line to the back of her neck, caressing the skin between the coil of her hair and the top edge of her gown, then clasping her neck in the curve of his palm and holding her, gazing at her with that new, hungry look in his eyes, searching her face and eyes as if he would find the answer to some unspoken question there.

Anne looked steadily back at him, hoping her tension was not revealed by her expression, that the lustful yearning his touch had ignited within her did not burn in her eyes for him to see. She did not want to reveal herself so plainly to him, not yet, not until she had assessed these new and unwieldy sensations in her body and understood how he had stirred them so quickly to life. Once again, she remembered Lady Hermione.

“I really must go, sir,” she said, astonished that the words came steadily from her tongue.

“The devil fly away with Hermione.” His gaze was hot now, visibly filled with the same desire she felt in her body. He licked his lips again and muttered, “Where did you say she is?”

Hypnotized by the look in his eyes, distracted by her own swelling lust, she still managed to say, “In the next room, but pray, do not send her away.”

“Damnation, why not?”

“She has offered to accompany me to pay calls in the neighborhood, and truly, sir, not only do I have no wish to offend her but I have put off that duty much too long.”

“A good wife submits to her husband’s wishes,” he murmured provocatively.

“Yes, sir, she does.” But she had collected her wits and knew she could not trust Hermione not to burst into the room and demand to know what was keeping her. Even knowing that Michael was with her, as she must by now, would not stop Hermione.

“I see by the look on your face that you have made up your mind,” Michael said. “Something tells me my Lady Serenity is not going to be as submissive a wife as her father promised me.”

She said daringly, “Perhaps not, sir. I find that I gain more when I am not so biddable.”