Celeste Bradley - [Heiress Brides 02] (9 page)

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Authors: The Duke Next Door

BOOK: Celeste Bradley - [Heiress Brides 02]
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From outside the bedchamber, in the darkened sitting room, Calder watched them lying side by side on their stomachs, heels waving in the air. He might tell himself that he was upset at their lack of deportment earlier—
Is it that or the fact that they’re in there and you’re out here?
Then Deirdre smiled, and although it was quite clearly not at him, his heart thudded. She was so beautiful this way, uncomplicated and relaxed, the poised lady stripped away to reveal the playful imp beneath.
What was that like? To be able to be easy with others—it had always been a mystery to him.
He’d never understood women in particular, for they made even less sense to him. Men were rather closer to machines. They had a limited number of responses—aggression, cowardice, aggression to mask cowardice—and one simply ran the possibilities through one’s mind to calculate what response one ought to make. Calder had found that an attitude of arrogant dismissal covered any number of possible expectations with men.
But not for Deirdre. She swept aside any intimidating pose of his to reveal the emptiness behind it. She
forced him to reach deeper than anyone had ever done—even Rafe.
He forced himself to raise a hand to knock, knowing that his appearance would kill the candid mood. It usually did. He entered at Deirdre’s word to find that Meggie had hidden herself. No matter. After all, he
wanted
the two of them to be company for each other.
Deirdre rose from her casual lolling, smoothly stepping before the dismembered dish of something probably forbidden. Calder had intended to politely request that she join him for breakfast.
“You will rise early tomorrow. One does not spend the day in meaningful pursuit if one spends the day in bend” He halted abruptly. Had he truly just uttered those words?
Of course, her chin rose and defiance flashed in her eyes. “Indeed? And why is that?”
“You will come to breakfast,” he said gruffly.
Oh, very nice, you ass.
Damn it, he couldn’t think straight with her standing there, golden-haired goddess of disdain that she was, reigning over his beastly hulk with a superior derision.
“I’ll do precisely as I please,” she said, “for you won’t be here to see anyway. Aren’t you vastly overdue at one of your factories?”
He was as a matter of fact. The requests for his presence were growing more urgent by the day. “I will be breaking fast at home. You and Lady Margaret will join met.”
She raised a golden brow. “I don’t take orders, my lord.”
He gazed at her without easing his intensity a jot. “You
will rise and come down to breakfast tomorrow, after which you will spend every moment of the day with Lady Margaret. I’ve told Fortescue to make sure of it.”
She folded her arms. “Poor Fortescue. Do you always make him play the enforcer? A braver man would do it himself.” She smirked. “Or at least try to.”
He refused to be baited. “You will rise early and come to breakfast with Lady Margaret and myself. You will dine with me every evening and you will dress for supper.” He narrowed his eyes at her, stopping her retort. “You will do these things, my lady, or you will find there are a great many more things to lose than a few gowns and parties. I need not allow you to come to London at all.”
She paled then. It did not satisfy him to see it, but Society-bred that she was, it was the worst threat he could muster. He would never lay a cruel hand on her, nor would he lie to frighten her. He did not want her afraid, he wanted her to grow up. He wanted an adult to share his life with, not a petulant child. He already had one of those.
“You don’t seem a cruel man, my lord,” she said calmly, though her eyes shot sparks. “So it must be that you don’t truly realize what you are saying. To banish a wife to the country would only cause endless gossip. I would be reputed as mad or deathly ill. You would be accused of making me so, or even of killing me off—you know how tongues wag on.”
She was quite right, damn it. He’d not thought it through. She had that effect on him, making him erupt in impulsive ultimatums.
Deirdre clasped her hands behind her back to hide the fact that they were shaking. She’d run from Tessa so
that she could be free of oppression and tyranny. Damn Brookhaven. “Unfortunately, my lord, I know you to be a man of your word. Even now that I have pointed out your mistake, you will feel compelled to do precisely as you have threatened should I disobey.
“Since I am not a cruel woman, I will not force you to go through with such a scandalous mistake.” Her slight smile was as cold as ice. “I shall see you at breakfast, my lord.”
He bowed shortly, then turned on his heel and left without another word. Only when the door was closed behind him did Deirdre ease her aching fingers apart.
Meggie crawled out from under the bed. “If he thinks I’m coming to bloody breakfast, he really is mad,” she announced furiously.
“Perhaps …” Heavens, it was becoming quite clear to Deirdre now. He didn’t want to eat alone. This insight broke her heart just a tiny bit, but she could not allow him to jump off the hook quite so easily. She matched Meggie’s earlier smile at supper. “That is too bad,” she said, “for it should be most amusing.”
OUTSIDE HER LADYSHIP’S bedchamber, Calder stopped to run a hand over his face. As he had thought so many times in the last two days …
That did not go well.
Except of course for the fact that he’d won. Hadn’t he? She’d agreed to do as she was told, this once, anyway. So why the shamed ball in his gut? It was a simple enough request, to breakfast and dine like a family.
But you didn’t request.
He blew out a frustrated breath. He didn’t have the
time or inclination to wrap every damned sentence in pretty words. He was a very busy man. He’d spent many years now accustomed to issuing—
Barking.
He felt a growl rise in his throat.
Issuing
commands and having them carried out forthwith. There was no reason to change his ways just because some female decided it dented her tender sensibilities.
He retreated to the masculine haven of his study. He had matters, important matters, waiting for him to arrange. He could not allow this madwoman to deflect any more of his attention from them.
A short time later, Calder looked up from his papers when he heard something slide under his study door. He saw a quickly moving shadow against the light in the hall and heard light running steps. He crossed the room and knelt to retrieve a small paper-wrapped package from the floor.
On the outside were scrawled the words “For Papa.” He quelled a sigh at the deplorable penmanship and unfolded the scrap. Inside was a chunk of something brown with … were those nuts? And a bit of lint, apparently. It looked like something his groom might clean out of a hoof, but it smelled … wonderful.
He considered the possibility of poison, then decided that Meggie, being Meggie, would never be so obvious. Then it occurred to him that Meggie, being Meggie, might realize he would think that and therefore would—
He shook his head against the cascade of suspicions and decided to take the gift as a gift. If Meggie wanted to harm him, all she had to do was to continue in her current rebellion.
He took a tiny, careful—he wasn’t a fool, after all—bite of the concoction. Buttery chocolate pleasure filled his senses. It was only the best toffee he’d ever had, not that he’d indulged often. It tasted like it came from London’s finest confectioners—yet he knew that none of the staff would defy his rules to buy such a thing for Meggie.
But
she
would.
He tossed the package onto his desk and stalked back to his seat. The bloody-minded females in this house were going to be the death of him, poison or no! He forced his attention back to the matter at hand, refusing to waste one more moment on those fomenting rebellion right under his nose.
After a long moment and several unread pages, he allowed his gaze to slide back to where the toffee sat so innocently in its crude wrapping. His fingers twitched. No. He would not be sweet-talked by sweets! He would not be manipulated.
She
had obviously put Meggie up to such an endearing act in hopes of wheedling something from him. He could not encourage such behavior.
The scent of decadent pleasure teased at him. Abruptly, he snatched the toffee up, blew off the lint, and popped it into his mouth. Leaning back in his chair with a sigh of ecstasy, he let the delicacy dissolve slowly on his tongue.
After all, he was a man who despised waste.
Calder sat down to his breakfast at precisely the same time he always did. And, as always, despite the specific instructions he’d given his bride last night, he sat down alone.
He drew a deep breath. “Fortescue, where is her ladyship?”
“I believe her ladyship is still—”
“Her ladyship is right here, my lord.”
Calder’s head jerked up at that husky purr to see that Deirdre was indeed standing in the doorway—or rather, was lounging sleepily against the doorjamb as if she didn’t quite have the alertness to stand.
She rubbed the back of one hand across her eyes, then blinked hard. “God, Brookhaven, who in the world eats this early? I can scarcely stand to look at the food.”
His breath stuck in his throat. “
What
are you wearing, my lady?”
She blinked at him with wide eyes. “You said ‘dressed for supper.’ You never said ‘dressed for breakfast.’”
Clad in a hastily tied wrapper and something lacy and diaphanous beneath, she was a mess—a luxuriously half-dressed erotically tousled mess drawn straight
from his darkest fantasy of damp and tangled bed linens. She yawned with catlike delicacy, her lacy sleeve slipping halfway up her arm as she covered her mouth with the back of her hand, then blinked sleepily at him. “I might as well eat, since I’m here.”
That was it. No greeting, no husky “Good morning, my darling,” no sleep-warmed arm twining about his neck to pull him down for a soft-mouthed drowsy kiss …
The lack of such was no oddity—but his sudden aching longing for it was. She was his wife. She should be waking in his arms, her smooth limbs tangled in his, her soft breast weighing heavy in his palm, her sleepy blue eyes seeing only him—
She flopped into the chair Fortescue pulled out for her. The damned butler got a smile and a husky-voiced thanks, of course. A plate appeared before her—toast and a sliced apple. She drank only tea with no milk.
Calder frowned. She ought to eat more. Her figure was lovely, but he had no objection to a bit more of it. He opened his mouth to protest her diet—then halted. The bloody-minded creature would only do the opposite and starve herself. So instead, he eyed her plate with feigned approval. “I see you’re very disciplined with your figure. Good. You wouldn’t want to get fat.”
That lit a spark behind her drowsy gaze. “Fortescue, eggs and ham,” she snapped.
Calder hid a smile behind his napkin.
At that moment, Meggie wandered in. The fact that his daughter had obeyed him stunned him, but the fact that she was somewhat clean and dressed and more or less groomed—in a summer-in-the-country manner—left him entirely speechless.
Her dark hair was shining and combed and braided, albeit lopsided. Her dress showed not a dot of mud or food or soot and her face, pink and freshly scrubbed.
She was a beautiful child, just as anyone would expect a child of Melinda’s to be. Her mother’s face, softened by the childish lack of angles—her mother’s hair, gleaming nearly blue-black, her mother’s shy smile that had hidden so much loathing for so long …
Pain twisted within him. Not for the loss of Melinda—at least not for
his
loss—but for what he’d done and not done and what he’d cost the child before him. He looked away, frowning, and missed the way that Meggie’s wistful smile faded slowly away at his lack of greeting.
Deirdre didn’t miss a thing.
Idiot man
. “You look as though you’re going out today, Lady Margaret. What are your plans?”
Meggie, her mood obviously now as foul as her father’s, only shot her a disdainful glare from beneath long lashes. “Don’t be ridiculous. I have to stay in all day with you.”
Deirdre sighed. They were a pair, the two of them. Meggie even sounded like her father. She glared at Brookhaven in renewed fury. “You’re no help at all, do you know that?”
Fortescue slid her new plate before her at that moment. “Small victories are still victories, my lady,” the butler murmured under the cover of arranging a fresh breakfast napkin for her.
Deirdre sighed. It was true. In the breakfast battle, she thought she’d scored rather highly off her husband. And he’d looked directly at his daughter for once, at least for a moment. That was something.
She glanced up to see Brookhaven’s dark gaze fixed upon her bodice. The nightdress she still wore was not terribly concealing and her wispy wrapper wasn’t much help.
Good. Let him see what he was missing with his idiotic tyranny. She put down her own fork and breathed deeply, dropping one shoulder so that her neckline came dangerously close to falling down. It wouldn’t, of course, but she’d flirted enough in her life to know that the anticipation of even a tiny possibility of such a thing was enough to keep most men riveted for hours.
His eyes darkened and his sculpted jaw clenched. She could feel the heightening lust burning off his skin like the heat of a black coal fire.
Unfortunately, when he looked at her like that—as if the only thing stopping him from sweeping the table clear and debauching her upon it was his own rigid control—she went a bit weak in the knees herself.
Her mouth went dry at her own vision and her breath seemed harder and harder to catch. To distract herself, she blindly cut a bite of food and forced her trembling hands to carry the fork to her mouth.
Then the first bit of salty-sweet ham dissolved on her tongue, diverting her lust for her husband into something far more attainable.
Oh,
bliss
. She closed her eyes to enjoy the taste to the fullest, then hurriedly cut another, larger bite. She hadn’t had ham in years—and why not?
Now that she thought of it, the strict diet was Tessa’s idea. Deirdre had been banned from indulging anything resembling a normal appetite since she was fifteen years old.
To be truthful, it wasn’t all Tessa’s doing, for nothing
would have stopped Deirdre if she’d decided to rebel. Such rigid protection of her figure had made sense when she was duke-hunting. Yet, she was a married woman now. She could grow as fat as a cook and Brookhaven couldn’t do a thing about it.
She wriggled more comfortably into her chair and prepared to eat until she couldn’t breathe.
Calder watched his lady wife as she tucked into her breakfast like a field hand. The sight was oddly satisfying. She was unguarded in her enjoyment, for just this moment in time, and he relished the genuine pleasure on her face.
Now if only he were the cause instead of his staff’s excellent cooking. It was all he could do not to stare boldly at her bosom in that loose and lacy nightdress thing she wore. He couldn’t even taste the food he was chewing!
Still, progress was progress. His wife had begun to take his daughter in hand, despite early signs of rebellion, and he had a full table at breakfast.
Not bad for his third day at the job of husband. Perhaps he was a bit rusty, but he’d soon have everything running smoothly enough to return to touring his beloved factories—
Good God, it had been days since he’d given them more than a passing thought.
He ought to leave at once. He needed to take a tour of his properties, involve himself in something real and concrete and entirely devoid of breasts. Yes, absolutely. It was time to leave this madhouse and lose himself in the comfortingly dry and uniform world of manufacturing again.
Reluctance pulled at him and he struggled to explain
it. It was too soon. She was too unpredictable. Meggie wasn’t accustomed to her yet. The staff wouldn’t know to keep a tight rein upon her.
Yes, that was it. He didn’t dare leave. He wasn’t blind to the way she’d seduced Meggie to the dark side. Even Fortescue, whose heart was made of such dependable ice, was clearly becoming smitten by her. At the rate she was going, she’d take over the world before he made it back!
No. It was best to stay—to stand his ground. She must learn that he would not be swayed from his course.
Besides, even though he wouldn’t have admitted it under the vilest of torture, he was rather curious to see what she would do next.

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