Married to the Viscount (23 page)

“That’s what I have servants for.” Then he added more harshly, “What were you doing in my bedchamber anyway?”

The question seemed to throw her into a quandary. She fiddled with her apron strings. “Well, you see…I…um…was bringing you a little present, that’s all.”

“A present?”

“A bottle of the Mead.” She waved her hand over the strewn glass, then babbled nervously, almost guiltily, “I thought you could use it to sweeten your breath or soothe your stomach or whatever you wished. You could even use it as a scent if you—”

“I don’t use scent.”

She swung a perplexed gaze to him. “That’s not true. I’ve smelled bergamot on you many times. You must use
some
sort of scent. That’s why I…um…thought of giving you a bottle of the Mead.”

He took insult at being lumped in with those idiot gentlemen who perfumed their clothes and hair and bodies. “I assure you, I’m not some dandy trying to smell like a flower garden. I don’t use scent. You’re mistaken in what you thought you smelled.”

“If you say so,” she said with a stubborn tilt of her chin. “In any case, I’ve destroyed the only bottle I had left. I’m making more tomorrow, but I won’t bother to make you any, since you don’t ‘use scent.’”

Was that sarcasm in her voice? Probably. She never seemed to believe him. “I’m sorry I made you drop your only bottle, but I didn’t expect to see you when I came in here to change clothes.”

She blinked. “Why are you changing clothes?”

“I’ve been summoned by the king.”

“The king of what?”

Good God, she was serious. “England, my dear. We have one, remember?”

A blush stained her cheeks. “Yes, but I didn’t think he bothered with regular people…that is…I-I didn’t realize…I mean, I
did
, but…well, you’re quite an important man then, aren’t you?”

“Only when the home secretary is away on business. One of my duties is taking his place, and that includes meeting with the king when His Majesty requests it.”

He waited for her reaction, expecting the same one his servants always had—pride in the connections they vicariously shared by being part of his household. Even as his sham wife, she was bound to feel the same.

So her frown took him by surprise. “It’s rude of him to expect you to drop everything and run about for his pleasure. You probably have more important things to do.” Planting her hands on her hips, she looked him over with feminine indignation. “And what’s wrong with what you’re wearing anyway? Why should you dash off to change clothes just because he can’t stand a plain and honest coat?”

He burst into laughter. He’d been thinking much the same thing, but dared not voice his complaints aloud to anyone. Leave it to Abby to do it for him. “He’s the king. He can order people about as he pleases.”

“Really? Well, that’s very obnoxious of him.” She shook her head. “I don’t know how you English put up with royalty. You ought to boot them all out and run the country yourselves like we do in America. We believe all men are created equal. You’re just as good as he is, you know.”

“Careful, my dear, you might want to keep that opinion to yourself,” he said dryly. “They still hang people for treason here.”

She lifted her hand to her neck in abject horror. “They could hang me for speaking my mind?”

“If your mind is treasonous, yes.” A wicked urge seized him, and he bent low to add, “But don’t worry—I’ll make sure they only lock you in the Tower with the rest of the hardened criminals.”

She gaped at him. Then awareness dawned in her eyes. “Why, Lord Ravenswood, I do believe you’re teasing me.”

“Not at all.” He struggled to keep a straight face. “We Englishmen take our treason quite seriously. Why do you think the king has summoned me? To discuss what to do with my troublesome American wife who’s preaching sedition in the streets.”

“Is that so?” With a coy smile, she sidled up close to him. “And you would suggest that they put me in the Tower, would you?”

“We have to protect our populace from dangerous sorts like you Americans.”

“Fine. Put me there if you must.” Her eyes danced. “But only if you agree to visit. I’m sure you’d find it amusing to see me in chains after all the trouble I’ve been.”

A vivid image of her in chains flashed into his mind. Then it turned into a lewder image of her naked in chains, offering up her eager mouth while his hands took wanton liberties with her breasts and her splayed thighs and the sweet hot place—

Good God, she was driving him mad. He should know bet
ter than to tease her—teasing led to flirting, and flirting led to other things.

He turned away abruptly to mutter, “I doubt that the king allows visits to criminals in the Tower.” With a shuddering breath, he brought his unruly urges under control. “James will be back any minute to help me change clothes, so you’d best go.”
Before I chain you to my side for the rest of my life
.

He shook off that dangerous thought. “And the next time you wish to give me a ‘present,’ hand it to McFee and he’ll see that I get it.”

“Why?” she challenged. “Are you afraid that if you let me loose in your room I’ll ruin something else, something that doesn’t belong to me?”

“No. I’m afraid that
I
will.” When he glanced over to find her staring at him in bewilderment, he added harshly, “Just go, will you? I have to dress.”

“But I wanted to talk to you about the Mead—”

“Not now, Abby. I don’t have time.”

“Oh, all right.” She sniffed. “I see that your king isn’t the only one who thinks he can order people about as he pleases.”

As she stalked toward the door, all wounded dignity and feminine outrage, he actually contemplated running after her to beg her forgiveness with kisses. Instead he watched woodenly as the door closed behind her, leaving him once again alone.

Not for long, however. As he stripped off his coat and waistcoat, his valet returned with a broom-bearing servant in tow. The servant set about cleaning up the glass immediately. James, who carried a pail of steaming water, approached Spencer with his face full of excitement.

“An audience with the king, is it?” James said. “We’ll have you looking bright as a new-polished penny in a thrice, my lord.”

Spencer sighed. Time to return to acting as if a royal audi
ence was an honor rather than an onerous duty. “I hope so. I’ve only got an hour.” He peeled off his limp shirt.

“Shall I shave you before you dress?” James asked.

“Considering that His Majesty thinks facial hair is rude, I suppose you’d better.” Spencer ran a hand over his faintly whiskered cheek and jaw. “Just don’t nick me. Bleeding in his presence is probably illegal.”

His valet laughed. “Don’t worry, my lord, I’ll be gentle as a lamb.” James poured hot water into a basin and set out the shaving implements. Normally, Spencer paid no attention to James’s machinations, but today he couldn’t help noticing that James poured some liquid from a bottle into the shaving water.

Spencer flicked a finger toward the bottle. “What’s that?”

“Bergamot oil, my lord. Just enough to soften the skin.”

He stared at his valet. “Do you always use it when you shave me?”

“Of course. Every gentlemen should have a bit of scented oil in his shaving water—so the soap don’t dry him out. And it has a pleasing scent, too.”

So Abby had been right. He’d berated her for making him sound like a dandy, when all the time she’d simply been following her nose. Feeling like a cad, he sank into the chair that his valet indicated.

Spencer had never been so out of his depth as he was with Abby. He couldn’t open his mouth without either hurting her feelings or turning her flirtatious. It was bloody annoying. Like last night, the way she’d looked when he’d left her after their outrageous and unwise fondling. Most women would have chastised him for taking such liberties. But not Abby, oh, no. She wanted more. She always wanted more than he could offer.

How he wished he had it to give to her.

And how he wished she hadn’t broken that bloody bottle in here. The room reeked of it, keeping her in his mind con
stantly. He glanced over to the servant who was sweeping up the glass. “Be sure to scrub that floor when you’re done with the sweeping. And use something to get rid of the smell. It’s potent enough to choke a man.”

And sweet enough to turn him into a slavering slave at the feet of the woman who smelled of it. Chains—hah! If anybody wore chains these days, it was he. He couldn’t spend one moment without thinking of all the ways he wanted to make love to her. Forget the Tower—he’d like to chain her naked to his bed while he taught her exactly what happened to women who teased men without a thought for the consequences…

“I’ll fetch your clothes now,” James murmured, having finished shaving him.

Jerked from his erotic fancies, Spencer groaned. He had an erection. Again. Devil take it, he had to stop thinking of her, before James returned and noticed his bulging trousers. Otherwise, changing clothes would be bloody embarrassing.

He must think of something else. The king. Yes. That would deflate any man’s ardor. He reviewed what concerns the king might wish to discuss. He pondered tactics for dealing with His Majesty. He contemplated the latest bill in the House of Lords. That dampened his lust enough to get him through dressing.

Until James tied his cravat. Suddenly, his image of Abby rose powerfully in his mind once more. Her scent seemed more intense than ever, as if that damned bottle of hers were being waved right under his very nose.

Bloody hell, this was insane. His mind was playing tricks on him. But if she did this to him when she wasn’t even around, how would he ever manage when he had to be near her? He had to get the woman out of his house and back to America before she eroded his resolve completely.

Making a mental note to consult with the runners yet again for any news of his brother, he stood there holding his
thoughts of her barely at bay, praying that the scent of her would pass before he left the house.

But it didn’t. It seemed to follow him everywhere. He couldn’t purge her from his brain, not in his carriage, not at the palace, and not even when he stood before the king himself. Abby’s essence had infected him.

“Lord Ravenswood?” said the regal voice, and he realized with a start that he hadn’t been paying attention to what the king was saying.

“Yes, Your Majesty?”

“Do you think we are wise to take this trip to Edinburgh in August? We would be the first king since Charles II to set foot in Scotland, you realize.”

“That’s true.” Spencer dragged his wayward thoughts back to the matter under discussion. “Your Majesty must determine what you wish to accomplish with such a trip. Do you want to ascertain the concerns of the Catholics regarding Emancipation? Or merely to assure the Scots of the Crown’s good will? In the first case, the trip is pointless, because you can do that here. But in the second, it might be beneficial.”

When he caught the king staring at him as if he’d grown two heads, he realized he’d grossly misunderstood the situation. His Majesty merely expected Spencer to approve what he’d already decided to do.

Although Spencer considered himself a competent undersecretary, he was not a very good courtier. He couldn’t simply toady to the king. “But I’m sure Your Majesty has considered all of that,” he added smoothly.

“You are decidedly opinionated, sir,” His Majesty said in a bland tone.

“Forgive me, but you did ask my opinion.”

“Yes. And you gave it very bluntly, too, did you not?” The king hefted his portly frame from the creaking chair in the audience room and trundled toward the window. “You know, Ravenswood, that is what we’ve always hated about you.
You’re too somber by half, too arrogant in your opinions, and always sure of your own perfection.”

Spencer only wished that the last were true. And he had not known until now that His Majesty had taken such a strong dislike to him. Spencer saw his political future sliding down into an abyss. Yet he felt strangely calm, perversely pleased to be disliked by such a frivolous king.

His Majesty went on. “But of late we have come to believe you might not be as somber as we thought.”

Spencer’s eyes narrowed. “I beg your pardon.”

When the king faced him again, his expression was stern, but his eyes twinkled. “We hear you’ve taken a wife. And not just the usual boring miss, but an American woman of dubious heritage with a penchant for causing trouble at balls.”

Spencer hardly knew how to respond. “Er…yes, Your Majesty, I have recently married an American.”

“Good for you. Threw all those stuffy matrons into a tizzy, I expect. They thought you’d take one of their insipid daughters for a wife, but you showed them, didn’t you?”

“It does appear that way.” It dawned on Spencer that the king had often suffered at the hands of the gossiping matrons who despised his profligate ways. The man must have felt unfairly maligned. So Spencer’s aberrant act probably seemed a kind of rebellion against the very women who’d always tormented him.

If the man only knew.

The king flashed him a smile. “Makes us wonder if you don’t have a jolly bone or two beneath that cool exterior after all. Good show, Ravenswood, good show.”

The conversation was so bizarre that Spencer could only murmur, “Thank you” and wonder how the hell he’d gotten so lucky. If you could call it luck to have the king consider him the same sort of heedless fool that he himself was.

“We hear your wife is quite beautiful,” His Majesty continued.

Every muscle in Spencer’s body stilled. Despite the king’s rumored liaison with the Lady Steward of his household, the man’s eye always roved.

“Some would call her beautiful, yes,” Spencer said noncommittally, though anger knotted in his gut at the very thought of George casting his lecherous gaze on Abby.

“We should like to meet this American beauty.” His Majesty’s smirk showed he was perfectly aware of Spencer’s sudden jealousy. “For May Day we will be attending Throckmorton’s exclusive fête-champêtre. We understand there will be dancing and a maypole and even fireworks. Surely you were invited, so do bring your pretty wife to present to us. We should like to see how an American manages our quaint dances.”