Dark Angel / Lord Carew's Bride (53 page)

She longed to be on the way. The sooner they left, the sooner they would arrive. But there was one bad part about leaving so soon. The honeymoon was at an end. She had several people to call on in order to take her leave of them. Hartley had similar errands and some business to do. And so they went their separate ways that day after a late and lingering breakfast together.

Some of her fears had been allayed. He had talked of love that first night and had frequently told her since that he loved her. He almost always called her by some endearment rather than by her name. But he was invariably kind to her and gentle, and they were still friends.
They could still talk and laugh together endlessly, or be silent together without any awkwardness or boredom.

Perhaps, after all, she had nothing to fear. Perhaps she was safe. After all, Jenny and Gabriel loved, and they still seemed perfectly happy—and each other’s friend—even after six years of marriage.

Perhaps she need no longer punish herself for the sin of kissing and of falling in love with Jenny’s betrothed all those years ago. And for wishing that the betrothal could somehow be ended. And for being secretly glad when it was, despite the terrible suffering and humiliation Jenny had had to face.

Perhaps, after all, she could allow herself to be loved.

She had been happy for three days—and three nights. Wonderfully, unexpectedly happy. He was the friend and companion she had hoped for when she had agreed to marry him. And as a lover he was—oh, how could she use any superlative? She had no one with whom to compare him. He was gentle and considerate and patient and thorough. He was good—he was very good. She had come to adore his body and the skilled way he used it to give her pleasure. She never minded being wakened during the night, tired as she might be—and sometimes she was the one to do the waking, though she did not believe he realized it yet. And she never minded being taken to bed during the day, even though it was very obvious to her that the servants
knew
. Let them know. Let them be envious.

She had looked forward to the physical side of marriage and had hoped that it would at least be pleasant. It
was far more than pleasant. It bound them together in a tie deeper than mere friendship. She could not put a word to the bond. But after three days she felt very much his wife. And she hugged the feeling to herself as perhaps her most precious possession, even if it was intangible.

She called on Lady Brill first and the two of them made a round of calls. Her uncle told her that he had been pleased to discover that, after all, she had a wise and sensible head on her shoulders in choosing a husband with a superior title and seventy thousand a year. Her lady friends hugged her and lamented the fact that she would be gone for the rest of the Season and wished her well. Some of them looked faintly envious. One of them—though she had never been a close friend—remarked apropos of nothing, or so it seemed, that it was a pity the richest men never seemed to be also the handsomest men.

“Not that I was insinuating—” she said, looking at Samantha in dismay, one hand flying to her mouth.

Samantha merely smiled.

Lady Sophia, her newly mended leg elevated on a satin pouf, looked Samantha over from head to foot and nodded in satisfaction.

“She is looking like the cat that got locked in with the cream pot, Aggy,” she said. “Carew must have done his job on her and done it well.” She cackled at her own joke and Samantha’s hot blush.

“You are in need of exercise and fresh air, Sophie,” Lady Brill said briskly.

And so they drove in the park, the three of them. The weather was warm and sunny again after yesterday’s rain. The
ton
was out in force. The barouche in which they rode moved at snail’s pace, when it was moving at all. People came to inquire after Lady Sophia’s health. Friends came to greet and chat with Lady Brill. And Samantha drew quite as much attention as she had ever done. Perhaps more today. She fancied that everyone was looking at her with curiosity and interest. It was doubtless her imagination, she told herself, but the knowledge of how she had been spending her nights—and her afternoons—since the
ton
saw her last set her to blushing a great deal of the time.

Lord Francis, dashing in puce riding coat and skintight black leather pantaloons and hessians, rode up to her side of the carriage, distracting her attention from the conversation the other two ladies were holding with a couple at the other side. He leaned one arm on the door of the carriage and looked at her closely and appreciatively.

“Well, Samantha,” he said quietly, “never let it be said that marriage disagrees with you.”

“
I
certainly would begin no such rumor, Francis,” she said. But she could not prevent the telltale blush.

“Lucky dog,” he said, more to himself than to her. “You love him, then, Sam?”

It was the first time he had used Jenny’s name for her. But his question jolted her. There must be something in her face. But what could show in her face apart from her blush?

“Why else would I have married him, Francis?” she asked. She had meant the question to be lightly, teasingly phrased. She heard too late the earnestness in her voice. She wanted him to believe that she had married for love, she realized. Hartley deserved that. “Of course I love him.”

“Yes, Sam,” he said, his smile slow in coming. “It is there in your eyes for all to see, my dear. And so I must begin the search for another incomparable to inspire my devotion. You will be hard to replace.”

“Oh, nonsense, Francis,” she said, but fortunately Lord Hawthorne rode up at that moment and the couple who had been talking with her aunt and Lady Sophia drove away. The privateness of the moment was gone.

Was there really something about her eyes? Samantha wondered in some alarm as they drove from the park a short while later. She could not think what it could be, except perhaps a certain vacantness occasioned by the fact that her mind kept wandering to Hartley, wondering how he was spending his day, wondering if he would be home when she returned, hoping that he would be, longing to see him again, dreaming about the past three days—and nights.

She must not start daydreaming. It had never been one of her shortcomings. And it was very ungenteel to daydream in the presence of others about her husband.

Finally her own carriage set her down outside Carew House and she hurried inside with eager steps. It was after six already. The day was gone. She hoped he would be home. She hoped some of his friends had not persuaded
him to dine at one of the clubs on his last evening in town. How dreary it would be to have to dine alone and wait until perhaps late into the night for his return. And then perhaps he would be foxed, though she had never known him to drink to excess. Or else he would sleep in his own bed because of the lateness of the hour and his reluctance to wake her.

Her foolish fears fled faster than they had crowded in upon her as soon as she stepped into the hall. He was standing at the far side of it, his left arm behind his back, his feet braced slightly apart. He looked—handsome, she thought, smiling. The library door was open behind him. He must have heard the carriage and come out to greet her. But he had not hurried toward her. And so, just in time, she checked her impulse to rush toward him and offer her mouth to be kissed. There were two footmen in the hall, and despite what they must know, all open signs of affection must be reserved until he and she were behind closed doors.

“Hartley,” she said, untying the strings of her bonnet, pulling it off, and shaking out her flattened curls, “did you have a good day?”

Tell me you missed me. No, wait until we are alone
.

“Thank you, yes,” he said. “Will you join me in the library?”

So that we can close the door and put our arms about each other and bemoan the waste of a day apart?

She pulled off her gloves. “Give me time to wash my hands and comb my hair?” she asked, still smiling.
So that I can be beautiful for you
.

He inclined his head to her.

“Will you order tea?” she asked, hurrying toward the staircase. “I am parched.”

She turned her head to look down at him as she climbed the stairs. And stopped for a moment. What was it? He looked his usual self, neat and tidy, but not in the first stare of fashion. He was watching her with no particular expression on his face.

What is wrong?
she was about to ask. But there were the servants. She would wait until she came back down and they were in the library.

Her steps quickened. She would be as fast as she could. She did not even bother to ring for her maid. She washed her hands and face in cold water and brushed quickly at her curls to bring the spring back into them. The need to hurry, to waste not one more moment than was necessary, was strong on her.

But the brush paused as she caught herself feeling the urgency. The need to be with him. In his arms.

What was happening?

She peered suspiciously at her eyes in the looking glass.
Were
they different from usual? They looked like the same old eyes to her. She grinned at herself.

And went hurrying from the room and running lightly down the stairs. A footman crossed to the library door and held it open for her. She smiled at him in passing.

H
E WENT TO
W
HITE’S
with Bridgwater for luncheon, and they were joined by Gerson and a few other acquaintances. It was a very pleasant way to spend his last day in town, even though he had missed Samantha from the moment of handing her into his carriage and waving her on the way to Lady Brill’s.

He endured a great deal of teasing, much of it decidedly ribald. It was all good-natured, he knew, and perhaps fueled by a degree of envy. Besides, he admitted to himself that he really was feeling rather smug. No one else, after all, had just married the loveliest lady in London. No one else was loved by her. And, truth to tell, he had been every bit as randy during the past three days as his friends accused him of being, though he had been more respectful of his wife’s body than a few of them dared to suggest.

They were enjoying a few drinks after luncheon, and he was trying to calculate in his mind the earliest hour he could expect to find Samantha at home, when Lionel appeared in the doorway of the dining room, paused there, and came inside.

“Hart,” he said, walking toward him, right hand extended, his smile warm. “How is the new bridegroom? Retreated to your club to recuperate from certain, ah, exertions, have you?”

He squeezed the marquess’s right hand rather painfully while the others chuckled and offered their own answers to the question. Friends, it seemed, never tired of reminding a newly married man of how his
nights had suddenly changed for the better, even if they had become more sleepless.

The marquess got to his feet and drew his cousin a little apart from the crowd. The noise there was getting louder in direct proportion to the amount of alcohol that was being consumed. He swallowed his dislike of Lionel and smiled back at him. Perhaps it was time. They were grown men. The stupidities of boyhood and the excesses of young manhood were behind them. At least he must believe so. He was rather ashamed of his reaction to Samantha’s wedding gift.

“I have to thank you, Lionel,” he said. “It was a kind and generous gesture.”

Lionel’s handsome brows rose. There was some amusement in his eyes, the marquess thought.

“The brooch,” the marquess said. “You must know that it is more precious to me than just its market value. Mother always wore it and it is somehow associated with my fondest memories of her. I suppose Father gave it to you as a memento after her death, not realizing that she had intended … But it does not matter. It was a precious wedding gift you gave us. I thank you.”

“Perhaps you misunderstood, Hart.” There was definite amusement in Lionel’s eyes now. “It was a gift for your bride alone. A gift from me to her. In appreciative memory of times past. Did you not know about us?”

The very thought of Lionel and Samantha’s being referred to as “us” was somehow nauseating.

“We were an item six years ago,” Lionel said. “Indeed we were indiscreet enough to be a partial cause of the
breakup of my betrothal to her cousin—Lady Thornhill, you know, your neighbor. We were what you might call in love, Hart. Deeply, head over ears in love. I had to abandon her because Papa had the notion that my absence was more desirable than my presence, and I would not embroil her in my disgrace. She was still an innocent, you see. I am sure you found her satisfyingly virgin on your wedding night?”

He raised his eyebrows but did not wait long for an answer.

“I do believe I broke her heart,” he said. “I rather fancy that she blamed me. And perhaps she was right. It is a shameful thing for a man to be responsible for breaking his own engagement, is it not? She would have nothing to do with me when I returned this spring. And yet she was frightened by the power of the feelings she still had for me. Strange, is it not, Hart, that a woman of such exquisite beauty was still unmarried at her age? You came along at the right moment, old chap. She ran to your arms, where I daresay she feels safe. Rightfully so, I would imagine. You are looking after her well, I presume? But of course you would.”