The Secrets of Sir Richard Kenworthy (16 page)

“No, no, best to get it over with. Must be done, you know. And there's that letter from my aunt. Can't ignore that.” He affixed a jolly smile to his face and turned to Iris. “Mrs. Hopkins should be the one to show you your new rooms, anyway.”

Mrs. Hopkins did not look as if she agreed.

“She was in charge of the redecorating,” Richard added.

Iris frowned. “I thought you said you had not redecorated.”

“The airing out,” he said, punctuating with a meaningless wave of his hand. “She'll know the rooms better than I, anyway.”

Mrs. Hopkins pursed her lips in disapproval, and Richard felt like a young boy, about to be reprimanded. The housekeeper had been as much a mother to him as his own, and while she would never countermand him in front of others, he knew she would make her feelings known later.

Impulsively, Richard took Iris's hand and brought it to his lips for a brief kiss. No one would accuse him of ignoring his wife in public. “You must rest, my darling.”

Iris's lips parted with surprise. Had he not yet called her his darling? Bloody hell, he should have done.

“Will an hour be sufficient?” he asked her, or rather, he asked her lips, which were still delightfully pink and parted. Good Lord, he wanted to kiss her. He wanted to slide his tongue in and taste her very essence, and—

“Two!” he blurted out. “You'll need two.”

“Two?”

“Hours,” he said firmly. “I do not wish to overtax you.” He looked over at Mrs. Hopkins. “Ladies are very delicate.”

Iris frowned adorably, and Richard bit back a curse. How could she look adorable when she frowned? Surely that was an anatomical impossibility.

“Shall I see you to your bedchamber, Lady Kenworthy?” Mrs. Hopkins inquired.

“I would appreciate that, thank you,” Iris replied, her eyes still pinned suspiciously on Richard.

He gave her a wan smile.

Iris followed Mrs. Hopkins down the hall, but before they turned the corner, he heard her say, “Do you consider yourself delicate, Mrs. Hopkins?”

“No indeed, my lady.”

“Good,” Iris said in a crisp voice. “Neither do I.”

B
Y EVENING
, R
ICHARD
had come up with a new plan. Or rather, a modification. One he really should have considered from the beginning.

Iris was going to be angry with him. Spectacularly angry. There was no getting around that.

But perhaps he could lessen the blow?

Cresswell had said that Fleur and Marie-Claire would be gone for two weeks.
That
wasn't going to work, but a week could be managed. He could have his sisters fetched home after only seven days; that would be easy enough to arrange. His aunt lived but twenty miles away.

And in the meantime . . .

One of Richard's many regrets was that he had not had the time to properly court his new wife. Iris still did not know the reason for their hasty marriage, but she was no idiot; she could see that something was not quite right. If Richard had had just a little more time back in London, he could have wooed her the way a woman ought to be wooed. He could have shown her that he delighted in her company, that she made him laugh, that he could make
her
laugh. He could have stolen a few more kisses and awakened the desire that he was certain lay deep in her soul.

And then, after all that, when he dropped to one knee and asked her to marry him, Iris would not have hesitated. She would have gazed into his eyes, found whatever sort of love she had been longing for, and she would have said yes.

Maybe thrown herself into his arms.

Blinking back tears of happiness.

That
would have been the proposal of her dreams, not the shabby, calculated kiss he'd thrust upon her in her aunt's hallway.

But he'd had no choice. Surely, when he explained everything, she would understand that. She knew what it meant to love one's family, to want to protect them at all costs. It was what she did each year when she played in the musicale. She didn't want to be there; she did it for her mother, and her aunts, and even her eternal-thorn-in-the-side sister Daisy.

She'd understand. She had to.

He had been granted a one-week reprieve. Seven full days before he had to come clean and watch her face grow even more pale at his betrayal. Maybe he was a coward; maybe he should use this time to explain it all, to prepare her for what must come.

But he wanted what he could not have before the wedding. Time.

A lot could happen in seven days.

One week,
he told himself as he went to collect her for their first supper together at Maycliffe Park.

One week to make her fall in love with him.

I
RIS SPENT THE
entire afternoon resting in her new bedchamber. She'd never quite understood how sitting in a carriage could leave a body so weary when sitting in a chair in a drawing room required no energy whatsoever, but the three-day journey to Maycliffe had left her utterly exhausted. Maybe it was the jostling of the carriage or the poor state of the roads this far north. Or maybe—probably—it had something to do with her husband.

She did not understand him.

One moment he was charming, and the next he was fleeing her presence as if she carried plague. She could not
believe
he had had the housekeeper show her to her room. Surely that was a new husband's job. But she supposed she should not have been surprised. Richard had avoided her bed at all three inns they'd visited on the journey north. Why should she think he might behave differently now?

She sighed. She needed to learn to be indifferent to him. Not cruel, not unkind, just . . . unaffected. When he smiled at her—and he
did
smile at her, the cur—her whole being seemed to fizz with happiness. Which would have been lovely, except that it made his rejection even more puzzling.

And painful.

Honestly, it would be better if he weren't so nice to her most of the time. If she could dislike him—

No, what was she thinking? It would
not
be better if he were cruel or ignored her completely. Surely a complicated marriage was better than an unpleasant one. She had to stop being melodramatic. It was not like her. She just needed to find some sort of equilibrium and maintain it.

“Good evening, Lady Kenworthy.”

Iris started with surprise. Richard was poking his head through the partially open doorway that led to the hall. “I did knock,” he said with an amused expression.

“I'm sure you did,” she said hastily. “My mind was elsewhere.”

His smile grew more sly. “Dare I ask where?”

“Home,” she lied, then realized what she'd said. “I mean London. This is my home now.”

“Yes,” he said, and he entered the room, quietly shutting the door behind him. His head tilted slightly to the side, and he stared at her for just long enough to make her fidget. “Have you done something different with your hair?”

And just like that, all of her vows to remain indifferent went out the window.

Iris nervously touched her head, just behind her right ear. He'd noticed. She had not thought he would. “One of the maids helped me to dress,” she said. “She's rather fond of . . .”

Why was he looking at her so intently?

“Fond of . . . ?”

“Little braids,” she said in a rush. A ridiculous rush. She sounded like a ninny.

“It looks lovely.”

“Thank you.”

He gazed at her warmly. “You do have the most marvelous hair. The color is exquisite. I have never seen the like.”

Iris's lips parted. She should say something. She should thank him. But she felt almost frozen—not cold, just frozen—and then she felt ridiculous. To be so affected by a compliment.

Richard was thankfully unaware of her torment. “I'm sorry you had to travel without a maid,” he continued. “I confess I did not even consider the issue. Typical of the males of our species, I'm sure.”

“I-it was not a problem.”

His smile deepened, and Iris wondered if it was because he knew he'd flustered her.

“Nevertheless,” he said, “I apologize.”

Iris didn't know what to say. Which was just as well, because she wasn't sure she remembered how to speak.

“Did Mrs. Hopkins show you your room?” Richard asked.

“Yes,” Iris said with a little bob of a nod. “She was most helpful.”

“It meets with your satisfaction?”

“Of course,” Iris said with complete honesty. It was a lovely chamber, bright and cheerful with its southern exposure. But what she really loved . . .

She looked up at Richard with bliss in her eyes. “You have no idea how delighted I am to have my own washroom.”

He chuckled. “Really? That's what you love best?”

“After sharing one with Daisy for the last seventeen years? Absolutely.” She tipped her head toward him in what she hoped was a cheeky manner. “And the view from the window isn't bad, either.”

His laugh deepened, and he stepped toward the window, motioning for her to join him. “What do you see?” he asked.

“I don't know what you mean,” Iris said, carefully positioning herself so that they did not touch.

But he was not so inclined. He looped his arm through hers and gently tugged her closer. “I have lived my entire life at Maycliffe. When I gaze out this window, I see the tree I first climbed when I was seven. And the spot where my mother always wanted a hedgerow maze.”

A wistful expression came over his face, and Iris had to look away. It felt almost intrusive to watch him.

“I cannot see Maycliffe through a newcomer's eyes,” she heard him say. “Perhaps you would do me the favor of enlightening me.”

His voice was smooth and velvety, flowing through her like warm chocolate. She kept her eyes forward, but she knew that he had turned toward her. His breath tickled her cheek, warming the air between them.

“What do you see, Iris?”

She swallowed. “I see . . . grass. And trees.”

Richard made a funny noise, like he was swallowing his surprise.

“Bit of a hill,” she added.

“You're not very poetic, are you?”

“Not at all,” she admitted. “Are you?” She turned, forgetting that she had intended not to, and she was startled by his nearness.

“I can be,” he said softly.

“When it suits you?”

He smiled slowly. “When it suits me.”

Iris gave a nervous smile and looked back out the window. She felt terribly jumpy, her feet wiggling about in her slippers as if someone were sparking tiny fires beneath her. “I'd rather hear what you see,” she said. “I need to learn about Maycliffe. I want to be a good mistress of the estate.”

His eyes flared, but other than that, his expression remained inscrutable.

“Please,” she said.

For a moment he seemed lost in thought, but then he straightened his shoulders and regarded the view through the window with renewed purpose. “Right there,” he said, motioning with his chin, “in that field, just beyond the trees. We hold a harvest festival there each year.”

“We do?” Iris echoed. “Oh, that's lovely. I should like to be involved in the planning.”

“I'm sure you will be.”

“Is it in the autumn?”

“Yes, November usually. I always—” He stiffened, and then his head jerked a little, almost as if he were dislodging a thought from his head. “There's a path over there, too,” he said, quite clearly changing the subject. “It leads to Mill Farm.”

Iris wanted to learn more about the harvest festival, but it was clear he wasn't going to say more, so instead she politely asked, “Mill Farm?”

“One of my tenant farms,” he explained. “The largest of them, actually. The son recently took over from his father. I hope he makes a good go of it. The father never did.”

“Oh.” Iris didn't really have anything to add to that.

“You know,” Richard said, turning to her quite suddenly, “I might say that of the two of us, your observations are the more valuable. You may be able to see deficiencies I do not.”

“I see nothing deficient, I assure you.”

“Nothing?” he murmured, and his voice touched her like a caress.

“But of course I know little about the running of an estate,” she said quickly.

“How strange to have lived the whole of your life in London,” he mused.

She cocked her head to the side. “Not so strange if that is all you've known.”

“Ah, but it is not all you've known, is it?”

Iris felt her brow furrow, and she turned toward him. A mistake. He was closer than she'd realized, and for a moment she forgot what she was going to say.

One of his brows rose in question.

“I—” Why was she staring at his mouth? She wrenched her gaze upward, to his eyes, which were crinkled with amusement.

“Did you wish to say something?” he murmured.

“Just that I . . . ah . . .” What
had
she been going to say? She turned back to the window. “Oh!” She turned back to Richard. Still a mistake, but at least this time she didn't forget what she meant to say. “What do you mean by it's not all I've known?”

He gave a little shrug. “Surely you've spent time in the country at your cousins' homes.”

“Well, yes, but it's hardly the same thing.”

“Perhaps, but it would be enough to inform an opinion on life in the country versus that in the city, would it not?”

“I suppose,” Iris acceded. “To be honest, I'd never really given it thought.”

He looked at her intently. “Do you think you will enjoy living in the country?”

Iris swallowed, trying not to notice that his voice had deepened with the question. “I do not know,” she replied. “I hope so.”

She felt his hand slip down to hers, and before she realized what was happening, she'd turned again to face him as he raised her fingers to his lips. “I hope so, too,” he said.