The Widowed Countess (6 page)

Drawing her long fingers along the top edges, Adele knew what hid inside boxes of this shape and size. She’d received enough gemstones during her time with Worthington to recognize a jeweler’s velvet covered pasteboard box. Gifts such as these were bestowed for a reason, though, and since there were no special occasions scheduled anytime soon ... and there were
three
boxes ... “Have you gone and done something naughty?” she asked then, a flush of color rising to her face. “Several times?”

Stunned at her question, and knowing her use of the word ‘naughty’ really did mean ‘naughty,’ as in, he’d been guilty of participating in some kind of bad behavior that involved Cyprians or courtesans, Grandby’s eyes widened. “No!” he claimed, his head shaking back and forth. “Well, only with you,” he amended, looking ever so contrite. “The result of which is why I bought this ..,” he motioned toward the box, “... for you.” One hand lifted to cover his eyes a moment when he realized he hadn’t actually
bought
the necklaces – he’d managed to leave Stedman and Vardon without having
paid
, or at least arranging for the bill to be sent to him! It was a wonder a constable hadn’t shown up at the front door.

At the sound of the front door being opened by the butler, Grandby nearly panicked and then realized it was probably just the bill being delivered. Certainly Stedman would know to have the bill sent to him at home.

“What is it?” Adele asked, seeing the flash of distress cross his face.

“Well, open it,” he replied, surprised she hadn’t behaved like every other mistress he had ever employed by tearing the lid off the box before it was even out of his hands.

“I will. When you tell me
why
,” Adele countered, rising up to regard him, her expression once more severe.

Grandby blew air out from between his lips and shrugged. He remembered the discussion at the card table at White’s. “Remember last Christmas? When we were snowed in at Torrington Park? And we spent all that time ... being bad? And since then, you’ve continued to be rather bad? Insatiable, in fact.” At Adele’s suddenly arched eyebrow and startled expression, he hurried on. “Which I don’t mind a bit. I rather adore it, really. I do,” he was saying as his head bobbed up and down. “And now you look as if you’ve eaten a few too many tea cakes and ...” His hand had suddenly moved to her belly and protectively rested there. He let out a sigh.

“Milton!” Adele whispered. Her arms wrapped around his neck, one hand still clutching the box and her lips finding his to kiss him as thoroughly as she could. When a maid suddenly entered from the butler’s pantry, she gasped and quickly retreated from the room.

Grandby stifled his chuckle and instead nuzzled Adele’s neck with his nose and lips. “Did I get it right?” he asked then, suddenly wondering what he would do if he had misjudged the whole scenario.

“Oh, yes,” Adele whispered, kissing his jaw and his neck. “I was going to tell you tonight. During the dessert course.”

Taking a step back, Grandby ran his gaze down the front of Adele again. “And I was going to give you that during the dessert course,” he countered, his head nodding toward the black velvet box Adele still held. “But I rather doubt we’ll make it to the dessert course, my love,” he added. “Unless we take it up in my bedchamber,” he suggested, an eyebrow waggling.

Adele smiled, her cheeks flushing pink. “You are incorrigible,” she murmured. She held the box up between them. “Some assembly, hum?”

“I’ll help you put it on,” he offered as he took the box from her and opened it. The sapphires sparkled with blue-violet light, the gold glinting from the flames in the chandelier overhead.

“Oh, it’s beautiful,” Adele breathed, reaching out with a fingertip to gently nudge the necklace around the raised circle in the middle of the box. “I do hope it’s a boy,” she said then, her attention returning to him.

Grandby shrugged. “I was thinking a girl, but if it’s a boy, we can always be bad and have another,” he suggested hopefully.
In for a penny, in for a pound
. Lifting the necklace from the velvet bed, he opened it around her neck and secured the clasp. He noticed Adele’s attention on the other two boxes.

“Did you try to guess what color gown I would be wearing tonight?” she wondered, her fingers barely touching the gold filigree and sapphires that encircled her neck. She couldn’t imagine what stones might be featured in the other necklaces.

“I didn’t actually buy them to go with any particular gown,” Grandby countered, his lips curling up as he regarded the sapphires, deciding they looked especially regal with the gown and ear bobs she was wearing at the moment. He tried to imagine her in just the necklace and ear bobs, and he found he rather liked that image even better. He glanced back at the table. “Now that I think on it, I was rather patriotic when I made by selections,” he added, the mischief back in his eyes. “And a bit naughty, too,” he added.

“Oh?” Adele replied, one eyebrow arching up. “Do tell.”

Shrugging in that way he had of making himself seem cavalier and confident at the same time, Grandby leaned closer and whispered in her ear.

Adele regarded her husband for several moments and cocked her head to one side. “Indeed?” she commented. “Then what were you imagining me wearing..?” Her eyes suddenly widened. “Milton!” she admonished him.

“You can wear them with gowns, of course,” the earl assured her quickly, hoping she hadn’t just thought the very worst of him at that moment. “But, if you would be so accommodating, I would love to see these on you while you’re ... wearing nothing but my bed linens, so to speak. Perhaps, later tonight?” he hinted hopefully.

Although her face kept its slightly flushed coloring, Adele gave him a teasing smile. “Milton Grandby, if I wasn’t so damned hungry, I’d let you undress me and have your way with me right now. On this table,” she whispered, leaning in to capture his lips with another kiss.

Grandby’s arms wrapped around her waist, pulling her hard against his body just as the maid reappeared with the soup course. Letting out a gasp, the servant immediately turned around and started to go back into the butler’s pantry.

“Hold it right there,” Grandby said, pulling away from the kiss. He waved toward the maid. “We’re ready for dinner. Truly.” He placed Adele’s hand on his arm and led her to a place to his right. “However, my lady will be eating here instead of way down there,” he said, pulling the chair out from the table. A footman, who had apparently appeared from almost nowhere, hurried to reset the table so that Adele’s place setting was in front of her before she’d even taken her seat. “And we’ll be having the dessert course in my apartment,” he added to the second footman who appeared with wine.

“Very good, my lord,” the footman murmured as he poured the wine. Within seconds, the servants had disappeared and the two lovebirds were left enjoying their dinner.

They enjoyed the dessert far more.

Chapter 7

Daniel Arrives

Daniel Fitzwilliam, the second son of the ninth Earl of Norwick, reined in his horse as he approached the semi-circular drive in front of Norwick House. The fashionable mansion in Park Lane featured the de rigueur Palladian style architecture that had become so popular at the turn of the century. Grecian columns acted as sentries on either side of a set of large double-doors and held up a portico above the landing at the top of the deep, shallow steps. A pair of topiary trees flanked the columns. Rows of arched windows were lined out on either side the front of the house, various plantings at their base trimmed so as not to hinder the view from inside. The effect was stately and elegant, a London-based home suitable for an earl and his wife in which to live and entertain. A home suitable for Daniel’s older brother, the tenth Earl of Norwick.

At one time, Daniel railed against his fate as the second son. Born only minutes after David Alexander George Fitzwilliam, Daniel Jonathan Andrew Fitzwilliam was identical to his older brother in every respect. They had both grown to just a bit over six feet in height, had broad shoulders and torsos that featured muscular chests, flat stomachs and thin hips. The dental gods had bestowed them with straight teeth and saw to it none were missing. Their facial features were so much the same, they were frequently mistaken for one another, making it possible for them to play practical jokes on their governess, tutors, teachers, friends and even some family members. The Fitzwilliam men were both expert horsemen, good marksmen, adequate fencers and abysmal boxers. Their taste in clothing was even similar – they employed tailors who used the best cloth and could fashion coats and breeches that suited their larger than normal bodies. And their taste in women ... well, it was this trait of their sameness that led to their falling out four years ago.

They had both fallen in love with the same woman.

Because David was due to inherit, their father encouraged a betrothal to the daughter of another earl. David would marry Lady Clarinda Anne Brotherton no later than her twenty-second birthday. Despite the fact that betrothals were no longer the binding contracts they had been at one time, David had every intention of honoring his father’s arrangement. He’d had a fondness for Lady Clarinda from the time he’d danced with her at her come-out ball, a lavish affair given in her honor by her parents on the eve of her eighteenth birthday. Trouble was, Daniel already felt affection for the girl, having met her in Hyde Park while she and her chaperone rode horses in the afternoons. By the time Clarinda married his brother, nearly five years after Daniel and Clarinda had been introduced to one another, Daniel was hopelessly in love with the chit. As he stood with his brother during the wedding, he only had eyes for the brunette-haired beauty, her aquamarine eyes occasionally glancing in his direction as she blushed and repeated her vows. Vows to his brother.

For the next two years, Daniel lived in town, attending Society events and occasionally visiting Boodles for drinks and a hand of cards. At some point, he was sure a debutante might catch his eye and help him forget his lovely sister-in-law. But none did. And after the horrible row he’d had with Clarinda, he escaped to Norwick Park, the earldom’s country estate in southern Sussex. He took up residence there, his somber moods finally driving his mother to the dowager house in Bognor. Left to run the estate in a manner he thought best, and given free rein to do so by his older brother, Daniel settled into life as the spare heir.

Life in Sussex was pleasant. The estate proved profitable for the earldom, and, until he received word from the courier that David had died of a broken neck, Daniel thought to remain at Norwick Park for rest of his days. The news had nudged him from a kind of waking dream, though, his days so much the same he hardly noticed the passage of time.

Suddenly, he had a mission in life beyond seeing to the day-to-day operations of the earldom. The spare was now the heir. He was now the earl.

His valet packed his trunks, his secretary took over the books, and he made the trip, part by horseback and part in a coach, to London. He’d spent the night at his apartment in Bruton Street, but given the lack of servants there, he decided to move into Norwick House this morning. At least breakfast would be served there.

Two years
, he thought, staring up at the house, wondering if Lady Norwick had her rooms looking over this side of the house.
It’s too early for a lady of the ton to be out of bed, though
, he thought as he regarded his new home.

Two years
. What had he done to make Clarinda so angry she would react as she did that day two years ago? At the moment, he couldn’t even remember. And he didn’t much care. He had only seen her once since that day two years ago – at a dinner party – but he’d made his excuses and left before it would have been necessary for him to exchange at least a bit of small talk with his sister-in-law. Now he might have the opportunity to see her everyday for the rest of his life.

I can only hope
.

And then he wondered if she would even look the same as she had back then. Perhaps she’d grown old being married to his older brother. Perhaps her hair was thin and white, her cheeks hollow and sunken, her skin wrinkled and sallow, her hands covered with liver spots, her teeth crooked with some missing, the skin on her neck sagging.

He shook his head.
No, that’s what Great Aunt Mildred looks like
, he realized. Clarinda would never look like that, not even when she was a hundred-and-ten.

Dismounting, Daniel handed the reins to a stableboy who appeared from the mews behind the house. At the same time, the carriage with his trunks pulled into the drive. He took a deep breath and mounted the steps, nodding to the butler as the doors opened to admit him.

After a fitful night of weird dreams featuring her late husband and his mother trying to make her wed Daniel at the very moment she was going into labor, Clarinda awoke at dawn feeling exhausted. Her night rail was so twisted, the neckline nearly choked her. While she tried to smooth out the fine lawn fabric, the scent of David reached her again. She inhaled the calming scent and let out a long sigh.

She remembered her last conversation with him. It had been about what he was going to wear when meeting with his solicitor.
Wear the dark blue or you’ll look like you’re in the army
. Which was ridiculous, because David would
never
look like he was in the militia, no matter what he wore, she thought, remembering how dashing he appeared when he stood on the threshold of the parlor before striding in and dipping her into that delicious kiss. And then he had bid her farewell. She sighed happily as she recalled that last bit, her hand moving to slide over her abdomen.

Wait
. That hadn’t been their last conversation, she reasoned. They’d last spoken of his cologne and something about Daniel being stubborn.
What had he said?
she wondered as she tried to remember. The tendril of a memory disappeared before she could capture it fully.

Deciding she wouldn’t be able to fall back to sleep, Clarinda rang for her maid and ordered a bath. Her nightdress clung to her damp skin as she slowly emerged from the bed. She sighed as the scent of David was left behind. With that realization came another.

Daniel was due to arrive today.

Damnation
! She still hadn’t decided how to broach the subject of her pregnancy. Daniel’s mother had agreed to say nothing of it until Clarinda had had a chance to break the news to him. The funeral service was scheduled for the following day at St. George’s, and shortly after, the solicitor would arrive with David’s last will and his final instructions.

“Mourning must be making you hungry, milady,” Missy commented as she held out a linen. Clarinda was half out of the copper tub, rivulets of water streaming down her body as she caught her reflection in the cheval mirror near the doorway. She didn’t think she appeared any heavier, and she certainly didn’t feel
different
. Except for when the odor of fish assaulted her nostrils, she’d managed to avoid morning sickness. Other than making sure the dinner menus rarely included fish, she hadn’t changed anything in how the household was run since the day she was sure she was with child.

“Why do you say that?” she wondered, giving Missy a quizzical look.

“You look like you’ve been eating a few too many cakes at tea, my lady,” Missy replied, a smile on her face. “If I may say, it’s a relief to know your appetite hasn’t suffered with his lordship’s passing,” she said in a lowered voice, her face taking on a suitable expression of sadness.

Clarinda caught her bottom lip with a tooth. At some point, she would have to tell Missy about the baby. In the meantime, she would let the maid continue to think she was a glutton at tea time. “Food is good for the soul,” Clarinda commented as she dried herself off and stepped into her bedchamber. As Missy helped her into a chemise and corset, she thought of the look on David’s face when he’d run his hand over the front of her body, gently rubbing her belly and leaning over to kiss her
just there
. She had to fight back the smile she felt coming on as she remembered how he had placed an ear against her belly then, as if he thought he could already hear his future offspring.

She fought back the sudden catch in her throat at the thought of David. A mortician was seeing to his remains and would deliver his coffin to St. George’s for the funeral and then see to its transportation to Norwick Park for burial. A small graveside service would take place – only a few family members would attend, Clarinda thought – and then life would go on. In six months, she would have a baby to keep her company, to love and cherish and spoil rotten until it was time to send it off to school or marriage.

And that would be that.

She frowned. Perhaps she could become a merry widow (after the requisite year of mourning, of course). Lady Winslow had done that, although she’d only made merry with the Marquess of Devonville for a month before agreeing to marry him. Going from a position as a baroness to the Marchioness of Devonville had to offer benefits beyond longer trips to New Bond Street and a larger jewelry box. Clarinda often wondered what Adele Slater Worthington Grandby thought of her new sister-in-law.

The sudden thought of not being bedded for an entire year had Clarinda raising her face to stare at herself in the oval dressing table mirror. Missy stood behind her, pinning a series of curls across the front of a rather ornate hairstyle. “Am I going somewhere?” Clarinda asked in wonderment. Her maid had never done her hair with quite as many pins before. Of course, David would have had them all out in a few flicks of his wrist when he escorted her to her bedchamber at bedtime. They would scatter about the Aubusson carpet, acting as little land mines when he sneaked back into her room later that night, his bare feet managing to step on enough so he exhaled exclamations of pain and curses as they impaled him. Clarinda smiled at the thought, her eyes suddenly filling with tears as she realized he would never be doing that again.

“The new earl is due to arrive today,” Missy replied, her face falling at the sight of her mistress on the verge of tears. “Oh, my lady, don’t cry!” the abigail ordered, reaching over Clarinda’s shoulder to fetch a hanky from the tabletop. “I hear he is a very pleasant man, and a handsome one, at that.”

Clarinda took a deep breath and willed away the tears that pricked the corners of her eyes. “Well, he ought to be. He’s Norwick’s identical twin brother,” she replied with just a hint of derision, realizing talk of David’s brother had her tears dried up faster than the hanky would.

Missy caught the annoyance in Clarinda’s comment and regarded her mistress’ reflection in the looking glass. “You two do not get along?” she wondered, placing another curl in the coiffure she was creating.

Realizing her maid might speak of the rift between her and Daniel with the other servants, Clarinda quickly waved a hand as if it was nothing. “Oh, we get along fine,” she lied, surprised her voice didn’t give her away. “I only mean that he’s so good looking because he is the epitome of his late brother.”

Truth be told, she didn’t know if Daniel still looked anything like David. She couldn’t imagine him having changed much in two years, though. Although, if she gave it some more thought, she could imagine his hair thin on top and turning gray, the crinkles around his eyes becoming deep wrinkles, age spots covering his face and hands, his eyebrows turning into a bushy white unibrow looking something like an albino caterpillar, all his teeth but one or two missing, his cheeks sunken, dark circles beneath his eyes ... trouble was, David would have looked like that, too, if he had lived to be a hundred-and-ten.

Clarinda shivered, pushing the image out of her mind as Missy announced she was almost done with her hair. “Finally. I’m
starving
,” Clarinda said as she got up from the dressing table and made her way to the door. “I’m off to indulge my appetite, Missy,” she claimed happily. “After all, I can let my figure go for an entire year!”

Daniel Fitzwilliam followed Porter as the majordomo preceded him to the earl’s bedchamber, his boot heels clicking on the glossy marble floor of the vestibule and hall. Before his arrival at Norwick House just moments before, Daniel had thought to insist on a guest suite, unsure as to the length of his stay and not wanting to disrupt a household already reeling from an untimely death. But Porter seemed to expect his arrival and commented that the earl’s suite was in readiness.

“Already?” he’d asked, masking his surprise by keeping his face impassive. Daniel had managed to become quite good at the expression of blandness – it was the only one he allowed to show these days.

“Yes, my lord,” Porter responded with a nod.

“And what of my brother’s ... effects?” Daniel asked this last with a bit of trepidation. Although he had on occasion employed an adequate tailor in the village near Norwick Park, he did not have the quantity of clothing he would require for formal dinners and
ton
events in London. The last thing he wanted to have to deal with at this point was an appointment with a London-based tailor and the wait for suitable clothes to be made.

“The countess was quite insistent they be kept for you or your valet’s review,” Porter offered in reply. “Her thought was that everything would fit you, but she wasn’t sure if the styles would be to your liking.”

Daniel considered this comment, wondering why it would bother him. He wasn’t
that
different from his brother – in
anything
. If a suit of clothing suited David, it would no doubt suit him. “Very generous of her ladyship,” Daniel offered, pausing as Porter opened the door to the earl’s bedchamber. He stepped over the threshold as the majordomo stepped aside, pausing for only a moment as his gaze swept the room. The deep navy blue fabrics that draped the windows and formed the bed curtains and counterpane were an elegant contrast with the rich golds that made up the fringe trims, pillows and chair coverings. The two large dressers, matching nightstands, and four-poster bed were all made from rosewood, their lines rather more masculine than Daniel would expect for such furnishings. A couple of paintings graced the walls, although, with his quick perusal, he didn’t take the time to determine their artists or their subjects. An Aubusson patterned carpet covered the entire floor.