By slow degrees, she became aware of the sun coming in through the parlor curtains, and the vases of flowers, and the tea tray from earlier, still sitting on the table across the room. They were downstairs, in broad daylight, and her husband buried to the hilt within her. She would always be improper, she realized, at least in this.
But she wasn’t sorry, and she was trying very hard not to feel ashamed.
“Goodness, Josie.” Warren took her face between his palms and kissed her nose, her eyes, her cheeks. His talented tongue made a foray up and down her neck, and then back again, to end in a kiss beneath her chin. “My goodness.”
That was all he said for a while, which was more than she could say in her breathless satiety. At length he moved away from her, so she could sit primly again. He dressed, tucking and smoothing and buttoning his many buttons, then knelt and helped her arrange her wrinkled skirts. Little good it did to compose her appearance, when she was still wet and sore underneath.
He put his hands on her knees and squeezed a little, flashing one of his handsome grins. “I don’t know how you’ll ever learn to converse properly when our lessons descend to such depravities. How naughty you are, to distract me so.”
“You suggest this episode is my fault?” she asked hotly. “You’re the one who does lessons with a riding crop in your hand, and my skirts tossed up about my ears.”
“How else are you going to learn? By the way, the answer to any dowager’s complaint about digestion is a delicate and concerned tsk, and a wish that she should be feeling better soon. Do you think you can remember that for next time?” He picked up the crop and flicked it against her ankle, still grinning.
She forgot everything when he smiled at her that way.
*** *** ***
Over the next few weeks, Warren settled into the role of husband and disciplinarian with great contentment. He nurtured Josephine, taking pains to amuse her and squire her about society. No one could have the impression now that he didn’t care for his wife. In point of fact, he lusted after her quite shamelessly, and continued to do coarse and immoral things to her body. He liked that aspect of their marriage quite a lot.
He liked that the pinched, tense lines had mostly disappeared from around her mouth, and that the dark circles had faded from beneath her eyes. He liked that he was used to the sound of her laughter now. He liked that she was trying so hard to behave as his perfect wife, and liked spanking her when she didn’t quite manage it. He liked everything about her.
Perhaps he even loved her.
Was it love that made him draw her closer when they did carnal things together? Was it love that enticed him to spend most nights in her frilly, feminine bed rather than skulking back to his own? Was it love that made him glare at any gentleman who looked at her too long as they strolled in the park? He knew he didn’t want to live away from her. He had promised she might hide away in the country if she couldn’t bear to go on in society, but he wished he hadn’t said such an outrageous thing.
So he took her about town whenever he could, to the theater and the park, and to dinners and social events, to help her grow more comfortable. He danced with her at balls, and flirted with her right in the open, until it became the thing to do. Other gentlemen began to flirt and dance with
their
wives, causing the frowning matrons to wave their fans and declare it an unseemly display. Such was society—one had to keep a sense of humor about it, or go stark-raving mad.
And he didn’t wish Josephine to go mad. She had endured too much grief and hardship to lose her wits now. He told her so sometimes, when they had raw, whispered conversations about her fears and what she hoped for the future.
God, please let them have a future. He’d come to care for her so much.
“Warren? Are you listening to me?”
Minette tugged at his sleeve. He’d been staring moon-eyed at his wife again, in full view of every dandy in Hyde Park. “Pardon me,” he muttered. “What did you say?”
“I said that Lady Chastity has accepted a marriage proposal from Lord Goss. Isn’t it romantic? They’ve been friends forever, since they were eleven or twelve.”
“That does sound romantic,” he said with a wink at Josephine. He escorted both women on his arm, although the arm with Minette endured considerably more pulling and jostling.
“They won’t have the wedding until next year, although Chastity wished it to be sooner. But she has so many things to order, and so much to plan. They’re to have a big nuptial breakfast at her father’s estate in the country, with flowers and swans.”
“Swans,” Josephine exclaimed, because he had taught her that one must balance conversation, and not stay silent too long. “How pretty that will be.”
Minette launched into a breathless recitation of her own wedding plans, where she might have swans and flowers, and oh, rainbows if the weather could be made to cooperate, and white bunting all over the place. Josephine smiled as Warren tipped his hat to Arlington, who trotted toward them atop his horse.
“Good day to you, Lady Minette, Lady Warren,” he said, greeting them with ducal politeness. “And Warren, well met. I was just about to leave before the midday crush.”
“You’d better go soon, then.” As he said it, a great group of Minette’s friends bore down upon them, trailing prune-faced chaperones. Some of the young ladies looked wistfully upon the “Viking duke,” who was the
ton
’s most desirable bachelor at present. Arlington, of course, made sure to be well away before the group arrived.
Warren waited with Josephine as the young people crowded around Minette. They had a special invitation to view the Royal Menagerie at the Tower, and they wished for Minette to accompany them. “May I?” she asked, turning to Warren. “Oh, please. How I have wanted to go!”
Warren and his friends had taken Minette to see the menagerie a year or so ago. She doubtless didn’t remember because she’d spent the entire time gawping at August rather than looking at the exhibits. “I suppose you may go, if your friends’ chaperones don’t mind an extra ninny to look after.”
“I am not a ninny,” she said, tapping the brim of his hat with her fan. “And you must come too, you and Josephine. It’ll be delightful, peering into the cages at all the exotic beasts.”
“I don’t believe I want to go,” said Josephine, her hand tightening on his arm. “If there will be animals there.”
“And you call me a ninny,” Minette teased. “Of course there will be animals there. That’s what a menagerie is, all kinds of curious creatures. Bears, lions, monkeys, even huge elephants lumbering about. There are tigers too, snarling and stalking to and fro, with great piercing eyes and claws as big as a man’s head. Honestly, Josephine, you should want to go most of all, because you’ve lived in so many wild places. Come with us, won’t you?”
“No, Minette,” he broke in. “She doesn’t want to go.” In fact, since Minette had brought up the tiger, his wife had gone quite pale. “Go along with the other young people. Josephine and I shall go quietly home like old married folks.”
“Oh, but…” She began again to entreat Josephine but his furrowed brows silenced her. “Very well. I’ll have Lady Julia’s carriage bring me home when we’re done, and I’ll tell you about my adventures. And then you’ll wish you’d gone!” With those words, she hooked arms with Lady Julia and another friend and set off across the park.
“Did you wish to go?” Josephine turned to him in dismay. “I’m sorry. I ought to have asked you.”
“There’s no need to feel sorry. Caged animals give me the chills.” He took her hand and squeezed it. “It gave you a start to hear about the tiger, didn’t it?”
“A little bit.”
“Would you like to go sit down?”
He drew her to a bench, away from the growing crowds. She sat beside him with her hands clasped in her lap and gave a little sigh.
“I feel I’ve disappointed my friend. Minette has been so kind to me.” Her hands clasped tighter. “Perhaps I ought to have gone as she wished.”
“Minette will be fine in the company of the other young ladies. The lot of them will soon be surrounded by admiring suitors, and none will give a whit for the animals.”
Josephine smiled. “Your sister cares nothing for suitors. Her heart is already given.”
“To whom?”
“To Lord Augustine, of course.”
Warren laughed. “That silly
tendre
. Well, I’m afraid she’s going to be disappointed there. August’s under pressure to marry Lord Colton’s daughter. Family politics and matters of that sort. I expect he’ll give in and offer for her before Christmas.”
“Minette will be crushed.”
“No, she won’t. She knows as well as any of us that a match with August would never work. He sees her as a little sister.
My
little sister. I wouldn’t allow him to court her even if he wanted to.”
“Why not? He’s your friend.”
Warren snorted. “Exactly. I know where he’s been and what he’s done, and what he likes to do. And right now, thanks to you, I’m trying very hard not to picture him doing such things to my sister.”
“You mean the sort of things you do to me?” she asked in a curt tone. “How protective you are, except when it comes to your own wife.”
“Hmm.” He frowned and pulled at his gloves. “I protect you. I protected you when I married you, didn’t I?”
She wouldn’t look at him. “I suppose.”
“You sound churlish, my dear. Shall I borrow Arlington’s riding crop and take you behind a copse of trees to correct the problem?”
Her gaze flew to his, and then over toward the Duke of Arlington, who rode with a large black crop tucked beneath his arm. She shut her mouth, sufficiently threatened against further peevishness.
“Speaking of Arlington,” he said, touching the back of her hand. “He’s giving a garden party next week, and he’s invited us. It’s to be outdoors, with dancing and games, a fun and frivolous affair, but still the sort of thing one might bring one’s wife to.”
She peered over at him. “Does His Grace hold garden parties that one might
not
bring one’s wife to?”
“I’m not going to answer that.” He’d been to some parties at Arlington’s that would have sent the devil running for cover, but that didn’t seem salient to the present conversation.
Josephine sighed, looking out across the park. “Do you think I’m fun?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean…” She bit at her lip. “You are very fun and frivolous. I think you always have been. I wonder if you wished for a fun and frivolous wife to take to these fun and frivolous parties you and your friends enjoy.”
“I like my present wife very much, thank you.”
“You know what I mean,” she said impatiently.
“I’m afraid I don’t. Are you asking if I wish you to be more fun and frivolous? I tend to believe we balance one another out. I have a tendency to lackadaisical behavior, while you’re a more sober sort.” He didn’t know if that was the right thing to say, but he hoped it was. “Do you wish I was a more serious person, like you? In the end, we are who we are, and we’re married for life, so we must make the best of it.”
“Is that what you’re doing?” she asked. “Making the best of it?”
Warren turned and scanned the park. “Where is Arlington with that damned crop?” He turned back to her and took her hands. “I care for you very much, and I like you just as you are.”
“That’s not true. You spank me all the time for displeasing you.”
“Because you can be damned ornery when you feel like it. I love you, Josephine,” he said, and realized he meant it. “Do you love me?”
She stared at him. “You love me?”
He frowned, all the angst of his confession swirling inside him. “Why are you answering my question with another question? You wonder why I spank you so much. Do you care for me, Josie?” That seemed a safer tack. “Do I make you happy? I’m trying to.”
At last she squeezed his hands with a tremulous smile. “I do love you. Sometimes I can’t believe you really love me, with my poor manners, and the way I irritate you.”
“Sometimes I can’t believe it either,” he teased. “But I enjoy spanking you immensely,” he added in a lower voice. “So I suppose it all squares up in the end.”
Josephine tried to look outraged, but then laughed along with him, and he realized that yes, he hadn’t lied. He loved her, and he ought to have told her so before now. What a humbling development, to fall in love with one’s wife. His gentlemen friends would never stop ribbing him, just as they ribbed Townsend.
Warren decided he didn’t really care.
Warren held the sugar bowl for the Dowager Countess Overbrook, who happened to be one of the more influential dragons in society. Even better, the lady was his mother’s older sister, and had dandled him on her knee when he was an infant. Such fond connections could prove useful, particularly when you were trying to secure your wife’s position within the social tier.
“Are you comfortable?” he asked. “Are you sure you won’t have another cake?”
“Oh, no. I’ve had quite enough. You know, my digestion is not what it was. I make it a rule not to overindulge.”
He had counted nine cakes upon his aunt’s plate at one point, but he gave a delicate and concerned tsk, and wished that she should be feeling better soon. After that, they fussed with chairs and place settings so she might not be too much in the sun. When she settled, she gave a great sigh of contentment.
“Indeed, one cannot fault the Duke of Arlington for his elegant garden parties,” she said in her warbling voice. “His Grace’s events are strictly upper crust.”
“Yes, Auntie. Of a certainty,” Warren agreed. The matron’s line of vision did not include the front lawn, where a grabby game of Blind Man’s Bluff was underway.
“And you, young Warren,” she said, turning to him. “I must say you’ve turned out very smartly. Your mother would have been proud of the man you’ve become.”
“How kind of you to say.”
“She would have liked your new wife too. I heard from Lady Fairglen that your countess grew up an unclothed savage in the jungles of Africa, but I told her straight away that I’d not believe such nonsense, nor allow her to repeat it to anyone else. ‘No,’ I said to her, ‘my nephew would never marry such a woman, even if she is a baroness.’ She is a baroness, isn’t she, dear Idylwild?”