LITMIR.BIZ

Скачать книгу

stood, arms crossed, and examined the bed. The room was not nearly as nice as she’d thought it the night before. Oh, it was beautiful and pleasant, all the things a woman could wish for if she had not awoken alone in a much larger tester bed.

      No lovely posts raising high in the room to declare the owner worthy of the best.

      She tamped her hand over the covers. Lumps under. She was certain.

      This was what he had meant about marriage. The tenderness of the night before was like the empty—smaller bed. It had...a rather nice cover, but underneath it was just workable. Nothing alive in it.

      Oh, what a fool she was for neglecting to believe the truth told to her.

      She whirled around, saw her face in the mirror and picked up her brush and pointed at the reflection. ‘He told you. He didn’t wish to be married. Vows and nonsense. Vows and nonsense.’ She combed her hair and reminded herself that it was not his fault. None of it. He had rescued her.

      They had met in a brothel, lest she forget. He was not a saint. He was probably back at Wren’s hoping to...win something.

      She put her brush on the table.

      It wasn’t as if she cared for him overmuch. Her feelings for him only stemmed from the fact that he had saved her life. He could have turned and left her to Wren. None of the other men there had even noticed her—so she was indeed fortunate he had seen something other than his ale and the lightskirt trying to entice him.

      This day would have started very differently if not for William. Very. She didn’t want to contemplate how. She would be in worse shape if she’d returned to her parents. Disgraced. And only disgraced might be an overly hopeful thought.

      She looked around the room. He’d married her. Kept her from being a governess. She needed not be so harsh on him. Not that there was a thing wrong with being a governess. She just didn’t wish to be one. Or at the moment, a wife.

      She refused to sigh and hissed instead.

      Her stomach plagued her. The same way it had hurt the morning after her parents had left her at Madame Dubois’s School for Young Ladies. They had waved goodbye and said it would not be long before they would be back for her. And she’d really thought they would leave and realise how they could not continue on without their one and only child and return. Even the next morning she had expected them back at any moment and was reprimanded by Madame Dubois for running to the windows.

      She had just known they would miss her so badly that they would return. Every day she had expected her mother to rush in, tears streaming down her face, arms outstretched, and pull Isabel close and say she could not bear another moment without her precious daughter.

      Finally her parents had returned on the appointed day and the hug had been tight, the smile sincere, and then they had all got into the carriage and Isabel had talked and talked and talked and her mother had not once mentioned the absolute misery of having Isabel away from home. Not once.

      Isabel had been the most wonderful daughter ever on holiday from the school, showing her parents all the things she had learned. She had assisted her mother without being asked and had even helped the maid-of-all-work, who had said Isabel was the best child she’d ever seen and that she had missed her terribly and it was so good to have her home again. The maid-of-all-work had hugged her three times when she’d first seen Isabel. Three.

      And then when the holiday was over, her parents had taken her back to Madame Dubois’s School for Young Ladies Who Were Tossed from Their Homes and left her again. Isabel had not spoken on the trip and she didn’t think her parents had even noticed. Again they had waved goodbye and smiled at her.

      Then Grace had rushed to Isabel and had hugged her and said she had missed her. Joanna and Rachel had mentioned how much they had missed all their dearest friends.

      Still, Isabel had not felt as alone the first day of the school as she did on her first day of marriage. No noise of other students chattering and playing reached her ears. No instructions shouted about. Perhaps she would have liked being a governess more than she realised. Over time she would have sneaked into those children’s hearts and they would have missed her terribly on her half-day off.

       Chapter Seven

      ‘William.’ His sister’s voice.

      The door opened a peep. He raised his head from the pillow.

      ‘William.’

      ‘Stubble it, Soph. I’m trying to sleep.’

      She was halfway into the room. ‘You look hideous.’

      ‘Thank you. Go away.’ He kept his eyes shut. Feigning sleep never worked, but one could hope.

      ‘The maid told me you were here,’ Sophia called out rather more cheerily and loudly than necessary.

      He tamped the pillow with his hand, still not looking at her. ‘She was right.’

      ‘I was married a whole week before I showed up on your doorstep and you sent me right back home again.’

      He felt the depression of the mattress as she sat.

      ‘So what did you do?’ she asked.

      He didn’t answer.

      Then she laughed. ‘Oh, I remember. At the wedding. Oh, that was endearing.’ She mocked a man’s gruffness. ‘I now pronounce you married.’ Then her voice rose and she emitted a very feminine, six-syllable sigh.

      He half-opened one eye. ‘I meant nothing. I was pleased to be wed and thankful I had found Isabel. I sighed because it had taken me so long.’

      ‘Didn’t take her long to toss you out.’

      ‘She didn’t.’

      The mattress shifted as she rose. ‘I’m sure she didn’t.’

      ‘Send some hot water this way.’

      ‘I think I shall visit Isabel.’

      He opened his eyes and snapped out the words. ‘I forbid it.’

      ‘Mmm...’ she said at the doorway. ‘Remember what you said to me? That sometimes it was fine for me to pretend to be wrong even when I was right because sometimes men were just too thick-headed to see what a treasure was before them.’

      ‘I would have said that the sky was made of gooseberries if it would have convinced you to go home.’

      ‘The sky is made of gooseberries, but you may stay as long as you wish. I will send some water for you, though, because you have a forest growing on your face—’ The last of her words were lost in the closing of the door.

      This would not do. He merely suffered from the shock of the wedding and the fact that the country miss had not known the proper rules of marriage. A wife didn’t visit her husband’s bed. And he had simply not been thinking when she appeared or he could have handled it so diplomatically and swept her up into his arms and whisked her down the hallway into her room.

      He realised he had to go home. He’d had some rest now and he could see things much more clearly. Once he got the ragged mess of a beard taken care of he would go home. He would explain the way of the ton to her. Bedchambers were sacred by morning light. He could no more stay in her bed and risk the ladies’ maid walking in than she could stay in his bed and be awakened by the—

      Oh.

      * * *

      Walking inside the doorway to his house, the familiar scent of lemon let William know his housekeeper had been working.

      His steps lightened as he moved to his private chambers to drop off his coat and then he would find Isabel.

      Inside the room, he stilled. He could see nothing different. Nothing. Yet, he felt he’d stepped into someone else’s

Скачать книгу