Demanding to know would not be tactful, but he was worried. Under the rice powder she was very pale, although perhaps that was simply nerves. He laid his right hand over hers as it rested on his arm and squeezed, trying to send messages of reassurance.
Blake felt the slightest recoil in her as they stepped out and she saw the crowds that always gathered around this most fashionable of churches when a wedding was in progress. He saw people scribbling in notebooks, getting every detail of the gown for the Court and Social columns. There was even an artist, frantically sketching.
The gown would appear in the pages of La Belle Assemblée or Ackermann’s Repository next month: ‘Wedding gown as worn by the Countess of Hainford’, followed by a description of the fabrics, trimmings and accessories, presumably provided by the modiste.
It felt exceedingly intrusive, and he wondered if Eleanor would mind or whether she would be amused by the attention. He knew her well enough to guess that she would not be flattered. She knew all too well that this was nothing to do with her own taste or personality, but everything to do with her new rank and newsworthiness.
‘Safe,’ he said as they sat down in the open carriage and the door was closed. ‘I felt rather like a hunted fox there for a moment.’
‘Yes.’ She gave a little shiver. ‘A mob is a frightening thing, even in a good mood. Today the steps of a church…yesterday the steps of the guillotine.’
‘How morbid we are,’ he said, and she smiled. ‘You look quite stunning, my dear. Elegant, striking—every inch a countess.’
‘And every inch Ellie?’ she said, with a laugh that had a slight edge to it.
‘Every inch,’ he agreed, letting her see his gaze linger on the scooped neckline of her gown. ‘Your dutiful application in eating cream cakes is fully appreciated,’ he said as she blushed. ‘But—Ellie? Is that what you prefer?’
‘It is how I think of myself. But I like you calling me Eleanor. It reminds me that I am someone else now.’
‘I hope you are no one else. I married Ellie as well as Eleanor, surely? Who did I kiss in that field…in Green Park?’
‘Definitely Ellie.’
This time there was no shadow behind the laugh, only genuine amusement and a warmth that stirred his sensual imaginings.
‘Any airs and graces had been very thoroughly shaken out of me.’
‘I like your hair,’ Blake said, following some inner train of thought he could not quite analyse. And, although he had never seen her with short hair before, he rather thought that this was Ellie too. Eleanor was a countess. Ellie was the girl with hazel eyes and the surprising alter ego of Mrs Bundock. Ellie was the woman who faced life on a rain-soaked, leaky farm with courage.
‘You suggested it, and you were right. I like it too now—although my head feels so light it might float away.’ She put up a hand to touch the newly shorn curls. ‘It is a good thing it is weighted down with all these diamonds.’
‘They suit you. You must keep them on.’
She frowned, puzzled. ‘You mean I would normally take them off once we get to the house? I thought I would wear them while all our guests are there.’
‘I mean later. Much later. When everything else comes off.’
He wished the guests to the devil now. Wished he had decided to leave early and travel out of London for their first night. But that might have implied that he wanted to limit the amount of time the guests had to observe his new countess.
‘Blake!’
She was flushed and pink and delicious, and Blake, who had been telling himself that he must do his duty in the marital bed and not be hankering after one of his beautiful, sophisticated mistresses, had the startling revelation that he was unlikely to be doing any hankering at
all.
He had always expected—demanded—beauty and assurance and luscious curves, also knowledgeable sensuality in a lover, and had expected that his wife would have all those attributes. Except, of course, the knowledge. And that would be something that he would have looked forward to imparting. He was still looking forward to that, he realised, smiling at Eleanor.
The tiny lines of strain had gone from around her eyes and mouth. Perhaps it had simply been apprehension and shyness—not, as he had feared, physical discomfort.
He would have asked, but the carriage was already drawing up at the Berkeley Square house, and footmen were running down the steps. Turner presided from the doorway with an expression that might have straightened a crooked red carpet at twelve paces and the groom was opening the carriage door.
He gave Eleanor his hand to help her descend from the carriage, then led her across the pavement and up the steps, pausing at the top. ‘I promise this will be rather more comfortable than the field,’ he said, before he bent and scooped her up in his arms to carry her across the threshold.
She made a surprised little sound in his ear, then tightened her arms around his neck.
‘I am not going to drop you,’ he said as he stepped into the hallway.
‘I know,’ she murmured in his ear. Then kissed it.