“True, but there’s one little being in particular I can’t stop thinking about.”
Sylvester chewed on his lip as he stared at his beautiful wife who looked like a madonna, bathed in the sunlight that filtered through the bedroom curtains. He traced the corner of her mouth, his smile full of tenderness. “Oh my darling, it’s that child your coachman nearly ran over the day we met, isn’t it?”
She nodded. “Yes. Don’t you think it would be appropriate to offer him something more than the dreary existence to which he’s condemned? Clearly his mother was of good breeding and—”
“Got herself into trouble, which is what Aunt Minerva would call getting her just desserts. Can you imagine what she’d say to us taking in a foundling?”
“I can imagine it very well, but when have you ever taken account of anything my aunt thinks, though you’re polite enough when we visit.” She grinned. “Even if you do rile her with your constant references to letting George Bramley slip through her fingers just to make her turn puce.”
“Poor Mr Bramley. What a terrible decision to have to let her go,” he mocked. “He’d have made himself a fortune if he’d married your Aunt Minerva for she didn’t seem entirely opposed to the idea. I’m glad there are no more unmarried Brightwells on whom he can have his revenge.” He chuckled and looked about to continue with the topic of Mr Bramley and his odious ways but Thea had not yet secured that for which she hungered: bringing a little happiness to a child who needed it.
“I don’t mean taking in an orphan to live with us, but just occasionally to play with James. Please, Sylvester?”
He kissed her tenderly. “You know I can’t refuse you anything, my dear. If that’s what you wish, then by all means, go and organise it.”
Thea pressed up against her wonderful husband and kissed him back with passion. “Thank you, Sylvester, darling,” she whispered. “I thought I might suggest to Aunt Minerva that we visit the Foundling Home today to do just that. She’s been wanting a girl to help with some of the things I was so useful at doing, like rubbing in her unguents and applying her smelling salts, so we’ll be able to satisfy both needs: a playmate for James and a companion for Aunt Minerva.” Thea smiled up at him, her heart warming as his expression softened even further. It was always so satisfying to persuade the man she loved of the rightness of something simply by appealing to his heart and reason. A novelty she’d never enjoyed with Aunt Minerva.
“No doubt your reference to a ‘companion’ for your Aunt Minerva really means another orphan you can somehow save from a life of drudgery.” He stroked her cheek. “You really are a diamond of the first water, my darling Thea. To think how little value I once placed on a bountiful heart, being only concerned with the bounty my prospective bride could bring me.”
If Thea had been a cat, she’d have purred with contentment. Instead she arched against him and whispered, “And to think how little I was ready to value the physical delights of the marriage bed, believing the act a burdensome means of begetting children.” She ran her hand the length of his thigh and added in a whisper, “And since we are trying for a playmate for young James, I think I’d rather fancy a little more of what we got up to last night, eh, my darling?”
THE END
Devil’s Run
Chapter 1
“And there’s nothing else you’d like, my dear? No?” George Bramley found it an effort to keep the syrup in his tone as he straightened up after receiving the polite rebuff.
His bride-to-be had not even looked at him as she’d declined the piece of marchpane he’d been certain would win him at least a smile.
Hovering at her side, he weighed up the advantages of a gentle rebuke, then decided against it. Until yesterday, he’d thought her quiet demeanour suggested a charmingly pliant nature. Now, he was not so sure. In fact, suddenly, he was not sure of anything.
“A glass of lemonade perhaps, my angel? Or a gentle stroll?”
“I would prefer to be left alone.” Miss Montrose waved a languid hand, while she continued to gaze at the still lake beside which their picnic party had situated itself.
George blinked and tried to mute his anger. The languid hand wave had not even been accompanied by a demure thank you as subtle acknowledgement of her gratitude, that not only had Mr Bramley, heir to a viscountcy, stepped in to rescue Miss Eliza Montrose from impoverishment, he was prepared to treat her publicly as if she were as fine a catch as he could have made.
A soft titter brought his head round sharply, but the ladies behind him, bent over the latest Ackerman’s Repository, appeared occupied with their own gossip as they lounged on cushions beneath the canopy that had been erected to protect them from the sun.
Awkwardly, he looked for occupation as he continued to eye his intended with a mixture of irritation and desire—both lustful desire, and the desire to put her in her place.
The idea of the latter made him harden. She was beautiful, this quiet, apparently retiring, young woman who said so little, but whose eyes spoke such volumes. The afternoon sun added a rich gloss to her hair and imbued her porcelain skin with a warm glow. The skin that he could see at any rate.
He pushed back his shoulders. On their wedding night in three weeks, when he’d at last take possession of her, he’d rip that modesty to shreds. The skin she was so at pains to hide would be his, not only to see, but to caress and taste. When she was his wife, the beautiful, distant Miss Eliza Montrose would no longer get away with paying George Bramley so little attention. No, he’d have her screaming and writhing at his command. He would make her like the things he did to her, or at least show him she did if she enjoyed harmony as much as she appeared to. None of this languid reclining like a half-drugged princess in his presence. He’d keep her on her toes, ready to leap to his bidding at the sound of his footstep. She’d learn to be grateful.
Feeling ignored and superfluous, he turned to his uncle’s detestable wife, Lady Quamby, and said with a smile, “Perhaps you and Miss Montrose would like to accompany me to the turret. Since you appear to have enjoyed this new novel, Northanger Abbey, so much, you might be interested to know there is an excellent view of the ruined monastery not far from here.”
He was just priding himself on being so attuned to the feminine inclination for pleasure, when Lady Quamby half turned and sent him a desultory smile. “Oh, I think Miss Montrose looks perfectly comfortable, and Fanny and I are having such a lovely little coze.” As if imitating Miss Montrose, she waved a languid hand in his general direction. “Why don’t you take Mr Patmore off to see it? The two of you can tell us all about it when you return.”
The fact that Miss Montrose didn’t deign to even speak for herself, much less glance in his direction, sent the blood surging to Bramley’s brain. By God, when he was married to Eliza Montrose, the limpid look of love so lacking now would be pasted onto her face every time he crossed her line of vision. She’d soon learn what was good for her.
He inclined his head, hiding his fury, and was on the point of leaving when Lady Quamby’s sister, Fanny—for he’d be damned if he’d accord the little strumpet the title of Lady Fenton—leapt up from her chair. She’d been poring over the latest fashions, but now she smiled brightly up at him.
“I’ll come with you, Cousin George. We’ll have an excellent view from the battlements of the children learning to row. I told Nanny Brown and the nursemaid they could take them in the two boats if the children had been good.”
Bramley fixed her with a dampening look. In fact, he was about to give up the idea of going up to the battlements altogether when his other guest, Rufus Patmore, suddenly rose and joined Fanny’s side with a late and unexpected show of enthusiasm.