To Tame a Countess (Properly Spanked 2)

“Don’t worry, I’ll take care of everything. You only have to be there and gaze at me lovingly, so Stafford can choke on his blasted rings and all the gossip can be put to rest. Now, please, get up. We’re riding an hour away.”

He said he would take care of everything, but he wasn’t the one everyone would be staring at. He wasn’t the one everyone thought strange and daft. “I don’t know how to ride very well.” She knew she sounded sullen, but she couldn’t help it. “Maybe you ought to go without me.”

“No, you must come because I’ve a surprise, as I told you. We’ll take the curricle.” He whipped off the sheets and picked her up, and threw her over his shoulder like a sack of grain. “Come and see what else I’ve got you, lazy miss.”

She clung to his coat, bouncing along through the passageway between their rooms and into her dressing room, which was previously quite empty for honeymoon purposes. He set her down and gestured proudly to a row of lace- and ribbon-trimmed gowns. One was of pale gray, another lavender, and the other two cream and white, embellished with pastel flowers.

She looked about for her mourning wear. “Those are pretty, but where are my gowns?”

“These are your gowns, silly. I sent your black ones into town and had the seamstress do up these new ones based on the measurements. Of course, you shall have more once we get to London, in all sorts of colors, but these will do for a start.”

“But…where are they? My black gowns?”

His lips tightened a little. “I don’t know. I told her to give them to the poor house when she was finished. You don’t need them any longer.”

She stared at him. “I’m in mourning.”

“For whom? For your parents? They died over a year ago, and anyway, you said you hated them.”

“I want my black gowns back.”

She felt curiously close to tears. It seemed a betrayal, for him to take them away without even asking first. They were the mourning gowns the Baxters had so kindly provided when she first arrived from India, the first proper English gowns she’d had. Perhaps they had grown a bit worn, but they suited her and allowed her to avoid such horrible things as grand entertainments.

“It was very wrong of you to give away my clothes,” she said. She couldn’t bear to look at the ones he’d gotten her. “You didn’t even give me a choice.”

“Because you don’t have a choice.” He sounded as irritated as she. “A countess cannot alternate three plain black gowns interminably, and avoid becoming the subject of gossip.”

“I was in mourning!”

“You weren’t in mourning, Josephine. You were in hiding, and you can’t hide anymore. The gray and lavender might be considered half-mourning, if you must cling to this nonsense.”

Nonsense, he said. It wasn’t nonsense, and the gray and lavender looked nothing like mourning gowns, with their fine trims and ruffles and lace. She needed to hide, or else she’d be studied and scrutinized as she was in India for so many years. She stared at the loathsome, beautiful things until tears blurred her vision.

“I thought you would be happy,” he said in a hurt voice. “I thought the dressmaker did very well in the colors, for your eyes and your hair. You’re going to wear these gowns, Josephine.”

He said it in the same way he had said poor behavior has consequences that day in the woods. She put her face in her hands and tried to master her feelings, but the tears overflowed anyway. That tone of his frightened her. Balls frightened her, and society, and finely dressed husbands, and exquisitely crafted frocks.

“Wear the gray, if you’re going to get upset,” he said gruffly. “It’s the closest to black. There are new stays too, and stockings, and slippers to match.”

“Thank you,” she choked out.

“I’ll send one of Minette’s maids to help you dress. I suppose you must have your own lady’s maid when we get to London.” She heard him turn to go, but then he came back and took her arm. He embraced her, pressing his cheek against hers while she stood there feeling naked and scared. “I’m sorry. I never imagined you’d react this way.”

That only made her feel worse. Yes, she was so hopelessly strange. He dug in his pocket for a square of linen and dabbed at her cheeks. “Perhaps you only need some fresh air and sunshine. I’ll have them put a team to the curricle, if you’ll come down when you’re ready.”

“Yes, my lord,” she said, avoiding his gaze.

He tipped her chin up. “Don’t ‘my lord’ me right now, if you please. I’m not scolding.” He bit his lip, staring at her in a disconcerting way. “I’m only trying to understand you.”

Josephine wished him the best of luck with that. Most times, she couldn’t even understand herself.

*** *** ***

Soon afterward, they set out in the curricle on his “surprise” journey. Lord Warren took the ribbons, since there was no room for a groom on the sleek conveyance. He handled the spirited horses with the same nonchalant expertise he displayed in everything else. She sat beside him in her elegant new silver dress. He had called it gray to make her feel better, but it was silver, with iridescent pearl trim. It must have cost a fortune, and she’d sobbed over it like some sort of madwoman.

She still felt unsettled by his words. You weren’t in mourning, Josephine. You were in hiding. He dissected her so easily, with his blunt, blasé facility. He dug down to her truths and flung them at her, but she had no such ability to understand him.

No, she only knew that he was rich, and skilled at bed play, and good with horses. Now and again he looked down at her and smiled, but most of the time he kept his eyes on the bumpy country roads. It was a pleasant spring day, not too chilly, but not too warm either. It seemed all of England waited to bloom, with unexpected color peeking out here and there.

“We’ve nearly arrived, I think,” he said, after an hour or so had passed.

“Where are we going?”

“Shall I ruin the surprise?”

“I’m curious,” she said in a pleading tone.

He smiled. “We’re headed to Maitland Glen and the surrounding barony, if I haven’t lost my way.”

She was too shocked at first to respond. “Maitland Glen? My father’s home?”

“Your home now. It’s not so distant from my country estate. Close enough to visit, on any account. Don’t you wish to see it?”

She blinked at him. “Of course I do. I just didn’t know it was so close.” Her voice trailed off at the end. How paltry, to not know where her holdings lay, when she had been the baroness for over a year. She only had the vaguest notion to what part of England Lord Warren had brought her when he married her, but now she realized that yes, their properties must be in proximity. She remembered Lord Warren lecturing her about the Maitland title and holdings. She wondered who had been managing the estate while her father was away.

“It’s not a vast holding,” he said, as if to answer her thoughts. “I could find no record of a steward, nor extended family interest, but perhaps it wasn’t warranted. You’ve ten acres and a manor house, and no tenants I could find.”

“You looked?”

“I had someone look into it, yes. The Maitland barony is a modest estate, but it’s your own, and I thought it might be pleasant to see it before we head back to London.”

The surrounding countryside seemed different now that he’d said where they were headed. She had a house nearby, and no idea what it looked like. She hadn’t been back to Maitland Glen since she was a very young child. She was excited to see it, and scared, and nervous that she wouldn’t remember anything about it. Wasn’t ten acres awfully small for an estate? By the time he slowed and started looking in earnest for the boundaries of her property, her mind was a muddle of hot, anxious thoughts.

He stopped for directions in a village, and was motioned a little ways on, to the rim of the valley beyond the old barrow. It was there they came upon a very decrepit and crumbling manor house on the edge of an overgrown field. It was fenced, with an iron gate and a weather-pocked sign bearing the Maitland family crest.

She had hoped this wasn’t it, that there was some mistake. This couldn’t possibly be her ancestral home, not this sad little pile of rocks. The walls, where one could see them, were light brick, bleached by decades of sun. The cobbled roof looked overtaken by moss, and only half the small, leaded-pane windows were intact. A dense wooded area stretched behind the manor, having encroached along both sides so that the walls and eaves of the house abounded with vines.

“Shall we have a look inside?” he said in a bright voice, as if the home were not a complete disaster. Part of her loved him for it. Part of her felt cold and ill and sickeningly disappointed. Baroness Maitland indeed.

“I thought the estate house would be bigger. That there would be more land,” she said, trying to keep her voice steady.

“I gather it’s been sold off in parcels.” Warren whacked at weeds and shrubs as they traversed what used to be a courtyard. “But you’ve plenty of money in the bank. If you like, we can set about buying them back.”

She cast a look at the appalling house. “I don’t know why we would.”

She stopped at the great wood door. They hadn’t a key, but Warren gave a smart shove to the lock and the door’s frame gave way. Windows threw light onto dusty stone floors and disarranged furnishings. White covers glowed ghostly in the dim interior, draped over tables and sofas. Chairs were stacked in corners, and half burned candles waited in lamps, their wicks obscured with many years’ worth of dust. Josephine looked around and tried to remember it, any of it.