Merely the Groom (Free Fellows League 2)

Gillian nodded. “My lady’s maid, Nadine Lavery, will join the household when Lord Grantham and I return from our honeymoon.” She smiled at the butler. “I confess that my curiosity is beginning to get the best of me. If you would be so kind as to show us around, Lord Grantham and I would like to inspect our new home.”

Britton bowed. “But, of course, my lady. Follow me.”

Colin offered her his elbow. “Shall we?”

Herrin House was a magnificent example of a redbrick Tudor-style town house. The tour of the house started downstairs in the kitchens and the wine cellar, included a brief look at the butler’s quarters and pantry, and the housekeeper’s apartment and sitting room. Although they didn’t explore it, Gillian and Colin paused to survey the small courtyard area connecting the kitchen to the gardens beyond, then moved up to the ground-floor dining room and the first-floor drawing rooms, study, music room, and library. When they concluded their tour of the first floor, Britton led Gillian and Colin up to the second-floor bedrooms, the third-floor nursery, schoolroom, children’s bedrooms, and governess’s quarters, before concluding with a brief inspection of the servants’ quarters and storage attics.

From basement to attics, the house was beautifully appointed with fine furniture, carpets, window hangings, tapestries, and exquisite examples of needlework. The entryway, the staircases, and the drawing-room floors were of white marble. The paneling, trim, mantels, and banisters were made of fine English oak, and the fireplaces in the lower floors were faced with white marble, while the bedroom fireplaces were all faced with exquisitely painted tiles. All the beds—even those in the servant’s quarters—were hung with curtains that matched those at the windows, and the library contained floor-to-ceiling bookshelves filled with leather-bound volumes of every description.

Herrin House was clearly the house of an educated gentleman of refined tastes and old money. Its only shortcoming was an overabundance of heavy masculine furniture and the lack of any real feminine or family touches. And those shortcomings could be easily remedied with a few new furnishings and judicious redecorating.

Gillian loved it. And Colin was awed by her father’s incredible generosity. They left the attics, where a collection of ancient furniture, trunks of clothing, and wrapped paintings stood sentinel over the lower floors of the house, and retraced their steps past the third-floor nursery and schoolroom, back down to the second-floor suite of rooms that belonged to the lord and lady of the house.

Colin discreetly dismissed the butler as Gillian left his side and entered the sitting room.

The sitting room connected the master’s chamber to the lady’s chamber on the north side of the suite. The valet’s room and the maid’s chamber and a series of built-in armoires connected the chambers at the south side.

The spacious sitting room was comfortably furnished with a damask sofa, wing chairs, and a chaise longue that promised a relaxing evening spent reclining before the fire. The sitting room and the l

ady’s chamber were the only truly feminine rooms in the house. The walls of both were papered with a soft, butter-colored silk, and the window dressings and bed curtains were of heavier silk a shade darker than the butter-colored walls. The furniture was painted white and trimmed in gilt. The color scheme created the illusion of sunlight streaming into the room through the mullioned windows. And the polished rectangular mirror hanging above the mantel reflected the light and completed the illusion of sunlight. The sitting room and the bedchamber attached to it were the warmest, most welcoming rooms in the entire house and, other than the library, Gillian’s favorite.

She walked to the center of the sitting room and executed a series of graceful pirouettes.

“I take it you’re pleased.” Colin stood in the doorway, watching, as his bride danced her way around the bedroom.

“More than pleased.” She danced over to him. “I’m thrilled. Isn’t it the most wonderful house you’ve ever seen?”

“It is that,” he agreed, more than a bit tempted to join his bride in her dance of delight. “I admit to pinching myself more than once to make certain this isn’t some kind of dream.”

“The house?” she asked.

“The house. The wedding.” He smiled at her. “You in that dress.”

“Me? A dream? A nightmare, perhaps, but not a dream.” She moistened her lips with the tip of her tongue and self-consciously patted several stray tendrils of hair back into place.

“You obviously haven’t looked in that mirror.” He nodded toward the mirror hanging above the mantel. “Or you would see what I see.”

“What do you see?” She knew she shouldn’t ask, but she couldn’t help it.

“The loveliest bride any man could ever want,” Colin said softly.

“I think that’s the sweetest thing anyone has ever said to me.” Gillian blinked away a sudden rush of tears.

“I meant every word.”

“Except the part about wanting me,” Gillian said. “You can’t tell me that you went to my father’s house hoping to find a bride.”

“No, I didn’t,” he answered. “But don’t think that means I don’t want you.”

Gillian blinked at the honest reply he didn’t bother to couch in polite, gentlemanly phrases. She saw in that moment that her new husband was exhausted. His green eyes were streaked with red and underscored by dark bruising circles, and she recognized the tired lines bracketing his mouth, and the golden stubble emerging on his cheeks and chin. “It’s been a long day already,” she said. “And it’s only half over. You must be tired...”

“I am tired,” Colin said. “But that doesn’t change the fact that I want you very much. In every way it’s possible for a man to have you.”

He wanted her. But she didn’t appear to want him.

“It’s our wedding night,” she replied hesitantly, casting a nervous glance toward the doorway of the lady’s bedchamber. “You’re legally entitled to take whatever you want.”

Colin gritted his teeth. He didn’t need any more temptation. The sight of her in that pink confection of a wedding dress was enough to do him in. He was trying to be sensible. And considerate. Didn’t she understand the danger of inviting him to share a night in her bed? He had willpower, but he wasn’t made of stone. What happened to taking one thing at a time? And not looking too far ahead?