Chapter 9
Chapter Nine
Hair tickled his nose, and Cedric moved away, grumbling only to press his nose into soft skin. Lily and rose water. Pressing his nose in the crook of her neck, he breathed.
Such soft skin….
A round backside pressed right in his groin managed to wedge his erection into the crevice of her arse, caressing his turgid length between her pert curves.
He bit back a groan as her innocent movement forced him to think of the last time he had felt pleasure with a woman— and it was far too long.
She wiggled again, and devil and damn if it did not test the limits of his self-control. To his eternal damnation, he was hard. Christ, she had perfect hips, the kind a man could hold onto as he plowed her from behind… No.
He pulled away and stepped out of the bed, heading to the washroom to take care of his inconvenient situation.
Inside the washing room, his arousal pressed against the fabric of his loose trousers with an aching persistence that made walking damned inconvenient. Ignoring the pull, he filled the basin and splashed the icy water onto his face.
The reaction was purely physical— of course it was. After years of celibacy, his body was starved of any sexual connection.
“Of all the times to make a resurgence, it had to be now,” he grunted while reaching for a dry towel. “Of course, now is the day it happens because god forbid my life begins to be easy.”
Bracing his hands on the basin, he forced himself to think of the next few days beyond the journey back to London. How would he have to mobilize half of Fleet Street to track down Leander, and how to go about explaining to Emily about her new, unexpected stepmother?
“Which reminds me,” he rubbed his forehead. “I need to get the marriage agreement drawn up as soon as possible.”
A demure knock on the door had him turning and letting Ariadne in. “Try to be as timely as you can, we have a schedule to keep,” he brushed past as she settled a towel—or was that a dress—on the shelf. “I’ll be in the dining room below.”
She kept her head bowed, eyes averted as she closed the door behind her. Maybe she was half asleep, or maybe she realized he had held her half the night and felt his reaction to it—and could not look him in the eye.
Maybe it is for the best. I have no use for a buttoned-up wallflower with no spark inside.
With the many years of self-reliance, he dressed, knotted his cravat with ease, and checked his timepiece. The hours were flying away faster than he’d liked, and his eyes slipped to the door to the bathroom. Was she ill? Gathering the courage to face him… or sneaking out the window?
Striding to the door, he knocked, “Ariadne, unless you have escaped the room, you must hurry. We have a timetable to keep.”
He leaned his head to listen and hear shuffling inside. Satisfied that she was still inside, he stepped away to don his jacket. His skin began to prickle the more the minutes ticked away.
Did the girl not understand his position? He had little time to dawdle. Every minute of every day of his week was planned down to the letter.
Grunting out an annoyed breath, he left for the breakfast room.
There weren’t many people in the dining room, but those who were there were eating and chatting none the wiser to who he was—but that only lasted for a minute.
The moment one saw him, the ripple effect ran through the room, and the reaction was as sharp as glass; the gasps of ladies who turned away, and the blatant stares of men whenever he entered a room.
He was accustomed to the covert glances, the polite avoidance, and the undercurrent of morbid fascination. His scars had long since trained him to read people’s collective flinch.
“Your Grace,” the host bowed, “Your table is ready.”
Taking a seat in a private cubicle at the back of the room, he made sure he was facing the room. Enemies rarely came from behind anymore.
“Your paper, Your Grace,” the host laid that day’s edition of the Times. “A server will be by in a moment.”
“Thank you,” he nodded and took the folded paper.
While he scanned the headlines—studiously ignoring the scandal pages at the back—he kept an eye out for Ariadne.
“I am going to have a warm time teaching this girl punctuality,” he muttered while turning a page. “God forbid I raise Emily to be this attached to lassitude.”
He looked up again, and this time, Ariadne entered; she wore a cream carriage gown and a coat that she held off her arm, offset by the faintest shimmer of gold embroidery at the hem and capped sleeves.
The simplicity of the gown only heightened the elegance of her form, the graceful slope of her shoulders, the curve of her neck, and her quiet composure.
He shook the paper, “I am glad you deigned to join me. Now, please sit—” he looked at the timepiece on his table. “We have seven and a half minutes to eat.”
She gaped, “Why can’t we take our time?”
Cedric gave her a long, hard stare as the servers came to set their charge plates and the sideboard. “What sort of structure have you had in your life?”
She blinked, “Structure?”
A headache began to bloom in his temples. “You are going to have a hard time with your schedules, aren’t you?”
Once again, she looked like a poor baby bird on the edge of a limb, “My…schedule?”
He reached for his coffee. “Schedules. Plural. It feels as if I am going to have to spell everything out for you.”
“Are you angry at me?” She asked, eyes narrowing.
“No.” Yes, well, angry at myself more than you. Holding you last night proved I am not as impervious to a woman as I thought I was. “I just do not like being off time.”
Ariadne’s face tightened. “Why do you have to be in control of everything around you?”
This bounder!
His jaw was taut, and his eyes were smoldering embers heating up the cold green. “Because if I did not hold the reins, everyone’s life would splinter to chaos, even yours.”
Her heart clenched, “I should be forever indebted to you then?”
“No,” he said. “Because I am getting as much from this arrangement as you are. Please start eating, we have a long way to go.”
Woodenly, she filled her plate with crisp buttered toast, eggs with herbs, and kippers. “What do these schedules entail?”
“You will be in charge of the social cases,” he said. “There are churches, orphanages, girls' schools, and even the lives of some tenants that you will oversee. Can you manage ledgers?”
“Yes,” she said. The food, as delicious as it was, tasted like ash in her mouth. “When there were lean times at home, I managed the accounts.”
“Good,” he replied.
Unable to stomach another bite, she closed her utensils and wiped her mouth. “Are we off then?”
His stare was firm. “Do you need to use the necessities before you go?”
“No,” she swallowed, notching her head up defiantly.
You may be forceful, and no one challenges you, but I am not the weakling you think I am.
“Then we are off,” he said, while standing and tugging his dark green jacket, which emphasized his broad shoulders and lean torso. His trousers fit like a second skin over his muscular thighs, tucking into polished Hessians.
For a moment, she lost her train of thought and only snapped back to the present when his brow lifted. She was beginning to hate that eyebrow. “Shall we?”
It was an hour into the journey before Ariadne broke her silence. “The man who followed you out to search for your brother. May I know who he is?”
Cedric flickered a look above the paper he was still reading, “His name is Silas Crane, Earl Stromwell, and yes, he is my friend and business partner.”
“How long have you known him?” Ariadne asked.
“Since I was twelve and took on the title my departed father left on me,” he turned a page. “We were classmates at Eton, and it was he who pulled me out of the depths when grief and rage had nearly consumed me after my wife died in that fire.”
Startled at such a personal and unexpected revelation, she took a moment to absorb it. “That’s admirable.”
“You will have your own quarters, your own offices, carriage, stationery, what-have-you,” he said. “A stipend of a thousand a week that you can save or spend, matters not to me. You will have courtesy in my house; my people will respect you.”
“Your people?” she asked.
“My staff,” he said.
She nodded once. “Thank you.”
“My conditions are that when we attend whatever social events, you will present as my wife and inhibit the role and attitude of a duchess. We will talk over things that are necessary, but aside from that, please do not inquire into my affairs.”
“You do not want my company,” she said hollowly. Again, it was like a blow to her stomach.
“No, I do not,” he replied. “Also, do not lie to me.”
Gawking at him, Ariadne realized belatedly that she looked like a feather-wit. She shook her head. “You mean to keep me prisoner like Minos?”
Again, that damned brow lifted, “You think these terms mean I want to imprison you?”
“Those terms certainly say so,” she said. “And by my keeping out of your affairs, I take it to mean your real affairs. You have mistresses.”
His back snapped straight, and fire flashed out of his eyes. “I am not a rake nor do I lean into such activities. I am faithful to the one I say my vows to, and I am insulted that you would think so lowly of me.”
“I do not know you,” Ariadne replied.
“I do not know you either,” he replied plainly. “Neither position gives us a reason to judge each other.”
Ariadne looked down at her hand and decided to give him the truth he wanted, “I will not lie to you and pretend otherwise. I must tell you, this marriage, well, the one to your brother was to have with me was not by accident. Yes, I was ill that night, and I suspect my mother made me so, but I do not know how. What I do know is that she—”
“Planted you in my brother’s bed to force my hand,” Cedric replied calmly, “I surmised as much, but what good will that do now?”
“
Taking that to mean the conversation was finished, she trained her gaze out the window and watched as the scenery changed from bustling town to the countryside and rolling hills. As the countryside lengthened, she gazed upon expansive farmlands and quaint cottages.
Peeling his eyes from the paper, he looked out, “We’re close to home.”
“Where are we?” she asked.
“Whitton,” he said. “Twickenham County, to be precise. My family had held a hundred acres of land here since the Tudor times.”
She looked to the opposite window, “I have never been this way before, well, except for that night. I wasn’t able to see the surroundings.”
“And what do you think?” he asked.
Ariadne’s brows met in the middle. “If you’re expecting me not to appreciate the countryside, you are wrong. I was raised in a country seat too, but not as massive as this one. I walked to church at times and visited some tenants with Mother too.”
“Good,” he took up the paper that she assumed he must have read a dozen times already. “Then you won’t have any problem with isolation.”
Around a corner, she spotted the reason for the smoke; laundry fluttered on a line, the whiteness of the linen fitted to the tidy, gingerbread-stone cottage nearby.
Two children were playing on the front lawn with a puppy. To the left of the house, there was a pen with two cows and chickens clucking.
“It’s as bucolic as home,” she said to herself.
As they drove closer, variations of that cottage popped up with more frequency; some homes had two stories, and a few had extended farms. They passed through a town square with bustling shops and storefronts, a market overflowing with goods and food, before they went off to the east.
After a long drive, the carriage pulled up to the house, and as she assessed the house in daylight,
Eight large windows spanned the upper floor, and on the lower floor was a door in the center with three windows on either side.
The house appeared both looming and impersonal, and, surrounded as it was by dense woods, so isolated as to make her shiver.
There was frigidity, a barrenness about the place, and it made her shiver.
When the carriage stopped, he opened the door and descended, his back and shoulders slabs of iron. He did not look back when he stepped through the door.
He wont even help me out! How much of a blackguard is he?
“Your Grace?” A footman stood at the door with his hand open. “Please?”
She shot a look at the door before reaching out for him. “Thank you.”
As she stepped in, she found a man and two women, all clad in dark tones, but the man had a slate grey waistcoat that told he was a cut above the rest of the footmen behind him.
He was the butler—and a young man at that. Her family’s butler, Wiggins, was over sixty years of age. By her best estimation, she could bet this man was not even thirty-five yet.
The woman who stood to the side was dressed in full skirts down to her shoes. She had strands of grey hair at the temples, and Ariadne assumed she was the housekeeper.
“Your Grace,” the man bowed. “I am Allen Hunt, the butler, and these are Mrs. Clea Tulley, the housekeeper, and Mrs. Grimes, the governess .”
Both women looked to be in their fifties, while Mrs. Tulley had slate grey hair, Mrs. Grimes hair still held a burnished red to her dark hair. She almost made to curtsy but realized— she was a duchess.
“I am pleased to meet you all,” she quickly thought of what her mother would say at the moment. “Mrs. Tully, as I settle down in the next few days, I would love to meet with you and learn how you run this masterful house.”
From the smile on the woman’s face, she knew that was the best response. “Mrs. Reid, I will not intervene in how you school Lady Emily, so please, be free to communicate with her father on those matters, and Mr. Hunt, once again, I am pleased to meet you.”
She looked over her shoulder, then turned back with a wry smile. “I suppose my new husband has gone off to speak with his daughter. He was concerned about her all the journey—” she winced a little inside at the white lie. “—so Mrs. Tully, would you please show me to my rooms?”
“Absolutely, Your Grace,” she said. “Please, follow me.”