Chapter 11 Savi #2
She’d laid out the brushes in one of the drawers.
Previously, she’d kept them bunched up in a pot, but she thought this system would work much more efficiently; she could see each brush at a glance.
So too had she found a sensible solution for where to store the rolled-up canvases; they now sat in an unused wine rack.
Or racks, more precisely, for she’d positioned one rack in front of another to ensure the canvases didn’t poke out the end like the head of a tortoise.
Savi’s head turned as a muffled knock disturbed the silence. Had that been her bedroom door? Just to be sure, she went and leant out into the corridor. Her pulse spiked.
Alex stood outside her bedroom door, his face lighting up when he saw her. “Ah. You’re in that one.” He strode towards her, his brows knotting together at whatever he saw on her face. She had never learnt to disguise her emotions very well. “Is something wrong?”
This wasn’t a conversation she wanted to have in the corridor. “Come in,” she answered, her eyes lowered.
“So this is where you’ve been.” Alex glanced around and sent her an approving, albeit slightly worried, nod. “Very nice, indeed. Do you want any of the heavier furniture moved, while I’m here?”
“Not at the moment.” Her chest expanded as she took a deep breath. “There’s actually something I’d like to ask you.”
Because she wasn’t going to let it fester, she was an adult, not a child. In any case, she’d never been one to draw out the unknown, let alone something as infectious as jealousy. She would spend her time worrying about where he was and who he was seeing. Was he with her? Was he thinking of her?
It would leech into their every interaction and poison the affection growing between them.
No, best to put all of one’s cards on the table.
“Do you have a mistress?” she asked, her voice calm and clear.
For a split second, Alex looked as though he was about to laugh. Confusion rapidly overtook it, his brow creeping up. “No.” His initial denial was soft, but then his voice solidified. “No, of course not. What’s brought this on?”
“I was walking by the loch when you were swimming. I watched you climb out—when a woman opened the dowry house’s back door and gave you a towel.
” She held up her hands to stop him from speaking.
“You mentioned there wasn’t a dowager living there at present, and I thought it was an awfully convenient house for a mistress to live in. ”
When it was clear her theory was laid out in its entirety, Alex came closer.
He took her hands in his, lifting them to his lips to bestow a kiss on her knuckles.
“No, I don’t have a mistress. The woman you saw today is called Margo—my cousin.
She was at the wedding, but she was here today to…
do me a favour, and popped in to see Ben afterwards. ”
Understanding swept over her like a warm blanket, soothing the frayed edges of her heart. Oh. “Ben lives in the dowry house,” she guessed.
Alex nodded, the edge of his lips curving into a lopsided smile. “The Dower House,” he corrected gently.
“Dower House.” She crossed her arms, fiddling with the folded fabric of her sari. There was a tinge of embarrassment warming her cheeks. She hadn’t expected to become so tangled in worry at the potential appearance of a mistress.
This marriage was arranged, but her feelings weren’t.
How surprising those feelings were. She’d had a dozen dalliances during her time at Oxford, but at no point did she become possessive over them, regardless of how long they lasted.
Yet in her short time at Silverburn, she’d become so attached to Alex that thinking of him with another woman had almost brought her to her knees.
At least I have some dignity remaining. She hadn’t listened to her more volatile urges and stormed into the Dower House to make a scene. Savi winced when she thought of that being Ben’s first impression of her.
“You’re my wife,” Alex murmured, pressing his lips to her temple. She breathed in his scent as his arms wrapped around her, realising that this might very well be her favourite place in the world. “You will always have my loyalty, Savi.”
She looped her arms around his neck, going up on tiptoes to steal his kiss.
Alex grunted in surprise, sliding his lips over hers before pulling away with a reluctant noise. “As much as I’d like to take you on that workbench, I do want to show you something.”
Well, that had her tingling beneath her navel. Now she couldn’t think of anything but being bent over the rough wooden surface.
“Have you been into your bedroom since we got back?” he asked.
Savi tried to recall. “No, I went straight out after tea.”
Alex smirked, his hands on her waist. “Do you trust me?”
“A question that never fails to reduce one’s trust in the questioner, but yes.”
“Close your eyes,” he purred. “I’m going to lead you into your bedroom. Don’t open them again until I say so.”
Against her better judgement, Savi followed his instructions. She felt incredibly unstable as she walked, but Alex steered her, his muscular arms keeping her secure.
“We’re just about to go through the doorway into the bedroom, but keep your eyes closed.
That’s it. A little bit to the right now.
” The excitement in his voice was palpable—and contagious.
She’d never been a fan of surprises before, but it was a fight to keep her expectations lowered.
“Stand just here,” Alex told her, turning her slightly.
He leant in, dropping a spine-tingling kiss on her shoulder. “Now open your eyes.”
Savi sucked in a breath so fast it almost throttled her. It was her bedroom, and yet it wasn’t. The hideous striped wallpaper had vanished, replaced with a simple ivory—a neutral base on which to place perfection.
Because the walls were no longer empty, paintings had been carefully placed around the room, and not just any paintings; some were the ones she had been most drawn to around the castle, the ones she had asked Alex about.
Most were depictions of animals in their natural habitats.
A family of hippopotamuses by Joseph Wolf, as well as another of his paintings showing a pair of thylacines.
Exmoor ponies by Alfred James Munning. Others were new to her: a peregrine falcon in a tree, fox cubs cavorting in a meadow, breaching whales, each interspersed with vivid landscape paintings.
The large wall opposite her bed was bare except for one painting.
Edwin Landseer’s Monarch of the Glen.
Savi clapped her hand over her mouth to muffle her squeal, fighting the uncharacteristic urge to bounce on her feet.
She couldn’t take it in fast enough, devouring every painting.
The longer she looked, the better it became.
Her excitement jumped up another rung when she realised that the paintings were also accompanied by small wildlife photographs in frames—two on her vanity table, three on the mantelpiece.
“Do you like it?” Alex asked, his voice full of uncertainty.
She turned and threw herself at him, hanging off his neck. “I love it!” she cried, noticing yet more paintings on either side of her bed—a brightly coloured peacock and a stalking tiger. “It’s like my own personal art gallery. It’s incredible, Alex. When did you do this?!”
His arms settled around her waist, one hand resting at the base of her spine.
“The estate’s builders began working on it the moment we left for London, although the timing was tight from what I heard.
Margo and her team put the finishing touches on it today.
” Alex’s eyes crinkled as he looked down at her.
“She’s a curator at the National Gallery in Edinburgh, so she oversaw the safe transfer of some of the larger pieces like our Monarch here, as well as where to place paintings to best display them. ”
Well, now she felt like a jealous fool. “I’m sorry for thinking she was your mistress.” There was an unexpected lump in her throat as she glanced at Margo’s placement of the paintings. “This is…flawless.”
He nodded, his eyes travelling around the room. “It’s quite something, but you don’t need to apologise.” His lips pressed together in an awkward slant. “If I’d known she was going to the Dower House after finishing in here, I wouldn’t have gone swimming.”
“Why?”
He leant in with a whisper. “I don’t generally prance around in my underwear in front of my family, especially not the female half.”
“You did on the morning of our wedding,” she pointed out, hiding her amusement at his embarrassment.
“Two hours before the servants were due to wake everyone. I had a difficult time sleeping.”
Letting out a smile, she reached up to tunnel a hand through his hair, the white forelock slipping through her fingers before it turned to his normal dark brown. “Was marriage to me as fearful as you’d anticipated?”
His eyelids lowered as his intense gaze found hers. “Not once have I regretted it.” Alex slipped his hand along her jawline, stirring her pulse. “You?”
Savi didn’t give him an answer, moving to kiss him with fierce urgency. His answering groan instantly reminded her of their night in London; the way he’d looked, the way he’d sounded, the way he’d tasted.
She may have started their embrace, but Alex quickly took control. His lips glided against hers as his hands roamed her body in a desperate rush, and the more she moaned her encouragement, the further he explored. Trickles of arousal bloomed as his touch grazed her breasts.
“Fuck, Savi,” he growled, his other hand moving downwards to squeeze her rear. His lips caressed her neck, spurring on pleasure-filled sighs.
Lost to need, all she knew was that she needed to feel him, skin-to-skin.
She yanked the end of her sari off her shoulder and threw it to the floor, revealing her short choli—blouse—beneath.
The pleats in the sari had been tucked into her underskirt to keep it secure, but the force of her throw unhooked them, allowing Alex to pull it to the floor.
She almost laughed at his brief confusion when he discovered that she was, in fact, wearing an underskirt beneath her sari, but let out a gasp when he hoisted her onto a low chest of drawers, hiking up her underskirt before stepping between her spread legs.
Alex’s knee had just hit the carpet when the sound of the distant dinner gong rumbled through the house. A disappointed huff left him. “Fuck.”
Savi angled an eyebrow at him. “We could always wait to eat.” Or I could, at least.
“We could, but I was actually meaning to ask you…” His eyes were drawn between her legs, to where her underskirt had been pushed, and she could almost hear him wondering whether she was wearing underwear beneath it.
“Mmm?” she asked, leaning back in a coquettish slant to give him another inch of visibility.
His tongue brushed against his bottom lip—before he hauled his gaze upwards with evident effort. He swallowed, his throat shifting. “Before we married,” Alex climbed to his feet, “Lily and I would go and have dinner with Ben a few times a week.”
Oh. Yet he’d had dinner with her every night since.
“I didn’t want to introduce my theoretical wife to Ben until I was certain that she would be kind to him.”
“Alex.” Savi let out a tender sigh. “Of course I would.”
“I know that now.” He skimmed his thumb against her jawline, coming to rest below her chin. “There was also the added need for him to be in the mood for visitors. Lily is going there tonight, but I wondered if you’d like us to join her.”
Excitement had her straightening. “Really?”
Alex nodded. “I asked him this afternoon.”
Savi lit up with an ecstatic grin. “I’d love to meet Ben.”