Chapter Nine
Tha?s went to sleep feeling almost tenderly toward Eden, who had entertained her with a game of checkers after their spat and made a delicious ragout for supper, after which he read her more of his courtship letters.
She had pleasant dreams.
That is, until they were interrupted by god-awful pounding on the door.
“Go away, whoever you are,” she groaned, placing a pillow over her head to ward off the bright light shining through the windows.
“Tha?s,” Eden called. “It’s nearly noon. Wake up.”
“Crack of dawn. Come back in the morning.”
“Two o’clock is not the morning. It’s time you get on country hours. It’s a beautiful day. Let’s take a walk.”
She tore herself out of the nice, soft sheets, stomped to the door, and swung it open.
“Go away.”
“Christ,” he yelled. “You’re naked!”
“I know!” she yelled back. “I sleep that way. I told you.”
He slammed the door shut.
She threw it back open.
He was leaning against the wall with his eyes closed, rubbing his temples.
“Oh please. You look like you set eyes on the devil, not a woman in her natural state.”
“Put something on.”
“If you’re going to drag me out of sleep, you can’t be scandalized I’m not all dolled up in a gown and bonnet.”
“One assumes that a person will wear a nightdress.”
“What frowsy nightdresses did you find when we went through my apparel? I sleep the way God made me. Naked as the day I popped out of my mother’s—”
“Enough!” he cried.
“You can open your eyes,” she said. “I put on a shift, you prude.”
He did, and they bulged when he discovered she was a liar, and she laughed as he squinched them back together. He turned around and walked toward the stairs, away from her, muttering, “You are truly unbelievable.”
Was she mistaken, or did she hear the slightest speck of a smile in his tone?
“That’s what a man gets for waking up his wife before her rising time,” she called to his back. “And a doting husband would bring his little wife her breakfast on a tray if he had to interrupt her sleep. Remember that for next time.”
She laughed to herself as she walked back to her room. Eden really was so shockable. A true delight to trifle with, being so stiff by nature. Perhaps she shouldn’t torture him so much. But was this not why she was here? No lady wants her husband to shrink away in horror at her body. Not exactly flattering. She was going to train him to be what he claimed he wanted to be, even if she had to scare him a little to do it.
She crawled back into bed and closed her eyes against the light, but the damage was done: she was awake. She put on her gown—the same damned respectable traveling dress she’d been wearing for days—and fluffed out her hair.
In truth, she was quite rested. Eden had gone to bed early after reading her more of his dossiers on potential wives. She’d rejected them all—the first girl being a Philadelphian too colonial to fit his English ways, the second being Scottish, and therefore likely too lively for his delicate sensibilities, the third being a thin brunette who would not satisfy his lusts. He had, of course, denied his lusts were so specific, to which she’d replied that if they were not, why did he have a long list of requirements and a man sending him descriptions of women on paper, as paper would not tell him if a woman caught his eye or pleased his mind? He’d had no answer to that and instead had bade her goodnight at the raw hour of nine o’clock, leaving her so bored and unoccupied that she went to sleep at ten for lack of better occupation.
If she was not careful, he would bore her into keeping country hours indeed.
She needed to quicken the pace of his sexual education, just to keep herself from going mad. A woman could only play so much patience before her brain slopped into mush.
She found Eden downstairs in the kitchen, eating bread the maid had brought from town.
“Well, you’ve gone and roused me. Now you have to feed me.”
Wordlessly, still chewing, he cut her a slice of the bread, slathered it with honey, and handed it to her.
She took a bite. It was delicious.
“Have you recovered from the sight of my bosoms?” she asked through a mouthful.
He gave her a long-suffering look. “Thank you for donning clothing before coming downstairs. I know it goes against your principles.”
She grinned at him. “I don’t have principles.”
“You do, actually. The political variety. It seems it’s only when it comes to harassing unsuspecting gentlemen that you lack them.”
“Well, start suspecting. Now, where’s my tea?”
He gestured at the teapot. “What’s mine is yours.”
She picked it up to pour herself a cup, but there was nothing in it.
“You drank it all.”
“Yes, hours ago.”
“Well, make more!”
“You have free range of the kitchen. I assume you can boil water in a kettle.”
She could, but she didn’t want to. She liked watching him do it.
“My husband woke me up and yelled in horror at my body. He’ll have to pamper me to make it up to me.”
“I didn’t yell in horror at your body. I yelled in surprise at the impropriety.”
“Seeing your woman naked is plenty proper. You disturbed your wife’s rest and hurt her feelings, so you’d better fill the kettle.”
He shook his head, but he filled the kettle and put it on the grate.
“I’ll give you tea on one condition,” he said.
“And what’s that?”
“You take a walk with me.”
She shook her head. “We’ve talked about this, Eden,” she said. “I don’t take walks.”
He rolled his eyes at her, which, the better they knew each other, was becoming a regular gesture. Though, she had to admit, the wry way he did it was not without charm.
“You walk in London every day,” he said.
“That’s London,” she countered. “This is the bloody countryside.”
“Some would argue that walking in the verdant, peaceful countryside is vastly superior to dodging muck and sewage and pickpockets.”
“Not me. I like muck and sewage and pickpockets.”
He leaned against a cabinet and examined her, smiling a little. “Somehow, I don’t doubt that. Let’s try a different tack. A wife must obey her husband.”
She snorted. “Not a happy wife. There’s a lesson for you to take to heart.”
He sighed and shook his head at her. “Tha?s, in all seriousness, taking a lady on a stroll through a park is a ritual of courtship. I’ve paid you handsomely to practice just these things. And you’ve been cooped up in this house for days. I’d hazard it’s making you irascible.”
“I’m irascible by nature.”
“I won’t argue with that. Let me rephrase. Staying cooped up is making you more irascible.”
She could see that he was not going to let her win, and she dearly wanted tea.
“Fine, milord. As you wish. But you’re not going to like it.”