Kitabı oku: «Contracted As His Countess», sayfa 4

Chapter Five

‘Sir? Miss Aylmer—’

Jack looked around the hall and almost turned right around again. It was the wrong house, surely? But there was the famous twisted ironwork of the staircase, the foliage and hidden birds he had searched for and delighted in as a child.

‘Miss Aylmer had better be at home because I want to talk to her. Now. What the devil is this? It looks like a damned bordello designed for Prinny and his cronies.’

Partridge took a step back and then, bravely, held his ground. ‘The redecoration of this floor has just been completed, Mr Ransome. The house had been let furnished for some time—it required modernising so Miss Aylmer gave instructions. No expense or effort has been spared, I assure you.’

Jack strode past him to the end of the hall and stopped, one hand on the study door, his stomach churning. This was the heart of the house for him, the place where his grandfather had sat behind the battered old desk that had been his own father’s, reading and rereading his familiar books, shutting out the reality of the baffling world outside. Jack would sit in the armchair in the corner, his feet not reaching the floor, and listen to the old man’s rambling stories while his grandmother sat sewing, watching the two loves of her life.

The door opened at a push. He took one look and spun round to the butler. ‘Where is the furniture? The books? Where is the damn desk?’

‘Mr Ransome—’ The butler was positively wringing his hands.

‘Is something wrong?’ enquired a voice behind him.

The author of all this. He turned so sharply that Madelyn took a step back. Then she stopped, met his furious gaze, chin up, blue-grey eyes steady. There was the smallest furrow between her brows, but otherwise her face was expressionless. He saw her swallow, hard.

‘This.’ Jack swept his hand round in a gesture to encompass the entire hideous gilded mess. ‘This abomination.’

‘I instructed Mr Lansing to refurnish in the most modern taste. Is this not correct in some way? I carried out the most extensive research on what was fashionable.’

‘It is hideous. Appalling.’

‘I know nothing about fashionable interiors, but—’

‘That much, Miss Aylmer, is evident. You ordered this? Have you no taste whatsoever?’ She opened her mouth, but he swept on. ‘Where are the original contents?’

‘Partridge?’ She said it calmly enough, but her eyes were wide now and her cheeks white.

‘Everything was moved to the upper floors, Miss Aylmer. As I said, only this floor has been completed and there were sufficient rooms to store everything until we had orders about its disposal.’

‘Nothing will be disposed of except for this…this tawdry rubbish. Get whoever was responsible for the decoration and the furnishings back here, have it all reinstated as it was. Starting with the study.’

‘Mr Ransome, if I might have a word?’

And a knife in my back by the sound of it.

A faint tremor underneath the taut words made him stop, breathe. Jack had his anger under control by the time he turned back to her. ‘Of course, Miss Aylmer.’ He followed her into the drawing room, winced at the crocodile couch and closed the door.

Madelyn sank down on to a hard, upright chair, her back perfectly straight, her head up. Her hair had been curled, crimped and piled up, leaving her neck naked and vulnerable.

She looks like a plucked bird, he thought.

Lady Fairfield was presumably responsible for the eau-de-Nil travelling dress she was wearing. Neither the hair style or the gown suited her and she seemed unlike herself, as though she was dressing up. For some reason that only increased his bad humour. He had not realised his wife-to-be was quite so plain, quite so awkward.

‘Where am I to reside while this work is carried out?’ she asked. Somehow, she was keeping her voice steady, but the hem of her gown moved. He assumed she was controlling anger with an effort, trembling with indignation. He did not care. Let her have a shouting match if that was what she wanted.

‘They can do it room by room. I imagine that will not discommode you too much. There are enough apartments on this floor to provide alternative dining and drawing rooms and I assume you can manage without the use of the study.’ He sat down on something that appeared to have been looted from a pharaoh’s tomb. At least sitting on it he did not have to look at the thing.

‘Certainly I can. I regret that my assumption that you would wish your London house to be in the latest mode was so far misplaced.’

Anger at the shock at finding everything so changed was subsiding into a roiling stomach and a strong desire to down half a bottle of brandy. He hadn’t felt this bad since his grandfather died, he realised. It was like losing him all over again.

Jack looked across at his betrothed and felt a pang of guilt. This was still Madelyn’s house and she was trying to do the right thing. Probably, at this moment, she was wondering what she had done to promise herself to such an angry man.

‘I apologise for swearing. You meant it for the best, no doubt.’ He was a gentleman, he reminded himself. He should not take out his disappointment and temper on a lady, even if she was the cause of that disappointment.

She turned that wide blue-grey gaze on him, and he found he could manage to get the scowl off his face if he really tried. ‘This was my home, but why I should imagine it would stay unchanged for so many years I do not know.’ It was an explanation and, he supposed, a poor sort of apology.

‘Your home? But I had assumed that Dersington Mote would be the house that was of chief importance to you.’

‘That was where my father and brother lived. My mother died when I was ten and my grandparents did not think it was the right place for a child.’ That had been on the day when his grandmother had arrived to find he had a black eye and bruised cheek as a result of disturbing his father by crying at night over the loss of his mother. He tipped his head back against the hard, uncomfortable upholstery, closed his eyes and wondered why he felt so weary.

‘Your father’s parents?’ When he nodded she said, ‘But did they not live at the country house?’

‘My grandfather became confused with age. This smaller house was easier for him and, in London, my grandmother was closer to her friends who supported her.’

‘Oh, I understand now.’ There was a rustle of fabric, and he blinked. Madelyn was sitting on the footstool by his knees, hands clasped in her lap, ruffled skirts pooling around her. ‘I will speak to the workmen myself, make certain everything is just as you want it again.’ The faint scent of old roses and warm female drifted up.

‘You have a great deal of experience making certain that the men in your life have exactly the surroundings they desire, haven’t you?’ He found he was irrationally irritated by that. That was what ladies did, after all. The household was their kingdom but they were managing it for their husbands, fathers and, sometimes, brothers.

‘Yes.’ She tipped her head to one side, clearly puzzled at this sudden change of mood. Those ugly curls bobbed, but the movement sent up another disturbing waft of fragrance, a memory of her secret garden behind the massive stone walls. ‘But not men. There has only ever been my father to please.’

‘And what do you want? Where do you want to live? How do you want to live?’

‘Me?’ The suggestion that she might express a preference made her rock back on the stool as though to get him into better focus. ‘What is the point of wondering that? If I want children, a family, then I have no choice in the matter.’

‘Take this house, for example. We both agree we hate this.’ He rapped his knuckles on the gilded scales of the arm chair.

‘Yes,’ Madelyn agreed warily.

‘I want the study back how I remember it, I want this Egyptian nonsense gone. But there is no reason why we cannot decide on the rest of the house together.’

‘Truly? But if this is not the mode, then I have no idea about other possibilities. And what if we disagree?’ She hesitated, bit her lip. ‘Then it would be your decision, of course.’

‘No. Then we discuss it. Compromise, perhaps.’

It was as though he had handed any other woman of his acquaintance a very large diamond. ‘Oh, yes.’ Her face lit up with an unguarded smile that had him smiling back.

Jack caught her by the shoulders and bent his head until he could feel the warmth of her breath on his lips. ‘Oh, yes?’

Madelyn nodded, felt the warmth of the blush rising, although she kept her gaze locked with Jack’s, only closing her eyes as he came close. Jack tasted of something that she remembered from the castle garden—something indefinably spicy—and perhaps of his recent anger as well, and her lips parted immediately as he stroked his tongue over them.

Had he pulled her up or had she risen into his arms? She wasn’t sure, but she was there now, on his lap, arms twined around his neck, his body warm and hard and exciting under her hands.

And then the door opened and shut again with a click that sent her toppling off, bouncing onto the stool, then the carpet, in an ungainly tangle of limbs. Jack reached for her, she felt his hand curl around one silk-stockinged ankle, then he let go and ended up sprawled on the floor next to her.

Madelyn struggled to sit up, impeded by the unfamiliar stays that jabbed in her ribs. Jack flopped back on the thick gold and black carpet and laughed. ‘I think we have scandalised our new butler.’ He rolled over onto one elbow and looked at her, apparently more than happy to continue where they had just left off.

Scandalised, Madelyn scrambled to her feet. ‘I will open the door.’ She knew she was pink-faced with embarrassment. How she was going to face Partridge…

‘Leave it.’ Jack spoke so sharply that she stopped dead, turned and sat in the nearest straight-backed chair, chin up, struggling to get her breath under control. She knew she was shaking, then it dawned on her that it was not only fear that he was losing his temper and would shout at her. There was this alarming urge to give free rein to all the things inside her that were fighting to be expressed. She had no practice in showing her feelings, let alone in losing her temper, but it seemed she was going to begin learning now.

Jack stayed where he was, quite at ease cross-legged on the floor. ‘Really, Madelyn, there is no need to be so bourgeois about it. This is our house, or rather, yours and—’

‘Yes,’ she said steadily, ignoring the distracting sight of tight breeches straining over his muscles. ‘It is mine, just at the moment. And they are my servants. And whatever else I may be, I am not a bourgeois.’ It was amazing that she could speak so clearly, she thought, as though watching herself from afar. Any moment now he will stand up and he will shout—or worse—and I will dissolve…

‘I did not say you were, but the servants should conform to your standards, not you to theirs. It is not their place to be shocked.’ He was not shouting. Yet.

Emboldened, Madelyn shot back, ‘I see that you have adapted again quickly to the behaviour of the ton, Lord Dersington.’ She was shaking and she was appalled to realise that part of that was because of unsatisfied desire. She wanted to be rolling about on the floor with this man, which was appalling. What was he doing to her? She had never felt like this before, not even with Richard, the man she had dreamed of marrying…

‘I have never been out of society. The ton might have been shocked by my refusal to use my title, I might be disapproved of, snubbed and gossiped about, but I have hardly been existing in some back slum. And I am not going to bicker over this. You are about to become the Countess of Dersington. You will set standards and if you choose to make love to your husband on the drawing-room carpet, then you will do so and the staff will have to learn to be discreet about it.’

‘Very well. I will set some standards now.’ Madelyn stood up and Jack rose, too. Clearly, whatever she thought of him, he was not going to sprawl on the floor when a lady was on her feet. ‘I do not choose to have my husband tumble me like a milkmaid in a haystack.’ She had the door open before he could reach it. ‘I will have these rooms restored to their former state. I doubt I will be receiving anyone at all until that is done.’

She swept out and found herself face-to-face with Partridge in the hall. ‘Show Mr Ransome out, Partridge. I am not at home to anyone except Lady Fairfield.’

Goodness, so this was what losing one’s temper felt like. How very invigorating—and apparently it was not necessary to shout or lose one’s dignity to do it. This was power, Madelyn thought as she climbed the stairs, almost tripping over her feet as the unfamiliar flimsy skirts failed to give her the stability she was used to. She gave them an irritable shake with one hand and lifted the other to her lips. A chaste kiss, yes, that was perfectly acceptable between a betrothed couple, surely, but to romp on the carpet, to ignore the fact that the servants had observed them, was too much.

And the problem was, she admitted as she stalked along the corridor looking for her maid, she had enjoyed it, just for a moment. Enjoyed Jack’s kisses, responded to the touch of his hand on her leg, responded to the laughter in his eyes when the two of them tumbled on to that wretched rug.

‘Oh, Miss Aylmer. I did not hear you ring.’ Harper looked out from a door just ahead of her. ‘I am very sorry, ma’am.’

‘I did not ring. Mr Ransome has left. I came to see what state the rooms up here are in.’

‘They’re full of furniture and I don’t know what else, Miss Aylmer. All excepting your chamber and dressing room. Like one giant lumber room it is.’

‘Most of that is going back downstairs,’ Madelyn said grimly. ‘I will have my bath and change and then I have a great deal to organise before dinner.’

And the most important thing I must organise is my own mind, she thought as she sank into the bath.

But when she closed her eyes, the better to think, all she could see was the image of Jack’s face, the way the corners of his eyes had crinkled with amusement, the heat in his gaze, the anger…

It would be a hard woman to please who did not find Jack Ransome attractive, however sheltered she was.

But I am going to have to sleep with him and I do not know him in the slightest.

It was no use reminding herself about all the medieval heiresses who were married off as mere children, expected to bed with virtual strangers the moment they reached womanhood. However she had been brought up to behave, she did not live in the Middle Ages.

The invigorating anger drained away, leaving her feeling slightly sick, just as she always felt when her father had been in one of his rages. Perhaps letting her feelings out was not such a good idea after all.

‘The soap, Miss Aylmer.’

‘Thank you.’ Madelyn opened her eyes and began to wash. She had seriously miscalculated, she saw that now. She had imagined her dealings with Jack Ransome would be a simple matter of commerce—his lands in return for her marriage—and she had not considered the human aspects of the bargain at all.

He had yielded as far as accepting the arrangement—and that was all. If she had thought that she could manage the man in any way, she had made a major error and she had gone from being under the control of one man, her father, to that of her husband. Those few months of freedom she had experienced when the castle had been all hers suddenly seemed very precious indeed.

But now she knew she did not have to meekly obey. She could argue back—she could even become angry and hold her own with him. If she had the courage. Now she was feeling queasy with reaction again. How could she have forgotten herself like that? What if he said he would not marry her after all? No, she decided after an inward struggle with her imagination. No, Jack Ransome wanted those lands, this house and all the rest of his lost inheritance too much to be put off by one flare of temper from her. And men found it so easy to deal with difficult women. They simply shouted them down or completely ignored them.

‘Are you cold, Miss Aylmer? I have laid out the simplest of the evening gowns, ma’am, seeing as you’ll be dining alone, but I saw you shiver. The Kashmir shawl would go well with it and it is very warm and light,’ Harper said. ‘Which jewels do you wish to wear?’

‘What would be suitable?’ Changing for dinner, when it was a meal she would be eating all alone, was a new concept. And jewels? Harper had guarded the dressing case containing her little hoard of gems fiercely on the journey, but she had been unable to hide her dismay at what it contained.

‘I… I confess I am not certain, ma’am. They are all of such an old-fashioned design except that diamond set and most need cleaning.’

‘Then I will wear none of them.’ And if Partridge was scandalised by such lax standards, at least it was less shocking than being surprised kissing a man on the carpet.

Chapter Six

The drawing-room door closed firmly in his face. ‘Well, I’ll be damned.’ Where had that gone so wrong, so fast? Jack resisted the temptation to storm after Madelyn—being caught by the butler kissing his intended was one thing; having a full-scale argument in front of the servants was quite another. He counted to ten, then let himself out into the hall. This needed thought and he was not going to brood under the eye of a collection of gilded crocodiles.

Partridge appeared, expression perfectly bland, and produced his hat, gloves and stick. ‘Good day, sir.’

Jack strode down King Street, giving Almack’s a glance as he passed by. Somehow he was going to have to get Madelyn through those hallowed doors despite the fact that he was not on terms with any of the notoriously difficult Patronesses. He turned up St James’s Street, dodged the traffic as he crossed it and exchanged nods with two acquaintances, all without stopping. He was in no mood for conversation, which meant only one place was safe—his club, where a gentleman could brood in isolation without any fear of interruption.

The porter at Brooks’s expressed himself pleased to see Mr Ransome twice in one day, relieved him of his hat and confirmed that, yes, the small library was likely to be quite deserted at that time of day.

Jack settled himself in the deepest armchair, rang for a glass of brandy and a selection of the morning’s newspapers and barricaded himself behind The Times.

Where had he gone wrong in his assessment of Miss Madelyn Aylmer? He would have thought his judgement of her character sound—he had, after all, spent some time in a career where assessing character was essential, but it seemed he had misjudged the woman he was committed to marry.

If he had been asked to describe her he would have said sheltered to the point of ignorance of the modern world, virtuous but with a natural sensuality that promised passion once she had overcome her shyness, intelligent if uneducated and determined to carry out her father’s wishes for her marriage. She wanted children and she had appeared to wish to be married. She said that she had accepted that she must learn to live in the nineteenth century, not the fifteenth, and he recalled some uneasiness that her father had dominated her to the point where she was completely subservient to male will.

Jack did not want a wife who was a meek little shadow with no character, no opinions, and he had been wondering how to draw out some independent spirit from Madelyn. He turned over the page of foreign reports, which he had been staring at blankly for ten minutes, and failed to focus on the Court Circular. It seemed he need not have worried. Yes, she was still meek and pliant when it came to interior decoration, but displease her and she turned into an icy fury. And looking back, she had been quite remarkably determined on the subject of their marriage.

Clearly her experience with managing staff was different from his. As far as Jack was concerned your staff knew more about you than you did yourself, however discreet you were, and to expect anything else led to sad disillusionment. Or perhaps it was that she had imagined that all lovemaking would be confined to the bedroom with a locked door between them and the rest of the world. If that was the case, then she most definitely had no understanding of men in their twenties with healthy appetites and a new wife.

That was probably the problem. She was shy, she was inexperienced and he had shocked her when what had started as a simple kiss had turned into something that she thought must look like a disgraceful romp to Partridge.

Control was important to her—somehow he had overlooked that. Loss of control made her unsettled, nervous, and so she had hit out at him. Jack folded the newspaper and picked up the brandy, sipping it more for the aroma than any desire for alcohol at that time of day.

So… He would give Lady Fairfield time to school her pupil in the mysteries of London society and he would allow Madelyn space. He would control any inclination to kiss her, let alone make love to her and then, when they were married, she would have found her feet, be more confident and all would be well.

Patience, Jack told himself. He had not asked for this marriage, but it would deliver him something he had not understood that he had fiercely desired, and common decency alone must make him treat Madelyn with consideration. Common decency—and the fact that he was aware of a definite, surprising desire for her.

She was not at all in the usual style of women who attracted him, he brooded. The ladies who he admired tended to be small, dark and vivacious with a sense of fun and, importantly, a certain sophistication. Madelyn was too tall, too blonde, too serious and utterly without any social experience. She was not pretty, she moved with none of the grace that he thought he had remembered from the castle. And he could not make up his mind whether she was intolerably managing, worryingly pliable or a potential termagant. None of which added up to a woman to stir his blood. And yet…

‘Confound it.’

Across the room another member who had entered unnoticed jumped perceptibly and returned a cool nod when Jack made a gesture of apology. Someone else who disapproved of him, apparently.

He was an earl and it was about time he started behaving like one and forced society to accept him. His Countess would conduct herself in a manner befitting her rank or she could retire to her fairy-tale castle. His houses would reflect his taste and if he wanted to make love to his wife on his drawing-room carpet—or the billiard table for that matter—he would do so. With the lady’s consent, naturally. He was not a barbarian.

Jack failed to suppress a sudden snort of laughter at the thought of dressing up in one of Castle Beaupierre’s numerous suits of armour and ordering his maiden to submit in a manner that would doubtless have won the approval of their assorted medieval ancestors. No, a modern gentleman was bound by different rules of conduct altogether.

Across the room its other occupant cleared his throat ominously and Jack got to his feet. He had work to do and there were the family lawyers, the College of Heralds, his bankers and the numerous other sombre gentlemen waiting on his pleasure for decisions and signatures.

Lady Fairfield called at eleven the next morning. ‘My dear Miss Aylmer, such a pleasure to meet you at last. I apologise for calling so early in the day, but I felt it best to establish your requirements as soon as possible.’

Early? Madelyn had been up since dawn making lists and exploring the stored furniture. Restoring the downstairs rooms to their former state was the absolute priority although, now she had managed to inspect the old curtains and other fabrics, she was beginning to have qualms about how possible that was going to be.

‘Thank you. I am very glad you agreed to help me.’ She offered her new mentor a seat and waved a hand to the footman to pour the tea, a beverage her father had banned on the grounds that it was anachronistic. A faint gasp from Lady Fairfield was enough to alert her that she had already committed some error.

‘My dear, a lady always pours tea for her guests,’ she said as soon as the door closed behind the man.

‘I have never done so.’ Madelyn took a sip and tried not to grimace. ‘It is something else I must learn.’

‘Oh, really? I thought perhaps Mr Ransome—Lord Dersington, I mean—was exaggerating about your previous way of life, but perhaps not. You have truly been living a medieval existence in that castle?’

‘I have been living in the fifteenth century, Lady Fairfield. I think if you assume that I have just arrived from the Moon it would be best.’ She smiled, hoping to make light of the matter.

‘I see.’ Lady Fairfield looked daunted, then rallied. ‘Good heavens. In that case perhaps my first question is answered. I had wondered whether you had brought a chaperon with you, but I can see it would be best if I take up residence here, if you find that acceptable. I think my advice is going to be required from morning to night.’

‘Thank you,’ Madelyn said with real feeling. ‘That would be very helpful because I have so many questions and there is so much to learn.’ She had no idea whether she was going to take to Lady Fairfield, but one did not have to like the rope thrown to you when you were drowning, only to clutch it firmly. ‘I will have a suite prepared for you, which should be ready tomorrow, if you have no objection to it not being freshly decorated.’ It would mean moving some of the stored furniture, but they would manage. ‘I think we should start with advice about my jewels and some thoughts on where I can match as exactly as possible some old curtain fabrics.’

‘And we must consider your wardrobe as a matter of urgency. Those few gowns I sent you are only the beginning.’

‘Something warmer, perhaps?’ Madelyn suggested hopefully. ‘I find these cotton and silk gowns feel as flimsy as a shift—not that the undergarments are any more substantial—and they are so short. And pale,’ she added, looking down at the white muslin. ‘And low.’

‘But my dear Miss Aylmer, you are an unmarried lady and only pale colours and white will do. The cut of the neckline and the length of the skirts are precisely in the mode. And it is the height of the summer, so cottons and muslins and fine silks are most suitable. It would not do to become overheated and flushed.’

‘Yes. I mean, no,’ Madelyn agreed dubiously. Pale colours did not suit her and although she had to agree that a modern house in London was much warmer than the castle, she still felt as though she was walking around in her night shift. ‘But I will be married soon,’ she consoled herself aloud. ‘I may wear stronger colours then, can I not?’

‘Certainly, but you can hardly go into hiding until then,’ Lady Fairfield said briskly. ‘Now, I would like another cup of tea. Shall we practise the rituals of the tea tray?’

‘Yes, of course. It can hardly be more difficult than learning to spin, after all,’ Madelyn said, hoping to lighten the mood.

‘Spinning? Oh, my goodness, I do hope you will not mention doing anything so eccentric in company!’

‘But I do a great deal of embroidery and I need the yarn.’

‘Embroidery is quite unexceptional,’ Lady Fairfield approved. ‘But you will purchase your wools and silks. There is no shortage of excellent shops for that kind of thing.’

It seemed frivolous not to be carding and dyeing and spinning the wool herself, but it would certainly save a great deal of time and that, Madelyn suspected, was going to be in short supply.

‘Now, let us pretend that I have just arrived to make a morning call. Morning calls take place in the afternoon, of course…’

‘Of course,’ Madelyn echoed faintly, taking the empty teacup.

‘Rundell, Bridge & Rundell are goldsmiths and jewellers to the Crown,’ Lady Fairfield explained as the carriage made its slow way past Temple Bar and down Fleet Street the next morning. ‘They are the very best. The shop is in the City, of course, which is not somewhere a lady would go unaccompanied, naturally—’

‘Why not, Louisa?’ They had progressed rapidly to first names over the intricacies of the tea table the day before.

‘It is the business area. Your legal advisers, your bank and so forth are located there, I have no doubt, but their representatives come to you, not the other way around. It is the haunt of merchants and traders, not a place for the ton to live.’

Madelyn made herself pay attention. Modern life seemed to be full of snares and pitfalls and she was floundering as she tried to assess what would be considered merely eccentric behaviour, what would be embarrassing and what would constitute a major faux pas.

At Louisa’s suggestion she had brought along every item of jewellery she possessed, packed securely in the dressing case that Harper held on her knee. The doors of the carriage were locked and there were two footmen holding on behind as well as the groom up beside the driver. London thieves were brazen enough to snatch jewellery from the necks of ladies whose carriages were held up in traffic, Louisa warned her, so no risks were to be taken.

The carriage went steeply downhill, then up again. ‘Ludgate Hill. We are here.’

The door was unlocked, the footmen flanked the steps as the three women descended and a doorman ushered them into the shop where they were shown through into a private room by a man who Madelyn had thought at first glance must be a customer. But apparently this was Mr Sedgwyck, the manager, condescending to inspect Miss Aylmer’s jewels personally in response to a note from Lady Fairfield.