A Proper Scandal (24 page)

B
ryson was gone from the bed by the time Elisabeth awakened. Slowly, eyes still closed, lying very still, she slid her hand across the empty spot where he had lain.

Coolness.

He had been gone some time.

Whispers rose from the corner of the room, and she listened, pretending to sleep.

Bryson's voice—he said something to do with Dunhip. Also something about his brother. “No valet,” she heard him say. “Yes, a breakfast tray—just the one.”

A whispered answer from a servant and,
click
, the door closed.

Now she heard footsteps. The iron poker against the grate. The thud of a log dropping into the fire and the hiss of flames on new wood.

She opened one eye. The sun was up but not bright. Shadows from the grate animated the ceiling. Her stomach growled, and she wondered at the time. She glanced through the thin bed curtain in the direction of his footsteps.

He was near the basin, splashing water on his face. He wore breeches and boots but no shirt.

Careful,
she told herself.
Very, very careful
.

She'd known all along that Bryson was too complicated and their labyrinthine history too deep for the marriage to attain rosy perfection after one heated night.

It made no difference that she felt suddenly, radiantly happy. It made no difference that he, most likely, felt happy too. All that mattered was that he had left the bed and dressed in silence. All that had mattered was that she was alone. She tried to recall her aunt's words.
You are a gift,
she'd said.
He need only unwrap you. Show him how.

“Good morning,” she ventured. She edged up, holding the bed sheet loosely against her still naked breasts.

He turned. “Good morning.” His formal voice. He cleared his throat and turned away.

Taking care to avoid the bed, he walked to a towering, double-door wardrobe.

She kneed to the edge of the bed and nudged the curtain aside, staring at his back.

I know the feel of that back.

He was ticklish along the ribs.

His strength was in his shoulders.

His hair curled, just a little, along the back of his head.

She would tell him this, she thought. When they'd made love, he had told her she was beautiful again and again, and it thrilled her to know that he found her desirable. He should know the same thrill.

Telling him this, telling him so many things, would be the only way to move beyond a future of formal, wordless mornings and waking up alone in bed.

She would tell him that the idea of a marriage in public but a separation in private was
not
, in fact, what she wanted. What she wanted was to be married to him all the time, including right now, in the cool, cloudy light of morning after a night of transcendent passion.

Including always.

And I will tell him that I love him.

This final revelation formed in her mind all at once, but she knew it was already embedded into her heart. Like the mesh of an iron gate can be swallowed by the trunk of a growing tree. The iron remains, and a tree grows through it. Two very different entities become one.

The love, she would tell him, did not destroy her, or hobble her, or even sweep her away. It was simply a new version of herself, a stronger version. A version so unique, only the two of them could create it.

He should know this, she thought, and he should admit as much himself.

But not yet, perhaps.

Not when he would rather stare into his wardrobe than look at her, sitting naked on the edge of his bed.

“What time is it?” she asked. “Not too late, I hope.”

She slipped through the curtain and padded to the center of the rug. She pulled the sheet with her and wrapped it loosely around her body.

“Not yet eight o'clock,” he said to his shirts. “But I must seek out my brother. And Sewell and Dunhip. Mrs. Linn. We left the party last night without a backward glance. Fitting, at the time, but now I must ensure that the guests made their way home without further incident. That no one made off with the silver or drowned in the goldfish pond.” He put his hands on his hips. He ventured a look over his shoulder. He had not expected her to be away from the bed because his face went from agitated and distracted to attentive and hot.

He turned away, his knuckles white on the doors to the wardrobe.

It encouraged her, that look, and she opened her mouth to say some intimate, personal thing, something playful and light, but he cut her off. “We have much to discuss, Elisabeth,” he said. He cleared his throat again. “You and I.”

She took a step back. “Yes, all right. Let us . . . discuss.”

“Not now.” He fished inside the wardrobe for a shirt.

“Very well. When?”

“At dinner, perhaps? In the meantime . . . ” He shrugged into a shirt. “You may—”

“You needn't feel responsible for my time, Bryson.”

She said it lightly, cheerfully, although it was an important statement, and she meant it. He wasn't responsible for how she spent her days. His nights? This, they would discuss, just as he said.

“I will make my way to my own suite after you've gone,” she told him. “And then I believe I have an appointment with Mrs. Linn. After that, I have work, actually. Miss Breedlowe and I will call at the shipyard today. We're discussing the assimilation of five of my girls who are ready to begin employment outside of my foundation. I've already been in touch with Mr. Dunhip about it. He will meet us, if you can spare him.”

“Yes, yes,” he said, taking care not to look at her. “I appreciate your . . . diligence.”

“Diligence.” She chuckled. “I suppose. But I'm not a squirrel, Bryson. The foundation is like a vocation to me, and I work very hard at it—but you know this. Nothing about me has changed. The foundation is a priority, and I am not one to laze about the house.”

He nodded, glancing at her. She raised her chin and allowed the corner of the sheet to slip, just an inch. Heat flared in his eyes, and he looked away.

“I've work as well,” he said on a cough, “although it will be put aside until I've squared business with the various vendors and tradesmen I employed for the wedding. May I . . . ” He stopped and then started again. “I will rely on you to find your own way to your suite since you are not yet dressed. It's just next door, actually, and I'll be happy to send a lady's maid to attend you.”

I prefer
your
suite,
she thought, but she said nothing. She would wait. If he was determined to run, let him run. He said they would speak in time; he preferred formal meetings. She would wait until dinner. It would be a provoking conversation, frank and personal, but certainly it could happen at dinner. And hopefully conclude in his bed.

“Very good, my lord,” she said. “Until dinner. I will return to bed and allow you to dress.”

“Y
ou took her to bed.” Beau rested his hip on the breakfast table later that morning and crossed his arms over his chest. “I can't believe it. After all the talk about a contractual union. Cold and separate and platonic at home. You couldn't last—not one bloody night. Well done. I, for one, am gratified. My money was on the week, but I'm happy to be proved wrong.”

“Gratified to know that you'll keep chatter light and decorous, even at breakfast,” Bryson said, glancing up from his paper to glare at his brother. When Beau raised his eyebrows, Rainsleigh said, “Why would you say that?”

“The look on your face. The moment you walked in.”

“What look?”

“Terror. Mixed with want.
Terrified want
, I'd call it. You thought she might be in here, taking breakfast. You
hoped
she'd be here.”

“Colorful.” Rainsleigh turned the page. “If you cannot be a sailor, perhaps a novelist?”

“Meanwhile, I happened to see Elisabeth in the kitchen, and you know how she looked?”

“Why were you in the kitchens?”

“You couldn't know this, but some guests prefer to take their leave by the kitchen door. I was just seeing the last guest out. Lovely woman. A widow of a certain age. She wishes you all the best, by the way.”

“Beau, please.” Rainsleigh drained his cup of coffee, pretending he wasn't waiting anxiously to hear the relevant part of this story. Beau had seen her.

“The point
is
,” Beau continued, “Elisabeth was in the kitchen, meeting her boy Stoker. Heaped him with orders about her charity and then offered him a tart and a piece of fruit. All this before nine o'clock. And you know how she looked?”

Beautiful,
Rainsleigh thought.
Exhausted. Sated. Confused. Abandoned.
He looked at his brother, forcing himself to wait out his dramatic effect.

“She looked pleasant, and useful, and lovely, really. As I said, another clear sign.”

“Clear sign of what? That gainful enterprising residents in this house now outnumber you two to one?”

“Well, that too, perhaps. But I was going to say it was a clear sign that her new husband took her to bed.”

“Careful, Beau.”

“Let me prove my point. There are precious few events in life that elicit such cheerful altruism from a woman. Making love to her is one of them.”

Rainsleigh wiped his mouth and pushed back from the table. “You know what I think? I think it's a wonder any woman will consent to go to bed with you at all.”

“And yet . . . ” Beau rolled off the edge of the table and stretched his neck.

“Elisabeth is inherently
pleasant
,” Rainsleigh went on. “And extremely capable. Generous to a fault. It was nothing motivated by me.”

Beau nodded sagely. “Say what you like about the sex, but I know she slept in your room last night. Heard it from a footman.”

Rainsleigh stilled. “
Which
footman?”

Beau ignored him. “You are aware that taking your new wife to bed is
allowed
, Bryse? Please tell me you know this.”

No, not like that—not for me,
he thought, but he said, “I have no idea what you're talking about.”

Beau went on jovially, “You knew this would happen. She promised heirs in that bloody contract of yours. You told me yourself that you've wanted her in your bed since you met her. Why are you so unhappy? You cannot tell me it was unpleasant.”

Rainsleigh almost laughed out loud. Easily, it had been one of the best nights of his life. He strode to the open doors of the breakfast room and pulled them shut. He walked back. He grabbed hold of the back of his chair. “Like a fool, I thought that once or twice would be enough,” he said. “For a time. I thought my, er,
need
would be assuaged.” He looked up at his brother.

“Once or twice?” Beau raised his eyebrows.

Rainsleigh shot him an exasperated look and pushed up. “I am overcome. She is all I think about. From the moment I left her, hours ago, I've been in a bloody daze. To be honest, it's a miracle I left the bed at all. I only went because I feared that I had somehow made her uncomfortable or ashamed. We were so . . . ” He let the sentence trail off. Wisely, his brother said nothing.

After a moment, Rainsleigh said, “I left her alone for privacy's sake and to clear my own head. And yet? She consumes me still.”

Beau held out his hands. “So what? You're
consumed.
Can you not embrace it, embrace
her,
and return to the bed and remain there until you feel more like yourself? Take a wedding trip and lose yourself, if that's what you want.”

“What I want is control.”

Beau shook his head and turned away. “Well, you've done this to yourself. Ten years with no mistress? The most chaste courtship the world has ever known? Of course you feel preoccupied.”

“Not preoccupied—obsessed, more like.” Rainsleigh wandered to the window and nudged the curtain aside.

“Lovely. Be obsessed. There are far worse things that might take up your time. What are you afraid of? That we'll starve because you're too busy plowing your wife to sustain the fortune?”

“It's not the money. The money was a means to an end.”

“
Ah
,” Beau said darkly. “Your lifelong quest to be revered. Bloody noble, Viscount Golden, Lord Immaculate, to-the-manor-born rubbish. A lot of rubbish, if you ask me.”

“Only you would consider an ancient title to be
rubbish.
It is an honor and a privilege to be born to the House of Rainsleigh, one I take very seriously.”

Beau laughed. “Only because you made it so! It was a bankrupted laughingstock before you inherited.”

“That is precisely why I have worked so hard and resisted so much. Can you not see why it is important to me—nay,
crucial
—to hold tight to my standards of excellence for this family? Why I may not allow myself to become distracted?”

“Have you considered that no one bloody cares as much as you?” He drifted in front of a hanging mirror and studied his reflection. “I won't tell a soul that you'd rather make love to your pretty wife than preside over the
haute ton
, but allow me to let you in on a little secret. I'd wager that most of the heads of these so-called ‘great families' feel the same way.”

“No.” Rainsleigh turned from the window. “They do not. Not the men I admire. The men I respect aren't
obsessed
with their wives. It's not the way proper married couples get on.”

“Because
proper couples
are married to their cousins,” Beau shot back, moving beside him and yanking the curtains wide. “Or are neighbors with thirty years difference in age—a union arranged for money or land or horses. You married Elisabeth because you fancied her. And now you want to—”

“I
married her
,” interrupted Rainsleigh, “for her grace and modesty. Her compassion. And maturity. Her heritage. Her loveliness—yes, but not . . . ”

“Her body?”

“I was going to say her irresistibility. But nothing and no one may be irresistible to me.” Rainsleigh breathed heavily. “
This
is how I have restored the viscountcy. I strictly regulate my access.”

Beau groaned, falling against the wall beside him. “Let go of the notion of bloody
restrictions.
Please. In this one, small, indulgent corner of your self-denied life. You overreach. It will hurt Elisabeth to reject her, not to mention you deny yourself for no good reason.” He slapped his palm against the wall. “As a favor to me. Stop with the incessant talk of propriety for the sake of the bloody family!”

“I will not be like our parents,” Rainsleigh countered firmly. “I shielded you from all but a fraction of their rapacious carryings-on. You did not see the full extent, and thank God.”

“No, you won't be like them,” his brother said slowly, reasonably. “
In no way
are you alike. So why would your marriage be? You will be faithful and true to Elisabeth. This is the crucial difference. This, you will do.”

“The difference is, I will be detached,” Rainsleigh vowed, turning to him. “As I always have been. Especially in this. I cannot allow her—” He stopped himself and cleared his throat. “I cannot allow my
desire for her
to consume me.”

Beau made an indistinguishable sound of frustration and slapped his hand against the wall. “Now there's an unworthy goal if ever I've heard one. She's a lovely girl. She likes you. Your only foolishness is to deny yourself what she offers. Marriage is not for everyone, I'll allow. I would be a particular failure at it. But I assure you, the institution was
invented
for men like you.” He waited for some response to this, but Bryson said nothing.

Beau went on, “I cannot tell you what to do, Bryson, but heed this very rare bit of entirely accurate advice. Do not be so adherent to what you deem ‘proper' that you lose sight of what is precious. You've nearly done it once already. Don't do it again. For the first time in your life, leave your quest for propriety and control at the door. And then walk inside, and shut the bloody thing behind you.”