Margaret Moore (24 page)

“At the risk of making you insufferably arrogant, you are a most astonishing lover,” she confessed, blushing at the memory of the things they had done together.

He waved his hand in dismissal. “Simply experience.”

“Yes. I daresay it is.”

He shifted forward, frowning worriedly. “I assure you, Elissa, no woman has ever pleased and excited me as you do.”

Still she did not look at him. “I must seem very ignorant to you,” she said softly.

He reached out to cup her chin and lifted it so that she met his steadfast gaze. “Elissa, believe me when I say I greatly prize what you would call ignorance and I would not change one thing about you.”

He cocked his head and scrutinized her. “Well, there is one thing I would change,” he mused. “Your manner of doing your hair.”

She put her hand to her sleek topknot.

“It is too severe. I would have you wear it loose all the time,” he said softly, reaching toward her head.

She scooted backward. “Richard!” she warned, although not very severely. “I like it this way, and I do not enjoy fussing about my hair. I never have, and I do not intend to start now.”

“Oh.” He sat back abruptly.

“Now you’re sulking.”

“I am not.”

“You are.”

“Bold hussy!” Richard cried, lunging for her and pulling her into his arms. “I have dueled men for less!”

“Nevertheless, I am very glad Will isn’t here to see you. He thinks you are the next thing to the king and I shudder to consider how his opinion of you would suffer if he knew you wasted one thought upon anybody’s hair.”

Their shared laughter soon gave way to a passionate sigh as his mouth swooped down upon hers.

After several minutes, Elissa drew back and fanned herself. “I’faith, sir, I need some air! You quite crush me with your embraces.”

“Now who is sulking?”

“I’m not sulking. I’m panting.”

“So am I,” he said huskily. “For more.”

She held up her hand to stop him. “I cannot waste all day…” She paused, searching for the right word.

“Fumbling about in bed?” he suggested, his voice low and soft. “Caressing? Kissing? Making love?”

“Richard!” she warned again, very weakly.

He grinned and moved away. “Very well. But please do not think me an utterly lazy lout, sweet wife. I had not counted on the absolute quiet of the countryside. I wake up in the night and cannot sleep for the silence. I think I shall have to import some hawkers and criers and dung collectors and watermen to provide the appropriate barrage of noise.”

“Is that why you wander about in the dark?”

Richard regarded her pensively. “I did not think I was disturbing you.”

“I am a light sleeper,” she answered truthfully, glad of this chance to find out what he did at night when he left her. He went downstairs, but she never heard him leave the house.

And she had listened very carefully.

“Obviously.” He assumed a furtive expression. “I go to the kitchen and eat.”

“You will grow stout.”

“Not if I continue my evening exercise. The king claims tennis keeps him slim, but I believe his other physical activities account for it, too, and in that, I intend to heed our sovereign’s model,” Richard replied virtuously.

Elissa rose, shaking her head. “You are incorrigible, but I can see why people enjoy your company.”

With a grunt, Richard climbed out of bed, gloriously, marvelously naked. “Zounds, it
would be better if Will did not want to practice fencing so much! I am as stiff as a post.”

“So I see.”

“Wanton wench!”

“I am not the one parading about undressed,” she retorted as he sauntered toward the washstand with a casual, yet regal, air, as if he were attired in a king’s raiment. “Will’s muscles have been sore, too. Perhaps you should not work so hard.”

“Perhaps.”

“Speaking of company, we are invited to dine with Mr. Assey this evening. I have already sent word that we shall.”

Richard frowned.

“I thought you liked Mr. Assey.”

He poured water from the pitcher into the basin. “I do, as much as I can like any acquaintance whom I must endure when I would rather be alone with you.”

“We cannot lock ourselves away like hermits,” she said as he began to wash his face. “The neighbors—”

“Will be offended. I understand.” He grabbed a square of linen with which to dry and glanced at her. “Are we to be his only guests?”

“I doubt it. I would expect Sir John and his family, and Mr. Sedgemore.”

“Wonderful,” he replied sarcastically. “I had better arm myself against another ambush by
Antonia the Amazon. Do you think my sword will be sufficient?”

“A mask would be a better choice, I think. You are far too handsome. I understand vizards are very fashionable now.”

“If I wear one, so must you.” He went to his chest and pulled out some drawers and breeches and put them on.

With a blush, Elissa thought this something of a pity, and hiding his features would be, too. “They sound uncomfortable.”

“They are,” he agreed. “Another nuisance some fashionable fool decreed necessary because he wished to be disguised so no one need know when he was about unsavory business. That is precisely why they appeal to several members of our illustrious court, and not to me.”

She was glad to hear that. “We don’t have to go, if you really don’t want to.”

He faced her, a wry, self-mocking smile on his face. “Lord and Lady Dovercourt will be neighborly, and perhaps the only weapon I need is my obvious devotion to my wife. There is a condition to my attendance, however.”

“A condition?”

“You must wear your hair loose.”

“Loose!” she cried, again putting her hand to her topknot. “I can’t! I have never—”

“If the ladies in the king’s court can wear their hair about their shoulders in the evening,
I see no reason my wife cannot.” He smiled seductively. “It would please your husband very much. Sadly, we shall have to trim the sides a bit, but only a little and I promise I shall save a lock to wear beside my heart.”

She felt herself weakening and then she decided this was a small request for a loving wife to honor. “Unfortunately, I do not know how to curl it at the sides, as the ladies at court do.”

Richard grinned. “I have been a student, a soldier, and a playwright. I am willing to add lady’s maid to my list of accomplishments. Lord knows I have watched enough actresses fussing over their hair to have some notion how curls are accomplished.”

“I do not have curling tongs.”

“My lady, leave that to me,” he replied with a flourishing bow. “Surely a servant can be sent to purchase them in the village.”

“I would not count on that,” Elissa said dubiously. “Owston is not a large place. There is not much call for curling tongs.”

“My lady, please!” he cried, putting his hand to his bare chest as if mightily offended. “There must be a blacksmith in the village. I will go myself on this important mission.”

He threw himself down on bended knee and dramatically declared, “My lady, I swear by yonder moon—”

“It is daylight.”

He glanced at the window, grimaced, then raised his hand toward the window. “I swear
by yon glowing orb that you shall have tongs before night falls or I am no true knight!”

“Whether you are a true knight or not remains to be seen,” Elissa replied skeptically as she went to the door. He would no doubt make better progress getting dressed if she left. “And I think you should have been on the stage yourself instead of writing for it.”

“Y
ou are going to destroy all my hard work,” Richard chided as he caught Elissa touching the cascade of curls that fell down her cheeks as they approached Mr. Assey’s withdrawing room. “And after all the trouble I had persuading the blacksmith to make the tongs. You would have thought I was asking him to make a suit of chain mail.”

“The curls tickle.”

She had insisted upon doing most of her hair in her customary style, but he had taken out several locks on either side and curled them. She wasn’t sure of the effect; however, he seemed very pleased with his efforts.

“Those that frame the cheek are called
confidantes,”
he explained. “Those farther back are
heartbreakers,
and you shall break my heart if you tug on them again.”

“I would call them all nuisances.”

“I declare them absolutely delightful and I
am fearfully jealous of the way they are able to caress your cheek while I can only look upon it,” Richard whispered so that the liveried servant leading them toward the withdrawing room could not overhear.

Richard ran an admiring gaze over her gown of pale violet silk made years ago, before she was married. It was not in the newest fashion, although it did have a low, rounded bodice. “That color suits you to perfection.”

His low, intimate words reconciled her to whatever discomfort she might endure over her hair for the rest of the evening, she decided.

The servant held open the door and they entered the withdrawing room.

Mr. Assey’s house was old, made with comfort rather than ostentatious fashion in mind. The rooms were small and cozy, and the withdrawing room, with its cheerful fire to ward off the chill of the evening, seemed to welcome them.

There were fewer people here than at Mr. Sedgemore’s dining party. Sir John, Lady Alyce, their daughters, and Mr. Sedgemore were the only guests.

In other respects, this evening proved to be far more satisfactory than the other had been. Richard spoke very eloquently and intelligently about the continuing troubles with the Dutch, and then about developments in the New World. She had not expected him to be
so knowledgeable about political or military matters, although she supposed she should not be surprised that he was aware of the personalities of the men who ruled England. After all, he had met most of them, either at court or the theater.

The male guests seemed impressed, too. Regrettably, the same could not be said of the ladies. Lady Alyce yawned prodigiously throughout the discussion, and her daughters seemed happy to talk quietly among themselves and generally ignore the men.

Elissa supposed Sir John had taken them to task after Mr. Sedgemore’s dinner—and quite rightly, too! She wondered if he had heard about Antonia’s allegedly twisted ankle, or if his daughter had wisely chosen to keep that to herself. She rather suspected the latter.

As for her own behavior, she could hardly keep herself from staring at Richard. He looked handsome and elegant in his black velvet, his hair brushed neatly back and tied, so much better than the perukes the other men sported. Most attractive of all, though, was the secretive little smiles he gave her when nobody else was looking.

She had never felt so overheated at a dinner in her life, and yet she would not have changed anything for the world.

As the evening went on, Antonia began to converse almost exclusively with Mr. Sedgemore,
who likewise disengaged from the men and their discussion. Their quiet whispers caused Elissa to speculate about a possible match between them. That was not a bad notion, she thought. Mr. Sedgemore had wealth and a fine property; as the younger daughter of minor nobility, Antonia could do worse.

Indeed, the more she thought about it, the more the idea pleased her.

Let Antonia glance occasionally at Richard then, she thought benignly, for
she
was the one who got to go home with him, a prospect that made it more and more difficult for her to attend to the conversation.

That, and her decision to tell Richard that she thought she was carrying his child. She had been tempted to do so as he had curled her hair, but the fact that they had to leave shortly held her tongue.

Later, she vowed, when they were alone and in bed, when she had ample time to enjoy his surely pleased reaction, then she would tell him.

Antonia detached herself from Mr. Sedgemore and strolled over to where Elissa sat beside the obviously slumbering Lady Alyce, some distance from the rest of the company.

Clad in a tight gown of bright and unflattering green, Antonia was difficult to ignore, and as she drew near, Elissa recognized the nasty gleam in Antonia’s eyes.

She must have heard some new, probably
condemning gossip from Mr. Sedgemore and was anxious to impart it. “I must say it is always a pleasure to see a woman who is so
happily
married. You look as content as a cow in a pasture.”

Elissa didn’t like Antonia’s tone, but she betrayed no reaction. “I am content, and very happy.”

“I hope you continue to be so, with
such
a husband,” Antonia retorted boldly, straightening her shoulders in a way that seemed to thrust her large bosom forward in emphasis.

Elissa suspected Mr. Sedgemore had not heeded her advice to guard his tongue about Richard’s family. “I assure you, I shall be.”

“Well,” she drawled, “I daresay
some
women would even be quite proud to be wed to a man like Sir Richard—oh, I beg your pardon, the earl—who is so used to commanding the attention and admiration of many ladies. Surely he continues to require that admiration, even here. And after all, it is the nature of aristocratic men to take mistresses, is it not?”

“And who would you cast in that particular role?” Elissa inquired gravely. “Yourself, perhaps?”

Antonia could not subdue an angry frown. “I would never do anything so low!”

“Then who are you suggesting?”

Antonia moved far too close to Elissa for her liking. “It could be almost anyone except my
mother, my sisters, and myself. The whole county should condemn you for bringing that man here.”

“If anyone is upset that he has returned to his home, they should take their complaints to the king, who is, after all, responsible.”

“Do not condescend to me, Elissa Longbourne!” Antonia snarled.

“Lady Dovercourt,” she corrected.

Antonia’s lip curled with disdain. “If your handsome husband has not already taken a mistress, his fit of morality will not likely last much longer. We all know his past and the sort of people he associated with in London. Not only is immoral behavior in his blood, he enjoys it!”