Tallie's Knight (16 page)

Lord d’Arenville was
far from his best when he entered the inn’s crowded public dining room to join
his bride for breakfast. He had passed a most indifferent night —again— and
even the expedience of tossing the noisiest of his companions out of bed had
failed to quell the vile nocturnal sounds.

Further, he’d had to
shave and dress himself without his valet.

Again.

He was forced to
acknowledge he missed the man’s skills —Magnus had detected a hair on his coat
when it had been returned to him, his cravats were insufficiently starched and,
worst of all, the inn’s bootblack had left a thumb-print on his Hessians!

“Good morning, my
lord.” Tallie greeted him with a sunny smile. “Did you sleep better last night?”

Magnus gave her a
baleful glance and sat down. He ordered kidneys, bacon and a tankard of ale.
His wife applied herself vigorously to a plate of kippers.

“I gather you slept
well. Again,” he added, noting her bright-eyed demeanour and her clear, smooth
skin.

She shook her head,
glanced furtively around the room, then leaned forward and whispered, “No, not
at all, for —you will not credit it— Mrs. Entwhistle snores!”

Magnus let out a
surprised snort of laughter.

“Oh, but it is
perfectly true,” Tallie whispered, and rolled her eyes. “It was dreadfully
loud.” She glanced around the room again and added, her eyes brimming with
mischief, “It seems she cannot bear to be silent —even in sleep!”

Despite his bad mood,
Magnus found himself smiling back at her.

“So, too, did my
companions.”

“Oh, then you
understand. I do so dislike the sound. And it goes on and on, doesn’t it? Until
you feel as though you wish to smother the person who is doing it.” She took
another forkful of kipper and chewed it meditatively, regarding him with a
speculative expression.

“Do you…? I mean… no.”

“Do I what?” said
Magnus.

She blushed.

“I have forgot what I
was going to say. Er, do you think the wind will be in the right quarter today,
my lor —Magnus? For the packet to depart, I mean. It is beautifully sunny, at
any rate. If we cannot depart today, do you think we might walk up to the
Western Heights? I have heard that the view is most spectacular and the walk
very invigorating.”

Magnus frowned. What
had she been about to ask him? Something that caused her to blush. Had she been
going to ask him whether he snored?

He opened his mouth
to reassure her. Then shut it, disconcerted. He had no idea whether he snored
or not.

Certainly no one had
ever told him he did —but then he rarely slept with the women he’d been
involved with. Pleasured them, yes, and gained his own pleasure. But he
generally departed their beds after the event and returned to his own. He was
fastidious in that.

Perhaps he did snore.
Would his bride wish to smother him in his sleep? It was a most unsettling
notion. Magnus finished his breakfast in silence.

After breakfast he
accompanied Tallie in an exploration of the town and the waterfront, which, to
his surprise, she seemed to find fascinating, despite the smells. They climbed
the Western Heights, where his wife waxed rapturous about the view. And that,
as far as Lord d’Arenville was concerned, was the sum total of entertainment to
be found in the dreary little town of Dover.

But the more time he
spent in his wife’s company the more his thwarted desire grew. She was such a
contrast to the bored, world-weary women he knew. She seemed to find
unselfconscious pleasure in the smallest things, and he could not help but wonder
if she would react with equal delight to the pleasures he planned to introduce
her to —as soon as he found the privacy in which to do so. In the meantime, the
mere sight of her pressing a shell to her ear to listen to the sea, or
clambering over a stile, or running down a hill shrieking with glee was enough
to have him almost moan aloud. He attempted to control his response to her, but
the very impossibility of it unsettled him and made him, on reflection,
furious.

He had never expected
to desire his wife. He felt it was both unseemly and foolish for a man to do
so. He had seen other men in thrall to the charms of their wives —his father,
for one— and Magnus had observed that it gave the wife an unwholesome influence
over their husband. No woman had ever possessed the slightest control over
Magnus, and nothing was going to change that. No, this unaccountable penchant
he had for his wife was merely a whim of the moment, a result of a recent lack
of female companionship. It would pass as soon as the marriage was consummated
—if it ever was!

Damn it! He had never
been so desirous of coupling with a woman and so utterly unable to find an
opportunity to do so. With any other woman he would have dealt with the matter
by hiring a room at some low tavern, or, if the worst came to the worst, there
had always been the coach. But Tallie was both a virgin and his wife. He owed
it to her to carry out the deed in an atmosphere of respectability, at least.

Lord d’Arenville
prayed for wind.

The Channel remained
smooth and still.

Her husband might
have been acting like a bear with a sore head, but Tallie did not repine. He
was clearly a difficult man to please, but she had known that from the start.
In fact, marriage to Lord d’Arenville was turning out vastly better than she
had expected.

Despite his general
air of bad temper, she had discovered several unexpected aspects of his
character which she found rather endearing —unexpected flashes of kindness, for
instance, like stopping the coach so she could look at the sea. She had half
expected him to laugh at her ignorance —but he hadn’t. And he’d made no demur
about escorting her along the waterfront —a place she had seen perfectly well he
disliked, wrinkling his long, patrician nose as he steered her around a puddle
of fish guts or a basket of live crabs.

Yes, Tallie thought,
it felt wonderful to be strolling about the town on the arm of such a handsome
gentleman —it was still almost impossible to believe such a magnificent-looking
man was actually her husband. The feeling of warmth that glowed within her as
she laid her hand on his arm, the occasional bumping of their bodies as they
walked —it was most agreeable. And when he smiled, as he had once or twice, and
those long, harsh lines down his cheeks deepened, and his sea-grey eyes gleamed,
she would look at him and feel her breath catch in her throat.

She could not help
but enjoy all sorts of little things he did. Like the way he placed himself
protectively between her and the roadway as they walked. And helped her over
stiles as if she were some sort of fragile, helpless creature, which heaven
knew she wasn’t, but still it was nice to be thought so, at times. And even
nicer to reflect that perhaps he didn’t think of her as sturdy any more. Of
course, it was probably only good manners. No doubt he would do exactly the
same for Mrs. Entwhistle —if she ever stopped talking, that was. He had beautiful
manners —when he chose to employ them.

Tallie sighed. There
were times when she felt as though she and her new husband could come to some
understanding, when she felt that she could find some degree of happiness with
him after all. But then, for no reason she could see, he would suddenly turn
back into The Icicle, and any attempt of hers to thaw him out only seemed to
make him snappish as a wolf.

Then Tallie would
recall she was not a beloved bride on her honeymoon, but an inconvenient
necessity who was putting him to a great deal of trouble instead of quietly
retiring to d’Arenville Hall to bear his heirs. Well, she would go into rural
seclusion —eventually— but she had made up her mind to enjoy every moment of
her bride trip, and enjoy it she would!

So, she told herself,
rallying, Dover was a fascinating place, and she had much better things to do
than fret herself to flinders over her husband’s disposition. There was nothing
she could do about that, after all. She was foolish to wish for anything more —she
was nothing but a brood mare to him— he had said as much to her cousin, that
night in the library. And, though he’d had enough of exploring the town, she had
not.

Each morning Tallie
slipped away from the Ship Inn to visit the waterfront, secure in her husband’s
belief that she was with Mrs. Entwhistle. He himself could not bear the woman’s
inane chatter without coldly excusing himself after a few moments, and so
Tallie used his ill-concealed antipathy to her own advantage.

She was intensely
curious about every aspect of marine life. She marvelled at the way gnarled and
twisted fishermen’s hands could knot fine and delicate nets. She learned to
identify brigantines, sloops and schooners, and was most excited to have the
Revenue cutters pointed out to her. The fishermen filled her head with
thrilling tales of smugglers, shipwrecks and storms.

One morning a
friendly seaman even offered to row her out and show her over one of the ships.
Delighted, Tallie accepted, and was deeply impressed to discover the ingenious
manner in which its interior was fitted out. The seaman was rowing her back to
shore when she noticed the irate figure of her husband awaiting her. His arms
were folded, his legs braced, and his head was thrown back in a manner which
told her he was not pleased.

When their little
boat reached the shore, he hauled her grimly ashore.

“What the deuce do
you think you are doing, madam?” he said as he escorted her away from the
waterfront in such a rush that she would have slipped on the wet cobblestones
had he not been clasping her arm so tightly.

“Exploring that big
ship out there,” she panted. “It was really most interest—”

“How dare you leave
the inn unescorted?” he raged in an undertone, propelling her onwards at a great
rate. “Have you no idea of how to behave? No idea of the sort of villains and
ruffians who frequent places of this sort?”

Villains and ruffians
indeed, thought Tallie crossly. As if she did not know very well how to tell
whether a person was trustworthy or not.

And, since he was so
obviously bored by her fascination with things nautical, what alternative did
she have but to go by herself?

She was now a married
woman, after all, and had much more licence than an unwed girl to go where she
pleased. It was just that he had these stuffy ideas about her behaving more ‘suitably’,
more like a countess.

Well, it was not
possible to go from being an unwanted poor relation to feeling like a countess
in a few days. Particularly when he kept reminding her of her unsuitability!

“Oh, pooh!” she
retorted. “They are most of them very nice.” She smiled and waved at an old woman
who sat smoking a pipe outside a tavern, knowing it would annoy her husband.

“Hello, Nell!”

The woman took the
pipe out of her mouth and raised it in a salute, baring blackened stumps in a
wide grin.

“Ar, Miz Tallie.”

Magnus swore and
lengthened his stride, forcing Tallie to hop and skip to keep up with him. He stormed
up the stairs of the Ship Inn and flung open the door to Tallie’s chamber.

“Oh, there you are,
my dears—” began Mrs. Entwhistle.

Magnus bowed, slammed
the door, and strode off along the corridor and up the next flight of stairs to
his own room, dragging Tallie with him.

He threw open the
door to his own room and was about to usher Tallie in when he halted abruptly,
swearing. Tallie peered around her husband’s body. A half-dozen young sprigs of
fashion were sprawled about, smoking, drinking and playing cards.

“Come in, d’Arenville,
of chap,” called one young fellow, flushed with drink.

“An’ bring that
pretty li’l filly with you.”

Magnus seemed to
harden with icy rage.

“You refer, sir, to
my wife!” he said in a soft, savage tone. It quite quelled the young gentlemen,
Tallie thought. He pushed her away from the door and shut it. Towing her behind
him, Magnus stalked downstairs and coldly summoned the landlord.

“Kindly direct me to
a private room immediately —one in which I can speak to my wife without interruption.”

“Regrettably,” said
the landlord, “not a one is to be had, my lord. People are even sleeping in the
public rooms tonight.”

The reply fanned
Magnus’s temper to flames.

“Then summon my
carriage!” he snapped.

The carriage was duly
brought round, and no sooner were they seated and the driver directed to “Drive,
damn it!” than Magnus began a tirade which blistered Tallie’s ears.

He began with her
iniquity in sneaking out of the inn behind his back and her perfidy in using a
garrulous bloody cit as a smokescreen! He condemned her lack of decorum in
venturing out alone and unescorted in such a filthy little town. He was
scathing about her foolhardiness in entering into conversations with the most
unsuitable people —villainous cut-throats, verminous old women dressed in rags,
smoking God knows what in evil-smelling pipes!

Tallie sat, her hands
folded submissively in her lap, listening with downcast eyes to all he had to
say.

“—and as for the
utter folly of venturing aboard a strange ship in the company of… of some
tattooed ruffian with gold rings in his ears —why, anything may have befallen
you! You could have been kidnapped —or worse. A villain like that would slit
your throat as soon as look at you!”

Tallie looked up at
this.

“Oh, no, my lord.
Jack may look a little rough, but truly he is a decent fellow under all those
tattoos. His wife in Jamaica gave him the earring—”

Magnus rolled his
eyes and ground his teeth.

“He could have stolen
you away on that boat—”