The Countess (14 page)

Fortunately, Robert obeyed her silent plea and began to discuss balls.

“I hear voices.”

Richard paused in the entry at Daniel’s hissed words. After listening for a moment, he relaxed. “It is coming from the parlor. It sounds like the women are all in there, which means we won’t run into them upstairs.”

“Right, well that’s something,” Daniel grunted, shifting his hold on his end of the carpet-rolled George.

Nodding, Richard started forward again, moving quickly toward the stairs. George was a lot heavier with the added weight of the carpet around him and no doubt they would both be relieved to set him down. He just hoped they managed to do so without encountering anyone.

They made it up the stairs and were moving quickly up the hall with their burden, Richard thinking they might just manage the task undiscovered, when Haversham appeared from the master bedroom and started in their direction. Richard heard Daniel curse under his breath behind him and silently echoed the sentiment, but kept calm. It wasn’t like they were carting a naked, dead George about for anyone to see. He was wrapped in the carpet after all. No one could tell he was in there, Richard assured himself. They would just carry the rug past as if nothing were amiss. That was the plan anyway, however, Haversham put an end to it by stopping in the middle of the hall directly in front of him, forcing Richard to a halt.

The elderly butler peered at the rolled up and slightly bulgy carpet, raised an eyebrow and then peered at Richard and asked, “Would you like me to send for a couple of footmen to help you with that, my lord?”

“Er . . . no,” Richard forced a smile. “I—we are just—it’s a bit chill in my room and Lord Woodrow offered this carpet to take away the worst of the chill.”

“Hmm.” Haversham nodded solemnly. “The ladies had a similar problem just yesterday.”

Richard frowned at his words, but before he could ask what the man meant by that, the butler continued.

“I would venture to suggest that closing the window of a night would help warm the room as well, my lord . . . which I just did. I noticed it was open as I was inspecting the bed. The upstairs maid feared it was quite ruined. I came to see what could be done, however it looks as if it somehow got quite soaked through.”

“Oh . . . er . . . yes. It . . . er . . . I . . .” Grimacing, he simply said, “Don’t worry about the bed, Haversham. I’ve ordered a new one and will just sleep with Lady Christiana until it arrives. I mean in her room, not—well, not that there is anything wrong with a husband sleeping with his wife, I just—”

“What his lordship means to say,” Daniel interrupted Richard’s bumbling. “Is that he will reside in Lady Christiana’s room until his own bed is repaired. That being the case there is really no need for the maid to worry about his room at all for the time being. In fact, he will probably just lock the doors for now so she doesn’t waste her time dusting an unoccupied room.”

“Yes. Exactly. What he said,” Richard muttered uncomfortably. Really, he tended to avoid lying because he wasn’t very good at it. He supposed he didn’t feel it was a very honorable ability anyway so had never practiced it.

“Ah.” Haversham looked extremely solemn as he nodded. “Very good, my lord. I shall tell the staff to leave the room be until you say otherwise.”

“Thank you.” He smiled his relief and then steered around the man, eager to continue up the hall.

“Shall I tell Lady Christiana you are returned and will join the ladies and Lord Langley in the parlor soon?”

“Oh, no, that’s all right. I—Lord Langley, you say?” he interrupted himself to ask as the name registered in his head. Pausing again, he frowned back at the butler.

“Yes, my lord. He arrived some time ago asking to speak to her ladyship and has been cloistered in the parlor with her and her sisters for some time now.”

Richard felt his eyes narrow. “He has, has he? Well, yes, please tell her I shall join them shortly.”

“Very good, my lord.” The butler turned smartly and headed for the stairs, apparently to do just that.

Richard scowled after him, contemplating that Langley was here in his home, cloistered in the parlor with his wife and her sisters. And the man had asked for Christiana when he arrived. He’d also danced with her twice last night at the Landon ball, appearing very protective and caring of her as he did. Richard hadn’t cared for it much at the time, but he liked it even less after spending the night with Christiana and deciding the marriage would continue. She was his now and he wasn’t having Langley—

“For God’s sake, Richard. Are we going to stand here all day? This
rug
is heavy.”

“Oh, right,” he muttered and began to move again. The sooner they had taken care of George, the sooner he could get down to the parlor and let Langley know Christiana was his.

Chapter Ten

L
angley was answering about the hundredth question from Suzette on Lord Woodrow’s character when Haversham cleared his throat, drawing their attention to his presence in the parlor doorway.

“Yes, Haversham?” Christiana asked as Langley paused in his answer.

“Lord Fairgrave has returned. He and Lord Woodrow shall be joining you here shortly, my lady.”

“Daniel’s here?” Suzette asked.

“Yes, my lady,” Haversham said solemnly, and noting the way she was suddenly peering past him, added, “He is assisting his lordship in carrying something to the master bedroom.”

“Oh.” Suzette frowned, apparently not pleased with the news. Christiana noted that in an absentminded way, but her own thoughts were taken up with the announcement and what should be made of it. It was just so out of character for Dicky to have her informed of his return. He usually just appeared when he wished to, and disappeared just as abruptly without explaining anything. This was very thoughtful and completely unlike his behavior to date.

Realizing that the butler was waiting to be dismissed, Christiana murmured, “Thank you for relaying the message, Haversham.”

“Of course, my lady.” Haversham nodded solemnly and then turned to move away.

Christiana sighed and glanced back toward the others but her mind was in a bit of an uproar. Dicky was back. Richard, she reminded herself. He’d asked her last night to call him that and so she would.

“There!” Lisa said brightly. “Dicky’s going to join us. That will be nice, won’t it?”

Christiana glanced to her younger sister, noting the silent pleading on the girl’s face, and sighed to herself. Lisa was silently asking her to give the man a chance to prove he’d realized the error of his ways and changed. And last night had certainly been like nothing she’d ever experienced in her marriage to date so he might very well have done so, but what was to stop him from changing again? Would it be Dicky, the nasty husband she’d lived with this last year who joined them, or last night’s lover, Richard?

Aside from that, there was the whole “does he have a strawberry on his bottom” issue to worry about as well. The man might really be George, a murderer of his own sibling. Honestly, it was all enough to make a woman want to scream and pull her hair out. Surely, most wives did not have such issues with their husbands. How had she landed in such a tangled marriage?

“Chrissy?” Lisa asked and Christiana stood abruptly.

“I should have asked Haversham to have a tray prepared and brought to us. I shall do it now,” she announced and hurried out of the room.

Christiana spotted Haversham about to enter the kitchen at the end of the hall when she stepped out of the parlor, and hurried to catch up to him to make her request. Once the task was done, however, she headed upstairs. Christiana simply could not stand to wait and worry about whether he had the birthmark or not, and what kind of mood he would be in when he arrived in the parlor. She wanted to find out both things at once and she wanted to do so in private rather than with witnesses.

Although, if she were to be completely honest with herself, Christiana had already decided it must have been the birthmark she’d seen and that seeing it again would just be a formality. Because she simply couldn’t believe the man who had held her in his arms and given her such pleasure could be a killer. That left her real worry being how Richard would treat her when next they met. This first meeting would tell her if she had made the biggest mistake of her life last night, or a smart decision.

Christiana didn’t head straight for the master bedroom, but stopped in her own room to check her hair and make sure it was still in the nasty, tight bun Grace had automatically fixed it into that morning. Dicky—Richard, she reminded herself—would berate her if every hair was not in place and that was not a good way to start. She suddenly stopped dead as she realized what she was thinking.

Dear God, she was already falling back into the dutiful wife mold! Worrying about her hair being perfect so as not to upset Dicky—Richard? Well, she was done with that, Christiana reminded herself grimly. She’d experienced a few hours of freedom from her husband when she’d thought him dead, and that brief taste of freedom, along with the love and support of her sisters, had made her find her backbone once more.

Straightening her shoulders, she determinedly turned and strode purposefully across the room. She had paused at the door to the master bedroom and half-raised her hand to knock before she caught herself. She was supposed to see his bottom as soon as she could so if she entered without knocking and caught him changing or something of the like, it would actually be a good thing, Christiana told herself as she opened the door without knocking and walked in.

He wasn’t half naked mid-change or anything of the like. Instead, he and Daniel were talking quietly as they crossed the room in her direction. Both men paused abruptly at her appearance, however, eyes widening with alarm as if they’d been caught doing something they shouldn’t. Christiana felt her eyebrows crawl up her forehead at the strange reaction and glanced curiously from one man to the other.

“Ah.” Daniel was the first to speak. His eyes moving to Richard he asked, “Should I . . . ?” He shifted his gaze over his shoulder in a silent question she didn’t understand.

“No. That’s all right. Go ahead,” Richard said quietly. Apparently he understood the question.

Frowning, Christiana peered in the direction Daniel had glanced, but didn’t see anything but the bed. It looked quite lumpy, but then Grace had said it had been ruined by the soaking from the melting ice. The other servants were apparently speculating on how the bed had come to be soaked as it was, but she doubted they’d ever come up with the truth. Christiana, her sisters and Grace themselves had gone out to fetch back the ice to avoid involving the other servants.

“Christiana?”

She blinked her thoughts away to realize that while she’d been wool gathering, Daniel had exited through the door she’d left open and Dicky—Richard—was now standing directly in front of her. His expression was questioning, but she couldn’t help noticing that his eyes were locked on her mouth and darkening with a heat she recalled from the night before. It brought an answering heat to life inside her.

“You must be terribly uncomfortable with your hair pulled so tight,” he murmured suddenly and reached up to begin removing hairpins.

“It’s the way you insisted I wear it,” Christiana reminded him, irritation slipping in to nudge aside a bit of the awakening heat.

“Then I was an idiot,” he said simply as he finished freeing her hair and allowed the now loose strands to fall around her face. He smiled with approval. “Much better.”

It felt much better too, she acknowledged with a sigh as the pressure was released from her scalp, but her eyes widened as he now caught her face between his hands and lifted it so their gazes met. They widened even further when he asked, “No kiss of greeting for your husband?”

Before she could respond, his mouth was on hers, coaxing that greeting from her. Christiana remained completely and utterly still at first, confusion rampant inside her head as memories from this last year of life with this man collided with the new reality. She wanted to push him away and demand some explanation for everything, for how he could have treated her as he had this last year, for how he could now treat her so differently. Unfortunately, her body had memories of its own from last night and didn’t appear to care much about the worries her mind had. It urged her to just kiss the man. After all a good wife would, surely?

When his tongue traced a line across her closed lips and then tried to snake between them, Christiana gave in with a sigh and opened to him . . . and was lost. Suddenly, her body was on fire, her back arching, hips pressing forward to grind herself against his growing hardness, and her arms went up to allow her fingers to run through his hair.

When she then clutched at the strands to urge him to deepen the kiss even further, Richard’s response was to release what sounded almost like a growl into her mouth. Christiana shivered in response and then moaned as his hands dropped away from her face to begin traveling over her body. One hand dropped to her bottom, urging her more tightly against him. The other slid to her breast, squeezing her through her gown and she gasped and twisted in his hold, pressing her breast more firmly into his touch and rubbing against his lower body with unfettered desire.

This was not the reaction she’d feared on meeting him, but it was still a damned good thing she’d met him in private, Christiana decided as the hand at her breast began to tug impatiently at the neckline of her gown to free her breast. Had they met in the parlor with everyone there, she wouldn’t have been able to reach down between them and squeeze his now rock hard manhood through his trousers as she now did.

Richard’s reaction to the touch was startling. Tearing his mouth from hers on a curse, he muttered, “I have to be inside you. Now.”

Despite her confusion over the state of her marriage and identity of her husband, Christiana panted a breathless “Yes,” and then gasped and clutched at him as he picked her up by the waist, carried her to the bed and tumbled them both onto it.

Richard was immediately kissing her again. Christiana kissed him back. However, it was now more of an automatic response without the earlier passion behind it, she was a bit distracted by whatever it was she’d landed on in the bed. It was hard and had hit right at the base of her spine so that her back was arched unpleasantly over it. She felt like she was lying across two small logs and it was really killing the passion that had so quickly stirred.

Turning her head to the side, she managed to tear her mouth from his and muttered, “Richard.”

“Yes.” The word was slightly muffled and distorted as his lips trailed down her neck.

“There’s something—Oh,” Christiana gasped with a start as he suddenly tugged her bodice down and latched onto the nipple he revealed. When he began to suckle and draw on it, she bit her lip and closed her eyes against the firestorm that set off inside her, but after the first shock of pleasure even that wasn’t enough to fully distract her from her discomfort. Frowning, Christiana reached to feel what she lay on, hoping she might be able to tug it out from under herself, but whatever she lay on was under the covers and extended out to the side away from her.

Richard had apparently been drawing her skirts up as he worked at her breast. When he suddenly released her nipple to slide down her body and duck under the voluminous material, her attention was immediately reclaimed by what he was doing.

“Oh—er—Rich—oh—” Christiana gasped, clutching at the bedclothes as he kissed a trail up one thigh. This definitely managed to distract her from whatever she lay on, and she clenched her teeth against the tingles of excitement he was causing in her, preparing for the much stronger shock of pleasure she knew was coming as he neared the apex of her thighs. Even so, she cried out when his mouth finally found her center. It was the lightest of caresses, almost a teasing, but still had her half sitting up, her hands clawing at the bedclothes and drawing them away from both ends of the bed toward herself. The position immediately removed the discomfort at her back and Christiana felt a moment’s relief until his mouth brushed over her again and she turned her head to the side, gasping for the breath that had seemed to rush out of her with the touch. The moment she’d drawn in enough breath, however, it whooshed right back out on a shriek as she found herself staring at Richard, now half uncovered in the bed, and definitely not looking very healthy.

The Richard under her skirt stilled and suddenly pulled out from under it, his expression surprised as he said, “Well, that was fast.”

Christiana’s response was to turn wide eyes his way and shriek again. She followed it up by planting her foot in his chest and shoving him away from her with a strength born of horror. Then she leapt off the bed and made a run for the door.

Richard landed on the hardwood floor with a startled curse and immediately sat up to peer toward his wife, only to find her scrambling off the bed . . . a bed where George lay half uncovered and most definitely dead. Cursing much more violently this time, Richard bounded to his feet and hurried after Christiana. Fortunately, she’d made a run for the door to the hall and it was locked. She was wrestling with it, trying desperately to get it open when he caught her arm.

“Christiana, wait, listen to me.”

“Don’t touch me,” she cried, shaking off his hold. Giving up on the door, she backed quickly away from him, panic on her face as she glanced at him and to the bed and back.

“All right, I won’t touch you,” Richard said quietly, hoping that if he remained calm, she would calm down as well. “ ’Tis all right. You are safe with me. All is well.”

“All is well?” she echoed with disbelief, not sounding the least bit calmed by his voice. “Who are you?”

“I am Richard Fairgrave, the Earl of Radnor,” he said solemnly.

“Then who is that?” she asked, pointing toward the bed.

Richard noted the way her hand was shaking, and sighed at her unnecessary upset. This was all his fault. He was the one who had fallen on her like a randy bull and then apparently lost all sense as the blood rushed to his manhood. That was the only explanation he could come up with for how he could have been stupid enough to try to tumble her on the bed where his dead brother lay. Good Lord, he’d completely forgotten all about the man’s presence, able to think only of the nearest horizontal surface and getting her onto it and himself in her.