The Viscount Needs a Wife (14 page)

Kitty moved toward the desk, curious about the papers there and what they would tell her about her husband, but realized in time that it would be nosy. She turned back. “Should I not meet her soon?”

“A delicate question. Would you wish to be presented to her for approval?”

“No.”

“Thus, not yet.”

“And Isabella?”

“Will be taking her cue from her grandmother. I could summon her.”

“To be presented to me for approval? Not the best approach.”

“No. The dowager uses Isabella as a foot soldier. A reluctance to harm foot soldiers can lose a war.”

She considered him. “Yet you are reluctant. I find that admirable.”

“Despite her attack on you?”

“It was a feeble sortie. Is she a resolute foot soldier?”

“A shot over her head usually sends her in retreat.”

“Poor girl. Can her allegiance be changed?”

“I hope you can find a way.”

She supposed that was part of her duties.

“As for warfare,” he said, “if you need a sturdy sparring partner, I'm unlikely to bleed.”

“But you could be bruised. Will you take offense?”

“No.”

They were on an edge again, in danger of losing balance. “Didn't you mention coffee?” she asked.

“I did. I take it dark and sweet, in the Turkish style. How would you like yours?”

She could try for harmony in this. “May I try your Turkish coffee? I, too, like it strong and sweet.”

A look in his eyes suddenly gave added meaning to her words, sending a hot tingle over her. Perhaps they wouldn't wait until the night. . . .

But he turned away to call the order to his secretary and then returned, closing the door, indicating that she should sit. Simply sit. She did so, but with an inner wail. It had been so long, and now she felt sure their consummation would be satisfactory. Highly satisfactory.

He sat in the other chair. “What was your first wedding day like?”

She hoped he didn't mean her first wedding night. She didn't think she could talk about that without completely losing control.

“S
ummer,” she said, “and more of an event. A number of my friends attended, and his. We spent the night at an inn, then traveled on by easy stages to our London home.”

“And you'd known each other for some time.”

“Three months, though we hadn't met frequently until the last weeks. I was at school at first.” She told him about sneaking out to the fair and then exchanging letters and arranging the occasional meeting. “All irresistibly exciting at seventeen.”

She realized that begged the question of whether she'd regretted it later, but thank heavens he didn't ask.

“Who were your witnesses?”

“Half the parish, but principally Ruth and Marcus's brother. His family was there, of course, his mother still trying to persuade us to return to live at Cateril Manor.”

“Mothers,” he said. “The queen is a difficult one, too.”

She raised her eyebrows at him. “Is that, perhaps, treason?”

“Probably. But everyone acknowledges that she's cold to most of her children, and a tyrant as well. She refuses to acknowledge the Duke of Cumberland's wife because of some old grudge.”

“It must be hard to have her husband in such a terrible state and for so long.”

“True, but that doesn't excuse her.”

“Perhaps it's worn her down,” Kitty said, thinking a little of herself, but there was no comparison. “She's old and in ill health. Perhaps to be pitied.”

“You have a kind heart,” he said, but without notable approval.

“I'm not ashamed of it. What was your mother like?”

The question seemed to take him aback.

“It's hard to say.” He rose to put more wood on the fire. “She died when I was eleven, and I doubt any child that age judges a parent clearly. I didn't see a great deal of her, but she was beautiful and charming. She sang when there were guests. I'd slip out of my room onto the landing to listen.” He stood, dusting off his hands. Those beautiful hands, which sent her mind in improper directions. “Until I went to school, my time was mostly spent with my nurse and tutor.”

An aristocratic upbringing. Why be surprised?

Because he was beginning to feel like an equal and that could be dangerous to her sanity. She was a glorified housekeeper and governess, and his life was in London.

“Lady Sophonisbe,” she said. “She must be the daughter of an earl, marquess, or duke.”

“Duke.”

Kitty had hoped for the lowest level of aristocracy, not the highest.

“But she ran off with a commoner,” he said, with a smile that might even be fond. “Plain Sir Barnaby Ecclestall. An excellent fellow, though my mother didn't think so.”

“She disliked her father?”

“She died when I was young, so I don't know. But my father said once that she resented being born a commoner when her mother should by rights have married high. You asked about my father and the title, and I said
he'd have liked it. My mother would have been in alt to become Lady Dauntry.”

Kitty wanted to ask more. Here was another difficult mother lingering in her husband's memories in ways that might affect their future, but this wasn't the moment.

She looked around the room for a safer line of talk. “What do you keep in the cabinet of curiosities?”

That term was usually applied to a place to keep an eccentric collection, but when he rose and opened the doors, she saw shelves holding orderly ranks of open-topped boxes.

“My predecessor didn't believe in filing his personal papers, and, as I said, he had no secretary. He tossed them into the nearest receptacle—a box, a drawer, even sometimes a vase. We've been gathering them. The top shelves are unsorted boxes and the lower ones sorted.”

She saw neatly written labels—
Plas Blaidd, Parliament, Town House.
There were a number of boxes for correspondence, each with a subtitle, including
Personal, Commercial, Petitions . . .

“Poor Worseley,” she said.

“I do my share when I have time.”

“Why bother?”

“The alternative would be to burn them all unread.”

Kitty rose and went to dip into an unsorted box and found a recipe of some sort in faded ink.

“Perfume?” she asked.

He looked over her shoulder. “Snuff, I'd think. Those are types of tobacco, with the addition of herbs for scent.”

She looked at him in surprise. “You use snuff?”

“No.”

Of course—that memory.
And now he was so close, they were almost touching. Whatever this snuff had smelled of, Braydon had his own subtle smell, and it
stirred her. She was tempted to turn to him, to put her hand on his chest, and invite a kiss.

But where might that lead?

Here? In his study.

With coffee ordered.

She moved away. “Why bother with such petty details?”

“Knowledge is power. Ignorance is vulnerability. I intend to know and understand all about my new responsibilities.”

She looked at him, alert. “You think there have been irregularities? Under the dowager's rule?”

“Money is unaccounted for and aspects are murky. I suspect the oddities rise from sheer bloody-mindedness . . . if you don't mind such language.”

“After so long a soldier's wife? But you wonder if there's been some wrongdoing.” She considered the boxes in a new light. It would almost be like a treasure hunt. “I might enjoy going through the papers.”

“Then do so, but record each item in this ledger.” He took out a large book and opened it on the desk. She saw on each line a note about a paper and where it had been put. She recognized his handwriting in some entries, but another hand in others. That must be the secretary's.

Letter, March 15, 1813, from Lady Pierrepoint to 5th V. NOI

“NOI?” she asked.

“No obvious importance. All those go in that box.” She saw one with simply those initials. “If there might be some importance, they are stored in boxes according to subject.” He pointed to one line, which said,
Letter, September 12, 1814, from W. Hughes to 5th V PB
. “That deals with a small estate in Wales, so is in the box for Plas Blaidd. In time that box will be incorporated with the one in the record room.”

This meticulous organization stole some of the appeal of a hunt through the papers, but Kitty supposed she should have expected it. This was a man who turned up at ten o'clock to the very strike.

Looking down the lines of writing, she saw many NOIs. “Why not burn the unimportant ones?”

“There's a gap between unimportant and no obvious importance, and it could be disastrous.”

She looked at him in surprise. “You think there's criminality here? Or even danger?”

“No, but until I'm sure, I'm on guard. If you turn up crimes and scandals, come to me before you shout them to the world.”

“Well, really! I don't think I deserve that.”

“Of course not.” But then he added, “I don't know you, Kitty, any more than you know me. Our encounters have been few, and form more of a patchwork than a picture. I don't know what you might do or how you might react.”

“Nor I you,” she pointed out.

“I am as I am.”

“So am I.” What did he want—that she be only one version of herself? Presumably the composed, calm one. That had been as close to deception as she'd come. “I might have presented a motley impression,” she said, “but nothing was put on for show.”

He didn't like that. He lifted a box out of the cabinet and put it on the desk. “Explore, if you wish.”

A test? If so, she'd pass.

She sat at the desk and took out a paper. Then she wrote in the ledger, trying to be as neat as he:
Receipt for repair of ormolu clock, Stelby & March. February 3, 1810
. “I assume I can put NOI?”

“Miscellaneous household receipts have their own box. Add H, and give it to me.” She passed it over and
he put it into a box in the cabinet. “The inventories might indicate which house, though I suspect there are a number of ormolu clocks.”

And how can it matter?
Kitty thought, but she returned to the box.

The next paper was a letter dated September 25, 1810, from a Charles Day to the fifth viscount about a house in Edgware. The Edgware Road ran north from London close to Moor Street, where she'd lived, but she didn't know how far away it was. She wrote the essentials, then asked, “Is there a box for a house in Edgware?”

“No.” He came toward her to take the paper, but the coffee arrived then, the aroma very welcome. Kitty was pleased to see a plate of tiny cakes came with it. She'd only nibbled at the wedding breakfast. She put the letter on the desk and rose.

The footman placed the slender coffeepot and tiny cups on a small table beside one of the armchairs and set the cakes alongside, together with a jug, plates, and serviettes. He left, and Kitty sat in the other chair, curious.

Sillikin, always aware of food, came to her knee. “No,” she said. With a reproachful look, the dog lay down again, head on paws, half over Kitty's feet. “You wouldn't like it,” Kitty said, then bit her lip. She was going to stop doing that.

“She wouldn't,” Braydon said as he sat, “unless she's a very unusual dog.” He poured coffee for them both and passed her a cup. “I requested cream in case you'd like it.”

“I assume it's not normally used?”

“No.”

She sipped, and felt her eyes open wide. It was very strong and very sweet. And very delicious. “I don't think I want cream.”

A smile in his eyes might even be true approval. “Try one of the cakes.”

They were tiny squares, and when she picked one up she could tell it was dense. She nibbled. “Marzipan? But not quite.”

“It's halva, made of ground sesame seeds and sugar.”

“The kitchen here makes these?”

“Hardly. I recently purchased a new supply from a Turkish bakery in London. Do you like it?”

“The taste is a little odd, but I think . . . Yes. I do enjoy new things.” She sipped more of the coffee, which went well with the little cake. “You've visited Turkey?”

“In 1809, and occasionally at other times.”

“You were a diplomat?”

“It was on army business.”

That intriguing army business again. “Did you visit a harem?” she asked.

“And lived to tell the tale?”

“Perhaps you wore a disguise to slip in and rescue an English slave.”

“Perhaps you read too many novels.”

She smiled. “Perhaps I do. But I don't take them as a textbook for my life.” She twitched her toe under Sillikin. “In a novel,” she said to the dog, “he'd have a mad wife locked away, or a chamber of bloody mementoes.”

Without opening her eyes, Sillikin snuffled.

“Not a great conversationalist, is she?” Braydon remarked. “I can merely offer a deranged dowager and an ice palace. How long have you had her?”

“Eight years. She was a gift. Marcus didn't mind.”

“A gift from a gentleman?”

“Why ask that?”

“Why else would your husband mind?”

“Having a dog in a small place. The mess when she was a puppy.”

“I see.”

“As it happens, it was a gentleman. Captain Edison.
His mother breeds them.” She smiled at the memory. “She was such an adorable bundle of fluff.”

“And made you happy.” He was watching her from beneath lowered lids in a way that unsettled her.

“Yes. Yes, she did. And does.”

“I must set myself to make you even happier.”

He meant it.
Lord above, please let him not be plagued by jealousy.

To cover the moment, she sipped a little more coffee, but he said, “Don't drink too deep. There'll be a thick layer at the bottom. Would you like more?”

She put down the cup. “Not at the moment, thank you. It seems a little like ratafia or some other sweet alcoholic drink—deceptively treacherous.”

“You won't become drunk on it.”

“It feels potent enough. I think I heard that the dowager has dogs. Will they be friendly?”

“It shouldn't matter. They're rarely outside her rooms.”

“That can't be healthy.”

“For either of them. A footman walks the creatures twice a day around the gardens. Sometimes Isabella does that.”

“It can't be good for her to be cooped up here.”

“No, but she resists change.”

She picked up another piece of cake. “What was Isabella's life like before her father and brother died?”

“She receives some letters from friends, but none have visited since the deaths. She had a governess, but Mrs. Riverton was dismissed when Isabella turned sixteen and decided she no longer needed lessons.”

“Indulged, then.”

“Assuredly.”

“Which must mean she had the life she wanted.”

“I've known people who had all the choices in the world and yet managed to make themselves miserable.”

“That could include Napoleon.”

“Cursed with an appetite for conquest that could never be satisfied,” he agreed. “If he'd taken Russia, where next? That's the worst curse the gods can place upon us—insatiable ambition.”

“Like Tantalus, chained, thirsty, in water that never quite reached his lips.”

“Indeed. The old gods knew their tortures.”

“You are free of ambition?”

“Yes, thank God.”

The pleasure of sweet coffee, halva, and the fire's warmth led Kitty to ask, “There's nothing you want?” She watched for his reaction.

He sipped coffee, taking his time. “To not die with regrets. What of you?”

“Nothing significant at the moment. I wanted to escape Cateril Manor, and you provided the key. I wanted to escape tedium, and you've provided purpose. When I discover a new want, I'll seek a way to satisfy it.”