The Wife Test (26 page)

More than once she found her inner abbess taking control to issue a chilling look in the direction of the earl’s unruly offspring. To their credit—or perhaps because of the earl’s threats involving her formidable background—the girls amended their behavior and led Chloe to hope that they were not only redeemable, but that they might become delightful young women someday.

If, she reminded herself grimly, one could overlook the shameful circumstances of their births.

It was under that cloud that Chloe retired to her chamber and, with the help of a perky little chambermaid, bathed, brushed out her hair, and settled into the linen-decked bed to wait for Hugh. But as she waited, listening to the night sounds of her new home, her hope that he would come to her began to fade. By the time the door opened and he crept inside, she had given up and fallen asleep.

Hugh stood for a while in the darkened chamber, looking down at her, feeling an alarming fullness in his chest and a tightness in his throat. He wanted to awaken her, pull her into his arms, and lose himself in her lush body and deliciously direct passions. He wanted to hold her and, more shockingly, to have her hold him … the way she had that first night … the night that was forever inscribed on his bone and sinew.

But he didn’t disturb her. Instead, he sat for a while in a chair near the window, being careful to stay out of the moonlight streaming in. He didn’t need that unsettling influence aggravating his already volatile impulses. Only when exhaustion began to claim him did he creep to the bed, fully dressed, and lie quietly down beside her.

The next day as they were breaking fast in the hall, the earl appeared, fresh from a crack-of-dawn ride, and volunteered to show them around their new home. His daughters objected, insisting that they be allowed to show Chloe around the house and hall and grounds. The ensuing argument was resolved only by Chloe declaring that she would be pleased to accompany the earl first—as was only fitting—and that she would spend the balance of the day with them and Trueblood, learning the workings of the household.

Their first stop was the stables, where the earl proudly displayed several fine animals and a number of palfreys kept for his daughters’ use. Then they visited the dairy, the ovens, the granary and several barns, and the weavers’ house. By the time they reached the kitchens, the sun was not the only thing rising. Chloe’s estimate of both the earl and his management of his holdings increased with each well-tended aspect of the estate they covered. She watched Hugh’s grudging revision of his expectations of home, and hoped that it would penetrate the shell he seemed to have grown on the journey north. He took an interest in the estate, and his hardened attitude seemed to be softening … until they returned to the hall for dinner and he encountered the earl’s daughters engaged in a pitched battle over who was in charge of giving dinner orders.

The earl turned on his heel and abandoned the hall, and Hugh declared he would be inspecting the cellars until the meal was ready. Chloe watched father and son escaping the quarrelsome trio—abandoning her to them—and realized that the pair had more in common than either would like to admit. When she turned to the girls, they were glaring at one another and quickly turned those challenging glares on her.

Out of nowhere the abbess roared to life in her, and she struck a familiar pose … hands at her waist, leaning slightly forward, her eyes narrowed in potent censure.

“We need to have a little talk, you and I. Come with me.” She started for the alcove, but soon realized they weren’t following. Looking back, she spotted three jutting chins and three sets of stubbornly folded arms. With ferocious determination, she strode back and grabbed two of them by the ears and began to pull. Shocked and suddenly teetering on tiptoes, they scrambled along beside her, protesting. When they reached the alcove, she released them, and ordered them to “sit.” All three fell onto chair bottoms with widened eyes.

“I’ve just treated you like the fractious, disobedient children you appear to be. If you wish more respectful treatment, you will have to earn it with more ladylike behavior.” She laid it out for them. “I can be the ally and advocate of three lovely young maids, or I can be warden to a trio of vixens. The choice is up to you.”

They exchanged sulky looks and sat back in their chairs, unwilling to test her authority further. At least for now. Making do with that grudging cooperation, which so resembled Hugh’s, Chloe sat down in the fourth chair in the alcove and began her campaign for their rehabilitation, if not their allegiance.

“Now tell me,” she said, hoping to begin with learning their strong points. “Is one of you the seamstress who stitched the lovely cushions we’re seated on?”

It took two days for Chloe to begin to penetrate the willful resistance the earl’s brash threesome maintained to her. They were still loud and argumentative with one another, but increasingly they reined their behavior in the hall and showed symptoms of rational thought and civilized behavior. She began to believe they would eventually come around. She only wished the same could be said for their older brother.

In their first three days at Sennet Hall, she had scarcely had a moment alone with him. He spent all of his time out riding the estate, examining and evaluating every building and bit of equipment, training with the earl’s knights and men, and getting to know the steward, bailiff, wardens, and craftsmen who made Sennet work. Each night she went to bed determined to stay awake and see him when he arrived in their chamber. Each night it seemed he arrived later, and each morning it seemed he rose earlier.

On the evening of their third full day at Sennet, she determined to do something about what could only be his intentional avoidance of her. She set aside her inventory of the household linen and sent the earl’s daughters to the kitchens with Trueblood to oversee the production of a light evening meal. Then she headed for the stables, where she was informed by her testy father-in-law that his arrogant and self-righteous son was last seen.

She found Hugh recently returned from another day in the saddle and giving his horse a thorough brushing.

“There are grooms for that,” she said, after watching him in silence for a time. He seemed to be enjoying the work, and she hesitated to interrupt anything that gave him satisfaction.

He started and turned, took a deep breath at the sight of her, and returned to the work. “It’s my horse, my partner, my responsibility. It’s the first thing a knight learns … to take care of his mount diligently and personally. Besides—”

“You enjoy it,” she finished for him.

“What if I do?” he said with an edge.

“What else do you enjoy, Hugh of Sennet?” she asked as she lifted her skirts and moved around him to the front of the stall. As the animal sniffed and investigated her, she stood still, waiting, patient as the horse decided about her.

“Why?” He paused in the midst of a long stroke down the horse’s back.

“Because I don’t think you’ve had enough enjoyment in your life of late. Answer me … or I’ll have to pull your ear the way I did Lizabeth’s and Ellen’s.”

He gave a start and looked at her. “Is that what you did to them? I wondered.”

“It was just a tweak … like the abbess did to us when we were small and were being silly. It’s usually quite effective.”

Their eyes met and she swayed toward him and reached up to take hold of one of his ears … holding it, rubbing it gently, coaxing a response from him. He shivered visibly and lurched backward, breaking that contact.

The fact that he didn’t want her to touch him made her all the more determined to do so. As he emptied his hands of brushes and spread a blanket over the horse’s back, she summoned all her courage and slipped her arm through his, trapping it against her.

“Come, walk with me,” she said, pulling him toward the stable door. “I have something to show you.”

“I have things to do,” he declared, trying to extricate his arm.

“All of which will wait until you’ve seen the garden niche the earl’s daughters helped to build this spring.”

The small garden was tucked away in a corner of the main wall, out of sight of the house and overlooking part of the pond. Some parts were overgrown, the remnant of an earlier construction, but some parts were clearly new work. The flat stones in the circular path seemed new, and there was what appeared to be a new wooden arbor at one end of the garden. It was wrapped and shaded by winding roses, and there were several bunches of what appeared to be lilies nearby, preparing to bloom.

“They did this on their own,” she said, gesturing to the developing garden. “They’re very fond of it.”

“It’s a good start,” he said, trying for a sneer and falling short. He tried to dislodge a stone that seemed to be a bit too high in the path and found it to be larger and heavier than he supposed. Annoyed, he moved on, looking at the bushes and the somewhat weedy beds of old violets, Sweet William, and heliotrope. He paused at the arbor and ran a hand over it, judging the quality of the workmanship.

“It’s not quite what you expected, is it?” she said, surprising him as she came up behind him.

“It’s not bad work. Could be a bit more square …”

“I mean all of it. Sennet. Your home.”

He turned to her with a protest on his lips, but somehow was unable to utter it. After a moment he answered her question.

“No, it is not. It’s more orderly and productive. Not quite …”

“The holding of a foul and wretched degenerate.”

He expelled a tension-laden breath. “If you’re about to deliver another of your wretched lectures on ‘forgiveness,’ spare me.”

“I don’t think ‘forgiveness’ is what your father needs or wants from you.”

“Oh? And what is it you think he wants?”

“What only you can give him. A son and heir that he can be proud of.” She edged closer. “And perhaps a chance to get to know you. He’s not really so bad. He’s loud and sometimes outlandish, but he seldom gets angry, and he is always fair with his servants and tenants. He works hard to see Sennet run properly. And whatever you may think, he did a good and honorable thing in taking in his daughters when their mothers died. After all, he had no lady wife to consider.”

“Only the sacred memory of one,” he said with a tinge of bitterness.

“Your mother died a very long time ago, Hugh.”

“He makes the name of Sennet a laughingstock … a byword for godless and immoral living.”

She felt the hollow ache in her chest deepening, spreading.

“Be careful that in trying to undo that, you don’t make it a byword for harsh judgment and pitiless rectitude.”

“This is not your concern,” Hugh said, stepping back and finding himself trapped against the corner of the arbor. His chest felt tight and his throat was suddenly constricted. She was so close … her voice so soft … her expression so gentle. The truth of her heart, of her desire for him, was so visible in her eyes.

“Isn’t it?” she asked on a whisper that skittered down the inner walls of his body.

A volcanic surge of longing erupted in his chest and flowed hot and molten down the walls of his body. He wanted her. He wanted to touch her, to love her, to be with her. He wanted it with everything in him, and that was the part that terrified him so.

“God, Chloe.” His voice sounded choked, his words half intelligible, as if spoken to himself. “Why do you have to make this so hard?”

She stepped closer, and of their own will, his lips descended on hers. Suddenly it wasn’t hard anymore. Suddenly drawing her into his embrace was the easiest thing in the world. Suddenly, plunging into her kiss, drinking her in, and feeling her desire rising to welcome his were as natural as breathing. Successive waves of pleasure washed through him and were absorbed into every muscle and sinew of his body, like life-giving rain on parched ground.

Inside, he could feel some unwatered part of himself coming to life. Something that had lain dormant within him was moistening, greening, and beginning to open. It was a part of himself as yet unrealized … a depth of feeling, a widening awareness of self, a new way of being in the world.

He was Adam in the Garden. With his eyes suddenly opened. And there she stood with the ultimate apple.

He was in love with Chloe of Guibray.

In her lovely face he saw the reminders of a thousand sensations that together had formed the seeds of that desire in him. His heart began to thud in his chest as it did when the horns sounded on a battlefield. And though he knew it was too little, too late, he set her back from him and strode out of his sisters’ half-finished garden.

Chloe watched him go through a steamy haze of frustration. He still wanted her; she could feel it in the tremble of his body against hers and in the hunger of his kiss. It was the only thing that provided her a life-giving trickle of hope that she might someday reach his heart. With a deep breath she headed back to the hall.

In the tradition of noble houses, she took up both her role as lady and the wine pitcher at supper that evening, pouring drink for the earl and Hugh and the earl’s knights. As she filled Hugh’s cup, she leaned close, pressed her breast into his arm, and threw down the gauntlet.

“Tonight,” she whispered.

He stiffened, wondering if he could have heard her correctly, and then tried to resist the frisson of excitement that raced up his spine. As he watched her go from man to man, pouring the watered wine, he found himself holding his breath, watching her for something more.