To Marry an Heiress (13 page)

Devon offered them a curt nod and they marched forward.

Georgina wanted to slam her fist into her husband’s handsome face. For all of her father’s shortcomings—and she wasn’t blind enough not to realize that he had possessed many—he’d always loved her unequivocally.

She remembered all the times he’d returned home from a long day at work only to scoop her up in his arms as soon as her churning legs got her close enough to him. He’d hold her high above his head, his grin so wide that she’d been able to see the gap
ing hole at the back where he’d once had a tooth knocked out by a kicking mule.

“You’re my sunshine!” he’d yell for the whole world to hear.

And she’d known it was true. They’d been poor for much of her life, but she’d always felt rich.

“I’m glad you’re home, Father,” the boy said.

With his hands clasped behind his back, he was a small replica of the man standing rigidly in front of him. The sunlight easing in through the floor-to-ceiling window stroked his black hair, making it seem almost blue in places. But not nearly as blue as his eyes, which reflected the calmness of a placid lake. They no longer sparkled with joy but sought acceptance.

“Yeth, Father,” the little girl lisped. “We’re tho glad you’re home.” She smiled tentatively, her fingers fiddling with the bow on the front of her dress.

Devon nodded curtly. “Lord Noel. Lady Millicent. May I introduce my wife, Lady Huntingdon.”

Since smacking their father was out of the question, Georgina dropped to her knees and smiled warmly. “But you may call me Gina.”

“They may not,” Devon said curtly.

She angled her head toward him and flashed him a sickly sweet grin. “They may indeed.”

“Milady, it’s simply not done,” the governess stated, her hands primly clutched in front of her.

“And you are?”

“The governess, milady. Mrs. Tavers.”

“Then you must forgive me, Mrs. Tavers. I’m not yet familiar with all the British etiquette. I assumed
that since I am the countess and this is my home, I could establish some rules outside of societal constraints.”

“It would confuse the children, milady, to have two sets of rules to follow.”

“Are you saying that my lord’s children are dimwitted?”

Devon paid attention to the exchange with interest. Christopher had warned him about Texas ladies. The night he’d proposed, Gina had first shown him some of her stubbornness. He’d not expected her to bring it into his home, however.

He watched Mrs. Tavers’s cheeks burn bright red. He feared the woman might swoon on the spot.

“Of course not, milady. My lord’s children are exceedingly bright.”

“Then I would think they could well comprehend that when it is only us, they may call me Gina, and when we are in the company of others, they are to address me with the stilted name of Lady Huntingdon.” She arched a delicate brow. “Are you smart enough to know the difference?”

Devon was hit with unexpected pride as his son thrust out his tiny chest.

“Yes, my lady, we are,” Noel answered.

Devon did not miss that his son included his sister in his answer. He felt his throat tightening with an emotion he couldn’t quite put a name to, something that went beyond fatherly satisfaction.

“How old are you, Lord Noel?” Georgina asked.

Noel darted a glance up at Devon, who gave him a brusque nod.

“Eight,” he answered.

“And you, Lady Millicent?” she asked.

“I’m five.” Her eyes widened. “I have a loothe tooth.” She opened her mouth and flicked her tongue over a lower tooth.

Before he could scold his daughter for such inappropriate behavior, Gina had eased down to the floor, latched onto Millicent, and pulled her onto her lap so she could inspect the tooth more closely.

“How exciting!” Gina crooned. “It looks like it’ll come out any day now.”

Apparently not at all uncomfortable that she was sitting on a stranger’s lap, Millicent nodded quickly. Devon was certain that the late afternoon sunlight streaming through the windows was responsible for softening the lines of his wife’s face.

He crossed his arms over his chest and leaned against the wall. Not even on her wedding day had she looked that radiant. As though she’d suddenly discovered the moon and stars had been placed in the heavens for her pleasure alone.

“Are you our mother?” Millicent asked.

“No,” Devon said brusquely as he shoved himself away from the wall, regretting the harshness in his voice as his daughter’s face fell and she scrambled off Gina’s lap. Regretting more the disappointment that swept through Gina’s eyes before she worked her way to her feet.

“Mrs. Tavers, I apologize for interrupting the studies. We’ll leave you to the children now.” He extended his elbow toward his wife. “Countess, you and I need to talk.”

With a swish of her skirts, she spun on her heel and strode from the room. Judging by the wide-eyed stares of his children, they had not missed the fact she had snubbed their father.

Ah, yes, they needed to talk quite badly.

“Y
ou’re determined to make this entire situation as difficult as possible, aren’t you?”

Sitting behind the desk in his study, Devon studied his wife as she stood in front of the window. Sunlight glimmered in a halo around her, but she did not appear angelic. With her hands on her hips, she more closely resembled a warrior goddess. She almost looked magnificent.

“I allowed you your freedom to establish rules of behavior for the day nursery—”

“
Freedom?
” she said. “You
allowed
me my freedom?”

She moved forward, planted her palms on his desk, and leaned toward him. “My freedom is not yours to give. I own it—lock, stock, and barrel.”

No woman had ever dared to speak to him so defiantly or look at him with fire shooting from her eyes. Certainly Margaret never had. For a time she
had worshipped the ground upon which Devon had stood. Then she’d simply whined and sulked.

“Madam, you are my wife—”

“But not your slave.”

He felt a muscle in his jaw jump. He was in danger of grinding his teeth down to nothing.

Sadness touched her eyes as she straightened. “You didn’t even hug them,” she said resignedly, as though all her anger had eased away. “You’re their father, you’ve been gone at least six weeks, and you never once touched them.”

“It’s simply not done.”

“They’re your children.”

“There are expectations that must be met by the children of an aristocrat—”

“Damn the aristocracy, its expectations, and its rules. Noel and Millicent are
your
children!”

He didn’t know what shocked him more, her immense anger or her use of profanity. “Madam, there are also expectations of the wife—”

Shaking her head, she returned to the window.

“Never turn your back on me,” he warned her through clenched teeth.

“We’ve been intimate,” she said quietly. “We’ve caressed each other. You’ve heard me cry out during the height of passion.” She glanced over her shoulder at him. “Yet you speak to me as though I’m someone you’ve just met on the street.”

“What passed between us beneath the blankets was the result of my fulfilling an obligation. Make no more of it than that.”

“What in God’s name possessed my father when he decided you were the best catch in London?”

What indeed? He held her gaze and decided it was time to change the subject and get down to the reason he’d wanted to have this meeting to begin with.

“Regarding your duties. The staff here is small, but you will oversee their efforts with decorum and dignity. They will
not
address you as Gina. You shall not become their friend or their confidant. They are our employees. We cannot afford to hire any more. We must make do with what we have and hold no grudges when they leave.”

“You expect them to leave?”

He leaned back in his chair. “In time. It is only their loyalty that has kept them here this long. They have gone without wages for some time. It’s unfair to make them feel that they are obligated to stay.”

“I assume, with the exception of your bedchamber, that I can have full run of the house.”

“Yes.”

“I assume, then, that there is to be no affection between us.”

Had he not stated as much in London? Why was she questioning him now?

“I thought we had agreed to civility.”

She visibly shuddered. “Your house is almost as cold as your heart.”

With that parting shot, she once again turned her back on him and strode from the room.

He did not have a cold heart.

He had been wronged. Her father had disregarded his obligations in exchange for a night of folly, and now they were both paying the price. To make matters worse, his new wife irritated the devil out of him.

He stared at her as she sat at the opposite end of a massive table that had been in his family for generations. Beneath the linen cloth it was hideously scarred, but it represented tradition.

With a curt nod he signaled the butler to begin serving.

Gina’s head came up with a snap as the man ladled soup into her bowl.

“Aren’t the children joining us?” she asked.

“They have their meal in the day nursery.”

Even from this great distance, he could see her brow furrow.

“Always?” she asked.

“Always.”

“When do you visit with them?”

He sipped his wine while he was served his soup. When the servant had quit the room, he reminded her, “I visited with them this afternoon.”

“That was hours ago. Aren’t you at all curious as to what they’ve been doing between then and now?”

“Mrs. Tavers will give me a report.”

“A report?”

With a heavy sigh he shoved his bowl away. His appetite had deserted him. Why couldn’t his wife?

“Countess, the children are not your concern.
We’ve managed quite well until now without your interference.”

She lowered her gaze to her soup and began to spoon it up and sip quietly.

“My apologies,” he murmured. “I know you mean well. It is simply that English children are not reared in the same manner as American children.”

“So I’m learning.”

It was not until dessert that he dared risk another conversation. “Did you find your chambers satisfactory?”

“Yes, they’re fine.” She met and held his gaze. “Does Millicent favor her mother?”

His throat tightened with the memories. “Very much so.”

“She’s beautiful.”

“As was Margaret.”

“How did you meet?”

He moved aside what remained of his pudding, snatched up his glass, and took a sip of wine before saying, “I gained an introduction at a ball.”

He swirled the liquid in his glass, contemplating how much more to reveal. Speaking of Margaret had the advantage of shoring up the wall around his heart, and so he decided to continue. “It was not an easy task to gain an introduction. Gentlemen flocked around her. Her dance card was filled within moments of her arrival. She was quite the toast of London during her first season.”

“And by the next season?”

He smiled wryly. “She was my wife.”

He lifted his glass in a mock salute. “I seem to have a penchant for marrying hastily.”

“But you didn’t regret your first marriage.”

“I regretted that I could not give Margaret all she deserved.”

With typical brashness she planted her elbow on the table and cupped her chin. “I can’t imagine that she wanted for anything of importance.”

“Because you do not view the world through the eyes of an aristocrat.” Wishing to end the thread of this conversation, he added, “If you are quite finished with the meal, you are welcome to excuse yourself.”

“I’d like to go with you when you say good night to the children.”

His initial reaction was to explain that he didn’t tuck the children into bed. Their governess did. But after her earlier chastisement regarding his failure to hug them, he decided that for tonight at least he could break with tradition.

She was exquisite. He wasn’t certain he’d ever noticed. Certainly the day she was born his chest had tightened into an unbearable but heavenly ache.

The first time he’d held her, he’d thought his heart would burst.

But he couldn’t remember ever gazing upon her small body, lost within the massive canopied bed in which she slept. Her head was nestled against the pillow, the blankets tucked beneath her chin. Her expressive blue eyes were filled with rapt wonder as she listened intently to Gina’s story of an Indian
maiden named Serena who loved a man who failed to love her.

Equally entranced, Noel sat on top of the comforter, his back resting against the carved headboard.

Before she began the tale, Gina had taken her place on the edge of the mattress, and throughout the telling—as a wily fish worked his magic and transformed the maiden into a mermaid—she constantly touched his children. Millicent’s hair. Noel’s leg. Her hand. His chin. With each caress, their eyes softened more and their lips curled higher.

Standing at the foot of the bed, watching, he felt as though he was an intruder. A stranger to his own children. He had no idea what their nightly rituals entailed.

He was fairly certain stories were not involved, since Mrs. Tavers had protested that delaying their bedtime would spoil the children.

“They’re children for such a short time, Mrs. Tavers. They should be spoiled,” Gina had replied.

Apparently another rule the countess intended to put into play in his household. He couldn’t bring himself to object, not when his children had perked up with such delight.

Her story ended with betrayal and the maiden’s tears flowing through a river somewhere in Texas. Within Gina’s voice, Devon heard a lilting sadness. But in his children’s eyes, he saw their amazement that a fish had the power not only to turn a woman into a mermaid when the moon was full, but to cause the man she loved to love her in return.

“Can you believe it, Father?” Millicent asked, her eyes round.

“It does seem quite remarkable,” he replied.

“Does that mean it isn’t true?” Noel asked.

Gina looked at him, and he wasn’t certain if it was her faith he didn’t want to shake or his children’s.

“It’s a legend, Noel,” he said quietly. “All legends have at their center the seeds of truth.”

Gratitude softened the lines of his wife’s face much as the late afternoon sun had earlier. For so long he’d been absorbed with the greater goal of finding a way to improve Huntingdon that he was beginning to realize he may have overlooked the importance of the details.

Leaning over, she kissed Millicent’s forehead. “Good night, Millicent.”

Devon knew a pang of regret as Millicent’s face lit with joy. He was fairly certain Mrs. Tavers didn’t kiss her good night. Millicent had been only two when her mother had died. Did she have any memories of her mother’s tender kisses?

He searched the recesses of his own memories and couldn’t locate a solitary image of Margaret kissing their daughter. At least not after she’d been moved from the bassinet.

Gina stood and stepped back as though she fully expected him to follow her example. He wasn’t about to let on that he had no remembrance of kissing his child since her mother’s death.

Stiffly he moved to the head of the bed and bent over slightly. Millicent flung her tiny arms around
his neck, clinging to him as though he were her favorite doll.

“Good night, Father,” she whispered sweetly in his ear.

His throat clogged with emotion as he closed his arms around her and inhaled her innocent fragrance. “Good night, Kitten.”

Working himself free, he straightened and tucked the blankets around her. With a wink, he touched his finger to the tip of her nose.

Turning, he caught sight of Mrs. Tavers’s stern visage. He almost felt guilty that his daughter would carry that austere image with her into her dreams. “Mrs. Tavers, you’ll stay with Millicent until she falls asleep.”

“Yes, milord.”

It was only then that he realized Gina and Noel had slipped out of the room. He glanced at his daughter again. The flame flickering in the lamp beside her bed played over her delicate features. Millicent had inherited his eyes, his hair, but the rest of her delicate attributes had come from her mother.

When Millicent was a baby, he’d spent long hours watching her sleep. She was a marvel to him. He loved both his children, but a little girl had the power to wrap her father around her tiny finger.

He felt a need to protect her that he didn’t experience when he thought of Noel. Naturally he wanted no harm to ever befall Noel, but he knew his son would be adept at looking out for himself. Upon what sort of man would he bestow the honor of
looking after his little girl? No matter how much she grew or how many years she acquired, he would always think of her as his little girl.

Had Nathaniel Pierce felt the same way at one time regarding Gina?

The man had certainly done a lousy job of seeing after his daughter’s welfare. Marrying her off to an impoverished nobleman and then squandering his own wealth without setting any aside for his daughter. What had the man been thinking?

He should have foisted her onto some unsuspecting man of wealth, regardless of title or position in society. Devon’s title certainly didn’t have the power to keep Gina warm, her stomach from growling with hunger, her body clothed in the finest of gowns.

Her body. Dear Lord, but she did have a sweet body. Swells, curves, and hollows that had driven him mad on their wedding night. He’d always shown such regard for Margaret in the dark beneath the blankets, respecting her modesty and only lifting her gown.

But with his Texas wife, he’d revealed every inch of her flesh, feasted on the sight of it.

His aching hand brought him to his senses. It was gripping the bedpost so hard he was surprised he didn’t see indentations in the wood when he loosened his fingers.

He gave Mrs. Tavers a curt nod before striding from the room. He’d only bedded Gina because of the bargain he’d struck with her father. He certainly wasn’t attracted to her, didn’t want her in his bed.
Theirs had been a marriage of convenience, and the convenience had come to an abrupt halt with the death of her father. Or so he repeatedly tried to convince himself.

Perhaps, in retrospect, his canceling the conditions of the bargain had been a bit rash. But he had not gained the wealth her father had promised. It was only fair she not benefit beyond the title, of which he could not deprive her.

He stepped into Noel’s room. The boy’s eyes were fastened on Gina in a manner that could only be described as heroine-worship.

Did Mrs. Tavers normally tuck the lad into bed, or did he see to himself? If their situation were not so dire, the lad would have a valet. Perhaps Devon needed to speak with Winston. Surely one of the remaining servants would provide the service.

His eyes growing more round, Noel sat up and smiled so brightly that Devon feared his son might damage his jaws.

“Father, did you know that cousin Kit was a marshal? And that he fought in a duel with a bunch of outlaws?”

A
bunch
of outlaws? What sort of English was his child speaking? A bunch of grapes, perhaps—