The man never seemed to do anything at a leisurely pace, it appeared to Aurora. In no time at all she found herself dressed in her new traveling ensemble, seated in an elegant carriage with fur throws and hot bricks and a picnic hamper, and her new husband, who was ordering the driver to spring 'em. He settled himself opposite her, sprawling exhaustedly against the cushions. "I instructed the coachman to stop for the night halfway to Town. No reason to get to London after midnight. The Black Dog is where I usually stay, but you might wish to rest before then."
Stop for the night? It occurred to Aurora that he was expecting to spend the night with her and informing her that she should rest to prepare herself! Good grief, no amount of rest could prepare her for such intimacies with a perfect stranger, unless it was the eternal sort! Of course she'd made her bed, and now had to sleep in his. Dear heaven. Aurora popped another peppermint drop in her mouth to keep her teeth from clattering in fear.
"I say, you aren't going to be ill again, are you?" Windham asked, almost as nervous at the thought. "Are we traveling too fast? I'll tell the fellow to stop at the Golden Thistle in Bycroft."
Stop sooner? "No. That is, no, the carriage is so well sprung, I swear I could ride straight through to London."
He relaxed again. "Well, I for one am looking forward to a hot bath and a comfortable bed, the sooner the better."
Aurora swallowed the candy whole, almost choking on it.
"No, tomorrow afternoon is soon enough to reach London," Kenyon told her with a yawn, leading her to hope that he'd be so tired he might forget he had a wife. "I'll still have time to send notices to the papers and see your family's solicitor concerning your dowry."
"My dowry?" Now Aurora had a new concern, that he expected her to be bringing him a vast fortune. Surely he understood that the McPhees were minor gentry, living modestly on annuities and investments. "I'm afraid that I"
"Never fear, as I assured your uncle while you were changing, I intend to see that your monies are put into a secure trust for your children."
Children? Her children would be his children, may the saints preserve them, and her. But monies? "Uncle must not have been listening. He does tend to let his mind wander, especially when the ground starts to thaw. Otherwise he would have informed you that the sum is so small it needs no legal safeguards. Why, I doubt my dowry would keep an infant in nappies for a year."
"Nonsense. Podell only battens on heiresses. You must have a healthy bank account somewhere."
"I assure you, there is none. I keep the accounts for my aunt and uncle, and I know to the shilling that there is no fortune. Aunt Thisbe was constantly bemoaning her inability to see me presented at court."
"Then the money had to come from your parents in India."
She shook her head. "By all accounts my father never rose above his post as one of the East India Company's minor clerks. He died before amassing anything but debts, and my mother shortly before him. If not for the generosity of the British colony there, I understand, she'd have been buried as a pauper."
"Then what the deuce could Podell have been after?" Kenyon wondered.
Aurora drew the fur rug and her pride more closely around her. "Might it not occur to you that he loved me for myself, not my family's wealth?"
"No."
She gasped. "That is plain speaking indeed."
The earl seemed to recollect himself, and his company. "I say, I did not mean to insult you, Miss ah, my dear. It's not that Podell couldn't have held you in the greatest esteem, but that his motives were never so pure. My apologiesI must be even more tired than I realized."
With that, the earl settled into the corner of his side of the carriage and pulled his hat down over his eyes, as if he intended to nap right thenon her wedding day! This might not be the glorious celebration Aurora had imagined in her schoolgirl's fantasies. Gracious, this was not even the bridegroom she'd pictured in her fondest dreams. Yet this was the only wedding day she was liable to have, and this the only husband. Till death did them part. That much she remembered the vicar saying. Granted, Windham had ridden ventre-à-terre to save her from Podell's clutches, and he had sacrificed himself on the matrimonial altar, but still! How could any person of sensibility sleep on such a momentous, cataclysmic day?
Aurora cleared her throatand got no response. She rustled the paper sack still in her hands, and he did not even twitch. So she spoke up. "You must have loved your first wife very much."
Now that got a reaction. Kenyon sat up so fast his hat went flying across the coach to land near Aurora's feet. She picked it up and brushed the nap with her fingers. He was examining her through his quizzing glass, most likely because he knew she disliked it so, but she would not lower her eyes, nor her expectations of a reply.
He let the glass fall back on its ribbon and muttered, "What the deuce are you nattering on about, woman?"
"I am not nattering, my lord. I never natter. I am merely trying to understand you and your actions better. That is the foundation for a successful and comfortable relationship, do you not agree?"
"I agree only that we will have a lifetime to develop an understanding, so there is no reason to begin at this precise moment." He tried to dispose his broad shoulders more comfortably against the cushions.
Aurora was not giving up. Her aunt and uncle had never ignored her conversation; she saw less reason for this gentleman to do so. If he was a surly, uncooperative sort, she decided, 'twere better to know it sooner, rather than later. Of course it was too late to matter, but a woman should know all she could about the man to whom she was wedded. His favorite foods and how much starch he liked in his neckcloths could wait. "You must have loved her a great deal. That's why you showed no hesitation about entering a marriage of convenience."
"Which is growing less and less convenient," Kenyon muttered, turning his head to the window. His bride was natteringno, she did not natter. She was babbling on, almost as if she were speaking to herself, or to the hat he wished were covering his weary eyes.
"If one had no hopes of loving again," Aurora persisted, "what difference could one's choice of bride make? I see."
Kenyon saw houses and trees flashing past the window, and no rest in sight. "Whatever you say, Mimy dear."
"Was she very beautiful?"
"Exquisite. Elegant, refined, a daughter of the French aristocracy."
Everything she wasn't, in other words. Aurora couldn't help the kernel of self-pity that lodged in her throat. "I I see."
He peered at her across the carriage, instantly sorry for his brusqueness. Miss McPhee must be feeling all the anxiety of a fledgling sparrow, shoved out of the nest to face the cold, cruel world. She was about as innocent and defenseless, and he was a beast to tease her so. "Her parents fled to an estate near my parents'. We were thrown together a great deal."
"And you fell in love." She sighed.
So did Kenyon. "I fell into lust. Genevieve and I were discovered, on purpose, I have always suspected, and our parents saw to the rest. Two such ancient families must not let a hint of scandal besmirch their noble bloodlines. After the wedding, of course, we discovered that we had absolutely nothing in common. I preferred my government work; she preferred the society of other French émigrés in London. Our paths seldom crossed. Then she ran off with her French lover, a deposed duke. So much for avoiding scandal. Other than the embarrassment, I did not mind overmuch. So you can wipe the stars from your eyes, my lady. There was no deathless devotion, no bond reaching beyond the grave."
She solemnly handed back his hat, nodding. "Yes, I understand now. You were hurt so badly, your pride so shattered, that you swore never to love another. That's why you were willing to take an unknown bride."
He frowned at her through narrowed eyes, then took out his quizzing glass to further discompose her. "And you, Miss—my lady wife, have been reading entirely too many novels."
"And you, sir, do not know my name!"
Aha! She'd finally succeeded in putting the gentleman out of countenance, for there he was, blushing like a schoolboy. Aurora supposed her husband's nearly red hair made him more susceptible to such humbling moments of common mortality. Now there was an important fact for a wife to know about her husband! Feeling much better about their horribly unequal match, she grinned at his discomfiture.
"Wretch," he murmured, smiling back. "I tried to look at the license after you'd filled in the names, but the vicar took the deuced thing away to record before I had the chance. And then I was distracted when you signed the registry."
Aurora giggled. "I was too busy deciphering your signature to notice. I didn't hear a word the vicar said either. It's Aurora, my lord. Aurora Phoebe Halle McPhee."
"Aurora. Dawn. That's lovely." He reached beneath his seat for the hamper and pulled out a bottle of wine. He poured some into the two glasses he also found wrapped in a towel, and offered one to her for a toast. "To a new dawn for both of us."
"And golden days ahead," she added, clinking her glass against his.
"And nights."
Oh, my.
Chapter Three
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