The dog brushed up against her, his wet nose leaving a trail of darkness on the silk of her skirt. Francis was laughing at something Anna had said and Timothy was chatting to him as if the Earl of Douglas were the masculine embodiment of everything wonderful.
This was a whole full life given to her when she had least expected it and risen from the ruin of her mistakes. She decided that she would drink whisky with her husband for the rest of her years and smiled. She was glad that he had given her the time to recover by distracting the others though when his gaze came across hers she remembered again his heated promise.
Tonight. Her eyes went to the clock above the mantel, only a matter of hours until it came, and he winked as he saw her interest there.
‘Can we walk to the top floor of the house and see the view?’ Anna asked this of Francis.
‘Are you scared of heights?’
‘No.’ Anna’s voice was becoming more and more certain and today her ill-cut hair was held back by a hairband. It suited her. So did the smile that came as Francis held out his hand and she reached for it.
* * *
The two of them ate that night at a table set for a king. There were lilies on the sideboard, from London Sephora supposed, their scent heavy and compelling. The silver was well polished and the plates were Sèvres, bordered in gold and aqua and monogrammed in the middle—the letter ‘D’ hung with greenery and colourful tiny flight-filled birds.
The Earl of Douglas was almost as decorated as his plates, his jacket of green velvet and his waistcoat of a burgundy-and-saffron-embroidered silk. She had never seen Francis St Cartmail in anything other than dark and sombre hues before and though he looked well in those the bright and striking colours of tonight’s garb were breathtaking. The cabochon ruby on his little finger shone against the candles. As if he recognised what she was thinking he lifted his glass in a toast.
‘“A wife of noble character who can find? She is worth more than rubies.”’
‘I would say a man wrote that line, my lord.’
He laughed and paraphrased quickly. ‘My wife of noble character is worth more than rubies and I have found her.’
They both sipped at the red wine after that, a short distraction while they garnered their wits, Sephora thought, and was glad the footman hovering at her shoulder had gone. Hovering as Richard always had. She pushed the thought away and reached for a new question.
‘How old are you, my lord?’
‘Thirty-four.’
‘And you had not thought to marry before?’
‘No.’ Simply said. The dimple on his undamaged cheek was shadowed in the candlelight and there was humour in his eyes.
‘I saw you once before I met you properly. You were in a garden kissing a woman and not all that politely for she looked more than amorous. It was a ball, if I remember correctly, and I had stepped outside for a brief moment to gather air.’
‘It is the plight of a bachelor, Lady Douglas, being pounced on like that. But you have rescued me from such folly forever and I thank you for it. I never saw you at all in society. Perhaps it was because I tried to attend as few events as I could justifiably manage.’
This was how flirting worked, Sephora suddenly thought. This cut and thrust of pleasure and coquetry. If she had had a fan she might have flicked it across her face in the practised way she had noticed others manage. A small diversion. A studied amusement.
She felt more beautiful than she ever had before.
‘I’m certain I shall have to do so again, Lord Douglas. Rescue you, I mean, for I have heard your name whispered by many hopeful females after all.’
He finished his glass of wine and set it down. ‘When I make a promise, I always keep it.’
‘That is indeed a comfort, my lord.’ She could not quite interpret what he meant by that. The promise of tonight? The promise of forever? The troths were all getting mixed around in her head and in the pit of her stomach another more languid feeling was growing.
She pushed back the lacy golden shawl from her shoulders and saw his eyes flare. This dress had been carefully chosen to be within the barest whisper of modesty. At the time she had sworn she should never have the courage to wear it, but now...
Now she rounded her shoulders and leaned forward, the ample flesh of her breasts pressing against the thinness of fabric. Francis St Cartmail’s reaction almost made her smile, but she shook away mirth and concentrated on something far more dangerous.
‘Richard Allerly told me he loved me constantly. The words are easy to say, you see, and when I failed to eventually believe in his sentiments I thought I should never ever wish to hear them again. Not like that. Not worthless and without value. Not parroted without any meaning whatsoever.’
‘You wish to know in other ways?’ His voice was silky and rough, and if they had been sitting closer she might have reached out then and touched him, to hold his fingers tightly in her own.
But distance had its own appeal, too. A suspended moment. A deferred intimacy.
She took another sip of her wine and watched him.
* * *
God, his timid innocent wife was turning into a practised siren, in her golden almost nothing sheath of a gown and with her surprising confessions. She knew how she was affecting him and that was the worst of it. He had been chased down by women ever since he could remember, but none who set his blood to boil like this one could, the words of her disclosure on love spilling into disbelief.
She did not wish for him to give her the troth? She wanted to feel it instead, the breathless pull, the intimacy, the scent of desire.
Go slowly, he commanded himself as the betrayal of his body filled unhearing flesh and the shock of connection drew his skin into goosebumps. There was still the whole dinner to get through, the second course only just coming from the kitchens in the capable arms of a handful of footmen bearing platters.
Sephora pulled her lacy shawl upwards at the intrusion and smiled, the fabric settling across fine breasts and hiding the swell beneath gossamer silk. But he had seen. He knew what had been there, was there still. The sweat on his upper lip prickled with heat and he used the starched linen napkin to wipe it away.
He had lost his appetite for everything save her, but she was thanking his man for the portion of meats just served, and he could do nothing but watch.
‘It is a wondrous feast,’ she said and looked up, the pale blue of her eyes in the candlelight almost see-through.
‘It is,’ he answered and knew he did not speak of the food.
‘Like artistry?’
‘Exactly like it.’
When she picked up her eating utensils the light from the chandelier above caught on a tine of the fork, sending beams of colour into her hair.
An angel. His angel.
The thoughts of ravishment dimmed a little under this realisation and settled into a place that was more manageable. He was pleased his serving staff had withdrawn into the kitchen as he had asked them to do.
‘I want heirs.’
He knew he had shocked her, but two could play at this game and he’d had far more years of practice.
‘How many, my lord?’
Hell, at that moment Sephora Connaught reminded him so much of a seasoned courtesan that he laughed. A surprising twist. He could barely keep pace with the reactions of his traitorous body and he was struggling with the changeover, whereas she seemed to be relishing them.
‘Would four suit you, my lady?’
‘Two girls and two boys? A considered choice? Prescriptive. Accounted for.’ The smile was in her eyes now, too. She was teasing him, provoking him, taking his words and turning them around into something else entirely. It was so seldom that anyone else had ever managed to do that, that he was speechless.
Shifting back in his seat he took account of what he had learned tonight about his unusual wife. She was beautiful, of course. However the beauty lay not only in her outside appearance, but inside in kindness, humour and honesty. She was also clever, ruthlessly so, a woman who might turn a conversation completely on its head and smile through his confusion.
The third thing worried him the most. She was so damned sexy he felt like taking her then and there on the rug in the dining room in front of a burning fire, just to see how the flame glowed on the white of her skin and the sheen of her breasts and the pale gold in her hair.
‘So, you wish for a fruitful marriage without any mention of love? The act but not the words?’
‘The truth rather than the falsity.’ She was quick with her reply.
‘When I see Winbury next time I think I am going to knock that damn head off of his shoulders.’
She laughed, but quietly, as if in his troth she found a certain solace.
‘I would hope that you do not. He is a man whom I have left behind, a weak man I think, and half a lifetime is too many years to regret. If I could ask you for anything it would be for honesty.’
He smiled. ‘Honesty can have its bite, too, Sephora. What would you say if I told you I want to take you to my bed right now and show you the true beauty of what can be between a man and his wife?’
She stood then, taking the linen serviette from her lap and placing her fork and knife carefully on her plate.
‘I would say, my lord, that I am finished with dinner.’
* * *
The Earl of Douglas made her brave and different. He did not hide behind words but said them to her face in a way that she could not fail to understand the meaning. He wanted her and she wanted him, but the wants were not coated in falsity or childishness or arrogance.