Page 126 of While You Were Spying

Finally Mrs. Carbury paused before a door on the first floor and opened it. She waved Francesca into the prettiest room she had ever seen in her life. The chamber was done all in white—white carpets, white bedclothes, and billowing vanilla silk drapes. The blond wood furnishings were so pale they looked almost ivory, and there was a large, pure white marble fireplace along one wall. Accenting the white decor were sashes and flounces and ribbons of emerald green and gold. Mrs. Carbury motioned for Francesca to enter the room, and she floated inside, going first to the tent bed and running the soft, satiny green- and gold-tasseled sashes through her fingers. The dark color of the green reminded her of Tanglewilde.

“I hope it meets with you approval, my lady.” Mrs. Carbury glanced at the chambermaids silently unpacking Francesca’s trunks. Francesca realized that at some point all of her things had been unloaded from the second coach.

“Oh, it’s absolutely perfect, Mrs. Carbury. Perfect.” As much as she loved her mother, she knew now she would never miss the frilly pink of her bedroom at Tanglewilde.

“I am relieved to hear you say that, my lady. We had so very little time to effect the changes Lord Winterbourne ordered in his letter announcing your arrival.”

“Changes?” Francesca gave the housekeeper a puzzled frown.

“Yes, your ladyship. This room was Lady Winterbourne’s. Oh, I suppose I should call her Lady Selbourne as she remarried, but she spent the last years of her life here, and I have always thought of her as a Winterbourne.”

“She was Lord Winterbourne’s mother.”

“Yes, my lady. A wonderful woman, though I’m afraid that in the last years of her life she was much given to melancholy and sadness.”

No doubt as a result of her husband’s philandering, Francesca thought. Her marriage would be different. It would be happy and filled with joy. Three days in the coach had already brought her and Ethan closer together.

She watched Mrs. Carbury survey the room, a plaintive look on the woman’s lined face. Francesca wondered if the older woman was imagining the room as it had been. Then the lines around the housekeeper’s face brightened, and she smiled again.

“Of course we could not put such a pretty young girl as you in that dark room. Lord Winterbourne ordered it done in white and emerald green, and now that I meet you, I think it was the perfect choice.”

Francesca smiled with genuine warmth. “I do too.” But a small part of her wondered at Ethan’s choices. It was almost a fairy-tale room, and she felt like a storybook princess standing inside it. But she was not a princess. She was a real woman, and she wanted Ethan to see her as such.

Pushing her silly worries away, her gaze swept the room again, and she was more moved than she would ever admit by Ethan’s thoughtfulness. She didn’t know how she would ever thank him, but she blushed at the few ideas that came to

mind. Her eyes lighted on a door artfully concealed in the paneling on the chamber’s far side, and she felt her cheeks heat further.

Mrs. Carbury, no doubt trained from a young age to anticipate the wishes and desires of her employer, offered, “That door adjoins to Lord Winterbourne’s room, my lady.”

“Of course,” Francesca squeaked, certain that her face resembled a big red tomato. Finally, she managed, “Thank you for all your assistance, Mrs. Carbury. You have made me feel very welcome.”

Mrs. Carbury puffed herself up in the manner Francesca was beginning to associate with pleasure. “We’ll leave you alone now, my lady. Please call on me if you need anything further.”

“I will.”

Mrs. Carbury and the maids trooped silently out of the room, leaving Francesca to contemplate the door between Ethan’s room and her own. She didn’t know why the sight of that door should so unnerve her, except that it reminded her of her new status as wife. Not that she hadn’t enjoyed being a wife thus far, but, as she gazed at the door in the paneling, she knew she wanted more from Ethan than a romp in his carriage or free access to his bedroom.

She wanted his trust, his devotion, and, most of all, his heart. And no one—not the very capable Mrs. Carbury or even a battalion of dedicated servants—could help her with that.

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