Page 34 of Pride & Petticoats

Chapter Ten

Freddie chuckled. It appeared they’d arrived at a temporary truce, and he wasn’t going to question it. She wanted a drink, and that he could certainly supply.

“Follow me.” He led her through the hall and opened the double doors to his library, holding them wide until she’d passed inside. When he’d closed them and turned around, he found her looking about, wide-eyed and slack-jawed.

“This is magnificent,” she cooed, her eyes all but caressing the towers of books extending to the top of the twelve-foot ceiling. In the middle of the room was a fireplace, the fire burning low and orange and casting shadows about the wall of books. Two couches faced each other on either side of the mantel. At the far end of the room, situated before a huge octagonal window that extended past the rest of the house and provided a stunning view of his garden when the sun shone, was Freddie’s desk. Intricately carved and highly polished, the desk was the centerpiece of the room. The wood was gorgeous—mahogany from the wilds of the Caribbean—and the ornate carvings were the perfect embellishment to the imposing room and its glorious window. “This is truly magnificent,” Charlotte repeated.

“A man must have his sanctuary,” Freddie answered, crossing to the table beside one of the couches, where several decanters glowed in the firelight. He poured himself a healthy dose of his best port and splashed out two fingers of brandy for Charlotte. He probably should have given her the claret, which was far more suitable a drink for an English lady, but thus far she’d exhibited no signs of ladylike behavior, and she definitely wasn’t English.

He didn’t know what they drank in America, but he had a feeling one dose of brandy would not put his colonist under the table.

She took the glass from him, sipped the brandy, and nodded her approval. Freddie watched her, wondering just when she’d become his colonist. Certainly he had some rights over her—perhaps rights was not the correct word, but definitely responsibilities—but she was in no conceivable way his. A few weeks more and she’d be back in America, back in her precious Charleston, a thousand miles and a god-awful sea between them.

He should rejoice at the mere thought of so much distance separating them; instead, the prospect made him feel lonely. His life these past two days had been turned upside down, his sober, efficient household set on its ear. And yet there was something exhilarating—and not a little scary—in the uncertainty his wife and her maid brought into his ordered life.

She turned again to survey the room, and he mentally shook his head. What was he thinking? Did he actually want the little hoyden to stay? She belonged in her backward barbarian land, and he belonged here in the height of culture and civility.

She started for the octagonal window, navigating past the desk, and Freddie held his breath. She did not walk so much as sway her hips while moving forward. Her skirts swished from side to side as her sweet derriere swung back and forth. Silently he thanked Madam Vivienne for her artistry. The gown had been made with seduction in mind.

When Charlotte reached the window, she bent over to get an impression of the lawns outside, and Freddie’s heart thumped in his chest. He had a perfect view of her round, wiggling rump. Finally she turned back to him.

Freddie swallowed, but his throat felt like someone had stuffed his cravat down it. When he tried to wet his lips with a sip of port, he found his glass unaccountably empty. “This is a beautiful room,” she said in that low, sultry voice he was coming to know so well. “I had no idea you were such an avid reader.”

Freddie followed her gaze over the rows and rows of books, most of them purchased by his father and grandfather. “I’m not an avid reader. Not a reader a’tall, if you must know.”

She glanced back at his desk and the small stack of books on the corner. Two were open and his stopping point on the others was clearly marked. “And those books on your desk?” she asked.

“Part of the illusion.” He took a seat on the couch and motioned for her to follow, but she shook her head.

“Exactly what illusion are you attempting to perpetuate, Alfred?”

“My persona, when I go out in Society, is that of a dandy.” She wrinkled her brow. “A fop, a fribble, a—”

She shook her head, uncomprehending.

“A popinjay. Oh, dash it! A man with interests in fashion and little else.”

“And this is a persona?” She ran her eyes down his starched, perfectly tailored clothing, immaculate except for the cabbage, the wine, and—oh, yes, the newest addition—the blood. “You’re quite convincing.”

He inclined his head. “Years of practice, madam. Am I to assume that you are an avid reader? Do colonists know how to read?”

She gave him a wan smile. “If I follow the page with my finger and sound the words out.”

Freddie raised a brow. The chit could be amusing when she wanted.

“But to answer your question, no, I am not an avid reader, much to my father’s disappointment, I’m afraid.” She gave the room another wistful perusal. “He would have adored this room. He would have taken up residence and then refused to be moved until he’d read every book twice.”

“Rather a frightening prospect, but I’ve known worse fathers-in-law.”

She was quiet, her face full of grief for a moment.

“You’re thinking of him,” Freddie said quietly. “I’m sorry.”

“As am I.”

Freddie shifted on the couch, uncomfortably aware that he wanted to go to her. She looked so forlorn, standing in the center of his massive library like a little girl lost. He wanted to take her in his arms, tell her everything would be all right, but how the hell did he know that everything in her life would work out? Still, he couldn’t stop himself asking, “Is that why you need the thousand pounds? Debts left by your father?”

She gave him a curious look, then turned her face away, mumbling, “Something like that.”

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