Page 23 of Their Brazen Countess
Then Linc collapsed on his back and pulled him down onto the bed with him, remaining buried inside him for the moment.
“Thank you for that,” Linc murmured.
As they lay there together, Arthur’s thoughts drifted toward what came next. He hesitated as he considered what this meant for him and Linc. Were they…together now? Was he ready for that?
But he had no answers. Not yet.
Arthur was grateful to wake up alone when Travers came bustling in as he normally did. He hadn’t considered just how awkward it would have been for the valet to walk in and find him and Linc in bed together. Between the whisky and the grief, he just hadn’t been thinking clearly.
Fortunately, Linc had been, because at some point he slipped out of Arthur’s room and into his own, leaving Arthur to be dressed by his valet and step downstairs alone.
“Good morning.” Linc looked up from the newspaper as Arthur walked into the breakfast room.
“Good morning,” Arthur replied, more out of habit than any real sense of goodness about the day. He reached for the pot of coffee, a preference they’d both gained from their friend Lord Stonemere.
“Do you have any plans for today?” Linc asked as he nudged his empty cup toward Arthur.
Arthur stared at the man, dumbfounded.He couldn’t be serious, could he?“Well, there was the small matter of rescuing Jo from her bondage. But otherwise, I might go for a ride through Hyde Park later.”
Linc’s head snapped up at the sarcasm Arthur couldn’t contain. “Jo? Arthur, I’m not sure you understand. There isn’t anything for us to do. She has married someone else to protect her sister. We have no ability to interfere, especially if that interference is not wanted. Dare I say, it is not. If it had been, she would have come to us yesterday morning.”
Arthur growled at his friend and lover. “Unless she had been unable to come to us. What if her bastard of a father had locked her away?”
Linc looked stricken for a moment, but his face quickly settled back into its normal arrangement. “Arthur, surely you can see that as resourceful as she is, she is not one to be locked away unless it was by her own choosing. No door or lock would have kept Jo from us if that is what she had chosen.” Linc looked down at his hands, now clenched in his lap. “She simply didn’t choose us.”
Arthur’s gut twisted. Was this about physical barriers or emotional? “I’m not ready to accept that. You may come with me or you may remain here, but I am returning to Whitestone’s townhouse today to find her. We know her father had threatened her sister. Our Wood Sprite would never sacrifice her so she could be free. The question remains, is there anything we can do to save her now?”
Chapter Eleven
February 1862
Jo,nowtheMarchionessof Whitestone, sat in the rundown drawing room of her new husband’s townhome. They’d just returned from their honeymoon, spent mostly at his country estate.
Fortunately, she both enjoyed the country and winter. Less fortunate was the company that she was forced to endure. Whitestone was tolerable, though far too advanced in years for her taste, but his sister and her son had passed by uncivil and careened straight into rudeness almost upon meeting her.
Fortuitously, her new relatives had remained at Whitestone Manor when her husband had been called back to the House of Lords for an important vote. The Marquess had waved farewell that morning after bidding her to get to work on refurbishing the house to her liking.Now his coffers have been replenished, she thought sourly.With my money.
Jo sat alone, staring at the drawing room without the faintest clue where to begin. Had the man bid her to reorganize his library, she would have rolled up her sleeves and gotten to work straight away. But decorate? A house? Perhaps she should have paid greater attention to those lessons her mother had tried so desperately to impart on her. Her last husband had had a staff which ran like a well-oiled machine. They had required nothing of her beyond the occasional approval of a menu—and even that normally had gone to her husband. Perhaps she should have looked at a few magazines now and again, instead of assuming she’d be free to go her own way after her first husband’s death. Clearly, she had miscalculated.
A knock preceded the opening of the drawing room door. “Excuse me, my lady. Lords Dunmere and Lincolnshire are here to see you.” The butler—what was his name again? Bell! Mr. Bell stood there looking very aggrieved that she had two male visitors.
“They are?” Jo’s stomach gave a little flip. What on earth were they doing calling on her? How did they find her? Well, there was only one way to find out. “Please show them in.”
A few moments later, the very two men who she’d thought she might never see again were standing in her shabby little drawing room.
Once Mr. Bell exited the room, Jo rose to her feet and ran over to the men. “Arthur, Linc!” She hugged each man she had once thought to spend the rest of her life with, though no more, considering her newly married state. “It is so good to see you both.”
The men hugged her back, Linc rather stiffly, and Arthur with a bit more warmth. “Jo, it is good to see you looking well.” Arthur smiled at her.
“Marriage seems to agree with you.” Linc’s words came out stilted and stiff as though he was holding himself back.
Her joy at seeing them withered a little. She’d known they’d be hurt once they found out, but truly, she hadn’t been allowed a chance to tell them. If they’d listened to her, they’d have realized she had no choice. “Well, I wouldn’t go that far, Linc. But it is certainly better for me to be here than my baby sister.” She let one brow lift as she eyed him.
Darting a look at the closed door, she wondered just how private they truly were. It mattered naught, really. Nothing inappropriate would transpire between them now. She may not love her husband, but she respected the vows she took.
“I’m sorry if my disappearance and marriage hurt you both. When I returned home that afternoon, my father leveled an ultimatum. I marry Lord Whitestone, or Rebecca would. She has just turned twenty, still a young woman who dreams of falling in love.” Jo took Arthur’s hand and squeezed it until he looked at her. “I couldn’t steal that from her in pursuit of my own happiness. I secured a promise from my father that he would allow her to marry where she chose, and in return I would marry Whitestone. In the end, I would have been miserable knowing she’d been married off to Whitestone—or someone like him. I had to protect her.”
Arthur reached out and touched her shoulder. “Of course you did. But will your father hold to his end of the deal?”
