Page 44 of The Marquess Wins a Wife
“She’ll manage,” he said lightly. “It’s only a coat. It doesn’t matter if she ruins it. It matters that she takes a lesson from it.” His head tilted slightly to one side. “I think she will, though.”
“You shamed her.”
“She needed to be a little ashamed of herself,” he said, and he raked one hand through those silky dark locks. Reflexively, her fingers curled at the remembered texture—massacring the lump of dough beneath them. “You could have used her assistance long before now.”
It was true, but she had grown so accustomed to her role that it had felt normal, natural to simply let it persist as it had been, even if she found herself occasionally frustrated by it. Probably shehadspoiled Imogen dreadfully. Georgie and Joanna had been just babies when Mama had died and Papa had left—they had never known any different. But Imogen had been old enough to remember what their lives had once been, and she had cried herself to sleep every night for weeks with such terrible sobs that Lizzie’s heart had broken for her.
Large hands fell on either side of hers upon the counter. A warm breath stirred the hair near her ear. “I’m expecting another long day,” he said, and his lips brushed the shell of her ear.
“Oh?”
“Raking tenants over the coals is less fun than it sounds. Give me something to see me through.” Those hands drifted to her hips, drawing her away from the counter.
Lizzie pursed her lips together. “I—I’ll make a fresh pot of tea.”
A soft chuckle burned against her temple. “Tea would be nice. But I was thinking something sweeter.” His fingers touched her chin, tilted her head, turned her face toward him. His lips touched the corner of hers. “A kiss. Come now, darling, weareengaged. I’ll even show you the license when I secure it.”
She wished she had the fortitude to resist the slow sweep of his tongue, the feather-light stroke of his fingers over her cheek. But instead she sank into the heady feeling, embraced the lightheadedness, and kissed him back.
How was it that she had spent so many years being strong, only to fall weaknow? It would be so simple a thing to fall in love with him—she had the oddest feeling that it could happen almost on accident. A slight trip over the subversion of her expectations of him, and followed by a headlong fall straight into it.
It seemed an eon before at last he lifted his head and swiped his thumb across her damp lips as if savoring the slick texture of them. “Mm,” he said. “That ought to last me an hour or so.”
Lizzie choked. “An hour!”
He buried a chuckle in her hair, and pulled away at last, ostensibly to set himself up in the study once more. “I will take that tea—in an hour.”
∞∞∞
“You may see yourself out, Mr. Holstead.” Luke gave a dismissive gesture of his hand, flicking his fingers toward the door. “Expect no grace on future quarter days, for you’ll receive as much as you’ve shown the Talbots.”
“Yes, my lord. Thank you, my lord.” The obsequious, reverential bow offered by Holstead as he clutched his hat in his hands and backed toward the door struck Luke as particularly obnoxious. According to the accounting books, Holstead’s debt was not nearly as high as some others whom he had already called out upon the carpet, but in Luke’s opinion that made it all the more offensive. A man of limited income, Holstead had retired to the countryside on a pension from his former employer, and the house he had let was quite small. Probably the hat he had come wearing had cost as much as two quarters’ rent.
He was going to have to hire a land agent, and quickly. Every new caller provokedsomesort of fury within him. Either a rambling set of excuses which did not hold water, or a man too well-dressed to be pleading poverty—or even the suggestion that the Talbots had not been entitled to what they were owed simply because they lacked the means tocompelpayment. One had claimed the cost of his daughter’s Season had strained his finances so severely that he hadn’t been able to scrape up the money for his rent.
He’d nearly struck the man for that one, and the man had quailed near the door as Luke had bitingly explained that his daughter’s Season, and the frivolities of others like him, had cost Imogen a Season of her own. Too many more days of this, and he might be driven to murder. Somehow, he’d come to think of the Talbots—the whole, wretched lot of them—as beneath his protection. A slight against them was not to be borne.
His tea had long since grown cold, but it wasn’t the steaming fresh cup he was looking forward to. It was the woman who would deliver it. Perhaps he could coax her into staying a while, plead another headache, and persuade her to soothe it—though it was just as likely he’d have to bargain with her for it. He patted his pockets, searching for the coin—
“Am Ireallygoing to Eton?”
Luke’s head popped up, and he peered toward the door, where a set of dark eyes stared at him through the scant inch it was open. “Don’t linger in doorways, Georgie,” he said. “If you’ve a question for me, you can come in and ask it properly.” Though Georgie was not, precisely, the Talbot he hadwantedto see, he supposed he could spare a few moments for the lad.
The boy did not enter alone; his sister came in upon his heels. Then again, he’d rarely seen the two outside of one another’s company. Joanna lingered behind Georgie perhaps half a step, her eyes narrowed in suspicion.
“Well, Georgie?” Luke asked.
“Am I going to Eton?” Though he lifted his chin to stare directly into Luke’s eyes, there was something undeniably fragile about the grim line of his mouth and the faint sheen of his eyes—as if he were preparing himself for disappointment.
“Provided your sister has no objections,” he said, “I see no reason you shouldn’t start at the beginning of the next term.” It was just two weeks or so away; convenient timing.
Joanna gave a breathless little squeal, throwing her arms around Georgie in a celebratory embrace, and the two danced an odd, exuberant jig about the room, their twin piercing shrieks ringing in his ears. Good Lord—who ever would have expected children to be so damnedloud?
And yet, the godawful racket they produced seemed to correlate with a peculiar burn in his chest; a strange ache that baffled him. These children looked tohimfor answers, as if they trusted him to provide them.
Joanna placed her small hands upon Georgie’s shoulders. “You have got to do all your own sums from now on,” she said severely. “And you must learn Greek and Latin, and teach them to me.”
Luke found himself smothering a chuckle in his palm. “You’ll have a governess of your own, Jo,” he said. “To learn—whatever it is ladies learn. I don’t suppose I’m well-versed in that sort of thing. Embroidery, perhaps.”
