Page 22 of A Deal With a Notorious Devil
“Chatty?”
“The wedding night talk.” Her cheeks hollowed. “She was disappointed, I think, to learn I have not reached the grand age of nine and twenty entirely ignorant of what passes between men and women in the marital bed.”
“Oh?”
“All of my sisters are married,” she said. “And my friends.Between them, they’ve a great number of children. I should be quite stupid not to have learned something from them. I know what is meant to happen—at least, I’ve a reasonable idea.” Here she glanced around furtively for a moment to be certain that they were unobserved. But then, they were now married. There was no need for a chaperone any longer. Her voice dropped to a murmur. “I simply have no interest in it happening to me.”
“It won’t.” At least, not the bit where she ended up bellyful with a babe she did not want. But the rest of it? He had not forgotten the softening of her mouth beneath his, the feel of her pressed up against him.
“Mama will come around,” she said. “I think she’s half convinced you’ll execute me before sunrise, like the king fromOne Thousand and One Nights.”
“The king from what?”
“It’s a book. A king takes a new wife every night, only to behead each poor lady in the morning. Until he marries the daughter of his vizier, Scheherazade, and she tells a story so riveting he can’t execute her until he knows the ending.”
“What a bastard. I want that book for my library.”
“You won’t be able to read it. The original is in Arabic. I’ve got the French translation, but there’s no English one available just yet.”
“Still, I want it.” He hadn’t yet returned her copy ofPride and Prejudice, but then, he supposed it was half his now, too. “You did promise to improve my library.”
“I did. It’s just that books are dreadfully expensive. Perhaps you’d be better served with a subscription to a circulating library.”
“I like owning things.” Perhaps it was avaricious of him, but it was true. There had been years—too many of them—that he’d owned little more than the clothes upon his back, and those only if he could retain possession of them through the cold winternights. What purpose was there in having so bloody much money, if not to surround himself with the trappings of his wealth? “The cost is not an issue. Shall we?”
“Shall we what?” She inclined her head, and one of those perfect starchy curls dangled near her ear.
“Go home.”
“Oh. Yes.” She took a step toward him—just one, and it had seemed somehow a difficult motion for her to make. As if something had pulled at her shoulders, tugging her back. Just briefly, a strange expression flittered across her face. “I suppose it’s…difficult,” she said. “To say goodbye to one’s home.”
“Why should it be? You’ve lived here—what, a month?”
“It’s not the building that makes a home. It’s the people within it.” Another step, and another. “Tomorrow, when I wake, Mama will not be waiting at the breakfast table for me. Papa will not be grumbling about over-salted eggs. I mean to say, theywill—only, I’ll be elsewhere.”
“Perhaps you ought to invite them for breakfast, then,” he said. “If only to assure your mother that I’ve not executed you at dawn.”
“Could I?”
“It makes no difference to me. I rarely rise before noon if I can avoid it.” Like as not, he’d never even know they’d been present. “You won’t be far, you know.”
“No,” she said. “Just over the wall.” And yet, the strange inflection of her voice made it sound like the journey to the moon might be a shorter distance.
∞∞∞
Phoebe’s new home was large…and largely vacant. She supposed that was one of the travails of owning such a magnificent property. One might have all the money in the world to furnish such a space and still have not the slightest idea of what to put in it.
It had been a strange sensation to walk with him even the short distance from her house to his without the company of a maid or a chaperone. As if she had been doing something she ought not. She might have a ring upon her finger that would tell the world that nothing untoward was going on, but still she had never walked through a man’s door unaccompanied in her life.
A day of firsts—or a night of one, at least. That first step over the threshold felt like a leap into a murky pond. One undertaken without knowing when her feet might touch the bottom, or what sort of creatures might reside there with her.
Mr. Moore—Chris—herhusband—was already tugging at his cravat. “That’s Brooks,” he said, gesturing to the man who had opened the door to admit them, “my butler. His primary purpose seems to be irritating me. When he’s notbuttling, he’s a right pain in the arse.”
Brooks caught the discarded cravat before it could touch the floor. “Don’t you dare even thinkof tossing your coat upon the floor,” he snarled.
Chris tossed his coat upon the floor before the butler had even finished speaking. “Brooks,” he said, “This is Phoebe. My wife.”
Brooks paused in the act of retrieving the coat, his dark brows sweeping toward his hairline. “Holy hell,” he said. “Youdid it. You truly did it.”
