Читать книгу Regency Collection 2013 Part 1 - Хелен Диксон, Louise Allen, Хелен Диксон - Страница 26

Max waited until eleven the next day before calling. He wanted Bree rested, calm and, with any luck, alone. He achieved the first and the last, but he was not sure about how calm she was when he was ushered into the sitting room.

Bree was sitting at her desk, piles of paper all around her, chewing the end of her quill while she stared into space. When he came in her eyes flew to his face and she coloured up, giving him hope that she had been sitting daydreaming about him.

‘Hello.’

She sat still, regarding him solemnly, then she smiled and got to her feet. ‘Max.’ She came towards him, let him take her hand and drop a kiss onto her cheek, but she drew away almost immediately and went to sit in one of the chairs before the fireplace.

Max dropped into the other and crossed his legs, sitting back to give her the space she seemed to need. There was a sense of withdrawal, of distance, that was new about her; she had made up her mind, he could see that.

Bree folded her hands carefully in her lap. He was going to ask her to marry him, now he knew he was free to do so, and she had to tell him, again, that she could not. His first marriage, to a woman far from his world, had been a disaster. She was closer to that world, but perhaps could see even more clearly than Drusilla ever had what a gulf still yawned between them.

Mama had been cut off from her family for the crime of marrying a respectable yeoman farmer. She, the offspring of that mésalliance, was closely related to a major business enterprise, enough to tar her thoroughly with the dreaded label of trade. Even with a half-brother of impeccable ton, she would always be the outsider, but at least now she was accepted while she walked that fine line. To presume to marry an earl would be, she was certain, considered shocking. And Max would spend his entire time defending his wife against snubs and slights.

And that was just the start of it. What did she know of the sort of life he lived?

‘Bree?’ She jumped and realised that she had let her mind wander right off. ‘Bree, stop sitting there thinking of all the reasons why you should turn me down.’ He was smiling, but she could see the tension in him.

‘I’m sorry.’

‘Might I at least ask you first?’

‘Yes, of course.’ She was irredeemably unsuitable, everything proved it. I cannot even hear a proposal of marriage without making a gaffe.

‘Bree, do you think I am asking you to marry me because I compromised you at the picnic?’ It was not what she had expected him to start by saying and she frowned, trying to work out what to reply.

‘Well, yes. There can be no other reason, I am so very unsuitable for you.’

‘Really?’ Max raised one dark brow. ‘Now there I must beg to differ. There is one reason above all why I wish to marry you, Bree Mallory, and that is because I love you.’

Bree simply gaped at him. ‘Love? Me? But you never said.’

‘It is a little difficult trying to persuade one woman that you love her while confessing that you may, or may not, be married to another. I realised what an impossible situation it was once I had started, but I could hardly not say anything after the picnic.’ She found it impossible to speak, simply staring at him and the wry smile that curved his lips. ‘I have no excuse for what happened in the drag other than overwhelming passion. I knew I loved you, I knew I wanted you, yet I could not tell you.’

‘You love me?’ The words came out as a croak.

‘Yes.’

She sat staring at him, silenced by his calm certainty. ‘You …’ They were the words she had been dreaming of hearing Max say to her. She must be dreaming. She got her breathing under control to try again. He was watching her, that smile still twisting his lips, and she realised he was apprehensive too. It was true. ‘Me?’

‘Yes. I love you, Bree Mallory. That is why I want to marry you. That is why I would want to marry you even if you were Bill Huggins’s daughter. It is just fortunate that you aren’t, so we will not have that particular obstacle to overcome.’

‘Bill’s disapproval?’ Bree ventured. Her heart was beating hard, she still felt unsteadily as though the floor was not quite level, but she was beginning to hope.

‘Society’s disapproval.’ Max leaned forward and reached for her. She held out her hands and found them enveloped in his. They were large, warm and very comforting. The unsteady feeling began to vanish. ‘Max. I love you too.’ She blinked, her eyes suddenly blurred with tears. ‘I never thought I would be able to say it. I love you.’

He lifted her hands, still within his, and pressed his face into them, coming to his knees in front of her. It was such a spontaneous, unexpected reaction that she gasped, looking down on the dark, bent head. She could feel the faint prickle of stubble against her palms despite his close morning shave. She could feel the brush of his lashes, the heat of his breath.

‘Max? Max, darling?’ He looked up at that, making her colour at being caught uttering such an endearment. There was laughter in his eyes, which were no longer dark and intense. Laughter and tenderness and relief.

‘That’s all right, then,’ he said prosaically, making her own lips twitch at his teasing. Then he straightened up, caught her in his arms and settled her on his knees. ‘Ah. Now that is better, now I can kiss you properly.’

As if his kisses before had not been proper kisses, Bree thought, giving herself up to the sensual slide of his lips over hers, the slow intensity of the kiss, the heated promise of his tongue, thrusting and claiming. With a sigh of complete abandon she curled into him, careless of crumpled skirts or the bows coming undone under Max’s exploring fingers.

He could have taken her there on the chaise, she realised hazily when he finally released her mouth and stilled his wandering hands. An involuntary murmur of complaint escaped her lips and Max chuckled. ‘I want to spend the next hour with you on my knee, kissing us both into insensibility, but I suppose we should remember where we are.’

‘I suppose so,’ Bree agreed reluctantly. ‘Max. I love you so much, but are you certain I will make you a good wife? There are so many reasons why I am unsuitable.’

‘You will never be a pattern-book countess,’ Max said thoughtfully. ‘I think you would be utterly miserable if I tried to make you one. But then so would I, because what I want is you, with your intelligence and your courage and your lack of convention. You will be a perfect countess, but you will be our perfect countess, not someone else’s ideal of one.’

‘It was why I thought I should say no, before I realised you loved me. But if you feel like that …’

‘We could try being conventional in all the things that do not matter to us,’ Max suggested with a grin. ‘I know, I’ll start by asking your brother’s permission to make my addresses to you.’

‘Piers?’ Bree tried to imagine it. ‘He would die of embarrassment!’

‘No, James. I can be very pompous, which he will enjoy. We should do things in style, don’t you think?’

‘He won’t know whether to be furious or gratified.’ Bree laughed, tickling his ear with her breath. ‘He has no control over me, of course, but he will like to be asked. Then he will start thinking about how little I deserve such an honour—it will give him a headache for a week.’

‘You are a cruel woman.’ Max tightened his arms around her and tried to come to terms with being unconditionally happy. It felt extremely strange. ‘Bree, where would you like to be married from? Have you a hankering after a big society wedding in town? We’d need to wait until the start of the Season to get a really good crowd.’

‘Oh, no! Must we wait that long?’ Her slender frame wriggling in his lap as she sat up to look at him was wreaking wonderful havoc with his willpower. ‘And I would like to be married from home in Buckinghamshire, with Uncle George to give me away, and just a few people there.’

Max found he was hardly listening to what Bree was saying, his attention was so riveted by watching the effect on her eyes of the rapid progress of her thoughts and emotions. There were flecks of darker blue amidst the bluebell colour, her pupils contracted, then opened wide. Then something obviously worried her and the irises themselves seemed to darken.

‘But should you not be in mourning? I had not thought of that. I have no idea of what the mourning period would be under the circumstances. And when it is over, perhaps you would not wish for a quiet country wedding. I am sorry, Max, I am so dazed, I am not thinking sensibly.’

He had not thought of mourning. ‘No, I am not going to don blacks for a year, the time for that is long past. I mourned Drusilla when she left me, I made that last journey to find her and I said goodbye, but I am not going to reduce the time you and I have together by one minute more than I have to.

‘And a quiet country wedding would suit me. We can go from the farm to Longwater, my estate in Norfolk, for our honeymoon.’ He made a mental note to explain firmly to the Dowager Countess that it would be just the time for her to make a prolonged trip into town.

‘Max.’ Bree uncurled herself fully and sat up, still perched on his knees. ‘Will you say anything about your first marriage to anyone? I will not mention it unless you wish.’

‘No.’ He thought about it, then shook his head. ‘No. I will not make a secret of it—after all, it will have to be on the licence, even though I will obtain a special one—but we will let old history lie and not mention it unless we have to. Tell your family and Miss Thorpe, of course.’

He found, watching her, that it was impossible to believe that she truly would be his, that he could love, was loved in return. ‘Bree?’

‘Mmm?’ She was fiddling with the narrow frill of his shirt as though she wanted to attack the buttons.

‘Will it take you very long to buy your bride clothes, do you think?’

‘Ages.’ She sighed deeply, her lush mouth turning down disconsolately at the corners. ‘I will have such a long list. So much shopping. And then there are all the preparations to make, even for a small country wedding. Oh, I should say at least three.’

‘Months?’ Max demanded, standing up and scooping Bree off his knee and on to her feet as he did so. ‘You want me to wait months?’

Bree looked up into his stormy face and laughed from pure happiness. ‘I was teasing you, Max. Three weeks. It is a ridiculously short time, of course, but I can’t bear to wait.’

‘Little witch! I seem to have lost my sense of humour as far as you are concerned. I want you so much. I love you so much.’

‘Show me.’ She reached up, curling her fingers around his lapels and tugging. ‘Show me.’

His mouth, leisurely and confidently sensual, slid over hers, seeking and finding, teasing and caressing. Bree snuggled closer, stood on tiptoe and reached up to play with the hair at the nape of his neck. His skin was so soft there, yet the muscles beneath were so hard, it fascinated her. Everything about his body fascinated her and she just wanted to explore.

When he released her mouth, more so they could both breathe than for any other reason, she murmured, ‘You make me feel very wanton.’

‘You make me feel like picking you up and taking you straight upstairs to bed,’ he said huskily. ‘What do you think?’

‘That it is very tempting—and that we must not. Think what a bad example to the servants, let alone Piers. And Rosa would chase you out with the carpet beater.’

The sound of someone fumbling with the door handle sent Bree flying back to the chaise to perch primly on the edge while Max strode over to the fireplace to admire the rather dull landscape that hung over it.

Rosa entered. ‘You see,’ Bree observed, ‘we are both terrified of her.’

‘I beg your pardon, my dear?’

‘I was just observing to his lordship that you are an excellent chaperon.’

‘As we all know, that is far from the case.’ Miss Thorpe fixed Max with what was obviously intended to be a reproving stare.

‘But, my dear Miss Thorpe, I must disagree. Is it not the sole aim and intent of a chaperon to ensure her charge makes the best possible match?’

‘Why, yes, but—’

‘But Miss Mallory and I are to be married.’

‘Married? Oh, how wonderful! Oh, Bree, my dear—’ Rosa kissed Bree, spun round, hugged Max, went pink the moment she realised what she had done and sank down on the chaise, clutching her charge’s hand in hers. ‘I am so happy for you both. When? Where? How much time have we to prepare?’

‘In three weeks’ time, I hope. And in the country, from the farmhouse with Uncle George to give me away. I must go down there tomorrow.’

‘In my chaise,’ Max interrupted. The look he sent her made her feel protected, sheltered, infinitely cared for. He was going to have to learn that she was too independent to be treated like spun glass, but just now it was purest magic. ‘I’m not having you jaunting about on the stage again.’

‘No, Max, if you say not.’ The twinkle in his eyes made it quite clear he could see through this meekness.

Three weeks seemed both an eternity and the most fleeting of moments. It was an age if one was aching to be in the arms of a tall, dark-eyed gentleman. It was no time at all if one was attempting to organise a ‘quiet’ country wedding.

Piers found himself shuttling between Aylesbury and London with lists, supplies of linen and china and increasingly frantic questions and instructions from both directions.

Rosa divided her time between assisting Bree and reorganising the coaching company office to her own satisfaction. She drove the staff to new heights of efficiency by lightning raids upon all parts of the yard and created lengthy lists of her own for when Bree was away at Longwater.

‘I presume his lordship will expect you to cease your involvement with the company after your marriage,’ she observed, looking up from her notes on a review of timetables.

Bree was startled. ‘Of course he won’t!’ Would he? They had never discussed it. Bree saw a wide moat of misunderstandings opening up in front of her. Just as she had realised she could not flaunt the association with the company once her relationship with James was so well known in society, she knew she would have to be even more discreet once she was a countess. But a complete break? It was unthinkable.

Just how dictatorial would Max be as a husband? He was unconventional now. He accepted her independent behaviour, although there were increasing incidences of him trying to shelter her. But how would things change when they married?

For the first time Bree felt a stir of anxiety on her own behalf about his first marriage. He had expected certain standards, certain behaviour from Drusilla that she had not been able or willing to comply with, and in the end she had fled. Just how understanding and supportive had Max been? Chilled, she forced her attention back to Rosa’s suggestion about a new route to King’s Lynn, but the unease persisted.

Max entered the Gower Street house that morning to find Peters and Lucy in the hallway struggling with a number of large trunks and Rosa halfway up the stairs with an armful of gowns. A maid he had not seen before rushed into the hall balancing a stack of what appeared to be flimsy undergarments, saw Max, gave a faint shriek and dropped them, confirming his guess. Of his betrothed there was no sign. Max regarded the frivolous bits of nonsense with interest, then smiled at Miss Thorpe.

‘Good morning, ma’am.’

‘Lord Penrith, good morning.’ The companion managed to look as composed as was possible, given that a peer of the realm was standing in the front hall with chemises and corsets strewn around his booted feet. ‘Miss Mallory is in the sitting room.’

‘I will remove myself then. I assume there is nothing I can do to help?’

‘Nothing, I thank you. Maria, stop whimpering and pick those things up so his lordship can move.’

He pushed the door open and stood quietly watching Bree working at her desk, unaware of his presence. He felt the love washing softly through him like ripples of water at the sea’s edge. It was so new, this feeling of tenderness, of possessiveness, of desire tempered with the knowledge that this was for ever.

Then Bree looked up and saw him and smiled and he was across the room, pulling her out of the chair and into his arms so he could look down into her face and just marvel at his own good fortune.

Her body tensed a little in his embrace, she turned her face so that his lips found her cheek and not her mouth and her eyes held a hint of anxiety.

Max guided her to one of the armchairs and urged her to sit, taking the one opposite at a distance from which he could study her face. Ten days until the wedding—perhaps, despite her passion in his arms, she was becoming apprehensive about the wedding night. Or perhaps it was just that she was overworked and tired.

‘I have brought what I promise is positively the last version of my guest list,’ he said, pulling it from his inside pocket. ‘I have annotated it with notes on who will be travelling from where, and who needs rooms. That last, I am glad to say, has not changed since the previous list.’

‘In that case, we will be all right.’ Bree nodded briskly. It did not appear to be the practical issues that were worrying her. ‘Uncle George can put up all those members of my family who will be staying over in his half of the house. All of yours can stay in either my and Piers’s half, or at the Eagle and Child in Aylesbury. I have engaged the Queen’s Head in the village for the extra servants.’

She took his list and scanned it, giving Max the opportunity to watch her more closely. She was losing weight, he thought, anxious that he was leaving too much on her shoulders.

‘If this is final, then I will write to Betsy and we can make the firm lists of everything needed. I think the biggest problem is chairs and trestles for the wedding breakfast, but we can borrow from neighbours. I thought of holding it in the great barn, as we do for Harvest Supper.’

‘It is very unconventional,’ Max observed. He was delighted by the idea. Bree’s face fell.

‘I thought I had told you about that. Do you think it too informal? Only I do not know where else we could accommodate so many places.’ To his horror he thought he could detect a gleam of tears in her eyes. ‘I should have thought. Is it too late to have it in London after all?’

Max jumped up and knelt beside her chair, taking her hands into his—they were cold, her index finger was red from the indentation of the pen and there were ink splashes on her hands. He lifted them in his clasp and kissed the sore finger gently.

‘My darling, it will be wonderful. You had told me about it. I love the notion, the guests will love it. If I had not thought it would work, I would have said something days ago.’ She smiled shakily. ‘You are working too hard. You must let me help. My grandmother will be in town soon. She will be delighted to assist.’

The shutters came down over Bree’s brilliant blue gaze and she smiled politely. So that’s it.