Contracted as His Countess Page 17

  There was then a long list of the ladies present and their gowns, headed by a description of hers.

  In all the most select journals...

  Madelyn turned the page hurriedly, then thought again. Jack was certain to work his way through all the newspapers. She could sit here fretting until he found the reports or she could raise the subject now. She cleared her throat. ‘The newspaper has an account of our wedding.’

  ‘That was to be expected.’ He lowered The Times. ‘Has it upset you?’

  ‘No, this report is very reasonable, I suppose. They comment that my gown created much interest, but they say nothing unpleasant.’

  ‘But you expect me to be annoyed to see the report?’

  Madelyn could tell nothing of his mood from his tone and his expression was no help, either. ‘You were angry.’

  ‘I was annoyed that you did not follow my wishes. However, I cannot deny that you looked very well in that gown.’ Jack folded up the newspaper crisply, as though snapping it into order somehow relieved his feelings. ‘As you do in the other garments which I have seen that you had made to your own design. I was unnecessarily rigid in what I asked of you.’ When she simply looked at him, surprised, he said, ‘What have I done now?’

  ‘Admitted a fault—no, I apologise, not a fault, an error of judgement, perhaps.’ It was Jack’s turn to look puzzled. ‘I am not used to having a man do such a thing.’

  ‘Your father was not given to reflecting on his own actions?’

  Madelyn laughed. ‘That is a very tactful way of putting it. I doubt he could conceive of being in error.’

  ‘That must have been trying to live with.’

  ‘Yes,’ Madelyn said drily.

  ‘I think I know how to take that! You thought I am as convinced of my own rightness in everything as Mr Aylmer?’

  ‘You seemed very sure that your decisions were correct,’ she said with a smile. She found she liked Jack in this ruefully amused mood. ‘Perhaps you have been alone for so long, making all the judgements by yourself, and for yourself, that it is hard to adapt to having someone else to consider. Although, to be fair, I doubt many husbands take their wives’ wishes into account on matters of major importance.’

  ‘And your gowns are such matters?’

  ‘You thought so,’ she retorted. ‘What I think is important is that we discuss things, even if it means we disagree. Then we will not find ourselves with entrenched positions from which it is difficult to retreat.’

  ‘That seems sound advice, my wise wife.’

  Was he laughing at her? Madelyn decided that he was simply teasing a little and found she could smile back.

  ‘Shall we see what all of the newspapers have to say about us?’ he asked.

  Partridge, it seemed, had sent out the boot boy to buy every journal he could find. The main newspapers were gossipy, but generally approving, and Madelyn began to relax. There were no mentions of ‘Castle-Mad’ fathers or ruinously rakish ones, either. Beside her, she felt some of the tension leave Jack and, when a bump in the road threw them together, she stayed leaning against his shoulder as they shared out the final two newspapers between them.

  Hers was as inoffensive as the others. ‘Oh, Jack, do listen! This one says that I may start a fashion for the Gothic in dress, just as Mr Walpole did with architecture.’

  Jack did not respond. He was staring, grim-faced, at the paper in his hand. It was one Madelyn had not seen before, much smaller and slightly thicker than The Times or the Morning Post.

  ‘What is that?’

  ‘The London Intelligencer. Full of Grub Street news—lies, insinuation, scurrilous gossip and radical into the bargain. Not fit to wrap rotten fish in.’

  ‘What does it say about us?’ The carriage had slowed because of traffic, and Madelyn caught a glimpse of St Paul’s Cathedral close beside them.

  ‘That we represent the union of aristocratic debauchery and bizarrely eccentric miserliness. Your father is represented as closing himself up in his castle, clad in armour and cackling over his money chests, and mine—rather more accurately—as running the gamut of expensive depravity. No normal woman would have allied themselves to me for my title, but as you are as peculiar as your father, you will probably be careless of the depths of wickedness that I will plumb with your money.’

  ‘Oh, stupid people! This is what you feared, is it not? I am so sorry if my choice of wedding gown caused this spite. Could you not sue them?’

  ‘It is all Lord D. and Mr A. Besides, it is true enough about my father and I can hardly argue that I have not benefitted materially from our match.’ He dropped the window of the chaise and tossed the paper out. It fell into a passing dust cart. ‘Best place for it.’

  Chapter Seventeen

  Madelyn stared ahead at the bobbing backs of the postilions as they guided the team through the heavy City traffic. She felt slightly sick and her headache had returned like a vengeful elf with a hammer. How could people be so unkind? She and Jack were not their parents—they were two quite different people starting married life together. If she had listened to Jack, accepted that modern fashions did not suit her and learned to live with it, would they have still attacked them?

  ‘Stop fretting, Madelyn,’ Jack said sharply. ‘This is not your fault. You tried hard to adapt to London society, and you were right and I was wrong about your clothes. We are aristocracy, seen as privileged, and they would have attacked us if you had been dressed by the Queen’s ladies-in waiting themselves. No one who is of the slightest importance will take any notice of that rag.’ When she swallowed, but said nothing, he put an arm around her shoulders and pulled her close. ‘It will all have blown over by the time we come back and, when we do, it will be clear that you are a perfectly rational person and that I am not bankrupting us in Pickering Place hells or houses of ill repute.’

  His arm around her felt good. More than good, if she was honest. Jack was solid and reassuring to lean against, and she snuggled closer for reassurance. ‘I would become exceptionally irrational if you were to do such things,’ she said, hoping to lighten the mood.

  Jack gave a snort of amusement. ‘How is your headache?’

  ‘Ghastly.’

  ‘Close your eyes and try to sleep.’

  ‘No, I will watch where we are going and ask you irritating questions about things I should know perfectly well by now.’ It was far too tempting to clutch hold of Jack and that would be dangerous. She was still none too certain of his changing moods and she was conscious of beginning to feel far too attached to him for safety. She had to remember why he had married her, however kind he was being now. ‘Where are we?’ She sat up straight and, after a moment, he removed his arm.

  ‘Driving out of Whitechapel and into Mile End Old Town. This area keeps growing. Every time I pass through it there are more and more houses and the old market gardens will soon be swallowed up. Mile End will be joined to Stratford-le-Bow in a few years and London will reach to the Essex border, if you can imagine such a thing.’

  Jack pulled a road book with maps out of one door pocket of the chaise and traced their route for her. ‘Have you travelled much outside Kent before?’

  ‘Never. I had never been beyond Maidstone,’ Madelyn admitted. They were out into open countryside now, with neat fields of vegetables and nursery-garden plots. ‘These crops all go into London?’

  ‘Every last cabbage. See the carts? I will take you to Covent Garden early one morning and you will see. It is quite a sight. Here is Stratford-le-Bow and we will soon cross the River Lea and be in Essex.’

  * * *

  Jack turned his head slightly on the cushioned seat back and watched Madelyn absorbing the passing scene. Everything seemed to interest her—a dog pulling a cart, a gaggle of geese being herded by a small girl with a stick bigger than she was or a recruiting sergeant with a drummer and a corporal at his
side hammering up posters.

  He had expected to be impatient with her ignorance, but her interest in everything was refreshing and it made him look with a fresh eye at things he would have ignored before. Why were so many inn signs of lions—red, black, gold or white? Were donkeys better than mules as beasts of burden for poor people? What was that crop growing in that field?

  Then the chaise swerved as a pair of curricles being raced by two young men at high speed dashed past them, making the leaders shy and the postilions shake their fists as they hurtled towards a narrow bridge.

  Madelyn gasped and clutched at his sleeve. ‘They are going to crash, surely! Oh, no, one has given way. Goodness, what a speed they were travelling at.’

  ‘Fools.’ Jack, braced to throw himself over Madelyn if it came to a collision, relaxed. ‘One is a bad driver and the other is not much better.’

  ‘Do you drive? I wondered, as you came down to Kent to see me on horseback.’

  ‘If I could have afforded a curricle I would have bought one. I used to drive, before my father died.’

  ‘You can buy one now,’ she said cheerfully as the curricles vanished in a cloud of dust. ‘We have a carriage at the castle, but that is a ponderous old travelling coach. What else will we need? A town coach and a travelling carriage of our own, of course, as this one is hired. How many horses, I wonder?’

  Madelyn talked on, calculating what they needed.

  What I can buy now I have her money, Jack thought, his mood darkening even as he told himself to get down off his high horse. Men married every day for financial advantage and he should be grateful that he was not only marrying a rich woman, but one who was bringing his lands with her.

  One of the first things he must do when they arrived at Dersington Mote was to go through all the financial records and the details of exactly what he was now master of. His own lawyers had reported that it was all remarkably straightforward and that nothing other than Castle Beaupierre and its small estate was held back in trusts or complicated by inheritance through Madelyn’s mother. Essentially, everything that Peregrine Aylmer had died in possession of went to his daughter.’

  ‘Really, there was very little to do, other than to record the marriage,’ Mr Torridge, the senior partner, had informed him. ‘Miss Aylmer’s man tells me that she ordered all outstanding debts to be cleared before the wedding and, by the very act of marriage, all that she owned passes into your control.’

  Douglas Lyminge had suggested hiring an accountant to help them get the Dersingham Mote finances straight and then he could decide which of his properties required their own resident steward. He was not even certain how many Dersington family holdings there were, let alone whether there were other properties that Aylmer had acquired in his search for the perfect son-in-law. He hadn’t cared to dig too deeply—it made him feel like a fortune hunter, gloating over his new-found wealth.

  He told himself not to be so squeamish. Madelyn’s assets would have passed to her husband whomever she married. And it was not as though he wanted to be a rich man, he just wanted to restore his family lands to a flourishing state, to live in a manner befitting his rank and to provide well for the next generation.

  The thought of creating that next generation made him smile. He was married to an intelligent, if unconventional, woman. She was unusual, certainly, but he was finding Madelyn increasingly attractive now he had learned not to expect the pattern-book simpering little miss that society dictated would be the ideal bride for an earl. She was leaning forward a little now, he saw as he turned to watch her. Her face was alight with interest and curiosity and one lock of that glorious hair was escaping. She laughed as a pig ran across the village street with three people in hot pursuit and that made her lush bosom move enticingly.

  ‘What is it?’ She had caught him looking at her. ‘Is something wrong?’

  ‘Nothing at all. It simply occurred to me that there was something I had not done today,’ he said, turning completely on the seat to face her. ‘Please take off your bonnet, Madelyn.’

  ‘Why?’ she asked. But she was untying the ribbons without waiting for his answer.

  ‘Because it will be devilishly in the way when I do this.’ He caught her in his arms and, when she gave a startled gasp, kissed her full on her open mouth.

  * * *

  He was laughing against her lips, the wretched man. And I love it. Jack could kiss like an angel... No, perhaps there was nothing angelic about the way the movement of his mouth on hers made her feel. Wicked, sinful—and deliciously happy that this was not either of those things, because they were married and he actually wanted her.

  His hands slid down, one over her back, the other at the fastenings of her spencer. The simple hook and eye opened with a flick of his fingers and he slid his hand inside, cupping the weight of her breast in his palm.

  She heard herself moan against his mouth and his fingers found her nipple through the thin silk and lawn, just as the chaise slowed to a walk.

  Jack sat up slowly as though reluctant to let her go, but over his shoulder she could see an inn sign, a busy street, a groom running out to catch the reins.

  ‘Jack, we are stopping and people can see and—’

  ‘This must be Ilford and the first change.’ Jack sat back, perfectly at his ease, if one ignored the fact that he was breathing rather deeply. Her gaze strayed downwards. Oh. It seemed he had enjoyed that as much as she had.

  ‘Do you want to go in to the inn or shall we press on to the next stage?’

  She felt flustered and flushed and she most certainly did not want to face the good people of Ilford in that state. ‘Thank you, no.’ Jack merely seemed amused by her confusion. ‘You know, I do not think that a chaise is the right place for...for that kind of thing,’ she added, fanning her flushed cheeks with one hand. ‘There is so much glass, anyone might see.’

  ‘You will have to excuse your poor husband who is decidedly frustrated,’ Jack said. ‘You cannot blame me for my ardour—it was you who were drunk and disorderly on our wedding night, after all,’ he said, shaking his head and attempting, not very successfully, to look reproving.

  ‘I was not disorderly! Merely a trifle...um...’

  ‘In alt is the phrase you may be looking for. Or chirping merry. Or perhaps you would prefer half-seas over,’ he added with a grin as the postilions swung back into the saddles of the new team.

  ‘I would prefer none of those vulgar phrases. I suppose they are cant,’ she said as repressively as she could and then caught his eye and collapsed into giggles. ‘Oh, dear, was I so very awful?’

  ‘Not at all.’ Jack put one arm around her shoulders and pulled her close. The chaise moved away from the inn and the horses broke into a trot. ‘You were very sleepy and rather slurred. Fubsy, perhaps is the word. It was rather endearing.’

  ‘I would wager you did not think so at the time.’ Madelyn let herself relax back against his shoulder again.

  ‘Perhaps not. I had been looking forward all day to having you in my arms. How is your headache now?’

  ‘Much better. I think laughing helps.’ And kissing, but she did not say that out loud.

  * * *

  Madelyn was drowsing, a warm, relaxed weight against his side as they drew out of Castle Hedingham. Almost there now. It had taken eight hours, including a brief stop for a simple meal, and the last of the day had faded into twilight. The postilions, local men picked up at the last change, knew their way and were keeping up a brisk pace, despite the poor light.

  Jack tried to remember the house, but the images were vague, like something in a dream, vanishing in the morning with wakefulness. Large, rambling, increasingly ill kempt was all that his memory presented him with. Receiving a beating for drawing pictures in the dust on the windows and on the furniture was one recollection. The smell of musty enclosed spaces was another. He had learned to keep well clear of
his father when he had been drinking because his mood was apt to be uncertain, so Jack had found all the places a small boy could hide in.

  In the summer there were the ruins of the ancient castle that had given the house its name. There were a few fragments of curtain wall like rotten teeth sticking out of the unmown grass and, because this had been a Norman castle, the motte itself which always made him think of a green pudding, turned out of its mould on to the serving tray.

  He’d scramble to the top and peer down between the rusting bars of the grille over the well, dropping pebbles to wait for the distant splash. There was always water in the well, however hot the summer. Men who knew they might have to survive a siege would make certain of their water supply.

  He shifted to look out of the right-hand window and Madelyn woke, sat up and rubbed her eyes. ‘Almost there,’ Jack said. ‘Look towards the skyline.’ And there, silhouetted against the last pink streaks of the sunset, was the motte.

  They had sent staff, in the charge of the new butler, Wystan, on ahead to prepare bedchambers, the staff accommodation, a drawing room, dining room and study. ‘We should have sent a gardener, as well,’ Jack remarked, peering out at the drive, which was overgrown with grass.

  ‘We will soon have to it set to rights,’ Madelyn said, but she looked apprehensive, her lower lip caught between her teeth as she looked out at the looming bulk of the house.

  ‘I do not blame you for it being like this. My father neglected it,’ Jack reassured her. That full lower lip. ‘Are you hungry?’ he asked casually.

  ‘No, not really.’

  ‘Tired?’

  ‘I feel quite wide awake. I hope I did not send your shoulder to sleep, leaning on it like that.’ He shook his head. ‘I am excited about seeing our new home.’

  Jack was quite clear in his own mind that if she did not want to sit down to dinner immediately, or fall asleep, then the only thing he was excited about was taking his wife to bed and very thoroughly convincing her that they were married.