Virtue had been lovely in a pale gown, blue flowers threaded in her hair. Trevor had wondered at the touch. Had she thought of his dream when she had settled upon the flowers? Regardless, the way she looked as they spoke their vows would be indelibly imprinted upon his mind forever.
Not the wedding Trevor had intended for himself. But then, he hadn’t intended to marry at all until Virtue had come crashing into his life, laying to waste all the carefully constructed lies he’d told himself in her wake. Pamela had been predictably horrified by the haste of the nuptials. She’d wanted to plan a massive affair at St George’s. He’d informed her of his plans over breakfast, and within an hour, the entire concern had been finished.
Now, he was riding Rotten Row with his wife at his side, seated upon Hera, the very mare she’d stolen from his stables on more than one occasion. Hers, now. He had given her the mare as a wedding present, one of many. She still had yet to open his gift from the day before, but no matter. He was daft enough to keep showering her with them just the same.
The hour wasn’t fashionable, a mist was drizzling from the gray sky, there was a chill in the air, and someone likely still wanted him dead, but Trevor had never been happier than he was in this moment. He was so proud of Virtue. Such a fine woman. Intelligent, bold, and brave and undeniably beautiful. Her true beauty was in her fire, her spirit and determination.
Look, he wanted to shout loud enough that all the corners of Hyde Park could hear him.This magnificent woman is my duchess. Of all the men to be had in London, she chose me as her husband.
But he wasn’t a complete Bedlamite, so he slanted a glance in her direction instead, admiring how statuesque she looked on Hera, wearing a riding habit he intended to peel her out of when they returned to Hunt House. Preferably with his teeth. His instinctive reaction, upon the signing of their names on the register, had been to haul Virtue over his shoulder and carry her to his apartments, with the intent that there they could remain for at least the next week.
But he was not a complete barbarian, and so he had politely inquired what his new wife should like to do following the wedding breakfast. A ride, she had declared, and he had obliged. She was an excellent horsewoman, he acknowledged. But then, that was hardly surprising for a woman who had spent nearly all her life tucked away in the countryside.
He found himself angry anew at Pemberton for failing to appreciate Virtue as she deserved, for abandoning her to Nottinghamshire, and yet oddly grateful. Because now she was his, when otherwise, she might not have been. Their paths may never have crossed, and another man surely would have swept her up like the prize she was and made her his. And the notion of anyone else making her his was enough to make Trevor want to challenge that theoretical man to a bloody duel.
“Is something amiss?” Virtue asked him as they guided their mounts down the avenue.
“Not at all,” he said smoothly. “Why do you ask?”
“Because you were scowling at me.”
Had he been?Christ.What to say, that he was so besotted with her that he had been contemplating telling a nonexistent suitor of hers to name his seconds?
Saint’s teeth, he was going mad.
“I was thinking of your father, if you must know,” he said instead of making such a humiliating confession, for that was also true. “Thinking of the disservice he paid you in never getting to know you. It was his loss.”
She cocked her head, considering him from beneath the brim of her jaunty blue military cap. “Thank you for saying that. It is kind of you.”
“I always thought Pemberton a good man. But a good man wouldn’t have abandoned his daughter.”
“You were friends with him,” Virtue observed.
It startled him to realize this was the first time they were discussing his friendship with her father and her relationship with him, in all the time since she’d come to live at Hunt House in the wake of her period of mourning.
“I was,” he acknowledged. “I thought I knew him, but now I begin to wonder if I ever truly did.”
Although Pemberton had been ten years his senior, Trevor and the marquess had bonded over their mutual love of horseflesh and women. What an odd thought it was, that one could know someone, consider him friend even, and yet never truly understand him. That there could be hidden depths and mysteries never broached.
“I used to despise him, you know,” Virtue said, so softly that her voice could almost scarcely be heard above the din of their horses’ clopping hooves. “When I was a girl, I wished for him to suddenly call me to wherever he was staying, London or Pemberton Hall, or anywhere in the world. I would imagine him telling me how wrong he’d been to keep me sent away, and all would be forgiven.”
The thought of Virtue as a young girl pining for the love of her father was akin to a dagger in his chest. “My God, love. I’m sorry.”
“You needn’t pity me.” She sent him a sad smile. “When I grew a bit older and realized my girlish fancies would never come to fruition, I lost myself in books. I found a vast world awaiting me.”
It had never occurred to him that she had sought solace within the pages of the tomes she was forever carrying about. That reading distracted her from past pains. Knowing it now sent a new spear of guilt through him at his highhandedness in denying her books.
“I’m sorry,” he offered grimly. “If I had known, I never would have taken your books from you.”
“Yes, but if you had never taken my books from me, I never would have seen you without your shirt,” she said with a minx’s grin.
Once again, her resilience humbled him. And heightened his desire for her. He’d spent half the morning in a state of agony, counting down the hours until he could have her in his bed.
But this conversation between them was a different sort of intimacy, he realized. And he liked that, too. Very much. He suddenly wanted to know everything there was to learn about her.
“Tell me about Greycote Abbey,” he said, taking a risk in mentioning her beloved home after it had nearly led to her refusing to marry him, and yet needing to better understand her. “What was it like for you there?”
“It was lovely,” she said, a wistful smile curving the lips he longed to kiss. “I was not lonely there if that is what you are asking. I had a governess to look after me, and then when she was no longer needed, I had our housekeeper for companionship, along with some of the other domestics. They treated me as if I were a part of their family, and they were certainly mine.”
