“I have a dressing and bathing room next door,” he said, “but my office is downstairs, easily accessible from outside when people need to see me on estate matters. Would you like to see more of the house?”
If she’d failed to do the right thing, he should simply tell her! She wouldn’t mind consummating the marriage now. Her body had been simmering for hours, and she wished the first time over and done.
But all she said was, “Of course. Come, Sillikin. Sillikin? Where on earth has she gone to now?”
The dog wriggled out from under the bed, a woolen stocking in her mouth, and presented the prize with pride.
“Well done,” Kitty said as she took it and brushed a tuft of dust off one of the dog’s ears. “When did you lose this?” she asked, dangling the sturdy stocking in front of Braydon.
“It’s not one of mine.”
His disdain made her laugh. “I suppose your stockings are tailor-made by fairies.”
“Finely knitted by elves,” he responded.
Had he actually made a joke?
But then he said, “Shall we progress?”
Kitty dropped the stocking on the chest, making a mental note to check the quality of the cleaning everywhere in this house. Once in the corridor she realized she might have been wise to keep the cloak. The Dutch stove could do only so much. She was hardy, however. She’d survive.
He indicated the matching doors on the other side of the central open space. “The dowager’s suite and Isabella’s bedroom. There are guest bedrooms at the end of each gallery and another tucked in a rear corner. We’ll go that way.”
Kitty kept silent, aware that anything said up here could be heard by many. She hoped it wasn’t like St. Paul’s Cathedral, where a whisper on one side of the dome could be heard on the other.
The guest bedrooms seemed adequate, and Sillikin’s exploration revealed no more neglect. The style of decoration was along the middle line that Braydon had mentioned between snowy and garish, making the viscountess’s rooms even more peculiar.
Chapter 15
He took her next to a short gallery with windows looking over the rear of the estate. It would be a pleasant place to sit in summer, and was large enough for exercise in bad weather. One large fireplace provided warmth, but again Kitty regretted not having her cloak.
Paintings hung on the walls, and Braydon took her to one.
“My predecessor.”
The smoothly plump man sat by a desk on which documents were spread. That was common when the sitter was a landowner, but it seemed to Kitty that the papers were mere ornaments. He had thinning dark hair and a slightly anxious expression, as if he was thinking,Will she approve of this?
“Odd that a loving mother can make life particularly difficult.”
“You’re thinking of Lady Cateril as well?”
“She tried to force Marcus to live at Cateril Manor, where she’d have fussed over him all the time. As it was, she fretted over him in letters and sometimes dispatched doctors to torment him with pointless treatments.”
“It must be hard to accept that there’s no hope.”
“I see that, but she sought a miracle that would make him what he’d once been. I don’t think she truly loved him as he’d become. Oh, that’s unfair!”
He startled her by taking her hand. “You loved him as he was, and you did what you could to protect him.”
She looked into his cool blue eyes. “It was little enough.”
“Sometimes that’s all we can do.”
His touch and understanding were so unexpected that tears threatened. She twitched away to look at the portrait again.
“There’s an open locket on the table,” she said, looking closer, “with a picture of a woman. Mother or wife?”
“You’re observant.” He came close beside her. “Youngish, I’d say.”
