I popped up on my toes, bracing one hand against his chest. His arm banded about my waist, seemingly on instinct if his astonished expression was anything to go by. And I whispered, “Don’t. I like it,” into his ear.
He blinked, slow and wide, before dipping his head to face the ground, a flush covering his cheeks up to the ear I’d just claimed.
Alfie dropped his portmanteau and my reticule by our feet with a pointedclank, and Kit’s arm fell away. He leaned down, pulled out a coat—less fine than the one he had sacrificed to the muck—and shrugged it on.
It seemed his nervous tension was catching because I found myself fussing with the sleeves of my dress and smoothing my coiffure.
“You’re perfect.” My gaze shot to Kit’s and found nothing but earnestness. He held out an elbow, offering it to me. “Let’s go.”
The hall was an imposing brick structure in the distance. Smaller than Rose Hall, my family’s country estate, but more austere, with two wings set out front of the entry. The landscaping was well maintained but sparse, though winter had just left this area so it may have been the season’s doing. The corners of the three-story building were set in slate brick, contrasting against the red and matching the window framings.
“Lord, it’s just as stern as I remember.”
“Did you visit often?”
“More often than I’d have liked. We weren’t allowed to touch anything inside. Or sit on anything. Or play anywhere outside where we might get dirty and bring it inside.”
With a sigh and a last wipe of his palms against the leg of his trousers, he rang the bell.
A stout, balding man of no notable height answered the door almost immediately. His dull grey eyes found me first, surveying me up and down before turning to Kit where they promptly widened into something more impressed.
“My Lord, please come inside out of this dreadful damp.”
Kit and I shared a look that conveyed our confusion at the man’s assessment of the rather arid weather. He shrugged and followed the man into a sitting room. “Thank you. Gibbs, was it?”
“Yes, quite, sire. So good of you to remember. You must forgive me. I had no idea you were arriving. Your letter must have been waylaid in the rain the other night. I assure you, the staff would have been prepared to greet you outside.”
“It’s quite all right, Gibbs. We were waylaid ourselves by the very same storm. I was not actually intending to visit but we had some difficulties with our carriage.
“Oh dear, it was something terrible. One of the girls at the market was visiting family in Grantham. She told me she came upon the most appalling scrap of an abandoned carriage—properly stuck it was.”
Kit’s jaw worked to hold back what I suspected was laughter. “Right, I’m sure more than one carriage suffered for the road conditions. I don’t suppose Lady Leighton is available for visitors?”
“Oh dear, I’m afraid Lady Leighton and Lady Cordelia have left for the season.”
Some of the tension in Kit’s form loosened.
“Shall I have tea prepared for you and your… companion?” he asked, glancing to me with no small amount of curiosity.
“Yes, and we’ll need rooms readied, please.”
If Kit wasn’t going to tell the man I was his wife, I wouldn’t either. Eventually, sensing no answer to my identity forthcoming, he tottered out of the room.
Beside me on an ugly mustard-yellow settee, Kit dragged a tired hand down his face. When he reached his jaw, he paused, running his hand along the growth there with a one-third smile that had me catching my lip to hide a smile of my own.
Seeking a distraction, I peered around the room. It was papered in the French style but several seasons out of date, and, paired with the ugly furnishings, any beauty found in the half-circle windows lining the opposite wall was negated.
Kit shifted uncomfortably against the rough velvet, more threadbare on his side than mine. He wouldn’t accept my hand, not here, not now, not when he would see it as improper. But the hem of my skirt was long enough that if I settled it right I couldcover his muddy boots. And that allowed me the excuse to press the side of my shoe against his.
He turned, studying me for a moment before ducking his head back to the floor. For a moment, I thought I may have overstepped. But then the side of his foot pressed back against mine.
KIT
Something about the hideousness of the room left Davina even more lovely by comparison. Or perhaps it was her. The simple fact that Davina was breathtaking in every room, day or night, cotton dress or glittering gown, awake or asleep. It was merely a fact of this life.
What I was not prepared for was the feeling of longing, itching beneath my skin, to introduce her as my wife once more. It was almost a compulsion, this desire to have her paraded around this estate—that I didn’t want—as mine.
But it was becoming more and more clear that I didn’t just want tocallher mine. I wanted her tobemine. I had slipped into the role of her husband more naturally than any I’d tried before. Somehow, I knew that stepping out of the guise wouldn’t be nearly so easy.
