Cam’s first evening at King’s Head was a rich tapestry of faces, of voices slowly becoming familiar to her and delicious boiled capon and oysters. She was happy and content and eager, all at once.
If dinner was at first somewhat stilted, her father-in-law so pleased he couldn’t stop smiling at Graham and talking of what they would do, she soon relaxed, answered his questions, trying for humor, not difficult when she told him a story of her aunt Deveraux and the Duke of Wellington, both dancing far into the night at a ball in Brussels three days before Waterloo. Cam wondered aloud if the duke, near her aunt’s age, remembered that special night drawn from her aunt’s prodigious memory. Even Eugenie smiled and Donner guffawed.
But always, always, Vereker turned to his son, asked him endless questions, hanging on to every word out of Graham’s mouth. And he told his son how together they would visit the farms, not quick visits like his first time at King’s Head, but lovely long visits, and they would speak of needed new farming equipment, and he and Graham would design them and oversee their being made. What did Graham think of a new water wheel set above the flowing Green Stream, and on and on it went. Graham, she saw, was nearly as excited as his father.
Eugenie managed to ask them questions about the Isle of Wight and Ventnor, a place she wanted to visit. Both she and Donner were astute enough not to mar the joy of the evening by mentioning the statue toppling off the hotel roof.
Cam was near to falling asleep when Cilly finally left her to retire to her own bedroom down the hall, selected for her by Cam. But because she hadn’t felt she had any firm footing yet at King’s Head, she’d asked Graham to inform Mrs. Mince of her selection, but he’d shaken his head, tweaked her nose. “No, you are the mistress, you have the reins. Ride, Cam, ride.”
If Mrs. Mince was surprised at the bedchamber Cam had assigned to Cilly, she’d merely nodded, said it would be done. As Cam was walking away, she heard Mrs. Mince mutter,“Lon don ways, such strangeness, but if her new ladyship even wanted her maid in her bed with his lordship, who am I to say?”
Graham had laughed when she’d told him, and lightly buffeted her shoulder. “Apparently you ride very well right out of the gate.”
CHAPTER 54
Acheerful fire burned in the fireplace, the corners were in shadows from a single lit lamp, a light rain glistened on the windows and the draperies were still hooked open by their splendid ancient gold tassels. It was a perfect night when at last Graham walked quietly through the connecting dressing room into their bedchamber wearing his old dark blue velvet bathrobe, his big feet bare. He stretched, yawned. Only three hours has passed, yet all he had to do was look at her and he wanted her, powerfully. When she’d spoken at dinner, he’d wanted to make love to her, when she’d drunk a cup of tea after dinner in the drawing room, he’d wanted to throw up her skirts behind the sofa and kiss her until she was shouting with pleasure.
Finally.
She was seated upright in the big bed, reading a copy ofThe Pickwick Papershe’d bought her in London and slipped unseen into her valise.
Cam knew he was there, she’d sensed him, and wasn’t that amazing? She looked at him, smiled.
Graham felt that smile all the way to his feet but he wasn’t about to simply leap on her, which was exactly what he wantedto do. He eyed her nightgown, all gorgeous cream silk that made her skin glow. He could make out the curve of her breasts through the tresses of thick hair. It was difficult, but he didn’t move. Not yet. He said, his voice all offhand, “Are you enjoyingThe Pickwick Papers?”
“Oh yes, Cilly told me it was Dickens’s first novel. It’s very amusing. Thank you for buying it for me, Graham, it’s a wonderful surprise.” She watched him stretch again and the tie on his dressing gown loosened. Cam never took her eyes off the tie as she placed a leather strip in the book and closed it.
“You did very well your first night at King’s Head. Everyone enjoyed the Wellington story. Nutworthy told me the staff, so far at least, are hopeful you’re charming and I’m a lucky man.” He paused, “Well, to be perfectly honest here, they believe you’re also a lucky lady. There was apparently a good deal of relief, Nutworthy added. Evidently there was some concern you would be more stiff-lipped like my sister. Eugenie’s maid—she’s called Trumpet by staff because of her piercing voice—evidently she could compete with Aunt Deveraux—my sister insists her name is Marie because she tries to pass her off as French from a small town in Normandy, which amuses staff no end when she mangles a French phrase. Of course they only laugh after she leaves the room.”
Cam said, “I am impressed. You are becoming like me, Graham, all that information in one tidy monologue, said with scarce a single pause. I like that because it means I can kiss you and caress you all over and not have to wait.”
“Thank you. Of course they are careful around my sister. I must say, though, she turned over the household reins to you with grace.”
“I told her she would have to teach me. And she gave me a long look and nodded. I added that I would already be excellent at overseeing the stables and she gave me a small smile. There is so much for me to learn, Graham.”
“My father told me when we adjourned to the drawing room for tea that Donner wants to be master of his own household, and believes he’s found a home not too far distant from King’s Head. Donner said he and Eugenie have many friends in the neighborhood. But evidently the main reason they’re not moving back closer to his family is because Donner cannot tolerate his brother and thus has no desire to be within a hundred miles of him.” Graham paused. “Father also admitted he wished my sister were more, ah, impressed with me, and you, by extension, something I really don’t understand. It’s as if she blames me for not bringing Simon and his tutor back, only myself.”
Cam said calmly, “I daresay she is still in shock at your return. You, and I by extension, will simply give her time to come around. I think Eugenie will be very happy as mistress in her own home, not her father’s house.
“Now, husband, come here and I’ll kiss you all over and then perhaps we can discuss Donner’s new home. Do you know anything about it?”
Graham thought he’d expire on the spot. He jerked back the covers and gathered her to him. He had to get hold of himself or he’d be a pig and that would never do. He drew a deep breath, tried to ignore the heat, her heat and her mouth, right there, her mouth. He said, “Now, wife, before I seduce you, tell me what do you think of King’s Head?”
The last thing Cam wanted to do was discuss King’s Head. She slowly licked her upper lip, something she’d heard another young lady say one did to enthrall a gentleman. She really couldn’t believe it actually worked. Graham didn’t wait for her to say anything, merely stared at her tongue then he began kissing her, his tongue running over her lips until she opened her mouth and nearly expired at the touch of his tongue and all the while his hands tangled in her loose hair. He kissed her throat, tugged at her nightgown, and it seemedin the next instant he tossed it to the floor to land next to his bathrobe.
Cam whispered into his mouth, “I really hope you do not wish me to read fromThe Pickwick Papersto you precisely at this minute.”
Graham laughed, moaned, nipped her earlobe. “If you become bored, tell me, and I’ll read to you.” Neither of them read to each other. When Cam pushed him onto his back and proceeded to kiss him down his belly, as he had her, Graham knew if he didn’t stop her it would be all over for him and he wasn’t about to leave her unsatisfied, not because of Jayne’s imperative from so many years before, but because he wanted her pleasure, he reveled in it, wanted to hear her scream his name, feel her become one with him. It made him feel like a god.
When Graham could once again form words, he managed to come up onto his elbow and whisper against her soft mouth, “I knew I had to get through this intimacy business before I could ask you to read to me or you’d believe me an inattentive husband, selfish, a clod, in short.” He smiled down into her dazed eyes. “Oh yes, dearest one, we mustn’t forget there is also the matter of exploring the results of our just-concluded experiment to decide if finally we have enough information to posit our theorem.”
She managed in a croak, “No, I am certain it is not enough. Perhaps by next year or the end of the next decade or the next decade after that we’ll have gathered enough observations to perhaps begin to posit anything at all.”
CHAPTER 55
King’s Head
The wind was sharp off the Channel, dark clouds roiled over the water and everyone knew there would soon be heavy rains. But it was England and it was Sunday, so no one paid much attention.
