Then, as if rudeness didn’t come easily to him, he added, “You’re welcome to any of the books in it, obviously.”
And even though she was perfectly capable of delivering a cut direct, she inclined her head. “Thank you.”
“Amelia won’t need the library,” Cassandra said. “Did you know ladies don’t read?”
He blinked. Twice. Bewildered.
“I read,” she ground out, in case he thought her uneducated. “I don’t read novels. It’s not the done thing.”
“How…utterly unsurprising.”
Amelia had the sense that she’d just failed some sort of test, and it rankled. She was not used to failing at anything, let alone failing to meet a set of social standards. Shesetthe standards. Who did he think he was? Before she could respond, he’d dismissed the conversation and moved on.
“Upstairs on the left is your bedroom, my bedroom, the nursery and the playroom. Welcome to The Cottage.”
Amelia indicated the doors on the right side of the hall they were standing in. “And the east and west wings of the house?”
Cassandra shook her head. “There are no wings.”
“Please.” She crossed her arms. “I may have been half asleep when I arrived yesterday and more than a little wishful, but even I can’t have hallucinated two thirds of a building.”
“The wings are closed.” He stood with his feet set wide as though he could block her from seeing what was plain in front of her face. Three tall wooden doors that were certainly not decorative—nothing in the house was—so were presumably functional. Which meant they very much led somewhere.
Amelia skirted around him and pushed on one of the brass handles. It didn’t budge. “I’d like to take a look,” she said, turning to face him.
“It is closed.”
She huffed.Ludicrous.“Unless you bricked up each doorway, closed can become open. Goodness, Mr. Asterly, one would almost think you’re hiding a hoard of dead bodies. Or are they live ones? All your previous wives locked away forever?”
“You’re being ridiculous.”
“Ridiculous is living in ten rooms instead of fifty.” She turned to Benedict’s sister. “Cassandra?”
The girl shrugged. “I’ve never been in there. Father used to say that big houses were lonely houses, and we should move to a real cottage.”
In Amelia’s experience, all houses were lonely ones when you took away the guests and the orchestra. Better a lonely and well-appointed one. “Then why didn’t you move?”
“Mama liked the gardens.”
There was no deep grief in the words, but nevertheless Benedict put a protective arm around his sister. “That’s enough. I’m sorry the house doesn’t meet your elevated expectations, Lady Amelia. But you’re just going to have to live with it.”
Chapter6
Maybe she’s not coming down for dinner.” Cassandra fiddled with her water glass. “You weren’t very nice to her today.”
Benedict grunted. He hadn’t been very nice to his wife today. He’d come in with every intention of making her comfortable, building on their moment together the night before, and instead he had walked in on her discussing his mother and snapped.
For the umpteenth time, he sighed. It was only natural she’d want to know about his family. Hell, it was probably a good sign that she was interested enough to inquire.
But he’d been on edge all day, ever since that blasted almost-kiss, and it had taken just the thought of his mother to push him over.
His mother, the woman he’d never been able to please, trapped in a life she didn’t want. His wife, in the very same position.
“Maybe she doesn’t know dinner is ready. Maybe she thought it was earlier. We are eating really late tonight.”
“It’s seven. People in town eat at seven. She knows dinner’s ready.” He was a damned fool for changing their dinnertime to begin with. Amelia was a country woman now and would need to get used to country hours. “She didn’t come down for breakfast; my guess is she’s not coming down for dinner.”
Damn.He was going to have to apologize. That much was clear. The only thing worse than marriage to a woman who didn’t love you was marriage to a woman who detested you.
