“Yes, to a young man I’ve known all of my life.”
An impossible jealousy filled his heart. He hated this unknown man who held his wife’s heart. “Does he not return your affections?”
She shrugged her bare shoulders. “He said he did, but then he left and my mother forced me to marry you.”
The burden of guilt he carried seemed to double with these words, taking away the sting of his jealousy. He wanted to apologize but then realized she too had said yes at the chapel. “Like you said, there’s always a choice, and our choices have been made. Can’t we make the best of it?”
“Honestly, Thomas,” she whispered. “I don’t know if I can, but I’ll do my best.”
“I promise that I will do everything in my power to be a good husband to you. To be faithful to you. To be a good partner,” he said. “And you’ll be a countess.”
“You can call me The Cash Countess,” Cordelia said with a wry smile.
Her smile filled him with a spark of hope. Maybe they could be friends and their friendship would grow into something more. He returned her smile. “I’d prefer that you didn’t call me The Indebted Earl.”
“The Ignominious Earl?” she suggested.
He laughed softly. “Please no.”
“I’ll try, Thomas,” she said in a voice barely above a whisper. “I can only promise you that I’ll try to be your friend.”
“Thank you. Do you want to go down to our wedding reception?”
“Dressed like this?”
Blast. He was staring at her again. “Most people have already seen your gold-embroidered undergarments.”
She gasped.
He blushed and managed to turn his eyes away from her. “I-I-I thought you knew. All the New York papers published pictures of your trousseau, including your undergarments and diamond-studded garters.”
“My mother,” she said, shaking her head. “She must have leaked them to the papers. She revels in attention.”
“I’ll send a maid in, and I can wait in the hall for you to change,” he said, still averting his gaze from temptation. “Then we could go down to the party together?”
“Together.”
Thomas left her room and walked down the hall. He saw the same maid who had directed him to Cordelia’s room. He asked if she would go help his wife dress. The girl blushed and nodded.
He sat on a chair. Leaning back, he tried to think of very cold things. Like ice. The artic. His wife.
Thomas couldn’t help but wonder if he’d made the wrong choice after all. Ashdown Abbey was saved and he could restore the estate to its former glory, but the cost was higher than he’d reckoned with. He was now tied irrevocably to a person that he did not love and who was in love with another man. At least he was attracted to her—no, he wouldn’t think about that now.
Ice.
And fire.
What a mismatched pair they were: the heiress and the fortune hunter. The old world and the new.
11
Through the frosted carriage window he could see Ashdown Abbey—home. Thomas hadn’t realized how much he’d missed it or how truly beautiful it was. The month of January had decked it with a beautiful coating of snow, hiding most of its flaws. He was glad that they’d been in no rush to arrive back to England.
“Is that it?” Cordelia asked, pointing to Ashdown in the distance.
“Yes, it is.”
“What a pretty prospect,” she said.
