His smile vanished and he turned his head abruptly toward the fire, as though punishing himself or her. His expression had gone inscrutable.
“Thank you for having some of my clothes sent over.”
He cleared his throat. “I instructed the maids at the town house to send over shades of yellow, green, and pink gowns, if you had any, along with day dresses. Enough for about a week. I recalled you wearing those colors, and I thought perhaps you liked them best. I hope they’ll suit for now.” He still hadn’t turned back to her.
A lump moved into her throat. She was moved that he’d remembered.
“Yes, I found them. Those will do, thank you,” she said, quietly.
“We’ve a ball to attend tomorrow night, hosted by the Earl and Countess of Chisholm.”
“I’ll wear my rose-colored silk.”
She’d never danced with him. She had never, in fact, voluntarily touched him. And it had been some time since she’d attended a ball.
Proving that she wasn’t entirely dead inside, part of her actually looked forward to it. Even if it was a duty arising from a rather tensely sad bargain.
“I’m having the needed repairs to the town house roof and windows done so it will be fullyready for sale. Interested buyers will likely be viewing it this week. I have a variety of meetings and errands of the business or mandatory sort this week. I imagine you’ll have letters and messages you’d like to write. You’ll have time to arrange for the packing or storage of the rest of your possessions if you like before your ship sails.”
“All right,” she said quietly.
She was sorely tempted to say,Youmeanyourpossessions, since your money bought them, but a truce was a truce, and he’d apologized. Nevertheless, she was still going to be thinking about that.
She was glad he’d already informed the staff. It wasn’t a task she’d have relished. Still, they’d been in residence when she’d arrived; they werehisemployees, and always had been. While they were competent and respectful, she had formed no special attachments to any of them.
He didn’t return to his book. He held it open in his lap.
They studied each other solemnly. She’d never seen him this close, in low firelight. There were a thousand versions of this man, her husband, that she’d never had a chance to know and now never would. She was reminded of how he’d looked by leaf-dappled sunlight, the day he’d attempted to untie her ribbons. Craggy, nearly pagan. But if he was a “beast” at all, he was the grand sort out of mythology, calm, dignified, and when crossed, thoroughly, unapologetically dangerous.
Suddenly something like reluctant wonderflickered in his eyes. It was there and gone, but it made her breath catch.
She suspected he would prefer it if she had no power to move him at all. But it seemed she still did. It changed nothing.
In the silence, a strange, soft warmth settled over her skin, a sort of unnerving awareness of everything that was so very unequivocally male about him. Magnus was nothing like the sleek aristocratic youngbloods among whom she’d been raised. She remembered how it had felt to be briefly pressed against Paul’s slim young body; she remembered imagining that Magnus would engulf her, by comparison.
If they, in truth, had been a typical husband and wife, she would know by now what every inch of Magnus’s skin looked like. And felt like. Not just these intriguing little portions of him from which imagination unfurled.
And grief surprised her with a short, sharp jolt.
“What time is it?” she asked at once. “Are we in danger of breaking rules by not going downstairs? Did you have your dinner? I’m not hungry yet. The scones and soup were delicious and very filling.”
He fished his watch from his trouser pocket. “If you like, we’ve still time to fulfill our duty to obey the house rules by mingling with the other guests in the sitting room. Everyone should still be gathered. I met some of them at dinner, and I’m already acquainted with Hardy and Bolt. Mr. Delacorte is one of their business partners, and I’ve never met anyone quite like him, and that’ssaying something. It’s a decidedly unusual but quite pleasant crew. Their cook, by the way, is indeed gifted. Dinner was marvelous.”
“I think I would like to go down.”
She was at heart a social creature. And it would be better not to be alone with him, she thought. And not entirely for the reasons she would have cited yesterday.
Alexandra and Magnus hovered a moment in the doorway of the sitting room.
Their proprietresses, the golden-blonde Mrs. Durand and the dark-haired Mrs. Hardy, were knitting. Next to Mrs. Durand a lean and darkly gorgeous man sprawled with indolent grace in a chair. She suspected this was Lord Bolt. He was holding his wife’s knitting, and wearing a teasing smile, as if she’d just said something amusing.
Near them, the maid named Dot was stabbing a needle into and out of an embroidery hoop, her brow furrowed with concentration.
The two men sitting at a game table with a chessboard between them must be Captain Hardy and Mr. Delacorte, Alexandra thought. A dewily young couple, a man and a woman, sat across from each other at another table, and two handsome women who appeared to be in their middle years were the balance of the guests.
Alexandra discovered again how interesting it was to enter a room alongside Brightwall and experience the hush that fell as a group of people adjusted to an influx of awe.
And then everyone shot to their feet.
