Page 49 of The Luckiest Lady in London

The sneaky rascal. But still dinner was enjoyable, their conversation centered largely on matters having to do with the estate.

It was only nine when she rose from the table. So she sat down in the drawing room and wrote a long letter to her family, extolling the beauty of her new home.

He did not join her in the drawing room, sneaky rascal indeed. But she could not deny it: His distance was having the desired effect. Her heart was beating fast as she returned to her bedroom and changed out of her dinner gown.

This time she would make sure to disrobe him. Slowly. She’d seen so little of his body. She wanted to touch him, study him, and perhaps map out tiny imperfections on his person like constellations in the night sky.

She glanced at the clock: half past ten. He would come to her at eleven; she knew it. So she pulled out two pieces of stationery and wrote a letter each to Lady Balfour and Lady Tenwhestle.

It was two minutes to eleven when she was finished. She extinguished most of the lamps in the room and climbed in under the bedcover: She planned to emit some thunderous snoring noises when he opened the door.

She giggled to herself, imagining his response. They would probably burst out laughing in unison. And then she would grab him by the lapel and not let go until sunrise.

The connecting door, however, remained stubbornly closed. She listened, but couldn’t hear any sounds. Vexed, she sat up in bed. The man was being insufferable. Yes, a certain amount of waiting whetted the appetite. But beyond that certain amount, appetite was replaced by irritation!

At half past eleven, she’d had enough. She left her bed, shrugged into her dressing robe, and yanked open the connecting door. His bedroom was unlit. Light meandered in from her room, enough to show that there was no one inside. She walked to various doors leading out from his bedroom—nothing. The entire apartment was empty.

She went back to her bedroom, lit a hand candle, and set out for the billiard room, hoping she remembered the way correctly. Her sense of direction served her just fine, but the billiard room was deserted. As were the smoking room, the library, and the conservatory, and all the other rooms she passed along the way.

Muttering under her breath, she checked his apartment again. Still dark and vacant. Where in the world could a man go at this time of the night? Surely he did not mean to compel her to search the house room by room?

She sat down on the edge of the bed and rubbed the back of her neck. This couldn’t possibly still be a game, unless the point was to give offense and cause frustration. But if it wasn’t a game…

If it wasn’t a game, it would mean he’d had enough of her for the time being.

Impossible. The night before he had been so aroused he had not even taken the time to disrobe. He must want her still—and intensely, too.

Yet after an entire day away, instead of seeking her company, he had chosen his own.

She lay down on her bed, her mood glum. She wished she knew where he was. She wished she understood what drove his strange decisions. She wished she’d remembered never to lower her guard where he was concerned—she was to trust him only in bed and nowhere else, no matter how adorably he styled the dress dummies.

She fell asleep dreaming that he came through the connecting door, full of smiles and apologies.

Chapter 11

Louisa would have preferred to hunt him down the next morning and demand an answer, but she woke up to a house preparing itself for battle. The first batch of guests for the house party was expected in the afternoon. And had she somehow come to the belief that she needed only to stand back and let the great machinery belowstairs rumble on by itself?

How wrong she had been. This was an army, and she its general. It didn’t matter that she’d never been anywhere near a proper campaign; dozens and dozens of decisions now fell to her.

Some obviously mattered: Funds needed to be approved so that the extra help hired specifically for the occasion would have their coin at the end of each day. Some were of passionate importance to those directly involved: Mr. Sturgess could not stop agonizing about the combination of linen and fresh flowers at the table—should it be a white tablecloth to show off the vibrancy of the ranunculus, or should it be a dark tablecloth so that the late marchioness’s blush roses could be displayed to their best advantage? And some made her feel like both a complete bumpkin and a wonderful sage for not caring one way or the other: Should the east lawn be trimmed to the correct height for croquet and the west lawn for tennis—or vice versa? She pretended to reflect on the difference, and then instructed the groundskeeper to seek the master of Huntington.

“Did Mr. Connelly find you?” she asked the master of Huntington when she finally saw him, an hour past luncheon, coming down the grand staircase in a light tweed suit, The Ideal Country Gentleman.

“Yes, he did.” He addressed her with an affable familiarity, as if they’d been married years and a night missing from her bedchamber were nothing for anyone to be concerned about.

“And how did you answer him?”

“The west lawn for tennis and the east lawn for croquet—that way there will always be shade, as on hotter days tennis is usually played in the morning and croquet in the afternoon.”

“A rich man’s concern,” she scoffed.

“A rich woman’s too,” he answered with a smile at her. “Don’t forget what you have become, Lady Wrenworth.”

It was only a half smile—or perhaps less, perhaps only a quarter. But all the same, it was as dazzling.

“If you will excuse me, I must go out and inspect the grouse we will soon be shooting,” he said, leaning in so that his lips brushed her cheek.

She laid a hand against his heart, the tweed warm beneath her hand. “I missed you last night.”