Page 33 of Maid for the Marquess

“We have tomorrow to make adjustments,” she added, nodding to herself. “After breakfast, we can convene. Do you have any jewelry you might wish to wear, my dear?”

I thought of my mother’s lovely collection of jewels, the necklace she had oft worn. Likely, the baron had long ago sold off anything of value belonging to her.

I shook my head sadly. “I have nothing, I’m afraid.”

“I have a parure that will do,” the viscountess told me. “Only if you wish it, of course.”

My throat constricted as emotion overwhelmed me. “I would be honored. Thank you.”

Before anything else could be said, Wheaton and Beckett arrived in the drawing room. The marquess’s warm, dark gaze found mine, and a frisson of awareness went through me. He was so very handsome, so large and powerful and imposing standing next to the viscount. Lord Beckett was a pleasant-looking man with his golden hair and lively green eyes, but Wheaton alone commanded my attention.

Soon, he would be my husband.

Something fluttered low within me. My gaze dipped for a moment to the stern set of his jaw, to his mouth. What would it be like to feel those lips on mine? To be free to touch him, to embrace him…to lie with him?

Good heavens, what a wicked thought to have in the midst of a drawing room.

Sure that my face was flaming, I jerked my eyes back up to his, just in time to catch the slight upturn of the corners of his mouth. Did he sense the nature of my thoughts? Good heavens, I hoped not. I was shocking myself with my newfound desires. It was as if my body had come to life. I felt like a butterfly, stripped from her cocoon, flitting about in the world for the first time.

It was intoxicating and terrifying. I wasn’t even sure I knew who I was now, but I was also eager to discover this new part of myself.

“Have we interrupted?” Beckett asked lightly, sending a fond glance in his wife’s direction.

It was plain to see that the two of them were a love match. They had shared longing looks over dinner and spoke of each other with undisguised fondness. My mother and father had never been overtly affectionate; indeed, their relations had been cool and polite. I wondered now if they had ever loved each other.

“Of course not,” Constance said to her husband. “We are happy to have the two of you join us.”

The gentlemen seated themselves, the viscount joining his wife on a settee and Lord Wheaton folding his large frame into a chair near me that looked almost comically delicate with his powerful body dominating it.

I caught a hint of his intoxicating scent, his proximity having a wholly new effect upon my senses. Was it because we were betrothed? Or was it because I was already developing feelings for the marquess?

He sent me an encouraging smile, and my breath quickened.

“What have the two of you been discussing in our absence?” he asked. “Lady Beckett, I sincerely hope you weren’t relaying all my dreadful habits.”

His teasing tone had me smiling. I wasn’t accustomed to such unrestricted cheer. My father’s moods had been mercurial and unforgiving.

“I’m reasonably sure you haven’t any, my lord,” Constance returned with a similarly mischievous air before turning an arch look in her husband’s direction. “No, I daresay you are perfection personified, quite unlike my own husband. My dear Maddie, be forewarned that you are marrying a paragon.”

Lord Beckett pressed a hand over his heart in mock outrage. “My beloved lady wife, I am deeply wounded that you find me anything less than flawless.”

The viscountess grinned. “Perhaps if you did not insist upon interrupting my reading.”

“But you know I cannot resist when you look like a cat, curled up in a chair by the fire,” Lord Beckett rejoined before turning to the marquess. “Some husbandly advice—never interrupt your wife’s reading.”

“I shall endeavor never to do so,” Wheaton said with a chuckle. “She will have carte blanche to fill my library as she wishes, and if I should find her with a book in hand, I shall keep my distance.”

I hadn’t read a book in years. They were yet another luxury I wasn’t afforded. But even if my father had permitted me to take a book from his depleted library, I wouldn’t have had time to read it.

“Wise man,” Beckett said, then turned to me. “Tell me, Miss Smythe, do you prefer poetry or prose?”

“I don’t think I can choose between the two,” I told him carefully for, in truth, I hadn’t had occasion to compare, having been kept from reading for so long. “They are equally lovely in their own ways.”

“A politic response,” the viscount said. “My wife prefers poetry, particularly when I read the verses aloud to her. Do you not, my dear?”

“Of course I do,” Constance drawled, her countenance suggesting the opposite. “Pray don’t allow my husband to fool you,” she added to me in an aside, “he hasn’t read me poetry since we were courting.”

“An egregious error I would be more than happy to rectify,” Lord Beckett said with a roguish grin. “Only tell me which poem you would like to hear.”