"Not when it comes to me, he cannot!" Louisa said sharply. "He cannot dress me up like a doll and expect me to be happy about it. I don't like it. I don't like him deciding how I should look."
"Louisa," Evelina said in her soft, calm voice. "He simply wants to ensure that you look well. It is perfectly normal for a man like him to want to ensure that his family appears correctly at a social event."
"But I -"
Evelina shook her head, cutting her off as Margaret gave her a little hug around her waist. "You are a countess now, Louisa," and now she had her motherly tone, her 'you should listen to me for I know what is best for you' tone. "You will need to get used to people looking at you."
Perhaps they were right, but as Louisa watched the atelier being out reams of beautiful, sparkling cloth she felt her resentment grow for this man who wanted to drag her out of the shadows.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
"Where is my wife, Mrs. Brooks?" Cedric asked slowly, not wanting to vent his frustrations on the wrong person.
Mrs. Brooks looked up from where she was overseeing some girls clearing away the supper plates. "Good evening, my lord. My lady came in from her outing a few hours ago, supped and has retired."
"She is not in her room," Cedric said, taking a piece of fruit from one of the plates. He had missed the evening meal but was not hungry yet, being used to building up an appetite with fencing and dancing and hunting had left him struggling to eat at the normal times now most of what he did was to work through the mounds of paperwork in his study. "Where might she be if she is not in her room."
"I am sure I do not know, my lord," Mrs. Brooks said, her lips pinched together disapprovingly. "Might she be with the children?"
"I have looked there," he said, trying his best not to snap. He had a brewing headache and the fruitless task of trying to track down his wife was proving to be more frustrating than he had expected.
He had clearly not managed not to snap as Mrs. Brooks looked offended. "I am sorry, my lord, but your lady has not told me where she would be so I cannot tell you where she is. I doubt she is in the gardens at this time. Perhaps she is in a study or the music room."
Cedric sighed, muttered his thanks and stalked from the dining room. There were numerous such rooms in the estate and he had rather hoped that someone would be able to point him in the right direction without him having to then spend his precious time searching all of them.
Cedric was not used to looking for something or someone he wanted. In fact there were now a lot of things happening in his estate that he was not used to. It would have been normal and expected for Louisa to be in her chambers so of course she was not there! She never did what Cedric thought she would. It was rare that he found someone he could not predict.
Even his group of friends were predictable in their own ways. Gabriel would be watching whatever happened from the side, considering the best course of action carefully before doing anything, but when he did act it would always be decisive and devastating. Theodore was prone to whisky and sarcasm, though less so since his marriage. Hector was still so wonderfully unaware of how to be a duke and cared just as little.
Even Lady Bettie Beaumont had been an open book to him. He had known that she had her own reasons for wanting a quick wedding, but he had not considered the one reason that should have been the first to cross his mind. He had simply assumedand am I just that arrogant?that he was such a good catch that she had leaped at the opportunity.
Perhaps hewasthat arrogant. Louisa had certainly thought so from the moment that they had met. Was it arrogant when it was true?
Ever since I have been in society women have thrown themselves in my path, he thought, stalking down the hall and checking the various chambers that he passed for his errant wife.It is hardly arrogance to assume that it is happening again.
Ah of course. He paused outside the library door. Of course it was here that he would find her. She was well-read, even perhaps bookish. From what her sisters and his friends had said she had spent most of her season with her head in books instead of engaging in the parties and gatherings, or standing near a wall trying to disappear at balls.
Whoever that shy little girl had been, he certainly didn't see much of her left in his bride. This was no wallflower. She was a threat to his sanity.
Cedric pushed the door open and stepped inside, a little disappointed to find Louisa curled in a chair wrapped in a plain and sensible wrap with her hair plaited down her back. He had rather hoped she would be wearing one of her new pieces offinery, but it was late for that he supposed. Still, every time he saw her he felt like he wanted topeelher sensible and boring clothes from her and see her dressed in something that would suit her station. It wasinfuriatingthe way that she hid herself away behind greys and browns and plain styles.
"Have you seen the children?" he asked abruptly, entering the room with a bang that startled her enough to drop her book. It was an old battered tome of the Castle of Otranto, something that his own father had been fond of, and Cedric winced a little as it hit the floor.
"They have been asleep for a little while," Louisa said, flushing and bending to retrieve the book. "I told them a story, which Abigail insisted had pirates in it. Kenneth asked that the pirates not be scary so they were cat pirates looking to conquer a land of cheese. This seemed to make both of them happy and they fell asleep shortly after I started."
The words were very pleasant, but Cedric noticed the way she wasn't quite meeting his eye and the shortness of her tone. Interesting. "Indeed? How did the story end?"
"Only people present at bedtime get to hear the story," she said pertly. "If you want to know how the story ends you will simply have to come say goodnight tomorrow night."
He bristled a little at that. Was she implying that he was not spending enough time with the children? "I can hardly spare time from managing the estate to listen to you create fairytales."
"Then you cannot be expected to spare that time now, can you?" Louisa looked up at him and smiled in such a sweetly sharp way that he raised an eyebrow.
"Oh so the lamb has teeth, does she?" he stepped closer to her. "What has you so annoyed, my wife?"
She frowned. "I cannot remember saying I was angry. In fact you are the one who came in here and told me you didn't have time for fairytales."
"No, I came in here to see where my wife had gotten to," Cedric said slowly, watching the angry flush go up her cheeks. "And now I have found you I can see that you are cross about something. Come, let us be friendly. I will tell you how much I like your stories and in turn you can tell me what has you upset."
