Before they’d finished dining, Arthur turned the conversation to his brother.
“Ah, young Davis!” Lady de Younge took on an expression of indulgent concern. “That lad”—she shook her head—“always running up and down the country, visiting one estate or another. What I wouldn’t give for a nice wife to settle him down.”
The heat that went up Lydia’s face and neck at this remark was palpable. She could actually feel it radiating from her skin. She could probably fry the kippers on her cheek.
“The young man who spent so much time with us last month—that was your brother, eh?” said Didier expansively. “But of course, I can see the resemblance quite plainly now!” He turned to his wife. “Monsieur Baird—the brother of the earl.” He tilted his head in Arthur’s direction.
Claudine perked up at this news, an impressive feat since she’d already been rather perked. “His brother! Ah, Monsieur Baird, so handsome!” She clasped her hands to her ample bosom. “To be ten years younger, zut alors!”
The Marquise de Valiquette gave Claudine a sour look. “Perhaps twenty.”
Didier chuckled and ignored Madame de Valiquette. “We had many wonderful evenings with your brother, my lord Earl. You must have been quite bereft to have him leave your home and return to us.”
“Indeed,” said Arthur drily.
“But he did not even mention your marriage,” remarked Lady de Younge. “I imagine you told him to keep your secret. What a lark you have had, hiding your wife from all and sundry. It will not do, Arthur—the countess must be introduced all over!”
Arthur, fortunately, saved Lydia from what must surely be Lady de Younge’s next suggestion: an immediate tour of the countryside with Lydia in an open carriage. Also known as a fate worse than death.
“Davis was acting upon my request. My wife and I wanted to spend our first weeks of marriage together. Alone.”
Good heavens. She felt the sensation of his words somewhere inside her lower belly. Had he meant to make the words sound sosuggestive?
Lydia found that she was very suggestible indeed. She was brought back instantly to the stairwell, her leg wrapped around his hip. The sensation of his mouth on her skin, her hips pressed against his. Her thighs slackened beneath the table.
“Goodness, Arthur,” observed Lady de Younge, “you’ve mortified your poor wife. Her cheeks have gone quite pink.”
Lydia gulped and tried to pretend that the flush on her face was due to embarrassment and not the fact that Arthur’s innocent words had set off a highly vivid erotic memory.
The man’s voice was like a bloody aphrodisiac. It was absurd.
“Och,” Arthur said, “I’m sorry, my love. ’Twas badly done of me.” And then he set his hand to her shoulder again, his fingers warm and solid on the bare skin just above her puffed sleeve.
She licked her lips. “Not at all, my—my dear.”
Mercifully, Lord de Younge turned the conversation from Lydia’s face and the activities of newly married couples to an inquiry into how the young Strathrannochs had met. Arthur related the story they’d concocted about a mutual friend in Edinburgh and made absolutely no mention of London or the Hope-Wallace name. Lydia listened closely as the conversation meandered onward, trying to catch hints of people and places that Davis had mentioned in his letters. She had practically indexed them all in her mind by now, and it should not have been hard to listen for the names.
It would not ordinarily have been so. Only Arthur did not remove his hand from her shoulder but instead left it there, absentlysliding a finger back and forth. She felt every delicate movement, each slow graze of his rough fingertip across her skin.
And that made it quite difficult to think clearly after all.
In the afternoon, Lydia was drawn into the ladies’ activities while the men went shooting.
She found herself wondering what Arthur would do—she knew he did not enjoy hunting. Like as not, he would bluntly refuse to take a weapon and go on his way, unaffected by the judgment of the others. She envied that about him—his indifference to their opinions, his confidence in his own beliefs.
I don’t give a fig for what they think. I’ve no need for their approval of me or my wife.
She could not imagine what that must feel like. She felt as though her entire life had been spent trying to force herself into the shape that would be most pleasing to others. And failing.
She listened intently as Lady de Younge, Claudine Thibodeaux, and the Marquise de Valiquette chattered over embroidery and correspondence. Mrs. Thibodeaux spoke in a French so rapid that Lydia’s drawing room lessons could not quite keep up, but she was certain she understood references to Arthur and Davis both. Lady de Younge was the consummate hostess, ordering tea and small sandwiches, smoothing over the French ladies’ apparent dislike of each other with ease and pretending as though Lydia were a participant in the conversation and not an awkward bystander.
And when Arthur returned from the outing with the gentlemen, Lydia made her excuses and followed him up the stairs.
Their bedchambers were across the hall from each other, and he was on the point of opening his door when she caught up to him.
“Wait,” she said. She was a trifle breathless from following his long-legged stride up the staircase.
Her state of physical agitation did not resolve when Arthur took one look at her, cupped her elbow, and drew her into his chamber after him.
