A Lord Rotheby's Holiday Bundle (22 page)

Aurora’s cheeks heated
immediately. She wasn’t entirely sure she could talk of such
things. Not yet, at least. Maybe someday, after she’d had some more
experiences to help her articulate it all. How would one
describe
that
?
She’d have to attempt it—but in her journal first. It might take
several attempts to get it just right.

But her mind was focused on matters of
far greater consequence than that. “Such as whether I might be
barren or if having a child might be as difficult for me as it was
for Mother. Such as what Lord Quinton’s grandfather will do if I’m
not carrying his heir within a year.”

Rebecca frowned. “You are worrying
about all of these things two days into your marriage? I do care
for you, Aurora—deeply. But these are things you cannot control.
You’ll worry yourself sick if you don’t stop it this instant, and
that is no way to begin a marriage.”

“
But I have to worry about
them!” Aurora argued.

Her friend raised a single, perfectly
arched eyebrow. “Why? Will worrying help you to produce a baby?
More likely the antithesis,” she scoffed. “Will it do anything
about Lord Rotheby’s opinion on any matter? Hardly. You should
focus your efforts more on getting to know Lord
Quinton.”

Getting to know him might be
important, but the matter of her pregnancy seemed far more
important at the moment. “I don’t particularly want to get to know
him. He lied to me.”

“
About what?” Rebecca
prodded, her expression dubious, at best.

“
About…” Hmm. Well. She
didn’t
know
what
he’d lied about. Just that Quin was lying about
something
. “I don’t know. I don’t
know what he’s lying about, but he lied to me. I’m as sure of it as
I am of my own two feet. He’s a liar.” And she was married to him.
Permanently, irrevocably, indubitably married to him.

“
I think,” Rebecca said,
rising from her seat and making for the door, “you should worry
more about how to find some common ground between the two of you
than about what he may or may not have lied to you about. And you
shouldn’t worry about the rest of that, either. You’ll find the
answers you need to know in good time. Until then, there’s nothing
you can do about it one way or another.”

In good
time
. That wasn’t particularly helpful. Nor
was it very comforting. Some friend Rebecca was turning out to be
now that Aurora was a married woman and Rebecca was not.

Rebecca faced her again just before
leaving. “Nothing. Understand?”

Aurora merely scowled in
response.

~ * ~

For the better part of a fortnight,
Aurora spent her days primarily alone. Of course, there were
meetings with Mrs. Gaffee where they went over the household budget
and plans for furnishing and decorating the various rooms of Number
Fourteen, and visits with Cook to plan the menu.

Two or three days a week,
Rebecca stopped in—usually accompanied by Lord Norcutt or by Her
Grace of Aylesbury, or perhaps by a maid, but never alone after
that one visit. Father made a weekly visit, but claimed to be too
busy with Parliament to visit on a more frequent basis—Aurora
believed it far more likely that he wanted to give her time alone
with her husband. A few ladies of the
ton
had dropped in for her at-homes
to pay their regards. But, more days than not, Aurora sat
alone.

Worse than that, she grew more and
more lonely with each day that passed.

Quin left with Sir Jonas shortly after
breaking his fast each day, and seldom returned before supper time.
Even at those meals, they rarely spoke.

The bulk of their interaction occurred
each night in bed.

Aurora enjoyed the marriage bed. Far
more than she thought healthy, actually. But she could feel herself
going slowly mad with no one to really talk to, with no real
interaction beyond, “We’ll have mutton for supper this evening,
Cook,” or, “I should like the parlor to be a lovely rose color,
Mrs. Gaffee.” She had no one to gossip with, no one to discuss the
undiscovered territory that was matrimony, no one to allay her
fears that seemed to ever introduce themselves to her overindulgent
mind.

So she decided it was time, yet again,
to write.

But what ought she to write? As a
married lady, she had no more dreadful suitors vying for her hand,
so she saw no need to convince herself one way or another of their
inability to suit. The finer details of her marriage to Quin had
proven far more inventive than even her own imagination, so she
doubted she could add to them in any profound manner.

Aurora pondered the
predicament she found herself in for several days before finally
settling on her plan of action: she would simply write. She would
write anything and everything that came into her mind, whether it
seemed like the type of thing she ought to be writing or not. But
if she continually thought about
what
she was going to write, she
might never actually write anything.

With that matter settled, Aurora
waited for her husband to leave (as he always did) on a
particularly sunny April morning, then headed for the escritoire in
the sitting room between their separate chambers.

She dipped her quill into the ink pot
and set the tip to the parchment of her journal. Taking a deep
breath, she allowed her mind to wander until it settled upon
something—anything, really—which beckoned to her.

The first image that settled in her
mind was of Quin. Aurora frowned. She didn’t want to write about
him. The blasted man did nothing but infuriate her, giving her
silence all day, and then causing her to wail like a mad woman at
night with the wicked things he did to her.

Besides, look at the trouble writing
about him had gotten her into in the first place.

No, writing about Quin just would not
do.

Next came a picture of a puppy. Very
cute, but not particularly something that was just begging her to
write, either. She shoved that image out of the way.

A mistle thrush singing
from the hawthorn tree outside the window distracted her to the
point she debated writing about it. That, however, would hardly
take up any words at all. Aurora was not, after all, a Lord Byron,
able to write verse after verse, page after page, symbol after
symbol, on and on
ad nauseum
to infinity about a silly pilgrimage. She had far
more weighty matters on her mind.

Yet again, a vision of her husband
passed before Aurora’s mind—this time, clad in only a cravat
hanging limply about his neck and his Hessian boots, polished to a
high luster. Oh, dear good Lord. The room felt like the fire in the
hearth had just that moment roared to life, engulfing her in its
heated embrace.

It seemed there was nothing to be done
for it. She was simply going to have to indulge her fantasy and
write another story about Quin.

He came to me in the nude
save an inadequately starched neck cloth and two Hessian boots that
fairly sparkled in the warm candlelight. My stomach quivered in
anticipation from the look in his eyes.

Quin looked
ravenous
—
like he
hadn’t eaten in weeks and I was his favorite Yorkshire pudding. He
growled low in his throat; if I hadn’t heard the sound so many
times before, I’d think him an animal in disguise as a man. But
since I had heard it in such regular intervals, it sent a shiver
down my spine and caused that all-too-familiar wetness to pool
between my thighs.

I wanted him to touch me.
I wanted him to kiss me. I wanted him to do all the things he had
done before, and everything I didn’t even know was possible between
a man and a woman. I wanted it all.

He did come to me then,
and he kissed me in that way he has of making my head spin and my
toes curl and all my thoughts fly out of my head faster than
on-dit
can spread
through a ballroom.

But just when I wanted to
wrap my arms around his neck and hold on for dear life, he broke
off the kiss and turned me away from him. I was too bowled over to
protest. I was also too surprised to argue when he placed his
cravat over my eyes, rendering me blind.

Blind? Oh, my. Where on earth was her
mind taking her this time? Aurora really needed to get a firmer
rein over her imagination.

This was apparently not the moment for
that to happen, though. Before she could stop herself, her quill
was flying across the page, filling it with devious and fantastic
images, entirely too risqué for her to ever share with another
human being.

Not even Quin.

~ * ~

Quin ducked to avoid Hodgson’s right.
Close one. Hodgson’s fist glanced off the top of Quin’s
head.

Not enough to make him sweat. Not
yet.

Two steps to the side. Another to the
front. He pummeled Hodgson in the stomach with his left, planted
his right squarely to the eye.

Hodgson came up again like it was only
the tickle of a feather to the roar of the crowd gathered at
Jackson’s.

Blast, the man was built like
Hercules.

Then again, that was what Quin had
wanted. He wanted someone to knock him senseless. He wanted to
forget about his lovely little Siren of a wife long enough to
convince himself he wasn’t falling head over ears in love with
her.

He wanted oblivion.

The kind of oblivion he used to find
in brandy—but that he couldn’t get from brandy anymore because he
was supposed to be a bloody respectable, married gent.

Quin blocked a blow from the right
just in the nick of time and spun away. When he faced Hodgson
again, he aimed a jab at the larger man’s jaw.

Too late.

Hodgson connected with his left
straight in Quin’s eye.

Everything went black.

~ * ~

“
Wake up, you arse,” Jonas
said, his voice cutting through the blessed fog filling Quin’s
mind. “You should have listened to me.”

“
Sod off. If I had listened
to you, I’d be exactly the same as I have been for the last two
weeks.” Married to a temptress that he was falling for faster than
he knew what to do with, without anything to remind him of reality.
Sparring with Hodgson at least gave him a dose of the latter, even
if it could do nothing about the former.

Naturally, Jonas grabbed Quin’s neck
and dunked his head in a pail of water.

He came up spouting obscenities. “Why
the devil did you do that?”

“
Because you
are
exactly the same as
you have been these last two weeks, aside from the split lip and
blackened eye. Which, by the way, is swelling and looking rather
putrid.” Jonas grimaced and backed away. “A boxing match isn’t
going to change the state of your marriage, regardless of who you
choose to spar with.”

The state of his marriage, indeed.
Quin started to frown, but stopped when it hurt. “You have no
business speaking of my marriage. You aren’t even married,
yourself. What do you know about it?”

The crowd at Jackson’s had thinned
considerably. Only a few gentlemen stood about, watching the
sparring match in the ring half-heartedly. A random shout rang out
in the otherwise quiet boxing salon while Quin waited for an
answer.

Finally, Jonas spoke.
“You’re right. I know nothing of being married. Not that I don’t
wish to know, but for now, I’m ignorant. But I do know
you
.”

Could Jonas be any more cryptic?
“Meaning?” Quin drawled.

“
Meaning I know that you’re
avoiding your wife. I may not know
why
you’re avoiding her. I honestly
can’t understand why you’d want to. She seems perfectly amenable,
and frankly, rather enjoyable—in more ways than one.”

“
Watch your mouth or I’ll
draw your cork. Right here. Right now.”

Jonas raised his hands in
defense. “Hold on a minute. I never said I
had
enjoyed her, or that I
would
enjoy her. I just
said she
seems
enjoyable. Jealousy is ugly on you.”

Quin’s head snapped around.
Jealousy? Hardly. He didn’t care enough to be jealous. She was just
his bloody wife—
his
, damn it all—and Jonas would do well to remember that
fact.

Right?

Sitting where he was and brooding over
matters would solve nothing. He pushed to his feet, only to wish
he’d taken a bit more time in the process. Quin reached for the
wall to steady himself. Hodgson must have knocked his head harder
than he realized.

“
I’m going home,” he said,
pushing away from the wall.
Home
. He hadn’t thought of anywhere
as home in so many years, he couldn’t recall when the last time
might have been. How very odd.