Regency Surrender: Passion And Rebellion. Louise Allen

barely coped with having her turn him away from her room at Mayfield, but he wasn’t going to let her think she could get away with coldly rebuffing him any longer. He hadn’t come all the way to London to...to...

      Dammit—now he’d made her blush. He hadn’t meant to embarrass her. He’d meant to tell her he wanted to put an end to this nonsensical separation and try to find a way back to what they’d had those first few heady days of their marriage. But as usual, his temper had grabbed him by the throat and shaken out all the wrong words.

      ‘Girls!’ Mary’s aunt got to her feet and clapped her hands. ‘Come and pay your respects to his lordship.’

      ‘He’s here?’ The younger and more forward of the two whirled towards him, leaving her partner grasping for empty air after his own turn.

      ‘So soon?’ Lotty was making towards him as well, a huge smile on her face. ‘Why, that’s wonderful! Isn’t it, Mary?’

      ‘I...well, I... Yes, of course it is,’ she agreed, looking rather harassed.

      His hackles rose. He’d seen girls in the throes of a conspiracy to manage their menfolk often enough to recognise something of the sort was in train.

      ‘What have you been plotting?’

      ‘Nothing,’ said Dotty with convincing indignation. At the same time as Lotty, unfortunately, admitted, ‘We were hoping you would throw a ball.’

      ‘And of course,’ put in the aunt smoothly, while Mary looked as if she wanted to slide under the heap of materials and vanish, ‘we could not even consider it while you were not here.’

      ‘Absolutely not,’ he said, wondering what they’d really been plotting. Mary couldn’t dissemble to save her life. And it was clear that this was the very first she’d heard anything about a ball.

      The other girls pouted, however, and started to complain.

      ‘Oh, but surely you want everyone to meet your wife. Isn’t that what people do when they get married in your set? Throw parties, and such?’

      ‘Not until she’s made her curtsy in the Queen’s drawing room,’ he said firmly. And then inspiration struck him. She might not think she needed him, but there was one sure way he could make it seem perfectly natural for them to spend time together. Which would give him time to win her round. Somehow.

      ‘That’s one of the reasons I’ve come up to town,’ he said airily. ‘Need to see to Mary’s presentation. Besides, it’s not the thing for a wife to come up to town alone, you know. At least not the first time. I shall have to squire you about a bit, Mary,’ he said, turning to her fully, so that he could gauge her reaction. ‘Introduce you to the right sort of people and warn you off the wrong ’uns.’

      ‘I’m sure I never meant to be so much bother,’ she said in a flat, subdued little voice. ‘You don’t need to...squire me about.’

      She couldn’t have made it plainer she didn’t want him here.

      ‘It’s no bother,’ he insisted icily. ‘It’s just one of those things I should have remembered I’d have to do when I took a wife.’

      Her shoulders slumped still further.

      ‘Think I’ll take myself off to my club until dinner,’ he said, getting to feet that were itching to get out of here.

      ‘Will you be dining here?’

      She had no need to look as though he’d threatened her with a visit to the dentist.

      ‘Of course I d—dashed well will!’ He wasn’t going to fall at the first hurdle. He’d just wait till he could get her alone, so that they could thrash things out properly. Get her to see sense.

      Although, he reflected moodily as he left the ballroom, perhaps what he really needed was for her not to have so much. Sense, that is. For no sensible woman would give him what he wanted.

      Not when she’d already agreed to something very different.

       Chapter Fifteen

      Lord Havelock came to a dead halt on the threshold of the dining room. Every stick of furniture was shrouded in holland covers.

      ‘Excuse me, my lord,’ said Simmons, materialising at his elbow. ‘But her ladyship has requested that all meals be served in what used to be the morning room.’

      ‘Of course she has,’ he replied grimly. It was that kind of day. Nothing had gone as expected. Even at his club, the gossip had all been about Chepstow’s sudden, and startling, marriage to a girl nobody had ever heard of.

      No wonder the ancient Greeks had decided to represent love by a mischievous little chap, shooting arrows at innocent passers-by. A chuckling, chubby child who struck at random. Mortally wounding his victims.

      Havelock absent-mindedly rubbed at his chest, where there was a dull ache. An ache that only one thing—or rather person—could assuage.

      Mary was sitting on a chair by the fire. She got to her feet, as though startled, when he walked in. Then looked pointedly at the table, which was set for two.

      ‘I’m sorry I kept you waiting,’ he said. ‘Went to the dining room first. Stupid thing to do, really.’

      She frowned at him. Or rather, the frown she’d been wearing already grew deeper. Her lips thinned and she took a breath, as though to utter some tart remark.

      ‘You look lovely, by the way,’ he said to forestall her. ‘New gown?’ He pulled out a chair for her and, after a brief struggle with herself, she swept across to the table and sat down on the chair.

      ‘Yes,’ she said, with a toss of her head. ‘That is why I came up to town. To buy clothes.’

      Yes, that was the excuse she’d made. He eyed the short string of pearls at her neck.

      ‘Jewels, too? I should be buying you those.’

      ‘You are,’ she said with a lift to her chin. ‘I’m having all the bills sent to your man of business, just as you said.’

      ‘Touché,’ he murmured as footmen started swarming round the table.

      Though the atmosphere between them remained cool, the food at least was hot. Which was a vast improvement on how things had been in his father’s day.

      In fact, in the short time she’d been here, Mary had transformed Durant House from a dark, repressive display of his forebear’s wealth, into the kind of place where boys could hold tea-tray races down stairs and a man could stretch out his legs before the fire while waiting for his dinner.

      She’d turned it into a home.

      ‘It was a good idea of yours, to have meals served in here,’ he said, as the cloth was removed and a dish of nuts set at his left hand. ‘Walnut?’

      She shook her head.

      ‘Not hungry?’ She hadn’t done justice to the delicious meal, merely pushing the food round her plate. And she looked a touch pale. ‘Are you unwell?’

      She sat up straighter and gave a strange, nervous little laugh. ‘Whatever gives you that idea?’

      ‘Mary...’ He sighed, setting down the nutcrackers. ‘I can’t stand this.’

      ‘Stand...stand what?’ She looked at him with wide, wary eyes.

      ‘You being in London and me being in Mayfield. I know I said I’d let you lead your own life when you’d had enough of me and I wouldn’t cut up rough, but...’ He drew a deep breath. ‘I’m exhausted. I just can’t sleep without you in bed beside me.’

      ‘You were the one,’ she said tartly, ‘who moved into another bedroom.’

      ‘In