So strange to be here again.
Strange, and yet familiar.
She leaned back against the headboard, smiling a little at the maroon-red walls.
John
had reminded her not long ago how they had argued about that so long ago. She had forgotten, but he had remembered.
There was a scratch on the door, and a maid came in with a tray. "Morning, my lady," the girl said, smiling shyly. "I'm Hill.
Second housemaid.
Mrs. Miller had me bring your breakfast up. She said you always like to have your breakfast in bed."
"Miller is still here?"
"Oh, yes. Will be until she's too old to stir the puddings, she says."
Viola laughed. "I remember Miller's Christmas pudding. She prepared it in September and she made everyone in the house come to the kitchens and give it a stir before she put it away in the buttery."
"She still does that, my lady.
Every year.
Even the master has to come stir the Christmas pudding. He never minds, though."
"Where is my husband this morning?"
"He's with Mr. Whitmore, the steward."
"I see." Viola felt a hint of disappointment as the maid placed the tray across her lap, but she knew he had an estate to run, and she understood from having managed things at
Enderby
that it was a great deal of work, especially since he had been away for the season. She knew she couldn't expect
John
to have breakfast up here with her every morning. Even back in the early days he hadn't always been able to do that.
"Mind if I draw the curtains, my lady?"
"No, I don't mind."
Bright sunlight flooded the room as Hill pulled back the draperies. Viola set the tray aside and got up, then walked to the windows. "What a lovely day."
"Yes. Not raining for a change. The master said to tell you that if you decide to go walking before he gets back, you can't go near the stables. He wants to show those to you himself."
Viola smiled, her disappointment about breakfast vanishing in an instant. He wanted to show her the horses. "T
hank
you, Hill. Send my maid in, would you? And tell Miss Tate that I'll want to see her in an hour down in the drawing room."
"I will." The girl smiled back at her, gave a curtsy and started for the door. "It's good to have you here, my lady. Everyone's glad you've come home."
"I'm glad, too," she said, and meant it.
"About a month ago.
Like her?"
"Like her?" She rubbed the mare's nose with her palm. "She's a beauty!" She turned and flung her arms around her husband's neck and kissed him. "T
hank
you!" she cried, and returned her attention to the mare. "Come on, let's take her out!"
She grasped the reins,
John
lifted her up, and she swung onto the sidesaddle. When he had mounted his gelding, they set out together. He took her around the estate and the farms, showing her some of the improvements he had made to the estate over the years, and there were many. After that they headed for the downs, their favorite place—the rolling hills of open pasture-land that stretched for miles on
Hammond
property.
She did what he remembered. As they galloped across the downs, she tugged at her riding hat, pulled it off and tossed it into the air, shaking back her loose hair and letting it fly behind her.
Beside her,
John
began to laugh. "I love that," he called to her.
She smiled back at him. "I know."
They stopped at one of the cliffs at the edge of the downs to rest the horses, and sat on the turf, looking out over the tenant farms that stretched out below them.
"It looks much improved,
John
. I remember that it was a bit shabby when I came here the first time."
"It was in far better condition by the time I brought you here than it was before we got married. Before we were wed, it was a horror."
Viola frowned, thinking it out. "Was that why we stayed in
Scotland
for so long?"
"Yes. I used your dowry to make things halfway decent for your arrival. I also borrowed a huge sum from your brother to pay off other debts and fix the drains here. Only after that was done did I bring you here."
"You've done an excellent job, then. Everything seems very prosperous now."
"It is, and that is because of your money as well as the income from the rents." He looked over at her and reached out to take her hand in his. 1 wanted you to see what I've done with your income, Viola."
She lifted their joined hands to her lips, kissing his. "T
hank
you."
He looked down over the valley below and gave a short laugh. "The odd thing is, before I came into the title, I hated this place. I never came here."
She stared at him, not sure she'd heard him right. "But it's your home. It's what you've spent the last nine years salvaging. You hate it?"
"I don't hate it now. I did when I was a boy. It was the coldest house you can imagine. Especially after…" He paused, then shook his head and spoke again. "I saw my mother only half a dozen times a year, whenever she could be bothered to come home from whichever lover she was living with. I barely remember her. My father didn't care. He had plenty of lovers of his own, unless he was too drunk to visit them. Whenever Father was in residence, watching him pass out before the dessert was a common occurrence at our table. When I was a boy, the only thing bearable about this place was leaving it. I always went to Percy's home during the summer holidays."
Viola didn't speak. It was rare for
John
to speak of things like this, and she didn't want to spoil the moment by interrupting. She just held his hand and listened.
"Getting sent off to school was the best thing that happened to me," he told her. "Percy and I went to
Harrow
, and I seldom saw either of my parents after that. When my mother died, I came down from
Cambridge
for the funeral, stayed two hours, and left again. I had no desire to be here, and until my father died, I did not come back."
He turned his head and looked at her. "You've said you didn't know me, and you wanted to. I've never told you things about me because I didn't want you to know what an irresponsible scapegrace I truly was. Your brother was dead right about me, and I thought—" He coughed, looking a little embarrassed. "I knew you disagreed with him and thought I was quite a wonderful fellow. I didn't want you to ever know how untrue that really was."
He squeezed her hand hard. "When I was at
Cambridge
, I was so damnably wild. I almost got sent down half a dozen times. I spent every shilling of my quarterly allowance and then some. I got into debt.
I gambled, deep stakes.
I drank."
He lifted her hand, kissed it, let it go. "And then there were the women," he said. "I had mistresses from the time I was fifteen, and I gave them the most lavish gifts you can imagine. What did I care? I'd be a viscount one day. I spent so much money, and I never gave a thought to where it came from. I didn't know, and I didn't want to know. In other words, I was just like my father, a man I despised."
It pained her that he talked so disparagingly about himself, and yet she knew there was a great deal of truth in it. If she was ever going to understand him, she had to accept that.
"Because I'd been away from here for so long," he went on, "I had no idea what sorry shape
Hammond
Park
had gotten into, and to be honest, it never occurred to me to inquire. After
Cambridge
, I lived at
Enderby
. Then I went on a Grand Tour. Wherever I was, my father still sent me my quarterly allowance, and I still spent every shilling of it. Then he died of typhoid and I came back to
England
."
He reached out, sweeping his arm across the view of the tenant farms in the valley below. "All of that
was
mine, and what a pathetic legacy it was. Until I got here, I didn't know that if drains don't get repaired, the standing water can cause typhoid outbreaks. My father was not the only one who died. There were dozens of others. As I toured the place, I was shocked by the state of things.
Not only the drains, but everything else.
My father had bankrupted it. The tenants were in misery, the animals were sick, the fields were unplanted, and the creditors were about to take everything that wasn't entailed."
Anthony had tried to tell her the state of
Hammond
's finances and what she was getting, but she had refused to listen to her brother's warnings. She listened now. "That must have been quite a shock to you," she said gently.
He pointed down to one of the thatched cottages below. "There was a girl of twelve who lived there.
Nan
was her name. Her mother had just died, I was told. I was looking over the place, and she stood there in the doorway of that cottage—so ramshackle it was in those days—and she had her baby sister on her hip. She was dirty and thin, and she had on this ragged dress. She asked if I was the new lord, and when I said yes, she gave me this look. She ran her gaze up and down my elegant suit and white linen, then she looked into my eyes, and I saw such contempt in hers that I was shocked. I shall never forget that look in her eyes as long as 1 live. And what she said. To this day, it haunts me."
"What did she say?"
"She said, 'Acorns don't fall far, do they?' and turned her back on me and went inside. That was like a kick in the stomach, and something changed inside me. I knew I had to do something about all this. It was my responsibility. I was the lord."
"That's when you decided to marry a girl with money."
He looked at her with defiant eyes, unashamed. "Yes. And I was scared enough and desperate enough that I lied to that girl to win her. I lied to her and I manipulated her with every wile I could think of, and I let her fall in love with the man she thought I was. I'd do it again, Viola. I don't regret it." He grabbed her by the shoulders and kissed her mouth, a hard kiss, as defiant as the fire in his eyes. He pushed her down into the soft grass and rolled her backward, down into a dip in the turf where they could not be seen from the valley below. He leaned over her and slid one arm behind her head. "I'll never regret it."
She looked up at her handsome husband, into his proud face. "I don't regret it, either."
"You don't?"
"No,
John
," she said, and meant it. "I don't know quite when I realized it, but I don't regret marrying you. Maybe I realized it that day in the boat when you made up that poem about me." She smiled and reached up to toy with a lock of his dark brown hair in her fingers. "You always have been a silver-tongued devil."
His lashes lowered a fraction and he smiled back at her. His hand spread over her hip. "Does this mean I get to steal some kisses today?"
She pursed her lips, pretending to think about it. "That depends. Are you going to make up with me first?"
"No."
"No?" she repeated, and let her hand fall. "What do you
mean,
no?"
"I am not going to make up." Even as he said it, he grasped a handful of her broadcloth riding habit and began pulling the skirt upward. "I did it last time. This time, it's your turn to do the making up."
He was so outrageous sometimes. "We're supposed to take turns now?"
He nodded, sliding her skirt up her leg. With a huff of pretended vexation, she made a
halfhearted
effort to jerk her skirt back down, but he managed to maneuver his hand beneath the layers of broadcloth and undergarments. "I'm getting tired of being the only one who ever
does
this making up business," he said, caressing her calf above the top of her boot.
"That's because you're always the one doing something wrong."
"The conceit of the woman!"
He slid his palm along her calf, moving in lazy upward circles to her thigh. "Torture me all night by lying there right next to me without even trying to kiss and make up, and you say you've done nothing wrong?"
"One whole night," she murmured, and closed her eyes, breathing in deeply as that aching warmth started through her, the ache of desire he could always bring with his hands. She was giving in. She'd known she would all along. "How you must have been suffering."
"More than you can imagine. And was a deuced good sport about it, too." He moved his hand higher, rubbed his fingers across the top of her thigh right where her birthmark was. "Come on, Viola. Say you're sorry for torturing me so cruelly."
She closed her eyes and shook her head. She began to laugh. "I'm not sorry."
John
's hand moved between her thighs, and any thought of laughing went out of her head. She moved beneath him with a soft moan, and his fingers brushed the curls between her legs, just enough to torment her. "Say you want to make up."
She arched upward into his hand, excitement rising as he began to caress her in that exquisite place. "I'm not saying it," she gasped, her hips moving faster with the strokes of his hand.
"Say it," he demanded, caressing her over and over, until her arousal climbed to a fever pitch.
"No, no. I shan't."
"Fine."
He pulled his hand away and rolled onto his back away from her.
"Oh, you are such a tease!" she cried, laughing. She sat up and leaned over him. "You are the one who should be sorry for tormenting me in this wicked way." She paused, and ran her hand over his chest and down his flat abdomen. "I shall exact my revenge."
She laid her hand over his groin, felt his erection. He drew in a sharp breath as she began to unbutton his trousers, and he groaned when she took him in her hand.
She made it last. He'd taught her how a long time ago, and she remembered. She wrapped her hand around him and stroked him until his hips began to thrust upward, then she relaxed her grip, rubbing her finger lightly along the underside of his penis, up and down, just the way she knew tormented him. She brought her mouth close enough that he would feel her breath on his shaft,
then
she kissed the tip. His hand touched her hair, wanting to keep her there for more of that pleasure, but she sat up, too
quick
for him.
"All right," he said, his breath coming hard and fast, "You win. You win. I'll say it first. Let's make up."
She straddled him, opened over him,
took
him inside her. She felt him thrust upward, deep into her, again and again. She watched his face in the sunlight as he came, and she felt the joy of it as if it were her pleasure when he cried out her name.