The Rambunctious Lady Royston (13 page)

"And how was that, my sweet?" Royston asked gently, controlling his unsteady heartbeat and shallow breathing with superhuman effort. He looked about the chamber distractedly.

A drink. That's what he needed, what they both needed: a good, stiff drink. While Samantha sidled around to perch on the edge of the chair, her wide eyes never leaving her husband's form, he walked to the bell-pull and summoned a servant who fetched some brandy.

Samantha eyed the snifter warily when Zachary offered it. "Are you sure this is a good idea, my lord? We both remember my last association with spirits."

St. John assured her, "No, pet, it was the storm. You were perfectly sober."

"I was not. I was ape.' Samantha giggled, but she took the snifter anyway and held it between her ice-cold hands. "I guess you are wondering a bit about, er, my appearance tonight."

St. John pulled up a footstool and folded his long frame to sit at his wife's feet. "Not unduly, Samantha. I will say that your choice of nightwear is, as ever, most pleasing."

Samantha started, nearly spilling her brandy as she set it on the floor beside St. John's drained snifter, and corrected him: "Oh, this gown was not my choice, Zachary. Aunt Loretta chose all my nightwear. You'd think she was supplying me with a trousseau for a sheik's harem. Really, that woman can at times be so obtuse."

"Yes," Royston returned amicably, "and the rest of the time she is unconscious. But we must strive to forget your aunt, as we are, I do believe, gathered together here tonight for something other than polite conversation."

Samantha did not much care for the gleam in Royston's eye as he rose, raising her up with him by simply holding her shoulders in his grip as he came to his feet. She spoke quickly. "Zachary, I know I said I would honor our agreement and all of that. No." She held out a hand when she saw he was going to speak. "I know it is highly unfair of me to break my word this way, and until a few moments ago I did believe I could, you know, not break my word. But—but I just don't think I can go through with this."

Zachary leaned down and began to nibble on Samantha's shoulder. "Nonsense, imp. You were made for this. Think of it, if you must, as another little adventure."

As his lips began a trail of kisses up her neck to a tender place just behind her ear, Samantha said again, but with less conviction this time, "Yes, an adventure. Still... I can't go through with it."

"Ah, my dearest goose," Zachary crooned as his tongue traced the hills and valleys of Samantha's ear, "you fill me with dismay."

Oh, such pleasant sensations were coursing through Samantha's body, sensations she felt were vaguely familiar. He really wasn't such a terrible man. She ... she rather liked him, actually. Very much.
Aah, that felt good.
"Izzy... Izzy said you could seek an annulment," honesty forced her to admit, even as her arms wound around his neck.

"And I thought your sister to be a sensible puss," Zachary soothed, tightening his hold on Samantha's silk-clad body.

She gave it one last shot. Pulling her head back, she turned her face to look into her husband's smoldering eyes. "Izzy is so a—" she got out before Zachary sighed and said, "Oh, do shut up, Sam," and laid claim to her mouth.

Sam did as she was bid.

Long moments later, Zachary raised his head, smiled, and mused, "One could almost believe one hears the swell of an angelic chorus."

Samantha, deep under the spell cast by Zachary's wandering hands and persuasive lips, smiled back at him and rallied: "Randy old goat," she said—before she became much too pleasantly occupied to say anything at all.

There would be no annulment. When the Earl and Countess of Royston at long last became aware of their surroundings, and their need for bodily sustenance of a bit more mundane but equally demanding sort than that craving they had repeatedly sought to satisfy throughout the long, delicious night, it was well past noon of a new day.

Daisy, accompanied by one favored footman pushing a serving cart, was allowed to enter the bedchamber long enough to arrange two place settings on the small table in front of the center window and gather up the candle stubs of the night before. But when she made so free as to cluck her tongue, no more than two or three times, at the insufferably smug expression worn by that red-headed child of the Devil whom she, that most devoted of maids, had tossed and turned the whole night fretting over, she was curtly dismissed by the Earl himself.

He had not deemed it necessary to remove himself from the bed before Daisy entered, and his face, as she swore to Cook once back belowstairs, wore a pronounced look of cheerful debauchery (although Daisy put it more bluntly: "There 'e sat, lookin' fer all the world like the cat wot caught up the canary. Disgustin', that's wot it were, downright disgustin'!").

After Daisy's departure, speeded on her way as she was by Royston's admonition that he and her ladyship be disturbed for nothing less than a heavenly visitation, the at-long-last truly honeymooning couple succeeded in emptying the serving cart of every edible crumb—St. John hand-feeding his wife dainty trifles and Samantha unselfconsciously nuzzling his fingertips whenever the opportunity arose.

After a time they discussed the dowager's visit of the day before, and while Samantha once more referred to the old lady's cross-questioning and rude remarks, she objected less strenuously than before as she found it hard to summon up much ill-feeling for anyone in the entire world while in her present mood.

"Your grandmother pointed out, Zachary, what an exemplary catch you are," she told him happily. "In addition to your illustrious name, she listed your financial situation as sufficient inducement for me to have trapped you into marriage. I knew, of course, that you weren't pockets-to-let or any such thing, but are you really that well-lined with brass?" Samantha asked, as she sipped delicately at her sherry.

St. John wiped his lips on a snow-white napkin before replying, "I am in no danger of being slapped into debtors' prison, pet. In fact, to be totally truthful, I am quite odiously wealthy. Does that, by some typically illogical twist of your unpredictable mind, upset you? If so, I shall beggar myself at the earliest opportunity."

Samantha's laughter was natural and unaffected. "Don't be a goose, Zachary. Although I am sure many, many people manage to be quite happy without money, I am equally persuaded just as many more are quite miserable. I did not, as you well know, marry you for your well-lined pockets, but as long as we are so, er, comfortably situated, I see no compulsion to fret over it. I would not even have brought it up had your grandmother not all but labeled me a scheming fortune-hunter."

Leaning back comfortably in his chair, St. John observed: "Grandmother can be a bit of a tartar at times."

Samantha then launched into a quite creditable (and only slightly exaggerated) imitation of the dowager's behavior of the previous afternoon—including the lady's insinuation that Samantha had seduced her grandson and was already with child, along with an almost word-for-word recital of the woman's reaction to Aunt Loretta—all of which had Zachary wiping tears of mirth from the corners of his eyes. Samantha's concluding rendition of the dowager's chagrin at finding the place stiff with relatives of the bride only days after the wedding almost finished him off completely.

"I am certain she thought I was soon to be bringing in Ardsleys by the cartload, planning to have them all sponging off you throughout eternity," she ended cheerfully.

For a little while longer the couple, feeling quite comfortable in each other's presence, talked of this and that, sipping from their wine glasses and sometimes touching hands across the table. It was only when St. John suggested some suitable activities to fill his wife's daytime hours that Samantha took exception to her husband's words.

"Other than your suggestions concerning a drive to Richmond—which I shall undertake just as soon as your grandmother has returned to the country—and taking Isabella and Aunt Loretta to view the maze at Hampton Court, I cannot begin to express my total lack of enthusiasm for the activities you've just outlined," Samantha told him in a distressingly matter-of-fact voice. "Leaving cards on morning calls, daily forays to Bond Street, restorative naps in the afternoon, and posturing at five in the Park Promenade with a passel of fashionable fribbles all seem, to me at least, sure roads to an early demise due to terminal boredom."

At the sight of St. John's expressive eyebrows, raised in mock incredulity, she challenged, "Well, what do you do to fill the day?"

St. John was not taking Samantha's outburst as lightly as he wished her to believe. Even this early in their relationship he knew that his young wife's view of life was not limited to the usual feminine pursuits.

Oh, no. Samantha's interests were as many and as varied as there were hours in the day, and if he wasn't capable of channeling her unusually inquisitive mind and—equally unnerving—her penchant for indulging that mind to the utmost whenever the mood struck her, there was no telling what sort of scrapes she would land them in each time he turned his back. But what could he do, this model mate, blessed as he was with endless understanding, overflowing with husbandly concern, endowed with a forgiving nature, and blessed with a remarkable sense of fair play that told him a person's sex should not arbitrarily preclude enjoyment of most of the good things in life?

He permitted himself—or, at least, a part of himself—to view Samantha's antics with indulgence. But he also, quite predictably, harbored his fair share of fondness for another of his personality traits—less charitable, perhaps, but eminently understandable—the desire for self-preservation. When the silent warring back and forth between all his commendable attributes and his single selfish (but, to be fair, excessively human) inclination that—if St. John's personal balance sheet was to be used as a guide—was the only blot on an otherwise spotless record nominating him for eventual sainthood, the result was as certain as if it had been preordained.

Self-preservation won hands down.

And so, as St. John prattled with childlike innocence about his diversions—checking to see what was on the boards at Tatt's, passing a pleasant hour or two shooting billiards at the Royal Saloon, or even sauntering off arm-in-arm with comrades to the caricature shop for an inspection of the latest prints—he was all the while cleerly maneuvering his starry-eyed bride in the direction of their rumpled bed.

"Ah, my dearest rebel, what a pretty dance you've led me," he said, skillfully changing the subject as Samantha lay back against the pillows and smilingly invited him to join her on the bed.

"I am so terribly sorry, my lord, to have been such a slow-top. If I had only placed as much faith in your boasts as you seemed to do, perhaps we would have come to—um—an agreement earlier, and saved me many an anxious hour into the bargain," Samantha remonstrated mildly, making bold to caress St. John's bare shoulders. The last of her shyness had disappeared hours ago with the realization that she loved this husband of hers who had, with such gentleness and consideration, changed her from an untried girl into a woman.

As yet no words of love had passed their lips, but already they were more comfortable with each other. This shared intimacy, if only a half-loaf, was immeasurably better, in Samantha's mind, than no bread at all.

Zachary read the unspoken message he saw so clearly registered in Samantha's expressive eyes: the girl believed herself to be in love. It was only natural, for given her youth and inexperience she could not fail to view what they had shared in the most romantic of lights. Only the passage of time would reveal if she truly loved him: he was not vain enough to disregard the possibility that his wife's feelings for him were only a temporary infatuation.

He was older, wiser. He knew the exact depth and permanency of his involvement with his beautiful and ardent young wife, but it would not do to share this knowledge with her just yet. There were many variations of self- preservation, and carefully concealing his emotions—their intensity or their superficiality—beneath a veneer of irreverent nonsense was one way to defend himself.

Keeping Samantha too occupied to leave much time for indulging in mad starts or adventures was another. The solution to this particular dilemma had been reached, with typical male logic, halfway along the short journey from dining table to marital bed.

"Ah, dearest imp, I did warn you of my ravenous appetite for you," he reminded her softly, as she cuddled against his chest, and as she giggled at the not-so-distant memory, he called upon that centuries-old formula for subduing willful wives. He would give her a child.

But not even pursuing such a worthwhile (not to mention pleasant) project as securing the St. John inheritance for yet another generation could be allowed to occupy all of the Roystons' time. Morning of the next day found St. John conferring with a few of his fellow peers at the Ministry— and his wife at home and at loose ends.

Indulging in a leisurely breakfast in bed and a refreshing tub before the warm fireplace (all the while grinning like a confirmed lunatic at the openly disapproving Daisy), Samantha relived the last two nights in her mind and thanked her lucky stars St. John had not tiptoed any longer around the inevitable bedding of his wife. Oh, yes, she sighed inwardly, sinking down into the tub of bubbles, being a Countess, especially Zachary's countess, was quite lovely after all!

Before setting off with Daisy for a shopping tour of Bond Street, Samantha gave a cursory inspection of the imposing assortment of white cards on the library table. Invitations bearing the names of London's best-known hostesses appeared in profusion; and Samantha flirted with the idea of tossing them all up into the air and gracing with her presence only those balls, routs, and other activities whose cards were fortunate enough to land right-side up. She dismissed the notion as overly capricious and decided to leave the decision making up to her husband. She chose instead to trip happily out to her waiting carriage, with Daisy huffing and puffing in an effort to keep up with her mistress, who would not hesitate to leave her behind.