The Secrets of Sir Richard Kenworthy (24 page)

Clutching the sheet to her naked body, Iris sat up, turning her attention to the other side of the bed. What time was it? When had he left?

She stared at the other pillow. What did she think she was going to see? An imprint of his face?

What had they done? He had . . .

She had . . .

But he definitely
hadn't . . .

She closed her eyes in agony. She didn't know what was going on. She didn't
understand
.

He could not have consummated the union. He hadn't even removed his breeches. She might be ignorant when it came to the marriage bed, but she knew that much.

Her stomach rumbled, reminding her that it had been much too long since her last meal. Good heavens, she was hungry. What time was it? Had she missed supper?

She glanced over at her window, trying to figure out how late it was. Someone had pulled the heavy velvet curtains shut. Probably Richard, she thought, since the corner was caught on itself. A housemaid would never leave them askew like that.

It was dark out, but perhaps not yet pitch-black, and—oh,
bother
. She might as well just get up and look.

With a bit of a grunt she yanked the sheet free so that she could wrap herself with it. She didn't know
why
she felt this strange compulsion to know the time, but she certainly wasn't going to get her answer staring at a tiny triangle of window peeping out from behind her disheveled curtains.

Tripping over the edge of the sheet, she stumbled to the window and peered out. The moon shone brightly, not quite full, but round enough to lend the air a pearly glow. It was definitely well past dusk. How long had she been asleep?

“I wasn't even tired,” she muttered.

She wrapped the sheet more tightly around her, grimacing when she realized how difficult she'd made it to walk. But she didn't rewrap herself—that would have been far too sensible. Instead she hopped and jumped herself over to her mantel clock. She gave it a little turn so that it better faced the moonlit window. Almost half nine. So that meant she'd been asleep . . . what . . . three hours? Four?

To know precisely would mean she knew how long she'd spent with Richard, doing . . .

That.

She shivered. She wasn't the least bit cold, but she shivered.

She needed to get dressed. She needed to get dressed, and get some food, and—

The door opened.

Iris shrieked.

So did the housemaid in the doorway.

But only one of them was wrapped like a mummy, and Iris's lurch of surprise landed her in a heap on the floor.

“Oh, my lady!” the housemaid cried. “I'm sorry, I'm so sorry.” She rushed over, thrust her hand out, then pulled it back, clearly unsure of the proper behavior when faced with a nearly naked baronet's wife on floor.

Iris almost asked for help, then decided against it. Arranging herself with as much poise as she could manage, she looked up at the maid and tried to school her features into a coolly dignified expression.

In her head, at that moment, she rather thought she resembled her mother.

“Yes?” she intoned.

“Ehrm . . .” The maid—who looked supremely uncomfortable, there really was no other way to describe it—bobbed an awkward curtsy. “Sir Richard was wondering if you wished to take supper in your room.”

Iris gave a regal nod. “That would be lovely, thank you.”

“Have you any preference?” the maid asked. “Cook made fish, but if that is not to your choosing, she can make something else. She told me to tell you that.”

“Whatever Sir Richard has chosen,” Iris said. He would have eaten over an hour earlier; she did not wish to force the kitchen staff back to their ovens to cater to her whims.

“Right away, then, my lady.” The maid curtsied again and practically ran from the room.

Iris sighed, then started to laugh because really, what else could she do? She gave this five minutes before every soul in the house knew of her mortifying—and mortifyingly dressed—tumble. Except her husband, of course. No one would dare breathe a word of it to
him
.

It was a very small shred of dignity, but she decided to cling to it.

Ten minutes later she'd donned one of her new silk nightgowns and covered it with a less revealing robe. She braided her hair for bed; it was where she intended to go just as soon as she finished eating. She could not imagine she would sleep right away, not after the nap she'd just taken. But she could read. It wouldn't be the first time she'd stayed up half the night with a book and a candle.

She walked over to her side table to look through the stack of books she'd pulled from the library earlier that afternoon. She'd left
Miss Truesdale and the Silent Gentleman
down in the drawing room, but she'd lost her taste for Hungarian archers.

And pathetic heroines who spent their time dithering and crying and wondering who might come to the rescue.

She'd read ahead. She knew what was coming.

No, she was not going to spend any more time with the piteous Miss Truesdale.

Picking up the books one by one, she examined her options. Another Sarah Gorely novel, a bit of Shakespeare, and a history of Yorkshire.

She took the history. She hoped it was boring.

But no sooner had she settled on her bed than she heard another knock at her door.

“Enter!” she called out, eager for supper.

The door that opened, however, was not the one that led to the hall. Instead it was the connecting door, the one that led to her husband's bedchamber. And the person who entered was her husband.

“Richard!” she squeaked, scrambling off the bed.

“Good evening,” he said, his voice smooth as brandy. Not that she drank brandy, but everyone said it was smooth.

Good God, she was nervous.

“You're dressed for supper,” she blurted out. Rather splendidly, too, in a bottle green superfine coat and pale yellow brocaded waistcoat. She now knew firsthand that his coats needed no padding. He'd told her once that he often helped his tenants in his fields. She believed him.

“You're not,” he said.

She looked down at her tightly belted robe. It covered her up more than most ball gowns, but then again, most ball gowns could not be undone by a single tug of a sash.

“I intended to eat in my room,” she said.

“As do I.”

She looked at the open doorway behind him.

“Your room,” he clarified.

She blinked. “My room?”

“Is that a problem?”

“But you've already eaten.”

One corner of his mouth tipped up. “Actually, I have not.”

“But it's half nine,” she stammered. “Why haven't you eaten?”

“I was waiting for you,” he said, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

“Oh.” She swallowed. “You didn't have to do that.”

“I wanted to.”

She tightened her arms around her body, feeling strangely as if she had to protect herself, or cover herself, or
some
thing. She felt utterly out of her element. This man had seen her naked. Granted, he was her husband, but still, the things he'd done to her . . . and the way she'd reacted . . .

Her face flushed crimson. She didn't have to see it for herself to know just how deeply red she'd gone.

He quirked a brow. “Thinking of me?”

That
was enough to strike her temper. “I think you should leave.”

“But I'm hungry.”

“Well, you should have thought of that earlier.”

This made him smile. “I'm to be punished for waiting for my wife?”

“That's not what I mean, and you know it.”

“And I thought I was being a gentleman by allowing you your slumber.”

“I was tired,” she said, and then she blushed again, because they both knew why.

She was spared further embarrassment by a knock at her door, and before she knew it, two footmen entered with a small table and chairs, followed by two maids carrying trays.

“Good heavens,” Iris said, watching the flurry of activity. She'd been planning to take her tray in bed. But, of course, she could not do that now, not if Richard insisted upon dining with her.

The footmen set the table with quick precision, stepping back to allow the maids to bring forth the food. It smelled heavenly, and as the servants filed out Iris's stomach growled.

“One moment,” Richard murmured, and he walked to the door and peered down the hall. “Ah, here we are. Thank you.” When he stepped back into the room, he was holding a tall, narrow vase.

With a single iris.

“For you,” he said softly.

Her lips trembled. “Where did you—they're not in season.”

He shrugged, and for the briefest second he looked almost apprehensive. But that could not be true; he was never nervous. “There are a few left,” he said, “if you know where to look.”

“But it's—” She stopped, her lips parted in an astonished oval. She looked to the window, even though the curtains were now drawn tight. It was late. Had he gone out in the dark? Just to pick her a flower?

“Thank you,” she said. Because sometimes it was best not to question a gift. Sometimes one simply had to be glad for it without knowing why.

Richard placed the vase at the center of their small table, and Iris stared at the bloom, mesmerized by the thin inner streaks of gold, delicate and bright in the soft violet petals.

“It's beautiful,” she said.

“Irises are.”

Her eyes flew from the flower to his face. She couldn't help it.

He held out his hand. “Come,” he said. “We should eat.”

It was an apology. She saw it right there in his outstretched hand. She just wished she knew what he was apologizing for.

Stop
, she told herself.
Stop questioning everything
. For once she was going to let herself be happy without needing to know why. She'd fallen in love with her husband, and that was a good thing. He'd brought her unimaginable pleasure in bed. That was a good thing, too.

It was enough. It had to be enough.

She took his hand. It was large and strong and warm and everything a hand ought to be.
Everything a hand ought to be?
She let out a little burst of absurd laughter. Good gracious, she was growing melodramatic.

“What is so funny?” he asked.

She shook her head. How was she to tell him that she had been measuring the perfection of hands, and his topped the list?

“Tell me,” he said, his fingers tightening around hers. “I insist.”

“No.” She kept shaking her head, her thoughts making her voice round and full of mirth.

“Tell me,” he growled, pulling her closer.

Her lips were now pressed together hard, the corners desperately fighting a smile.

His lips drew close to her ear. “I have ways of making you talk.”

Something wicked jumped within her, something greedy and lush.

His teeth found her earlobe, softly scraping the tender skin. “Tell me, Iris . . .”

“Your hands,” she said, barely recognizing her own voice.

He stilled, but she could feel his smile against her skin. “My hands?”

“Mmm.”

They spanned her waist. “These hands?”

“Yes.”

“You like them?”

She nodded, then gasped as he slid them lower, cupping the gentle curve of her bottom.

He brushed his mouth against her jaw, along her neck, and then back to the corner of her lips. “What else do you like?”

“Everything.” The word spilled forth without warning, and she probably should have felt embarrassed, but she didn't. She couldn't. Not with him.

Richard chuckled, the sound full and solid with male pride. His hands moved to the front of her body, each one grasping a dangling end of the bow knot she'd tied in the belt of her dressing gown.

His lips touched her ear. “Are you my present?”

Before she could respond, he gave a sharp tug, staring down at her with hot desire as the robe came loose.

“Richard,” she whispered, but he had already moved on, sliding those wonderful wonderful hands up along her body, pausing for an agonizing moment on her breasts before reaching her shoulders and pushing the robe away. It felt to the floor in a cloud of pale blue silk.

Iris stood before him in another one of her decadent trousseau nightgowns. It was not a practical garment; it would not even pretend to keep her warm at night. But she could not remember ever feeling so womanly, so desirable and daring.

“You are so beautiful,” Richard whispered, skimming his hand back down to her breast. His palm teased the tip, moving in a slow circle over the silk of her gown.

“I'm—” She cut herself off.

Richard look down at her, one finger touching her chin until her eyes met his. His brows rose in question.

“It's nothing,” Iris murmured. She'd almost protested, almost said that she wasn't beautiful, because she wasn't. A woman did not reach the age of one-and-twenty without knowing if she was beautiful or not. But then she'd thought—

No.
No
. If he thought she was beautiful, she damn well wasn't going to contradict. If he thought she was beautiful, then she was beautiful, at least on this night, in this room.

“Kiss me,” she whispered.

His eyes flared with heat, and his face dipped toward hers. When their lips touched, Iris felt a jolt of desire at the very core of her womanhood. He'd kissed her there just a few hours before. She let out a little moan. Just the thought of it made her weak.

But this time he was kissing her lips. His tongue swept in, tickling the sensitive skin at the roof of her mouth, daring her to respond in kind. She did, her desire making her bold, and when he groaned and pulled her more tightly against him, her body thrilled with power. She moved her hands to his chest and shoved his coat from his shoulders, tugging it down as he yanked his arms from the sleeves.