His eyes did not waver from her face. He did not move a muscle. Alex felt a tight anxiety creep from her neck to her shoulders. This was a starting point for them. An indication of how this marriage would go. She felt afraid for the first time that he might not be the husband she'd imagined.
Then he blinked. "You are right, of course."
Her breath shook from her throat.
"I apologize for my anger."
"You do not have to apologize," she offered with a smile. Her mood bounced back to its previous high. "I suspect we will exchange words on occasion."
"Oh, do you?"
"Yes."
A smile softened his face, even as his eyes glinted with something hot. "As long as you understand that your disrespect will be punished with spankings."
Alex couldn't keep her jaw from dropping open at the picture that formed in her mind. A very naughty book was secreted away in her luggage, a book some friend of her brother's had left in the library long ago. She was suddenly curious as to its accuracy. Some of the illustrations had struck her as silly and impossible, but she now wondered at the extent of the adventures she could attempt with her new husband. This marriage business could turn out to be interesting indeed.
"Caitein, I didn't mean to shock you. It was a joke."
"Oh! Um, of course .. ." Alex dipped her head to hide the light in her eyes. She thought of a particularly detailed drawing of a man standing, his—
"Alex." Her husband's hand interrupted her thoughts, touching her lightly on the cheek. "I forget, sometimes, how innocent you are. I would never strike you, caitein"
"Oh, I am not so innocent," she offered past a giggle.
"You are. But it is one of the incongruities in you that I treasure."
Ha! she laughed to herself, taking Collin's hand in hers. She wouldn't be innocent for long, not once they reached her cottage. Once there, she would recreate page twenty-six from that naughty book and see what her husband thought of her innocence then.
Chapter 16
Naught but a few miles lay between his wife and Westmore, and each inch closer ratcheted Collin's shoulders to a new level of tension. Westmore was a castle, he supposed, but not a castle meant for a princess. It was a keep, built to house soldiers and knights, and now fit more for moaning ghosts and hibernating squirrels. A ruin. A wreck.
Constructed early in the fourteenth century, its stone walls and slate roof had stood the test of time and the onslaught of Alexandra's ancestors, but the place had been uninhabited for fifty years at least before he'd moved in. No one had ever bothered with improvements.
Westmore had no gaslight, no piped water, no elegant rooms. Not even glass in what few windows there were, just shutters to close against the cold and wet. Drafts howled through even during the summer.
Truly, it was a castle of the oldest sort. The first floor consisted entirely of the kitchen and one giant, echoing great hall. Everyone ate meals there. Together.
Collin blinked. My God, he hadn't even considered that. The Lady Alexandra—Mrs. Blackburn, he reminded himself—the grand mistress of Somerhart, dining among the stable hands and grooms. Ah, God.
He should warn her. He should. Just as he should explain that he was building a new home—a lovely, modern home—just over the hill. A home with real windows and real rooms . . . even a few luxuries like a marble bath.
He wanted to tell her. He opened his mouth to do it. And closed it again.
This was his way of testing her. He knew that just as certainly as he knew it was wrong. Still, the miles rolled past with no word passing his lips.
Alex spent the last few miles perched on the edge of her seat, fairly vibrating with excitement. Her eyes, wide and shining, drank in the countryside as if she could embrace her new home with only her gaze.
"It smells so lovely. Like autumn already!"
Collin grunted, more irritated by her pleasure than he would have been by hesitance. Yes, it was autumn already, in mid-September, and snow would likely fall within the month. And then? Nothing but months of cold and dark and a drafty keep to occupy the lovely Alexandra. What would she think of her home then?
"How far now, Collin?" The happy glance she aimed his way stabbed into his conscience. He should have explained everything, described his life in detail before this marriage. Before he'd even asked for her hand. It was too late now, really. An explanation would sound like an apology for who he was.
"A few minutes," he answered. "No more."
"Really?" His wife literally bounced in her seat. Then, unable to contain herself, she finally thrust her head through the open window and craned her neck to see past the horses.