“He was not a boy if he was in on a scheme with that Mr. Lambert. He was not a boy since he hired this man to pretend to marry us.”
“Yes, you’re right, of course. Still, to be honest, Susannah, I’m praying we will find something in Oxford to mitigate George’s apparent thoughtlessness, his selfishness.”
“Mitigate his illegal activities, perhaps?”
“Yes.”
“Rohan, we will find the truth. Then we will deal with it, with whatever we discover. I hope that George isn’t a villain, but what I have learned about him isn’t encouraging. May we leave today?”
“Tomorrow morning, I promise. I keep putting it off, don’t I? But there’s much to do today. The two men you saw in the doorway—Tinker, the short, plump one, is my valet, my father’s valet before me. The skinny one who looks ready to fit into a coffin is Pulver, my secretary. I must get them settled, get Pulver immersed in the estate work. If he’s not working, he won’t eat anything at all. I don’t want to be responsible for his starvation.”
“They came just to tell you about your mistress?”
“You heard that, did you?”
“She was so worried about you that she went to your house in London? That’s done? A mistress visiting her protector’s house?”
“No, but, you see, Lily doesn’t write well. Actually, she has a very difficult time with it. I have taught her quite a bit, but when she’s upset, she forgets how to write even her own name.”
“You have taught your mistress how to write?”
“Why not?”
“As in man cannot live by sex alone?”
“That’s about the size of it. Even a man of my reputation occasionally has other things than just sex on his mind. You would like Lily.” He paused a moment, looking at a long-dead Carrington on the far wall, then added, “I have known her for a long time. She isn’t a girl of twenty. She’s a mature woman.”
“Isn’t that odd?”
He raised an eyebrow. His hair was rumpled. Since he was blond, there was little beard stubble on his cheeks and chin. There were, however, tufts of blondish hair on his chest. Susannah had stroked that chest, feeling that hair sift between her fingers. She had quite enjoyed doing it.
“Oh, I see. Does she train the new females who come to your harem?”
“Now, what do you know about harems, Lady Mountvale?”
She looked suddenly very bereft. “Not much. Just that I appear now to be part of one.”
He raised his hand and resumed stroking his fingers through her hair. “Soon I’m going to have to get on the other side of you. This side’s nearly smooth as silk, all the tangles long gone.”
She sighed and leaned against him, her cheek against his shoulder. Marianne obligingly shifted until she was half-sprawled on each of them.
The door opened and Toby’s head appeared.
“Toby, before you come in, go see Fitz and tell him we would like breakfast served here. You may join us. As you can see, Marianne has already staked her claim.” He waited only until Toby skipped down the corridor. Without pause, he said to Susannah, “What if I were to tell you that I don’t have a harem?”
“Come now, a man of your reputation? You have dozens of women. I should not have been at all surprised when you made me lose my head last night. Aren’t you renowned for your prowess?”
“Actually,” he said, his voice very thoughtful, “last night came as quite a surprise to me. When I caressed you with my fingers, you exploded. It was well done of you, Susannah.”
“I didn’t mean to do it. I had no idea that a man could do such things to a woman.”
“Oh, yes, and there’s so much more. Passion is like that—sometimes you have no control at all. That’s what it was like for me last night. I’d rather hoped to have a repeat performance this morning, but what can one do?”
Marianne sucked louder on her fingers.
“Did he please you last night, my dear?”
She shouldn’t be shocked, Susannah knew she shouldn’t, but still, this was her mother-in-law asking her about being naked in bed with a man and having him do all sorts of things to her with the result that she had enjoyed herself. Susannah gulped, then squared her shoulders. What was one to do in Rome? “Yes, ma’am, he did.”