He started a smile. “Why, you’re still jealous.”
“No, damn you!”
“Ah yes, you are, you silly chit. Answer me this, Alex. Can Melissande speak French?”
“No, she’s horrible at languages, her accent even more atrocious than mine, but she paints so well.”
“So, she couldn’t have tried to save me like you did.”
“That has less than nothing to do with naught.”
Douglas merely continued his teasing grin. “I wonder how one would say that in French. Listen well, Alex—”
“You called me Alex!”
“Yes, certainly. If you prefer sweetheart, you will doubtless hear that as well. And stubborn and cherished and willful and wonderful. Now, listen to me. I think your sister is beautiful. Nothing new in that. But she isn’t you. No, it doesn’t matter now. What matters, to Tony, is that she is improving by veritable leaps and bounds under his tender tutelage. As Tony told me yesterday, one day soon her character just might begin to approach her beauty.”
“Really, Douglas?”
“Really what?”
“Cherished?”
He kissed her. He heard laughter and slowly raised his head. There was Sinjun grinning at him like a fool. His mother stood behind her, her mouth pursed.
His mother called out, “Where have you been, Douglas? What is going on here? I demand to know now. Why are you carrying her?”
“Soon, Mother. As for the little one here, she has been ill.”
“She looks quite well to me. Why is she wrapped in a blanket?”
“Because,” Douglas said, walking toward his mother. “Because she’s quite naked beneath.”
“Douglas! You know that’s not true.” She was wearing one of Janine Daudet’s gowns actually, a quite ugly gown really. Doubtless Janine’s revenge for the coshing Alexandra had given her. Her feet, however, were quite bare and stuck out from the blanket. Douglas hadn’t wanted to slow to buy her shoes. She hadn’t argued. It was quite pleasant to be carried by her husband.
“Yes, but if she thinks you’re naked, I’ll get to escape with you all that much more quickly.”
“What happened?” Sinjun asked.
“We will cover all that later.” Douglas turned and raised his voice, saying, “We are all alive and well and home to stay. Thank all of you for being concerned.”
The servants cheered. Hollis stood proudly, his arms crossed over his chest. Alexandra felt herself swelling with relief. Perhaps everything would be all right. Perhaps even her mother-in-law would come about. Perhaps Douglas really did cherish her. Perhaps.
Douglas carried her to his bedchamber. He kissed her, then eased her down to sit on the edge of the bed, pulling the blanket off her. “Mother doubtless believes you are a loose woman, that you must have burned your clothes to compromise me. I will tell her that I am already thoroughly compromised, that you have seduced me endlessly and I am used to it, that I can’t do without your charms or your company. There was nothing more for you to do.”
She was staring up at him, not moving, just sitting there, her legs dangling over the side of the bed, wearing Janine’s gown that was too long and bagged around her.
She moistened her lips.
“Do you cherish me, Douglas? Perhaps just a little bit?”
“Perhaps,” he said.
He walked, smiling to himself, into her adjoining bedchamber, soon to return with a nightgown. “Come, let’s get you into this. You need to rest now.”
He pulled the gown over her head, found himself staring at her breasts, then swallowed and quickly pulled the fine linen nightgown over her head, smoothing it down her body. “There.” He put her between the covers, then sat down beside her and arranged her hair on the pillow even as he said thoughtfully, “Our marriage hasn’t been so very smooth thus far. Do you think perhaps that you could moderate your actions? Perhaps think a bit before you hare off to do something outrageous? Like running away from me and becoming ill? Like getting yourself kidnapped and taken to a foreign country? Like trying to save me when you are really the one in jeopardy?”
She stared up at him, perfectly still as he continued to artfully arrange her hair on the pillow.