“Are you well?” he rasped.
Something unexpected unlocked in Bronwyn’s chest, an emotion she did not understand, one that brought tears to her eyes. Cradling his cheek, she gave him a small smile. “Oh yes.”
Groaning, his mouth came crashing down on hers even as his body began to move inside her. Each thrust of his hips came quicker than the last, the feel of him sliding in and out of her bringing her to the same heights as before, carrying her even higher.
“Ah, God, I can’t wait any longer,” he gasped. “Come for me, sweetheart.”
And then his hand was between their bodies, and he was stroking her. And she shattered, his shout joining her cry of completion.
Chapter 10
Bright light assaulting Bronwyn’s eyelids the next morning was what finally woke her. That, and the cheerful humming of…someone. Frowning, she fumbled for her spectacles on the bedside table, fighting back a growl of frustration when her hand came up empty. Peeling one eye open to locate them and learn just who was the origin of such an annoyingly happy sound so early in the morning, she promptly froze in horror. Who was that person bustling about? What room was this? And why was shenaked? She gasped, pulling the sheets up to her chin.
Suddenly the woman spied her. In a blurry haze Bronwyn watched as she smiled widely, rosy apple cheeks lifting and nearly swallowing her eyes as she came closer. “Good morning, Your Grace. I pray you slept well?”
Your Grace.It all came flooding back to her. She was married, and a duchess, and this was her bedroom at Caulnedy Manor. The woman before her was Veronica, the lady’s maid who had been assigned to her—she had refused to bring her previous lady’s maid with her, considering that woman’s firm allegiance to Mrs. Pickering. And last night Bronwyn had done the most intimate, private things with Ash. Who was now her husband.
Cheeks flaming hot, she looked wildly about for her spectacles before finding them and somehow managing to get the delicate things on one-handed. She cleared her throat. “Er, yes,” she replied in as proper a voice as she could muster, considering her position in bed and the fact that her mouth was currently being muffled by the sheets. “Thank you, I did.” She peered out the window, her muddled mind unable to comprehend where the sun was in the sky. “What time is it?”
“Nearly ten, Your Grace.”
“Ten!” She lurched upright, just barely catching the sheets before they revealed her breasts. It could not possibly be ten; she never slept so late. Of course, she was certain the woman would not lie to her about such a thing, yet she nevertheless grabbed the small clock beside the bed and peered at it. Blast, the maid was right.
Veronica, blessedly, seemed unaware of her distress. She brought a silk dressing gown over, so much finer than what Bronwyn preferred to wear, laying it on the bed at Bronwyn’s feet. “I’ll have breakfast prepared and brought up to you right away, shall I?”
She had never in her life had breakfast in her room. Typically she was up with the dawn, hurrying down to the breakfast room for a quick piece of toast before rushing out to begin her work for the day.
Her mother, on the other hand, had always indulged in a leisurely morning, reading the latest gossip columns, eating breakfast in bed, not leaving her sanctuary until close to noon. Bronwyn supposed it was expected of married women.
But the thought of doing something of that nature made Bronwyn’s skin itch. “Er, no, thank you,” she mumbled, reaching for the dressing gown, attempting to wiggle into it and keep herself covered at the same time. “I’ll take my meal in the breakfast room.” Wherever the devil that was. But she was resourceful; she would find it, somehow.
Finally covered, she threw the sheets back. “Is His Grace up?” she asked with no little nervousness. The last thing she recalled of the night before was Ash collapsing beside her in bed, pulling her into his arms, their ragged breaths mingling in the quiet of the room. And then…nothing. Good God, had she fallen asleep? And when had he left her bed? Had it been immediately? Or had he slept beside her all the night long, leaving only this morning?
Before she could rise, however, Veronica answered her. “His Grace woke some time ago and headed out riding. He said not to expect him back until this evening.”
Bronwyn blinked at that bit of news, falling back against the pillows. It should not be unexpected, of course. They had agreed that this was to be a marriage of convenience. There was no affection between them; though they would be living as man and wife—while in bed, at least—at the end of these two weeks he would be off for London, and Bronwyn would remain on Synne, and they would go on with their lives with only a name between them.
Why, then, this surge of disappointment?
But she would not think of him now. “If that is the case,” she said with more certainty than she felt, swinging her legs over the side of the bed and rising, “I will have that breakfast sent up, thank you. And after I dress I would like Mrs. Wheeler to show me about Caulnedy.” There, that sounded properly duchess-y.
It must have been the right thing to say, for the maid smiled and curtsied and hurried from the room. Bronwyn was left blessedly alone to make her way on strangely sore legs to the washbasin.
As she bathed her face and ran a brush through her chaotic curls, however, casting a glance out the nearby window and over the unfamiliar grounds below, she found that, no matter how she tried, she could not be easy. The tension, already present in her muscles, grew until she thought she might claw herself out of her own skin. It did not take her long to realize why: she was frightened. Her life, she knew with stark certainty, would never be the same again. Dragging in a shaky breath, she found herself sending up an impotent wish that she had the Oddments with her. Or, barring that, Ash’s wards. For she had never felt so alone in her entire life.
***
Mrs. Wheeler, while as ancient as anyone Bronwyn had ever seen, was nevertheless incredibly spry, if a bit rambling in her speech and prone to branch off on the most unexpected tangents. Over the next hours, as the afternoon wore on, the woman carted Bronwyn about Caulnedy with impressive energy. Each nook and cranny of the place was gone over, every bit of history repeated with genuine pleasure. It was obvious even to Bronwyn, who was as horrid at reading people as any one person could be, that the woman loved the place and the family she worked for.
At the end of some hours they reached the portrait gallery. The woman took her down the long line of paintings, each one an ancestor of Ash’s on his mother’s side. Bronwyn’s head, already spinning with the amount of information that had been crammed into it, could only silently nod as the housekeeper chattered on.
“Now this here,” she said as they moved to a small painting of a young girl of about fourteen or fifteen with pitch-black hair and dark eyes, “is Master Ash’s mother, Miss Mary.”
That finally snagged Bronwyn’s attention. She gazed at the portrait, looking for any similarities between this pretty young girl and her husband. There was a hint of it in the dark, wavy hair and the Romanesque nose. But there the similarities ended. The girl before her appeared delicate and trusting and happy, the glow in her eyes and the small smile on her lips making it seem as if she had just heard something that pleased her greatly.
“She was such a sweet thing,” Mrs. Wheeler continued. “I never knew such a creature, so loving, so ready to help anyone in need.”
Her expression fell, making her look even older as that same look of muted grief washed over her features that she had worn the previous night when she’d spoken of the late duchess.