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It was not that she did not try. She did, but there were a regrettable number of lapses, all of which she paid for upended over his knee.
“But one cannot rightfully discuss the history of the Jin Dynasty without bringing up the Mongols and Genghis Khan,” she’d wailed as Court turned up the skirt of her gown.
“A lady does not discuss hordes of any type at the dinner table, nor Genghis Khan. Ever,” Court had replied firmly as he meted out a spanking commensurate with the degree of her crime. Afterward she’d apologized very prettily and tearfully, and sworn up and down that she would never, ever utter the word “Mongol” again, and then she’d gone to the library and buried her nose in a book about the Mongol Empire like the stubborn, obsessive creature she was.
Mere months to the ball, and all he had to show by way of progress were a surfeit of spankings that accomplished nothing aside from inflaming him to greater and greater heights of lust. In the short, dark days of winter, Court called reinforcements to the house. Lady Renfrew-Burress, to improve Harmony’s deportment. Lady Archleigh, to teach Harmony how to properly converse in company of all kinds. A dance teacher, Mr. Lightmore, to develop her poor ballroom talent. The foppish young gentleman was a friend of his wife’s brother, but Court hired him anyway because he was reputed to be the best.
After these lessons Harmony would be cross and withdraw from him, and retreat to the library, losing herself in her books, shrugging off any sheen of cultured finesse her tutors had managed to impress upon her in their limited time. He was heading there to see her now, just after her lesson with Lady Archleigh. She had books in her rooms but she often used his library and he liked having her nearby. She was quiet when he needed quiet and sweet when he needed sweetness. And after her lessons, well…she was a bit of a shrew, but he still loved her more than any sane man ought to.
He arrived at the library, sailing through doors silently opened by liveried footmen. A glance around the room revealed a pair of shapely legs propped over the arm of a chair in the corner.
He cleared his throat as he approached, causing the legs to disappear. By the time he faced her, she sat as primly as any English rose.
“We have discussed that duchesses don’t sit with legs strewn over armchairs.”
She gave him a who, me? look that dissipated into a guilty grimace. “I’m sorry. It’s only that Lady Archleigh exhausts me so. After our time together I just want to—” Words escaped her. She drew up and shuddered her whole body in an adequate representation of what she was trying to express. She peered up at him with one eye closed. “Are you going to spank me?”
“No,” he said. “Well, not yet. But stop that please. You look like a pirate.”
“Arrgh.”
“You do not amuse me when you behave so.”
Even as he said it, the corners of his lips started to twitch. Damn her. “What are you reading?” he asked.
She flipped over the book in her lap and held it out to him. “The Culture of Ancient Greece During the Bronze Age, by Michael Thomas Burgermeister.”
“Oh? I do not remember having that in my library, nor buying it for you.”
“Mr. Lightmore brought it. He is an acquaintance of Mr. Burgermeister and thought I might like it. Honestly, it is terribly academic, but it was kind of him to think of me, wasn’t it?”
Court didn’t answer for a moment, shocked by the young man’s cheek. How dare he present his wife with a present of a history book? Court could tell from Harmony’s guileless expression that she hadn’t the slightest idea how inappropriate it was to have accepted it. If Lightmore were an old bewigged nodder with creaking corsets, maybe, but he was not. Decidedly not. He was of an age with her brother, with all the dandies of Barrett’s set.
“From now on, if Mr. Lightmore brings gifts to you, you are not to accept them.”
Her lips drew into a pout. “Did I flub up again? But what should I have done? Refused it?”
“Mr. Lightmore knew it was inappropriate to offer a gift to a married lady. When any gentleman offers you a present, you must tell him you cannot accept it, and let me know about it at once. Is that understood?”
“Yes, sir,” she said, not without frustration. “But I thought it was very nice of him. You will not tell him off on my account, and make me have some new teacher? Mr. Lightmore is patient, and he makes it easy for me to remember the steps.”
Jealousy flared at the way she defended her teacher. Yes, Court wanted to tell Lightmore off. Yes, he wanted to send him to hell with a boot to his arse. But he wouldn’t, not if the man could actually inspire Harmony to enjoy dancing. “I won’t confront your teacher this time. But remember what I said. No more gifts.”
“Yes, sir. May— May I keep the book?”
“Do you want to keep the book?”
“It does contain a wealth of information.”
He shrugged. “Very well. But will you put it away and accompany me on a walk? I’m restless indoors and it’s not too cold a day. The rain has gone off and I should like to see my flower in the sunshine.”
That brought a smile to her face. “Shall I be your flower? Opening my showy petals?”
No! Well, yes, but only for me. What were these feelings of anxiety, of jealousy? For five seasons, no gentleman would go near Miss Harmony Barrett, not to dance or even converse with her. Now Court felt she might be snatched away at any moment by an interloper. But she was different now, more fetching somehow, and not just because he knew her in a carnal sense. Her face was brighter and she was more aware of her feminine power. She used these wiles on him regularly and he knew it.
What if she decided to use them on someone else?
From now on, he thought as he drew on his walking coat, he would be there while she and Lightmore were together at dancing lessons. Then there would be no question that proprieties were being observed. That decided, he gave himself up to the fresh English weather, to a walk with his wife in the bracing and only slightly chilly air of a winter’s day. The sun kept the temperatures from offending; in fact, as they sauntered about the impeccably landscaped garden behind the house, Court grew warm and Harmony developed a comely blush in her cheeks. He wanted to kiss those cheeks, and her lips too, but it was not polite to go about making love in broad daylight, even in a private garden.
He talked about the weather instead, pointed out the robins in the trees, anything to stop himself dragging her to some sheltered place and mauling her for the next three hours. “How different the garden looks in winter than in spring,” he extemporized at one point.
“Why, yes,” Harmony answered. “I imagine it does look different. But why are you conversing like such a stick?”
He raised an eyebrow at her. “It is rude to accuse one’s companion of being a stick.”
“Arrgh,” she said, winking.
“Harmony.” His voi
ce held a warning note.
“Well, you looked like a pirate just then, with your eyebrow all scrunched up above your eye. Tell me, did you only ask me for a walk so you might test my conversational prowess? Gauge my progress with Lady Archleigh?”
“If I were, you would be failing miserably. You mustn’t be confrontational.”
“You told me once I must stick up for myself. You remember, in the Darlingtons’ garden?”
“I remember, but that was a different case.”
“You also called me stupid.”
“I never did such a thing.” He took her hand, squeezing it, bringing her palm to his mouth for a kiss. “If you do not learn to converse with more subtlety, the lessons with Lady Archleigh shall continue.”
His wife pulled her hand from his. “I don’t know why people can’t talk to one another normally. Why they must mull over and weigh every word before they utter it. It seems false.”
“Most people don’t need to weigh their words. But you do, because you have an unusually busy and complicated mind.” He put an arm around her and squeezed her for a moment in the waning afternoon light. “It is one of the things I like most about you.”
“Then why do you try so hard to change me? If you like me as I am?”
Court frowned. “I am not trying to change you, only improve you. The world is not only me,” he said in his defense. “It’s not only me you must please.”
She looked up at him with the full force of her dissecting blue eyes. “Why not? Why can I not just please you and myself? And our children, if we have them someday?”
She always asked the most difficult questions, and Court disliked being argued with.
“It will please me for you to become more socially adept,” he said with an air of finality. “For you to be accepted by our contemporaries. I would like the satiric drawings and gossip of our marriage to cease, and so would the dowager.” He took her hand, disturbed by her troubled expression. He wished sometimes the world was only her and him. “Tell me what happened at Almack’s. Why you were forbidden to waltz.”
