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She thought of the gloves.
She remembered last night and this morning, in bed, their bodies twined. How she’d missed sleeping with him! Though they’d had so little time to be intimate, she’d grown accustomed to the warmth and strength of his body alongside hers, and the sense of having found at last a place where she truly belonged.
She did belong with him. She’d wanted him and nobody else, and while she wanted a partnership, it ought to be a fair one on her side as well. She needed to take into account the strain he was under, far worse than what she felt.
This wasn’t the life he’d trained himself for.
It wasn’t the life he’d wanted.
I liked my life, he’d said.
“It’s possible I’m not behaving in the most reasonable manner myself,” she said.
“True enough,” he said. “Given the circumstances, it would be more reasonable for you to be in fits, weeping and tearing your hair out. My parents are content to let you do everything, our future home wants an army to put it to rights, and your husband is completely blind to everything but his masculine pride and medieval notions of protecting his property. This, in his primitive view, includes his wife.”
He turned back to meet her wondering gaze. “You see what happens when my emotions take charge,” he said. “I can’t see straight, let alone think straight. I react irrationally. What I should have done was congratulate you on your clever form of investigation. Had I known of the situation and you asked for instructions—and supposing myself in a sane state of mind, which it appears I cannot take for granted lately—I should have instructed you to do what you did.”
The ache inside eased. “Well said, my learned friend.”
“Does that mean you’ll set aside the divorce proceedings, at least for the time being?”
“I’d better,” she said. “Divorce is time-consuming, and I have so much to do.” Divorce, in fact, was impossible, unless the husband initiated it. All the more reason to sort out sticky marital matters at the beginning.
“Kindly set the blasted house aside, too,” he said. “We need to deal with these villains first, and quickly.”
“We,” she said, and her heart grew light enough to fly.
“Freame’s the sort who’ll sacrifice even his lieutenants to save his own skin,” Radford said. “No honor among thieves there. I can’t say why Squirrel has stuck with him instead of finding another berth, as the other escapees did, but his reasons will not be saintly. As to the third party, I have a likely candidate, and he’s not the vicar, I promise you. They sent Squirrel ahead for surveillance. Now all three are here. I don’t like the odds. However, it seems it would be grossly unfair and unkind of me to exclude you.”
“Oh, Raven,” she said. She rose from her chair, ready to launch herself at him.
“But first, Lady Bredon, you will be so good as to tell me what else you’ve done.”
Her eyes widened and her mouth fell open, displaying the chipped tooth: the permanent reminder of her courage and willingness to defend him, no matter what the odds.
She was willing to fight him, too, and that in itself was heroic.
Obnoxious was the merest understatement.
His cold logic had at times reduced battle-scarred colleagues to tears. Never mind the witnesses.
If he reduced her to tears, those would be tears of rage, and a missile would swiftly collide with his skull.
But she collected her composure in the blink of an eye, and gave him a cool stare.
“I haven’t had the chance to tell you,” she said. “My first course of action required so much defending and argument. In fact, I suggest we walk in the garden. The day is mild, and the fresh air will clear our heads.”
“My head is perfectly clear.”
“You may think so,” she said. “I shall send for our hats and coats.”
By the time the outer garments arrived and were satisfactorily arranged—hers, not his—he was nearly dancing with impatience.
Then they stepped out of the house into the handsome garden his mother had created, which pleased the eye even in winter. He felt Clara’s hand tuck into the crook of his elbow, and his impatience dissolved.
He wore his customary black and she wore mourning for stupid Bernard.
“Today we look exactly like Mr. and Mrs. Raven,” he said.
She gave him a sidelong glance. “You always look well in black. Dashing and dangerous.”
“You look better than well,” he said. “Dramatic. I can picture your dressmakers swooning when they learned you’d need mourning clothes—and not the usual run of weeds, but the violently expensive kind, befitting a marchioness.”
“They know I don’t look well in black,” she said. “They had to make an extra effort.”
He did not think any special efforts were required to make the Marchioness of Bredon breathtaking.
“It was inexcusably inconsiderate of my cousin to die on us,” he said. “On the other hand, this gave him no time to decimate his inheritance. When the bills arrive, elegantly engraved ‘Maison Noirot,’ I shall flick my gaze over them without feeling the smallest desire to cut my throat.”
“Had your father not inherited, I should have economized,” she said. “But now I’m obliged to do credit to your rank.”
“My lady, you do me very great credit. And I’m quite, quite sure that what you’re about to tell me will do you credit, too. Undoubtedly I shall suffer a heart seizure or collapse, foaming at the mouth, but it seems we’ll simply have to learn to live with that sort of thing.”
She pressed nearer. He was aware of the movement’s placing her breast against his arm, but he knew this only because he knew exactly where her breasts were, relative to the rest of her as well as to him. She wore far too many garments for truly satisfying sensory experience.
“Look about you,” she said.
He took in their surroundings. They walked along one of the winding footpaths. In warmer weather these would be bounded by flowerbeds whose color changed according to the varieties they held and the time of the season. The property was small, a sliver of land compared to those southeastward, belonging to the Earl of Cadogan, the Marquess of Lansdowne, the Duchess of Devonshire, the Duchess of Buccleuch, and other notables. However, Richmond held numerous other modest villas, and Ithaca House was entirely suitable for a successful barrister.
At this time of year all but the evergreens were bare, and more of the neighboring properties was visible than in other seasons.
Which meant that passersby, in the road leading to Richmond Green or the lane bordering the property to the east, had a better view than at other times of his father’s house and garden.
“We’re rather exposed,” he said.
Nothing unusual for the countryside. Quite a bustling countryside in the summer, when scores of boats plied the river, including steamboats dropping off hordes of visitors from London. Until now, he hadn’t needed to consider the implications. Until now, he hadn’t had time—or the reasoning powers—to think of them.
“Nearly everybody is exposed,” she said. “Especially along the riverside, where all that stands between us and trespassers is a not very tall fence. When Bridget told me about Squirrel, I longed for a high wall. But one can’t build that in a day, even if it weren’t impractical as well as ugly.”
Tall walls would make a small property like this feel like a prison, as well as spoil the view.
“Instead, I hired additional outdoor servants,” she said. “I’ve given orders for frequent and unpredictable patrols of the grounds. So as not to arouse our criminals’ suspicions, I expressed a concern about London journalists entering the grounds and spying on us for their scandal sheets.”
Surprised, he looked at her. Her cheeks were rosy with pride, he supposed. She ought to be proud and he ought not to be
surprised.
“That was clever,” he said. “Because it’s true. We may be sure they’re skulking about Richmond and probably getting in our would-be assassins’ way.”
“Clever,” she said. “I feel a swoon coming on.”
“Not yet,” he said. “You’ve more to tell me, judging by your self-satisfied expression.”
She threw him an amused glance, and went on, “As you’d expect, word went round Richmond in no time. The parish constable called and promised to have an eye kept on the property. In passing, he let me know that the Metropolitan Police Act did not extend to this part of Surrey.”
“It’s rather a patchwork in the counties neighboring London,” he said. “Some parishes are included and some are not.”
“In any case, it made no sense to fuss with the local authorities about juvenile delinquents from London lurking in the area, in company of a whiskered man.”
He’d underestimated her, which was inexcusably stupid. She was beautiful yes, but he hadn’t married her solely for her beauty—though nobody on earth would blame him if he had. Among the more obvious attractions was her complexity. She was interesting and she surprised him and that, he ought to have remembered, was because she could think.
“Do you know, Lady Bredon, I do believe in time, with the proper guidance, you might become almost . . . intelligent,” he said.
