AllFreeNovel
Share Us
The last letter addressed with his title was from Madelyn. It was short and to the point.
Miss Aylmer presents her compliments to Lord Dersington and wishes to inform him that the ground floor of the St James’s Square house has been restored to its former decorative state, should His Lordship wish to view it.
As Miss Aylmer notes that Lord Dersington is now using his title she would appreciate some intimation of His Lordship’s intentions in regard to his projected marriage and his immediate plans for the weeks following, in order to ensure that she is adequately equipped for all eventualities.
Jack re-read the note with a grudging amusement. If His Lordship had any clear idea of what he wants to do about this wedding, let alone the weeks after it, he would be glad to inform you, Miss Aylmer.
His immediate instinct was a special licence and a wedding in the drawing room of the town house. But deeper thought told him that the only way to deal with the interest this was going to arouse was to brazen it out with a lavish, full-scale society wedding. If anyone accepts the invitations.
Quite what Madelyn would say to that, he could only guess, but he supposed the time had come to discuss it with her.
He finished his coffee and strolled into the room he used as a study. He rented the first floor of a house in Ryder Street off St James’s Street and it gave him a living room, a bedchamber and dressing room, the study and a room for Tanfield. The retired valet who ran the house with his wife provided cleaning, coals and breakfast and, with notice, other meals as required. It suited Jack very well and he suspected that living in the space of the town house, let alone any of his other properties, was going to feel very strange.
He trimmed the nib of a quill with his penknife while he thought, then dipped it in the inkwell and wrote rapidly.
Lord Dersington presents his respectful regards to Miss Aylmer and proposes calling on her this afternoon at three of the clock to discuss those matters to which she referred in her obliging communication.
He dusted it over with silver sand and reached for the sealing wax. He could be just as pompous as she, if provoked.
Chapter Nine
Madelyn sat alone in the drawing room with one eye on the clock and fought with the now-familiar flock of butterflies that seemed to have taken up permanent residence in her stomach. Would Jack approve of the restoration of these rooms? Was he going to have made plans that she would hate for the wedding? Would he kiss her again?
‘Do I want him to?’ she said out loud as the clock struck three and there was a brisk knock on the front door. Yes, she did want Jack to kiss her. She also wanted to run away back to Kent because none of this was becoming any easier. The noise of London, the crowds, the constant need to be what she was not, to watch every word and action, rubbed on her nerves until she could scream. She was still treated as though she was some exotic and faintly dubious sideshow, a subject for curiosity rather than approval even though she was received and no one was actually unkind.
Learning to be what her father had demanded had been so much easier. She had grown up with it, grown into it, and she loved the castle and her garden and her safe world out of time. As long as she did not displease her father all had been well and there was none of the cold disapproval or the sudden explosions of anger that she dreaded so.
But now she had to learn to please an entirely different man, one with whom she would be living on intimate terms. She had soon realised that Jack’s position in the polite world was ambiguous at best and that whatever he did, let alone marrying her, was going to provide enormous entertainment and scandalised gossip for the ton. She was increasingly fearful that she could not face it. Yesterday she had felt so panicked when she woke that it had been a physical effort to get out of bed. Only the strange and unsettling discovery that she could become angry, that she could use that anger and direct it, stopped her packing her bags and fleeing back to Kent.
‘Lord Dersington, Miss Aylmer.’ Partridge opened the door with a flourish.
‘Thank you, Partridge, send in the tea tray, if you would. Good afternoon, Lord Dersington.’
‘Madelyn.’ He took the hand she had held out for him to shake, but bent to kiss her cheek. It took her by surprise and she moved, their lips brushed and she jerked back, breathless.
‘Jack. How good of you to call. Would you like to inspect the restoration of the rooms on this floor?’ She was braced for him to find fault and, like a visit to the dentist, would rather have it over and done with as soon as possible.
He looked around. ‘This seems much as I recall it from the old days. Shall we look at the study?’
He held the door for her and again when they reached the study. Madelyn held her breath and forced herself not to gabble nervously to break the
silence.
‘This looks familiar,’ he said slowly as he walked to the desk and took the chair behind it. ‘But there is something...’
‘The curtains? I tried to match them as closely as possible because the old ones were badly faded in patches.’
Jack closed his eyes, placed his hands palm-down on the leather top of the desk. ‘The curtains seem perfect. No, it is—’
‘The books? I expect they are not exactly arranged as they were, I’m afraid.’
‘No. Not that.’ He opened his eyes and smiled and she let out the breath she had been holding. ‘The smell.’
‘What should it be?’ Madelyn asked as she sat down in the old armchair, knees decidedly wobbly with relief and the impact of that smile.
‘Lemon and beeswax polish,’ Jack said, eyes closed again as though to conjure the memory better. ‘Lavender. Pipe tobacco.’ He opened a drawer and poked among the contents. ‘Ah, yes.’ The battered round brass tin he laid on the desk was difficult to open, but it yielded at last. ‘This has been in here so long it has become dry and the scent has gone. Ah, well,’ he said as he dropped it back into the drawer. ‘Not everything lasts. Thank you for this. I apologise for my loss of temper over the changes.’
‘It obviously means a lot to you,’ Madelyn ventured, watching not his face, but the long fingers moving in a gentle caress over the battered desktop.
