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At luncheon she could barely eat.
“Is the meal not to your liking?” Gabriel enquired.
She glanced up. “Oh yes, it is quite delicious, thank you.”
He frowned at her. “Why then, do you toy with your food?” he asked.
She shrugged. He put down his cutlery and requested the footmen leave them. She stared at him in surprise when he rose and came to sit beside her. He took the cutlery from her hands, putting them aside.
He placed a hand upon her forehead. “Are you sickening for something?”
She shook her head, eyes downcast.
“How can you be sure? You have barely eaten a thing,” he pressed.
She shook her head again, eyes filling with unshed tears. He was so good, and she so selfishly wicked. She allowed him to draw her hands between his own.
“If this about your guilt, fear not, for I have no qualms about ridding you of such negative emotion,” he said gently.
She raised her head and stared at him, astonished. “How did you know how I felt?”
He lifted her wrist and turned her hand, pressing a kiss onto her palm. “Because I knowyou; in fact, I think I understandyoubetter than I understand myself.” He smiled ruefully and shrugged. “Come now, eat your meal, Angele. You need your strength. Later I intend to take you up to our chamber where I shall mete out the first of five punishments, one for each year of our unnecessary separation. I wish them over and done with before our boy arrives, then we can begin a new chapter in our lives. I want us to start our family life with no recriminations.”
Weeping openly, she reached for him. He pulled her into his embrace, murmuring endearments and soft words of reassurance. Then, after mopping her eyes with his kerchief, he took up her fork and fed her small morsels of food from her plate. He continued to feed her until her plate was almost empty.
He rose to summon their next course and the return of the footmen.
After luncheon, Gabriel disappeared into his study in order to write the difficult letter to Noelle Bellingham’s family, informing them of his wife’s sudden and unexpected return. Before he closed the door on his inner sanctum, he instructed her to meet him in his chamber at three of the clock. Heat suffused her face at the reminder of what was to come, but she’d dutifully nodded her assent. He’d kissed her forehead before disappearing behind the door.
Angele decided to go to her chamber and sort through her old gowns. None had been removed from where she’d left them five years before. Not one of these had been modish enough at the time she’d left for Paris. She had taken her most fashionable gowns with her. Therefore, these dresses, laid down between camphor-protected sheets and enclosed in chests within her dressing room, were, five years on, completely outdated.
Ivy was busy sorting through her mistress’s clothing when Angele arrived. Together they unwrapped each individual gown, assessing its potential. The fabrics were still as good as new and of excellent quality. Ivy assured her mistress that she was a fair needlewoman. She promised she would be able to make adjustments to some of the outmoded gowns. They would do for wearing about Michaelmas Hall, but come New Year she would need newer, more fashionable clothes, gowns up to the mark for a countess.”
Gabriel slipped into the room. “As soon as the roads become passable we shall make a trip to your former modiste in order to acquire a more fashionable wardrobe. Thank you, Ivy, that will be all for now. Your mistress shall ring when she next requires your assistance.”
Ivy bobbed a curtsy and, clutching a gown, she left the room, quietly closing the door behind her.
“Mon Dieu, is it three of the clock already?” Angele turned to Gabriel, surprised by how quickly the last one and half hours had sped by.
“It is. I wish you to strip completely and come to me in my chamber. I shall leave the door ajar. Do not dally. If you recall, I do not like to be kept waiting,” he commanded.
“Since you so summarily dismissed my maid, perhaps you would assist me first with the pins and then with my gown?” she replied testily.
“I suggest that you do not take that sharp tone with me, young lady, especially since you are about to go across my knee to have your bottom thoroughly smacked.”
She felt the oddest sensation at his rebuke. Instead of his words cowing her, they thrilled her. She was tempted to goad him even further. “If you don’t like my tone, then perhaps you should have thought of that before you left me without the help of my abigail!”
He did not reply to her inflammatory statement. Thin-lipped, he stepped forward, deftly pulling pins from either side of her bodice. Once her stomacher was removed, he unlaced her stays then slid out the small wooden pole pushed down the front of her décolleté in order to keep her posture straight. Then he spun her about and untied her skirt before he undid the bow to her petticoats. Once they had fallen in a puddle at her feet, he curtly ordered her to step out from them. By the time he’d reached her shift, she stood in anxious silence but not because she feared him. Angele did not want Gabriel to see what she knew was physical proof of her depravity. Embarrassingly, she was highly aroused. Her dew-soaked thighs were slick; she feared the scent of her arousal would reach him.
“I had forgotten how stimulating you find chastisement, but fear not, my fallen angel, I shall endeavour to overcome your proclivity and deliver a well-deserved spanking. Come with me.”
She flushed at his words—her secret was no secret to him after all.
He led the way through to his chamber, closing the door. An implement she had forgotten he possessed had been placed upon the large bed—a flat-backed wooden hairbrush of prodigious size. She recalled that he had bought it from a summer fair in the second year of their marriage. It was not the usual brush a countess would use; she had pointed that out to him at the time. He had merely nodded and purchased it. Next she’d earned a trip across his knee and found out what he’d intended the beastly thing for.
However, for the exacting punishment due to her for causing him a year of heartache, she agreed that it packed a salient punch. She hung back, hovering near the connecting door.
“Do you still feel a burden of guilt?” He’d homed in on her weakness.
