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Holly left them to enjoy their meal and made her way downstairs in search of her husband. She found him pacing the hallway outside the dining room, obviously waiting for her.
CHAPTER10
“Has the gong been struck for luncheon already?” she asked, stepping from the stairway onto the parquetry floor.
“No, luncheon is always at one,” Gregory replied, crossing the hall to her. “I have been looking for you. Can you come into my study, please? There is a conversation we need to have.”
“Very well.” She had her own piece to say.
Once they were seated either side of the fire, they both spoke at once.
“After you,” he insisted.
“If I had asked you directly whether you had any children, would you have told me?” She asked the question that had been uppermost in her mind since meeting the girls.
“Of course… To be honest, I didn’t want you to feel that if you married me, you would be forced to become a matron long before your time. I discussed this with Oscar, and he agreed that it might be better for you not to know about the girls until after we were married. I apologise for not telling you and for last night.”
“Last night?” she queried.
“I feel bad about misleading you and then smacking you.”
She flushed.
“Oh, yes, well, no harm done, your apology is accepted,” she hastened graciously. No need for him to know how that smack to her posterior had affected her.
“I was so intent on my plan for you to meet the girls in the drawing room with their nanny so that I could enforce my message that they wouldn’t be a bother to you. That is the reason I behaved unjustly. Please forgive me.”
At least he sounded contrite, she nodded, eager to put the misunderstanding behind them.
“About the girls, Gregory. I have some ideas that might help to help cheer them up…”
He interrupted.
“Cheer them up? What an expression! My children have lost their mother, Holly, not some…some household pet!”
“I am fully aware of that, Gregory, but they are suffering unnecessarily. Removing the portrait of their mother from the nursery, for instance, was cruel.”
“I…” he began, but Holly ignored his interruption. She was livid and needed to get the complaint off her chest.
“They have been left in deepest mourning for two years. Two years, Gregory! These arechildren—they need fresh air, laughter, and the love of their father, which seems to me to be eminently lacking. What they do not need is to be forced to wear black and given never-ending lessons with no relaxation and no affection, save from the paid staff.” She ran out of breath.
Gregory rose to his feet and towered over her.
“These are not your concerns,” he said, stiffly.
“Well, since they don’t seem to be yours either, I am making them mine,” she snapped.
“You are little more than a child yourself and will do as you are bloody well told,” he bellowed.
“Or what, you’ll smack me again?” she mocked.
“Yes! Dammit, but this time I shall take you over my knee, and it will be a thorough punishment spanking, not a love tap like the one you received last night!”
He sounded so smugly triumphant that she rose to her feet and marched to the doorway where she turned and flashed him a false smile.
“I may be young in your eyes, sir, but I was raised with small siblings and was taught how to be a good mother, and chatelaine, by my generous hearted and loving stepmother. I intend to be to your children what she has been to me. Oh, and go ahead and spank me because actually it wouldn’t be much of a punishment at all… I rather liked the smack you dealt me last night, so there!”
Holly felt inordinately proud of herself for controlling her temper. She refrained from slamming the door as she stalked from the room. With her head held high, knowing she’d exited rather regally, softly closing the door behind her. However, unable to maintain her composure she spun about, and stuck out her tongue at the solid wooden door.
