AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Chapter Eighteen
“Ihaven’t been here in so long,” Marcella’s husband said. “I can scarcely believe this is really mine. Ours, I mean.”
The Hurrow estate was in the country. It was a large, sprawling estate with lush gardens and an elegant manor house. Marcella wanted to have some tender or special feelings for the place, but in truth, the Hurrow estate was nothing she hadn’t seen before. It was beautiful, of course. Incomparably so. But for someone who’d been raised in wealth and beauty, it seemed somehow less remarkable than it ought to have been.
Marcella glanced at her new husband, who looked at the house with unrestrained fondness. A mischievous smirk twitched at his lips, as his gaze wandered over the marble floors of the entryway and the rosewood bannister, which ran up the stairs and to the next floor.
“Ours, My Lord,” Marcella echoed.
He frowned and furrowed his brow. “My name is Reginald, as you’re well aware.”
Marcella raised an eyebrow. “I should think that most wives do not readily forget their husbands’ names.”
“One would hope, my dear wife.”
He fixed her with a sudden intensity, and Marcella’s breath hitched. After leaving their wedding party, they had journeyed straight to the country estate. She and Reginald had spoken very little during the ride, but now, they were alone. Last time they’d been mostly alone, he’d kissed her in the rain.
Would it happen again? It would be far less scandalous, now that they were wed, but Marcella wasn’t sure if shewantedhis kisses. Oh, her body did. And some flustered, fluttering sensation inside her belly did. What was she to do now that she was wed and left without any chance for escape? She supposed the gracious thing to do would be for her to make the best of it, but Marcella wasn’t certain if she could bring herself to do that.
“I know,” he said, startling Marcella from her thoughts. “And I was thinking that you should call meReginald, and of course, I’ll call youMarcella. Because that’s your name.”
“The correct addresses would beMy LordandMy Lady,” Marcella replied, unsure if her husband had forgotten that in his time away.
“I’m aware of that, but I think those are ridiculous addresses. It seems we ought to use names, like…like regular people do. Commoners.”
Marcella blinked slowly at him. This wasn’t something which she truly wished to argue about with him, and it would cost her nothing to agree. “Reginald,” she said slowly. “Do you wish that you were a commoner at this very moment?”
“I don’t know about this very moment,” Reginald replied. “I do wish that I was sometimes, though. My life was much more dangerous, then. Much harder, too. But I understood it well enough. I’ve not the faintest idea, not really, what I’m supposed to do with all of this opulence.”
He gestured around the space, as if the entryway was overwhelming. Marcella supposed it would be to her, too, if she’d been away from her home for ten years.
But am I also something he doesn’t want? What if he only agreed to please his father, and now, he’s resigned himself to a loveless marriage with me?
Their kiss in the rain hadn’t felt loveless, though. Marcella felt her entire body warm just thinking about it. No, there had been such feeling in the gesture that Marcella was certain Reginald felt something for her. It couldn’t possibly be love, though. He hadn’t known her long enough for that. Perhaps, he was merely a passionate man, and so his kisses were likewise passionate.
“I see,” Marcella replied, at a loss for any other words.
“Come with me,” Reginald said. “I’ll give you a tour, so you can get to know your new home.”
Marcella’s heart ached. This place didn’tfeellike a home. It felt wrong and strange, despite being filled with the expected extravagance.
Reginald climbed the stairs, and Marcella followed in his wake, lifting her delicate, lace-decorated skirts to avoid stepping upon the hem. They emerged on a polished, wood floor and a corridor lined with rooms. The walls were covered in portraits, landscapes rather than the dead aristocrats she’d imagined.
“When I was a boy, I used to be a terror up here,” Reginald said, sounding amused. “Do you see how you can lean over the banister and see the floor below us? I used to toss things over the bannister—little, harmless things. Seeds or nuts. Sometimes, acorns. And I’d throw them down and try to hit Father’s guests with them.”
Marcella couldn’t help but laugh. “I’m sure the guests appreciated that,” she teased.
“They most decidedly did not. At least, most of them didn’t. Sometimes, your father would indulge me and insist that I was only participating in the expected schoolboy mischief.”
“I’m a little jealous,” Marcella admitted. “My father never indulged me in anything.”
“He’s a good man,” Reginald replied. “From what I remember. My memory might be lacking, I’ll confess.”
“A good man who sold his daughter into marriage,” Marcella replied. “An exemplary paragon of theton’sprinciples.”
“What cold words to offer one’s own father,” Reginald said, although he sounded more curious than judgmental. “Do you care to explain them?”
“No,” she replied. “It’s only an observation. My father really is just…set in his ways. I think I am, too. Just differently.”
