AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Chapter Twenty-Four
“So tell me, Reginald,” Marcella said. “What is the most outlandish thing you’ve done in your life?”
“The most outlandish?” he echoed. “What do you mean?”
They were walking in the garden together, accompanied at a distance by Jane. Marcella kept spinning her parasol between her fingers as she walked. It was as if she simply had to occupy her fingers, even if she didn’t have a quill pressed between them.
Admittedly, she’d grown into a lax writer since marriage, but she’d made greater efforts to write since Adeline’s arrival a month earlier. The days slowly fell into a pattern. She would write snatches of words between entertaining her dear friend, while Reginald locked himself in his study with Matthew. The two men were forever looking at expenditures, writing letters, or reading over delivered correspondence. Indeed, Marcella might’ve thought her husband had forgotten her if he did not join her each night.
But today, I’ve pulled him from his desk, so I must make the most of it.
“You had a life as a highwayman,” Marcella said. “It seems to me that you must have many great stories, certainly far more than I do.”
“Maybe that’s what I have as compensation for having no talent as a writer. I have stories and cannot craft them. You have craft and no lived stories.”
“I should like to have both,” Marcella replied.
“Perchance, you can,” Reginald said.
His expression was clever and rakish. Marcella’s lips curved into a small smile. “I’m sure I don’t know what you’re implying,” she teased.
He grinned. “I think you do know. You aren’t nearly as sheltered and innocent as you’d like everyone to think. Are you?”
“Not since meeting you,” she replied.
They both knew that wasn’t entirely true. Marcella felt butterflies twirl in her belly as she thought of Reginald’s head between her thighs, and her face grew hot. She still wasn’t entirely certain what to make of such thoughts. Sometimes, they embarrassed her.
And yet she wondered still why no lady in her life had ever thought to mention that sex was such a delightful pursuit.
“You must forgive me for corrupting you,” Reginald replied. “Why, even now, you’ve let me take you away from your dearest Adeline, the very picture of feminine virtue.”
Marcella hummed. “She is, indeed. Adeline may soon have her own husband, though. I’m sure he’d be quite willing to corrupt her.”
“Lord Brookshire, isn’t it?” Reginald asked.
“Yes.” Marcella paused. “There is some speculation that your cousin may also be interested in her. Adeline says that he’s spoken to her on several occasions.”
Reginald furrowed his brow. “Simon?”
She nodded. “What do you think of the match?”
Reginald’s expression seemed suddenly very intense. His jaw clenched, and his nostrils flared. As Marcella gazed at him in wonderment, he averted his gaze elsewhere.
“You don’t like the idea,” she said.
“I really shouldn’t say that,” Reginald replied, “but no, I don’t. Despite him being my only family, I’ve never been especially fond of Simon. Even as children, we fought like a pair of angry stable cats.”
Marcella pursed her lips together. “I see.”
“And I’m sure he feels the same way,” Reginald replied. “I stole his title, after all.”
“You took what was rightfully yours.”
Reginald smiled thinly. “That doesn’t mean Simon will agree with my actions. He’s behaved as graciously as one might expect given the circumstances, but I suspect that’s mostly because of my Aunt Blair.”
“She’s a lovely lady,” Marcella replied.
From what little Marcella had seen of her, at least.
