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“Certainly. I do.”
Oscar sensed she was far from satisfied with his answer, and something fierce jolted through his heart. Was his wife wondering if they had love between them? How the hell did one measure love? He did not believe that claptrap about seeing someone for the first time and simply falling in love with them. For him, love was about duty, responsibility, and sacrifice. Love was everything one did to protect their family from all harm and ensure they lived a safe and comfortable life. That was how he understood love. That was what he respected.
They guided their horses around to the mews behind their house and dismounted. She walked ahead of him, her head lowered, and what he could see of her face appeared pensive. Silence stood between them like a castle wall. Shutting him out and its walls unscalable. He feared she was deliberately putting distance between them and that the fragile foundations of their blooming intimacy might come crashing down if he did not think of the right thing to say.
“Prue?”
She paused and turned to listen to him. Walking up to her, he cupped her cheek and kissed her. For a moment, she was stiff in his arms, then with a soft sigh, she parted her lips and kissed him back. In the familiarity of their passion, a tight knot that had formed in his gut loosened, and the erratic pounding of his heart calmed. Breaking their kiss, he murmured, “Someone once told me I could be a bit bacon-brained.”
She giggled sweetly. “Never say so.”
“Whenever we speak, if there is something you want me to understand, do not hesitate to tell me, countess. Sometimes I need things to be spelled out to me explicitly. You are my wife and lover.”
“Perhaps your friend too,” she whispered.
“Most definitely.” The truth of it resounded inside him. “Know that you can always confide in me.”
She smiled and looped her arm with his as they began strolling toward their home. Prue said nothing more on the matter of love matches, but Oscar couldn’t help feeling her light had dimmed a little. The eyes that peered up at him did not sparkle as brightly, nor did her smile seemed as unrestrained.
How unusual. It seemed he had much more to learn about his wife. However, that dimming of her luster disappointed him and he tried once more to examine what he had done that had caused it.
Chapter Twelve
Later that night, Oscar sat in a comfortable chair at White’s. The club was packed tonight, the supper-room, library, the card and gambling rooms overcrowded. He’d met with a few of his friends earlier to discuss the planned visit of George IV to Scotland, which would be the first appearance of a monarch there since 1651. There were members who thought the visit was a great waste of money and others who believed that it was long overdue that a monarch should visit his Scottish subjects, but now he sat alone nursing a glass of whisky. The large leather armchair creaked slightly as he leant back. His feet resting on the pristine but subtle carpeting. The high ceiling of the room with its elegant plaster molding was illuminated by hundreds of candles in sparkling chandeliers. The sound of clinking glasses and masculine laughter swirled around him, and the scent of cheroot and cigar smoke wafted in the air. Trent and another friend of theirs, Lord Welham, walked over and sat at his table.
“The gambling rooms are rather dull tonight,” Trent said, motioning for a decanter of brandy.
“You look rather preoccupied, Wycliffe. Whatever are you thinking about,” the viscount asked, leaning back in his chair with a sigh.
“Cheroots and brandy.” Oscar took a long swallow of his drink.And my wife. He had learned so much about her in the long conversations they had in the night after loving each other with fierce passion. It was as if he could not get enough of his countess.
“Are you foxed?” Trent demanded.
“I have never been clearer. Tell me, Welham, have you ever shared a glass of port with your wife?”
The man choked on his brandy, his gray eyes widening. “With mywife?”
“Yes.”
“Absolutely not! Ladies do not drink.”
Amusement rushed through him. “Perhaps they indulge in private.”
“I should be very astonished should they do so. Ladies are delicate creatures who do not own the constitution for strong spirits. Nor do they have the desire at all to sample it.”
“You have confirmed this?”
Trent laughed. “The nature of your question is flummoxing. Only bawdy wenches who hardly understand the finer point of decorum drink like a man.”
Not according to his wife. He thought of the other ladies in his life, his three sisters. Before they got married, their days were filled with calling on other society families accompanied by their mother. When not socializing, they spent their time reading, sewing, and receiving painting lessons, music lessons, and dance lessons. They indulged in long walks in the woods while in the country and attending balls when in town. They had never expressed any desire to him that would have struck him as unconventional. What if they owned those desires in their hearts but simply never spoke of them for fear of being censured?
Was that truly the way of it? Society and gentlemen expected their ladies to act a particular way, but in private, they were vastly different creatures. When he had started to look for a bride, he had found most young ladies uninspiring and now wondered if they became colorless because all rebellion had been squashed by rigid society expectations and enforced by their own mothers. He was not foolish enough to envisage that all ladies might feel like this, but that there was apparently sufficient to fill a club spoke of the painfully restrictive existence few men would comprehend.. The very idea was…fucking appalling. Welham had been married for five years and Oscar knew he had two young children with his viscountess. Did he know anything about the true heart of his wife?
Trent and Welham’s voices droned on in the backdrop of his thoughts. A strange pain rattled around inside Oscar’s heart. He wanted to know Prue. All of her. What else did she do? What else did she hide from the sanctimonious priggish world and from him yet shared with her sisters at their club? Unexpectedly, he was damn glad she had found them, and they had been there for her when he had not. But he did not want to be excluded from her passions and joy. He wanted to be a part of them in every way. He wanted to inspire them and share them with her. He turned over those yearnings in his thoughts, truly amazed that he owned them.
“I am retiring for the night, gentlemen.”
“The night is young,” Trent said with an arched brow and a wolfish grin. “I even thought we could horn in on Lady Durham’s ball. I hear it promises to besalacious.”
