Silk And Seduction Bundle 2

‘We never meant—’

‘Oh, didn’t you! Well, even if you did not humiliate her on purpose, that is what you have done, with your wilful disregard of the rules. You know you are not supposed to bring animals indoors! You were lucky I heard Skip barking and got to him before father came in,’ he growled, stuffing the wriggling bundle of fur firmly into his cage.

‘You ain’t…you ain’t gonna put Skip in a sack and drown him, are you?’

Monty turned to his woebegone younger brother in surprise. ‘Why in God’s name should I do that?’

‘Piers would’ve,’ said the other sulkily, extracting the ferret from his own jacket, then thrusting his pet into his hutch.

‘I am not Piers!’ he grated, filled with loathing for the man who would have deliberately inflicted so much pain on two defenceless children. ‘I hope to God I am nothing like him.’

The Earl of Corfe’s firstborn had been spoilt from birth, and grown into a cruel and selfish young man. Every time he had come home from school, Monty had been the butt of his sadistic sense of humour. As, in their turn, had these two.

‘The earl says you ain’t,’ declared Jeremiah.

‘Says it all the time,’ said Tobias.

And Monty could just hear the tone of voice in which his father said it. With a rueful grin, he leaned down and ruffled the boys’ hair.

As one, they stepped back, out of his reach. But then Jeremiah glanced at Skip, snuffling happily round his pen, squared his shoulders, and declared, ‘We’ll tell her we’re sorry.’

‘Yes, we’ll make it up to her!’

‘I hope so,’ said Monty. ‘Because she is your sister now. And she is here to stay.’

Two sombre footmen came to the sitting room, armed with stepladders, to re-hang the curtains.

‘I slipped on the floorboards,’ said Midge, redfaced, as one of them climbed to remount the curtain pole. ‘And grabbed the curtains to prevent myself from falling.’

The two men exchanged meaningful glances as they re-positioned the set of ladders by the chimney-breast and carefully began to replace the delicate ornaments in their correct positions.

Knowing she had done all she could to prevent the boys from getting into trouble, Midge retreated to her bedroom to get changed for dinner.

She did not see Monty again until just before it was time to go downstairs. He emerged from the door to his own room, strode across to her and took both her hands in his.

‘Are you angry with me?’ he said.

‘Me? Angry with you?’

If anything, she would have thought Monty would have been furious with her for having made such a spectacle of herself.

‘It was imperative I got the dog out of here before father realized what the twins had done,’ he explained. ‘When I got down to the kennels and learned their punishment for breaking the rules would have been to see their pets drowned, it made me sure I had done the right thing. But the hell of it was, I did not have time to ensure you were unharmed.’

‘Oh, never mind that!’ exclaimed Midge, horrified to think of anything so dreadful happening to that dear little dog. ‘I was not hurt. Only embarrassed.’

He smiled with relief. Then linked his arm with hers, saying, ‘Come on, time to go down and face the music.’

Oh, Lord, she swallowed. However was she going to look her new father-in-law in the face? The last time he’d seen her, she had been lying on her back on the floor, completely covered with curtains. Apart from her legs, which, she recalled with chagrin, had been waving around in the air.

The earl was sitting on a comfortable chair by a roaring fire, in what was otherwise quite a chilly reception room. He accorded Midge a cool nod of recognition when he saw them enter the room, but did not deign to rise to his feet. At first she was somewhat taken aback by such a lapse of manners, but then she remembered he was reckoned to be something of an invalid.

Though as she eyed him more keenly, a frown gathered on her brow. He had a spare frame and a weary look to his eyes, but his fair hair was still abundant and his skin, though pale, not unduly lined. In fact, he did not look in the least ill to her.

Then he turned to Monty, and the temperature in the room dropped by several degrees, the look he accorded his son and heir was so frosty. Monty returned the look with equal froideur, took her arm and led her towards an ascetic-looking cleric, who had got to his feet.

‘Allow me to present my father’s personal chaplain, the Reverend Norrington,’ said Monty as the cleric made his bow. ‘And my father’s private physician, Dr Cottee.’ A rubicund gentleman, who had been taking a glass from a salver held out by one of the footmen, nodded to her affably.

‘Now that you are here, we shall go in,’ announced the earl dryly, getting to his feet with a fluidity of movement that was surprising for a man she had been told was an invalid.

The menu gave her pause, though. Every dish that was presented seemed designed to tempt the appetite of an elderly, sickly man. A delicate, transparent consommé in which she could just detect the flavour of chicken, was followed by steamed fish and a selection of boiled vegetables, and rounded off with an assortment of milk puddings.

Not that she managed to eat much of anything. She had been a bundle of nerves before even coming down. Now, the coldness of the earl, the haughty demeanour of the footmen and the blandness of the food completely robbed her of her appetite.

Worse still, nobody talked! Not that she would have dared say anything, had anyone attempted to strike up a conversation. She was quite sure that if she opened her mouth for any reason, she would only give the earl an even worse impression of her. And her hands were shaking so badly that, when she reached for her wine glass, she decided she had better not attempt to drink anything either. She was bound to spill her wine over the pristine white drapery! She withdrew her hand and tucked it in her lap.

‘We are not used to entertaining females at Shevington,’ remarked the earl as he discarded his napkin and signalled for the removal of the cloth.

It took Midge a few seconds to realize that this was the signal for her to go to whatever drawing room was designated for use for the rest of the evening.

But as she got to her feet, he added, ‘You will retire to your own rooms.’

Midge couldn’t help herself. She just gaped at him as she realized she was being dismissed! Not that she was not relieved that her ordeal in the earl’s company was at an end, but still, it was not pleasant to think he could not tolerate one second more of her company either.

There was a scraping of chairs as the other gentlemen got to their feet, expecting her to meekly quit the field.

‘W-well, good night then,’ she stammered, blundering towards the door.

‘I shall come with you,’ said Monty, flinging his napkin onto the table.

‘I wish you to remain here,’ snapped the earl. ‘I have several matters I wish to discuss.’

‘I don’t think that would be wise, do you Dr Cottee? Considering the delicate state of my father’s digestion.’

The doctor’s smile froze as his eyes darted from one implacable aristocrat to the other.

‘Oh, if your father wants you to—’ Midge began. Monty grabbed her by the elbow and propelled her towards the door.

‘Silence!’ he hissed into her ear. And then, with a cold smile at his father, ‘I assure you, my response to those matters you wish to discuss would be bound to give you indigestion. Far better to talk in the morning.’

‘As you say.’ The earl’s thin lips twisted into a sneer. ‘Run along after your wife, then, boy.’

Monty marched Midge to their rooms in silence. Only when he had kicked the door shut behind him did he round on her. ‘Do not argue with me in front of my father, ever again!’ He spun away from her, running his fingers through his hair.

‘I…I did not mean to. I just thought—’

‘Well, don’t think! Just follow my lead. And for God’s sake, let me do the fighting in future.’

Midge was sorely tempted to sketch him a salute. She settled for merely saying, ‘Yes, Major! Any further orders?’

‘Dammit.’ He seized her by the shoulders and gave her a little shake. ‘I am trying to defend you, here. Keep you out of trouble! Can’t you see that?’

The trouble was, she could. She had not been here five minutes before she had demonstrated how out of place she was. Dinner tonight had confirmed he had not made the wisest of choices in her. His father had obviously been dying to get him alone, and give him a trimming for bringing home a girl who was so gauche and awkward and clumsy. Leave alone being a daughter of scandal.

‘I fear that task is even beyond you, Major Claremont,’ she said, her whole body drooping with the realization of how badly she was bound to let him down.

‘No,’ he growled. ‘It is not. It must not be.’ Something like desperation clouded his features before he took her face in his hands and kissed her.

There was something about the way he kissed when he was angry that thrilled her to the core.

Her despondency vanished as she poured back all her own hurt and loneliness and wounded pride into the kiss. She clamped her hands behind his head when he would have broken away. For she had been waiting for him to kiss her all day. Ever since he had set her ablaze by merely lifting her out of the coach. And now that she had him exactly where she wanted him, it felt as though, somehow, she had to…beat him at his own game!

His hands swept down her sides, paused to measure the span of her waist, then slid round and down, squeezing her bottom hard.

Midge felt a victorious thrill as he ground his hips against her stomach, for he was definitely, hugely, aroused.

This time, when he tore his mouth from hers, she let him go. Knew she had been right to do so when he trailed hot wet kisses all the way down her throat. He let go of her bottom, but only so he could push the material of her bodice out of the way of his questing lips.

Not about to be outdone, she yanked his shirt from his breeches and ran her hands up the satiny smooth muscles of his back.

And then totally forgot what point she had been trying to make. She only knew she had to feel his naked skin against hers. And was grateful that for once, they were in complete accord.

They tore away each other’s clothes and fell together onto the sofa, their need equally fierce. When Monty plunged into her, she strained up against him with all her might. He groaned. She whimpered. They both clutched at each other as hard as they could.

And in minutes, it was over.

Midge froze. She could not believe they had fallen on each other like wild animals, in the elegance of this formal sitting room!

‘Are you all right?’ said Monty, lifting his head from the crook of her neck, and looking down at her with concern.

She was not sure. She was shaking all over. Covered in sweat. And more than a little shocked at herself.

‘That was selfish of me,’ said Monty, hastily with-drawing. ‘But I really needed that.’

She had needed it just as much as he had, but something about the guilt in his voice made her doubly certain a lady should never admit it!

‘You look tired,’ he observed with a frown as he pulled up his breeches. ‘I shall just go and see if your maid is in your room.’ He strode off while he was still speaking. And then returned, his shirt half in and half out of his waistband, scooped her up, and carried her into her bedroom.

After depositing her on the bed, he crossed to the fireplace and tugged on the bell pull.

‘She will be up here soon,’ he said. ‘I suggest you get her to bring you something up to eat. You must be hungry. You hardly ate anything tonight.’

And then, having brushed a perfunctory kiss on her cheek, he strode out of her room, shutting the door firmly behind him.

And then Midge knew what she felt. Empty and used. Because now he was done with her, he couldn’t wait to get away from her. She sat up quickly. It made her feel worse, somehow, to be sprawled limply all over the bed like that while he beat such a hasty retreat.

Especially now she recalled him saying, ‘I needed that.’ Not ‘I needed you.’ But ‘that.’

She tugged her bodice into a slightly less uncomfortable position, loathe for Pansy to find her in such a dishevelled state, and swung her feet down to the floor, all remaining residue of pleasure ebbing away.

She had not placed any great significance on waking alone in her bridal bed that morning. Monty might have had a dozen reasons to have risen early, since they were going on a journey. But he had spent hardly any time with her at all today. And just now, he had shown he could not even bear to lie down with her for a few minutes after getting what he wanted from her.

It was just as well her aunt had warned her what men could be like during the first weeks of marriage. Or the way he had practically sprinted out of her bedroom, the moment he had disposed of her body neatly back where it belonged, would have really hurt her.

She had to remember that though lust was an integral part of a man’s nature, it was very far removed from anything like love. Or liking. Or even respect.

She smiled bitterly. A woman could be as bad. She only had to remember the first time he had kissed her. She had thought she hated him. Yet the intimacy he had imposed on her that night had thrilled her to the point where she might almost have thrown caution to the wind.

She wrapped her arms round her waist, as a chill shot through her.

She would be a complete idiot to mistake this passion they shared for anything deeper.

She should be grateful to him for the care he was taking not to mislead her. She had no wish to end up like her mother, broken-hearted because she had fallen in love with a husband who was never going to love her back!

Somehow, she must learn not to hanker for more than Monty was willing to give her.

The next morning, she woke to the sound of two voices conferring in subdued tones, somewhere beyond the end of her footboard. When she sat up, she saw Monty’s two little brothers sitting on the rug, deep in discussion.

‘Good morning,’ she said, pushing her unruly hair out of her eyes. ‘What are you doing down there?’

They looked at her warily for a moment or two, clearly not having expected her to be awake.

Then one of them, and for some reason, she was almost certain it was Skip’s owner, explained, ‘We wanted to thank you for keeping quiet about us having Skip in here yesterday.’

‘Yes,’ said the other, who she recalled, had taken his cue from the more dominant twin the day before, too. ‘Cobbett told us you made up a story about falling over, so’s we wouldn’t get into trouble. So we brought you a present. We thought you would like to find it when you woke up.’

On the rug between them were what looked like a starling’s nest and a very inexpertly dissected frog, spread out on a piece of warped card.

‘Why, thank you,’ she smiled. They really were the most utterly adorable little scamps. ‘Would you like to tell me your names?’ she added, feeling glad now that, as a reaction to that torrid interlude on the sofa, she had covered herself up with the most modest nightgown she possessed. ‘Nobody introduced us properly yesterday. I’m Midge,’ she said, reaching over the footboard to shake hands.

‘Jem,’ said Skip’s owner, standing up and bowing from the waist.

‘Tobe’ said the other, accidentally stepping on the starling’s nest as he rose to make his own bow.

‘Do you ride?’ asked Jem.

‘Yes, I do. Only I have no horse at present.’

The twins exchanged a look.

‘If you come down to the stables after breakfast, we can get Charlie to find you a horse.’

‘We…we could show you our den,’ offered Jem with a noble air. ‘Nobody else knows about it.’

‘And just the other day we found a badger’s set,’ put in Tobe, as though not wanting to be outdone by his twin.

Midge’s spirits lifted. It sounded as though not all her time at Shevington was going to be comprised of sitting about pretending to be a grand lady, after all!

It took only a week for her days to fall into a routine. In the mornings, after consuming a substantial breakfast, in her room, she roamed the estate with the twins, mounted on a lively mare called Misty, returning to the house to change for lunch.

She spent the first couple of afternoons going all round Shevington Court with Mrs Wadsworth, who took great pains to explain that things were running with such efficiency, no input would be expected from her. Midge came away with the conviction that the woman was warning her that she would heartily resent any suggestions she might make.

She would have felt that a girl like her had no business living in the midst of such grandeur, had she not begun to notice how friendly most of the lower staff were towards her.

Their reaction, she later learned from Pansy, stemmed from the way she had taken to the twins. The footman, Cobbett, had reported how she had taken the entire blame for the curtain catastrophe on her own shoulders. And thus, without even knowing she had done so, she entered into the confederacy of all those at Shevington who habitually covered for any boyish pranks the twins got into.

The stable lads were keen to find her a suitable mount, and the cook handed her biscuits when she took the short cut through the kitchens to the stable yard. The under housemaids grinned at her like co-conspirators, and Cobbett took it upon himself to bring up her post every day, so that he could make sure she had whatever she needed.

She spent the afternoons dealing with her stepbrother, before letting Pansy dress her up for the evenings.

Pansy was in her element, relishing the challenge of turning her mistress out in such style that Midge always went down to dinner knowing she at least looked the part of daughter-in-law to an earl. Not that she stayed looking stylish for long. The minute they regained the privacy of their rooms, Monty would fall upon her like a starving man.

Or did she fall upon him? It was hard to tell. Because making love with Monty was definitely the highlight of her day. Everything else she did was just marking the time until they could be alone together.

‘Ah! Thought I might find you here!’ Monty strode towards the stall where Midge had just led Misty. ‘I should like to discuss a few things with you, if you have a moment?’

She looked round to thank the boys for the morning’s adventure, but they had scuttled away the moment Monty showed up.

She frowned. They did not appear to like their older brother all that much. When they spoke of him, which was not all that often, it was with the resentful air reserved by small boys for authority figures. The one her stepbrothers had applied to the parish constable. It seemed so unfair, when they hardly knew him. From what she had gathered, he had been away campaigning for almost the entirety of their young lives, only returning for brief furloughs.

‘I wanted to know how you are settling in,’ he asked, inadvertently making her hackles rise. But she swallowed back the retort that had sprung to mind, that he would have known had he made any effort to spare her a few minutes during the daytime.

‘You go out riding every day, I hear,’ he said now, his eyes shooting past her, to the mount which was tossing its head impatiently, and looked concerned. ‘Who put you up on Misty?’

‘The stable lad Charlie picked her out for me,’ Midge answered, patting the mare’s neck affectionately. ‘She’s perfect!’

‘Hmm,’ Monty mused. ‘I would not have said such a bad-tempered creature was a fit mount for a lady myself…’

Midge clucked her tongue as she handed the reins over to another one of the grooms. ‘She is a bit spirited, I’ll grant you that. But I cannot bear the kind of horses usually deemed fit for ladies to ride. I have no wish to feel as though I am trundling round the park on a sofa!’

Monty grinned. ‘No fear of mistaking Misty for a sofa, that’s true! Well, I am glad you like her.’

‘She is a wonderful mount,’ Midge answered.

‘And my brothers? They have been behaving themselves?’

If it were not for his two little brothers, she would have been left entirely to her own devices since her arrival. ‘They have been behaving like perfectly normal little boys,’ she replied with a fond twinkle in her eye.

‘Good,’ he said, looking relieved. ‘I did wonder, that first day, whether they had some plan to make things so hard for you here, you would pack up and leave. And I can see you are wet through. Was half-afraid the little devils might have pushed you into a stream.’

‘They did no such thing!’ she retorted. Then admitted ruefully. ‘I managed to fall in all by myself. Tobe made it look so easy, and I can remember doing it as a girl…’

‘Falling into streams?’ he teased her, recalling Rick’s description of her unfortunate habit of falling into or off things as a girl.

‘No—’ she giggled ‘—tickling trout. Only of course, this is not the right weather for messing about in streams, nor am I quite as well-acquainted with the terrain as your brothers.’

‘I was going to suggest going for a walk, while we talked,’ said Monty, taking her by the arm and leading her across the stable yard towards the house. ‘But I think I had better get you indoors and into some dry clothing. Don’t want you catching cold.’

‘I would not catch cold so easily as that,’ she scoffed. ‘Besides, my habit is only wet to the knees.’

‘I remember. Rick told me you were as healthy as a horse!’

Monty opened a door Midge had not previously used, which led to a corridor flanked by glass-windowed offices. She saw the estate manager, sitting at a desk, almost hidden behind his enormous pile of ledgers.

‘Why,’ Midge determinedly returned to the subject Monty had first raised, as he led her along the passage, ‘would you think the twins might be trying to make me leave?’

‘Because you are my wife,’ he said grimly. ‘And they neither like nor trust me.’

‘They do not even seemed disposed to try,’ she mused. ‘Why is that? What have you done—’

‘It is nothing I have done!’ he retorted. ‘But they have known so little kindness. Piers always went out of his way to make them as miserable as he possibly could. When you couple that with the way my father has treated them, because of his suspicions about their origins, it is hardly surprising they have such a deep-seated mistrust of any member of their close family.’

‘How sad.’

‘They ought to be at school, of course,’ he muttered darkly, opening a second door, which opened onto the back stairs that led up to the main part of the house. ‘They have too much time on their hands, and nobody appointed directly with their care.’

The same thought had occurred to Midge. In fact, she was really quite concerned for their welfare. It could not be good for them to be so comprehensively ignored by their father, whilst being so totally indulged by the staff.

‘But father will not send them to school,’ he said, ‘And the little devils make it a point of pride to drive every single governess and tutor he has ever appointed from the premises.’

She bit down on her lower lip, considering what a thankless task a governess or a tutor would have, trying to bring some order into their lives. The staff, ranged against them in defence of the twins, would block every move they made.

‘They really should be sent to school,’ she agreed. ‘They are both very bright boys. With a lot of energy that is not being given a proper direction.’

She only had to think of that frog Jem had so painstakingly dissected. He had an interest in natural history and the sciences, that was not being properly developed. Neither of them would reach their full potential if the current regime continued.

‘I only wish there was some way I could persuade father to send them to school. But he will not listen to a word I have to say on this, or any other matter!’ he said grimly.