Mary Balogh - Gentle conquest

The formality of their words rang in Georgiana's ears as she stood on the other side of the door a few moments later, leaning back against it, the tears wet on her cheeks.

For the next two days Georgiana was very restless. It seemed to her that the time would never come when Roger would again take her to Kensington and she would again don her disguise for her meeting with Ralph. She was all impatience. In the meantime she tried to interest herself in what was going on around her. She went shopping with Gloria for more bride clothes, visited Lady Beauchamp with her mother-in-law, visited her own parents on the occasion of her father's birthday, and wandered around Middleton House, examining each room with a critical eye and imagining how it would look with some changes.

She was only just beginning to digest the fact that this house was now hers, that she was its mistress. It was a magnificent house, but the furnishings were heavy and old-fashioned. Georgiana hated furniture loaded down with ornate carvings and gilt trimmings. She much preferred simple elegance. And reds predominated far too much in the house, she felt. She would like softer tones to make the rooms lighter and more airy. She would like to see all the family portraits arranged in the upper gallery, where there was light and space enough to show them to advantage. If she had her way, they would all be removed from the living rooms and replaced with landscapes.

She wondered what Ralph would say if she told him of her ideas. She certainly foresaw battles with his mother, who could not seem to accept the presence of Georgiana in what she still considered as her own home.

And Georgiana had a visitor. Dennis Vaughan called on the first afternoon and stayed for a whole hour. She heard someone else at the door while he was with her and was disappointed to discover that it was not Ralph. She would have liked her old friend to meet him. They would have nothing in common, of course. Dennis would appear quite trivial-minded beside Ralph. She even admitted to herself with a little twinge of surprise that she wanted Dennis to see that she had married someone above the ordinary touch. She recalled feeling just before her marriage that she would be ashamed for her friends to see the sort of man she had been forced into accepting.

It was Stanley who had come in. He came and talked with Dennis for a while before leaving the room again. Georgiana was starting to feel rather uneasy around Ralph's brother. He was always civil, but she had a feeling that he disliked her and disapproved of her. He could not possibly be more unlike Ralph. She put him from her mind.

She spent a pleasant evening with Ralph the day after the Standen party. The rest of the family had been invited out after dinner, and Georgiana followed her husband to the library.

"Do you mind if I sit in here to do my embroidery?" she asked. "I shall not disturb you."

"Of course not, Georgiana," he said. "I merely came to choose a book. I intended to join you in the drawing room."

"Would you not prefer to stay here?" she asked. "It is a much cozier room."

And they sat, one on each side of the fire, for an hour or more, she sewing, he reading, with scarcely a word passing between them. Just like an old married couple, Georgiana thought with deep content. So life should be at times. One could not forever be going out, searching for any activity that might alleviate boredom for a few hours.

She looked up under her eyebrows at him a few times. He was quite engrossed in his reading. She might have felt some resentment against his books, which could take him so completely away from her. But he looked very endearing, slouched down somewhat in his chair, one elbow propped on the armrest, his hand pushing at his hair, which was looking more disheveled than usual. His face held a slight frown of concentration.

Men must be very different from women, she concluded. He seemed utterly absorbed in his book, just as if he had never visited a certain house in Kensington two nights before and just as if he had made no plans to go there again the following night. Had it really meant so little to him? Was it perhaps just a light flirtation for him, something he would have indulged in even if their marriage was a normal one? She did not care to investigate that thought further. Or did the meetings mean something to him, but he had the ability to put them out of his mind? Could men compartmentalize their lives, love and all its associated emotions being but one compartment? That thought too was not an attractive one.

She could not think of anything else but their liaison. Two nights ago she had given herself to her husband for the first time. It was not an event to be forgotten in a moment or shrugged off as a thing of little importance. It had been such a very physical act, so much so that she could not be in the same room as Ralph now without feeling an ache of awareness of him. She could feel him now, his long leanness pressing down on her, his manhood a hard and welcome pain inside her. Just a glance at him now could set her heart to thumping and her womb to throbbing.

How could he sit there reading, oblivious of her very presence, when she could not wait for tomorrow night, when it would all happen again? Tomorrow she would not be frightened or unsure of herself. She would be able to enjoy every moment. And she hoped it would last longer. So much waiting for a mere few minutes of delight! Of course, she thought suddenly, Ralph did not know that it was she with whom he had lain. But how could he not know? How could he not feel now that it must be she?

Ralph, she thought, stitching away sedately at her embroidery, when I married you I hoped that I would be able to tolerate you. After a few days of marriage I thought that perhaps I might be able to develop an affection for you. Now I think I might be in a fair way of falling in love with you. She glanced up at him again, startled by her own thoughts. He was looking at her.

"I am very dull company, am I not, dear?" he said. "Would you like to come to the music room and play for me?"

She smiled across at him and shook her head. "No, No, carry on reading," she said. "I know that is what you like to do, Ralph. I think perhaps I will choose a book too. The only trouble is that I am not a reader and do not know where to start. What would you recommend?"

He put down his own book and got to his feet. He held out a hand to take one of hers. "Let us see," he said. "Poetry? Perhaps you would enjoy Thomson's Seasons." He took a slim leather-bound volume from a shelf and handed it to her. "Or a novel? Richardson's Pamela is quite readable, though you might find that the sentiment is somewhat objectionable. It is a very long book, too."

"Oh, dear," Georgiana said when he set three volumes in her hands. "This is all one book? Let me try the poetry, Ralph. Is it easy to understand?"

"Shall we read it together?" he suggested. "Perhaps if we put our heads together, we can interpret any lines that are a little difficult."

"You are very tactful," she said. "What you really mean is that you will be able to explain the meaning to me.”

"You belittle yourself, Georgiana," he said gently, and he pulled up a chair alongside hers while she folded up her work and put it away in its basket.

When she was in her own room later, Georgiana marveled at the fact that she too had forgotten all about Kensington in the hour they had spent together with the book. Ralph was a born teacher. They had both talked about the poetry, but she knew that her own insights had been drawn from her with skilled questions. She had never dreamed that reading could be such an absorbing activity. And she had not thought in the last few days that her intense awareness of her husband could be anything but sexual. For an hour she had been totally captivated by his intelligent and active mind. She had been borne upward by it, beyond herself.