Louise Allen - Silk And Seduction Bundle 2

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.