Deborah Hale - A Gentleman Of Substance

“Eeeuu! What have you got all over the sheets and my nightgown?”

“Keep your voice down,” Drake snapped. “It’s a few drops of pig’s blood. To convince the servants that I have relieved you of your virginity.”

“Oh. I hadn’t thought of that.”

Drake rescued the flask and shoved it back in his pocket. “I have learned to pay attention to details.” Retaining a tenuous grip on his self-control, he backed away from the bed. “The way you have splashed it about will likely cause talk of my enthusiastic performance.”

“You might have warned me and done the deed before I lapsed into a sound sleep.” Lucy pulled the bedclothes up around her.

“Let’s just say I was not eager to feel the sting of your wrath again so soon.” Drake prayed she would attribute the breathlessness of his voice to anger.

“Have you any other nasty surprises in store for me tonight, your lordship?”

“None.” Drake did not trust himself to say more.

“In that case, I’ll thank you to leave.”

“With pleasure.” He stalked from the room.

In the gallery he could hear the muted sounds of celebration rising from the butler’s pantry. At least someone was getting a bit of pleasure out of his benighted marriage.

Back in his dressing room, Drake found the bathtub still set up and full of water, long since gone cold. Perhaps eager to take part in the festivities below stairs, his valet had neglected to drain it. Letting his dressing gown fall around his ankles, Drake stepped into the narrow tub. As he sat down in the chilly water, he half expected a hissing cloud of steam to rise from his fevered body.

What in heaven’s name had he let himself in for?

As the footman set breakfast before her, Lucy smiled wanly. In the weeks since her wedding, she had come to dread the morning meal. In the first place, her persistent nausea was always at its worst before noon.

She glanced down at her plate, mounded with food. Eggs, bacon, hotcakes, kippered herring, broiled veal kidneys in quantities fit to sustain a grown man at field labour. Lucy averted her eyes, before the sight made her vomit. What she would have given for a modest saucer of dry toast and a cup of weak tea! Somehow she could not bring herself to dictate special requests to Lord Silverthorne’s cook. His cousin kept the kitchen in a constant hop as it was.

“Not indisposed are you, my dear?” asked Lady Phyllipa as Lucy toyed with her breakfast.

“Not at all.” Lucy shoved a forkful of eggs beneath the veal kidney. “I fear my appetite is not equal to Mrs. Maberley’s generous portions.”

“Yes.” Phyllipa laughed. A high-pitched tinkling sound, like a spoon tapping wildly on a wineglass, it often sounded in danger of shattering, “Drake’s cook does consider it her mission in life to fatten everyone up.” She cast her cousin a teasing look. “I doubt she’ll ever succeed with him.”

Drake responded with a derisive grunt as he bolted mouthful after mouthful of his breakfast. Simply watching him made Lucy’s gorge rise.

Pushing her plate away, she tried to work up a smile. “You must find the food and the society here very dull after what you’ve been used to in London, Cousin Phyllipa.”

From the other end of the breakfast table, she marked the black frown Drake directed her way. No doubt he was angry with her for daring to insinuate that his cousins should leave Silverthorne. Well, too bad about him. If he had told her his marriage proposal included a honeymoon with Lady Phyllipa Strickland, she never would have accepted.

“I find nothing wanting in your society, Lucinda dear,” Phyllipa replied in her usual patronizing tone. Evidently, she had not recognized the broad hint. “Though I’ll own I have been pining for London of late. There are so many merry doings in the autumn, particularly if one is as well connected as Drake.”

Lord Silverthorne’s frown deepened into an outright scowl. Obviously, he could not abide -the notion of his boon companion, Lady Phyllipa, departing for the south.

More than once in the past weeks, Lucy had broached the subject. Phyllipa’s answer was always the same.

“I spoke to Drake about my returning home, but he would not hear of it. Protested that you could not spare me so soon. He is counting on me to help mold you into a proper viscountess, and I cannot let him down.after all the dear man has done for me since my poor Clarence died.”

A spark of resentment deep within Lucy began to smolder. She was heartily sick of constant sermons on aristocratic protocol and proper ladylike deportment. As interpreted by Lord Silverthorne and proclaimed by Lady Phyllipa, this consisted of doing a great deal of nothing. At least nothing enjoyable, stimulating or improving. Riding was for hoydens. Reading was for “blue stockings.” Tramping the countryside was entirely beyond the pale. Small wonder Jeremy had joined the army to escape his overbearing brother.

An awkward, expectant silence in the breakfast room recalled Lucy from her musings. Both Drake and Phyllipa were staring at her, waiting. She desperately tried to recall what Phyllipa had been talking about. Evidently she’d been asked a question, but she had no idea what.

“Don’t you agree, my dear?” Phyllipa prompted her.

If they expected her agreement, Lucy was sure it was something she would naturally oppose. Still, she must do her best to conform to their ways. For the sake of her child—the reason she had wed Drake in the first place.

“Of course. I do.” She made every effort to sound sincere, but sincere about what?

Lady Phyllipa spread her thin lips into a tight smile. “You see, Drake? Lucy is as anxious to get down to London as I am.”

Silently Lucy cursed herself. With Drake glowering at her, how could she retract her agreement and explain that she simply hadn’t been paying attention?

“What a welcome you would receive, my dear.” Phyllipa gushed. “Everyone would be avid to meet the new Lady Silverthorne.”

That, thought Lucy, was precisely her fear. She knew just what sort of welcome she would receive at the hands of the ton. Like some pitiful curiosity at the fairground—a dwarf donkey or a three-legged chicken. The vicar’s daughter masquerading as a viscountess. They would watch her like a flock of vultures, ready to rend her to pieces at the first misstep.

Abruptly, Drake rose from his place, hurling down his napkin. “We have been over this before.” He glared at Lucy, his tone icily formal. “I have pressing business matters to attend. I’ve recently bought a mining operation at High Head. The place has been losing money for years, and lately I’ve heard tell of dangerous conditions. I need to get to the bottom of the trouble and set things to—”

“I fear Neville is right about you, Drake.” Phyllipa looked surprised to hear herself agreeing with Neville about anything. “You are overburdened with a sense of ‘noblesse oblige.’ Do you mean to say this great hole in the ground is of more importance than your own wife?”

“Enough!” Though Phyllipa had been speaking, Drake addressed himself to Lucy, with cold loathing in his eyes. “I have business to attend, if you will excuse me. I may not be back in time for dinner this evening.”

Though she struggled to suppress them, tears welled in Lucy’s eyes. She had borne his grim censure for the past four weeks. Together with Phyllipa’s constant carping and her own unrelenting biliousness, she could bear it no longer. The sight of her distress did nothing to soften her austere, exacting husband. With a final look of glacial disdain, he strode from the breakfast room.

“My poor Lucinda.” Phyllipa caught her hand.