Captain Durant's Countess(27)

“Let me fix it for you. Put your dress on and let me get to work as your maid.”

She really didn’t have much choice. There was no mirror except a shattered one in a fine gilt frame three rooms over. Another thing to tote upstairs with a brush and comb.

Reyn gathered up the fallen pins amongst the pillows and made her sit at the worktable. And then he did an extraordinary thing. He rubbed her head, slipping firm fingers through her loose hair, pressing onto her scalp in hypnotic motion. For a minute Maris wondered if he might make even more of a tangle of her hair, but the head massage was so wonderful she held her tongue. The tension she felt now that she was no longer prone in his arms disappeared and she felt the coiled springs along her spine relax.

He seemed to know it, dropping a light kiss below her left ear. Then he got busy braiding and pinning.

“It is with the greatest reluctance that I’m giving you this abomination,” Reyn said, handing her the cap. “Why do women wear such things? You can’t imagine men like them. You might as well be wearing a nappy on your head.”

Maris shrugged as she tied it under her chin. She wasn’t sure why caps were the custom. Perhaps that was something she could research in the future. There were biblical admonitions to cover one’s head, and Maris supposed fashion could stem from fear of God as well as anything else.

She wasn’t much for fashion, wasn’t even wearing one of her new dresses. Maris felt a little silly thinking they had been a necessary purchase to make her more palatable to Captain Durant. He seemed to like her just fine as she was.

Did it matter what he thought of her? He said he wanted to be friends, and they seemed to have reached some sort of understanding. At least enough for him to make his job look close enough to pleasure.

She hadn’t closed her eyes, but he had, as she’d asked him to that first day. Reyn had been beautiful as he’d strained over her, each perfect, hard thrust accompanied by a near prayerful expression on his face.

If he’d opened his eyes and looked down, he would have caught her spying.

Those eyes were so dark. Penetrating. Maris was afraid he’d see inside her, know somehow the secrets she kept. She imagined he didn’t have to terrier or ferret much. Something about the man made confession almost inevitable.

“You look very respectable, madam.” He began to step into his own clothes with a fluid grace Maris would never manage. “Well then, I propose we share a lunch. Not in that gilded barn you call a dining room of course. I expect Kelby Hall has something more modest—a third or fourth best dining room as it were.”

Maris imagined sitting opposite him in the cozy paneled room where she usually took her daytime meals, sunlight shafting through the windows. Despite its relative informality, there were always footmen about, waiting to jump at her every word. “I-I don’t think that would be wise. We don’t want to engender talk amongst the servants.”

“Don’t you think I can keep my hands to myself? I swear I won’t give you one longing look of lust in public. None of this.” He made a face at her, which was a close approximation of a sleek, worshipful hound.

She smiled in spite of herself. “Maybe I worry about what I might do.”

“Nonsense. You’ll chew your food and pass the peas and be the perfect countess.”

He didn’t know her at all. For one thing, she loathed peas. “Oh, Reyn. I’ve never been a perfect countess. I just don’t think Henry would approve of us eating together.” She caught the look on his face and hurried on. “I know it seems absurd after what we’ve just done. What we’ll do again. The . . . the intimacy. But he was specific about you dining in your suite.”

Reyn looked more annoyed than hurt, but nodded. “All right. I’ll meet you back here at two-thirty. I don’t need two hours to eat lunch, you know.”

“The servants will require the time to prepare and deliver your meal. Cook is very particular.”

“Some bread and cheese and a pickle or two are just fine. I’ve marched on much less.” He was dressed, and did not look as rumpled as she felt.

“Ask for anything you want.”

“I don’t think I can have what I want,” Reyn said quietly, and disappeared through the door.

Maris swallowed. Blast. He hadn’t said the last sentence with any kind of teasing flirtatiousness.

She was not prepared for the man to become serious. Maris was thinking enough for the both of them. Reyn was much easier to deal with when he was playing the boyish ne’er-do-well without a thought in his head.

She reached into her pocket for a handkerchief to blot any trace of his kisses away and came upon the emerald. Hard to believe she could have forgotten about such an amazing find, but she had. Reyn had swept her mind free of everything but the scent of his skin and the sureness of his touch.

What was she to do with the thing? It must be ridiculously valuable. She would put it in her safe before she went down to eat.

Alone.





Chapter 14


Reyn looked at his watch for the fourth time in ten minutes. He’d been at the little table in his sitting room for most of an hour, staring at the empty gold-rimmed dishes. Fancy dinnerware for his requested humble fare, but he wasn’t used to a heavy meal in the middle of the day, particularly after such a huge breakfast. At this rate, they’d have to roll him out of Kelby Hall. Poor old Phantom would buck him right off.

He wondered how the horse was faring in the stable block. Probably eating his head off, too. Everything was first-rate at Kelby Hall for humans and animals alike. Perhaps once he and the countess finished the day’s work, he’d give himself and his horse some exercise and ride out to explore the Surrey countryside. A few minutes of f*cking was not enough to quell the need his body had for release.

Reyn frowned. There had to be a better word for what was happening with Maris Kelby. Something not so crude. It had been anything but.

Would she want him to do it again this afternoon? Truly, he’d have no objection.

He sensed she was unused to such activity. He’d probably made her sore already. She was tall and well made, but there was a delicacy about her which made him feel protective. He wished he could have a frank conversation with her, but didn’t want to pry. He’d have to settle for what her body told him.

She came to orgasm easily, a rarity for a woman, as he knew from experience. He’d often had to labor much harder—labor that was entirely pleasant, naturally—to achieve such responsiveness.

Maris Kelby held nothing back when she was in his arms. It was out of them when she armored herself in a protective shell of hesitance and propriety.

That was probably for the best. In a month he would be gone, and she could go on with her privileged life. He pictured her lounging in her boudoir, long fingers busy with needle and thread, making neat stitches on a baby’s cap. Did countesses even sew?

She would be a careful mother, of that he was sure. Nothing like his own. Corinne Durant was too busy with cards and cotillions to pay much attention to her two children. When the debts rose and invitations stopped pouring in, his parents had slipped from one strata of society to the next below, until there was very little space between hell and their unpaid-for shoes.

Ah. That reminded him. He went to his dressing room, all traces of his earlier ablutions removed by efficient servants. His saddlebag hung on a hook on the papered wall and he reached inside. He needed to return Maris’s embroidered bedroom slippers. They were much more interesting than most of the objects he’d seen that morning, save for the emerald. A little worn, they were exquisitely sewn with tiny forget-me-nots and curly ribbon. Had Maris made them herself?

She had biggish feet—not that he’d ever say so—but he managed to fold the thin-soled slippers into his pocket. He would go upstairs even though it wasn’t time yet, for he was desperate for something to occupy him. He could move a few more boxes into the workroom.

There would be more waiting around in the attics, too, as Maris hunched over the table examining all the ugly objets d’art with her spectacles sliding down her nose. Reyn was not much good at waiting but he’d make the effort. For her.

What in hell was happening to him? It really wouldn’t be wise to fall in lust with the Countess of Kelby.

Reyn rang for his dishes to be removed. One of the Johns—not Aloysius—appeared almost instantly. Reyn waited until the hallway was empty, then went upstairs. He took off his jacket and cravat and rolled up his sleeves. He had a feeling Maris had not seen too many male forearms. Even the gardeners he’d seen earlier were covered in long-sleeved smocks against the cold. A gentleman did not remove his coat to work in front of a lady. Actually a gentleman did not, as a rule, do manual labor, unless he made an appearance at the haying to impress his tenants. Even Reyn’s own father had dirtied his hands on occasion when he had tenants to impress as he won—then lost—one ramshackle country property after the other.