My Lady Jane(31)
“Like what? Hay preferences?”
“Number one.” He went to tick off the number on his forefinger and subsequently dropped the trousers. She took a moment to admire the ceiling. Then Gifford retrieved his trousers and continued without the visual aid. “Number one: there will be no riding the horse. Number two: there will be no bridling the horse. Number three: there will be no saddling the horse.”
“Well, then what is the point of owning a horse?”
“You do not own me!” He closed his eyes and exhaled slowly. “My lady, would you mind exiting the bedchamber while I dress?”
She tilted her head. “No, I don’t think I will, because I have a few rules of my own.”
He slumped a little. “All right.”
“Number one: no touching my books. Number two: no chewing on my books.”
He snorted indignantly. “I would never chew on your books.”
“You ate my bridal bouquet.”
He looked surprised, as though he’d forgotten. Then he nodded. “So I did. Continue.”
“Number three: I will never find hay in my books.”
“Do all of your rules pertain to books? I suppose I understand why, since your social shortcomings mean books are your closest friends.” He momentarily seemed taken aback at his own rudeness.
Jane narrowed her eyes. “Are you sure your true E?ian form isn’t a jackass?”
“Very funny, my lady. And that reminds me”—he pointed a finger at her—“no horse jokes.”
He was making it too easy. “Ah, my lord, why the long face?”
“That’s it!” After a frantic look around the room, he grabbed a book from the nightstand. The trousers hung dangerously to one side as he let the book flop open. “I don’t recall you mentioning anything about bending the spine of a book.”
Alarm filled her. “Put down the book.” She wanted to look away, as he seemed distracted from holding the trousers in place, but she couldn’t take her eyes off the book. What if he hurt it? What if he followed through with his threat?
“No horse jokes,” he said.
“My lord, I apologize for the horse joke. If you put down the book—unharmed!—I will give you a carrot.”
He brandished the book at her. “Was that a horse joke?”
“Neigh.”
“Was that a horse joke?”
Before she could respond, a maid barged into the room to turn down the bedcovers, only to find Gifford with his trousers pressed against his waist, Jane with her face flushed, and a pile of shredded clothes (from this morning’s transformation) on the floor. The maid gasped and held her hands to her mouth, then fled the room with an embarrassed cry.
A slow smile pulled at Gifford’s mouth. “She thinks we consummated.”
Jane’s face burned as she snatched the book to the safety of her arms. “My lord, I will leave you to properly attire yourself. A carriage is waiting to take us to our honeymoon.” (The word honeymoon was quite new at this point in history, and actually involved a month’s supply of mead for the newlyweds rather than a romantic getaway, but for the sake of delicate sensibilities, we’ll pretend honeymoon meant then what it does now.)
Gifford held the trousers over his hips once more. “I anticipate your books are waiting for us as well.”
“Don’t worry. I left space for you.” She took her book and fled.
Jane wasn’t sure when Gifford had packed, or if Billingsly had done it for him, but her new husband’s trunks were in the stowage area on top of the carriage. There hadn’t been room for her books up there, so she’d been forced to construct a small wall of religious, scientific, and philosophical texts between herself and Gifford.
“Is all this really necessary?” he asked when he arrived and spotted her fortress of books.
“Considering that this country house they’re sending us to belongs to the Dudleys, and I’ve seen the way your family treats books, I couldn’t be sure there would be enough to keep myself occupied during the day.” She stroked the spine of the nearest book: An Analysis of E?ians’ Paintings and Their Impact on Society: Volume Three.
“How many of these will you finish by the time we arrive?” He eyed them warily, as though the books were some sort of army of knowledge. Some of the corners were rather sharp, she supposed.
“None.” She sniffed and indicated the lantern, which cast only a dim glow over her side of the carriage. “It’s not bright enough to read by and I don’t care to ruin my vision. Instead I’m going to knit until I’m too tired to care that I’m trapped in a carriage. I didn’t have the luxury of sleeping all day. If you were truly a charmingly tipsy gentleman, you’d have insisted we rest tonight and make the journey in the morning.”
“But I’d be a horse.”
“And infinitely more useful for pulling the carriage.”
“That would violate rule number two: no bridling the horse.”
“Carriage horses use halters.”
“Did you learn that from a book?”
The carriage jolted and they were carried down the long drive. “I learned it,” she said, “from being observant.” That wasn’t half as cutting as she’d have preferred, but he wasn’t paying attention anyway. (Thus making her point.) He’d tied his hair into a tail and had his head leaned back on the high seat. As they drove past a street lantern, his profile was silhouetted: it was the perfect blend of soft around his mouth and sharp over his (curse-free) nose. The fan of his unfairly long eyelashes flashed as he opened his eyes and glanced at her.