Convenient Wife, Pleasured Lady by Carole Mortimer

Author:Carole Mortimer
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Publisher: Harlequin Enterprises, Australia Pty Ltd
Published: 2005-09-17T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER FIVE

“Where the deuce have you been?”

Alice calmly handed the bonnet and gloves that matched the green of her gown to Reynolds, the butler, before turning to face the man who had been her husband in name only for the past week. Daniel stood in the doorway to the drawing room as he looked across at her with brooding intensity.

It had been a long, trying week. No doubt for both of them, Alice privately admitted. Her hopes of a loving relationship developing between the two of them had been dashed time and time again by Daniel’s mercurial moods, one minute politely attentive, the next impatient and cutting because of her newly found resolve.

“I have displeased you by going out in the carriage, my lord?” she returned lightly as she joined him in the drawing room and heard the door softly close behind her.

“You are late returning for luncheon.” Daniel was scowling darkly as he moved to stand in front of the empty fireplace, the weather too clement to warrant it being lit. “And you did not leave word as to where you were going,” he added disapprovingly.

Alice raised her eyebrows. “Did I need to?”

“Of course—!” Daniel bit off his expletive, knowing he was as furious with himself as he was with Alice. For being concerned by her absence. “For all I knew, you could have been set upon by footpads. Or worse.” A nerve pulsed in his tightly clenched jaw.

“And would my informing someone as to my destination have prevented either of those things from happening, my lord?”

“You are being deliberately difficult, Alice.”

“Am I?” she replied before moving to sit in one of the armchairs to look up at him expectantly.

Daniel held on to his temper with difficulty. Something he seemed to have been doing rather a lot this past week. For one reason or another. And all those reasons had to do with the annoying young woman who was now his wife.

Why couldn’t Alice have been the shy and biddable wife of his imaginings? A woman who would happily spend her days doing embroidery or arranging flowers? Her nights spent in bed with him in an effort to provide him with his heir…

Alice did none of those things. Instead she spent her days going about the estate visiting his workers and the tenants farmers, often coming back with a list of things needed by one tenant or another, which she then presented to Daniel so that he could pass it on to his estate manager.

As for her nights…

Daniel had made a promise to himself after that incident on their wedding night that he would not enter Alice’s bedchamber again until she invited him to do so. It was an invitation that had so far not been forthcoming.

Instead Daniel was left to watch as his young wife charmed every member of his household, from the stiffly formal Reynolds to the lowliest housemaid. To witness the warmth with which Alice was greeted by the villagers on the two afternoons they had

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