An Inconvenient Match by Susanna Malcolm

Author:Susanna Malcolm
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: boss lady, sexual tension, reluctant husband, sexual empowerment, class differences, bad sex
Publisher: Susanna Malcolm
Published: 2019-02-28T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER NINE

If Honora feared further disruption of her household routine by her husband's presence, she need not have been concerned. On his first evening there they ate their supper à deux, the dowager and Margaret having gone out to their own evening engagement with close friends. Ash was thoroughly enamored of the food, eating with a hitherto unforeseen gusto. She spent most of her meal watching him eat, amazed at the unguarded joy on his face. When they adjourned to the drawing room, he took a seat close to the fire, though the air was hardly chilled, and promptly fell asleep, hands folded across his middle. It was where Honora left him two hours later, when she went up to seek her own bed.

The rest of the week continued much the same. She was rather astonished at his domesticity, having assumed he would wish to continue the manly pursuits he'd held so dear whilst at the bachelor lodgings, activities which she could only guess at. Instead he seemed as tame and content as a housecat, finding pleasure simply in being well-fed and warm.

And yet he intruded upon her thoughts, the mere knowledge of his physical presence elsewhere in the house causing her usual fierce concentration to falter, while simultaneously keeping her from removing herself to her offices.

On the day that they would attend their first ball together, Ash came to her study. She marveled at his easy elegance; he took no special care in his appearance, and yet when he walked into the room her breath froze in her throat at the sight of him. It hardly seemed fair.

He looked around, taking in the shelves full of books, a stack of newspapers on a side table, her enormous desk covered in ledgers and folios and various papers. Finally he rested his gaze upon her and smiled in that crooked way he had, one corner of his mouth lifting higher than the other. Honora schooled her features, struggling not to show any reaction to his presence.

“Tell me you aren't hiding.” He leaned over her desk.

“Hiding?” she asked, puzzled, still dazzled by that grin.

“Tonight? The ball? Your debut as Countess of Ashland?” He picked up a paper weight and jiggled it in the palm of his hand. “What on earth is this?”

“It's raw copper. From one of our Cornish mines.”

He shrugged and set down the green-tarnished rock, then took a seat at one of the two chairs before her desk. “Shouldn't you be primping or...” he waved a hand in the air before his face to indicate the vagaries of female grooming.

“I beg your pardon?” Honora surreptitiously ran a hand over her hair. It felt well in place and as far as she knew, she had no visible stains on her person.

His brow creased in a tiny frown. “Don't women need hours to prepare for this sort of thing? Seems Mother and Margaret started preparing yesterday.”

Honora suppressed a sigh. Mother and Margaret were fortunate enough to have no other obligations other than primping and preparing.

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