Lady Eve's Indiscretion by Grace Burrowes

Author:Grace Burrowes [Burrowes, Grace]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Sourcebooks, Inc.
Published: 2012-11-12T23:00:00+00:00

Seven

Deene’s wife was not asleep on his shoulder as she’d have him believe, and she was nervous.

Like a procession of sensory still lifes, his memories of the day told him as much:

Eve’s hand, slender and cold in his when he’d put the wedding ring on her finger.

Eve’s cheek, equally cool when he’d been unable to deny himself the smallest display of dominion outside the church—and she had not kissed him in return.

Eve, clinging in her oldest brother’s embrace for a desperately long moment, until St. Just’s countess had touched her husband’s arm and embraced Eve herself.

A whiff of mock orange coming to Deene’s nose and bringing with it a sense of calm until he saw the way Eve gripped her wine glass so tightly he thought the delicate stem might break.

He’d been prepared for bridal nerves. He’d even been prepared for his own nerves—this was the only wedding night he ever intended to have, after all—but he had not been prepared for his wife to be on the verge of strong hysterics.

A change of plans was called for, or neither one of them would be sane by bedtime.

“Evie.” He brushed her hair back from her temple. “Time to wake up, love. We must greet our staff.”

She straightened and peered out the window. “So many of them, and this is not even your family seat.”

Our family seat. He did not emphasize the point.

“Let me pin you up.”

She turned on the seat while he fashioned something approximating a bun at her nape. The moment was somehow marital, and to Deene, imbued with significance as a result. Deene had laced up, dressed, and undressed any number of ladies, but there was nothing flirtatious in the way Eve presented to him the pale, downy nape of her neck. He kissed her there and felt a shiver go through her.

“You are going to be the sort of husband who is indiscriminate with the placement of his lips on my person, aren’t you?”

She did not sound pleased.

“When we are private, probably. You always smell luscious, and I am only a man.”

His wife looked surprised, but before she could argue with him, he handed her down and began moving with her along the line of waiting servants standing on the drive. They beamed and bobbed at her. She smiled back with such warmth and graciousness that Deene revised his earlier estimation of her state of mind.

She hadn’t been anxious; she’d been terrified of what was to come—and likely still was. As soon as he scooped her up against his chest to carry her over the threshold, all the warmth left her expression, and the corners of her mouth went tight again.

Deene did not set her down when they gained the foyer but addressed the rotund factotum who’d hurried ahead to get the door for them.

“Belt, we’ll take a tray in our sitting room, and my lady will be needing a soaking bath as soon as may be. We’ll not be disturbed thereafter unless we ring. Understood?”

“Very good, my lord.

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