Merely Married by Patricia Coughlin

Author:Patricia Coughlin
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 10

Three consecutive mornings, Adrian dragged himself out of bed to breakfast with his wife, only to find that she had already gone off to do whatever it was she spent her days doing. He had every right to ask what that was, of course, but he refused. Instead, each morning he rose a half hour earlier, and so, apparently, did she.

She was avoiding him. He was convinced of it. Staying away all day and only returning home in time to dress for another evening out and about. Not surprisingly, his new bride was quite in demand by society. The curiosity factor at work, he thought cynically. And, thanks to his advice, she was rapidly mastering the art of turning all that attention, favorable and otherwise, to her advantage.

She seemed resolved not to decline a single invitation. And so their evenings were a whirl of theater and opera appearances, bracketed by tedious dinner parties before and pointless gatherings after. All in the distasteful interest of greasing her sister’s slide into matrimony. There was nothing forcing him to accompany her, but how the blazes was he to seduce a woman he never set eyes on?

Besides, to add to his confusion, he found himself actually enjoying time spent with a woman outside of bed.

So while her mission, lining up prospective prey, appeared to be progressing nicely, his own had yet to make it out of the starting gate. The fact that she so obviously did not trust herself alone with him should have fortified him. Instead, Adrian felt as if Leah treated him like an afterthought, a damn prop, about as indispensable as one of the beaded reticules that completed each of her outfits.

Like a husband.

But no more, he thought fiercely, as he made his way downstairs at the ungodly hour of eight in the morning. He was tired, frustrated and blurry-eyed, but he was determined that she was not going to escape today. Somehow, some way, he was going to get her attention.

At the foot of the stairs, in the exact spot where his morning paper ought to be, was a pot of daffodils. One more seemingly inconsequential inroad on his household and his life. Adrian scowled, then grinned suddenly, and plucked the tallest of the bright yellow blooms.

It was too soon for daffodils, of course, but these bulbs, he’d been told, had been sheltered and coddled and forced into early bloom in a sunny patch out by the stables. His initial response had been to snort and wonder aloud if his groomsman’s preoccupation with daffodils explained why the stables were such a disaster.

Now he gazed at the blooms in a new, self-serving light. What, he asked himself as he impulsively clamped the stem between his front teeth, could be more insipidly romantic than greeting his lady love with a fresh flower?

He was so busy congratulating himself on his creativity that he paid no heed to the sounds emanating from the dining room until he had already crossed the threshold. Then it was too late.

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