April Kihlstrom by The Dutiful Wife Page A

her tonight? How would it feel? To what would it lead? Mama refused to tell her anything more than to give Lord Rothwood free rein and that she might find she liked it very much and that if she did not, it was nevertheless her duty to pretend that she had done so. But Beatrix didn’t want to have to pretend! She wanted to feel whatever it was her mother so clearly felt when she was with her father. She wanted that same flush to her cheeks and laughter in her eyes that she saw when her parents would emerge from one of their private chats in the bedroom on many an afternoon. She wanted to feel for Lord Rothwood and have him feel for her what she saw in her parents’ eyes when they looked at each other. Just so long as it did not blind her to his faults and put their children at risk! There were limits, after all, to what one should accept.
    That thought brought Beatrix back to the present moment and Lord Rothwood, who was offering her a treat from his own plate. She allowed him to slip it into her mouth with his fingers and could not resist licking the tips of those fingers with her tongue. His eyes flared wide; she saw what was surely desire in them, and a smile crossed his face that must have matched her own. It would seem that he was as eager for their wedding night as she was. Surely that was a good sign?
    There was a shyness about her as Beatrix said good-bye to her family and the local well-wishers who had joined them to celebrate the wedding. Excitement, too, as Rothwood handed her into the carriage and she was alone with him for the first time since they had taken their wedding vows. He did not sit beside her as she rather expected, but took instead the seat opposite, his back to the horses. It seemed he wanted to be able to see her face as they rode and that unsettled Beatrix because she did not understand why.
    From everything she had overheard her brothers say, when they thought no girls were around, a man wanted more than anything else to hold a woman, to feel her against him, not to stare at her face or listen to her speak. But then her brothers were all younger than she was and perhaps they didn’t know quite as much as they thought they did. Rothwood seemed content to simply regard her with a lazy smile. Beatrix found herself smiling back.
    “Where are we headed?” she asked.
    “I thought to take you to my family estate,” he said.
    “Oh.”
    “I, er, thought you liked the countryside.”
    “I do. It’s just . . . ”
    “Just what?”
    “Just that I’ve never been to London and I should like to see it at least once in my life.”
    There. She’d said it. What would he think? Ought she have simply agreed to go to his country estate because that was what he wanted to do and a wife should do what her husband wanted? That was what Mama said. On the other hand, that was how Mama lived her life and look where it had gotten her. The family was always short of funds and always worrying about how to pay bills because Mama never told Papa what she thought of his gambling.
    Of course there was a great difference between Papa gambling their money away and Rothwood wishing to go to his estate rather than London. Still, one ought to begin as one means to go on, oughtn’t one?
    * * *
    Rothwood was not quite certain what to make of Beatrix speaking as she was. To be sure, she was making no demands precisely and yet it was evident that if he did not take her to London, she would be greatly disappointed. Well, what was there to object to in that? It could be interesting showing her London and then they could retire to his estate where he could leave her. Having seen how dirty and noisy and smelly London was, she was far less likely to object. And if a few of the ladies snubbed her for their hasty marriage, all the better. It would make her far more likely to be content with life in the country, would it not?
    It all sounded reasonable, so why he was so uneasy, Edmund could not have said. His new wife had not done