The Sinner by C.J. Archer Page A

the road. He asked how she fared, if he could get her anything, and what she liked to do, to eat and drink. She asked him about his house, his family and servants. She learned that his mother, the dowager countess, was the only member of his family living at Oxley House. Indeed, he was an only child with three other siblings dead and buried years ago.
    Throughout all of these brief conversations, he spoke like the fop again, in a simpering voice that always sounded as if he were on the verge of breaking into laughter. He seemed to find amusement in everything, from the birds flitting past to the beggars sitting on the side of the road. He threw coins at all of them. Every single one, and there were dozens. His good humor grated after a while. She wished he would dispense with the ruse now that she'd seen the other side of him. Was he going to keep up his foppishness for their entire marriage?
    After two days they reached Oxley House. She had expected it to be magnificent, yet she'd not envisaged it to be quite as grand as the glittering mansion nestled on a slight rise at the edge of a lush forest. It was a modern building, although off to the east on another rise she spotted an old castle keep, much like Slade Hall. The new Oxley House shimmered like a jewel in the sunshine. There was so much glass! She'd never seen any place with that number of windows before. She couldn't even begin to count them all. The main part of the house was three stories high, the towers at either end stretching to four. Decorative crenellations and a stone carving of the family crest topped the roofline, interspersed with dozens upon dozens of chimneys, shooting majestically into the sky. Fittingly, the house itself was a warm brick that appeared golden in the late afternoon sunlight.
    "Welcome to your new home, my lady," Oxley said, drawing Charger alongside the cart. "I hope you like it."
    "I do," she said on a breath. "It is a jewel, my lord." She had the urge to thank him again for rescuing her, but he'd asked her to stop the habit the day before. He'd insisted that she was doing him a favor by finally ending his bachelor days. She'd chosen to ignore the heavy way he'd said the word 'bachelor' and the dimming of the light in his eyes. It wasn't her fault that all noblemen must marry eventually.
    "Drive up to the front door," Oxley said to the driver. "I'll be taking my bride through the proper way."
    A dozen servants spilled out of the house as they approached. They greeted their master and he greeted them in return, before they efficiently went about their business of tending to the horses or taking trunks inside. Oxley helped her down from the cart and was about to escort her inside when a thin, crooked man, who must have been in his seventh decade at least, met them on the steps.
    He bowed. Or that is, Cat assumed the nodding of his head was a bow. His back seemed to be permanently fixed in that crooked position, poor man. "Good afternoon, my lord. The guest rooms are already prepared for Lady Slade, sir."
    How had Oxley organized it all from the road? He'd not sent any of his men ahead. If he'd sent word, it hadn't been with one of them. Cat felt rather relieved. The thought of arriving unannounced had made her feel a little sick. At least this way his mother would have fair warning to grow used to the idea of a nobody marrying her son.
    "Guest chambers?" Oxley echoed.
    "There has not been enough time to remove all of the dowager's belongings, my lord," the crooked man said.
    Cat winced. Throwing the countess out of rooms that she must have occupied most of her life wasn't the best way to start their new relationship. "There's no hurry," she said. "Please allow Lady Oxley to move in her own time." Or not at all. A house of that size must have many bedchambers. Cat could live in one of them until Lady Oxley was ready to move of her own free will.
    "Crane, this is Lady Slade," Oxley said. "Lady Slade, this is Crane, my house steward. Anything