Vanity by Jane Feather Page A

The earl had become a trifle possessive in recent weeks, and she’d intended to tease him a little, to show him that she was not to be taken for granted. But, instead, she’d agreed to cancel her previous arrangements and accede to a private assignation that would inevitably end in her bedchamber.

    P hilip handed her into her coach with the Drayton arms emblazoned on the panels and set off to walk home down Pall Mall. Wyndham House stood on the south side of St. James’s Square, a handsome mansion that never failed to give the earl a surge of pride in his heritage. He preferred it to Wyndham Manor, a house he privately considered an unimposing and inconvenient country seat with all the disadvantages of early Elizabethan architecture. However, he had plans to add a Palladian facade and a new wing, which would give the house more consequence.
    His brothers had both loved the manor, he remembered. They’d probably turn in their respective graves if they could see the architect’s plans for improvements. The idea made him smile as he ascended the steps to his own front door.
    His wife was hastening down the stairs as he entered the hall. “Oh, my lord, I trust you haven’t forgotten that we expect my father and the Westons for dinner,” she said, offering him a timid smile.
    “No, I haven’t forgotten,” he replied. “But did I not also desire you to invite Lord and Lady Alworthy?”
    Letitia’s color ebbed. “Yes, yes, indeed, sir. But I thought it was perhaps unwise—”
    “Let us conduct this discussion in the salon,” her husband interrupted icily as a footman crossed the hall to the dining room.
    Letitia followed him into the salon, her eyes frightened in her pale face. She was a plain woman, five years her husband’s senior. Her predilection for sweetmeats showed in her ample waistline and the folds beneath her chin.
    “Now, let me understand this, my dear,” Philip saidsoftly as she closed the doors behind them. “I directed you to invite the Alworthys, and you took it upon yourself to ignore my order. Is that correct?”
    “Oh, no … no … not precisely, sir. It was not precisely like that,” Letitia stammered.
    “Then, pray, how precisely was it?” There was no sweetness on his face now, no curve to the full lips, no light in the slate-gray eyes.
    “My father … my father and Lord Alworthy have an old quarrel,” Letitia explained, her color fluttering in her cheeks like the wings of a wounded bird. “I felt it might offend both of them if they were invited to dine at the same table.”
    “So you took it upon yourself to go against my express commands,” he repeated softly.
“Come here!”
    The shocking contrast of the shouted command with his previous softness drained all color from her face, and she flinched, cowering against the door.
    “Did you hear me?” His voice was once again soft and silky.
    In terror Letitia took a step toward him, one hand raised to ward off the blow she knew was coming.
    “Put your hand down,” he commanded in the same tone, and his eyes were alight with a vicious pleasure as he saw her terror and her helplessness.
    Whimpering, she lowered her arm, ducking her head, hunching her shoulders.
    His hand lifted and he watched her shake, but he had no intention of marking her face, not when they had dinner guests arriving within the hour. Her father was an ineffectual fool, but even he might remonstrate at his daughter’s bruises.
    Philip lowered his hand slowly and instead caught her wrist, twisting it, watching the pain blossom in her tear-filled eyes. When she cried out, he released her.
    “In future, when I give you an instruction, you will carry it out to the letter,” he said coldly. “Won’t you, my dear?”
    Letitia was sobbing, massaging her wrist that hung limp and useless, the strength wrenched from it.
    “Won’t you my dear?” he repeated.
    “Yes, my lord,” she whispered through her tears.
    He stood looking at her as she shrank back