Offended, Ellie lurched backward. “What, precisely, are you attempting to say?”
“You, madam, do not know how to be a wife.”
“I have only been a wife for one day,” she all but growled. “What do you expect?”
All of a sudden Charles felt the complete cad. He had promised her time to accustom herself to marriage, and here he was snapping at her like a dragon. He let out a soft sigh of regret. “I am sorry, Ellie. I don't know what came over me.”
She looked startled by his apology, and then her face softened. “Do not trouble yourself over it, my lord. It has been a stressful few days for us all. And…”
“And what?” he prompted when she failed to complete her sentence.
She cleared her throat. “Nothing. Merely that I suppose you could not have been expecting to find me this morning with my head in an oven.”
“It was something of a shock,” he said mildly.
Ellie fell silent. After a few moments, she opened her mouth, then shut it.
One corner of Charles's mouth turned up. “Did you want to say something?”
She shook her head. “No.”
“You did.”
“It wasn't important.”
“Oh, come now, Ellie. You wanted to defend your kitchen skills, or oven skills, or whatever you want to call them, didn't you?”
Her chin jutted out ever so slightly. “I can assure you that I have adjusted oven racks a million times before.”
“You've hardly been alive long enough to have performed the task a million times.”
She let out an outraged gasp. “Am I not allowed to speak in hyperbole?”
“Only,” he said, a bit too smoothly, “if you are talking about me.”
Ellie's face slid into a smirk. “Oh, Charles,” she exclaimed, “I feel as if we have known each other for a million years.” Her tone grew more ironic. “I am that weary of your company.”
He chuckled. “My thoughts were more along the lines of, ‘Oh, Charles, you are the kindest—’”
“Ha!”
“‘—most dashing man to ever walk the planet. If I lived a thousand years, I—’”
“I hope I do live a thousand years,” Ellie retorted. “Then I should be a wizened old crone whose only purpose in life is to annoy you.”
“You should make a fetching old crone.” He cocked his head and pretended to study her face. “I can see just where your wrinkles will settle. Right here by your eyes, and—”
She batted away his hand, which was tracing the path of her future wrinkles. “You are no gentleman.”
He shrugged. “I am when it suits me.”
“I cannot imagine when that is. So far I have seen you drunk—”
“I had quite a good reason for that particular bout of alcohol,” he said with a wave of his hand. “Besides, my little drunken stupor brought me you, did it not?”
“That is not the point!”
“Pray do not work yourself into a snit,” he said in a weary voice.
“I am not in a snit.” She drew back and crossed her arms.
“You do a fine imitation of one, then.”
Her eyes narrowed and her lips curved into a confident smile. “My snits are far more lethal than this. You would be well advised not to encourage one.”
He sighed. “I suppose I will have to kiss you.”
“Whaaaaat?”
Charles grabbed her arm and pulled her quickly up against him until the length of her body molded against his. “It seems the only way to shut you up,” he drawled.
“You—” But she couldn't finish her sentence, for his lips were on hers, and they were doing the most devilish things… They tickled the corner of her mouth, then caressed the line of her jaw, and Ellie felt as if she were melting. Yes, she thought wildly, that could be the only explanation, for her legs felt like butter, and she swayed into him, and she must be on fire, because she felt so very very hot, and the word, “Fire,” echoed in her brain and—
Charles let go of her so suddenly that she tumbled into a chair. “Did you hear that?” he asked sharply.
Ellie was far too dazed to respond.
“Fire!” came the shouts.
“Good God!” Charles burst out, heading for the door.
“It's your Aunt Cordelia,” Ellie managed to say. “Didn't you say she always shouts, ‘Fire’?”
But Charles was already sprinting down the hall. Ellie stood and shrugged, not really believing there was any danger—not after her introduction to Cordelia the day before. Still, this was her new home, and if Charles thought there was something to worry about, she ought to investigate. Taking a deep breath, she picked up her skirts and ran down the hall after him.
Ellie skidded around three corners in her chase before she realized that she was following him back to the kitchens. “Oh, no,” she groaned, feeling suddenly very sick to her stomach. Not the oven. Please not the oven.
She felt the smoke even before she saw the door to the kitchen. It was thick and acrid, and it stung her lungs within seconds. With a grim heart she turned that last corner. Servants were handing off buckets of water, and Charles was in the thick of it, shouting out orders and running in and out of the kitchen as he hurled water onto the flames.
Ellie's heart caught in her throat as she watched him dash into the blaze. “No!” she heard herself shout, and without thinking she ran through the throng of servants and into the kitchen. “Charles!” she screamed, tugging at his shirt.
He whirled around, his eyes filling with horror and rage when he saw her next to him. “Get out!” he yelled.
“Not unless you come with me.” Ellie grabbed a bucket of water from a servant and threw it on a small blaze that had jumped from the floor to a table. She could put out that small section of the fire, at least.
Charles grabbed her arm and began to drag her to the door. “If you value your life, get out!”
Ellie ignored him and picked up another bucket. “We almost have it contained!” she yelled, charging forward with her water.
He grabbed the back of her dress, stopping her short and causing the contents of her bucket to fly forward, landing rather neatly on the fire. “I meant that I will kill you,” he hissed, hauling her toward the door. Before Ellie realized what was happening, she was on her behind in the hall, and Charles was still in the kitchen, fighting the blaze.
She tried to reenter the kitchen, but Charles must have said something to the servants, because they very efficiently blocked her way. After about a minute of trying to worm her way back in, Ellie finally gave up and joined the bucket line, refusing to consign herself to the impotent position Charles seemed determined to assign her.
After a few minutes more, she heard the telltale sizzle of a blaze put out, and the people in the bucket line began to exhale so loudly that Ellie wondered if any of them had remembered to breathe. They all looked exhausted and relieved, and she decided then and there that her first official act as Countess of Billington would be to make sure that all of these people received some kind of token of appreciation for their efforts. Extra pay, perhaps, or maybe an additional half day off.
The crowd thinned out at the entrance to the kitchen, and Ellie wormed her way forward. She had to get a look at the oven and see if she could somehow determine what had caused the blaze. She knew that everyone would believe that the fire was her fault—she only hoped that they would think she had done a shoddy job fixing the oven and not that she had purposefully set the fire. Better to be thought foolish than evil.
When she entered the kitchen, Charles was in the far corner, conferring with a footman. His back, thank goodness, was to her, and she darted over to the oven, which was still letting off a bit of smoke, and stuck her head in.
She gasped at what she saw. The rack had been moved to its highest position—even higher than it had been before Ellie had fixed it. Any food placed in the oven would catch fire. It was inevitable.
Ellie stuck her head in a little f
urther, wanting to get a better look, but then she heard a sharp curse behind her. Before she had time to react, she felt herself being yanked backward, and she had no doubt as to who the yanked was.
She turned around warily. Charles was standing over her, and his eyes were blazing with fury.
“I have to tell you something,” she whispered urgently. “The oven. It's—”
“Not one word,” he bit out. His voice was hoarse from the smoke, but that did little to diminish his rage. “Not a single, damned word.”
“But—”
“That's one too many.” He turned on his heel and stalked out of the room.
Ellie felt traitorous tears stinging her eyes, and she had no idea whether they were caused by hurt or anger. She hoped it was anger, because she didn't much like this feeling in the pit of her stomach that he had somehow rejected her. She rose to her feet and walked to the kitchen doorway so that she could hear what Charles was saying to the servants in the hall.
“…thank you for endangering your lives to help me save the kitchen and indeed all of Wycombe Abbey. It was a noble and selfless act you performed today.” Charles paused and cleared his throat. “I must ask, however, were any of you present when the flames began?”
“I had gone to the garden to collect herbs,” replied a kitchen maid. “When I returned, Miss Claire was screaming about the fire.”
“Claire?” Charles's eyes narrowed. “What was Claire doing down here?”
Ellie stepped forward. “I believe she came down earlier when…” She faltered for a moment under the weight of his thunderous glare, but then she reminded herself that she had absolutely nothing of which to be ashamed and continued. “…when we were all gathered in the kitchen.”
Every servant's eyes were on her, and Ellie felt their collective condemnation. After all, she had been the one to adjust the rack.
Charles turned away from her without a word. “Get me Claire,” he said to a footman. Then he turned to Ellie. “A word with you,” he barked, and stalked back toward the kitchen. Before he reached the doorway, however, he turned around and said to the assembled group, “The rest of you may go about your duties. Those of you who are sooty may feel free to avail yourselves of the bathing facilities in the guest wing.” When none of the servants immediately moved, he said sharply, “Good day.”
They all ran off.
Ellie followed her husband into the kitchen. “That was very kind of you to allow the servants to use your bathing facilities,” she said quietly, wanting to get in the first word before he started to rail at her.
“They're our bathing facilities,” he snapped, “and don't think you're going to distract me.”
“I hadn't meant to. I can't help it if you did a kind deed.”
Charles exhaled, trying to give his heart time to resume a normal rhythm. Christ, what a day it had been, and it wasn't even noon yet. He'd woken up, found his wife with her head stuck in an oven, gotten into his first argument with her, kissed her soundly (and ended up wanting much, much more than that) only to be interrupted by a damned fire that she appeared to have started.
His throat was raw, his back was killing him, and his head pounded like a gavel. He looked down at his arms, which appeared to be shaking. Marriage, he decided, was not proving to be a healthful endeavor.
He turned his gaze to his wife, who looked as if she didn't know whether to smile or frown. Then he looked back over at the oven, which was still spewing smoke.
He groaned. A year from now he'd be dead. He was sure of it.
“Is something wrong?” Ellie asked quietly.
He turned to her with a disbelieving expression. “Is something wrong?” he echoed. “Is something WRONG?” This time it was more of a boom.
She frowned. “Well, obviously something, er, some things, are wrong, but I was speaking in a more general sense, you see. I—”
“Eleanor, my bloody kitchen is burned to a crisp!” he fairly yelled. “I fail to see anything general about it.”
Her chin jutted out. “It wasn't my fault.”
Silence.
She crossed her arms and stood her ground. “The rack had been moved. It wasn't where I left it. That oven didn't stand a chance of not catching fire. I don't know who—”
“I don't give a damn about the rack. One, you shouldn't have tampered with the oven in the first place. Two” —now he was ticking off on his fingers— “you shouldn't have run in here while the fire was raging. Three, you damn well shouldn't have stuck your head back in the bloody oven while it was still hot. Four—”
“That is quite enough,” Ellie bit out.
“I'll tell you when it's enough! You—” Charles stopped himself from continuing, but only because he realized he was shaking with rage. And, perhaps, with a little latent fear.
“You're making a list about me,” she accused. “You're making a list of all of my shortcomings. And,” she added, wagging her finger at him, “you cursed twice in one sentence.”
“God help me,” he moaned. “God help me.”
“Hmmmph,” she said, somehow managing to incorporate a world of scathing reprovement in that one semi-syllable. “He certainly won't if you continue cursing like that.”
“I believe you once told me you weren't overly fussy about such things,” he ground out.
She crossed her arms. “That was before I was a wife. Now I am expected to be fussy about such things.”
“God save me from wives,” he groaned.
“Then you shouldn't have married one,” she snapped.
“Ellie, if you don't shut your mouth now, God help me, I'm going to wring your neck.”
Ellie rather thought that she'd made her opinions clear on the possibility that God was going to help him, so she contented herself with muttering, “One curse is understandable, but two…Well, two is really too much.”
She wasn't certain, but she thought she saw Charles roll his eyes to the ceiling and mutter, “Take me now.”
That did it. “Oh for the love of God,” Ellie snapped uncharacteristically taking the Lord's name in vain. After all, she had been raised by a reverend. “I'm not so bad that death is preferable to marriage with me.”
He leveled a look in her direction that told her he wasn't so sure.
“This marriage doesn't have to be permanent,” she burst out, humiliated fury making her words shrill. “I could march out that door right this second and obtain an annulment.”
“What door?” he drawled. “All I see is a charred piece of wood.”
“Your sense of humor leaves much to be desired.”
“My sense of humor— Where the hell are you going?”
Ellie didn't reply, just continued on her way past the charred piece of wood she preferred to think of as a door.
“Get back here!”
She kept going. Well, she would have kept going if his hand hadn't found the sash of her dress and yanked her back against him. Ellie heard a ripping sound, and for the second time that day, she found herself pressed up against the hard length of her husband's body. She couldn't see him, but she could feel him intimately against her back, and she could smell him—she would swear she could smell him, even through the lingering smoke.
“You will not get an annulment,” he ordered, his lips practically touching her ear.
“I'm surprised you care,” she retorted, trying to ignore the way her skin was tingling where his breath warmed her.
“Oh, I care,” he growled.
“You care about your blasted money!”
“As you care about yours, so we had better make the best of this.”
Ellie was saved from having to admit that he was right by a loud “ahem” from the direction of the doorway. She looked up to see Claire, who was standing with her arms crossed. A huge, irritated frown covered the girl's face.
“Oh, good day, Claire,” Ellie said with a tight smile, trying for all the world to appear as if she were quite pleased to be standing in this extremely awkwar
d position in the middle of a burned-out kitchen.
“My lady,” Claire replied flatly.
“Claire!” Charles said with a fair amount of feeling, releasing Ellie so quickly that she bumped into the wall. He walked toward his cousin, who beamed at him.
Ellie merely rubbed her elbow where she'd hit the wall and muttered all sorts of unflattering things about her husband.
“Claire,” Charles said again, “I understand that you were the one who first discovered the fire.”
“Indeed. It began not ten minutes after you and your new wife exited the kitchen.”
Ellie narrowed her eyes. Was that a slight note of derision she'd heard in Claire's voice as she said the word “wife”? She knew that girl didn't like her!
“Do you have any idea what caused it?” Charles asked.
Claire looked surprised that he'd even asked. “Why, I…well…” She looked meaningfully over at Ellie.
“Just say it, Claire,” Ellie ground out. “You think I set the fire.”
“I do not think you did it on purpose,” Claire replied, placing her hand over her heart.
“We know that Ellie would never do such a thing,” Charles said.
“Accidents happen to everyone,” Claire murmured, casting a pitying look toward Ellie.
Ellie wanted to strangle her. She didn't particularly like being condescended to by a chit of fourteen years.
“I am certain you thought you knew what you were doing,” Claire continued.
At that point Ellie realized she had a choice to make. She could leave the room and take a bath, or stay and kill Claire. With great reluctance, she decided to bathe. She turned to Charles, affected her best shrinking violet posture, and said, “If you'll excuse me, I believe I will retire to my chamber. I'm feeling terribly faint.”
Charles eyed her suspiciously and said under his breath, “You've never fainted a day in your life.”
“How would you know?” Ellie returned in an equally low voice. “You didn't even know I existed until last week.”
“It feels like forever.”
Ellie stuck her nose in the air and whispered sharply, “I concur.” Then she straightened her spine and swept from the room, hoping that her grand exit wasn't too terribly marred by the fact that she was covered with soot, limping slightly, and wearing a dress that was now torn in three places.