Merely the Groom

  Gillian held her breath in anticipation. “No?”

  “No,” he replied.

  “Then, I see no reason to change,” she told him. “For I am more than satisfied with the lady’s maid I’ve currently engaged.”

  “Then, I’ve no need of references?” He teased her with the towel, retracing the path his fingers had taken with the soft cloth.

  “No,” she managed, her breath ragged with need. “For I have great need of you.”

  “Now?” he asked.

  “And for a great many years to come,” she pronounced with a sigh as he lavished her aching center with attention.

  Chapter Twenty-four

  “Let me take you a button-hole lower.”

  —William Shakespeare, 1564-1616

  Love’s Labour’s Lost

  Gillian entered her bedchamber to find her lady’s maid had laid out an evening gown and undergarments for her to wear.

  “I thought we’d dress for dinner and give the staff a chance to get a look at my bride.”

  Gillian turned to find Colin lounging in the doorway. He was already dressed in evening clothes. “You were hiding me from the staff this morning,” Gillian quipped. “Things have changed beyond recognition in the passing of a day.”

  “You weren’t dressed to meet the staff this morning,” Colin reminded her. “And I wasn’t hiding you.” He winked. “I was shielding you.”

  “And tonight, you wish to show me off,” she concluded. “I’ve kept you in bed all day.” Colin leered at her. Gillian batted her eyelashes at him. “Not all day,” she said. “I did spend a pleasant hour or so in the bath.”

  “And now that you’re all clean, I thought you might enjoy a chance to sit down to dinner.” He walked up behind her, encircled her waist with his arm, and pulled her back against him.

  “Isn’t it a bit early for dinner?” she asked.

  Colin buried his nose in her hair and breathed in her perfume. “We’re keeping country hours,” he reminded her. “And I’m hungry. We haven’t eaten more than a bite or two all day. I need sustenance in order to keep up with a wife suffering from insatiable curiosity.” He tugged on her earlobe with his teeth. “And we might as well give the staff something to do.”

  “Rather than just something to talk about.” Gillian turned to face him, and then reached up and put her arms around his neck.

  Colin chuckled. “A woman of wit. I like that in a wife.”

  “A man who appreciates it,” she countered. “I like that in a husband.”

  “Then we’re fortunate we’ve made such a good match.” Colin’s voice was low and husky and trembling with emotion.

  “In bed and out of it.”

  “Don’t tempt me,” he warned. “I’m trying to be considerate, and you’re perilously close to ending up back in bed.”

  “I intend to end up back in it,” she informed him. “As soon after dinner as can politely be arranged.”

  “You,” he said, punctuating the pronoun with a kiss, “have probably had enough lovemaking for one day.”

  “Can one ever have enough lovemaking?” she asked.

  “Oh, Gillian...” Colin hugged her close. “Remember you said that, my sweet. Because once the soreness sets in, you’re bound to feel differently in the morning.”

  “Will you?” she challenged.

  Colin shook his head. “It doesn’t usually work that way for men. Chances are I’m going to want to start each morning making love to you for the rest of my life.”

  “Then I hope you live to be ninety,” she said.

  Colin laughed. “If there’s any hope of that happening, I’ll need food. And quickly.” He let go of her, then walked over to the bed and picked up her delicate undergarments. “And since you cannot go down to dinner wearing that,” he nodded toward her silk wrapper, “we’d better get you dressed.”

  “I’ll need a corset,” Gillian told him.

  Colin frowned. She hadn’t needed a corset with her other gowns. “Can’t you go without it?”

  “I’d be delighted to,” she informed him. “But I don’t think you’ll be pleased with the results.”

  “Why don’t we try it and see?” Colin suggested, doing his best to avoid testing his newly acquired lady’s maid skills by having to lace Gillian into a corset.

  Colin slipped her chemise over her head and followed it with her gown, then buttoned her into it.

  But when Gillian turned to face him, he realized why she needed a corset. His heart caught in his throat as his blood rushed to his nether regions and began a steady throbbing against the front of his trousers. “Why didn’t you warn me?”

  “I thought I did.”

  The squared bodice of this particular gown was cut lower than her wedding dress had been—too low to offer any support for her lush bosom or any coverage. Anyone looking down at her could see from bosom to belly button with very little effort. “Where do you keep your corsets?”

  “There should be one in the smaller trunk.”

  Colin returned moments later, gripping one in his large hand.

  Gillian waited while he unbuttoned her, then stepped out of her evening dress.

  “Over or under your chemise?” he asked.

  “That depends on whether you prefer indentions from the boning of the corset on my flesh or wrinkle marks from my chemise,” she informed him.

  “Which is more comfortable for you?” he asked.

  “No corset is more comfortable for me,” she taunted.

  “That’s out of the question with this dress,” he told her. “So, over or under? Which is it?”

  “Under,” she answered perversely, simply because he’d have to touch her bare flesh to lace her in.

  He whisked her chemise back over her head, and Gillian smiled at the reflection in the mirror as she watched Colin tackle the corset and its laces with similar speed. He retrieved her chemise and dress and fitted both into place before he began buttoning the long row of buttons on the back of her evening dress.

  “Are you certain you’ve never done this before?” she asked.

  “Quite certain,” he said, fumbling with the last button. “I’m a man,” he said, by way of explanation. “And we’re generally more interested in the undressing part of the job.” He looked up and met her gaze in their reflection. “But I’m very observant and something of a prodigy when it comes to performing difficult tasks like lacing corsets and buttoning a hundred tiny buttons.”

  “You chose this dress,” Gillian reminded him, smoothing the skirts of the blue silk gown. “You could have chosen one that didn’t require a corset or one that fastened in the front or one with fewer buttons.”

  “None of them fasten in the front,” Colin informed her.

  “What?” Gillian was taken aback. “I have dozens of dresses that fasten in the front.”

  “You should have had your lady’s maid in London pack one or two,” Colin suggested. “For the sake of variety.” He smiled down at his wife. “I’m not a patient man by nature, and I can’t guarantee the safety of your buttons much longer.”

  His comment surprised her. He claimed he wasn’t by nature a patient man, and yet he had shown her nothing but patience and understanding from the beginning.

  He was everything she could ever want in a husband and an exceptional lady’s maid. Gillian smiled at the thought. “If you rip them off, you’ll have to sew them back on.”

  Colin looked horrified by the suggestion.

  “That is one of the responsibilities of a lady’s maid,” she said.

  “Remind me to increase Lavery’s salary when we return to London,” Colin said.

  “Why?” Gillian asked. “Because she’s French?”

  “Because I can’t promise I’ll be nearly as patient with these damned buttons when I don’t have to sew them back on.” He took a deep breath, then slowly expelled it. “And if all your dresses are like this one, Lavery is going to be sewing on a lot of them.”

  Gillian retr
ieved the small leather jewel case from her trunk, then opened it, selected a pair of earrings crowned with light blue topaz stones, and fastened them in her earlobes. When she’d finished, she turned to Colin. “Your turn.”

  He gave her a wicked grin. “I don’t wear earrings, my lady.”

  She cocked her head and studied his face. “Perhaps you should,” she speculated. “A gold hoop or an emerald stud to match your eyes would give you a rakish, piratical look.”

  “I’ll take it under advisement.” He offered her his elbow. “But for now, I’ll take you in to dinner.”

  “What about my hair?” Gillian asked. “I generally wear it up at dinner.”

  “You’re on your honeymoon. Dinner in the country is fairly informal. You look beautiful. I prefer your hair down. And my skills as a lady’s maid, though considerable, do not extend to hairdressing,” Colin told her. “Shall we go?”

  “All right” Gillian placed her hand in the crook of Colin’s arm and allowed him to lead her down the stairs to dinner.

  “So,” he said when they reached the landing and started down toward the dining room, “the first day of our honeymoon is almost over.” Colin looked over at Gillian, waggled his eyebrows, and leered at her. “What shall we do tomorrow?”

  Gillian burst out laughing. “I don’t know,” she answered. “Did you have anything special in mind?”

  Colin rolled his eyes and pretended to ponder the situation. “Our honeymoon could turn deadly dull if we continue in the same vein,” he deadpanned. “So I thought we should find some way to amuse ourselves...”

  “I agree,” she joined in the teasing. “What do you suggest?”

  “Shepherdston keeps a fine stable. We could go riding.” Gillian shook her head. “Not unless it’s in a coach or carriage. I don’t ride.”

  Colin frowned. “At all?”

  She shook her head. “My father never kept horses. And I never learned how to ride.”

  “What do you do for exercise,” he asked, “if you don’t ride?”

  “I walk.”

  “Walk?” Colin shuddered in pretended disgust. “God invented horses and carriages so we wouldn’t have to walk.”

  Gillian stuck her tongue out at him. “I like to walk. For miles and miles.” She looked up at him. “We could go for a walk. There must be somewhere to walk on an estate the size of this one.”

  “Indeed there is, my lady,” Colin told her. “Shepherdston Hall has a huge garden with a labyrinth and a pond and a pavilion and a parkland beyond.”

  “A pond?” Gillian’s eyes lit up.

  “An ornamental fish pond,” Colin elaborated. “Too shallow for bathing but just right for wading.”

  “And sailing boats...” she added.

  “And sailing boats,” he confirmed.

  “Do you have any boats we could sail?”

  Colin glanced over to see if she was teasing him, but Gillian was completely serious about sailing boats on the pond and eagerly looking forward to it.

  She smiled up at him. “I love sailing boats. When I was a little girl, my father and I would take our toy boats—”

  “Your father has toy boats?” Colin couldn’t imagine that the Baron Davies he’d met and with whom he’d negotiated would bother with the likes of toy boats—or with little girls. But he knew the man had a soft spot for his wife and daughter and could be quite sentimental on occasion, so perhaps toy boats weren’t completely out of the question.

  “My father loves boats,” Gillian told him. “And ships. He owns a fleet of them. Beautiful sailing vessels that navigate the oceans of the world and dock in all sorts of exotic ports of call, bringing back silks and satins and cotton from Egypt and all sorts of spices—even tea and coffee.”

  “I thought Lord Davies was a silk merchant.”

  “Silk was the primary article of trade when he first began, but over the past few years, trade negotiations and troubles with China and Japan have caused him to expand his store of goods,” she explained.

  Colin grinned. “Has he by any chance expanded his store of goods to include French brandy and other hard-to-get items of contraband? Items for which there is a great demand and a great deal of profit?”

  Gillian was indignant “Papa would never risk his patent by engaging in smuggling contraband. His title means too much to him, and he’s proud to have attained it legally.”

  Her answer surprised him. Almost everyone engaged in shipping did a bit of smuggling. It seemed unlikely that a man of Baron Davies’s wealth and means would refuse to take part in the profiteering. “There is a great deal of profit to be made.”

  “Papa doesn’t need to smuggle. He stocked up on those items years ago, in anticipation of a war. He had warehouses full of French brandy and bolts of damask and lace he bought before the war. Because we cannot sell contraband items to the public, we still have an ample supply to meet our private demand.”

  “You have a private demand for contraband items?” Gillian’s eyes sparkled. “You might say we have a royal patent as official and legal suppliers of French brandy and other hard-to-come-by items. And that while serving in his capacity as a royal patent holder, my father was elevated in status from Mr. Davies to Baron Davies.”

  “You know a great deal about your father’s business,” Colin complimented her.

  “I should,” she said. “I am my father’s only child and the heiress to everything he’s worked so hard to build. Until I reached the age of ten and three, I spent nearly every waking hour at the warehouse and on the docks learning the business. And every Tuesday and Thursday afternoons, if the weather was good, Papa and I would take our toy boats to the Serpentine in the park and sail them.”

  “What happened when you reached the age of ten and three?” Colin asked, as they entered the dining room.

  Gillian blushed. “I blossomed into a young lady,” she said. “And my father thought it was too dangerous for me to roam the warehouses and the docks. Everything changed. There were no more Tuesday and Thursday afternoons at the park. From then on, I was educated by a governess at home, where I learned the ladylike arts of needlework and the piano, watercolors, languages, and how to run a household.”

  “Sounds deadly dull by comparison,” Colin said.

  Gillian laughed. “It was. And although we didn’t sail them on the Serpentine anymore, Papa and I continued to design and build toy boats. And he brought home the ships’ manifests for me to inventory so I could keep up with the business and my higher mathematical skills.”

  “You enjoy mathematics?”

  “I love it,” she told him. “I love puzzles and ciphers, and

  I’m something of a prodigy when it comes to cards and accounts and balances.” She used the same turn of phrase he’d used earlier. “Unfortunately, playing cards and the pianoforte and balancing household accounts are a young lady’s only true opportunity to use her higher mathematics.”

  “Except for designing and building toy boats...” he reminded her.

  “Yes,” she said. “Except for that. You should see my collection. I know every ship in Papa’s fleet, along with their trade routes, cargo, and usual ports of call. At one time, I knew all the captains and first mates, but the fleet has grown since I roamed the docks and now I only know their names. I have models of all of them from the first one to the latest one. There are twenty-four of them, and they’re all ladies or princesses.” Gillian smiled, remembering. “We take turns naming them. Papa and Mama name the ladies, and I name the princesses. There are twelve of each.” She glanced over her shoulder at Colin as he pulled out her chair and seated her at the dining table. “I apologize for babbling, but I haven’t—”

  “Had the opportunity to sail boats on a fish pond in years,” he guessed.

  “You did say Shepherdston Hall has a pond perfect for it,” she reminded him, her blue eyes sparkling with mischief.

  “Yes, I did,” Colin agreed.

  “And you did say that our honeymoon could turn de
adly dull if we continued in the same vein for the remainder of it,” Gillian continued.

  The footman pouring the wine into their glasses coughed to keep from snickering.

  Colin glared at him, then turned to Gillian and acknowledged her comment with a nod of his head.

  “And you were looking for something else to do.”

  “Aye.”

  “And since I don’t ride and you don’t walk, sailing boats on the pond would be a perfectly wonderful way to spend the day tomorrow.”

  The look of disappointment on his face was priceless. Gillian had to work to keep from smiling.

  “Is that what you want to do tomorrow?” Colin asked.

  Gillian couldn’t risk talking for fear of giggling. She bit her bottom lip, stared at her plate, and answered with a nod.

  Colin lifted his hand and signaled Pomfrey, who stood at the far corner of the dining room, supervising the service of the meal.

  “Sir?” Pomfrey appeared at Colin’s side almost instantly. “Is something amiss with your dinner?”

  “No, Pomfrey, the meal and the service are excellent.” Colin paused for a moment. “Lady Grantham and I were discussing our schedule for tomorrow, and we were wondering if there are any toy boats on the premises?”

  “Boats, sir?” Pomfrey was confused.

  “Yes, Pomfrey, sailing boats.” Colin was beginning to lose a bit of his usual good humor. “The kind Lord Shepherdston sailed on the pond in the garden when he was in still in short breeches.”

  “I vaguely remember Lord Shepherdston having toy sailboats,” Pomfrey told him. “But I never remember him sailing them on the pond.” He looked at Colin. “There was never anyone with whom he could sail them.” He thought for a moment. “If the boats are still here, they would be in the nursery or the schoolroom or perhaps the attics. I’ll go up there myself* after dinner, and check.”

  “Thank you, Pomfrey,” Colin replied. “Lady Grantham and I are most appreciative.”

  “What shall I do with them if I discover their whereabouts, sir?” the butler asked.