Page 40 of Not his Marchioness
“And what news of my wife’s project?” Rhys asked his valet as the man adjusted his cravat.
The heavily starched linen scratched his throat with all the subtlety of a hangman’s rope, and he fought the urge to tear it off. Unfortunately, they were expected at a dinner hosted by Lady Woodhaven, who was not the sort to forgive an open collar.
“Ah, she is very excited about the school. Her maid tells me that she speaks of little else,” Ferris replied.
Rhys nodded, not surprised to hear it.
Ever since Charlotte had decided to involve herself in this project, she had spoken of nothing else. Well, at least not on the few occasions their paths had crossed.
It was not as though they habitually spent time together. Still, twice this week, they had met at the breakfast table.
That was generally avoided, thanks to his habit of rising later than the sun and her… distressing tendency to spring up at the break of dawn with a vigor that instantly made him sleepy again.
How a person rose with the sunrise was utterly beyond him.
During his days as the second son, he had never risen before dawn. There had been no need. The public houses he favored did not open until late in the day, and his friends—equally fond of their beds—saw no reason to stir before then.
But all of that had changed when he became a marquess.
The marquessate and his steward, Mr. Barns, had little sympathy for his sleeping habits. Gradually, he had begun rising earlier and earlier. In the weeks before his marriage, he could sometimes be found at the breakfast table at half past nine, though always with his eyes half closed. After two cups of black tea and a cup of coffee—a beverage he despised for its bitter taste but drank anyway due to its invigorating properties—he generally managed to greet the world and Mr. Barns come ten.
Anyhow, since Charlotte had moved in, something uncanny had occurred. He found himself waking up with the sunrise. Indeed, that very morning, he had opened his eyes at the ungodly hour of six. Determined to undo the damage, he had rolled this way and that, turned his pillow repeatedly, and stared up at the canopy as if that might send him back to the land of nod. At seven, when the church bells tolled, he had given up.
Once upon a time, sleep had been his loyal friend. But since he had lost all three of his family members in quick succession, sleep had been a treacherous companion at best. It would overcome him at the most inconvenient times—such as during a session in Parliament—and evade him when he wanted it.
“… rather among more reformed ladies.”
He blinked. While he had been mulling over the injustices of early mornings, Ferris had clearly continued speaking.
“I beg your pardon, I did not sleep well. What was that about reformist ladies?”
Ferris’s expression slid neatly into exasperation, but he said nothing of it, merely took up the brush and began briskly dusting his master’s coat.
“I said,” he repeated with the patience of a man long inured to such lapses, “that she is planning a dinner party later this month with some of the more reformed ladies. She claimed that you would attend.”
“Did she now?”
Rhys could not recall any conversation touching on reformists or their ilk. Then again, if he were being honest, he had not listened to Charlotte speak. Not for lack of interest—she was, in truth, an intriguing woman, their exchanges more stimulating than anything he had known in years.
But lately, every time she spoke, his mind betrayed him, drifting back to that afternoon in the drawing room with the most respectable ladies in London.
It had been a most peculiar afternoon. From start to finish, in fact. His story about the fallen milkmaid was true. Before his marriage, he had been known to tell a Banbury tale or two in order to explain away his tardiness, but in this case, reality had been as bizarre as his tale.
Given his delay, he’d braced himself for a tongue-lashing from Charlotte, only to find the ladies still congregating in his drawing room.
To say he was thrilled would have been a boldfaced lie. There were a few women he’d rather have seen sipping his tea than those three.
Lady Rosslyn’s husband, the Earl of Rosslyn, was one of the loudest voices pressing for the “livelier” members of the House to mend their ways or face severe consequences.
Naturally, Rhys had not been eager to greet them in his own home. Still, he had promised Charlotte he would appear, and had meant to keep his word. Until, of course, the unfortunate milkmaid had crossed his path.
He still remembered Charlotte’s expression when he finally arrived: the look of a volcano on the brink of eruption. But it had softened when she saw the flowers in his hand, and the box of chocolates he had thought might serve as either a peace offeringto the unwelcome guests or an apology to Charlotte if they had left.
Something had shifted in her eyes then, a flicker of surprise softening into the smallest of smiles. At that moment, she had been beautiful.
And when the conversation shifted to her school, her entire face had lit up. She had been pleased to see him. Relieved. No doubt the ladies had been interrogating her as though she were a Frenchman caught on the battlefield.
In fact, the way Lady Woodhaven had attempted to catch him out by asking for his opinion on Charlotte’s school for the poor was just in line with the way her ilk operated. She’d been looking for any signs that their marriage was not real, that they knew nothing about one another.
