Page 92 of The Duke Who Loved Me (The Duke's Estates 1)

“I borrowed it,” James said.

“Rather than hire a post chaise?”

“As you see.”

Did he sound irritated? She didn’t want that. Their years of disputes over a wide variety of issues came back to her. More than a few had ended with one of them—or, James really—stomping out and going off to cool down. He hated losing an argument. But they no longer had separate homes to retreat to. Or any livable home at all, Cecelia noted. What did that mean for discussion?

Suddenly, every word seemed more of a risk, weighted with signs for the future. Would she be less at ease married to him than she had been when single? Did one have to be more…polite once married? If she lost the ability to talk easily to a man she’d known, and debated, most of her life… That would be distressing.

He handed her into the vehicle and climbed up to sit beside her. They said their goodbyes, the coachman signaled the team, and they set off. Cecelia watched her father and aunt and Henry Deeping recede and then disappear as they rounded a corner. She turned back, and became acutely conscious of James’s broad shoulders against the seat back, his pantaloon-clad leg not far from her skirts. They’d sat as close as this on drawing room sofas, she supposed. But they’d never traveled alone together in a carriage. They would be side by side here for…she had no idea how long. “Where are we going?” she asked him.

“It’s a surprise.”

“I don’t like surprises.”

“Of course you do.”

How could he say that? Could he have failed to notice that most surprises in Cecelia’s life had been near disasters? Times when her father had neglected some important business matter, which had then become a full-blown emergency. Times when James himself had descended like a horde of marauders, full of exigent demands. If he didn’t know her any better than this, how were they to get on together?

“What about the jugglers on your birthday that time?” James asked. “You were delighted by them.”

“Because I arranged for them to come.”

“Youdid?”

“Yes. And then I pretended to be surprised.”

James stared at her. “That’s…a bit…sad.”

It probably had been. But she’d been missing her mother so much, and it was the sort of silly thing her mother would have arranged. So she had done it instead. It hadn’t helped with the grief, of course. It had surprised her father. And in the end he’d liked the performance more than she did. “Who did you think had hired them?” she asked.

“Well, I…”

She saw consciousness of the timing occur to him—the year after her mother’s death. She saw him recall her father’s heedlessness.

“I suppose I didn’t think about it,” he replied.

Of course he hadn’t. It wasn’t the sort of thing James considered. He’d called that day, she remembered, in the midst of the juggling and stayed a while to admire the performers’ skills. He’d given her a bracelet for her birthday, a gift more suited to a grown-up lady, which someone probably should have ordered her to refuse. Fortunately, no one bothered because she’d adored it. It was years later that she discovered his birthday visit had been accidental. He’d come to wrangle over some trust matter and found himself at her sparse festivities. The bracelet had been intended for someone else—the kind of female she was not to know about. She’d meanly enjoyed taking it from that faceless lady. But today she found a familiar annoyance with his self-absorption threatening to creep in. “You still haven’t told me where we’re going.”

“To the estate of a friend of mine. I thought the place would amuse you.”

Cecelia was puzzled by the word. How should an estate be funny? “Amuse?” she echoed.

“It’s a bit out of the ordinary.”

“Will your friend be there?” She hadn’t planned to share her honeymoon with a stranger. But then she hadn’t been allowed to plan anything!

“In the house,” James replied with an airy gesture.

“Inthe…” Cecelia frowned. “Do you mean that we willnotbe in the house?”

“Not the main house.”

“A guest cottage?”

“I really think it would be better as a surprise. Descriptions don’t do the place justice.”

“Is this like the time you took Papa and me to see that string of racehorses you wished to buy? And the black one tried to bite me?”

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