friend, I presume.” His spy.
“Jealous?” David waggled an auburn brow. “We did have some good times, didn’t we, my dear? Though you lost your nerve after so brief a time. I never did get to teach you a fraction of what a woman needs to know to please a man. I wonder how you managed to entice my old uncle back into your bed. It was my understanding he was quite beyond performing his husbandly duties.”
Maris stood straighter. “Your informant was incorrect, David.”
“Was she? I wonder. Maybe you had a fling with the gardener or a footman, perhaps even with Uncle’s permission. I wouldn’t put anything past the old boy to cut me out. He might even have watched from the sidelines.”
“David! You are disgusting!”
He was getting dangerously close to the truth, but he could have no way of knowing.
“So my wife tells me every chance she gets, which, thank God, is not often. I will arrange to send her here when she darkens Kelby Hall’s door. As for myself, I’m bound for London this day. The Season, you know. There might be some pretty girls to lure into the bushes. An earldom is so very useful to throw a bit of added glitter into the mix. The mamas have such hopes for their daughters when they see me coming.”
He was delusional. At almost thirty-eight, he was showing the years of dissipation. His dark red hair was graying, his mouth bracketed by deep lines, his middle a bit thicker than she remembered. Once, Maris had thought him handsome, but she’d realized too late that his charm had ever been false.
“Happy hunting, then,” she said lightly. “How disappointed they will be to discover you have a wife and child tucked away.”
“There’s no reason yet for anyone to know. If I’m lucky, Catherine’s coach will tumble down a ravine and I’ll be a grieving widower. Oh, don’t look at me like that! Murder is not my style, Maris, else I should have snuffed out Uncle Henry years ago.”
“How reassuring.” Maris went to the bellpull and Aloysius appeared instantly. “Please see my nephew-in-law out, Aloysius.”
The young footman gave David a dark look. “With the greatest of pleasure, my lady.”
David threw back his head and laughed. “Such fierce loyalty. I’m gone. For now. But you have not seen the last of me.”
Maris collapsed in her chair once he was on his way. It might not be long before she was perfectly safe from him. If she weren’t afraid of being able to get up without assistance, she might even get down on her knees and pray.
Chapter 30
June 1821
Reyn was bent over one of the ledgers scratching in information. It had been difficult to settle down to work at his desk, remembering what had occurred on his office floor a week ago. All he could see in his mind’s eye was Maris, her head over him, lovely lips on his cock, her dark lashes fluttering as she took him as deep as she dared.
It had been heaven, and now it was hell. He’d heard nothing from her since he left her with that bounder David. Maris had sent Ginny a proper thank-you note for her hospitality the next day, but there was no secret message therein for Reyn. He had not been able to stop himself from riding to the copse of trees every day, sometimes twice. There had been no token from her tied on a tree branch, no letter professing her love tucked into a hollow, no schedule when he might expect to be schooled by the woman, Miss Holley. He had checked, mooning about in the grass until he felt like a complete fool.
Mr. Swift had seen her, however, and by the time he’d arrived after Reyn sent him, David Kelby had gone. Left for London, in fact. At least Maris wasn’t being tormented by the man.
Until his next visit.
Blast. There must be something he could do to protect her from Kelby. Reyn threw the pen down, splattering ink across the pages. He looked down as his work-roughened hands, curling his fingers into his palms, raising the thumbs and turning them until his knuckles met. b was on the left and d was on the right—or was it the other way around? It was hopeless.
He might have stared at his hands indefinitely except he heard the knock on his office door. Hurriedly he closed the ledger. “Come.”
It was young Jack, bearing a crisp white piece of stationery, folded but unsealed. Double blast.
“What