up to Gabriel’s suite as though he would not be able to find it unassisted. Gabriel meanwhile nodded and smiled at the employees, most of whom looked familiar to him by now, and followed his wife.
She was extraordinary.
“Thank you,” she said again as the manager, his chest puffed out with importance, paused outside the suite and opened the door—somehow it was unlocked.
And she swept inside, turned toward Gabriel as the door closed behind him, and . . . became Jessica again. And the thing was, he thought, she seemed unaware of the two roles she had played in the last ten minutes. Being Lady Jessica Archer—or, rather, Lady Jessica Thorne—was so much second nature to her when she was in a public setting that she did not even have to think about it.
“I am sorry about that,” he said. “I did not announce this morning that I was off to marry the daughter of a duke. And I do not believe Horbath would have announced it either—my valet, that is.”
“Gabriel.” She laughed. “You must have been in America too long. Servants, employees, often know things about their employers or paying guests before those people know those things for themselves. There is no keeping anything secret from one’s servants, you know. That is why it is important to engage their loyalty and even affection. It is why it is important to treat them well.”
He was not sure it was quite the statement of equality for all that was so touted in the New World, even if it was not a perfect reality there. But he was in England now, where the class system was still alive and well and perhaps always would be, and where it would work comfortably for all, provided there was mutual respect along the spectrum. It was not perfect. But what was? And these were not thoughts he needed to be having at this precise moment.
“Horbath?” he called. He was not sure whether his valet was in the suite or not.
“Sir?” Horbath stepped out of his bedchamber.
“You may take the rest of the day off,” Gabriel told him. “Until after dinner anyway. Let us say half past nine?”
“Yes, sir,” Horbath said. He bowed to Jessica. “Does my lady wish me to take my lady’s maid with me?”
“Ruth is here?” she asked. “Yes, by all means, Mr. Horbath. Thank you.”
Horbath disappeared. There was the murmur of his voice and a female’s before another door to the suite that was outside the sitting room opened and closed, and there was silence.
“Perhaps,” Gabriel said, his eyes moving over Jessica’s wedding dress and straw bonnet, “I ought to have consulted you before sending your maid away. Perhaps you will need her sooner than half past nine tonight.”
“I can manage without,” she told him.
“And,” he said, “I can be an excellent lady’s maid. Not that I have had any experience, I hasten to add. But I can brush hair and I can undo buttons on a dress that are inaccessible to the wearer.”
Her cheeks flushed. “Thank you,” she said. She did not add, he noticed, that she could manage without.
He looked at the clock that was ticking on the mantel. It was half past four. An awkward time. Three and a half hours to dinner. A little too late to plan anything. Too late to go out. Besides, if they went out, they would probably throw the downstairs staff into consternation. It was too early to—
He stepped forward, took her in his arms—one about her waist, the other about her shoulders—and kissed her. Hard and deep. Her mouth opened and he pressed his tongue inside. Her hands, still gloved, came to rest just below his shoulders. She made an inarticulate sound in her throat.
“It is still afternoon,” he said when he lifted his head. “Daylight.”
“Yes.” The color in her cheeks had deepened. She was still wearing her bonnet as well as her gloves.
“Will you consider it in very poor taste,” he asked her, “if I take you to bed now, rather than wait until tonight?” Waiting would be a severe trial. What else was one to do in three and a half hours with a new wife whom one found damned attractive, to say the least?
“I think perhaps,” she said, “that in some part of the world it is night, Gabriel.”
“Where?” he asked. “India? China? Where shall we imagine we are?”
“Either,” she said. “But we had better both decide upon the same place. It would be too bad if you were in