The Countess Page 0,96

a hand absently over a pair of pink knee breeches. "I just wondered how you wished us to proceed with the interviews. I presume you don't wish us to give away what we are trying to learn?"

"You presume right." Richard frowned. "We don't want whoever hired them to realize we are on to them before we sort out who it is."

"No," she agreed.

"I suppose you and Suzette have the hardest task of the bunch of us. I'm sorry about that."

She smiled faintly and shrugged. "It wil not be hard to carry out, just hard to succeed at. We might manage to be able to cross servants off the list, but I doubt we wil learn exactly who could have poisoned the whiskey. It could have been put in at any time between the day he died and the last time he drank from it before that.

George didn't al ow anyone else to drink his special whiskey."

"True, which suggests there was no urgency to seeing him dead," he murmured thoughtful y. He shook his head, apparently unsure what that meant, and then held up a pale green cutaway frock coat. "This appears to be the best of the lot."

"Yes," she agreed and watched him shrug out of the dark coat to pul on the lighter one.

"Do I need to change my trousers?" he asked as he buttoned the coat over his cravat.

Christiana glanced to the buff trousers and hessian boots and shook her head.

They went with pretty much everything. It was why the color was popular.

"Good." Richard sighed and started past her. "I had best go then."

"Before you do," Christiana said, catching his arm as he started to pass her.

He paused and glanced down at her in question.

Christiana hesitated and then blew out her breath and said, "I wanted to thank you for trusting me to interview the staff."

His eyebrows rose slightly, and then he frowned and took her by the shoulders to turn her until they faced each other. "I am not George, Christiana. I realize you are an intel igent woman capable of many things. You are also my wife and partner.

Trust is important in such a relationship. We must learn to trust each other if we wish this marriage to succeed."

"Yes," she acknowledged. And while she knew it was true, it was just so hard.

She had little confidence in her ability to inspire love after life with Dicky.

She had little confidence in her ability to inspire love after life with Dicky.

The thought made Christiana blink in surprise as she realized that it wasn't real y that she worried Richard would change, but that she feared she wasn't worthy of love anymore. It was something she'd been confident of while growing up surrounded by family and friends who loved her. But somehow that foundation had been washed away, leaving her floating in a sea of uncertainty . . . because George hadn't loved her and she'd assumed it must be due to some flaw in her. If she'd just been smart enough, pretty enough, charming enough he would have loved her. In truth, she'd spent the last year trying to earn that love, and almost lost herself in the process.

"I should go," Richard murmured, peering at her worriedly. When she managed a smile and nod, he bent to press a quick kiss to her lips. At least, she suspected he'd intended it to be a quick parting kiss. However, it didn't end up that way, because Christiana did what she'd wanted - and had been too afraid - to do that morning.

The moment his lips met hers, she went up on her toes to wrap her arms around his neck, pressed her body against his and opened her mouth to him. Richard stil ed, obviously taken by surprise, but then his own arms slid around her back and he pul ed her close and deepened the kiss. Christiana breathed a little sigh of relief into his mouth. She had fol owed her instincts and he had not rejected her, berating her for unladylike behavior. It was a smal first step, but a step just the same, she thought and then let go of her worries and merely enjoyed the kiss as he caught her head in hand and tilted it to al ow him more access as he tried to devour her with his mouth.

When he clasped her bottom through her skirt and lifted her to press her against the hardness growing between them, Christiana breathed a little moan