When a Rogue Meets His Match - Elizabeth Hoyt Page 0,22
as if he was experienced in everything he might want to do.
Would he be so competent when he took her to bed?
She inhaled and looked away.
No doubt Hawthorne was used to simply putting his mind to a thing and seeing it done. Messalina took a sip of the wine to hide a smirk. She almost wanted to be here when he realized his error.
Hawthorne swallowed a bite of pie and said, “I trust your day was pleasant?”
Were they playing a happy domestic scene? “Pleasant enough, if a bit boring.” Should she mention the empty library? But if he wasn’t interested in hiring a proper cook, he probably thought books even more frivolous. “And you? What did you do?”
“I met with your uncle,” he said without inflection.
And with that she felt the facade of happy domesticity fall.
“Ah,” she said, and was quite pleased that she hid the bitterness in her voice. “That mysterious task you’re meant to do for him.”
He sipped his own wine, watching her over the rim. “Yes.”
She cocked her head. “Not a hint of what it is?”
His black eyes glittered like the very devil’s in the candlelight as he whispered, “Curiosity can be dangerous.”
* * *
Gideon watched as Messalina stiffened, her face closing down, and cursed himself. He was supposed to be seducing his wife, not alienating her with threats.
But the mere thought of Messalina discovering exactly what task he’d been given by the duke gave him chills. Somehow he doubted that she’d ever forgive him the murder of her brother. Though theirs wasn’t a marriage of love—obviously—the prospect of Messalina actively hating him for the rest of their lives was terrible.
Which meant he had to be very careful that she never found out that he had already laid plans to kill her brother. He’d given Pea and his boys the names of several aristocrats and tasked Pea with finding out their haunts. Greycourt’s name was buried among the list, the better to hide Gideon’s true interest.
His lip lifted in distaste for what he intended to do. Gideon smashed a piece of crust. “I arranged for the rest of your possessions to be packed and brought here.”
“Thank you,” Messalina replied with suspicious sweetness. “Where do you expect me to put them?”
He lifted his eyebrows. What now? “I was thinking of our bedroom.”
She sighed as if terribly burdened. “One usually has chest of drawers, wardrobes, and the like. For that matter I’ve noticed that the rooms in Whispers are very sparsely furnished.” She glanced about the room, which of course held only the table and chairs. “Unless you mean for me to stack my clothes upon the floor?”
He was very tempted to tell her to do exactly that just to see her response, but a saner part of him ruled. “You know that most of London have only one set of clothes?”
“Yes, I know,” she said, the color rising in her cheeks. “Do you think if I rend my clothes it would help those people?”
“Rending them, no,” he said through gritted teeth. “I merely point out—”
“Besides,” she said, “you are no longer poor like the vast majority of London.”
He set down his wineglass and stared at her. “Your point?”
She lifted her chin. “Merely that you’re no longer living in Whitechapel or wherever you were born—”
“St Giles,” he cut in bitterly.
“St Giles? Then the rumors are true?” Her eyes were wide with interest, as if Seven Dials were someplace foreign. “Is it also true that you participated in competitive knife fighting?”
Competitive knife fighting sounded like a quite respectable name for a sweaty, bloody sport.
“Yes.” His lips curled. “I fought bare chested. Sometimes women came to watch the matches.”
“Humph.” She sobered, her expression turning lofty.
He found her almost unbearably endearing. “You were about to explain your point?”
“I know that many people don’t have clothes or shoes or even food,” she said slowly. “And I’m sorry for them. But you’ve employment and have made enough money with my uncle to afford this”—she gestured to the dining room—“mansion, and now you’ve married me—or rather you married my dowry. You’re rich.” She said the last with the sort of relish that seemed to indicate that she’d scored a blow against him.
He didn’t have her dowry, but she was quite correct on one thing.
He was rich.
Gideon leaned back in his chair, letting his eyelids droop lazily as he surveyed her from her neatly coiled black hair to the white expanse of her décolletage before flicking his gaze back up to her lovely gray eyes.