Chapter 11

CHAPTER 11

F or three days, Thomas avoided his bride, sequestering himself in his study in a vain attempt to get something done. The rest of his family would be arriving in two days, and he was supposed to have the ledgers and accounts in order, to show his uncle.

But it was like Sophia had moved into his head and nudged out every bit of arithmetic, commerce, and financial acumen that he possessed. His thoughts wandered often, his body remembering the rush of holding her, kissing her, making her gasp and cry out at his touch.

This will not do, he realized on the afternoon of that third day, having caught himself daydreaming about her for the millionth time.

Pushing back his chair, he got up and went in search of her, believing that if they discussed what occurred in the library, it might be blotted out and replaced with distaste at her petulance and arrogance.

“Yes, that is perfect!”

He heard her before he saw her, her excited voice drifting out of the main drawing room.

Intrigued, he entered the room and came to an abrupt and horrified halt. The drawing room where he liked to spend his evenings with his family when they were not in the city, where he liked to find peace on a sunny afternoon, where everything was exactly as he liked it, had been transformed into a room he barely recognized.

“What have you done?” he croaked.

The two portraits of his great-great-grandfather and great-great-grandfather, respectively, had been changed for two landscapes that had been stored in the attic for years. The settees had been moved to the other end of the room, away from the fireplace, and the armchairs were now arranged in pairs and tucked at the sides of the room, leaving a wide open space in the middle. And, most astoundingly of all, someone had painted the mahogany wainscoting white. The smell lingered in the air.

“I made some changes,” Sophia replied while the two footmen she had enlisted to hang a large, rectangular mirror exchanged worried looks. “I have already transformed the rear parlor, the sunroom, the study no one is using, and the dining room. I intend to redecorate the music room tomorrow. Goodness, I can’t be stopped now that I have started.”

He noticed she wouldn’t look him in the eyes, but whether it was the audacity of what she had done or the memory of what happened in the library that pushed her to avert her gaze, he didn’t know. And, at that moment, didn’t much care.

“Who said you could do this?” he asked brusquely, chilled by the sight.

It was all so wrong.

She folded her arms across her chest. “I did. Was I supposed to sit in one place and do nothing until you deigned to emerge from your study?”

“This is… this is?—”

“Bringing your household into modernity, husband ,” she interrupted. “Doesn’t it feel more welcoming already? It was so stuffy, so… archaic in here. When I first walked in, I thought I was in Henry the Eighth’s hunting lodge. Now, I feel I am in the beautiful countryside and have not journeyed back in time to an age where they relished a beheading.”

One of the footmen snorted, earning a sharp look from Thomas.

“These are not decisions for you to make, Sophia,” he rasped, feeling as if all of the familiarity had been wiped away.

She glanced at the footmen, motioning for them to leave. They bowed their heads reverently to their Duchess—bowing lower, Thomas noted, than they ever had to him—and hurried out, not needing to be told twice.

“Nor should you be alone with two men who are not family nor your husband,” Thomas added, feeling the beast inside him tear at its restraints, ready to chew through the solid chains of an entire life’s worth of discipline to get to her.

You are mine. I won’t have you laughing and cavorting with other men.

He held his tongue, determined to maintain some semblance of the civilized gentleman he was meant to be.

“So, you do want me to sit in silence and be seen and not heard,” Sophia remarked bitingly, moving closer to square up to him. “I wish you would make up your mind.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

His head filled with the sound of her sighs and panting breaths, his shoulder still bearing the faint mark where she had bitten him to muffle her bliss.

Was that what she meant by being seen and not heard? Surely not.

“You made one demand of me, Thomas, and I heeded it,” she replied tersely, still unable to look him in the eyes. “I am doing the duty of a duchess. I don’t know what else to do but do my duty. Yet, now you say that is not what you want, though I’m starting to think that is just your nature—mercurial to the point of infuriation.”

He stared at her, trying to find a hole in her argument. He couldn’t, the weft and weave of her words too meticulous.

“Nevertheless, you should have consulted me,” he replied. “I ought to punish you for acting so brazenly, painting mahogany without at least suggesting it to me first.”

Her eyes flared, and her bosom began to heave as if she could not catch her breath, her cheeks turning a tempting shade of pink. He could not ignore the momentary flicker of her gaze to his lips nor the barely perceptible bob in her throat.

What sweet punishment it would be, Sophia. You do not know half of it.

“It needed a woman’s touch,” she said defiantly, a moment later. “I will not be sorry for it.”

Thomas folded his arms behind his back to prevent her from feeling a man’s touch again, though the thought of being touched by her was not an easy one to rid himself of. If he didn’t leave that room quickly, there was no telling what he might suggest.

“It was fine as it was,” he grumbled. “But I suppose it looks brighter. I’ll assess the other rooms you have violated and give my opinions. Do not expect them to be favorable, even though I won’t ask you to undo what you have done.”

He left her standing there, no longer able to trust that his years of discipline were strong enough to overcome the temptation that was his wife. Especially not with heady paint fumes in the air fogging up his already hazy mind.

“I found that statuette you wanted!” the maid, Penny Wright, declared excitedly, bursting into the drawing room with a miniature marble figure of Persephone and Hades entwined in her arms.

The cheer faded from her face as she met Sophia’s gloomy eyes, where she sat on the floor beneath the newly hung mirror.

“You might as well put it back where it came from,” Sophia said, hugging her knees to her chest. “Mr. High-and-Mighty finally came out of his cave. He hates everything I’ve done. Even if he liked it, I’m certain he would have said he hated it. The wretch just wants me to be bored and miserable, adding nothing to a house, a home, that is meant to be mine too now.”

Penny walked over and joined her mistress on the floor, setting the statuette between them. “Is there a reason we’re on the floor, Your Grace?”

“To look at everything in all its glory before I am forced to change it back,” Sophia replied tightly. “He said he wouldn’t make me undo it, but who knows with him—tomorrow, he may insist upon it.”

Penny nodded slowly. “I was worried that might happen.”

“And you didn’t think to mention it?” Sophia sighed, not in the least bit angry with the maid but with herself, for thinking that what happened in the library might change anything between her and her absent husband.

Penny grimaced. “I hoped he wouldn’t mind, but he is… very particular about the manor and the estate. I hear he has always been this way, as was his father before him. The sort of gentleman who wants everything in its place and is wary of change of any kind.” She paused, tilting her head. “So, if he has said he won’t make you undo anything, then—if I may—I’d call that progress.”

“ If he means it,” Sophia reminded her.

“With respect, Your Grace, he wouldn’t say it if he didn’t mean it. He definitely isn’t that sort of gentleman.”

Staring up at the lovely forest landscape, where weeping willows trailed delicate fingertips across a glimmering pool bursting with life—leaping fish, hungry frogs, jewel-hued dragonflies—Sophia felt a weird pull in her stomach. A similar sensation to the one that had seized her half a second before Thomas kissed her ‘properly.’

“It’s better than the portrait, isn’t it?” she whispered.

Penny hid a laugh behind her hand. “Undoubtedly.”

“And you really think he won’t make me change it?”

“Again, undoubtedly.” Penny smiled. “Considering that the rest of the family are due to arrive soon and he has not summoned a team to return the room to how it was already, I am certain he will leave it as it is.”

Sophia’s head whipped around to face the maid. “His family is due to arrive soon? Whatever do you mean?” Panic struck her like a javelin through the chest. “We are supposed to be on our honeymoon. A month without anyone disturbing us.”

“The other servants did think it was a little strange, but… it might be good to have more company,” Penny said hopefully.

Sophia didn’t believe that the maid thought that was going to be true; she was just being nice, trying not to spook her mistress. It wasn’t that Sophia wanted to have a month alone with her husband. She just didn’t want to share space with more Pratts than she had to.

Although, I would be interested to discover what could happen in a month. What might have happened.

There was no chance of her and Thomas agreeing to any sort of truce now, with the rest of the enemy on the way.

“If I had known I was allowed to have visitors, I would have invited my family,” she muttered, feeling Penny’s dubious expression before she saw it.

Of course, that would never be possible. It would be pandemonium at best, and a bloodbath at worst.

“Yes, Penny, I heard how stupid that was as it came out of my mouth.” Sophia sighed, her heart beating out a violent rhythm of fear.

In a matter of days, she would be well and truly surrounded, forced to exchange pleasantries with at least one person who had tried to kill one of her kin.