Chapter 7

CHAPTER7

Daniel hovered in the doorway to the dining room, watching Rachel for a minute, as she had not noticed his presence. She was sitting at the table, her eyes dancing across the vast plates and trenchers set on the table. Despite the fact all the food was ready and that a manservant attended her in the corner, she did not eat. Instead, her hands fidgeted in her lap, and she repeatedly looked between the two chairs, plainly waiting to be joined by someone.

Well, now I feel bloody awful.

Daniel was glad of Mrs. Brooks’ intervention. In his effort to steer clear of Rachel, just to resist her, he had not thought of the pain he had brought her, though now it was plain to see.

She slumped back in her chair but still made no effort to eat. She was waiting patiently to be joined by either him or Anne, anyone to keep her company.

“Rachel?”

She sat forward, straightening her spine and looking at him, her lips parting.

Ah, do not look at me with that excitement.

He walked toward her and nodded at the footman. “Thank you, but we’ll be fine alone.”

“Very good, Your Grace.” The footman bowed and left the room.

By the time the door closed behind the footman, Daniel had reached Rachel’s chair. He laid a hand on the back of her seat and bent toward her. “My housekeeper has pointed out to me what a fool I have been today.”

“Did you need it pointed out?” she asked with a small playful smile on her lips. He couldn’t help mirroring that smile. It was not the response he had expected, and he was charmed by it.

“Perhaps I did.” He sat down at the head of the table, being careful to draw his chair to the side so he was a little closer to her. “I’m an obstinate man.”

“You don’t say?” Rachel uttered innocently. He chuckled under his breath and reached for the cooked chicken, being careful to serve her first. The expression on her face grew serious. “I feared you might hate me for what has happened.”

The hand holding the plate of cooked chicken paused mid-air. “Why would I hate you?”

She glanced at the empty chair opposite her. “I have met your sister this evening. She made it quite plain that she thought I had deceived you into marriage, Your Grace. Please know that I didn’t. Truly, I did not.” She turned to look at him pleadingly, almost falling out of her seat.

“Do not fall from that chair, or I’ll have to pick you up,” he said with a smile, rather enchanted when she blushed at his words. “I know you didn’t trick me, Rachel. I was there.” He put the chicken back down and reached for the vegetables next, once again serving her first. “I know what happened, and I saw how trapped you were.”

“Thank you.” She breathed a heavy sigh of relief and sat back in her chair.

“Feel better?”

“A little.”

“Good.” Next, he added potatoes to her plate, noticing her eyebrows had lifted as she turned in his direction.

“Are you taking care of me, Your Grace?”

“Maybe a little.” He avoided her gaze but still offered a playful smile. “I might not be capable of fulfilling all the vows I made to you today,” he hesitated, wondering if she knew that he was referring to not giving her children. She looked down at her plate and picked up her cutlery. “Yet, I will certainly keep to some of them. I apologize for today, without hesitation. I left you alone when you were somewhere new, and that was unkind. To be honest, I did it for selfish reasons, and that was not a good thing.”

“You’re hardly covering yourself in glory right now,” she teased him in a lighter tone.

Once again, her wit had come to the surface. He held back a laugh at her words, charmed.

“Well, I’ve had my finer moments,” he said with a slow nod and began to eat. “For my behavior today, I will make it up to you.”

“Thank you.” She reached for the carafe of wine and poured a glass for him. “Back home, we always had a family dinner. Those moments meant everything to me. Whether the day had been good, bad, or uneventful, we came together.” She smiled sadly. “I’d like to continue that tradition, if you would agree.”

Anne and I would often come for dinner together.

He couldn’t deny that since he had returned from war, they had done it less and less. He had frequently locked himself in his study with a tray of food and let his thoughts dwell on the wafer biscuits and cheese he had survived on during the war.

Perhaps the company would be nice. I might not feel so alone then, as if I was back in the trenches.

“I promise to share dinner with you every night,” he promised.

“Thank you.” Her manner had changed from when he had first seen her this evening. She smiled as she dug into her food hungrily.

They ate in silence for a few minutes, before she spoke again.

“How can you eat with all these ladies staring at you?” Her question made him laugh. In danger of choking on some potato, he thumped on his chest. “It is rather like being surveyed as you eat.” She wrinkled her nose at the paintings. “Do you not think?”

“I guess I’m used to them.” He continued to smile. “I hadn’t thought of it that way before.” He pointed at a particularly old painting from the Tudor period. “Though I will say that painting has always frightened me.”

Rachel looked at it.

“I used to think she would come alive and start hitting me with that rosary clutched in her hand. Does she not have a vicious gaze?” Daniel asked, encouraged when she laughed too.

The lady in the painting stared at the two of them. She seemed angry, her pale hand grasping at rosary beads.

“She is quite terrifying,” Rachel said in a whisper. “Mind you, your sister looked at me with that same glare earlier tonight, so perhaps there is a little resemblance.”

Once again, Daniel nearly choked, so startled by her good humor. He managed to stop himself and looked around the room. “Do not let Anne hear you say that” he said between fits of laughter.

“She already despises me, Your Grace.”

Your Grace. She should not be calling me that.

“She cannot despise you. She does not know you.” He shook his head.

When he saw she was running low on chicken, he added more to her plate, rather captivated by the grateful smile she gave him.

Her large lips were expressive, perhaps unusual in their beauty, but a sight he could barely look away from.

“She does,” she whispered, leaning toward him. “I cannot blame her for it if she believes I tricked you on purpose. She is protective of you.” She smiled suddenly. “It is an attribute which is endearing, indeed.”

“You are benevolent, considering you are convinced she despises you so much.”

“Ha! Perhaps I am more like my sister Bridget than I thought.” She giggled and reached for her wine. “She always likes to see the best in people.”

“And what are you like in comparison to her?” Daniel asked, finding he could no longer sit back in his seat. The more he talked with Rachel, with this barrier having gone down between the two of them, the more he wished to stay like this.

“I’m more…” She hesitated, looking up at the ceiling as she considered her answer. “Cynical, I guess. I become concerned for her and Emily’s safety easily. It’s why I was in the garden that night. Emily had run off into the garden, and I went after her, concerned she’d be caught in some scandal.”

“What irony, eh?” He lifted an eyebrow, giving her a humorous smile.

“Perhaps a little irony, yes.” She smiled back, then held herself still. “This is what I like.”

“What do you mean?” He paused with his food as Rachel adjusted herself in her seat, turning to face him fully and holding her glass in front of her.

“I know it is not a love marriage, Your Grace, I am not so great a fool as to think myself ever capable of inspiring that feeling.” The belittlement of herself had him nearly dropping his knife. He just managed to catch it before it could fall to the floor. “Yet, you and I can be friends, can we not? We have already shown we’re able to enjoy one another’s company, even if at times it can be a little…”

“Argumentative?” he offered, remembering that first night in the garden.

“I was going to say high-spirited.”

“That word works as well as any other.” He nodded with a small smile.

“What do you say, Your Grace?” she asked, leaning forward again. “Let us carve out a life where we are friends, even if it is a marriage of convenience.”

His gut tightened in objection. Once more, his mind ran wild, with the pictures predominantly focused on her large lips. He thought of kissing them, playfully tugging on the bottom lip, then showing her something more. He imagined pulling up the wedding gown she had worn earlier and pleasuring her as she laid back on the table. God, he would not stop until she reached her peak, shuddering around him.

Stop it!

“If we are to spend our days together, then forever is a long time, is it not?” she asked in a gentle voice, lifting a hand and pushing one of the honey-brown curls back from her cheek. She did it hurriedly, plainly not knowing what it did to him to see that tempting curl. His fingers twitched. “Let us be friends?” She held her glass up toward him.

“Friends, I like that.” He held up his glass to hers, as if ready to toast the moment, then hurriedly pulled it back. “If we are to be friends, then, let us make a rule.”

“What is that?”

“As I have already called you Rachel, you cannot continue to call me by my title.” He shook his head.

“It is deference to your position.”

“A deference I am hardly concerned with.” He looked away, thinking of how meaningless that title had been on the battlefield. Death had not been scrupulous or discriminatory. It had leveled every man there. “I believe every man is equal. Yes, I know the world we live in has made me rich, for some godforsaken reason, but I am no great fan of being reminded of my title in my own home. Even Mrs. Brooks calling me Your Grace irks me. I do not wish my wife to call me that too.”

He raised his glass once again, clinking it against hers. “Call me Daniel. Please?”

“Daniel.” Her full lips smiled broadly. It was a new smile from her, one he hadn’t seen before. He grew distracted, staring at her so openly it was difficult to look away. “To our lives as friends then, Your—I mean, Daniel.”

“To our lives as friends, Rachel.” He clinked their glasses together a second time and took a sip, staring at her over the rim of his glass as she looked away. I wonder if I can keep to that promise to just be friends…

* * *

“So, are you ready?” Daniel stood up from the breakfast table and downed his coffee cup before turning to Rachel.

She hesitated, staring up at him. She glimpsed the man he had been the night before as he had sat with her for dinner. He was a different man, entirely different from the one that had woodenly said his vows at their awkward wedding ceremony.

“Something wrong?” he asked, the corner of his lips turning up into a smile. “Do I have coffee all over my face?”

“Ha! Did you think I would let you sit through breakfast with that and not tell you?”

“I wouldn’t put it past your playful ways.” His growing smile drew her to her feet. “Come, I’ve neglected my duty for too long. I shall show you around the house properly today.”

He beckoned her to follow him out of the room, and she gladly followed, eager to keep up with him. His tall figure cut long strides across the passageway. Rather enchanted by the idea of following him, she kept pace, her feet moving faster than his.

Mrs. Brooks walked past them, pausing as she ordered a maid to clean the fireplaces. “Are you taking a turn about the house, Your Grace?” she asked with a knowing smile.

“Yes, yes. How many times do I need to say you were right, Mrs. Brooks?” Daniel teased. “I will not be neglecting my duty from now on.”

As Mrs. Brooks laughed, Rachel smiled at her, hoping the housekeeper could see just how thankful she was for the change that had occurred in her husband. It was all Mrs. Brooks’ doing.

“Here, this is the sitting room…”

The tour began in a whirl. They went from room to room, sometimes with Daniel barely taking a breath before he was onto the next. Rachel hurried to keep up with his fast pace, and she nearly tripped more than once on the edges of rugs.

“Can we not slow down a little?”

“I’m sorry?” He paused as they reached a back room that had been built as an orangery, with ornate glass windows and orange and lemon trees in terracotta pots.

“Oh…” Rachel gasped at the sight. Distracted, she walked between the trees, admiring them.

“I was going too fast?” Daniel asked, following her hurriedly.

“A little.” She smiled and turned around an orange tree to face him. “I suppose as a soldier, you grew used to marching and activity, did you not?”

“I am marching through my own house now.” He folded his arms and lifted his eyebrows. “Hmm, I had not thought of it like that.”

“Have you not? You are striding everywhere as if we are in some military action.” She laughed at the idea.

“Well, I suppose once you’ve been a soldier, it is not something you can shake off so easily.” His voice grew deeper.

Captivated by the sound, Rachel paused in her fiddling with a growing orange and stared at Daniel. His face was more angular than normal, and his eyes narrowed down at the orange she was holding. He no longer looked her in the eye at all.

“Is it a part of who you are? Right down to the way you walk?” she asked in a light tone, hoping to make him laugh again, but he didn’t even crack a smile. She fidgeted once again, fearing she had upset him. His eyes didn’t move from the orange in her hand. “Daniel?” she whispered.

As his eyes flicked up from the orange, she saw there was a darkness in his gaze, a look she hadn’t seen before. She flinched and shifted her weight between her feet. Where there had been lightness between them, there was now tension.

It made his handsome features seem stern, and the excitement she had felt in his company faded away.

I should stop thinking of him so much. It is a marriage of convenience, yes, and though he agreed to a friendship last night, he agreed to nothing more…

The length of time that she had spent thinking of his handsome smile over breakfast now seemed foolish.

“Daniel, you have fallen quite silent.”

He blinked and looked away, taking a deep breath. It was as if he’d mentally left the room for a few minutes and had been suddenly dragged back into it.

“Forgive me, I…” he stammered, looking past her to the glass windows. “It is just something you said. It reminded me of the war.”

“I am sorry.” She lowered her voice further and rounded the orange tree, moving closer toward him.

Being so close to him reminded her of the night in the garden, where they had been caught together. Their passionate argument had ended up in physical proximity she hadn’t been prepared for at the time, but on this occasion, the proximity was of her choosing. At her nearness, his eyebrows lifted.

“May I ask what the war was like, Daniel?”

She held her breath, hoping her question would take down another barrier between them, but he turned away from her, and she felt quite bereft with him shutting down.

“I never talk about it, Rachel. Never.”

Why not?