Page 115 of The Marriage Method

Nell didn’t know anything about desperate men. Indeed, she knew little about men at all. Everything she’d learned since coming to London had been in relation to Miles. And he wasn’t like the men she’d heard about all her life at the Academy. The ones who took advantage of women. Who condescended to them, exploited them, betrayed them.

No.

Miles Quincey was honorable, decent, and true.

And he wasn’t opposed to taking action when the occasion called for it—a fact she was reminded of whenever she caught a glimpse of the abrasions on his knuckles.

She looked at them now, remembering how he’d returned to the house after his altercation with Silas. The way he’d knelt before her and rested his head in her lap.

“Would you like to wash first?” he asked her.

Recollecting herself, Nell gave a dismissive wave of her hand. “Go ahead.”

Rail travel was a grimy business. It was impossible to have gone any distance by train without accumulating a layer of grit and soot. They would both need to wash their face and hands, and to brush off their clothes, before appearing in the drawing room.

But she wasn’t ready yet. She needed to stretch her legs to alleviate the ache in her hip. Folding her arms at her waist, she walked the length of the room. This time she looked at it. Really looked at it.

At St. James’s Square, she and Miles had connecting rooms. Most fashionable couples did, to her knowledge—Effie and Mr. Royce notwithstanding. But this wasn’t a master and mistress’s suite. It was a guest chamber, consisting of only one room.

Only one bed.

A flush of heat swept through Nell as she was struck by the logical ramifications of this fact.

Amid all their strategy sessions by candlelight, all their studying architectural plans and discussing the shooting party, she and Miles had never once addressed the possibility that they’d be sleeping together during their three days at Northwick Hall.

Pacing to the window, she twitched back the curtain with an agitated hand. A great expanse of lawn stretched out below, leading to a serene, tree-shrouded pond. It was a pretty enough prospect, yet all she noticed was the hazy reflection of the bed in the glass. It was a smallish four-poster. Even smaller than the one she occupied alone in St. James’s Square.

“Is your leg paining you?” Miles asked.

Nell stifled a flinch. The last thing she wanted to be thinking about right now was her leg. “It’s no matter,” she said dismissively.

“And your shoulder—”

“It’s fine.” She let the curtain fall closed.

Miles straightened from the basin. He dried his damp face with a towel. “There’s time enough before we’re due downstairs. You might lie down on the bed—”

“No,” she said. She closed her eyes briefly, hearing the note of shrillness in her voice. Taking a steadying breath, she moderated her tone. “Thank you. I don’t need to rest. I need to move. I’ve been still far too long.”

Miles regarded her from across the room, a thoughtful frown at the back of his gaze.

Ignoring his scrutiny, Nell put action to word, walking from the window back to the fireplace, and then to the wardrobe. But wherever she went, the bed was still there in the corner of her eye, making her pulse skip with anxiety.

It was hours yet until it would be time to retire. She had the sinking feeling that she’d be counting every minute of them.

29

Miles stood in front of the drawing room fire with two of the other guests, Mr. Pargeter and Mr. Radford. They were sportsmen in broadcloth and tweeds, talking loudly about the chances of favorable weather for hunting in the morning, and about which guns they’d brought, and how many birds they hoped to bag. Miles responded to them in turn, all the while keeping a diligent eye on his wife.

Nell was seated on one of the matching damask sofas that flanked the fireplace, along with Lady Belwood and a fashionably clad older lady by the name of Mrs. Thompson. They were sipping tea and conversing. Lord Amstead perched in an armchair beside them, his gaze riveted to Nell’s face.

Miles’s fingers clenched on the stem of his sherry glass. He’d marked Lord Amstead’s reaction to Nell when they’d first arrived. The man had been thunderstruck by her.

The gentlemen guests in the drawing room had behaved in a similar fashion when Nell had entered on Miles’s arm. They’d all ceased speaking, leaping to their feet so abruptly one might be forgiven for thinking that an old sergeant major of theirs had surreptitiously entered the room and commanded them all to attention.

There were seven gentlemen altogether, including Miles and Lord Amstead, but only four ladies. Of those four, Nell was the youngest, and by far the most beautiful. It was a recipe for disaster. And bloody inconvenient besides. Miles was meant to be investigating Cowgill’s murder, not spending the whole of the next three days guarding his wife from a pack of amorous, aristocratic jackals.

Nell was partially to blame. She insisted on viewing her beauty as a weapon. Even now, with so many gentlemen openly staring at her, she gave no sign that she appreciated the potential for danger. On the contrary, rather than discouraging Lord Amstead’s attention, she was encouraging it with veiled looks and smiles, and all the confidence of an experienced flirt.