Page 17 of Wed By Proxy

Guy was no nearer to exposing the wench. Just when he thought she had given herself away, a niggling doubt would cross his mind again. No lady of noble birth, he told himself, would roll up her sleeves and join in so wholeheartedly with the cleaning. Then he noticed how spectacularly bad she was at it. Her attempt to sweep a floor merely seemed to be an exercise in moving the dirt around it. When she dusted she got more cobwebs on herself than on the cloth, and when she tried to clean a window, she put her foot through a woven stool and tore her stocking. In the end, he simply scooped her up and set her down next to the newly lit fire in the kitchen. “Sit here,” he barked, placing her next to a large pile of freshly chopped wood he and Waldon had fetched in.

“Should I feed logs to the fire?”

“Don’t — touch — it!” But he was too late. She had already smothered it with an ambitiously large piece of wood.

“Oh dear!” She gazed down at the extinguished fizzle of smoke with dismay. She was so fucking useless that Guy was starting to think she must be a lady born and bred. Where the hell did she get that large smut of dirt across her cheek? Every time he turned his back to her, she seemed to stumble into some new misfortune. “Um…” She snatched up another log and seemed to be trying to fan the non-existent flames. “Perhaps if I just—?”

He took the chunk of wood out of her hand. “Sit still,” he said sternly and crouched down next to the fire. She bit her lip and collapsed back down on the low stool, looking so crestfallen, he found himself relenting. Why, he had absolutely no idea. “Watch what I do,” he said in a low voice. Immediately, she perked right back up, tucking her hair behind her ears and scrambling forward to watch his attempts to rekindle the abused fire. He watched her covertly as he set about rebuilding the kitchen fire. No one could have been more impressed than she, when the flames started to lick about the kindling.

“You did it!” she cried, turning to him triumphantly.

What it didn’t explain was his almost overwhelming impulse to lean across and kiss her firmly on her pretty mouth. Would she draw back? Reproach him for such familiarities? Glance at him beneath her lashes? Employ one of a hundred such feminine tricks that those well-versed with entertaining men used? He forced himself to consider the likelihood she was deliberately playing with him. Worryingly, he wasn’t even sure such behavior would put him off. He reminded himself he heartily detested artifice and coyness in the opposite sex. Then again, she had acted far from demure earlier that day, when she had told him outright she wanted his babe. His heart pounded. Perhaps she would be bold in her desire for him to bed her. He shivered. My Gods. Did he want that? He gave his head a quick shake to clear it. Admittedly it had been a few years since he had bedded a woman, but he had never had such tastes before. Then again, pre-war Guy seemed like a wholly different person in his memory. Perhaps the last five years had warped him.

He must be mad to let her twist him round her finger like this. This little dab of a female! He gave her a sidelong look. Why was he even letting her affect him this way? He straightened up, and turned from her, clearing his throat. He wanted to appear icily detached and forbidding. To let her know that he, Guy Randall, Marquis of Martindale was nobody’s fool. Men feared him, and women frankly, made sure to stay out of his way. She must be mad to try and provoke him like this!

The truth was, though, that he felt far from detached. He felt edgy with… He paused. What even was it? Some weird need. Almost a yearning to possess what was rightfully his. He swallowed, his throat suddenly dry. Why the hells was he thinking of her as his? The thought stunned him. But when he tested it, he knew that was exactly what he was doing. It could be the only explanation for why every word Firmin had uttered earlier had pissed him off. She wasn’t his wife, he reminded himself angrily. He was almost certain of that. There was no rational reason for him to be having these feelings for her. So why was he? Distractedly, he stared out the window, trying to marshal his thoughts. He wasn’t used to his thoughts and impulses being so out of accord. What am I doing?

In vain, he reminded himself he was tucking her away in this hunting lodge for perfectly logical reasons. Even Firmin had agreed with the notion in principle. Why then, was he suddenly so filled with unease and self-doubt? He felt his face heat. He knew full well why, he berated himself savagely. Underneath his actions, had been another motivation entirely, a selfish one he had refused to acknowledge. The hunting lodge had been a place of escape and release. When he had come here, first with his father, and later with his friends, it had been in the pursuit of leisure and relaxation. Had he set his little false bride up here, because he thought of her in those terms? As an illicit pleasure, for him to enjoy in secret?

The hand that stroked his short beard trembled slightly. You selfish bastard, he told himself bitterly. You stupid, selfish bastard. You’re playing right into your bitch of a wife’s hands, because you can’t resist this poisoned chalice she’s sent you. He glanced back over his shoulder at her. He wanted to take her upstairs, is what he wanted to do. He didn’t care about the fact she had a smudgy face and was likely covered in dirt. Or the fact she was likely an accomplished little play-actress. Does she have no sense of danger? he wondered, breathing hard. She sat there so serenely, gazing at the fire with a smile on her lips, while he was aching and trembling with the effort to contain himself. He ought to dump her here, in the middle of the woods and run like hell. But that wasn’t what his every impulse was clamoring for. He drew a frustrated breath and ran his fingers through his hair.

A footfall behind him, made him turn. Waldon had come through the door, dragging a large mattress for his bed. For her bed, he corrected himself harshly. Guy crossed the room and grabbed the other end. He looked back over his shoulder. “Don’t touch that fire,” he warned her direly. She nodded and hugged her knees. Dimples, he noticed. She has dimples in her cheeks.

He and Waldon bore the mattress up the stairs and set it down in the master bedroom. The whole time Guy strove to get his rioting senses under control. By the time they had set the mattress into the bed frame, he wasn’t shaking any more. The familiarity of the lodge soothed him a little. He had forgotten how much he used to love the place. The main bedchamber was a large one, with a huge vaulted ceiling of sloping exposed beams and a good deal of antlers and horns strung up around the walls. His father hadn’t been exactly known for his subtlety. Come to think of it, neither was Guy. He just hoped she — Mathilde, as she insisted on being called — didn’t feel like a cornered doe up here. Frowning at his own fancifulness, he regarded the canopy above the massive dark wood bed. It was of a faded scarlet patterned with gold. The bad-tempered servant had driven all the dust from the room, but it still seemed dark and masculine, and entirely wrong for the female he’d left below stairs.

“The boy will be down the hall in the end room,” Waldon said interrupting his thoughts. “And the maid, Prudence, has already set her things up in one of the attic rooms.”

Guy grunted. He crossed to the window and looked out at the small garden. Robin was down there rigging up some temporary fencing for the hens. It will need to be more substantial than that, Guy thought with a glance at the encroaching woods, if it is to keep the foxes out. “You’d better help the boy set up a run for the fowls,” he said. “Or they’ll all be carried off in the night, like as not.”

Waldon came to his side and looked down with interest. “You’d almost think he’d never done such work before,” he said shaking his head.

They both made their way back down the stairs and Guy directed Prudence to go now and make the beds up with sheets and blankets. Waldon took himself outside to help with the chickens and Guy settled himself once again across the fireplace from Mathilde. He stared at her broodingly. “You see yourself being comfortable here?” he asked abruptly.

“Oh yes,” she replied readily enough. “In fact, I think it’s a very good notion of yours, my lord. For this way we can quite get to know each other, can we not? In more intimate surroundings.”

His throat instantly became dry. Intimate. It was a suggestive word. Was she telling him her bedroom would not be barred against him? Even more importantly, did she not realize that she was already failing in her mission to discredit him? He was installing her in a separate household to his own. That was not something one did with a wife. It was something one did with a mistress. Her employer, his wife, would no doubt be furious at being outmaneuvered. “Of course” he said aloud. “You realize I’ve many demands on my time. I’ve an estate to run. It will be several days until you see me again.”

Instantly, her expression turned to seeming dismay. He tensed, waiting for her to argue or complain at such treatment, but she did not. “I see,” she said slowly. “Well then, I will simply have to make the most of things when you are here.” She smiled at him again, and Guy felt robbed of his breath.

Footfalls were heard on the stair. “The beds are made, my lord,” announced the maid Prudence in her rather grating voice.

“Tell your mistress, not me,” he replied, his eyes still on Mathilde.

“The beds are now done, my lady,” Prudence said, after a moment’s heavy pause.

“Thank you Prudence,” Mathilde replied, holding his gaze steadily, if a little shyly.

Was there an invitation in them? If she knew how long he’d been without, she wouldn’t be issuing it so glibly, he thought grimly. Guy did not allow himself to dwell overlong on the idea. That way lay disaster. He jumped to his feet. “I’ll take my leave of you, my lady.”

“Mathilde,” she corrected him swiftly.

He cleared his throat. “Mathilde,” he said, trying it out. He noticed she didn’t look remotely uncomfortable about laying claim to it as her own. She was a cool piece. He needed to watch his step around her. In truth, he should probably stay the hells away from the conniving little madam.

“I hope we will see you very soon,” she said, clasping her hands together.

I bet you do, he thought harshly, and cursed himself for a fool, when he felt how his had pulse had quickened at her words.

IX