The offense of her words flashed through him. “What the devil are you on about, woman?”
“I know about the mistress at your country estate,” she exploded. “I know about Maribel.”
CHAPTER 2
THERE, it had been said.
Julia watched the expression on William’s handsome face go from furrowed with irritation to wide and blank. Clearly, he was well aware he had been caught.
And then his mouth flinched at the corners. Was he smiling?
Julia simmered with rage. No, he wasn’t just smiling. He was laughing.
He threw his head back and bellowed revealing every one of his perfectly white, straight teeth.
He crossed the room in two great strides of his long legs and opened his arms to her. Not that she would step into them, even if he had finally donned a shirt.
“You don’t understand, my darling.” His mirth faded into something gentle, and he gazed at her with the affection that had once made her heart do flips. “Maribel is my horse.”
“Your…horse?” Julia asked in a small voice.
“Excuse my laughter.” He stroked a hand down her cheek and a ripple of pleasure followed in its wake. “You must see the humor in your words.”
She certainly felt like an absolute fool, but she gave a light chuckle nonetheless. “Forgive me. I saw a note from your steward bidding you to come to the estate for Maribel, and then Lady Venerton told me that everyone knew you had a mistress in the country.”
“Lady Venerton?” He scowled. “Please tell me that odious woman is not in attendance.”
A genuine laugh rose up in Julia. “I’m afraid she is.”
“Had I known that, I might have found an excuse to stay longer in the country.” He peered around Julia to regard the door, as if expecting the topic of their conversation to sweep in at any moment. “I’ll wager she told you I flirted shamelessly with her as well, probably begged on my knees for her to be my lover. Perhaps even set up a tent below her window just to be near her?”
“I believe it was the townhouse next to hers, not a tent.” Julia grinned up at her husband.
“The truth of it is she put herself in my path on countless occasions, until I finally threatened to tell Lord Venerton of her behavior. It did the trick. Nothing works like the threatening of tightened purse strings with women like that.” He touched Julia’s chin, tenderly tipping her face up to his. “You know the woman, and you know me.”
“But I don’t know you,” Julia admitted. “Not really. We had such a fast courtship. I hadn’t realized that until, well, until I thought you had a mistress, and then it struck me how little I actually know you.”
“That is my fault. I wanted you from the moment I saw you. I hadn’t given you enough time.”
Julia’s pulse quickened. “Did you?”
“I did.” He gave her a lopsided smile. “Tell me what you wish to know about me, and I’ll answer.”
“What’s your favorite color?”
“Blue.”
“What’s your favorite food?”
“Roasted venison.”
“Do you prefer petunias or hyacinths?”
“I’ve always been partial to tulips myself.” He remained perfectly sincere in his reply, though his twinkling eyes gave his playfulness away.
Julia forced herself to keep her face impassive. “Do you prefer being out of doors, or indoors?”
“Out of doors when it’s pleasant; indoors when the weather is dastardly.”
She nodded. “Fair enough.”
“My turn.” He ran his thumb over her lower lip. “Lips, or tongue?”
Her breath caught. Oh my.
Immediately, she recalled those heady kisses before the consummation of their union. When his mouth had burned like fire against her own, when the simple brush of his tongue made it seem as if the world had enveloped her in the most exquisite conflagration.
She glanced shyly down before returning her gaze to boldly lock with his. “Both.”
His slow smirk indicated he clearly approved. “Shirt on, or off?”
Oh yes, that. Angry though she might have been when she first saw him, the strength of his broad chest, and the tight bands of muscle making wonderful ridges along his stomach, had been impossible to ignore. She had never seen a man without his shirt, though she knew well enough that such a physique as William’s was not common.
“Most definitely off.” She let her eyes fall closed and waited for the brush of his lips against hers.
A rap came from the door, followed by a singsong, saccharine voice. “Julia, dear, will you walk down with me to the drawing room?”
Julia sighed. “Lady Venerton.”
“Julia?” William arched a brow.
Julia rolled her eyes. “We haven’t been friends for ages. Not since my father—”
William released her and pulled the door open to face Lady Venerton. “Her Grace,” he said with obvious stress on the title. “Is still readying herself and will be down momentarily.”
“I hadn’t realized you had arrived, Your Grace.” Lady Venerton’s tittering giggle suggested otherwise.
“Indeed,” William replied dryly.
“Do send Her Grace down when you’re done with her.”
William said nothing more and shut the door. “That woman is vile. How did you ever consider her a friend?”
“It was a foolish mistake to let her see you in such a state of undress.” Julia indicated his untucked shirt, the collar open, baring the base of his throat and the hint of his powerful chest beneath.
“She’ll no longer be calling you Julia, of that you can be certain.” He put his hands to her waist and carefully pulled her toward him. “And you needn’t worry about me with Lady Venerton or any other woman. I don’t even see any other women besides you.”
He lowered his face to hers, and the flutter in Julia’s stomach teased up into her heart.
A hearty knock came from the door. “Stedton, you devil, you’ve kept me waiting nearly three days for good company.” Lord Bursbury’s voice boomed from the other side of the door. “Let’s get a solid match of boxing in before the ladies finish whatever it is that they do in their drawing room. Knit scarves for puppies or paint pictures of lace doilies, or something of the like.”
William’s head rested brow-to-brow on Julia’s and he chuckled good-naturedly. “Tonight, then?”
“Tonight,” she whispered. And then, as an afterthought, added. “Knitting scarves for puppies, or boxing?”
“Boxing by far, but if you see a tea cake with a lump of marzipan atop it…”
“I’ll save you one,” Julia promised. She placed a chaste kiss on William’s cheek, and swept from the room.
Lord Bursbury offered a quick bow and had the good sense to appear uneasy at having been discovered being so very male. “Don’t tell Nancy I said that when you see her.”
“I’m sure she’s already well aware,” Julia said with a wave. “But your secret is safe with me.”
With one final look back in the room at her handsome husband, she made her way downstairs for games with the ladies, anticipating the night when she would have the opportunity to discover even more about her husband.
WILLIAM BLOCKED his face and launched a fist at Bursbury’s nose. The earl ducked and twisted around, exactly as William had anticipated. He delivered the final blow to Bursbury’s ribs knocking the wind from him.
Bursbury bent over. “I concede.”
William held out a hand to him.
Bursbury accepted and hauled himself to standing. “Three of five?” he asked jovially, unperturbed by having lost both rounds. He glanced to the garden benches where the rest of the men sat. “Any of you game for a round or two of boxing?”
Bursbury’s brother-in-law, the Marquis of Hesterton, sat on a bench by himself, nursing a scotch. A neighbor of the Bursbury’s, Viscount Mortry, sat in morose silence. Neither bothered to look up. Lord Venerton would certainly not be interested, as he napped with a nasal snore, his head drooping on his thin chest.