Page 18 of Entwined By Error (Madcaps of Mayfair #1)
Liberty Proves an Inconvenient Captivity
Getting dressed was every bit as maddening as undressing the night before.
If anything, it was far worse now that he had spent the night in the same bed as his wife, with her curled up beside him, the warmth of her body causing a sensation of tension he wished to avoid.
They may be married, but he couldn’t allow himself to hope for anything until she at least found him agreeable.
“Is Lord Southwood in the breakfast room?” Mrs. Northcott asked her maid. She’d tried to lower her voice to a whisper that he couldn’t hear, yet they were standing too close together for privacy.
“He left last evening. Claimed to have business in town.”
Mrs. Northcott sighed. “He works so hard. It will break my heart when he takes a wife.”
Daniel thought about bursting the perfect view she had built up around his brother, but it would do little good. It would likely only make her hate him more.
They were forced to stand back to back once more as his valet and her maid fussed and fumbled with needle and thread, sewing their clothing onto them as if they were standing as dress forms in a tailor’s shop.
Daniel sent up a prayer of thanks that he had managed to button his breeches before Mrs. Northcott’s maid had descended upon the room with thimbles and needles twiddling in her fingers.
As one of the needles pierced his shoulder, he grimaced, looking over to see a smile upon Mrs. Northcott’s face. “Pricked a bit, are you?”
“Smile all you like, my dear,” he muttered over his shoulder. “Just so everyone believes we are the portrait of wedded bliss.”
“If bliss involves shackles and being stabbed with sewing pins, then indeed, Mr. Northcott, we are delirious.”
Once every stitch was in place and every button was wrangled into its respective hole, they made their way to the breakfast nook. Daniel assisted Mrs. Northcott with her plate, adding bits of fruit, meats, and cheeses as she directed him.
They had barely taken three steps away from the sideboard, Daniel carrying both plates, when the doors to the dining room burst open and the earl entered followed by the fortune teller and a ring of keys jingling like bells.
Mrs. Northcott instantly changed direction, her shoulders tightening as she went from a demure wife to a madcap seeking revenge.
“How dare you come here after what you have done!” she cried, pivoting away from the table as she ran forward, all her energy focused on throttling the woman who had put them in their current predicament.
The plates he carried—piled with eggs, sausages, and an artful assortment of fruit—shot skyward as he was wrenched bodily around. Breakfast rained down like a poorly organized parade: sausages bounced, eggs splattered, and grapes scattered across the floor in a reckless, sticky rebellion.
Daniel stumbled after her and then pulled her to a stop, turning her to face him and wrapping an arm around her waist as he lifted her with one arm. “Careful, Mrs. Northcott, unless you wish to be shackled to me for the rest of our days.”
She struggled against his hold. “I wish only to dole out the punishment she deserves.”
“By clawing her eyes out?” Daniel kept his arm around her waist. “Patience. Once we are free, you may do as you wish. Although if this new ring of keys does not work, please remember to inform me next time you wish to charge off into battle.”
Mrs. Northcott pushed a finger into his chest. “Enough with the jests and pretend show of confidence; you are as angry about this as I.”
“Perhaps, but I have no desire to make a cake out of myself. Whereas you seem to do so in abundance.”
“A cake!” she yelled.
Now that her ire was turned upon him, Daniel held their tethered hands up, addressing the fortune teller. “Please free us from this awful fate.”
“Free you?” The fortune teller walked forward and placed the first key into the shackles. “I am afraid you are bound forever, Mr. and Mrs. Northcott. The crystal ball foretold a binding of hearts—”
“And is that why you shackled us together?” Mrs. Northcott asked as she pulled at the shackle with her free hand.
Daniel reached out and pulled her hand away. “Stay calm, wife. Mayhap we should secure our freedom before you sentence the woman to be hanged, drawn, and quartered.”
“Very well.” Mrs. Northcott dropped her free hand to the side, allowing the fortune teller to get to work.
The first key was as useless as all the others, followed by a second, third, and fourth.
Daniel was ready to go back to the sideboard to prepare two more plates when a loud click sounded, and the metal that had enclosed his wrist since the previous day released.
It was as though a weight had fallen from his shoulders, and the air around him seemed sweeter for the freedom he now found.
“Breakfast?” he said, as he rubbed his freed wrist.
“Breakfast is cancelled,” Mrs. Northcott said as her eyes filled with tears.
Unfazed by the heightened anger in the room, the fortune teller gently placed a hand upon Mrs. Northcott’s cheek. “A twist of fate never hurt anyone, my dear. Not only that, but you requested that I divine your destiny. I dare not go against the fates.”
“I would that fate would strike you down with a bolt of lightning for all the good you profess to have done.”
The fortune teller leaned forward and whispered, but Daniel heard every word. “You would never have found happiness with Lord Southwood. I saved you from a loveless future.”
Mrs. Northcott folded her arms before flouncing out of the breakfast room. She didn’t turn back, didn’t offer a bit of gratitude to anyone for releasing her from the shackles, but then again, did the fortune teller deserve their thanks?
Rubbing his wrist, Daniel nodded to the woman and stepped back to the sideboard, noticing a maid down on the floor cleaning up the food that had been unceremoniously thrown to the ground.
He dished a new plate with even more food, his appetite raging in his belly now that he was free, then sat comfortably at the table to break his fast.
By the time Daniel sawed into his third sausage with grim determination, he noticed a peculiar stillness in the room. No clinking of forks, no polite murmur of conversation, no blessed distraction from a few moments before when his wife of twelve hours had stormed from the breakfast nook.
He glanced up, looking around to see that he had an audience—he was the sole focus of their attention, as though he were a three-headed monster on exhibit at the bazaar.
“You seem rather intent upon your breakfast, Northcott,” Mr. Astley observed, the corners of his mouth twitching.
Daniel, undeterred, lifted a forkful of sausage with something bordering on defiance.
“If you recall,” he said dryly, “I had a distressing day and night. I am a bit famished, and between the spill of our last plates and my current freedom, I find my appetite has quite returned.” He took a deliberate bite, chewed thoughtfully, and continued, “My wife, I suspect, hoped to starve me into an early grave. A clever strategy, but alas…” He stabbed another piece of sausage. “I am made of sturdier stuff.”
Mrs. Astley coughed delicately into her napkin, though her eyes gleamed with amusement.
Daniel hardly blamed her. He did not fancy himself a glutton by nature, but he had a healthy appreciation for well-cooked food, and being shackled overnight to an alluring bride that had made his heart pound into his ears had sharpened his appetite.
Moreover, he had a bone to pick with his mother.
Tea and fairy cakes. Thinking about the argument to come made him ravenous.
With little dignity, he reached for another slice of toast as he ignored the fact that Mr. Astley and his father were laughing over their coffee.
As he spread liberal amounts of butter and jam upon the toast, the door to the breakfast room opened to reveal Mrs. Northcott, changed into a dress that hadn’t been cut and hastily stitched upon her person.
She charged forward, taking a seat across from him. Her eyebrows rose as he continued to ply his toast with preserves. “I see you have not gone hungry in my absence.”
“Might I assist you with a plate?” he asked, dropping his knife to the table.
“Fruit is all I desire.” She reached across the table for the teapot.
Daniel might still be hungry, but he was not a cad.
He walked to the sideboard, dishing her a plate of various fruits, remembering the ones she had requested of him before the fortune teller had arrived.
He arranged the fruit as nicely as possible, and then added eggs, sausage, and toast. Fruit could not sustain a person over long, especially when she hadn’t eaten anything the night before.
When he placed it before her, she sighed, shaking her head. “Unable to follow the simplest of requests, I see.”
Daniel leaned back in his chair, completely unrepentant. “Your request was a mere suggestion, ma’am. Guidelines for the unimaginative and frail of spirit. I simply enhanced your options.”
He picked up his toast and took a bite, the strawberry jam sweet enough to tempt him into spreading it across another slice. When she didn’t respond with another witty retort, he looked over at her, raising an eyebrow in her direction as he took in the shock upon her face.
“Have you any manners?”
He grinned, picked up his fork, and stabbed another sausage without cutting it like a gentleman. “You wound me, Mrs. Northcott. I have long been assured by my family that I have the manners of a well-trained hound.”
Hastings burst into laughter as he sat back, completely at his leisure.
“A hound who tracks mud through the drawing room and steals the roast off the sideboard.”
“If the roast is left unattended,” Daniel said solemnly, “is it truly stealing?”
Myra sighed, setting down her teacup with a decisive clatter. “One day, Mr. Northcott, your cleverness will be the end of you.”