Page 18 of For the Love of Clover (Breaking the Rules of the Beau Monde #4)

CHAPTER 18

F or three days and nights, that damned kiss haunted him. The dare. The coquettish eye contact. All of it drove him mad. But still, she did not invite him, and he would not press a suit for a dare or a game. Wanting her was one thing. Respecting her position was another. Neither of them came into this marriage by choice, and he was damned if he would choose to consummate it without her consent. As a gentleman, he had married, and those scruples didn’t stop for a few vows.

He did, however, have a few moves left. With any luck, he would at least check her king.

“Esther said I should be ready for a trip this afternoon. Where are we going?” Clover appeared in the doorway of his study as he signed papers for his secretary.

“If I wanted you to know, I would have conveyed it through Miss Esther.” He eyed her under his lashes. “And please do not get so hopeful.”

“Then tell me where. I don’t know how to dress.”

“Shopping.” Was the only answer he would offer.

He could see from the corner of his eye her impatient stance. Hands on her delightful hips, and with a glance, he saw her biting back a challenge. “What time?”

He looked around her at the mantel clock. “An hour?”

With that agreement, he hurried to arrange the coach and the cargo, before collecting his wife.

The coach was brand new. A gift from Kingsley for their wedding. Too lavish by half, but Hugo accepted it almost as his due. He knew the dusky pink velvet squabs were for her, but the dark-brown enamel paint was for him with his initials in bronze paint on each door. It still smelled new, like rich fabric and polish. As he helped Clover inside, he caught a pleasant scent that didn’t stop after the door swung closed.

“What are you wearing?” he asked her, a curious draw to his brow.

“A dress. A cloak. And I brought the hat, but I’d rather not wear it inside if you don’t mind.” She watched him closely, but her words were of little inflection. Normal.

“Not what you’re wearing. I can see that. But what is that perfume? A new soap, perchance?”

“Do you like it? Isn’t it delicious?”

“That’s the word. I can almost taste it. Oranges or citrus.”

She nodded. “The oil of orange rind with jasmine and honeysuckle, mainly.”

“Gerard.” His very talented, wily valet.

“He’s truly gifted. I think he needs his own business. How difficult would it be to help him find his way?”

“Gerard and I are already working on something.” He wouldn’t tell her their unexpected marriage had pushed the project further out.

“I love that you care so much about your servants.”

“I care about investments, and Gerard is a genius.” She looked away, and he knew she was thinking of herself as an investment. If he and Kingsley had not been knee-deep in business together, perhaps she believed he wouldn’t have married her. But he would have. He was a gentleman, first and foremost. And something deeper. Maybe. He quickly returned their conversation back to perfume and his talented valet. “You know he makes my boot polish with a hint of bay rum. What else, besides perfume, has he done for you?”

“Cream, atomizer, soap, toilet water, and an aromatic for handkerchiefs and whatnot.”

“He’s been busy.”

“How do you dress without him?”

“Hm. Is that an offer?” He cocked his head.

She hid a smile.

“I have a very capable footman who stands in and sometimes travels with me when I leave for Dovetail Manor. My family seat.”

“Why do you never talk about your family?” Concern edged her sweet musical voice.

“I suppose I haven’t had the opportunity. The little time we’ve had together seems to be spent doing other things than talking.” He raised a brow. “Like arguing. I’m sorry they weren’t at the wedding. There wasn’t time, and my father is a bit eccentric. He rarely travels outside the closest towns, which means my mother doesn’t either. I had one brother, who sadly did not thrive at birth, and three lovely sisters, one of which is married.”

“I’m sorry about your brother.”

“I didn’t know him. But it brings sorrow for my mother and my father. He would have been heir to our family.”

“Is that difficult for you?”

“No.” He smiled at her obvious concern. But she’d known far more loss than he had. “My family blames no one. They are a good lot if not an annoying one.” He didn’t say so with intent but more as a typical sibling sarcasm. “I go home for winter every other year. I should be there this year, but business has kept me.”

“As it has my brother.” She watched out the window as they rounded St. James to Piccadilly. “I look forward to meeting them. I should write them. Or do they not know?”

“I sent word. And I said nothing about the reasons, so you needn’t worry.” When they crossed over to Bond Street, the lavish coach was almost barred from moving for all the onlookers. He checked to see Clover’s reaction to the hubbub. It wasn’t necessarily the scandal they created, but that something so new, refined, and emblazoned with a monogram had pulled in.

“Where are you taking me?”

“Nowhere, currently. We’ll never get around this traffic. It’s the new vehicle. We should have taken the carriage, but I thought it too cold.” Honestly, privacy was the real reason. He knocked on the roof to stop, although they could have jumped out without injury being stuck as they were. A footman cleared the street and ushered them out and onto the walk. “It’s not far from here.” He folded her hand over his arm and enjoyed the luxury of looking like a normal couple. Even one who might be in love. Especially when they walked into the jewelers.

“I don’t need anything from here, Hugo. Why the jewelers? The ring you gave me is quite enough, really.”

“Not jewelry, my lovely little sprite.” She yanked his arm when they closed in on a case of spectacles.

“Oh, Hugo. How could you?”

“Clover, they’ll help you see. Why do you care if you look like a bluestocking now? You aren’t husband hunting. I hope not, anyhow,” he teased.

“I don’t mind looking like I read books. I mind they are for the elderly. I’ll look twenty years older, and they’re not attractive.”

“But you’ll see.”

She stopped him before the jeweler could approach. “Which is to say you agree that I won’t be attractive.” She was quite serious. Her nose flared, and her eyes looked too shiny not to be close to tears.

He lifted her chin and stared into her blue eyes. “Clover, you are a beautiful woman, and if you don’t think I believe that, then I’ll have to work harder at reminding you. Besides, I didn’t think you cared to catch my eye.” He smiled, and if they had not been standing in a shop, he would have kissed her.

“No woman wishes for her husband to have reason to look elsewhere.”

He chuckled, running a thumb along her jaw, then down her throat. “We haven’t been married a week, and you’re jealous of a phantom, nonexistent woman.”

“I’m not jealous.”

He put her hand back on his arm and said, “What if I tell you this is not the surprise? And I think you’ll appreciate the extra sight when I tell you where we’re going this afternoon.”

“Where?”

“The eyeglasses first. I’ll tell you in the coach.”

She looked at him every few seconds as the proprietor helped her find a pair of spectacles that worked.

“Hold right there.” Hugo walked to the entrance and waved at her as she stood in the back of the store.

She held a hand to her mouth and giggled. He’d missed that. She had been far too serious since the announcement of their nuptials. She waved back, nodding her head. And the woman couldn’t look more adorable if she’d tried. And Lord help him if she tried.

“You don’t have to wear them out. But keep them with you because if I ever catch you dancing with Albert Franklin, I will have to call him out.”

“And me? What will you do with me?”

“I’ll trounce you in chess. It’s currently the best I can do.”

They found the coach, and before the tack could spring into action, she was asking him about their destination.

“You don’t want to wait?”

“Hugo!” She quickly snatched up the package that held her spectacles cradled in a velvet pouch like a pampered piece of fine jewelry. Delicacy aside, she popped them on the bridge of her nose and rested the arms on the tops of her ears. Then, she blinked her eyes wide like a baby bird and directed her attention to him. “I’m wearing the specs now. So? Where?” She held her hands in her lap, and he could see she fought to keep them still.

“All right.” He choked out a laugh. “Strong’s.”

She sat back, stunned into silence, but true to Clover, not for long. With surprising speed for someone trussed up in a dress and cloak, she half stood, crouching to keep from bumping her head on the ceiling of the coach, and grabbed his face between her palms, then planted a hard kiss on his mouth. “Do you know what that means to me?” she asked, falling onto his lap, her arms about his neck.

“Well, love, you’re sitting on my lap, so I think I can guess.” He pointed to his mouth. “Kiss me again, anyway. I like kissing you, Clover Darrington,” he repeated the same words she’d said to him under that tree while she melted into him. And he wanted to melt into her. Into her softness, her kindness, her whimsy. He wanted to push himself inside her until she was his forever. Or was it just this moment? So much had passed between them, so much of it forced upon them that he wasn’t sure anymore whether he or circumstance had chosen her.

But blast if he didn’t care right now. His body began a familiar ache, something that fighting in the ring would hopefully cure. And perhaps with a bit of persistent patience, there might be a little hope for them in this world.

Between her gloved fingers caressing his neck and her soft derriere wiggling against his lap, he was in the kind of thirsty pain which only a woman could quench. He greedily took what she offered. But only what she offered. He had been careful to allow her the freedom to lead the way since neither of them had anticipated the position they were in. And he fought hard not to imagine her in other positions since he felt he had no right to expect it. He, however, could not resist the fantasies when her breasts were within tasting distance, and she hovered over his lips wearing the most adorable pair of spectacles he’d ever seen. She looked down into his eyes, but instead of professing some great love for him, she crinkled her brow and asked, “What’s it like to kiss a woman with eyeglasses?”

“A little bit like heaven and a good portion of desire.”

“No lust?”

He chuckled. “Oh, yes.”

“Then I’ll keep them.”

And he thought he’d keep her, just like she was today if he could manage it.