While Sycamore was half in love with the woman. “Let her have her say, and if she tells you that pressing business calls you back to the family seat at dawn tomorrow, off you go.”
“I’m seventeen, Dorning. I haven’t any pressing business.”
“You might point that out to her. Tell her you’d like to manage a small property close to home, get your feet wet so to speak. My brother wasn’t all that much older than you when he took over managing the whole earldom from our father. My father would step in occasionally, but mostly he let Casriel learn by trial and error.”
“I have the error part well in hand.” Tavistock gave the horse a final pat. “Wish me luck.”
“You don’t need luck. Your step-mother loves you and has probably been praying that you’d seek her help before Chastain put you truly in dun territory. I also suspect Sycamore would be happy to sit down with you over a few friendly hands of cards. What he doesn’t know about reading other gamblers isn’t worth knowing, and once you begin to think in terms of probabilities, your luck will improve significantly.”
“Thank you,” Tavistock said, offering his hand. “We are barely acquainted, Mr. Dorning, but I hope at some point I can be of as much service to you as you have been to me.”
Ash shook hands, oddly touched at Tavistock’s earnestness. “Glad to be of use, your lordship.”
Tavistock was off down the path, his stride the loose-limbed gait of youth. Ash remained at the stable until the first luncheon bell rang, trying to sort out why the exchange with Tavistock had made him so uneasy.
Tavistock was a decent young fellow who’d known enough to ask for help when he was in over his head, but he was already in debt because of Chastain, which meant Chastain was in debt too.
In debt, and apparently not at all concerned about it, despite having told Della that marriage had not improved his finances at all.
Chapter Fourteen
Della savored the sense of security and peace that came from waking with Ash snuggled along her back. She remained still lest she rouse him and mentally fortified herself for another day of house party purgatory. The tedium of socializing with two dozen acquaintances was bearable, even William Chastain’s smirking presence was endurable, but the growing sense of distance with Ash was breaking her heart.
She’d draped herself over him when he’d come to bed late the previous evening, and he’d tolerated her kisses. As it had become clear to Della that he was humoring her, he’d petted her shoulder and suggested they get some sleep. He’d been not the least bit stirred by her overtures. When Della had climbed off of him, he’d rolled to his side and wished her pleasant dreams.
She’d spooned herself around him, and when she’d wrapped an arm about his waist, he’d taken her hand and kept her gently but firmly from exploring below his waist.
How could two people occupy the same bed and have such a vast silence between them? How could they have started the week so passionately and already have this aching awkwardness wedging its way into their marriage?
“You’re awake?” Ash asked.
“Not quite asleep.” She laced her fingers through his. “I like cuddling with you.”
Without moving, without even changing his breathing, Ash retreated in some intangible way. “I’m sorry, Della. I know you were in an amorous mood last night, but sometimes cuddling is all I can offer.”
“Do you know how dearly I treasure your cuddling? I feel safe when you hold me, and cherished and real. I can breathe when your arms are around me.”
“You can breathe?”
She had almost said too much. “You keep me wonderfully warm. I like knowing you are sharing a bed with me.”
“Even when I’m restless?”
What was he asking? “You are no more restless than I am. Does something in particular keep you awake?”
Ash rolled to his back, and when Della rearranged herself along his side, he wrapped an arm around her shoulders.
“Why do you suppose Lady Fairchild’s daughter is allowing Chastain to play the gallant with her?” he asked.
This was not pillow talk, but it was something. “You noticed that too. Chastain is not at all bookish, and Miss Catherine lives for her poetry and essays. Every day, I see her on his arm at some point, and I do not like how Chastain regards her.”
“She is my half-sister,” Ash said. “As closely related to me as three of my legitimate siblings. Perhaps my misgivings are laughable, but I feel a duty to warn her away from him.”
“As do I, but whatever mischief Chastain is up to, I also fear to provoke him by saying anything to her that he might get wind of, but somebody ought to say something.” A concerned half-brother, perhaps.
Ash began a slow pattern of caresses to Della’s arm and shoulder. “I found Lady Fairchild near tears the other day. Chastain was also on the terrace. Between sessions in the gazebo.”
“And you think a man who waves his pizzle around like it’s imbued with Excalibur’s magic is somehow more impressive than the husband who holds me while I dream, cuddles with me in the morning, and takes my part when I’m in disgrace?”
Ash dragged her closer. “You are so fierce.”
“I am not fierce. Sometimes, I can hardly speak, I’m at such a loss.” The rest was poised to come tumbling out. I shake, I wheeze, I am terrified for no reason, my mind whirls through dreadful thoughts that feel like the only certainties left in the world.
Ash kissed her, and Della dared to kiss him back—no tongue, for she didn’t want to scare him off.
“I came upon young Lord Tavistock in the stable yesterday,” Ash said, his hand resting on Della’s belly. “His lordship suspected Golding had been making untoward advances on his person. I believed him.”
He kissed her again, shifting onto his side.
“Golding is Mrs. Tremont’s brother?” Della asked, loving the feel of Ash’s morning beard against her palm.
“The same. Spread your legs, Mrs. Dorning. Let’s greet the day like a married couple, shall we?”
Della obliged with inordinate joy, and Ash was soon coming into her in sweet, lazy thrusts. He’d been harder on other occasions, but he was hard enough. Della was soon moving in counterpoint to his rhythm and glorying in the way he used a hand under her bottom to bring them closer.
“Let go, Della,” Ash said. “Be greedy.”
She wanted to be married rather than greedy, to make love rather than simply avail herself of Ash’s morning cockstand—such as it was. His passion was flagging by the moment, and the sense of being once more abandoned washed through her.
“I will save my greed for another occasion,” she said, going still and stroking his hair. “One we can enjoy equally.”
He sighed and levered up onto all fours, obliterating the fiction that they were still joined. “You might have a long wait. I’m sorry.”
“Then we both have a long wait. Freddy Throckmorton was always at me, Ash. Pushing me onto a reading table or bending me over the nearest saddle rack. I was a convenience, a sheath for his sword, nothing more. You are much more to me than a few moments of stolen pleasure.”