This new duchess of his would do well. Very well. Cal lounged against the bedpost, willing his over-interested parts to shut up and calm down. He liked her honesty, even if it was leaving him decidedly uncomfortable. He liked the way she moved and the way she looked and the way she had dealt with his staff. Modest, honest with them too, and yet quite clearly in control. She might be inexperienced at running a household, let alone one this size, but she would not allow herself to be taken advantage of or duped by the servants.
And Sophie had dealt with Isobel’s tantrum with a calmness that surprised him. He suspected it was going to surprise Isobel too, once she experienced more of the steel spine that he fancied Sophie’s curves and femininity concealed.
She tamed a wayward curl with a determined jab of a hairpin and swivelled round on the stool.
‘Will you show me the rest – my other rooms, yours?’
‘Very well.’ He led her across to the door to the dressing room which had a bath with moulded swans’ heads and necks for taps set half way along its length.
‘Hot running water?’ She was into the room, trailing her fingers over the taps. ‘What luxury. I will never get out of it.’
‘You will have to take turns with me. They haven’t finished mine yet. I swore that after washing in everything from glacial melt-water streams to a bucket on a ship that I was going to have running water in my houses.’
‘And you did my bath first?’ Sophie whirled round, came up on her toes and kissed him, a swift, lightening-strike on the mouth, then she was off exploring the clothes presses.
‘Of course.’ Cal considered running a cold bath there and then. ‘Obviously, I didn’t know it would be for you, exactly, I just sent orders for a start to be made here.’
Did he detect a slight stiffening in her shoulders at that tactless reminder that he had wanted a duchess, right away, and she just happened to fit the bill? His imagination, surely? She had wanted a husband without emotional strings attached, she had been clear about that.
But all Sophie said was, ‘And what is in here?’ She opened a door. ‘Oh, my. It actually flushes with water?’
‘It does. Come and see your sitting room.’
She slid her hand under his elbow and he thought again that she was just the right height for him. Madeleine had been a pocket Venus, gorgeous to look at, lush, feminine, but she had never felt quite right on his arm. Or in them, come to that. Sophie seemed to… fit. Ah well, he was a duke, he could afford to order made-to-measure.
‘What are you smiling about?’ She looked up, head tipped to see his face properly.
‘A whimsical thought. Now, is the colour to your taste?’ he asked as he led her through to the sitting room. This was newly decorated too, on his orders when he reached London. He had left it to his senior staff to chose exactly what was done and he wished now he had taken a more personal interest.
‘I love the colour, that old rose and the soft gilt and ivory.’ She walked around, touched the desk, bounced on a chair. ‘I might change the furniture around.’
‘Whatever you like,’ Cal agreed, distracted by the thought of how there was room in that chair for both of them and what an interesting height it was.
‘Now you are frowning.’
‘Was I?’ Wondering just why I am crazy with desire for you, that is all. Yes, Sophie was very beautiful, yes she was refreshingly open and obviously intelligent, but he had seen any number of beautiful, intelligent, interesting women over the past years without becoming obsessed with the idea of getting them into bed. And that had nothing to do with the fact that he had been married and inconveniently inclined to honour his wedding vows.
Sophie was in motion again, circling the room, touching things as if nothing was quite real unless her fingers stroked it. Lord, there went his imagination again. ‘Through here is my sitting room. I don’t know how much I will use it.’ Cal opened the door and followed Sophie in. ‘I’ve got a study downstairs.’ He strode across the Aubusson carpet and opened his bedchamber door, unable to cope with the sight of Sophie caressing any more objects. ‘And this is as far as we are going today.’
Chapter Thirteen - Where Sophie and the Duke Survey a Bed
Sophie’s eyes were wide as she stood on the threshold and studied the bed which was, he had to agree, quite indecently large and ornate. ‘It is very…’
‘I’ll have it moved into the State Bedchamber and get something simpler. That chamber never did get a bed. It was all done up for George II and he went and died before he got here, which saved the family a great deal of money, I suspect.’
‘State bedchamber,’ Sophie said faintly.
‘There’s an entire suite of state rooms. Wonderful for entertaining visitors on wet days and for children playing hide and seek. We will probably lose Isobel in there for weeks at a time.’