“Silly, this is for the bedroom. The one we will share in two weeks’ time.”
Gerald had managed to defer the wedding, thanks to a few details about his estate, and the settlement. His immediate heir, as matters currently stood, was a cousin. He considered himself a scholar, and spent most of his time abroad collecting massive marble statues and shipping them to his house. At least he had not landed any on Gerald yet, though he suspected, in time, he’d find himself in possession of a few Venuses and Jupiters. But he’d insisted his heir was informed. Fortunately the duchess, a stickler for protocol, had agreed with him. However the response, typically vague, had arrived yesterday, and he had run out of excuses.
He’d imagined by now, his memories of his one night with Annie Cathcart would have receded, but it was not so. Every night he dreamed of her, and woke with a hard and aching erection. He refused to ease it by visiting one of the many women who he had no doubt would receive the Earl of Carbrooke with open arms. Only one of those women would do, and her arms were forever closed to him.
He was going insane. Images of Annie haunted him day and night, until he could not remember what another woman was like. At first he’d put his obsession down to infatuation. He was three weeks in, and no nearer pushing her to the category of wistful memory, where she rightly belonged.
Now his betrothed, a beautiful, irritating woman stood before him offering to make everything he was striving for come true. Well, not everything.
They were in the back parlor of his London house, alone, as befitted betrothed couples, with the door open, as Gerald insisted on. Kisses, however, were allowed now. Even the duchess coughed before she entered a room, though there was never any need for her to do so.
At first Gerald had pressed his attentions on her, within the bounds of propriety. After all, she was beautiful. All she had to do was be compliant. But when Elizabeth wound her arms around him he felt trapped, not desired, as if bindweed was her sister.
He kept giving her the benefit of the doubt. Now he bowed to her, and excused himself. “I’ll be but a minute,” he murmured, as if a visit to the necessary was called for.
Instead, he went upstairs, taking them two at a time, and strolled along the carpeted corridor to his sister’s room. He tapped gently on the door. “Dahlia?”
Her received silence in response, but he knew they were inside. “I heard you giggling. There are at least two of you in there.” He kept his voice down. After all, Elizabeth resided on the floor below.
The door opened a crack, and then widened. “Get in here,” his sister demanded. As he’d suspected, all three of them sat in the room, sitting around the occasional table, which had been drawn into the center of the floor.
“I need one of you to go downstairs and talk to Elizabeth.” He took his stance before the table, facing the lace-shrouded window.
“Why?” Dorcas asked. She spread her skirts and retook her seat.
“Because I can’t bear her talk of trousseaus any longer.”
“Well, that was to the point.” Delphi put her reading glasses on the table and leaned back in her chair. They must have dragged chairs in from other rooms, since they were mismatched, one powder blue, one sea green. They were prominently out of place in the ivory and aqua decorations. “Why should we put up with what you cannot?”
“Because you’re women.” That sounded feeble, even to his ears.
“So is Princess Amelia, but you have as much chance of persuading her to share a room with Lady Elizabeth as you have us,” Dahlia said. “Why do you think we are here?”
The table held evidence of his sisters’ occupation. An astrological chart jostled for room with a book of botanic illustrations and a teetering pile of leather-bound essays. If he was not mistaken, they’d been here for some time. “I thought you’d gone out until I realized your bonnets were still in the hall.”
“You were meant to,” Dorcas said, uncharacteristically sharp. “We’re making camp here until she’s gone.”
He stared at them, bewildered. “What do you mean?”
The sisters exchanged glances. Eventually Delphi spoke up. “There is no easy way of saying this, Gerald. We cannot abide Elizabeth. If her well-meaning manipulation goes on much longer, we will arrange to leave you two alone. You may enjoy the estate and the house in splendor. My guess is that she is trying to get rid of us, so she can have you to herself.”
“What has she been saying?” His heart sank.
Damaris snorted. “She will agree to anything you say so long as it benefits her. If it does not, then she does not do it. She will badger you until she gets what she wants. She is autocratic and overbearing, sure of herself and determined everyone will obey her.”