At the foot of the stairs, he paused, his hand on the newel post. He gave a low laugh.
“A wife. A bath. A meal at home.” He shook his head. “I’m becoming damned civilized.”
As he continued up the stairs, Anne understood that no matter what Leo Bailey did, he would never be domesticated. He was, and always would be, wild.
“This is where we’re supposed to eat?”
Anne noted the appalled expression on Leo’s face as he surveyed the capacious dining chamber. He had bathed and changed into fresh clothes. In his pristine stock, snowy against his jaw, expertly cut green woolen coat, his hair dark, gleaming gold in the candlelight, he had transformed from a bruised brawler. But he didn’t look a gentleman. No, in his restrained evening finery, he seemed a pirate prince contemplating future pillaging.
“You found no fault with the room yesterday.”
“Because there were people everywhere. This.” He waved his hand at the chamber, where a collation awaited him at the vast dining table, and two footmen stood in disinterested readiness. “All we need is a bear to bait.”
“One of your footmen is a very big fellow. Perhaps he’d be willing to play the part of the bear.”
With Anne on his arm, Leo brought them farther into the room. All the chandeliers had been lit—an expense she could scarcely fathom—yet this only illuminated how large and empty the dining chamber truly was. He frowned at the walls as if displeased by their distance, and the look was so commanding, she half expected the walls to simply get up and move closer just to please him.
“No wonder I never ate at home. Who could dine in here?”
“I did.”
Her quiet words snared his attention. “Today.”
“Yes, today. I broke my fast in this chamber, and dined, as well.”
“Alone.”
“There was a footman.”
He shook his head, his frown deepening. “God, I’m an ass.” He quirked an eyebrow at her. “This is the point in the exchange where you contradict me.”
“I was given to understand that a good wife does not contradict her husband.”
His scowl transformed into a smile that glittered in his eyes. “I think I’ve married an impertinent hoyden.”
Her own lips curved. “No one has ever called me a hoyden before.” And she rather liked it, for as a daughter of parents with little means, subdued obedience had been her byword. Being poor and an unmarried woman did not improve one’s chances of being abided. “I suspect it’s the low company I now keep.”
The moment the words left her, she wanted to call them back. Leo’s face shuttered at the perceived insult.
“I didn’t—that’s not what I mean.” She gripped his sleeve. “It was a jest. Nothing more. I don’t think of you as low.”
“But I am,” he said, words cool and impersonal. He withdrew his arm.
“Not truly. Low is defined by deeds, not blood.”
His smile returned, only now it had a dark and cynical cast to it. “To repeat: I am.”
She did not understand to what he referred, but the shadows in his eyes made her think perhaps she did not want to know. Blast. They had been heading toward something, a connection as tenuous as it was vital, and a few thoughtless words had torn it asunder.
Another realization dawned: he claimed not to care what others thought, and in many ways, he didn’t, but there was still some part of him that bristled and brooded when his origins were derided. He lashed out when hurt, like a wounded beast. To keep her hand from being bitten off, she must proceed carefully.
“Grand though this chamber is,” she said, searching for another topic, “it doesn’t lend itself well to intimate suppers.” She turned to one of the footmen. “Remove the collation to the parlor upstairs.” The servant bowed, and he and the other footman began gathering up the plates and platters of food.
“There’s a parlor upstairs?”
She exhaled. At the least, Leo’s voice had lost its cold timbre. “This house has a saloon, two parlors, a promenade, study, drawing room, and three bedchambers. I can draw you a map. I’m very good with them.”
“No need. If I get lost, I’ll whistle for you.”
“Like a hound.” She affected a sigh, though glad that his aloof, cutting mood had not lasted long. “Has any woman received a more romantic proposition?”
A mercurial man, her husband, for now he was grave. “I know little of romance. If it’s pretty words and poesies you want, you’ll have to find them in the pages of a novel.”
“I don’t read novels. Besides,” she added, smiling, “I think we’re doing well enough on our own. We do not need a histrionic novelist to tell us how to behave.”
“Never did trust writers. A bunch of Grub Street scribblers paid to lie.” Affable, he offered her his arm. “Shall we go up to dine, my lady wife?”
She placed her hand on his sleeve, and felt anew the jolt that came from touching his solid, sinewy form. “Let’s. And I’ll provide direction, should we get lost en route.” At the least, she knew how to navigate the house. When it came to her husband, she found herself continually redrawing the map.
Leo never anticipated the pleasures of a meal at home. Until last night, his evenings had been spent in the company of his fellow Hellraisers. They had earned their name honestly—if such a thing could be done with honesty. Though he didn’t possess the privilege of birth, he had that other opener of doors: money. With it, in the company of gently born scoundrels, he had experienced all that London had to offer. Wine, carousing, music. Women.
His taxonomy of women separated them into discrete categories. The demimondaine was the sort he knew best, and as a man of business, he appreciated the clear directives by which they led their lives. Some men liked to pretend that courtesans truly held affection for them. Leo was not one of those men. For all his manipulations at Exchange Alley, he liked dealings honest and with clear intent. So he paid courtesans for their time, their company, and never flattered himself that they found him handsome or charming. Only wealthy.
There were the wives and daughters of rich merchants and men of trade, but he seldom interacted with them. His ambitions lay elsewhere, even if he could increase his fortune tenfold by making a strategic marriage. Money he could make entirely on his own. He didn’t need a wife to bring him that.
Also in his catalog were the women of the aristocracy. Staid matrons. Sly-eyed widows and bored, neglected wives—these were the sort who invited him into their beds, curious for a taste of the lower orders. He was happy to oblige. It gratified Leo to know that he vigorously pleasured women whose husbands sneered at him.
The delicate young ladies who played fortepiano and, by design, knew little of the world beyond the circumference of Mayfair—these he knew least of all. Wealth he possessed, but not reputation or bloodline, and genteel girls gave him wide berth. He did not mind overmuch, discovering in his limited conversations with them that they had been carefully instructed to have no opinions or use beyond silk-gowned broodmares. In his nights with the Hellraisers, the shortest portion of the evening was spent at aristocratic assemblies, for the company was dull and circumscribed, especially the young women.
Leo was young. And a man. When it came to female company, he wanted anything but dull and circumscribed.
To his surprise, this evening he learned that his young, aristocratic wife was neither of these things.
“Why not invest everything into a single trade?” she asked, pouring him another glass of Bordeaux. “Concentrate all your interests in the development of a single product—perhaps even fund its advancement.”