"You didn't eat anything at the reception," he murmured lazily. "Too busy preparing to attack my mother, as I recall."
"I don't wish to discuss that," she said, her lofty tone spoiled by a massive yawn. "We might quarrel."
"Might we?" He sat up and looked down on her with a quizzical smile. "I thought it was settled."
"For this time," Theo responded, wrinkling her nose. "But you can't promise me I'll never have dealings with your mother in the future, can you?"
"No," he agreed. "I can't promise you that."
"And will you always take my side?"
"I can't promise you that, either, I'm afraid."
It was intended at least in part as banter, but Theo frowned, hitching herself onto one elbow. "How old were you when your father died?"
"Three. Why?" He had only the vaguest memory of Sir Joshua Gilbraith, so vague that he thought it was probably based on the portrait hanging on the stairs of Gilbraith House.
"So you lived alone with your mother and elder sister all your life?"
He shook his head. "No. When I was five, I was sent away to school. I spent hardly any time at home after that. At ten I went to Westminster School and spent most of the year there."
"Why would they send you away so early?" Theo was horrified at such a grim picture. A five-year-old child was far too young to be sent out into a frequently brutal world on his own.
Sylvester shrugged. He'd never given his childhood much thought. It was a world he'd shared with his school friends; none of them questioned either its harshness or its rightness. Except Neil Gerard, who'd spent those years in a state of permanent terror. An English public school was no place for the physically timid – let alone the coward. Again some shadow of memory pushed insistently against the dark periphery of his mind. For a second he struggled with it, and then it was gone. Theo was looking at him in some puzzlement, waiting for an answer to her question.
"My trustees believed it wouldn't be good for a boy to grow up without a man in the house," he said. "An all-male environment is considered preferable for the upbringing of boys." Smiling, he brushed a lock of hair from her forehead. "Don't look so worried, gypsy. I suffered in good company."
"But you still suffered?"
"I suppose so." He shrugged again. "But we didn't look at it that way at the time. It was, after all, a highly privileged existence."
"But didn't they beat you?"
"All the time," he said with a chuckle.
"And they never kissed you or cuddled you?"
"Good God, no!" He sounded genuinely shocked at such an idea.
Theo frowned down at the coverlet. No wonder he was such a reserved man. And yet behind that intimidating, controlling exterior she knew there was humor and warmth and sensitivity. One just had to know how to tap into it.
"Well, it sounds dreadful to me," she declared, and dropped the subject, returning to the original topic. "Shall we have a picnic? There must be plenty of food in the kitchen. I know there was a dish of dressed crab, and a salmon mousse, and I believe there was a rabbit pie." She swung her legs energetically off the bed. "I'll bring up a tray."
"Theo, I detest eating in bed," Sylvester protested, half laughing at this enthusiasm.
"Oh, do you? I like it."
"Crumbs," he said succinctly. "In the sheets, sticking to your skin."
"Oh, pah! We'll shake the sheets out afterward." Theo headed toward the connecting door between their bedchambers in search of a wrapper on her own side of the door. "We can have a bottle of the ninety-nine burgundy. You can bring it up. It's in the fourth rack on the left-hand side of the first cellar three rows in."
Sylvester raised his eyebrows. "One of these days you must draw me a map of the cellars."
"Oh, you don't need a map. If I'm not here to help you, Foster will be. He knows them as well as I do."
She disappeared into her own room and didn't see Sylvester's frown. He did not intend to be dependent on the knowledge of his wife and his butler. But his wedding night was not the moment to tackle the issue. He shrugged into a dressing gown.
In the courtyard his lordship's servant was leaning on a rapidly emptying keg of ale, deep in discussion with the itinerant peddler, a fellow Londoner who had been as pleased as Henry to meet one of his own kind among the country bumpkins.
"So he's been doin' a bit o' cradle snatchin', this bloke of your'n," the peddler observed, peering at the level in his tankard.
Henry squinted up at the sun. "Not what I'd call it. That Lady Theo seems to know what's what. Bright as a button, she is. Knows her way around this estate like the back of her hand."
"But still she's a babby compared with 'er husband."
"What's it to you, any road?" Henry demanded, his sense of privacy and personal loyalty violated by these observations from a stranger.
The peddler shrugged. "Nothin' really. Just interested. Folks in the village 'ave been talkin'."
"Loose-tongued gossips, the lot of 'em," Henry declared.
"There's talk about 'ow the lass is a Belmont and his lordship's some other family and 'ow there's bad blood between the two of 'em," the peddler persisted, bending to refill his tankard at the tap of the keg. The flow was sluggish, and he swore softly, putting his shoulder against the keg to tip it up farther.
Henry grunted. "Don't know about that. Seems to me everyone's well satisfied with the arrangement. His lordship's got himself a wife, the wife's family stay put on the family estate. Suits everyone, stands to reason."
"Mebbe so." The peddler nodded gravely. " 'Is lordship much of a hunter, is 'e?"
Henry shrugged. "Much as most gentry, I reckon. Takes his gun out on a good morning."
"There's good duck huntin' on that Webster's Pond, I've been told," the peddler mused. "Village folks like to keep it to theirselves, so I've been told, so I reckon as 'ow yer bloke don't know that. Pass it along, I should." He pushed himself away from his leaning post. "Well, I'll be on me way. Nice talkin' to ye."
"Aye." Henry raised a hand in farewell, not too sure that he cared for the stranger, fellow Londoner or not. There was something unpleasant about a man who listened to gossip. But his lordship might be interested to hear about the duck hunting on Webster's Pond… once he'd become sufficiently accustomed to the marital bed to leave it early in the morning.
Grinning slightly, Henry strolled across the yard to where a group of dairymaids were giggling among themselves. He'd had his eye on that Betsy for several weeks – a rosy-cheeked girl with a nice buxom figure that a man could really get his arm around.
"He's comin' over." One of the girls nudged Betsy in the ribs, whispering vigorously. "I told ye he'd got 'is eye on you, Betsy."
"Get away wi' you, Nellie." Betsy jabbed her elbow into her sister's ribs, but her cheeks were redder than ever.
"Fancy a walk, then, little maid?" Henry winked, noting her blush with satisfaction. "I'll buy you a glass of porter down at the inn."
"Oh, me dad would kill me," Betsy exclaimed in genuine shock. "I can't go into no inn. It's not decent fer a maid to be seen in a public taproom."
Country folk, thought Henry with a derisory head shake. "Well, how about just a walk, then?"
"Go on, our Betsy." Nellie pushed her friend forward. "Our dad won't mind. Mr. Henry's a fine gentleman with a good position."
Betsy looked doubtful, and Henry began to wonder if he was getting in too deep. A simple walk didn't commit a man to anything, and he certainly wasn't interested in following his lordship to the altar. Not yet awhile, at least.