"Do you have any ideas as to what we should do about you?" he inquired with mild curiosity. "I confess I've run out of inspiration."
"It looks a lot worse from down here," she said. "But I needed to get to you. I didn't really think about anything. I just needed to come to you, and so I did."
"Yes, you did." Sylvester agreed with this simple truth. Suddenly there was a warm light in the gray eyes bent upon her upturned countenance. "So you did, gypsy." He placed his hand against the curve of her cheek. "And you brought me much comfort."
Theo didn't answer, but she nestled her cheek into his cupped palm.
"That said," he continued, flicking the tip of her nose with his forefinger, "I can't help feeling I'd be failing you and neglecting my marital duty if I didn't express some legitimate husbandly wrath."
"No," Theo agreed. "Shall we agree that you have done so, and I've taken it to heart?"
"Incorrigible," he said, sighing. "Utterly incorrigible."
They must have been seen from the house, because the bootboy came running down the steps. "Shall I take the curricle to the mews, m'lord?"
Sylvester regarded the lad, who didn't look more than ten, with a surprised frown. "Can you manage them?"
"Oh, yes, m'lord. I can, can't I, Lady Theo?"
"Yes, you need have no fear, Sylvester. Timmy's dad's the head groom at the vicarage in Lulworth, but his mother wanted him to be an inside servant, so he's languishing among the boots instead of with the horses. Which is where he'd rather be, isn't that so, Timmy?" She smiled at the lad as she jumped to the pavement.
"Oh, yes, ma'am," Timmy said with a heartfelt sigh. "But it'd break me mam's heart. Leastways, that's what me dad says."
"Of course, she wouldn't need to know what you do in London," Theo said thoughtfully. "What do you think, sir?"
"I think young Timmy should take himself to the stables and ask Don to put him to work," Sylvester pronounced, resigned to a role of simple reinforcement when it came to Theo's household decisions and dispositions.
"But what of Mr. Foster, sir?" The lad's eyes grew wide with the prospect of a dream fulfilled.
"I'm sure he can find another bootboy." He ushered Theo up the steps as Timmy, crowing with delight, led the horses away.
"A messenger brought you a letter, Lady Theo." Foster's jaw dropped at her ladyship's altered appearance.
"Oh, thank you, Foster." Theo smiled at him as she took the wafer-sealed paper.
"You'll forgive the personal comment, but…" Foster indicated her coiffure. "Most pleasing, Lady Theo."
"Thank you, Foster." She patted his arm. "You always do know the right thing to say."
His elderly face flushed with pleasure. "Get along with you, now, Lady Theo… Oh, Lady Gilbraith and Miss Gilbraith have gone to the physician on Harley Street. They took the barouche."
"Oh, that's wonderful." Theo's jubilant eyes flew to her husband's face. "I mean, I'm sure the physician will be able to help Miss Gilbraith's sniffles and her ladyship's liver… or whatever is troubling her." Her voice faded as she was about to find herself in realms of gross indelicacy.
"In that case we'll take nuncheon abovestairs in the little parlor," Stoneridge said into the moment of silence.
"Certainly, my lord. I'll see to it at once." Foster took himself off to the back regions with his usual stately tread.
"What if they return while we're… otherwise occupied?" Theo looked over her shoulder at Sylvester, her eyes now mischievous. Nuncheon in the little parlor could mean only one thing.
"Get upstairs," he ordered, pushing her ahead of him with a hand on her bottom. "Who's the letter from?"
"I don't know yet. I'll open it later." She skipped up the stairs, wondering if the message was from Neil Gerard. The handwriting was definitely masculine and unfamiliar. She hoped it was confirmation of their arrangement to drive tomorrow. If so, Sylvester mustn't know about it.
"I'll join you in a minute," Sylvester said, turning aside to his own chamber.
Theo hesitated, her hand on her own doorknob. "You're not still going to insist I go back to Stoneridge, are you?"
He regarded her thoughtfully for a minute before saying, "Can you give me your word of honor that you'll go nowhere and do nothing without my knowledge?"
Sylvester waited, then said quietly, "You have your answer, Theo." He stretched out a hand and tugged one of the ringlets clustering around her ears. "Don't look so disconsolate, love. You've been complaining about the boredom in London ever since we got here. I'll join you shortly, I promise."
She still had a few days to prove her point She shrugged, and with relief he took her silence as acceptance.
He ran his fingers upward through the curls, flicking them around her face, saying teasingly, "I'm beginning to get used to this. In fact, it's quite an appealing little gypsy, one way or another." Catching her chin, he kissed her. "Why don't you go and put on a wrapper… make life easy for me for once?"
Playfully she nibbled his bottom lip. "But surely one appreciates what's hard-won much more than what comes easily."
"I wouldn't know," he said. "So far nothing's come easily where you're concerned, so I have no basis for comparison."
"Unjust!" Her tongue darted into the corner of his mouth.
He put her from him and turned back to his door. "Five minutes, and I'll expect to find you prepared to smooth my path."
Theo grinned and whisked herself into her own bedroom, imagining how best to fulfill such a demand. Unbuttoning her jacket with one hand, she broke the wafer on the letter and unfolded the sheet. It was from Gerard, who would do himself the honor of calling upon her at ten the following morning, in the hopes that she would drive with him to Hampton Court if the weather was clement. Until then he was her obedient servant.
Theo refolded the letter and slipped it into a pigeonhole in her secretaire. Gerard couldn't have chosen a better venue for her purposes.
Throwing off the rest of her clothes, she slipped into a filmy wrapper of apple-green muslin edged with lace. Sitting before her dresser mirror, she brushed her hair, enjoying the novelty of her bared neck and the lightness of her head. Her sisters had given her a small vial of perfume on her wedding morning. She rarely used it because she was always in such a hurry to get dressed that such niceties tended to be forgotten, but now seemed like an appropriate occasion. Sylvester wanted her dressed for seduction, so that was what he should have.
She put a few drops behind her ears, at her throat, and on her wrists. Then, with a little smile, she applied the delicate fragrance behind her knees and on the inside of her thighs. Where else did Sylvester like to play? Her navel, the dimpled hollows in the small of her back, the high, arched insteps of her long, narrow feet.
Deciding she must smell like a whorehouse, she cast one last glance at her reflection before leaving the room and speeding barefoot down the corridor to the small parlor overlooking the rear garden, where they spent time when they wished to be private from the household.
Sylvester was already there, pouring wine into two glasses. "No cheese tarts, I'm afraid," he said as she came in. "But there's -" The words died on his lips. Slowly, he set the glasses back on the table, his eyes narrowed as he examined her.
Dark curls clouded around her face, softening her features in a way the plain, uncompromising plaits had never done; her cheeks were aglow, her eyes banked fires at midnight; the wrapper clung to every sinuous line of her body, the narrow girdle accentuating her waist and the slight flare of her hips. London and winter weather had done away with the tanned complexion, leaving her skin the color and texture of clotted cream.