Once Upon a Tower

“Certainly,” he answered. He paused, thinking about how he’d fallen into the habit of drinking wine at every meal but breakfast. He was always testing himself, checking to make certain that he didn’t turn into a sot, and follow in his parents’ footsteps.

It wasn’t a fear that he had ever shared with another person, but in the spirit of not keeping secrets from each other, he decided he would tell Edie . . . and then he realized that she had fallen asleep.

He stared down at her, all his plans to seduce her fading away. She was curled against him, looking utterly peaceful. His first reaction was a pulse of irritation. But that wasn’t fair; it was selfish. He was responsible for her lack of sleep, after all.

If only he had his ledgers . . .

But he didn’t have them. He had nothing to do.

That wasn’t entirely true. He did have a small amount of paper and a pen. He could prop her against the side of the carriage and go to work.

Absolutely not. She would wake. He felt a startling sense of protectiveness. Edie was exhausted, with faint blue circles under her eyes, at least partly because he had made love to her in the middle of the night.

Holding her as carefully as a glass vase, he shifted to the corner of the carriage and then leaned back, holding his sweet, fragrant bundle of wife in his arms and examining her eyelashes and her lips all over again, just as he had at the ball where they first met.

Everything was different now, because she was his wife. He’d been the first to make love to her, and he would be the last to make love to her. He would wake every day of his life to those passionate, intelligent eyes and the stern honesty that led her to warn him that he was in danger of becoming stickish.

The smile easing the corners of his lips was neither sardonic nor rueful. He knew what Edie would call it: a joyful smile. His arms tightened around her in gratitude.

He thought about marriage as the carriage rocked on, down the road.

He never took naps.

Naps were a waste of time.

Twenty-three

As evening began to draw in and the carriage jolted from the post road to a cobblestone street, Edie woke to find herself in a sleeping Gowan’s arms. The carriage rocked around a corner, heading into an inn yard. His arms tightened around her, but he didn’t wake until she kissed him.

He woke up, scowling, and before she could say a word, announced that he never napped.

Edie held her tongue. Her father had similar convictions: he was certain that he never lost his temper.

The Queen’s Arms, in Palden, was accustomed to accommodating nobility who arrived in a swirl of servants. The innkeeper led them to a private parlor, where Gowan kissed Edie absentmindedly and then sat down to listen to the groom who had arrived that morning from Scotland with the latest reports.

Reports!

Edie was starting to detest the sound of the word.

And she was tired from the long hours cooped up in the carriage, and frustrated by the fact she hadn’t played her instrument in two days. To her chagrin, she discovered that she was on the edge of tears. She made an excuse, returned to her room, and ordered a hot bath. Mary bustled about the room tsk-tsking over this and that—Bardolph was not a favorite below stairs—until Edie wanted to leap out of the bath and scream.

Unfortunately, even soaking in hot water was not entirely comfortable, so it was difficult to imagine enduring another bout of lovemaking, let alone enjoying it. A flare of panic swept over her. She hadn’t managed to confess everything; she had lost her courage after he told her how happy it made him that she found pleasure. Now she was facing another night in which she would fail. Another night in which she would have to lie.

“Mary,” she said, her voice exploding into the room louder than she expected. “I’d like a piece of writing paper and a pen, please.”

“Mr. Bardolph provided a traveling secretaire for your use, Your Grace,” Mary said, her tone shaded with ice as she pronounced the factor’s name. When Edie was out of the bath, Mary opened up a charming leather box on the corner desk, equipped with anything a letter writer might wish.

Dearest Layla, Edie wrote, then paused. Of course, she had no idea whether Layla was still with her parents in Berwick-upon-Tweed. Perhaps her father had fetched his wife? With a sigh, she remembered his face and decided it was more likely that a groom would locate Layla at her parents’ house with very little difficulty.

She wanted to invite her stepmother to visit the castle; Berwick-upon-Tweed was on the border with Scotland, so it couldn’t be a terribly long trip. But how urgent should she make her plea? She couldn’t detail what had happened.

In the end she kept it concise: Please pay me a visit, she wrote. Please, Layla. Do you remember the secret you taught me? I need you. Love, Edie.

Sometime later, when she and Gowan were seated in the inn’s private dining room, attended by Bindle, Rillings, and four footmen, Edie produced the letter. “My stepmother is staying with her parents in Berwick-upon-Tweed, so I have written to invite her to pay us a visit in Scotland.”

Gowan showed not a flicker of irritation at the notion that her stepmother would join them. Why should he? He spent every waking hour with Bardolph, Jelves, and the rest of his entourage. Unless she demanded that they have privacy in the carriage, marital interaction was limited to mealtimes and visits to her bedchamber at night.

“We will send a groom ahead to Berwick-upon-Tweed,” Gowan said now. “If he leaves immediately, it’s possible that your stepmother may decide to join our carriage.”

“We can’t send someone now, Gowan; it’s nighttime!”

“We must give your stepmother all possible time to consider your invitation,” Gowan stated. He raised a finger and a footman ran from the room and returned with Bardolph, who managed to imply without words that it was extraordinarily thoughtless of her to dispatch a letter at this hour.

Edie eyed his whiskers and bit back her impulse to overrule Gowan. Her husband had been given his way far too often; that was clear. But she could say the same for Bardolph, and she refused to give the factor even the slightest satisfaction.

She watched as he left the room, letter in hand, with a renewed sense of hope. If she couldn’t divine the secret to the petit mort, Layla would help. There must be a trick to it.

Gowan sent his valet off to bed and then put on his robe to cross the corridor to Edie’s room. But he paused, hand on the door. He was already so aroused that he felt as if heat was rising from his very skin.

He couldn’t go to her like this, like an animal. Crazed with lust, intoxicated at the mere thought of her. He retreated into the bathroom and closed his hand around himself. A few moments later he pulled his robe back on. His breath was still caught in his chest; he was still hungry, but in greater control.

When he closed the door behind him, he found Edie sleeping, face buried in her arms, rumpled hair spilling over the pillows. The room was dark except for a slender ray of moonlight that stole through the heavy drapes and played over his wife’s tresses, turning them pale gold, as if all her vibrancy had been washed away. He shrugged off his robe, slipped under the covers, and wrapped an arm around her.

“Gowan?” she asked a second later, in a husky little protest.

“You slept all afternoon,” he whispered, brushing a kiss against her cheek. “Wake up now and play.”