Tess summoned up a smile. “How lovely,” she murmured.
“I thought we might stop for a picnic. Rafe’s cook packed us a hamper.”
“Oh,” Tess said flatly. It seemed her new husband wasn’t nearly as eager as she had thought to—she wrenched her mind away. It almost felt as if she—no! “That would be wonderful! I adore the ruins!”
Lucius swallowed a grin. It seemed his new bride had a thing or two on her mind. But he meant to begin as he would go on. He had a busy life. He traveled frequently and alone. He and Tess had to establish a comfortable married life now: one that promised pleasant company during those days when they happened to be together and pleasant recreation at night, if he happened to be in the same house as she, and they were both amenable.
He had thought about it a great deal, and as long as he never played the part of a passionate husband, he would protect her from falling into the illusion that he was one. In other words, that he would protect her from the illusion that he was—or would ever be—in love with her. A normal groom wouldn’t even consider stopping in a field for a picnic. But they weren’t that sort of couple. They were a less intimate couple. He didn’t want that sort of intimacy: it suggested too many hidden promises that he would fail to keep. Being that kind of couple would break Tess’s heart.
If there was one thing that Lucius was quite sure about, it was that he couldn’t bear to see disappointment in Tess’s eyes. If she were well aware of his limitations, she would never be disillusioned.
“I’m hungry,” he remarked. “And since it’s an hour to my house, I’m sure we would be quite uncomfortable if we ignore our appetites.”
Her eyes widened again, but she nodded. Obviously, she thought that those just wed didn’t feel hunger.
The only problem with Lucius’s scheme was that it was damned hard to keep his hands off her. Tess was sitting opposite him, her slender body swaying with the motion of the coach, and all he could think about was pulling her into his arms like the most miserable kind of rascal. He was thinking perfectly rational thoughts about their future, and yet some part of his mind engaged in frenzied thoughts of an entirely different tenor.
What’s more, that part of his mind was making an attempt to control his body, too. Lucius casually pulled the fold of his greatcoat over his lap. There was nothing wrong with thinking about what he wanted to do. In fact, what he would do once they were in their dark bedroom, and the proper amount of time had passed after dinner so that she understood that marital proceedings had a small part in his life, a circumscribed, pleasurable—of course, he would make it pleasurable—
For a moment his rational mind slipped its control, and his head reeled with an image of Tess in a glow of candlelight…he would stand before her, kiss her—no. Rub a thumb over the peak of her breast. She would tremble in his arms; he would drink from her sweet mouth, that wicked mouth, drink deep—
No.
His loins were raging, and his control was slipping. He leaned back against the seat and closed his eyes.
“I do believe that I’ll take a brief nap,” he said to her. His voice was rusty with desire, but surely she would never recognize the note. He looked at her through his eyelashes. Tess looked disconcerted. Good. It was working. She was coming to understand that he wasn’t a man of strong emotion.
Of course, he did have one strong emotion. At the moment he was a raging mass of animal lust, every muscle tensed to stop himself from leaping across the seat, kissing her, begging her to forget his stupidity, showing her every way that he could that he was possessed—nay, dying for the touch of her lip. For the touch of her finger…
In his imagination, Tess’s small hand touched his lips, as she had the other night, and his skin stung with the fire of it, with just the thought of it. Her fingers…perhaps touching his neck. Even—mentally, he consigned his neckcloth to perdition. He was almost shuddering
God! That was the carriage shuddering to a halt.
He opened his eyes and pretended that a nap of some forty-five seconds was an utterly refreshing and normal occupation for him.
His footman pulled open the door. Lucius handed out Tess, as perfectly attired and bonneted as she had been when she entered the carriage, and stepped out himself. He avoided meeting the footman’s eyes.
Footmen, of course, were free to kiss their brides at any time of day and in any situation. The man probably thought that his master wasn’t up to the task, a stone lighter than one could wish.
Another footman was standing to the side, holding what appeared to be several blankets. Dammit, Rafe must have ordered those. And since Rafe didn’t have a romantic bone in his body, Lucius could just imagine what he thought this picnic was all about.
A flare of disgust tasted bitter in his mouth. Could Rafe honestly think that he would deflower his new bride in a field where all and sundry, including a spare cow or two, might wander by?
Not he.
Lucius offered an arm to Tess. She smiled at him sweetly.
“Isn’t it a beautiful day?”
Lucius looked around rather blindly and nodded. Emerald green grass was appearing where Mr. Jessop had shorn his hay. The willow was beginning to shed yellow leaves onto the grass. It was all rather picturesque.
“Mr. Felton,” Tess said.
“Lucius,” he interrupted.
She looked up at him. Her face was an enchanting oval. He wrenched his mind away again.
“My name is Lucius,” he said, the strain shading his voice with a rather cool tone.
She colored and looked embarrassed. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize—that is, my parents addressed each other formally.”
“Probably not when they were alone together,” he suggested.
She thought about that for a moment, while he considered the fact that his mother undoubtedly addressed her husband as Mr. Felton in every situation, including the most intimate. “I never wish to be addressed formally by you,” he added.
“Of course,” she said. “Lucius.”
It sounded wonderful on her lips. The footman spread the blankets under the willow and put the basket down, and then stood looking at him in an extremely annoying fashion. Lucius sighed. He might as well live up to everyone’s vulgar expectations.
He stepped to the side and ordered the men to return to the carriage. “Go back to Silchester and find your own meal,” he told them brusquely. “You can return in a few hours.” Damned but he hated the insinuation in their eyes. He may be a gentleman who—as his parents said—dirtied his hands by working, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t a gentleman.
Tess was waiting for him, kneeling on the bright red blanket and opening the basket. She seemed entirely happy. Likely a cheerful picnic was a much more pleasant idea for her than an excessive junket of sexual enthusiasm about which (Lucius was fairly certain) she knew nothing at all. In fact, he was being a damned thoughtful husband. Somehow the idea was unpleasing.
The willow was the silvery kind. Long tendrils draped themselves over the crimson blanket, and even Tess’s hair, making it look tobacco brown in comparison. A glorious, velvety brown…
“Would you like to walk to the ruins first?” Lucius asked abruptly.
Tess looked up at him. She was beginning to think that she had married a very moody fellow. One couldn’t tell from his face, of course. It was impossible to read anything from Lucius’s face. But she could have sworn that he was looking at her in the coach, and then that he wasn’t, and then she had decided…well, it was impossible to know. “Of course,” she said, rising to her feet. “Let’s go around this way, shall we?” To be honest, she had no particular desire to stumble again over the ruins of the Roman villa.