A lazy grin lifted a corner of his mouth. “Exceedingly so. He repainted the dining room three times because his first two efforts didn’t satisfy.”
“What did you think of the first two efforts?”
“I thought they were magnificent. Everything the man paints is magnificent.”
“Otherwise you wouldn’t have had him, I gather.” The little she had seen of Nicholas Birmingham had convinced her that he was possessed of excellent taste. The rich fabrics and demure styling of his clothes could only have been tailored by London’s best. His carriage was fit for a duke, and the house he was building on Piccadilly would be the most elegant address in London.
“I am rather demanding,” he confessed with a smile.
Good Lord, would he expect her to be perfect? “I sincerely hope you won’t be disappointed in me, then.”
He turned to her, taking both her hands in his while those black eyes of his studied her. “I could never be disappointed in you, Fiona.”
She felt his heat, smelled his faint sandalwood scent, and was blatantly aware of how close they were.
Then the carriage came to a stop.
She withdrew one hand and lifted the velvet curtain to peer out the window. “We’re here,” she murmured.
The coach door swung open, then Nick was assisting her from the carriage. He continued to hold her hand as they walked through the front courtyard, up four steps, and through double doors into the mansion. It was hard for her to believe it was not finished. From the vast entry hall she could see four rooms, one with scaffolding erected beneath a clouded ceiling of nymphs and seraphs. Though she could not see the artist, she knew that was the room he was now finishing. Highly polished marble floors stretched as far as the eye could see, and an array of huge crystal chandeliers suspended from every ceiling except in the room with the scaffolding. The walls were painted in vibrant colors and trimmed in stark white with heavily gilded cornices and pilasters.
When Trevor had called the mansion disgustingly opulent, he had once again exaggerated. It was tastefully opulent, she decided. She could not wait to show it to Trevor, who would be sure to appreciate its classically elegant lines. It reminded her of Lord Burlington’s house in Richmond, but on a larger scale. “It looks ready to move in,” she said.
His hand settled at her waist. “It will need your touch, Mrs. Birmingham. We’ll need furnishings and draperies and . . . well, you’ll know. Vases and such.”
Mrs. Birmingham. She could scarcely credit it! She really was this man’s wife. “You will permit me to make the selections?” she asked.
“I’ll be grateful for you to make the selections. I rather fancy architecture, but I assure you I’d be hopeless at selecting draperies and things.”
As would most men. Except for Trevor. Trevor was devilishly clever about decorating. In fact, she would value Trevor’s help. “Then I think I would need to start immediately. It takes time to fashion draperies and build furniture.”
“How lucky that I’ve taken you for a wife, then.”
“Oh, somehow I think you would have managed with Mr. Sheraton or some such authority had you not been saddled with me.”
“I’m not saddled with you, Fiona,” he said in a serious voice, gazing down at her. “I’m a most fortunate man to have wed you.”
Her heart fluttered. “It’s I who am fortunate,” she whispered.
He showed her all the entertaining rooms on the ground floor, then paused to speak to the Italian painter who told him he would be finished by week’s end.
Smiling, Nick turned to her. “Then we can begin moving in as soon as we return from Camden Hall.”
She smiled back at him. “This is very exciting.”
Together she and Nick walked up the broad terrazzo stairway to the second floor, where high-quality oak floors replaced the marble floors that were downstairs. An asparagus green drawing room was at the top of the stairs. The hallway was studded with classically pedimented doorways, the middle one opening to Nick’s bedchamber, which was painted royal blue. To one side of his bedchamber a study was located, on the other, a dressing room. They walked through the dressing room and found themselves in another dressing room that was all ivory and gilt. “This one will be yours,” he said.
She had never given much thought before to her parents’ dressing rooms being adjacent, but that hers and Nick’s were next to each other sent the blush to her cheeks.
They continued through the dressing room and came to her bedchamber, which was also painted in ivory and gilt. “Feel free to change it,” he said.
“Ivory’s perfect! I can bring another color in with the draperies and bed coverings.” She wondered if they would make love in her room or his.
And her cheeks turned even more scarlet.
After he completed the tour she said, “The house is truly wonderful, Nick.”
“Not the house,” he said, squeezing her hand. “Our house.”
“Perhaps one day I’ll be able to think of it as ours, but now it speaks of your magnificent vision. You should be very proud of yourself.”
He shrugged. “I’d best get you back to Agar House so you can pack for Camden Hall.”
So he did not like to be praised.
Once they were back in the carriage for the short ride to Cavendish Square, she asked, “Did you know that little girl who was at St. George’s today?”
He did not answer for a moment. Then he said, “That was my daughter.”
“I didn’t know you’d been married—” She stopped as if she’d been stung by a wasp. Of course he hadn’t been married before! Hadn’t Trevor said Nick allowed his bastard to live with him? Only Fiona had not thought that a bastard would be a little girl. A lovely little girl with plaited brown hair, a much lighter shade of brown than her father’s.
“She’s my illegitimate daughter, Fiona.”
Fiona studied the lapels on Nick’s frock coat. “And she lives with you?”
“She does.”
“That seems rather . . . unorthodox. Her mother has died, then?”
“As far as I know, her mother’s alive.”
“Then why . . . ?”
“Because her mother would not have been a good influence on a daughter I had come to care about.”
“Then I cannot help but to wonder if the mother was so inferior why you would have . . .” Have been attracted to the woman, have made love to her?
He raked his long fingers through his thick, dark hair. “I’ve asked myself the same question thousands of times.”
“Why
