gowns show more flesh than Beatrice had preferred. Her mother had forbidden Beatrice to wear a shawl, saying the family must always keep up appearances and one could not wear such a lowly garment.
Her friends and their mothers had thought Beatrice brazen even then. She’d endured it with a smile, laughed it away, jested and pretended her figure was all a woman could wish for. And all men could wish for. On that, she didn’t think she’d been entirely wrong. Riverton had certainly been aware of her shape, wanting her to continue in the same gowns her mother had chosen. Within a month of marriage, she’d visited a modiste and ordered all new gowns in a cut she preferred.
She’d thought to gain respect as a countess, but then the whispers had reached her ears. Riverton admired all shapes and sizes, except—hers.
‘I am used to having people speak of me,’ she said. ‘They must speak of someone, so why not me? I have laughed the loudest. Life is a grand jest.’ Then she reached up, pushing an escaped curl towards her bun, but feeling the wisp spring back into place.
‘Perhaps.’ He stepped forward and, with his left hand, captured the curl. His fingers brushed her skin as he slipped the errant lock behind her ear. ‘But, Lady Riverton, there is more to you than words in a scandal sheet. I believe your brother once told me that his sister took to art the way some mothers take to their children. He said you hired several men to create figures on the ceiling and you sat in the room with the workmen, entranced, at your easel and canvas, trying to reproduce the scene of the men painting.’
‘I may have.’ She wrinkled her nose. ‘Art is taking something from the air and putting it in front of you so others can see what you see—with a splash of your imagination added.’
‘Why do you not do that with your own image?’
She shook her head. ‘I don’t know what you mean.’
‘You draw attention and it has been turned against you. Use it to your advantage.’
She sighed. He had no idea how many times her name had been mentioned in print. No idea how many stories about her husband had been whispered. How many times she’d been about and pretended not to know when she was being discussed, even if sometimes the words had been whispered so loudly she wondered why they were not just said to her face.
Her stomach churned, remembering the marriage. The foul smell of Riverton when he would return home after weeks. She’d hated the servants seeing him. Hated the knowledge that the footmen had had to treat him almost like a child who could not be reprimanded, but had to be cajoled.
She put her hand on his sleeve. ‘You don’t understand the vipers of the world. They wish to bite, not cuddle. I cannot turn them into lambs.’
‘No.’ His voice quietened, but it didn’t lose the rumble, the masculine richness that pulled her like a vine twining towards the sun. ‘I can help you, though. We can create a new world around you. One in which you glitter as you should. This blunder tonight could be fortunate. It can be the moment you begin painting the world around you in the colours you wish.’
‘You are daft. No one has a brush that can do as you suggest.’
‘What is the harm in trying?’
She didn’t answer, with words, but her lips turned up. ‘You have lost your senses.’
‘I can help you.’
She examined his face. No laughter lurked. Brown eyes with the tiniest flecks of green studied her. In all her marriage—all her life—she’d never felt another person could see into her as deeply as he did.
She took a quick step back, breaking the connection—giving the world a chance to start moving again. ‘You really don’t know what you say.’
‘I will let you consider it, tonight,’ he said. ‘Tomorrow we will take a ride in the park. We can discuss it further then. You’ll have a chance to decide if you’d like to rebuild your reputation.’
He moved closer, leaning in, lips almost against her cheek. ‘Let that be the first thing you think of when you wake tomorrow.’
After he left, she wasn’t quite certain if he’d kissed her cheek or not, but she was certain her heart was beating.
When Andrew returned to Wilson’s home the next day, the door opened one small creak at a time and the butler came into view. Andrew noted the crevasses of age on the man’s face. Wilson should have considered the man’s health. Ire spiked in Andrew’s body at the architect’s oversight. The frail servant should have been pensioned off years ago.
‘Please let Lady Riverton know that Lord Andrew awaits the moment when he might again be in her presence,’ Andrew said.
An infant could have taken a nap in the time it took for the man to nod. But the butler’s eyes now had nothing slow about them and he examined Andrew in much the same way a woman’s father might assess a suitor.
In the sitting room, Beatrice didn’t keep him waiting. She whooshed into the room within seconds of the door opening, beaming a greeting. She wore a dress the colour of a calm sky and the garment clung above the underlying corset, moving with each step. Even if he turned his back, he would have been aware of her.
She immediately asked if his carriage was ready and was at the door before he finished an answer.
When he assisted her into the curricle and her skirts swished by his hand, he wondered what he’d been thinking to take her for a ride in the park. At the time he only considered it a necessary means to increase the appearance of an established relationship between him and Beatrice. He hadn’t thought of the narrowness of the seats in the small open carriage and how close their bodies would press.
As the carriage turned into the park, a breeze wafted, cooling the air and bringing the floral perfume of Beatrice against his face. He didn’t miss the smell of baked goods. He much preferred the lavender.
Sitting shoulder to shoulder, aware of every one of her curves, he forced himself to think of plans for Beatrice’s reintroduction to society.
She turned her face to him. From the gentle brushes of movement at his side, he knew he need move only the barest amount and she would be in his arms.
‘I don’t think your sleep agreed with you,’ she mumbled. ‘You look quite grim.’
He nodded, aware of her fluid movements, confined by the seat, and yet she didn’t still. Her body moved constantly, checking its boundaries.
She coughed and lost all seriousness. ‘Did you, um, think of me last night?’
His thoughts jumped from her body to her words. ‘Of course.’
Her shoulders wobbled and she managed to squeeze so close to him he braced himself not to be pushed out of the other side of the conveyance. Tickles of warmth moved from the place she touched to flood his entire body. Wide eyes blinked up at him in feigned innocence. ‘I do have a place in the country...’ Then she grimaced. ‘Except it’s rather crowded. My mother’s there.’
‘I was trying to think of ways you might
