Sheri Cobb South by The Weaver Takes a Wife Read Free Book Online

suggested, allowing his hand to fall to his side.
    “I—I would appreciate that,” Lady Helen said haltingly, finding her voice at last.
    “Very well. I shall give you six months.”
    “Only six?” whispered Lady Helen, clutching her flimsy shield all the tighter.
    “Don’t press your luck, me dear,” recommended Mr. Brundy with a rueful smile. “Most men would say that I’ve the patience of a saint as it is, or else that I’ve rats in me garret.” He bent and dropped a light kiss onto the top of Lady Helen’s honey-colored head. “Good night, ‘elen. Sleep well.”
    He left the room through the same door he had entered, beyond which lay a second bedchamber, one whose furnishings were distinctly masculine. As soon as the door had closed behind him, Lady Helen leaped to her feet, snatched up a spindle-legged Sheraton chair, and wedged it securely underneath the doorknob.
    * * * *
    In the privacy of his own room, Mr. Brundy studied the closed door which separated him from his bride. Without the outward trappings of aristocracy, she looked younger and more vulnerable, though certainly no less lovely, than she had that first night at Covent Garden. He smiled a little at the picture she had presented, with her unbound hair cascading over her shoulders and the gentle swell of her bosom behind its muslin barricade. Surely he had not been mistaken in thinking that somewhere beneath the haughty Society air lurked a vibrant young woman with a heart to be won.
    And win her he would; he had come too far to fail now. He had made up his mind to wed her, and now she was his wife—in every way except that which mattered the most. Winning her hand had been almost too easy; he would have felt like a thief accepting Sir Aubrey’s thousand pounds. Winning her heart, however, was likely to prove an entirely different matter. His offer of a six-month adjustment period had been as much for his own sake as hers, as it would give him time to woo his unwilling bride. In twelve hours of marriage, he had felt the sting of Lady Helen’s scorn, to be sure, but he’d endured worse tongue-lashings in his life—been knocked around a bit, too, for that matter—and he had always come about in the end.
    No, the Lady Helen Brundy would not be easily won, but in his experience, few things worth having were.
     

Chapter 4
     
    ‘Tis pride, rank pride, and haughtiness of soul.
    JOSEPH ADDISON, Cato
     
    Early the next morning, as dawn cast its gray light over Grosvenor Square, Sukey the upstairs maid tiptoed into Lady Helen’s bedchamber. The bed curtains were tightly drawn, and the sound of regular breathing within gave Sukey to understand that her ladyship was still abed and fast asleep. Quietly, so as not to disturb the slumberer, she knelt before the grate and swept out the ashes, then laid and lit a new fire with the swift efficiency of long practice.
    She had performed the chore many times while her former mistress, Lady Winslow, had occupied this room. But today something seemed out of place, something so subtle that she could not say precisely what had changed. Shrugging the thought aside, she picked up the dustbin and was about to slip quietly from the room when she froze in her tracks, almost dropping the bucket of ashes in the shock of suddenly recognizing the difference in the room’s arrangement.
    A dainty Sheraton chair, which had previously stood against the wall flanking the dressing table, was now wedged beneath the knob of the door which connected the suite to the one adjoining.
    “Gor!” breathed Sukey, momentarily forgetting the need for silence. The new mistress had locked the master out of her bedchamber, and on his wedding night, no less! Hitching the dustbin higher onto her hip, she scurried quietly past the bed and out the door, eager to share her discovery.
    She found an eager audience in the downstairs maid, Annie, who sighed over her employer’s plight and gave it as her opinion that he would have done far