Everything was set and waiting, looking no different than it had last week and the week before that and all the weeks and years they’d been doing this. The usual decanter of brandy and two crystal glasses were already lined atop the oak sideboard beside the chess table to accommodate their mutual drink of choice.
Mark leaned forward and nudged all of his black pieces back into their set rows opposite Magdalene’s own ivory pieces. He sighed.
In truth, he loathed chess.
From pawn to bishop to rook to knight to king to queen.
But she loved it. And so…he played.
And yet, for him, the game was becoming less and less about chess and more and more about the way he felt about Magdalene.
Shifting in his chair, he eyed the empty seat opposite his own and shifted again. Jesus. One would think he was a bachelor of twenty, not a widower of forty with three young children to boot.
Reaching out, he grabbed up the crystal decanter, removing the stopper, and poured the amber liquid into each glass. He filled hers and then his to the rim so that it lasted throughout their entire session, then set aside the decanter and placed the stopper back atop.
Let the game of her obliviousness begin. Yet again.
The clicking of heels echoed from down the corridor, drifting toward him through the open double doors of the study.
He leaned back against the chair and hissed out a breath, adjusting his morning coat, which he hoped looked decent. Draping an arm across the side of the chair, he extended a trouser-clad leg, trying to exude casualness. Trying.
Within moments, his beautiful Dowager Countess of Kent, Magdalene Evelyn Ryder, appeared.
He dug his fingers into the wood of the chair to keep his breath and mind steady. “Magdalene.”
“Thornton.” She grinned, that left cheek dimpling as the edges of her sultry dark eyes crinkled, hinting at her own age of forty. She swept toward him, hips swaying, her alabaster gown flowing ravishingly against the elegant movements of her shapely body. Her curling, chestnut hair, though pinned up in its usual gathered fashion, had an exquisite new addition of white silk flowers, delicately woven through those tresses to match the shade of her morning gown.
She never dressed like that.
By God. It was as if the woman had donned a whole new fashion just for him.
He rose in greeting, unable to do much of anything but stare. “You look…stunning. If I may say. Might I ask what occasion you appear to be celebrating today?”
“The fact that you are here, of course.” She paused before him, that incredible scent of powder and chamomile—a scent he’d breathed in longingly for so, so long—teasing his senses. She extended her bare hand to his, still playfully grinning up at him. “You know Tuesdays never come soon enough for me.”
He bit back a smile. “Nor me.” He reached out and squeezed the warmth of her soft hand in greeting, reveling in that touch.
She squeezed his palm in turn, but quickly drew her hand away.
He fisted his hand, attempting to keep her warmth in it, and lowered it back to his side. He cleared his throat, refocusing. “I have been meaning to ask about Charles.”
“Oh?”
“I haven’t seen that boy about the club lately. Not even for a meal. Is everything all right?”
Her grin faded at hearing about her grown son. “Ah, you know him.” She rounded the chess table and seated herself across from him with a disgruntled sigh. “He prefers to define himself outside of everything known as London society.”
“You make that sound so bad.” Mark sat, settling in. “Now that he is of age and officially head of the estate, he should be defining himself outside the hours of some crusty club. I was simply worried when I hadn’t seen him at all.”
She leaned over and retrieved the glass of brandy he had poured for her off the sideboard. “Bless you for inquiring.” She sipped at the brandy and paused. “In truth, the club agitates him, right along with pretending that he cares to socialize with anyone at all. I can tell he only does it to appease me.” With a shake of her head, she brought the glass to her lips and fully tilted it back, swallowing the rest of the brandy he’d filled to the rim with overly large gulps that were anything but refined.
It was something he’d never seen her do. Ever. He blinked. “What was that?”
She smirked, as if amused by the look on his face, and set aside the empty glass on the sideboard with a chink. “That was me in dire need of a new life. I have tried and tried to make that boy step outside his way of thinking. Do you know he just invested in a whole new set of sketchbooks and announced he intends on spending all of his mornings and afternoons engraving half the city?” She rolled her eyes and leaned toward Mark and the chessboard. “One of these days, my son is going to draw himself a pretty girl, rip her out of his own sketchbook and marry the parchment. I just know it. I’ll have paper dolls for grandchildren.”
He let out a gruff laugh. “’Tis better than no grandchildren. Give him time. At one and twenty, he has his whole life ahead of him.”
“I suppose.” Magdalene huffed out a breath. “Forgive my rants pertaining to Charles. They bore even me.”