Convention stated that no woman had any right to know her husband's business.
Regardless, he couldn't imagine not telling her the truth.
That her dowry was a drop in the ocean compared to his wealth, that he'd known it from the dawn she'd offered herself — and her dowry — to him, that he'd been careful to allow no hint of the truth to reach her, even to the point of corrupting her father and making a pact with Devil…
Could he rely on her temper to blind her to the real revelation therein?
He inwardly grimaced; she was a Cynster female — he had too much respect for her perspicacity on such subjects to risk it.
He had until September to
make his confession.
Sufficient unto the day the evil thereof.
"My lord?"
He looked up to see Cottsloe standing by the door.
"McTavish has just come in. He's waiting in the Office."
Luc laid down his napkin. "Thank you." He glanced at Amelia. "McTavish is my steward. Have you met him?"
"Yes. It was years ago, however." She pushed back her chair; a footman started forward — rising, Luc waved him back, drew out the chair.
Amelia stood and faced him, smiled into his eyes. "Why don't I come with you and you can reintroduce us, then I'll leave you to your business while I continue with mine?"
He took her hand, set it on his sleeve. "The Office is in the west wing."
After meeting McTavish and casting a curious glance over the Office, Amelia rejoined Mrs. Higgs, and they continued their inspection. While the house was in excellent condition, and all the woodwork — floors and furniture both — gleamed with beeswax and care, virtually every piece of fabric was in need of replacement. Not urgently, but within the next year.
"We won't be able to do it all at once." They'd completed their circuit of the reception rooms; in the main drawing room, Amelia scribbled a note putting the curtains in that room at the top of her list. Followed by the curtains in the dining room. And the chairs in both rooms needed to be re-upholstered.
"Will that be all, ma'am?" Higgs asked. "If so, would you like me to get your tea?"
She raised her head, considered; unlikely that Luc would wish for tea. "Yes, please — send the tray to the small parlor."
Higgs nodded and withdrew. Amelia returned to the parlor off the music room.
Leaving her notes — a considerable pile — in the desk, she retreated to relax on the chaise. A footman appeared with her tea tray; she thanked and dismissed him, then poured a cup and slowly sipped — in silence, in isolation, both very strange to her.
It wouldn't last — this had always been a house full of people, mostly females. Once Minerva and Luc's sisters returned from London, the house would revert to its usual state.
No — not so. Not quite.
That was, indeed, what this strange interlude signified — the birth of a new era. As Higgs had said, the weather had changed, the season swung around, and they were moving into a new and different time.
Into the period when this huge house would be hers to run, to manage, to care for. Hers and Luc's the responsibility to steer it, and the family it sheltered through whatever the future might bring.
She sipped her tea and felt that reality — the fabric of their future life — hovering, as yet amorphous, unformed, all about her. What she made of it, how she sculpted the possibilities… it was a challenge she was eager to meet.
Her tea finished, the sunshine tempted her to try the French doors. They opened; she strolled out into the gardens.
As she walked the clipped lawns, then strolled along a wisteria-covered walk bathed in sunshine, she turned her mind to her master plan, to charting the immediate future.
Their physical relationship appeared to be taking care of itself, developing of its own accord — all she needed to do was devote herself as required, something she was perfectly willing to do, especially after last night. And this morning.
She grinned. Reaching the end of the walk, she turned into the crosswalk and continued on. She hadn't expected to feel so confident, to gain such a fillip from knowing she pleased him in their bed, from knowing that his desire for her was real — entirely unfeigned; if anything, it had grown rather than diminished since first they'd slaked it.