Free The Countess by Lynsay Sands

still there.”
    “We should get it done now,” Richard announced and began making his way around the ballroom toward the doors.
    “So, you’re going to give it a try?” Daniel asked, hurrying after him.
    “What choice do I have? I would prefer not to ruin an innocent if I can help it, but I also don’t want to land myself in a miserable marriage just to make up for George’s sins. We’ll do as you suggested, and remove the body for the next day or two while I see if I could stomach being married to her. If not, we will replace him and go to the courts.”
    “And if you find you are willing to be married to her?” Daniel asked. “What will we do with the body then?”
    “I haven’t the foggiest notion,” Richard admitted dryly. “But we will worry about that if and when the time comes.”
    “He just left with Woodrow.”
    Christiana gave up searching the ballroom for Dicky and glanced back to Langley. “Did he?”
    He nodded solemnly and then asked, “Will you be very upset if it turns out that Dicky is George?”
    Christiana glanced away with a frown, those few moments in her husband’s arms on the dance floor the first thing to come into her mind. Any other memory of this last year would have had her saying, no she wouldn’t be upset at all, but that one . . . Sighing, she simply said, “The scandal will be horrendous.”
    “Yes, well, we might be able to mitigate that,” Langley murmured as he turned her around the dance floor.
    “How do you mean?”
    Robert was silent for so long that she began to think that he wouldn’t answer, but apparently deciding it was unavoidable, he said reluctantly, “I knew one of George’s old mistresses and she said he could not . . .” He paused and looked embarrassed, but then said, “I am sorry to ask this, Chrissy, but was the marriage properly consummated?”
    Christiana’s eyes widened incredulously at the question and he grimaced and began to speak quickly.
    “I really am sorry to ask it, but if George was incapable of the task as his mistress suggested, then it makes all the difference in the world.”
    Christiana stared at him blankly. “Well . . . I—he—I think it—I don’t know,” she admitted, now scarlet herself. She shrugged helplessly and confessed, “I’m not quite sure what the consummation includes. Father simply said ‘Just do what he says and your husband will manage the rest.’ I did as he said and assumed what Dicky did was the consummation.”
    “Of course,” he muttered, avoiding her eyes briefly, then cleared his throat. “You said he didn’t even take off his cravat on your wedding night, but did he take off anything else?”
    She considered the question briefly, and then offered, “I think he took off his shoes.”
    Langley grimaced impatiently. “What about his pants? Did he take them off or at least open them or pull them down?”
    “I don’t think so,” she said slowly.
    “You don’t think so?” he asked incredulously. “Were you even there? How could you not know if he took off his pants or not?”
    Christiana scowled, half angry and half embarrassed, and then glanced around to be sure none of the other dancers were listening in on the conversation. Reassured that no one appeared to be paying them any attention, she glanced back to Langley and hissed, “I was bathed and powdered, dressed in a gown and propped in bed and then he came in and put out the candle. There was a thud and then another I assumed was his shoes hitting the floor and then he climbed on top of me, rocked about a bit as if riding a horse, then rolled off and said, “There. It is consummated.” I have no idea if he took anything else off but his shoes, but it didn’t seem to me he had time to disrobe further between putting out the candle and climbing on top of me.”
    “You were under the blankets?” Langley asked sharply. When she nodded, he asked, “And he was on top?”
    Christiana bit her lip at the growing excitement in