Free Lady Windermere's Lover by Miranda Neville Page A

living arrangements.”
    “That will change now that I am home.”
    Against her better judgment she decided to remain. She didn’t see why she should be driven from her own comfortable chamber into the earl’s gloomy lair. She’d embellished the already elegant and pleasing room with personal touches: her brushes and dressing set; a shelf of favorite novels; a delicate inlaid round table on which were arranged the fashion journals and other periodicals she subscribed to; a silver bowl containing potpourri; and the miniature portraits of her father and mother.
    “It is my understanding that aristocratic couples occupy separate chambers. Not that I have special knowledge, being from a lower station.”
    “My mother and father always shared a bed.”
    “You surprise me.” Not least by imparting a private family detail. She couldn’t remember another instance of him volunteering such personal information.
    She let her wrapper slide to the floor and climbed gingerly into bed, not on the side she usually favored, but she wasn’t up to demanding a rearrangement tonight. Unlike him she dressed decently for bed in fine but sturdy linen, buttoned to the neck. “Aren’t you cold without a nightgown?”
    His shrug sent his muscles rippling. “The room is well heated for winter.”
    “If you are to sleep in my bed I request that you dress properly.”
    “Your preference is noted—for the future.”
    Did that mean he intended to sleep with her all the time? Utterly confounded, she adjusted the position of the candelabrum on the bedside table and opened her book. “I am going to read Miss Burney. I’m sorry if the light troubles you.”
    She might as well have saved her breath. “I’m used to sleeping through all manner of disturbances in foreign cities.” Then the wretched man had the gall to turn on his side, punch his pillow, pull more than his share of blankets over his broad shoulders, and close his eyes.
    Rigid with tension, she stared at the pages, but the English language had ceased to have any meaning for her. She kept stealing sideways glances at him, half expecting him to pounce. Why else was he there, if not to get himself an heir? It made no sense. To her indignation he began to emit a light snore, more of a loud breathing really. She was supposed to sleep through this? Unlike him, she was not accustomed to the disturbances of foreign parts. Though if she were being honest she’d admit that some of the girls at school had been noisier sleepers.
    Giving up on Cecilia and on trying to understand her husband as well, she blew out her candles and settled down to sleep herself, trying to ignore the way his unclothed flesh radiated heat.

Chapter 6
    T he servants knew that His Lordship had spent the entire night in her bed. It wouldn’t bother Caro, Cynthia told herself firmly, and she had no reason to feel self-conscious about it. Her husband certainly hadn’t. When her maid brought in her early morning chocolate, he’d descended from the bed in all his naked glory, shrugged into his robe, and asked the woman to send up his valet, all without a hint of embarrassment. Meanwhile Cynthia clutched the sheet up to her chin and avoided looking at him. She couldn’t summon more than a muttered croak in reply to his cheerful “Good morning” and a reminder that they were expecting company for dinner.
    The housekeeper was most indignant at the suggestion that any bed under her command should be in anything less than prime condition. Nevertheless, Cynthia ordered her to have His Lordship’s mattress restuffed to eliminate the chance that her husband’s excuse for his strange visit to her bedchamber was actually the true one. The woman returned a quarter of an hour later considerably chastened. Moth holes had been discovered in the curtains of His Lordship’s bed. The room would need to be cleaned and the velvet replaced.
    “Never mind,” Cynthia said. She always found it hard to be angry with servants who