Free The Ideal Wife by Mary Balogh Page A

pleased.
    Abigail was just the kind of wife he wanted. And more. A good pleasurable deal more.

    F ORTUNATELY A BIGAIL HAD had the forethought to send a small trunk of clothes to Grosvenor Square the morning before. Otherwise, she thought, descending the stairs and looking about her in search of the breakfast room, she would have been forced to wear her wedding dress again, and a pale blue muslin dress with flounces was hardly suitable attire for breakfast.
    “This way, my lady,” a footman said, bowing to her.
    “Ah, Alistair,” she said, giving him a big smile. “Is it so obvious that I am lost?”
    He grinned at her and opened the door. She was feeling quite comfortable, clad in a brown dress with white trimmings, her hair pinned back in its coiled braids. Well, almost comfortable, she thought, putting a spring in her step and smiling at the butler, who stood at the sideboard. Her husband was at the table, a newspaper spread before him. She felt breathless. He got hastily to his feet.
    “Good morning, Mr. Watson,” she said. “Good morning, Miles.” She set her hand in his outstretched one and allowed him to seat her at the table.
    “I was not expecting you up for hours,” he said. “Could you not sleep?”
    Abigail blushed, very aware of the butler standing at the sideboard behind her.
    “I slept like the dead after you left,” she said, and blushed even more hotly.
    “Watson,” the earl said, looking up, “you may serve her ladyship and leave. I shall ring when we are finished.”
    Abigail nodded her head to the eggs and ham and toast and refused the kidneys and sweet cakes and coffee.
    “I am always up early,” she told her husband. “I believe there is a mental clock inside my head that cries ‘Cuckoo’ at a certain time, no matter how late I was to bed. Besides, the morning is the loveliest time of day, though it is not always apparent in town, with its buildings and traffic. In the country there is no time like morning. Unless it is the evening after a day’s work—just when the wind has died down and the dusk has begun to fall. Why is it that the wind always stops blowing when evening comes? Have you noticed?”
    Her husband had folded his paper and set it beside his plate. He was smiling at her in some amusement.
    “Do you like the country?” he asked. “I intend to take you to Severn Park in Wiltshire for the summer. I believe you will enjoy being there.”
    “I have something to tell you,” she said in a rush. “I ought to have told you right at the start, and certainly before you married me. In fact, I should not have called upon you at all. I did so under false pretenses.”
    “Ah,” he said, resting one elbow on the table and supporting his chin on a lightly clenched fist. He looked at her very directly from his blue eyes. “Confession time?”
    “Don’t smile, Miles,” she said. “You will not be amused when I have told you all. Perhaps you will even cast me off. I am sure you will wish to do so.”
    His eyes continued to smile, but he said nothing.
    “I am not your relative at all,” she said, and felt her heart pounding up into her throat. She had not planned to tell him. Not yet, in any case. She drew breath to continue.
    “Yes, you are,” he said quietly. “You are my wife.”
    “But apart from that,” she said. His eyes were disturbingly blue. She wished he would not look at her. And she was very glad that it had been dark during the night when he had . . . She could feel herself flushing. “Well,” she continued lamely, “only very distantly related anyway, Miles. I ought not to have called myself your cousin.”
    “And this is your greatest confession?” he said, smiling at her.
    No, it was not. That was not it at all. But she had turned craven. And perhaps she need never tell him. No one else knew. When her father had died, she had been the only one left to know. Perhaps she need not tell him? What if no one had ever told her? She would be none the