the ascent. Taller and heavier by far, he anchored them on the slippery slope. She blustered and protested all the way, and though he held his scowl, he could not deny taking pleasure from every touch. Even padded with layers of petticoats and wool, his estranged wife was a rare, lush confection, one he wanted to push down into the snow to taste, eat, and savor. To touch her underneath her clothes with his mouth and his hands until she couldn’t even remember what the word
But alas, there would be none of that. As soon as they reached level ground, where she regained possession of her valise, she stormed, pink cheeked, away from him and down the snow-laden public road.
Furious at his continued efforts to torment her, Sophia fumed away, but with his long legs, Claxton easily matched her pace. Wordlessly, he wrested her valise from her grasp, freeing her of its burden. This time he did not demand that she turn back, but walked beside her, his boots making easy work of the snow. For a long while, they tromped along without speaking until she could bear the quiet no longer. She had never been one for successfully brooding in silence.
“How I envy you your Hessians,” she said, speaking straight from her mind. “Perhaps in the coming months, I will withdraw to the country. I’ll take to wearing men’s garments and boots and tromp through fields in search of adventure.”
He said nothing, only continued to make easy progress over the frozen earth. Before becoming duke, Claxton had been a colonel in the light dragoons, something that had inspired romantic opinions about him among the ranks of the
Sophia saw those physical attributes in him now, in the powerful stride of his legs and the measured breaths he took through his nose. She struggled to keep pace and appear as untaxed by the effort as he.
More words bubbled up into her mouth, any silly thing to break the uncomfortable quiet between them. “Perhaps I’ll even take to smoking a pipe.”
He growled, “You will
“I will if I want to.” She wouldn’t, of course, but she liked saying so just to shock him. “Once we are separated, I’ll do anything I want.”
“Such as spend all your time with Havering?” he asked in a low, cutting voice.
“Of course not,” she answered, startled by the accusation. “Why? Did he say something to you?”
Claxton made a sound between a grunt and a laugh. He gave her his profile and stared out over the field. Obviously Fox had indeed said something to Claxton. The knowledge did not please Sophia, but came as no surprise. Havering had always been protective, since they were children, but more so since her older brother Vinson’s death four years before. He and Vinson had been best friends, sharing university and their grand tours together, not to mention the fateful trip where Vinson had been lost. Then, of course, her father had died, a man who had been more like a father to Fox than his own. Perhaps earlier in life there had been certain expectations, but she had married Claxton, and Havering had never been—and would never be—more than a friend. Looking at the duke’s scowling profile, she could not help feeling badly that he might believe otherwise.
“What will you do, Claxton,” she queried softly, “when you are rid of me?”
He threw her a sharp glance, but a long moment later, he answered. “I’ve not given the future much thought. Perhaps I will go to Jamaica, if my diplomatic duties so allow. Haden has properties there, worked by freemen, in which I’ve invested. I’ve long wanted to see them for myself.”
“Jamaica sounds a world away,” she observed softly. “Exotic and delightfully warm in comparison to our present circumstance.”
What if he liked it there so much that he did not return? What if she never saw him again, not even in passing on a crowded London street? Her chest constricted at that thought or perhaps merely from the cold.
“Of all places, why did you come here last night?” he asked.
Ice cracked and popped on the trees. A curious jackdaw swooped beside them, flitting from limb to limb.
Sophia adjusted her scarf, bringing it higher over her chin. “I’d seen the parish tithes recorded in the account books and inquired with the land steward about the estate. The house sounded charming and close to London and private.” She shrugged. “Weeks ago I wrote to the caretakers, a Mr. and Mrs. Kettle, with instructions that I would visit the week after Christmas. Last night on impulse I decided to take residence a bit early.”
That explained why the house had been in at least the early stages of readiness. Mrs. Kettle would have thrown herself into preparations immediately upon having received such word, to the best of her capability.
“You weren’t there when I arrived,” he noted. “Not as I expected you to be.”
An image of Claxton embracing Lady Meltenbourne exploded into her mind, jagged and painful. She blinked the memory and the hurt that accompanied it away.
“I delivered my lady’s maid home to spend Christmas with her family. She is newly hired, young, and quite homesick. I, for my part, wished to be alone.” She steered the conversation to a less emotional topic than the events of the night before. “The property is lovely. Why has the house not been kept up?”
“No one comes here,” he said quietly. “Not since my mother died.”
“I thought she died in Italy.”
She instantly realized she’d made a grave mistake in speaking those words. The sharpness of his glance cut her through.
“Italy,” he answered in a hollow voice. “No.”
Claxton had always deflected her questions about his mother and father, answering in only the vaguest of terms. Not every childhood had been as happy as hers. Realizing this, she had respected his need for privacy and never pried. Yet before their marriage, Sophia had overheard a stodgy society matron intimate that the duchy carried a scandal in its not so distant past. Only when pressed had her mother reluctantly shared the rumor that the Duchess of Claxton had years before abandoned the duke and their young sons for a lover and subsequently died abroad in Italy.
“To my knowledge, the duchess never visited Italy.” He stared ahead, his countenance stolid. “She lived here for as long as I remember, being a mother to Haden and I.”
Embarrassment and shame scorched her cheeks. After all the difficulties in their marriage caused by rumor, she of all people should know better than to repeat details gleaned from a scandal, details that based on her husband’s response weren’t even true. She could not help but feel that she had thoughtlessly maligned the memory of an innocent woman, someone close to her husband’s heart. She glanced at him to find his jaw rigid and his lips firmly set.
“I’m sorry, Claxton. I shouldn’t have said it.”
“It is of no consequence.”
In a softer tone, Sophia sought to diffuse the tension between them with a less provocative statement. “I suppose many in the village will recognize you.”
“Let’s hope not.” His brows rose. “My brother and I, as children, were unholy terrors. I’m certain there are still unfortunate feelings.”
With that response, they returned to silence, having arrived at the edge of Lacenfleet. There, despair consumed her. From this vantage point she could see a portion of the river, the surface covered with large fragments of drifting white floes. Two barges were moored at the dock. As for the village, just as Claxton had predicted, snow buried the roads. Not a moving carriage or wagon or living person could be seen, though smoke arose from almost every chimney.
“Which way?” she said, unwilling to return to the silence and darkness of Camellia House after having come this far.
With a look of irritation, he pointed down a wide lane lined on either side by cottages with doorways almost obscured by drifts of snow.
“The inn,” he answered, words clipped. “No matter the weather, the villagers will gather inside. The livery is also there, though I’m certain you will not find transport out. You can see as well as I that no one is about and that we have come all this way for nothing. Careful there. The pavement is—”
Too late. She’d stepped off and crashed in thigh-deep snow.
“—lower there.”
She cried out at the discomfort, the invasion of cold where the chill had not gone before. Spanish wool drawers. Yes, she would purchase five pair upon her return to London. If she had them now, she would wear all
