“It wasn’t a waste. I’m enjoying every minute of money well spent.” He rolled out of bed, drawing the sheet around his hips.
She could still see the bulge of his arousal, but it was what he didn’t say that caused her trepidation. He didn’t have the funds he needed to save Wystan—because of her. “If you’d married an heiress, you would be honeymooning in Italy, exploring your gift. You need to explore your gift as much as you need to put a roof on Wystan.”
That was what she’d sensed last night. He still didn’t want to admit to his friends that he was a gifted Malcolm, but it was his only hope now.
“It is a useless gift.” He shrugged his still-bandaged shoulder. “Keeping Wystan’s library from the damp is more important than Italy. We’ll travel someday. It’s not as if I’m poor. We’ll always have a roof over our heads. You can have silks, if you like.” He advanced on her.
Iona stepped back. “Lowell is quite vocal about your refusal to improve your wardrobe. I won’t have you buying silk for me if you won’t buy new clothes. You have given up far too much for me! I hope I know duty as well as you do. Wystan comes first.”
She darted behind the dressing screen. “Where is my trunk?”
“In the other room, where the kitten should be.” He peered around the screen, completely comfortable with their dishabille and obviously not fretting too much over their pennilessness. “Are you sure you would not like to take breakfast in bed?”
“I’ve never done anything so decadent. I should think it would cause a great deal of trouble.” She had no robe to cover the sheer silk. She’d never lounged about in leisure and didn’t know what to do with herself. She tested the water basin. It was chilly.
“You have much to learn about being a countess, my lady.” He leaned in and kissed her nose. “Do you even own a robe? I’d lend you mine, but then I’d have to order a tray while wearing a sheet. Hop back in bed and let us pretend we are in a mansion above the sunny coast, being pampered.”
Iona basked in that glorious thought, dodged out of the other side of the screen, and jumped back in bed, pulling the covers up. “Dinnae say that you haven’t dreamed of a drafty castle overlooking a loch with snow coming through the windows as your honeymoon.”
“All right, I won’t say it.” He pulled on a robe and yanked a rope.
In a short while, a parade of servants arrived bearing trays of tea and pastries, as well as their clothes and warm water—niceties she’d never experienced. Pulling a sheet up to her neck, Iona nervously allowed a tray to be set over her lap. Gerard merely gestured for his to be set on a dresser. He grabbed the kitten before it could butter its nose on toast and handed it to a departing maid.
“Find it—”
“Kingsley,” Iona informed him. “His name is Kingsley.”
“Please take the king out for nature’s call and find him something more appropriate to eat than toast.” He turned to the valet and maid puttering about with clothes. “Go find something to iron. I think we’ll figure out how to dress ourselves.”
“And shave?” Lowell asked, dourly eyeing his whiskers.
“A beard is just the thing. Go on or I may decide to crawl about the foundation like Max and come in covered in filth,” her lord and husband commanded.
Wide-eyed with horror, Lowell fled.
Iona sipped her tea and watched him with interest. “You could grow a beard and wear a colorful scarf over your battered head and look like a pirate. Foundation exploring may be just the thing. Didn’t Max say it is Roman? We needn’t go to Italy to explore Roman ruins.”
“I cannot believe I’m spending the first day of our wedded life crawling around in a sewer.” Gerard held up his lantern so his dainty bride could avoid sticking her too-large boot into a hole.
“You’re not crawling,” she pointed out pragmatically. “And I do not believe this part was the sewer. Did you not listen when Lydia regaled us with tales of ghosts and spirits down here?”
“It’s Lydia’s duty to listen to books.” Of course, he was listening to a Roman soldier chuckling in his head. Iona couldn’t know that.
“But Max is the one who saw the ghost, remember? Can there be any better place for us to practice your talent for seeing history? There is no one around to notice. Think of this as my wedding gift to you.”
She had him there. Allowing him to explore the peculiar without disapproval was quite a spectacular gift, now that he realized the freedom she provided.
“Here.” She lifted her lantern to examine what appeared to be a filled-in archway. “I can sense. . . the oddity. It’s not like feeling the knife we found. I can’t describe the scent.”
“Mold. Decay. Rot.” Hiding his exhilaration at this freedom, Gerard found the names engraved on the arch as Max had described. His fingers tingled. He picked up weird. . . sensations. People whispering. Bells tolling. Song. Prayer. A church?
“You’re hiding behind cynicism,” she accused, hitting the mark dead on. “You’re afraid you’re weird—like me.”
“Maybe I’m afraid I’m not weird.” That was a stupid retort. The voice in his head cackled agreement.
“You’re not insane,” she reassured him.
“I didn’t think I was.” But he did, down deep inside. Ives weren’t weird. He was an Ives, a logical, educated earl, someday a marquess. He was meant to be a leader of men—not a madman who stroked stones. His bride was a shade too perceptive.
“I can smell your fear, and I know perfectly well it isn’t of ghosts. Tell me you don’t feel anything here.” She ran her hand over the arch.
Gerard didn’t want to open his Pandora’s box of fears, but Iona seemed as mad as he was.