Page 28 of An Accidental Elopement

Archie practically threw his arms into the air. What did it take to make her say what she wished? She clearly did not wish to go to London, just as something had clearly been the matter both times that she had been in his bed, yet she kept hiding it from him.

“I don’t wish to go if you do not wish to go,” he told her in a tired voice.

“I wish to go if it will make you happy,” Cecilia answered, and Archie had the feeling that she was simply agreeing with him for the sake of agreeing.

Thirteen

“I have placed you in your old bedroom, Archie,” the Duchess, no, Millie, said as she welcomed Cecilia and Archie in the entrance hall.

“But there is no adjoining room,” Archie said, voicing Cecilia’s thoughts exactly.

Millie’s pale blue eyes went wide with surprise and her mouth thinned as if she was trying to hold back words. Then a slight movement of the shoulders seemed to indicate that she had shrugged whatever statement she had been about to make from her body.

“I did not know that you required separate rooms,” she said in a voice that was almost neutral. Only the slightest hints of disapproval lingered on the words “required” and “separate”.

“Well,” Archie began. His eyes strayed to Cecilia.

“Well,” Cecilia took over. “As it turns out, Archie snores and I am a light sleeper.”

This was oversharing to an extent that made Cecilia blush instantly, but Millie was Archie’s mother after all. If Cecilia could not mention bodily functions in front of her, who could she mention them to? Although she would have preferred not to do it in the entrance hall where maids and footmen were flitting through, carrying luggage, flowers, tableware, and whatnot.

“Oh, I didn’t know,” Millie said and sent her son a look as if he should have told her that he had begun snoring the instant it had happened. “Well, I will put you in the pearly suite for now. It has two rooms. Then when Lord and Lady Lindley arrive in three days you will have to move out in the morning.”

Millie turned to Cecilia and put her small hand on her arm. Her new mother-in-law was even shorter than Cecilia was.

“I am sorry, my dear, but I really cannot have guests sleeping in the family wing. I will have Mrs. Higgins, our housekeeper, give you a pair of thick cotton swots for your ears. Hopefully, it will be enough to help you sleep.”

Cecilia’s stomach felt like a knot as she saw the compassion in the elder woman’s eyes. It felt like a betrayal, but she could not bring herself to tell Millie the truth.

The pearly suite was just as grand as any of the other rooms Cecilia had seen in the estate. It consisted of two spacious bedrooms with a shared dressing and washing room in between the two. It gave her a sense of having a buffer between the two of them. She sighed as she sank backwards into the soft mattress and closed her eyes for a moment.

She was not certain how she would have handled having to share a room with Archie for the duration of their stay. The four nights would be hard enough. Her body yearned for him, yet her mind could not let her have him. Each night she would touch herself when she thought of what he had done on the second night of their marriage. And her body knew that being with him, having him inside her, would only feel even better.

She was roused from her musings when Archie knocked on the door.

“Enter,” Cecilia muttered and struggled to sit up right in the soft bed. It was like being attacked from behind by a cream pudding.

Archie entered, before she had struggled her way out of the bed. He went to the side and offered her a hand that she took with trepidation and let him help her up. The touch of his warm naked hand was making her skin come alive with a prickling sensation that was immediately followed by goosebumps.

“Are you alright? Not too cold?” Archie asked and looked at the fireplace where the fire had just been lit, not warming the room fully yet.

Cecilia nodded and extricated her hand from his.

“I’m quite alright,” she told him and went to her trunk to be able to turn her back on him. “Thank you for securing us separate rooms,” she muttered as she rummaged for a shawl that she was quite sure she had brought. She needed to take something from the trunk at least.

“Well...” Archie sighed. “I thought you would prefer it.”

Cecilia did not know how to respond. They had been married three weeks and he had not come to her bedroom since the two first nights. Even though her monthly courses had started on the third night, clearly he had to know that they were over by now. Or had he already lost interest? Perhaps the adjoining rooms were not for her benefit but for his? Well over a hundred people would be staying at the estate for the wedding, there could easily be an unsatisfied wife or a merry widow among them that he had planned to take to bed.

“I’m ready,” Cecilia blurted as she turned from the trunk with a pale blue shawl that did not go well with her pale green dress, but there was nothing to be done about it now.

The upstairs drawing room was a riot of running children, chatting adults, a fuzzy infant, and nannies and maids trying to make the whole debacle a little more comfortable for everyone. All of Archie’s siblings had arrived before them and all of their children were presently in the drawing room.

Cecilia was glad that Archie kept her at his elbow as they made their way around the room and greeted his siblings: Lady Charlotte, who was a more well-proportioned and gray-eyed version of Hester, and her husband Lord James and their four daughters. Lady Lucy Winterbottom, who was the spitting image of Millie, her husband, Edmund Winterbottom and their two sons and daughter. Archie’s brother Henry, the Marquis of Seacourt, who was a bit shorter and had more golden-brown hair than Archie but had the same build and startlingly blue eyes. His wife Edwina was holding their infant son in her arms; the boy had finally calmed down but began to cry immediately when his mother turned from the conversation and started shouting orders at her two oldest boys.

Lord Gregory who was a bit shorter than Archie with a squarer face and the same brownish blonde hair as his eldest and youngest sister was standing with Lady Hester in a corner with Flint, his brother Percy Eavesgrave, his sister Lady Addinggrove, and her husband Lord Addinggrove. Their son Arthur was most likely among the children rummaging around on the floor. Cecilia and Archie joined them as they stood a bit to the side and watched the mayhem unfold in front of them.

“The children will leave in ten minutes,” Percy Eavesgrave said as they greeted him.