The Other Side - J. D. Robb [45]
“I’ll tell you what it is. It’s a figment of Patricia Melton’s imagination. I danced with her or sat at supper with her or something equally innocuous. Nothing happened.”
Maybe he was telling the truth. Then why did she doubt him? Because her enthusiastic, adventurous lover had not been in her bed since Cameron was born. He could not be any more satisfied than she was. She almost asked, when Lord Bright rode up to them.
“Truth to tell, I cannot decide if you are arguing or desperate to make love, but whichever it is, I suggest you save it for the bedroom. You are attracting all eyes.”
“Thank you, Nick.” Bettina did her best to appear jovial. “We were, indeed, teasing each other about, well, you are quite right. It is better saved for the bedroom.”
Bright chatted with them for a moment more. Bettina was self-conscious at conversing while Harry watched, but when he did not interrupt, she decided she must be performing adequately.
Finally, Lord Bright turned to the countess. “You shine whenever I see you, my lady. I look forward to dinner at the Daltons’ this evening. Shall we send this fool to his club”—he nodded at the earl—“and the two of us can play whatever game you wish?”
“I do enjoy chess,” Harry said with a spark in his eye that was more anger than flirtation.
“Chess it will be.” Bright laughed, swept off his hat, and bowed to them both. “Until this eveing!”
Bettina sent him off with a salute and almost groaned aloud at the reminder of the dinner performance facing them later.
“Fix this saddle,” Harry said with a return to his usual commanding form.
“It’s not loose, Harry. It’s just that you are less than comfortable riding sidesaddle.”
“Then we will go home. Now.”
“No,” Bettina insisted, even as she turned toward the gate. “We should stay so that no one thinks we were arguing or so anxious for sex that we are almost in each other’s laps.”
Harry gave her a withering look. “Must you question every single thing I say?”
“Yes, when I think you are wrong.”
“We are both on the verge of a shouting row. If we lose our tempers here, lose control here, then we are going to have a more difficult time maintaining our pose. You are likely to start making those gestures with your hands, the ones that make it look like you want to strangle me. Or start crying.”
“And you will try to leave or at the very least look away, as if what I say has no merit.”
“I do not do that!”
“You just did. That very sentence rejects what I said. What’s more, you rode off when we first arrived here when I suggested that you act like I, as the earl, am the love of your life.” Tears filled her eyes.
With a look of panic, Harry moved as close to her as he could. “You are the love of my life, Bettina. Do not cry.”
As if she could control that.
“Bettina, even you do not cry in public.”
He was right. It was much too unseemly and would attract all the damned attention they were trying to avoid.
“Then let’s go home, Harry. Not because I want to but because I have to tell you about the argument I had with Osterman. And what in the world did the duchess say that made you laugh that way? Not at all ladylike, Harry.”
“She told me that having grandchildren was so much more fun than the children themselves.”
“You laughed at that? I do not think she meant to be funny. Her three younger children have been nothing but an embarrassment to her.”
“Lowbray’s heir is a fine man. I knew him at school.”
“Harry, I said her three younger children.” Bettina stopped her horse and, perforce, Harry slowed beside her. “The duchess’s second son ran off with a married woman. Her daughter has chronic hiccoughs and cannot be in society, and her youngest daughter is so obese she cannot ride a horse. Believe me, there is nothing funny about having one child beyond the social pale and two daughters who will obviously never marry.”
“You told me nothing about her,” Harry said, with quiet vehemence. “How was