The Lady's Command. Stephanie Laurens
found she was still too buoyed on triumph—on multiple counts—to, as she usually did, slide into pleasured slumber. She wasn’t sure Declan was sleeping, either; wrapped in his arms, her head pillowed on his shoulder, she couldn’t see his face—couldn’t be sure if he was sleeping or not without lifting her head and disturbing them both.
In that moment, she was at peace, sated and safe, and felt no need to converse. And, it seemed, neither did he; the slow rise and fall of his chest beneath her cheek soothed and reassured.
Her mind wandered, instinctively cataloguing—where they now were, where she wished them to go.
The path she wanted them to follow—the marriage she was determined they would have.
Her assumption that it was up to her, her responsibility to steer them in the right direction, wasn’t one she questioned. She had her parents’ marriage and that of her late brother as vivid examples of how terribly wrong things could go if a lady didn’t institute and insist on the correct framework. And putting that correct framework in place was much easier if one acted from the first, before any unhelpful habits became ingrained.
She knew what she wanted; she had several shining examples to guide her—her sisters’ marriages, Julian and Miranda’s marriage, and, more recently, what she’d seen of the relationship between Declan’s parents, Fergus and Elaine.
That from his earliest years Declan had been exposed to such a marriage, one that was founded on a working personal partnership—that he would have absorbed the concept, seen its inherent strengths, and, she hoped, would now expect to find the same support in his own marriage—was infinitely encouraging.
Throughout their teens, she and her sisters had spent hours in their parlor at Ridgware discussing the elements of an acceptable-in-their-eyes marriage. Both Millie and Cassie, each in their own way, had set out to achieve that ideal in their marriages and had succeeded. Both Catervale and Elsbury openly doted on their wives, were strong and engaged fathers to their children, and shared everything; they included their wives in all areas of their lives.
Edwina was determined to have nothing less. Indeed, with Declan, she suspected she wanted more. Compared to Millie and Cassie, she was more outgoing, more curious and eager to engage with life and actively explore the full gamut of its possibilities.
She wanted their marriage to be a joint venture on all levels, first to last.
With their position within the ton now established and their physical union so vibrantly assured, she could now turn her mind and energies to all the other aspects that contributed to a modern marriage.
On the domestic front, she had all in hand. Together, she and Declan had chosen this house to rent for the Season, and perhaps longer, but he’d ceded the tiller entirely to her with respect to selecting and hiring their staff. She’d been lucky to find Humphrey, and Mrs. King, their housekeeper, and the new cook were settling in nicely. The small staff met their needs more than adequately; other than deciding menus, she needed to do little to keep everything running smoothly in that sphere.
Which left her with one outstanding issue, that of how to merge the rest of their lives—how to align their interests, activities, and energies when they weren’t in the bedroom, or at home, or socializing within the ton.
All the rest.
Thinking the words brought home just how little she knew of the details of Declan’s business—how he occupied himself, what role he played within his family’s shipping empire, or any particular causes he espoused. He’d told her he didn’t expect to sail again until July, or perhaps later; that left her with plenty of time to question and discover all she needed to learn so that she could work out the details of how he and she were going to work together. How she could and would contribute to his career.
A working partnership such as his parents had was what she wanted, one where she contributed as she could, where appropriate—a partnership that allowed her to understand the demands made on him and the pressures those brought to bear. Despite her predilection for active engagement, such a partnership didn’t necessarily require her to be actively involved in each and every facet, but rather to always be in a position to understand what was going on. She was immutably convinced that such an arrangement was critical to them having the marriage she was determined they would have.
Sleep drew nearer; her already relaxed muscles lost what little tension they’d regained.
Even as she surrendered to slumber’s insistent tug, she sensed a nascent swell of eagerness, optimism, and determination. She was free to start her campaign to create the marriage they needed first thing tomorrow morning.
Declan didn’t succeed in summoning his wits—in being able to think worth a damn—until Edwina finally fell asleep. Until then, caught between worlds, he knew only the tumultuous emotion that welled and swelled within him. It had flared to life on their wedding night; he had assumed it would fade with time, that exercised daily—nightly—it would gradually lose its power. Instead, it had burgeoned and grown.
But, at last, the soft huff of Edwina’s breathing deepened, and she sank more definitely against him, and his senses finally ceased their fascination, withdrew from their complete and abject focus on her, and allowed his wits to resurface.
And that overwhelming emotion subsided, but the effects lingered, leaving him unsettlingly aware of just how much she now meant to him. He dwelled on that reality for a moment, then buried the understanding deep. The only consequence he needed to consciously grasp was that, now, putting her—or allowing her to put herself—in any danger whatsoever was simply not on the cards.
For several moments, the potential conflict between that consideration and her as-yet-undefined unconventionality—underscored by their recent activities—and how that might impinge on the way their marriage would work cycled through his mind. His only clear conclusion was that establishing the practical logistics of their marriage was shaping up to be significantly more complicated than he’d assumed. He would need to establish boundaries to keep Edwina separate from the other side of his life, to keep her safely screened from it.
He tried to imagine how he might achieve that, especially given the understanding that niggled deep in his brain—that given his own character, it was her adventurous soul that had from the first drawn him.
Yet adventuring of any sort invariably led to danger. How was he to suppress that aspect of her personality while simultaneously preserving it?
He fell asleep before even a whisper of a suggestion of a plan bloomed in his mind.
The following morning, her marital challenge in the forefront of her mind, Edwina swept into the breakfast parlor to find her handsome husband frowning over a letter. She halted. “What is it?”
He glanced up. His gaze rested on her for a second, then he shook his head. He folded the letter and tucked it into his coat pocket. “Just a note calling me to a meeting. Company business.”
The tip of Edwina’s tongue burned with the urge to press him for more; for a second, she flirted with the idea of offering to accompany him just to see how he would react. But… It was too early for that. Frontal assaults rarely worked with men like Declan; they instinctively resisted any pressure, which later made convincing them to change their stance all the harder. She needed to pave her way.
She turned to the sideboard, sent a smiling nod Humphrey’s way, and accepted the plate he handed her. As she sampled the various delicacies in the chafing dishes, then went to the table and slipped into the chair Humphrey held for her, she reflected on her glaring lack of knowledge of her husband’s business. While she might not yet be in a position to demand to know the details of an upcoming meeting, there were other questions it was patently time she started asking.
She reached for the teapot, poured herself a cup, then lifted it and sipped. Looking over the rim, she studied Declan; he appeared absorbed with making inroads into a mound of scrambled eggs. “I know you captain one of your family’s