Finagled by Rachel Kelso

she dressed his wound or asked for anything, though he thanked her gratefully for what she brought him. The hours he spent sleeping lessened, but Ramona still had plenty of opportunities to study his face. As the color returned she no longer thought it swarthy or weather worn. She quite liked his coloring, actually. She found herself studying his lips especially, a little pale and dry at first, as the life returned to them she occasionally thought of their touch, but she did not let herself think of it too much.
     
    She was just going to have to live without it.
     

Chapter Nine
     
    When George was finally up on his feet he convinced the Doctor that he was well enough to travel, well padded in the carriage, surrounded by blankets and pillows and the sweet ministrations of his lovely young bride, he set out for Loathewood.
     
    The countryside passed slowly, as they took a slower pace than they had originally intended. The servants, Melanie and a couple of others, rode ahead with their trunks, while George's valet sat on top with the driver, should his master need for anything.
     
    Sitting across from George in this, their second carriage ride together, Ramona was struck by the contrast. The last time she had been so anxious, so unsure. The things that she had worried about were still there, completely unchanged, but George no longer avoided her gaze, and his gold pocket watch could no longer sit open in his fingers. Ramona wished that his injury had never happened, but she wondered where they would be if it had not. Already settled for weeks at Loathewood, would the air between them have been as chilly? Would she only sit across from her husband at meals? Even now she worried a little, that, given a whole estate to escape to, and returning eventually to his duties and obligations there, she would not see him so often. Even if they had been sharing the marriage bed, and everything that that entailed, she imagined she would not see much of her new husband. Country estates were like little countries, and her Duke was the king of Loathewood.
     
    Ramona took a deep breath and smiled warmly at George. "How are you feeling?" she asked.
     
    "Ah, a bit stiff, and a bit over bundled." He said, adjusting his copious pillows. "A bit mothered and smothered," he chuckled.
     
    "Well, you are just going to have to live with it, Doctor’s orders. We probably shouldn’t have set out yet..." she furrowed her brow and reached a hand across to him.
     
    His smile faltered a bit and he took her hand hesitantly. It was starting already. Their closeness would become awkward again, if he let it. It did not have to be. If he could keep the hesitation out of his voice and actions, he need not wound her.
     
    She saw, but felt a warmth inside as he accepted her small fingers, enclosing them warmly.
     
    Ramona read aloud for a while, and then passed the time staring out the window at the changes in scenery, as they moved away from the city and into the countryside she imagined walking in the fields and wildernesses that they passed. She had always done this on long journeys, imagining herself running alongside the carriage, jumping from stone to stone and fencepost to fencepost. It was a distraction, and as usual she fell asleep with her face against the glass in this way.
     
    The next two days went in much the same way and suddenly she was having her very first look at Loathewood.
     
    She had heard of it, it was a large estate and she had seen illustrations in history books, postcards in shops, but the vastness of it, approaching as they did at nightfall, she was not prepared for. It loomed over the landscape, huge and imposing on the sinking horizon. This was her new home, and looking over it she could well imagine it swallowing her whole. The duties she would have as mistress of this home were enough to make her heart palpitate. The idea that inside were dozens of unknown faces with unknown alliances. She was genuinely comfortable with