Текст книги "Once Upon a Tartan"
Автор книги: Grace Burrowes
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Текущая страница: 12 (всего у книги 20 страниц)
Fiona snitched another orphaned raisin. “Uncle is shy? I don’t think so, but he’s very careful. He guddles people the way he guddles a fish.”
“What is that supposed to mean?” An image of Spathfoy’s hand stroking slowly over Hester’s stomach had her pulse fluttering.
“He is stealthy.” Fiona hunched down closer to the table and dropped her voice. “He is polite and quiet, and uses a great lot of big words, but he has very good manners. My other uncles don’t have such good manners.”
“Your other uncles know you better, Fee. Spathfoy is more guest than uncle. When you know him better, he might be less formal.”
“He made me a cup of tea, right here in this kitchen. Mrs. Deal will have kittens.”
“He made me a cup of tea too”—exactly the way she preferred it—“so she’ll have to have two litters. Would you like to help me practice my Gaelic over a game of matches?”
“You promiseyou won’t let me win?”
Hester rose and carried the tray to the counter. “I shall pummel you flat, but we must practice my Gaelic while I defeat you.”
“I bet Uncle could pummel you flat.”
Hester took the child’s hand and remained silent. She feared in some of the ways that mattered, Spathfoy had already pummeled her flat. She very much looked forward to her next pummeling, when she hoped she might return the favor to him. Aunt Ariadne had been quite correct to recommend that Hester avail herself of Spathfoy’s subtle charms.
And if he stayed the entire summer, Hester would avail herself of those charms as often as the gentleman’s shynessallowed her to.
* * *
Tye tried writing to his father.
He needed to convey to the old man how dim-witted—and unsporting—this plan to uproot an innocent child was. He wanted to intimate to his father how urgent Tye’s own exodus from Scotland had become—how close he found himself to committing irredeemable mischief with one Hester Daniels, who might not be best pleased to see Fiona taken south. He had to explain to his father how very decent Balfour had been to Fiona and to Tye both, and how deserving the Scottish earl was of decent treatment in return.
All of which would be so much wasted ink. Quinworth had spoken, and the universe was to promptly order itself accordingly.
Despite the impact on a little girl.
Despite the strain on Tye’s self-discipline.
Despite the stain on Tye’s honor.
Tye stared at the empty glass in his hand, and once again the sly, outlandish idea called to him. He dipped the pen and tried to start his epistle to the marquess, except the plan taking shape in Tye’s brain was too fascinating, too strangely appealing, to permit the composition of a properly filial epistle. A list developed on the piece of paper before Tye, a list of reasons why this plan made perfect sense:
As his father’s sole, direct male heir, Tye had to marry.
His father was pestilentially determined that Tye should marry sooner rather than later.
Tye’s mother would have to attend the wedding ceremony, and it would please Tye inordinately to see his parents behaving as a couple in public.
The young lady was in need of a husband—all young ladies were in need of husbands, but this one needed a husband of sufficient social stature to scotch the remaining whiff of scandal clinging to her good name.
The lady was of childbearing age, for all her attempts to retire to the shelf.
The lady was impoverished and would be at pains to make a good match without a decent dowry.
The lady was quietly pretty and sensible, also quite passionate.
Tye scratched out the last line. A gentleman wouldn’t remark on a woman’s capacity for passion—a gentleman wouldn’t allow himself the opportunity to notice such a thing.
He wrote the same line again and underlined the last word. Two minutes of staring at the list, and he added another line:
The lady was aunt by marriage to the niece Tye must kidnap.
Another lining through.
The lady was aunt by marriage to the niece whom Tye would escort to the family seat, and the lady’s presence would aid the child in adjusting to her improved circumstances.
Improved was a stretch. He scowled at his list, scratched out “improved,” and wrote “new.”
Two minutes later he balled up his list and tossed it into the fire. Hester Daniels was a nobody—a younger daughter of a mere baron, and her brother was all but disdaining to use the title. As much as Tye might find the lady suitable, Quinworth would make her life hell.
Whisky was putting odd notions in his head. He stared at where the fire was consuming the crumpled list, turning paper to ash.
Hester wasn’t his mother, though. She wouldn’t run off if Quinworth turned up difficult. Hester could give the old man what for and never even raise her voice.
And she was quitepassionate.
He started making another list.
* * *
Ian watched his wife climb into bed, something a year of marriage ought to have made into a prosaic, end-of-day sight.
Though it hadn’t. Each and every night, he feasted his eyes on the way firelight brought out red highlights in her dark hair. Each and every night, he waited for the moment she settled on the mattress, drew her nightgown over her head, and ranged her warm, female curves along his tired body.
“Come to bed, Husband. You’ve been brooding at that fire since we came down from the nursery.” She tossed off her nightgown, drew the covers up over herself, and lay back against the pillows.
Ian crossed the room, laid his dressing gown over her nightgown at the foot of the bed, and climbed in beside her. “The rain has made your son sleepy, I’m thinking. He hears it like a lullaby.”
“Growing has made him sleepy. He’ll likely be every bit as tall as you.” She cuddled up; he looped an arm around her shoulders and felt some of the day’s tensions ease out of him.
“He’ll be taller, because his mama is a fine, strappin’ countess who brings her own height to the equation. Do you think the lad would be up to a social call later this week?”
“To see Lady Ariadne? Of course.” She traced a single finger over Ian’s breastbone. “What has you in such a taking, Husband? I know Spathfoy came to visit this afternoon, but he didn’t stay long.”
Ian trapped her fingers in his and brought her knuckles to his lips. “Damned man is intent on taking Fee south, Augusta. I’m not sure I can stop him.”
She rose up on her side, peering at him by the dying firelight. “How can he just take Mary Fran’s daughter, Ian? Do you mean for a visit?”
“No, my heart, I do not mean for a visit. Quinworth has taken some notion to retrieve his long-lost granddaughter, and Spathfoy is charged with seeing it done.”
Augusta was silent for long moments after she resumed her position at Ian’s side. “This is not good, Ian. Quinworth is an old-fashioned aristocrat who probably thinks children should be seen and not heard.”
Old-fashioned aristocrats were capable of worse notions where little girls were concerned—or not so little girls. “Spare the rod and all that rot. Fiona will not deal well with such treatment. Mary Fran grew more rebellious the more Grandfather tried to set limits for her. Fiona will be no different.”
“Doesn’t he need to file some sort of lawsuit?”
“Yes, he does, but I’m thinking he’d do so in English courts.” Ian stroked a hand over his wife’s hair, the very feel of it soothing his worries. “Gordie was English, so his children would arguably be English.”
“But Fee was born in Scotland to a Scottish mother.”
“Who was married to an Englishman at the time of the child’s birth.”
Augusta cradled Ian’s jaw, then drew a finger scented with lavender across his lips. “Do we know exactly when Gordie died? I thought Fee was a posthumous child.”
“She…” He fell silent. They’d gotten word of Gordie’s death after Fee’s birth, but the ocean was wide, the Canadian wilderness almost as vast, and Ian had never gotten an exact date. “Wife, you give me hope, but at best, all I can do with this issue is slow Quinworth down. Spathfoy says the old man has Gordie’s will, and Gordie’s wishes are made very plain therein. Fee’s to go to her father’s family.”
“If I didn’t hate Gordie Flynn before…”
“He was trying to do what was best for his child, Augusta.”
“And I will do what is best for my husband.” She rose up and straddled him in all her naked glory. “When do Mary Fran and Matthew plan to get home?”
“That’s just it.” Ian wrapped a hand around her nape to urge her down within kissing range. “I haven’t heard a damned thing from them. I’ve sent a dozen wires, and they haven’t answered a one.”
She brushed his hair back from his brow, flipped her braid over her shoulder, and set about distracting him from the substantial worry Fee’s situation had become.
* * *
For two days, a cold, miserable rain fell without pause, though in Hester’s heart, she felt a slow sunrise. Spathfoy did not ride his horse out, but had a footman take correspondence into Ballater for him both days.
Hester had peeked at the addresses. They were letters to family, to the marquess, and to Spathfoy’s sisters, at least one of whom was residing at the family seat in Northumbria.
Hester liked that he wrote to his sisters, didn’t just append little postscripts for them to the marquess’s missive. She liked that Spathfoy took tea with Aunt Ariadne in the afternoon and listened to the old woman prattle on about “dear Prinny” and “poor old George,” as if they’d been neighbors of hers for years.
Which, given that Aunt had bided in London with two of her husbands, they very nearly had.
Hester also liked that last night’s evening meal had been shared by her and the earl alone, Aunt Ariadne claiming the damp was making her bones ache fiercely.
Hester did notlike that Spathfoy hadn’t made one single overture of an intimate nature, though he was doing a creditable job of entertaining Fiona at cards as the afternoon wore on.
“You can’t cheat at this game,” Fiona admonished him. “I’ll watch you every minute, you see, and the cards are all right before us. There are two ways to cheat. You can peek at the cards as you lay them down, or you can peek at them if I have to get up, say, to fetch a cup of tea.”
She was shuffling the cards as she spoke, her hands appallingly competent for such a small child.
“And are we permitted to wager?” his lordship asked. They were on the rug in front of the hearth, the earl sprawled on his side, while Fee sat cross-legged on a pillow before him.
She paused in her handling of the cards. “Is wagering permitted, Aunt? I haven’t much money, because I’m saving it up for a present for Mama when she comes home.”
“I’m not going to be a banker for either of you.” Hester put her novel aside. She hadn’t absorbed a single word the entire time she’d been curled in her wing chair, though the pretense had allowed surreptitious enjoyment of the sight of Spathfoy at leisure. “You could wager favors, I suppose. Say, a ride on Rowan for some favor of the earl’s choosing.”
“Uncle already promised me a ride.”
Spathfoy eased up to tailor-sit across from the child. “We could wager future favors.” His gaze traveled from the cards Fee was shuffling to where the ruffled hem of Hester’s petticoat peeked from beneath her skirt.
Fiona peered at the top card, then returned it to the deck. “You mean we could ask each other for anything? I could ask you to teach me to ride Rowan?”
“You might.” He studied Hester’s hands now, making her skin heat as she tucked her hem over the lace at her ankles. “Or we might agree on some limits, like something that can be done in the space of an hour.”
His voice had taken on a particular depth, reaching into Hester’s body and creating low and private stirrings—and she was certain he knew exactly what he was about.
“I could ride Rowan for an hour?” Fee started laying cards face down in tidy rows. Then she paused. “What favors would you ask of me?”
“Now that is a challenge.” Spathfoy considered Hester while he spoke. “What could a lovely young lady offer that I might seek to gain through a wager rather than simply by asking?”
Hester picked her book back up. “You can talk about wagering all afternoon, my lord, or you can go quietly to your fate. Fiona is wicked smart at the matching game. She has a gift for it.”
“You’ve a passion for the game, Niece? Your grandmother enjoys cards as well, though there are few who will play against her when she’s on her game.”
He took part of the remaining deck and set about finishing the rows Fiona had started. Hester concluded the verbal skirmish was over, but it put the past two days in a different light. She recalled Spathfoy holding her chair at breakfast, leaning down just a little too far to wish her good morning while she adjusted her skirts.
Oh, the scent of him, first thing in the day…
And the utter wonder of awakening in her own bed, only to realize Spathfoy had carried her there as she’d slept, covered her up, then laid her nightgown and wrapper across the foot of her bed.
He’d handled her clothing.
He’d handled her.
And when they were at table, she could not reach for the salt without his hand brushing hers, though he never by word or expression gave it away as anything other than inadvertence.
He was flirting with her. His approach was so subtle, so utterly Tiberius Flynn, she hadn’t recognized it.
She turned a page. “When you beat him, Fee, you mustn’t ask anything too terribly difficult of him. Your uncle isn’t used to being humbled by young ladies and their passions.”
Hester was still congratulating herself on that salvo when Fiona went down to defeat, having a mere eight matches to the earl’s eighteen.
* * *
Tye finished brushing his teeth and glowered at himself in the mirror. For two damned days, he’d acquitted himself like a perfect gentleman. Such behavior ought not to have been a burden, because he wasa perfect gentleman—most of the time.
And yet… nothing. No overtures from the lady other than a little repartee, which had hardly encouraged Tye to bolder flirtation. And his plan—the plan his father would have to accommodate if the man’s grandchildren were to know their grandpapa—required that Hester contribute more than some tart rejoinders.
Tye was going to have to storm her citadel. His time was running out, and while there were lines he would not cross, he was going to maneuver his heaviest artillery into the fray. If she expected him to bat his eyes at her or beg for a touch of her hand, Hester Daniels was sadly mistaken.
He jerked the belt of his robe closed, decided the moment did not call for any footwear—and particularly not any goddamned gray wool socks—and glanced at himself in the mirror.
For God’s sake, he looked as if he were going to war.
He didn’t stop to repair his appearance but stalked off to Hester’s closed bedroom door.
To knock or not to knock? To hell with it.He knocked twice, then put his hand on the knob.
“Come in.”
He swung the door wide as the lady bid him enter. She reclined on a chaise by the fire, her hair unbound, her nightclothes modestly covering her from her neck to her infernally sturdy gray wool socks.
“Good evening, my lord.” She did not look surprised to see him, but he was surprised by all that hair. In the firelight, it gleamed like new pennies and old gold, made him want to get his hands on it and bury his nose in it.
“Good evening, Miss Hester.” And nowwhat? His brilliant plan was proving lamentably thin on details.
“Perhaps you’d close the door, my lord? You’re letting in quite a draft.”
He closed the door, though a part of him wanted to protest that propriety demanded it be kept open.
“I am no bloody good at this.” He glanced around the room, hoping some other idiot fellow had made that announcement.
“At what?” She rose from her chaise, belting her robe with snug efficiency and crossing the room to stand before him. “Your hair is damp.”
“Everything is damp in this damned rain.”
“Come.” She took him by the hand and tugged him closer to the fire. “We can enumerate all the things you’re not good at, and perhaps a few of the endeavors at which you excel.”
There was innuendo in her words– sheexcelled at innuendo, turning innocent remarks over cards into smoldering flirtation. He let her tow him to the carpet, where she sat on the end of the chaise, behind and above him when he lowered himself to the floor.
“Tell me what you’re no bloody good at.” He felt her fingers at his nape, teasing the curling ends of his hair from the collar of his night robe.
“Subtlety, for one.” No, that was not accurate. Nor even honest. “I am not familiar with what is expected when a man is in pursuit of a lady.”
Her fingers stilled, and he heard her rustling around behind him. He was tempted to keep his eyes on her at all times, in case she’d taken a notion to shed her clothes and climb on the bed.
Which thought had even his cock making stupid, hopeful pronouncements.
“Are you a virgin, my lord?” She put the question casually as she resumed her seat, but she’d scooted, so she sat on her chaise with one leg on either side of him.
“You asked that merely to shock me, Hester Daniels. I will not dignify it with an answer.”
“If you are”—her voice came so near his ear he could feel her breath on his neck—“then one shudders to think of how skilled you will be when you’re no longer such an innocent.”
He felt something—her lips, her nose—graze his ear, and then a brush was being drawn through his hair. It was the oddest sensation. He brushed his hair several times a day, but to be sitting lower than Hester while she tended him this way… Some of the tension eased out of his shoulders.
“What is the sigh about, my lord?”
“I do not excel at pursuit in the romantic sense.”
The rhythm of the brush did not falter. “You’re no bloody good at it?”
“Apparently not. Are you interested in becoming my marchioness, Hester?”
She hesitated, then resumed grooming him. “If you’re asking whether I’m trying to trap you into marriage, my lord, you can take your bloody romantic incompetence, leave, and not come back.” She wrapped her arms around his shoulders and rested her chin on his crown. “I would miss you though. Honesty compels me to admit that much.”
Her words implied there were things she wouldn’t admit, which was encouraging.
“That wasn’t exactly my question.” He laid his cheek on her forearm. “How is it you’re soft everywhere? Even here.” He nuzzled the crook of her elbow, which bore a concentration of lavender scent.
“I took a bath in hopes you’d come visit, Tiberius. Did you take a bath in anticipation of making a call?”
“Of course not.” Except he had. And to ensure a dignified interval between the last of their evening meal and his next interlude with her.
“I’ve noticed something about the nights here in Scotland.” The damned woman ran her tongue around the outside of his ear. This sent all manner of peculiar shivers down his spine, each of which landed with an erotic tingle in his groin.
“The nights are damp,” he managed. He’d never before in his entire life labeled anything in his direct experience as a tingle.
“The nights are quite short, Tiberius. The sun goes down later and comes up earlier. If you’re on a particular errand, you’d best be about it.”
He left off sniffing her knuckles. He’d come over here intending to seduce her into accepting a proposal of marriage. Despite her earlier rebuff, it still seemed like a sound plan—at least the seduction part did.
“You will please forgive my lack of efficiency in this regard.” He turned and half rose in one movement, so he was kneeling between her spread knees and she was blinking back at him. He plucked the brush from her hand and set it aside. “Be warned, Hester. I have recalled my purpose for joining you in your boudoir.”
He swooped in, lashed his arms around her, and fused his mouth to hers. She did not immediately kiss him back, but neither did she resist. In that moment, when he might have hesitated or drawn away, he eased her to her back on the chaise.
And then, ah then, she caught fire, fisting her hands in his hair and spreading her legs so he might wedge himself closer.
“You made me wait, you dratted man—” She muttered this against his teeth.
“You left me to question, infernal female—” He wasn’t sure what the rest of the sentence might have been, for Hester shifted beneath him, making him abruptly aware of how his growing erection was snugged up against her sex.
Snug, but not as close as he wanted to be.
“Spath… Tiber… Tye, for pity’s sake, kiss me.” She dug her nails into his backside so that even through his robe, she got his attention.
“Too many clothes, Miss Daniels.” He crouched over her, vivid images of her naked on the chaise while he devoured her fogging his brain.
She went still beneath him. “Let me up. I can’t remove your clothes when we’re wrestling among the furniture.”
He liked the sound of that, so he sat back and regarded her. Her cheeks were flushed, her breathing was deep, and her eyes held a slightly wild light. “You first, my dear. I was more than patient on the last occasion, if you’ll recall.”
She blinked again, the haze of passion cooling in her gaze. “Ladies before gentlemen? Are we concerning ourselves with deportment now?”
He realized two things in the next procession of instants: First, the idea of coaxing her from her clothing was not onerous in the least. He’d done it before, and he was looking forward to doing it again. The reward—her, relaxed and comfortable with her own nudity as well as his—was well worth the effort.
Second, and this took some fortitude to admit, he did not want to rush her, did not want to push her past any boundary she wasn’t willing to exceed. She desired him, and that was probably as far as she knew her own mind.
And she hadn’t said she wouldn’tbe his marchioness.
“Fine then, leave your clothing on. I feel no such compunction.” He shrugged out of his robe and let it slide to the floor while Hester’s chest rose with a substantial breath. He didn’t move, but remained sitting back on his heels while her gaze slipped over his shoulders and down his torso, to the erection arrowing up from his groin, then back to his face.
“I love that you’re shameless about this.” She’d said it solemnly, but then her lips quirked up. “You’re so proper about everything else, and in some way, you’re proper about this too.”
She wasn’t laughing at him, exactly, but he felt a frisson of ridicule in her words. The same faint sense of puzzled censure his father turned on him in almost every communication between them.
“Shamelessness can have its rewards.” He put a hand on her knee, and abruptly, she wasn’t smiling. She was watching his hand as he gave her a slight squeeze through her night rail.
“I can feel the warmth of your hand even through my clothing, Tiberius. You make me a stranger to my own body.”
He accepted that as a confidence, a reluctant one. He leaned forward and slipped his arms around her waist. “You are not meeting a stranger, Hester, but are encountering an aspect of your being you did not previously allow yourself to enjoy.”
This kiss was decorous, because her admissions were telling and deserving of respect. Tye’s usual partners knew better than to make intimate confessions in bed, knew better than to allow even a hint of deeper sentiment to pass beyond the bedroom door.
Hester didn’t know better—she knew very little, in fact, and if she thought Tye was nothing more than a man driven by propriety and duty, she’d failed utterly to note the tenor of their private dealings.
He let the kiss warm up, let her be the first to slip her tongue over his lips, let her be the first to part her lips in invitation. He obliged, tasting delicately while he felt her wedge closer to him. When she ran her hand over his back, then down to clutch at his backside, he reciprocated by tracing her ribs with his fingers.
She half twisted at the waist, so he could palm one full breast. This prompted her to break off the kiss and rest her forehead on his shoulder.
“You can touch yourself like this, you know,” he whispered in her ear. He closed his grip slightly on her nipple. “Bring yourself pleasure.”
“I couldn’t.”
He did not take his hand away, but he leaned back enough to put some space between their bodies. “Undo the bows, Hester. My hands are busy.”
A hint of a smile passed over her features. She started on the top bow while Tye caressed both breasts through the fabric. When she’d undone the lot, he didn’t push the material aside but drew back.
“Will you let me see you, Hester?” He passed his thumbs over her nipples, the feel of them peaking beneath his touch making him want to tear the nightgown from her. He’d seen her breasts before but really hadn’t done them the kind of justice they deserved.
Shedeserved.
“No rush.” He bent his head and kissed that place where her neck joined her shoulder. She sighed against his neck, and her hand cradled the back of his head.
“I like that.” Her voice was dreamy. “I do like that.”
She must have liked it a very great deal, because when Tye pushed her robe and nightgown off her shoulder, she merely sighed again. Her skin was silky soft, warm, and bore the scent of lavender from her bath.
Perhaps lavender and lemon verbena both belonged on the well-educated young man’s list of aphrodisiacs, because arousal was straining hard against Tye’s good intentions, to say nothing of his grand plans.
He lingered over the pulse in her throat, for his own pleasure as well as hers, switched sides, and bared the second shoulder.
