As Elisa glided up next to his step-father, Vaughn’s smile faded. “But why are you here?” Vaughn asked. “We wouldn’t dream of disturbing your mourning, even for this week.”
“I had to get out of London,” Raymond confessed. “I could not stand another minute of staring at the walls of the townhouse. It was so…silent.”
“Is little Vaughn well?” Elisa asked.
Raymond smiled at her. “He thrives,” he said truthfully.
Elisa had changed little more than Vaughn. Her waist might be slightly larger than it had once been, yet her hair was still white gold and glowing. There was a softness to her face that had not always been there and her eyes had laugh lines at the corners that Raymond considered charming, although he knew she despaired of them. She was wearing mourning, for Rose.
“The wet nurse dotes on Vaughn,” Raymond told her. “I had imagined children to be noisy and smelly, but he merely gurgles.”
“As contented children are wont to do,” Vaughn said, a ghost of his smile returning. “If the townhouse evokes too many memories, then Kirkaldy is empty right now. You could stay in highlands for as long as you want and no one would disturb you.”
Raymond shook his head. “No. No more being alone. I know it is what one is supposed to prefer at this time, only I cannot stand it anymore. I came here deliberately, Father, knowing everyone would be here. I need noise. Chatter.”
Elisa stepped past Vaughn and slid her hand under Raymond’s elbow. Raymond automatically bent his arm so she could rest her hand on his forearm. “And so you shall have it,” she told him warmly, smiling up at him. “Come along. They’re making a place for you right now. There is a great deal of food, although if the children have their way, the excess will be seen to.”
Raymond rested his hand on his mother’s where it lay on his arm. “Was it you who sent the ebony roses, mother?”
Elisa looked startled. “Black roses? I didn’t think such things existed.”
“I asked the florist. They are very rare. From Turkey, where they only grow on a single hillside.”
“No card with them?” Vaughn asked, walking along alongside them as Elisa led Raymond into the tent.
“No. No card,” Raymond said. “I thought it was you, trying to tell me you were thinking of me, yet trying not to intrude, either.”
“That does sound like Elisa,” Vaughn said warmly.
“I swear, I did not send them,” Elisa assured him. “The sender clearly did care not to impose themselves. You are well regarded, Raymond.”
He gave his mother a warm smile. She had always thought so highly of him.
“Wine, Raymond? Or something stronger?” Vaughn asked.
“Wine, please,” Raymond said. “I don’t want to send Corcoran into the house in search of libations just for me.”
“Relax,” Vaughn said gently. His hand rested on Raymond’s shoulder for a moment. “You’re among family, here.”
Relief touched him. He had been braced for disapproval from the family for appearing in public so soon after his wife’s death. In particular, he had expected his mother to protest for she, more than anyone else in the family, had reason to be far more sensitive to the damage that public opinion could inflict.
Elisa merely squeezed his arm. “Yes, you are safe here,” she murmured and Raymond knew his peculiar need for company had been understood and accepted.
They walked back into the tent and skirted the very long table, as twenty-four diners smiled and called greetings. Even little Emma, seated next to her mother’s empty chair, her back very straight and proud and her mouth smeared with tartar sauce, waved shyly at him.
Lilly tilted her head at Raymond as he passed by and opened her eyes comically. Behind the spectacle glass, her eyes seemed enormous. Raymond knew he would have to explain himself to her, later. In her quiet, unassuming way, Lilly would worry about him if he didn’t explain. She was only eighteen, yet her opinions and behaviour sometimes made it seem as though she was far older than Raymond.
Even though he did not look forward to that conversation, he didn’t mind that it would occur. This noisy, inquisitive, clever, rambling great family of unofficial cousins, adopted siblings and true brothers and sisters, was a most welcome sight. Already he could tell from the easing of tightness in his chest that coming to Cornwall had been a good decision, even though it went against every rule in Cassell’s Household Guide. Here, though, among these people, Cassell’s held a weak grip upon their behaviour.
It was so good to be here.
* * * * *
The rest of the day was exactly as distracting and comfortable as he had hoped it would be. The croquet game, played in teams with each team member taking a turn with the mallet, while everyone else called out advice and encouragement, was fought fiercely. The eight boys who were home from Eton for the Michaelmas Long Leave banded together and walked to the beach to swim in the cold, choppy Channel waters. It was another annual tradition. They returned an hour later, damp and shivering, yet full of energy.
There was no formal dinner the evening of the family picnic. The staff laid out sandwiches and cold cuts on the sideboard in the big, formal drawing room, for anyone hungry enough to eat, which usually included most of the children and few of the adults.
One of the features of the evening was that the children were not banished to the nursery or the upper floor. It was a tradition for the five days that parents and children mingle as freely as they wished, with a disregard for society’s expectations.
Raymond remembered previous years’ gatherings fondly and more clearly than other society occasions that were supposed to be family oriented, including Christmas. He recalled bubbling over with happiness to spend time merely sitting close to his mother and Vaughn and not being sent off after the requisite hour had passed. He remembered the high jinks he and his cousins had got up to. As the oldest cousin by a number of years, he should have been the instigator of most of them. Often, he had been, but not always.
The Davies family children were far more adventurous than he and far more open-minded about breaking silly rules. That came from their mother’s broad-minded upbringing. The Princess Annalies had often shocked Raymond as he was growing up, for he had met royalty more than once and his expectations for how a princess should behave were well defined. Sometimes, Aunt Annalies was more blue-stocking than blue-blood. She read widely and her opinions about an astonishing range of subjects were rarely conservative.
The Williams children were just as happy to break rules when they could get away with it, although they got into scrapes because it was fun, not because it broke rules. They were just as quick to share their adventures with their mother, though.
Natasha Williams, the Countess of Innesford, was the actual host of this annual gathering, although for these five days the normal roles of host and guest were blurred. She had raised her children in defiance of all society expectations. Raymond had sometimes envied the Williams set as he grew up, for they had unfettered access to their parents at all times of the day, every day, not just for these precious five days each year. Seth Williams, the late Earl, had been passionately against segregating his children. The Williams family had scandalized society by encouraging their children to talk when they wanted to, to share their troubles and woes, to hug with abandon and to love openly and affectionately.
Natasha Williams had proposed the original Great Family Gathering, fourteen years ago. She had also insisted upon the unfettered mingling of children and adults. Raymond remembered that first year with a fondness that sometimes stole his breath. It had been five days of sheer delight and pure happiness.
Very early in the evening, Raymond felt the strain of travelling begin to tell. He rose from the settee where he had stayed for the evening, while a constant cycle of cousins, brothers and sisters had sat next to him. They had not seen him for a year. Lilly, who was the oldest Williams girl, had hugged him before settling her petticoats and hoops and asking him in her quiet
way to tell her what he was feeling.
It was an odd question, one that only a Williams could ask. Raymond had deflected her probing uneasily. It was difficult to speak of the odd ache in his chest, even to Lilly. The strain of putting her off finished the last of his energy. He got to his feet, nodded to everyone in the room and moved over to where Corcoran was standing by the sideboard, trying to look like he didn’t care that child-sized feet were tracking dirt over cushions and carpets, that small hands were ruffling the drapes, or dropping crumbs and cordial in crevices that would take a week to clean.
“I was hoping I could use the carriage house again, Corcoran,” Raymond told him.
“I anticipated you might, my lord,” Corcoran said stiffly. “Your things are already laid out and the bed made up.”
Raymond gave him a grateful smile. “You are not going to try to argue me out of sleeping in staff quarters this year, Corcoran? You’re slipping.” On the very first Gathering, Raymond had argued that he did not want to sleep in the rowdy children’s dormitory that had been set up in the attic, where whispering, giggles and pillow fights went on all night. He had already been eighteen by then. Neither did he want to get lumped in with the adults, or worse, hear them move about their suites, talking and laughing, while he slept alone in one corner of one of the grand beds that were all to be had in the guest rooms of Innesford House.
Natasha had been an unexpected champion of his desire to use the quarters above the carriage house. “Raymond is caught in the middle,” she had told Corcoran and Elise, who had been horrified by Raymond’s demand. “He’s too old to be with the children all the time and not old enough to enjoy our staid company for longer than a few minutes. Let him sleep in the carriage house. Everyone needs time alone to reflect.”
Corcoran had protested, until Uncle Seth had lifted a brow and looked at him. That had silenced Corcoran that year, yet the redoubtable butler had argued every year since. His sense of proprietary had definite limits. Sleeping in servants’ quarters pushed beyond those limits.
Corcoran looked at Raymond now with an expression that was both resigned and sympathetic at once. “It seemed inappropriate to bother you about lowering your standards for yet one more year.” Something glowed in Corcoran’s eyes. “You have difficulties enough, my lord.”
“Thank you,” Raymond told him, with heartfelt gratitude. He stepped out through the big French doors onto the gravel and walked over to the carriage house. The lights from the formal drawing room fell upon the gravel in slanted squares, lighting the way. It was cool out, but not cold and it was refreshing after the stuffy air in the crowded and noisy drawing room.
The quarters above the carriage house were reached by an external set of steps. They had once been an art studio for some ancestor of Uncle Seth’s, who had fancied themselves an artist. One of the landscapes the uncle had painted still hung on the wall at the top landing of the stairs and did much to explain why his ardour for oils had not been public knowledge.
The studio was warm and clean. Despite the years since it had served its intended function, it still held a faint tint of paint in the air. There were odd corners to the single, big room, made by the shape of the carriage house beneath, big windows to catch the south light and oak panelling on the walls that had been painted white to encourage the light. The big bed that dominated the end of the room had hand-painted enamel plaques attached to the swirling lines of brass and copper, while the bed was covered in an antique lace bedspread tatted by some long-ago lady of the house.
The hint of bohemian interests, the quiet and the light had made this room one of the best elements of the annual gathering. It was this room that brought Raymond back to the Gather every year, despite some years having to travel across Europe to arrive here in time.
He turned out the gas light at the top of the stairs and closed the door on the rest of the world with a heavy sigh. This was a different type of being alone. He had deliberately sought this isolation, for the peace was never truly quiet here. He could hear the distant thunder of salty combers against the cliffs, the shriek of the wind over the top of them and the murmur of the family in the main house. They were close enough that he could seek their company as soon as he needed to.
He removed his coat and cravat with impatient tugs. Part of Corcoran’s objections to Raymond using the carriage house was that a valet could not be near to hand to take care of Raymond’s needs, yet Raymond had privately enjoyed the independence. When everyone was running about the place in swim suits, or with rolled up shirt sleeves and loosened basques to better wallop the croquet balls, the odd missed button was not the disaster it would be in a St James drawing room.
He slid his waistcoat buttons undone as he threw the coat and cravat over the back of the velvet chair in the corner. The collar pins tinkled as they dropped into the china dish on the dressing table. His collar and cuffs settled next to the dish.
The tap on the door was soft, yet Raymond jerked upright as if someone had hammered on it with both fists. He stared at the door, his heart racing. He was expecting no one, although that quiet little tap reminded him of multiple occasions in previous years where the visitor had announced themselves in the same way.
It couldn’t be her…could it?
He hurried to the door, his heart moving faster than his feet, cracked it open a few inches and looked out.
She was standing on the landing, a great fold of her skirt in her hand from the climb up the stairs, her pale face and big eyes looking up at him. “Raymond, it was you my secretary saw in Truro,” she murmured. “I couldn’t believe it when he told me. I had to come and see…” She bit her full lip.
Raymond gripped her wrist and drew her into the room and closed the door behind her. “Susanna, I wasn’t expecting you—”
“You don’t mind, do you?” Susanna said quickly. “I thought, that perhaps, as things have changed…”
His heart wouldn’t steady itself. “I only arrived this afternoon. I didn’t think…” He shook his head. “Never mind. It’s all irrelevant, because you are here after all.” He let his gaze travel over her. She was wearing a deep blue velvet jacket that featured lace at the neck and satin lapels. No bonnet, for Susanna rarely bothered with such things. Her hair, ebony black and glowing in the gaslight, was piled upon her head in loose curls. There would be a single pin or clip in it somewhere that, once removed, would let her hair tumble upon her shoulders.
Her face was very pale, while her black brows rose in smooth curves over perfectly blue eyes that watched him warily, waiting for him to choose what happened next.
The skirt she clutched in her hand was dark blue satin that matched the lapels of her jacket. It hung straight from her hips to gather about her boots in deep folds, unlike every other woman whose skirts spread wider than most doors, in pretty domes that made the most of their waists and forced the woman to negotiate narrow spaces carefully.
“Where are your crinolines?” Raymond asked, his voice strained.
“I left my carriage in the turnaround at the top of the drive to the house. I left my hoops in the carriage along with my underthings.” The corner of her mouth turned up. “It is easier to pass silently through woods at night if I have my skirt over my arm.”
The thought of Susanna’s slender legs flashing in the moonlight as she dashed through the woods from the road to the carriage house made Raymond’s heart squeeze. His body tightened.
Slowly he put his hand on her waist.
“Then I should stay?” Susanna asked quietly, her voice low.
“You should,” Raymond said. He drew her to him.
Susanna pressed her hands against his chest. “I want you, Raymond. I’ve missed you,” she whispered.
Electrifying words. Invisible fingers drew up his spine, making his already tight body tighten even more. Everything seemed to focus upon his groin. His shaft was already stirring. Anticipating.
Raymond kissed her. Her lips were cool against his. She had just ste
pped inside. She slid her mouth from his and trailed her lips over his jaw, to slide her tongue over the flesh beneath his ear, making him shudder again.
As she caressed his neck and jaw with her mouth, her fingers quickly slid the buttons of his shirt undone. She pushed the shirt and waistcoat aside and tugged at the undershirt beneath.
Raymond was as happy to hurry things as she. His body was throbbing with the promise of what was about to take place. It had been four years since Susanna had come to visit him, yet it felt like only yesterday, for the memory of her touch and her whispers, her assurances that she wanted him, had never fully faded, despite the rigours of marriage and fatherhood.
Did that make him a wicked man? It was a question that had he had often asked himself lately.
Had Susanna reached into his mind and plucked from it his desire to see her? It had been buried so deeply that he had not been aware of the need until he had seen her upon the landing in the moonlight just now. Then the realization had swept over him that this was exactly what he needed. Yet, somehow, Susanna had guessed.
It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered than that she was here in his arms. He would worry later about what sort of sinner these moments made him.
He pushed the braces down his arms with Susanna’s help, shrugged out of the shirt and waistcoat. While she bundled them together and pulled the shirt from his trousers, he removed the undershirt.
She rested her hands against his bare chest, right over his pounding heart. “So strong,” she whispered. “Ah, you incite me to wickedness with your splendour.” She pressed her lips against his chest, as she dropped her hands to his trousers.
Raymond stayed still, letting her work on the buttons. She was better at it than he and his fingers felt thick and clumsy right now, anyway.
He saw the clip in her hair, as she bent to kiss his stomach just above the band of his trousers, making his belly ripple. As she freed the last button, he pulled the clip from her hair. As usual, the curly locks loosened and rained down onto her back.
Scandalous Scions One Page 2
