by Juliana Gray
Like she always does.
“I . . . well, I’m awfully sorry.” His voice sounded distant in his own ears. His thoughts scrambled about, trying to gain a foothold somewhere, trying to right themselves. “I’d no idea. She seemed all right, at the time.”
“What were you talking about?”
“Well, about . . .” For God’s sake, Penhallow. You’re a grown man. A damned intelligence agent. Get your wits about you. “Look here, young man. Perhaps you’d like to sit down a bit.” He patted the back of the chair. “Right here, next to the fire. Still a bit chilly, inside these stone walls.”
The boy hesitated, tracing a wary glance from the chair to Roland and back. The fire made a loud pop, cracking through the silence, and as if the sound were a signal, Philip drew forward and crept into the chair.
Roland smiled and went to the decanter tray. Among Wallingford’s first actions had been the removal of all spirits from the house, though wine had been tacitly saved from this edict and, after some debate, fortified wine as well. One couldn’t live in decency without one’s sherry, after all. But the library decanter contained only water, fresh and virtuous, drawn from the kitchen well every morning and evening and tasting sweetly of nothing at all. He found a glass and poured off a stiff bumper for Philip.
“Here you are, old chap,” he said, handing the glass to the boy. “Thirsty work, wandering about castles at bedtime.”
“Thank you, sir.” Philip took a cautious sip.
Roland sat down on the nearby sofa and leaned forward, settling his forearms on his thighs, trapping the fine wool of his trousers in place. “Now then. I expect you know, or perhaps you don’t, that I knew your mother a long time ago, in London. Before she met your father.”
Philip nodded. “Were you friends?”
“Very good friends. I thought your mother a charming person. I hope . . . I hope I shall always consider her my friend, and she mine.”
Philip nodded again and took another drink. “Then why did you make her cry?”
Roland knotted his fingers together, digging the nails into his skin. His gaze fell to the rug before him, old and worn, its colors and pattern long lost to the soles of booted feet. “I didn’t mean to. We were talking about the old days, you see, and perhaps she was a bit nostalgic.”
“What’s that?”
“Well, it’s when you remember the old days, when you were younger. The good times you had. And things are different now, not better or worse, just different. But sometimes you miss the old times.” Roland looked up. “Does that make any sense?”
Philip’s round, childlike face wore an expression of startlingly ferocious concentration. “I don’t know. Was that why she was crying?”
“I expect so. I hope I didn’t say anything to make her unhappy. I’d hate to make your mother unhappy.”
“You’d better not,” said Philip. “I’d punch your lights out.”
Roland blinked. “Yes. Well. We can’t have that.”
“My father would find out. He’d punch your lights out, too.”
Blood tingled in the tip of Roland’s nose and across his cheekbones. “Would he, now?”
Philip sighed. “Yes.”
Roland chose his words carefully. “Does he do that sort of thing often?”
A shrug. “Father’s always cross. When I was three, or four, four and seven months, I think, I found one of Mama’s dolls under the bed and we went riding on the horse together . . .”
“The horse?”
“In the nursery. The horse in the nursery.” Philip’s small voice dripped with scorn for slow-witted grown-ups.
“Oh. Oh yes. The rocking horse?”
“Yes! And we rode all across the fields and the roads and Father came up and he shouted . . .” Philip stopped. His eyes went round, and he gave Roland a beseeching look. “You can’t tell Mama.”
“No. No, of course not. What . . .” Roland swallowed. “What else did your papa do?”
Philip slithered off the leather chair. “Is that a horse book?”
Roland snatched the volume away just in time. “No. No, a dull old grown-up book, not at all interesting.” He sprang from the sofa. “Horse books, eh? You like horses?”
“So much. I want to ride in the Derby when I grow up, except Mama probably won’t let me. She never lets me do anything amusing.” Philip’s eyes meandered around Roland’s back, trying to glimpse the hidden book.
Roland reached high and shoved the book haphazardly between two treatises on Roman architecture. “Ah, well. Mothers are like that. Anyway, I daresay you’ll be far too large to ride the Derby. You’ve got a solid, broad-shouldered look to you. Ah, here we are. Horses.” He pulled down an ancient volume and swiped at the mildew with his sleeve.
“Oh, ripping!” Philip exclaimed. He tore the book from Roland’s hands and plopped directly onto the worn carpet. “Warhorses!”
Roland sat down before him, legs crossed, and cocked his head to examine the cover. “Equus Belli. So it is.”
Philip was already flipping the pages with a fanatic’s fascination. “Look at this one! Blimey! What’s this mean?” He proffered the page in Roland’s direction.
Roland read the Latin caption. “‘Here gallops Bucephalus, steed of Alexander the Great.’ A legend, that one. Great black beast of a horse.”
“Who was Alexander the Great?”
“Only the greatest general who ever lived, old fellow. Ruled from Macedonia to Asia Minor. Do you know who tutored him?”
“No.”
“Aristotle, my boy. Aristotle himself.”
Philip squinted his eyes. “The Greek fellow?”
“Clever lad. They say”—Roland pointed to the engraving—“Alexander tamed the beast when he was ten years old. No one else could do it.”
“I should like to try it!” Philip’s hand passed reverently over the drawing. He turned the page, his head bowed in concentration, his tousled dark hair glinting in the light from the nearby lamp. The bones of his shoulders poked with determination against the white linen of his shirt.
The fire whispered nearby, growing feeble; Roland rose and added coal from the old iron scuttle. He sat down again exactly as he had before, legs crossed, his knees hovering near the enormous leather binding of EQUUS BELLI and Philip’s bowed head.
Somerton’s boy. Except that, somehow, in the past several hours, he had ceased being Somerton’s boy and became Lilibet’s boy. The curve of his cheek, the soft nape of his neck, those sturdy bones straining against his shirt: They were all a part of her. He had grown inside her, nursed at her breast, tucked his body into hers for comfort. She loved him.
Philip looked up with hopeful black eyes, and this time Roland didn’t see Somerton in them at all. “Will you read this to me, please?” the boy asked.
Roland cleared his throat. “Ah. Yes. More Latin, you see. Wretched stuff, Latin. Do you know what my brother and I used to say, when we were boys?”
“You mean the duke?”
“Yes. We used to say, Latin’s a dead language, as dead as it can be. First it killed the Romans, and now it’s killing me.”
Philip giggled.
“Used to chant it to our tutor all the time, poor chap.”
“What did he do? Did he strop you?” Philip’s voice rose with bloodthirsty glee.
“No, more’s the pity. He tried to scold us, but we ran off. Eventually my grandfather had to set us straight.”
“Your grandfather?”
Roland smiled and chucked Philip under the chin. “The Duke of Olympia. Terrifying fellow.”
Philip smiled back and looked down at the page before him. “The Duke of Olympia. I daresay he owns a great many horses, doesn’t he?”
“A great many.” Roland shifted his body, peered ove
r the page, and began to translate, rapidly and without flaw, Plutarch’s account of the taming of Bucephalus.
So deeply engrossed they were, Roland never noticed the rapid drum of footsteps outside the door until it was too late.
* * *
Roland.
The word died on Lilibet’s lips. She stared, back and forth, between the startled faces of Lord Roland Penhallow and her son, sitting cross-legged on the library floor on either side of a massive book.
Philip recovered first. “Mama!” he cried, and hurled himself across the floor and into her arms.
“Darling, there you are! You had us all worried to death!” She pressed his small lithe body into hers so fiercely, she nearly tattooed him into her ribs.
“Awfully sorry.” Roland’s voice reached out across the room, lyric and genial. “Should have realized he’d be reported absent without leave.”
“You ought to have told me!” she snapped. Her eyes were still closed, buried with the rest of her face in the soft cloud of Philip’s hair. She inhaled his scent, sunshine and green things, laced with the warm bakery smell of the kitchen.
“It’s not his fault!” Philip’s words muffled against her chest. “I asked him to read to me about Bruce . . . Buce . . .”
“Bucephalus,” Roland said, still distant. “But your mother’s quite right. I ought to have taken you back at once.”
She looked up at last. He stood near the fire, his long limbs folded into a contrite pose, arms behind his back and head bent slightly, exposing his cheek to the glow of the fire. He’d unbuttoned his jacket, revealing the lean plane of his waistcoat before it ended at his trousers. That godlike beauty of his, every detail magnificent. “When Francesca sounded the alarm . . .” she heard herself say, her voice unnaturally high.
“Francesca’s a silly old girl.” Philip wriggled out of her arms. “I told her I’d be right back.”
“I daresay she didn’t quite make it out, old man,” Roland said. “English and all that. Not her native lingo.”
Lilibet straightened and gripped Philip’s hand. “You ought to have told me at once. You ought to have known we’d be worried.”
“I really am most frightfully sorry, Lilibet. Shan’t let it happen again, I promise.” His eyes met hers, sincere and vibrant, like an electric current between them.
She took a half step backward. “You must let us know instantly if you find him wandering about. I try very hard, but he never stays put.”
Roland chuckled. “Boys never do, my dear.”
Philip tugged at her hand. “He knows Latin, Mama! Rattled it off like anything! Can I go riding with his lordship tomorrow, Mama? Can I?”
“Certainly not. His lordship is quite busy.”
“I wouldn’t mind at all.” Roland gave a shrug of his broad shoulders and smiled at her. That damned smile of his, drenched with charm, filling the entire room with its crinkle-cornered good humor.
“Perhaps we can discuss it later,” she said coldly.
He made a little bow. “I’m at your service, your ladyship.”
She opened her mouth to snap at him, but Abigail’s voice echoed inside her head, stopping her objection in her throat.
Wouldn’t it be lovely to have the place to ourselves? To be free of them, once and for all?
She tightened her hand around Philip’s.
Go ahead. It’s just a ruse, after all. You don’t really mean it.
“Will you be in the library later?” she asked.
His eyes gleamed. “Ah, but it’s off-limits, isn’t it? You’re technically in violation of the rules right now.”
“I’m sure we make exceptions for emergencies.” She smiled. “We are civilized people, after all.”
“Of course. I shan’t tell Wallingford if you won’t.” His eyebrows rose inquisitively, but his feet remained planted in the rug before the fire, moving not one step in her direction.
“Mama, do I still have to take a bath?” said Philip, in his wheedling tone. He leaned backward, gripping her hand, until it nearly wrenched out of its socket.
“Mind your mother, young man,” Roland said sternly. “Baths are an absolute nuisance, I agree, but they’re essential to civilization.”
“I want Lord Roland to give me my bath.”
“Oh, Lord, no. You’re much better off with Francesca. Charming girl, Francesca. She’ll have you rattling away in Italian in no time.” He came forward at last, in heavy, deliberate steps, and lowered himself to one knee, looking in Philip’s eyes. “Off to your bath, and I’ll let you take the book with you, eh what? An offer you can’t refuse.”
“Oh, may I?” Philip looked up at her, eyes alight. “May I, Mama?”
“Yes, of course.”
Roland retrieved the book from the rug and held it out with solemn ceremony.
“Thank you,” said Lilibet. She glanced at Philip, who stood with his arm wrapped around an old leather-bound volume, nearly his own size. “You’ll be in the library later, then?” she inquired in the direction of Roland’s left ear, not quite daring to meet his eyes.
She felt the weight of his smile on her face.
“As I said, your ladyship. I’m at your service.”
TEN
The library door stood ajar, one of a pair, its massive wooden surface adorned with a riot of carved lions.
Lilibet placed her hand atop a pair of yawning leonine jaws and paused. Her dressing gown hung in soft rose-colored swags to the flagstones beneath her feet; it gaped open at the top, revealing the lace-trimmed edge of her nightgown and the curving slope of her breasts. Good God! Had it always been cut so low? She clutched the lapels together with her other hand.
And then released them.
All part of the ruse. She was supposed to lure him in. A few minutes of flirtation, and she would be rid of him: rid of the temptation he offered her, rid of the threat he cast over her life. Really, she was acting nobly. She was doing the right thing.
She gave the door a firm push and stepped through. “Roland,” she whispered.
The room was empty.
She cast her eyes about the room: at the fire, still simmering in the hearth; at the shelves of books, tall and shadowed; at the hulking shapes of the furniture, hardly distinguishable in the dimness. The single lamp had been turned down almost to nothing, a faint pool of light at the far side of the room.
“Roland?” she whispered again, and felt a movement behind her just as the door closed with an almost inaudible snick.
She spun around. Roland was turning the key, slipping it into his pocket. “What are you doing?” she gasped.
“I should hate for Wallingford to barge in and demand an immediate forfeiture of the wager,” he said, smiling, “though I expect he’d be gentleman enough to allow you to finish out the night.”
“That’s not at all amusing.” Her heart thumped giddy blood down her limbs. He stood close, too close: His broad shoulders loomed over her, diminished her to nothing, while the clean, leathery scent of him swirled through the narrow space between them.
“Come now, darling. You know I’d never let him do it.”
“You mustn’t call me that.” Her voice sounded fragile in her own ears.
He leaned back against the door, hands resting on the knobs, his warm hazel gaze traveling over her face, dropping down briefly to her chest. The narrow triangle of her exposed skin burned beneath his regard. “Why not?” he said. “You are my darling. You’re the most precious thing on earth to me. It’s a statement of fact, nothing more.”
“You must unlock that door at once.”
“Do you wish to leave?”
She hesitated. “Not yet.”
“Let me know when you’re ready,” he said, moving off the door, “and I’ll unlock it for you.” He to
ok her hand. “Now let’s be civilized and sit down.”
The shock of his touch, of his large, capable hand surrounding hers, incinerated any resistance within her. She allowed herself to be led to the long, wide settee before the fire and settled herself numbly into the threadbare velvet upholstery. Roland dropped down next to her, inches away, pressing her knee with his. Her hand remained enclosed in his palm; she made a feeble attempt to draw it back, but he held on, placing their entwined fingers like a knotted bridge along the crevice between his left leg and her right. The heat of his body reached out and surrounded her, drew her in like a magnet.
“You assume too much,” she said. “I only came to . . . well, to thank you for looking after Philip this evening. You ought to have brought him to me, of course, but at least you . . . well, it was kind of you to read to him like that. He loves horses, and . . .”
“Hush,” he said. “I quite enjoyed it. An entertaining little fellow, your son. Clever as the devil.”
She allowed a slight relaxing of the muscles in her neck. “Yes, he’s awfully clever, isn’t he? But of course, in the future, he should be brought back to me.”
“Why is that?”
She stared at her hand in his, at the way their fingers alternated in a flawless pattern: hers pale and slender, his brown and thick. “Because he mustn’t grow attached to you, of course. When you’ll be leaving.”
He was easing her against the back of the sofa, drawing her somehow against his arm, his shoulder. “What if I don’t plan on going anywhere?”
“He has a father.” She almost hissed the words.
His head shook slowly against her hair. “I know that. I don’t mean to take him over. It’s just . . . well, I mean as a sort of uncle. He’s your son, Lilibet. How could I not want to know him? How could I not care for him?”
Oh hell. She felt the tears form at the corners of her eyes and fought them off with hard blinks. A dull pain froze the base of her throat. Roland put his opposite hand atop hers and drew the near one away, lifting his arm to rest about her shoulders. Somehow, she allowed it. Somehow she’d lost the will to shrug him off.
