Nothing. Nothing was happening between her and Lord Ambrose.
Perhaps if she uttered that to herself frequently enough she could will it into being.
To combat her wayward thoughts and her sleeplessness, Prim did what she always did. She went to check on Rowan and Lila. Their rooms were on the floor above, flanking the nursery and schoolroom. Easing out into the hallway, she noted that there was enough moonlight filtering in from the large Palladian windows at either end of the corridor to light her way. Making her way to the stairs, she climbed them slowly, keeping one hand on the banister at all times. The last thing she needed was to trip, fall and wake the entire household.
When she reached the nursery, she opened the door and looked around. The small schoolroom that had been set up in front of the windows was perfect for the children. Many of the toys that were present were for children much younger than Rowan and Lila, but they were also ages old. Had they belonged to Lord Ambrose? It was strange to imagine him as a small boy. He would have been beautiful, of course, just as Lila was.
Easing toward the room to the right, she opened the door as quietly as possible. Lila was sleeping peacefully. Lying on her back, her dark hair carefully braided and draped over the pillow, it was one of the few times she would ever look tidy. Smiling at the thought, Prim closed the door and crossed to the other room where Rowan slept. Unlike his sister, he was sprawled across the bed with arms and legs tangled in the covers and a soft snore escaping his parted lips. Easing inside, Prim smoothed the covers over him once more. It was a losing battle, but she at least wanted to do what she could to ensure that he’d be warm through the night.
Tiptoeing quietly from the room, she closed the door behind her and left the nursery to return to her own chambers. If she were brave enough, she’d go below stairs to the library and read. But despite Lord Ambrose’s welcome and Lady Arabella’s assurances that they should treat Avondale as their home, she wasn’t quite prepared to make so free of it yet.
She was halfway down the stairs, watching each step carefully, when she became aware of another presence. Lifting her head, she found Lord Ambrose standing at the foot of the stairs.
“Is everything all right?” he asked softly.
“Yes,” she replied, her own voice couched just as low in the stillness around them. “I only went to check in on the children.”
“And are they resting more comfortably in their new environment than you are?”
Prim blushed. “We are very comfortable here, my lord. Our accommodations are lovely and will meet all of our needs beautifully.”
“I see,” he said, as he lifted one foot and placed it on one of the steps before him and leaned against the banister.
It was a masculine pose, one that drew her gaze to the firmness of his thighs still encased in evening breeches. Prim looked away, once more uncomfortably aware of the warmth that suffused her in his presence.
“If it isn’t your room that keeps you from sleeping, Primrose, what is it?”
“Lord Ambrose—”
“Cornelius,” he corrected. “I watched you at dinner. But then you know that, don’t you?”
Her breath shuddered out. “This cannot be. Whatever this awareness is between us, we cannot indulge it.”
“But you acknowledge that it exists?”
She sighed wearily and crossed her arms over her chest. “Yes. I admit it. I find you attractive. But that doesn’t mean I have to act upon it. I am not a slave to my impulses… and neither are you.”
He no longer leaned nonchalantly. He pushed away from the banister and climbed the few steps between them until he stood on the one directly below her. He was still a bit taller than her but they were close enough to being eye to eye that she found herself trapped by his gaze and unable to look away.
“I have never been a slave to my impulses. My entire life has been devoted to ignoring them, in fact. But until I met you, truly I wasn’t aware that I had impulses,” he admitted gruffly. “Never in my life have I found myself so captivated by someone with just one look. I keep telling myself not to act upon it. Not to acknowledge it. And then I find myself alone with you here, and good sense flees.”
She could smell the brandy he’d imbibed, not so strongly to imply that he was drunk, but enough to know he’d indulged in it. “Your good sense, but not my own,” she replied. “I won’t be your mistress.”
“I never asked you to be,” he retorted quickly.
“I am not my mother. I am not a woman so weak and desperate for love that I will lower myself to be used by a man while convincing myself he is my savior. I may be attracted to you, I may feel drawn to you in some way… and our proximity is a complication. But not an insurmountable one. I only have to remind myself of what there is to lose.”
“And what is that?”
“Pride. Dignity. Self-respect,” she answered.
He lifted his hand so that the backs of his fingers traced the curve of her cheek. “I have those things in abundance myself. I am finding them to be poor company.”
Perhaps it was the darkness around them, the hush of the large house as all its other inhabitants slept that heightened the feeling of intimacy. There was no escaping it.
The touch of his hand on her face was nearly her undoing. It was soft, tempting. The gentleness of it had her leaning into it, into him, pressing her cheek more firmly against his hand. In return, he cupped her face gently and tilted it up. Somehow, he’d stepped closer to her, until only scant inches separated them. Her gaze dropped to his lips, framed by the shadow of whiskers. She wanted to feel his lips on hers, she realized. She wanted him to kiss her more than anything and, because of that, she knew she could not allow it to happen. Prim turned her head, looking away from him and breaking the spell. “We cannot do this.”
“No,” he said. “We cannot.”
There was something in his tone, anger and resentment, but above all, disappointment. She dared a glance at him. Their gazes met for just a second, locked, and then he broke away. Abruptly, he turned on the stairs and walked away from her, never even glancing back.
Shaken, as much by that delicate touch as she was at the anguish she’d heard in his voice, Prim watched his retreating form for just a moment and then fled quickly to her own room.
*
Ambrose entered his chamber and only by sheer force of will avoided slamming the door. All of his determination to ignore his attraction to her had vanished in a single second. Alone in a darkened corridor, he’d descended on her like some unscrupulous Lothario. Seeing her there in the moonlight, the silvery glow of it bathing her skin and highlighting the dark fall of her hair, he’d been entranced. It could be the brandy. Heaven knew he’d imbibed far more of it than was wise in the hopes of numbing his lusts and falling into a dreamless sleep.
Her words flitted through his mind. They were connected, far more than she realized. They shared a bond few others would understand. The both of them were equally determined to be as unlike their respective and very fallible parents as possible. She was haunted by the specter of her mother’s dishonor just as he was tormented by the fear that he was, at his heart, the same sort of reprobate his father had been.
Biting back a curse, he stripped off his evening clothes and let them fall to the floor. His valet would find them in the morning and be utterly beside himself, but Cornelius was beyond caring. He felt bound by them, constrained.
The cool air bathed his skin, offering some respite from the lust and brandy-fueled fever that consumed him. He’d come so close to kissing her there on those stairs. He’d wanted it more than he’d wanted his next breath. If he were entirely honest with himself, he still did. Every time he saw her, was near her, he felt it more, that connection between them. And with just enough brandy in him to muddy his judgment, he’d very nearly done the unthinkable. One taste of her lips and he’d be a man lost.
Scrubbing his hands over his face, Cornelius made his way to the wash basin and poured some of the chi
lled water into the bowl. Splashing it over his face, he struggled to regain some sense of equilibrium. He was more shaken by the encounter than he wished to admit, and was torn between wishing more had occurred and wishing it had not occurred at all.
She’d be on guard against him, as well she should. One of them needed to retain some sense and, at least for the moment, he clearly was not capable. Seeking his bed, Cornelius slid beneath the coverlet and prayed for a dreamless sleep, one that would not be haunted by visions of her as every night had been since first they met. But as he lay there, staring up into the darkness, sleep would not come.
*
“What did you discover?” Freddy asked. He’d set one of the footmen to charm a maid at Avondale and find out whatever he could about the plans of Lord Ambrose and the brood of bastards he’d taken up with.
“They’re to go to Bath day after tomorrow, my lord. But only for the day. They’re to set out early on what I’m told is a shopping excursion,” the footman said. He was a greedy and ambitious fellow. It was the very reason that Freddy had selected him for the task. “Seems those young women showed up with naught but rags to wear and the children, too.”
Freddy shrugged. He’d seen them, of course. He knew what they were wearing. Gowns too old and so often mended that it was a miracle even the strongest thread might still hold them together. But the girl had been a beauty. Was she as lusty as her mother had been, he wondered? It was tempting to have her, but risky.
“Can you get into their stables without being seen?” Freddy asked.
“I can,” the footman said. “What do you want me to do, my lord?”
“Loosen the pins on the wheels of their coach. Not enough for them to notice, but enough that they’ll meet with some misfortune on the road. A coach loaded with people and a snapped wheel should eliminate at least one or two of my problems.”
“Yes, my lord.”
Freddy frowned. “You’re being awfully agreeable and yet I haven’t even offered you payment for these extra duties. Why is that?”
“The butler is aging, my lord, and soon to be pensioned off. I might only be a servant, but I’m not without ambition,” the footman said.
Freddy nodded. “See this task done… the lot of them gone from this earth, and you will have the position you desire. But betray me, tell one soul what we’re about, and I will see you in hell.”
“Certainly, my lord,” the footman answered. “You have my loyalty.”
“Your name?”
“Harcourt, my lord.”
Freddy smiled. “At least it’ll sound grand when you’re a butler. The elder girls need to die, but kill the boy first. I need him gone before I marry the Wyverne girl. If the carriage accident isn’t successful, a more direct approach will need to be taken. Do you understand, Harcourt?”
The footmen with lofty aspirations nodded and slipped from the room.
Freddy reached for a decanter of brandy and poured himself a generous portion. It was a minor setback. Once the bastard was wiped from the face of the earth and they had nothing to hold over his head, he could proceed as planned. He would not fall into the ruin of poverty and misery that his family seemed determined to drive them all into. With his late father’s spending and gambling, with Albie and Helena’s courtship of gossip and social ruin, they’d all done their damnedest to see the family in penury, ostracized from the very society that they should otherwise have ruled. Whatever the cost, he would see them returned to the position that was rightfully theirs, and nothing and no one would stand in his way.
Chapter Fourteen
Prim had managed to avoid Lord Ambrose for most of the day. She’d even pleaded a headache of her own to get out of going down to dinner. But having spent the entirety of her day hiding in her room, she was restless. Once more, it was late in the evening and she was roaming the halls. If there was a part of her that hoped for another encounter, the more reasonable and fearful part of her quashed it easily enough.
Easing up the staircase as she had the night before, she was at least fully dressed and not wearing a threadbare nightdress and wrapper. Entering the children’s rooms, she checked on Rowan first and then on Lila. Outside the door to Lila’s room, she heard a masculine voice, deep and rich, followed by her sister’s answering giggle.
Dozens of memories, ugly and terrifying, swamped her, flooding her with fear. Fear that she had failed, fear that she had put Lila in the path of a predator, fear that she had misjudged him so thoroughly. But as the conversation on the other side of that door continued, she realized she was once more coloring him with brushes dipped into the foul colors of her own past.
“Do you think Rowan will be a good horseman?” Lila asked, her voice muffled through the door.
“I think he will be a fine horseman,” came Ambrose’s reply. “I think we may put him on a donkey though. They are as hardheaded as your brother and will be less likely to get into mischief if mischief is what he desires.”
“Mischief is all Rowan ever finds!” Lila said emphatically.
Her heart no longer pounding and the bile once more settling in her stomach, Prim knocked softly on the door and Lila bade her enter. Opening that door, she found her sister seated on the floor before the fire, playing with a doll and Lord Ambrose seated before the window.
“I had thought you would already be abed,” Prim said.
“I got a new doll,” Lila said, holding up the toy with pride. “It was sent from Bath by Dr. Warner and his wife, Viola. They sent Rowan a wooden horse.”
“I see,” Prim said. “That was very nice of them. Tomorrow, I’ll help you and Rowan pen thank you letters to them.”
Lila smiled at that and went on playing with her doll. Prim’s gaze darted to Lord Ambrose who was looking at her speculatively. “Now, Lila, I think it’s time for bed.”
“I’ll leave you to it then,” Ambrose said and rose. He walked over to Lila and kissed the top of her head in an affectionate and easy gesture, one that was completely innocent and made Prim feel ashamed for what she had thought of him.
When he’d gone, she helped Lila change into her nightclothes, braided her sister’s hair and tucked her into bed with her new doll at her side.
“Why did you come in, Prim? You know I can get myself ready for bed,” Lila asked.
“I do know that you can. But I just want to be sure you’re happy here and that you’re settling in. Do you like Lord Ambrose, Lila?”
“I do. He’s very kind… but he’s very lonely, I think. He has sad eyes.”
It was an astute observation from the girl. “I think you might be right.”
“You thought he was a bad man, doing bad things. That’s why you came in here,” Lila said.
“I did, but only for a moment,” Prim admitted. It was nearly impossible to lie to Lila. The girl had an uncanny ability to see through people.
“Like the bad men that used to come see Mama.”
“You cannot possibly remember that!”
“But I do,” Lila insisted. “I remember because you’d hug me tighter and make me stand behind you.”
Prim blinked against the tears that threatened. “It seems you do remember. Well, it was only a moment of panic. I know he’s not like them. But why was he here?”
“To bring me the doll,” she said. “Apparently they arrived during dinner.”
“Oh,” Prim said, everything beginning to make sense. And he wouldn’t have trusted the task to a servant because he would have wanted to see Lila’s and Rowan’s faces when presented with new toys specifically for them, something that was not a broken cast-off from another child. The ugliness of her own mind was a terrible thing to be confronted with.
“Well, now I feel even sillier,” Prim said with a smile so patently false it wouldn’t fool anyone, especially not her incredibly astute younger sister. “Go to sleep, Lila, and I’ll see you in the morning.”
Lila reached out and closed her arms around Prim, hugging her tightly for a moment as she
whispered, “We’re safe here, Prim. Lord Ambrose won’t ever do anything bad to us… and he won’t let anyone else do anything bad to us either. Do you believe me?”
“I do, Lila. But sometimes I get scared anyway, because there are a lot of bad people in the world, and bad men especially. But I know he isn’t one of them.”
Lila settled back against the pillows, her doll clutched to her side. What a strange life they had lived that she could look so innocent and yet possess such an uncanny wisdom and ability to read others.
“Good night, Lila. I’ll see you in the morning.”
“Good night, Prim.”
Prim snuffed the candles and slipped from Lila’s room. Out in the hallway, she stopped. Ambrose waited for her there, leaning against the banister once more. But his expression was hard, angry. Hurt, she realized.
“What did you think I was doing in there?” he demanded.
“I didn’t think you were doing anything,” she denied in a heated whisper.
“Didn’t you? I saw the look on your face, Primrose. I saw the accusation in your eyes. There are half a dozen establishments in London that I can name off the top of my head that cater to the proclivities you just assumed I was inclined to. I’d have hardly had to go to the trouble of bringing you all here and establishing you in my own house!”
Prim looked away, not quite able to meet his gaze, as she said, “I didn’t think that of you, Lord Ambrose. But I will admit to having a moment of panic at hearing a man’s voice in my sister’s room. Not yours. Any man’s. By virtue of my own experiences with men at Lila’s age, I can attest that not everyone is honorable. But that isn’t about you, my lord. That is about us, my sisters and me, and even little Rowan, and where we come from—what we have endured and seen. So you’ll forgive me for offending your delicate sensibilities by having a moment of doubt and fear. The simple truth is, it had absolutely nothing to do with you.”
The Awakening of Lord Ambrose (The Lost Lords Book 6) Page 9
