She gave an unsympathetic snort. “Not if they could see how you treat your things. It seems a bear has been loosed in the hall. Perhaps not one bear, but several. There are rooms upon rooms that look as though rather impolite beasts have been making free with them!”
Impolite beast. An accurate enough description. “I have a hundred rooms. I shall scarcely run out in my brief remaining time.”
She went silent at that, as she always did when he brought up his imminent demise. Now she was likely ashamed for baiting a dying man. He turned, regretting his bluntness.
She didn’t look ashamed. She looked perplexed, annoyed, frustrated, and most of all, delicious. He could still feel her breasts heavy in his palms. He fisted them to keep the sensation safe within.
Mostly annoyed. He felt a pang of wariness. There was a gleam in her eye that reminded him of a certain industrious and exacting governess he’d had as a boy.
Impulsively, he offered her appeasement. “Human parents, but not for long. They passed away when I was but eighteen, within a year of each other. She died of influenza. He simply couldn’t live without her, I suspect.”
Ren didn’t like to think about the way his father had slipped away from him, his gaze always heavenward as if his own son weren’t enough to keep him tethered to the earth. Don’t you want to stay around to see how I turn out, Papa?
Now he might as well take comfort in the fact that no one in the family had been put to the burden of that—at least no one but a distant cousin like Henry.
Callie refused to give in to sympathy. What happened to one as a child deferred blame from the child, but not from the adult. “Perhaps you like living in a dusty, dank tomb, but I’m rather fond of the scent of lemon polish and a roast in the oven.”
“You’ll be back to that life soon enough.”
It was as if he simply didn’t care. How could someone not care if walking through a room threw up a cloud of decades-old best-not-dwell-on-it?
He doesn’t see it. He doesn’t see anything past his own private horrors, whatever they are.
He doesn’t see me.
Oh, look. Now her arms were folded over her chest and her toe was tapping. Even Cas and Poll knew enough to flee before her tapping toe. Lysander, back before the war when he’d been the sort to make jests, had dubbed it the Toe of Doom.
However, poor ignorant Mr. Porter ignored the evil toe and went on being insufferable. Callie almost pitied the man. Almost.
“Are you quite sure you won’t reconsider? Just a cook … and a few housemaids, of course. A laundress. Perhaps a stable boy. A housekeeper to run matters. And it wouldn’t hurt to do something with the grounds…”
He turned to gaze at her from the depths of his hood. She couldn’t see his eyes but she glared at him anyway. His eyes were in there somewhere. How far off could she be?
“No.”
The toe-tapping increased in speed. “I’m afraid I can’t hear you. It must be the muffling effect of all that wool. Say again?”
He stepped forward slowly until he loomed over her and she could feel the warmth of him on her skin. Despite her suddenly hammering pulse, she managed to keep her gaze fixed on his “eyes.”
Worthingtons had great fortitude.
Said fortitude took a blow when he leaned close into her and bent his hooded head next to hers.
“No.” It was only a murmur, husky and deep. It rang through her like a bell. Her heart skipped, her knees weakened, and there was something wrong with her vision …
She managed to draw a breath. “Go? Is that what you said? Go hire a full staff, this very day? Well, I did have a relaxing day of lying about planned, but if you insist—”
“Calliope.”
Her name became something molten and mind-bending when he murmured it into her ear like that.
She fought the breathlessness. “Calliope was a muse, you know. The muse of epic poetry—as if the world needs any more of that!” Blathering again. Better than fainting into his arms … well, better for her pride, anyway. She tried not to think about being in his arms. Lust played bloody hell with pride. “I’d much rather have been named after the muse of music, or even the muse of dance—although Terpsichore would be a burdensome sort of name, wouldn’t it?”
He raised his head and loomed at her for a long moment. “Do you ever stop talking?”
She never spoke a word when he put a pearl upon her tongue, but she wasn’t about to remind him of that at this moment. Too late, she realized he’d already remembered it all on his own.
His hand came up to cup her cheek and his thumb traced the outline of her lips. His touch was fire to her heightened—and might a girl mention “unsatisfied”?—senses.
She couldn’t help it. She licked her lips. Her tongue touched the tip of his thumb. He went entirely still, as if he were a man caught in the Arctic ice. His hand tightened on her face—not rough, but urgent.
“Why do you not draw away from me?”
His raw-edged whisper was no attempt at intimidation, but a query torn from somewhere deep inside him. Callie thought back to the moment she’d glimpsed his ruined face in the night.
The face of a god, torn in half and replaced with that of a demon. What else had been ripped apart when he’d received those scars? Where? When? How?
Before she could ask her questions, she ought to answer his. “Why should I fear you? You have not been unkind to me.”
Ren felt as though she were speaking another language, to another man, about another topic. Her words jangled meaninglessly in circles in his thoughts—then became clear. Yet he could not believe them. Not unkind?
“You have a strange definition of kindness, if you believe me thus.”
She lifted her chin. “I did not say you were kind. I said you were not unkind. There is a difference, in anyone’s dictionary.”
Not unkind. Ren decided he would accept that, since it was vastly preferable to the way most people seemed to define him. The words made him feel … almost … like a man.
“And what about you, talkative muse? Are you kind?”
She blinked long amber lashes slowly. He found himself distracted by the peculiar hints of gold and brown flecks in her mostly green eyes. Like a semiprecious stone he’d once found on his travels. Just a raw chunk of rock, until one held it to the light. It sat somewhere in this house even now. He’d meant to have it polished and set, one of the many things he’d never do now. Jasper, it was called.
“I am very responsible,” she said with a slight wrinkle between her light brown brows. “I take care of my family—at least, I keep them from toppling over the edge of disaster … mostly, at any rate.”
Then her expression turned tragic. “I don’t know if I’m kind! I try to be good, and dutiful, and I’ve never truly harmed anyone … but that isn’t the same thing, is it? That’s—that’s merely ‘not unkind’ again, isn’t it?” She looked absolutely devastated—the goddess of distress.
He laughed out loud. He ought not to have—especially in the face of her anguish. He’d considered being condemned as “not unkind” as very nearly a compliment, yet this girl behaved as though she’d just discovered herself an inadvertent murderess!
He brought his other hand up to cradle her face, a part of him yet marveling that she did not shrink from his touch. The other part simply marveled at her. “Mrs. Porter, in the last two days you have rescued your parents from a watery death, myself from pistol point, and your brother from the noose. In your spare time, you baked me a cake. I believe you can promote yourself from ‘not unkind’ to ‘kind’ forthwith.”
She was gazing at him with a stunned expression. If he hadn’t known his hood was well in place he would have thought she saw him.
“You laughed.”
He shook his head. “I did. I apologize. It was rude of me.”
She blinked. “You laughed—and I can hear a smile in your voice right now.”
Ren tilted his head. Hear his smile? He had smiled, he re
alized. Who was this girl, to see through layers of wool and years of isolation so easily?
“And you tried to ease my distress…” Her eyes narrowed. “You know what that means.”
He hadn’t a clue. He was much too distracted by the sweet planes of her face beneath his touch. He still cradled her cheeks in his palms. His fingertips dipped between the strands of hair at her temples. Her silken, wavy, wayward hair … he could touch it for days and never tire of it. And yet she behaved as if nothing unusual occurred, now nattering on again about something—
“I fear I must inform you, Mr. Porter, that you must also rise from your former status.”
He blinked, pulling his mind back from the fantasy of her hair trailing over his chest and belly as she kissed her way down—
“What?”
She raised an accusatory brow and poked him in the chest with her forefinger. “I’ve found you out, Mr. Porter.”
Wait. Found him out? God, what had she heard about him? Or worse, what had she found in the house?
He dropped his hands as if scalded and took a step back from her. “I—”
She folded her arms. “You, Mr. Porter, are not the monster you like to seem.”
Oh, but he was. And she, poor thing, had no idea.
He took a deep breath, struggling to attain his former imperviousness. “The answer, Mrs. Porter, is still no.”
She only smiled. “Fine. Perhaps you ought to take a stroll about the grounds. It would do you no end of good, a bit of fresh air—and I won’t have you underfoot.”
With that mystifying statement, she turned on her heel and left him with brisk strides that fluttered her skirts behind her.
* * *
Ren had settled back into his own dreary—er, blissful—silence and had finally managed to banish from his mind the way that his bride’s luxurious breasts sat high and full when she crossed her arms beneath them and stood just that way, chin up, eyes bright, hip cocked while one foot tapped out a vexed rhythm …
He still hadn’t the slightest idea what had vexed her, but he’d enjoyed the sight of her high color and the way her bosom had jiggled in time with her peevish foot …
A rude clang and clatter assaulted his ears. Ripped from his pleasantly lascivious thoughts, he found the mistress of those thoughts had dumped a great armload of things—cleaning sorts of things—broom and buckets and mop sorts of things—
She dusted her hands and grinned at him. “Let’s get to it, then, shall we?”
Frankly, Ren had never really considered himself a coward before. But a woman with her hands full of cleaning implements and that peculiar hell-bent look in her eye—
He ran like a rabbit, fleeing the room, and when she began to expand her efforts, he fled the house entire.
As he lurched down the lane, his cloak flapping in the breeze, unsure of his destination except that it be elsewhere, Ren realized that the little vixen had done it.
He was taking a walk.
Vengeance aside, Callie rather enjoyed a good spring cleaning. And while she had no helping hands, neither need she bear distraction! All in all, she thoroughly enjoyed sweeping the carpet, pulling a reluctant shine from wood long unpolished, scrubbing down the hearth and hauling the ashes from the grand fireplace. Windows, freed of years of coal dust and lampblack, let the gorgeous spring light pour in, setting the entire chamber on fire.
Still, she wasn’t completely satisfied. Only the inside of the glass was clean. The outside needed a good stiff brush and a bucket of vinegar. She peered down at the mossy cobbles far below the second-story sill and bit her lip.
She would also require a ladder.
* * *
Ren walked until he thought he might have made a clean getaway. Then he walked a bit more, just to be sure. Then, surprisingly, he rather felt like continuing his tour of the estate. The day was very fine, cold but clear and with a spicy green smell in the air—the smell of new growing things and freshly turned soil, and, somewhere, there were flowers blooming.
He breathed it in deep, filling his lungs with clean air and his eyes with the aching beauty of the Cotswold countryside.
And it was his.
What an astonishing thought.
Yet, why was it astonishing? He’d taken hold of his inheritance more than three years past. He’d hired a carriage to bring him here. He must have ridden this very lane—yet he had no real memory of it. He’d arrived on the doorstep, seen his few crates unloaded, and then sent the driver away. Henry and Betrice had suggested a woman to come and cook for him, but he’d asked them to arrange a simple regular deposit of foodstuffs instead. And then he’d gone to ground, like a wounded fox taking refuge in its den.
He topped a small rise and paused, enjoying the burn of exercise in his thighs and the cold, fresh air in his lungs. Before him spread a low, rolling vista of fields separated by rock walls of the same honey-gold stone as Amberdell. They poured over the slopes in irregular lines, following the curve of the land more than any sort of human design. If not for the near-perfect furrows plowed into them, one might almost imagine the fields as naturally grown scales covering the back of a great slumbering dragon. Ren almost smiled at the whimsy of that thought, but then he felt the pull of the scar tissue down his cheek and his smile died almost unborn.
More than three? And not once had he taken a turn around his own estate?
He wasn’t much of a master, was he?
Then again, what would be the point? He was failing more every day. Every month his body stiffened and bent as the pain grew. If he cared to count and recount his physical impediments, he knew he’d see a similar decline all over. Rather than ponder that grim inevitability, he chose to drink and brood his few remaining days away.
Drink, and brood …
And possibly, spend a bit of time in bed.
Not yet, unfortunately. Soon.
Soon he would have his bride so under the spell of her own unsatisfied desires that she would gladly suffer his hideousness hovering over her. Or behind her.
Or beneath her …
It was a fine day to stand on a hillock and think about buxom Calliope, pink and perspiring, riding his cock with the same great energy and determination that she now expended scrubbing down his study.
He wondered if she were finished yet. Almost without conscious will, his feet turned back toward home. He wondered if perhaps, grimy from her work, she might take another bath in the kitchens …
* * *
The ladder Callie found in the garden shed was old and splintery. For a moment, she questioned whether it was safe or not, but then decided that she felt more stubborn than apprehensive and forged on. She leaned the ladder on the side of the house and wedged the two feet down between the cobbles. It seemed sturdy enough when she started to climb, so she carefully continued, one rung at a time, testing each as she went.
The ladder was just tall enough to allow her to clean each pane if she stretched just a bit. It wasn’t often that she longed for more height! Quite a novel experience, really.
One suite of rooms today, start to finish, inside and out. She smiled to think what Mr. Porter would think of his masculine retreat, now fit for a lord—albeit a stubborn, undeserving one!
Bending carefully, she dipped her brush into the bucket of vinegar solution sitting balanced on the outer sill, then stretched to her toes to reach the topmost corner pane.
Blast it. She was just inches too short.
She glared up at the offending pane. Start to finish—except for one last pane of glass. There was no help for it. She would have to climb down, resituate the ladder, and climb up again.
Or …
It wasn’t a terribly dangerous idea to step off the ladder onto the sill. Besides, the stone sill was sturdier than some old rickety ladder! And the formerly shy and retiring windowpane came easily into her reach. A quick scrub and there! All done, start to finish!
Crash.
“Oh!” The sound from below her seemed to shake
her entire body. The slippery brush flew from her grasp as she grabbed for the window frame in her surprise. She watched the scrub brush fall down, down, down …
To clatter on the cobbles next to the shattered remains of the old ladder.
Callie would be the first to admit to the usage of some very bad words at that moment. She was quite glad Dade couldn’t hear her.
Well, she could always open the window itself—
In her mind, she clearly relived the moment when she’d automatically thrown the window latch as she’d shut the window.
Start to finish, blast it.
A few more choice words were in order. Thank heaven her vocabulary had them to spare. Five brothers, after all. For a long moment, she leaned her forehead against the cool dripping glass and waited for her breathing to tame her wild heartbeat.
Think, you idiot! Think it through!
Well, being short a ladder meant there was no possibility of climbing down. The latch on the window meant that there was no possibility of climbing in. For a moment she entertained the possibility of climbing up—
No. No higher. She couldn’t even conceive of releasing her tenuous hold on the stone embrasure on either side of her.
Break the glass and lift the latch.
Yes. Good idea. The heavy wooden brush would have done a dandy job of that. Blast it.
Tentatively, she let go of the stone rim and raised her hand over the windowpane. Her open palm did nothing but cause the old, thick glass to resonate like a drum.
She would cut herself badly anyway. Perhaps her elbow?
One awkward half twist later and she was done for. Her boot soles skidded on the wet, slippery stone beneath her feet and then she was falling—
The screaming part was entirely involuntary. So was the mad grasping for any handhold. She found one in the deep ridge that time and wind and rain had worn into the stone sill where the window frame met the embrasure. Her descent halted with a jerk that tore at her fingers.
“Help!” There was no point, of course. There was no one in the damned house! “HELP!”
When She Said I Do Page 7
