“He isn’t at Crossbridge much at all, or he hasn’t been since I married Dane,” Ellie replied. “We were cordial, but barely acquainted. He and Dane had little in common. He seems recovered from his mourning, more or less.”
He was steady and kind, and far too perceptive, in any case.
Drew picked up his wine glass and peered into its depths. “He seems like he enjoys your company, Elegy dearest.” They were serving themselves, à la française, so Drew could speak freely.
As could Ellie. “What is that supposed to mean?” She twirled her wine glass, but spirits of any kind no longer appealed to her, just as the smell of tallow had become unbearable.
Drew took a meditative sip of his claret. “You’re grieving. Finding comfort with a neighbor would be almost expected.”
“Drew Hampton,”—Ellie’s voice was stern—“you are half in your cups and you will apologize for your scandalous notions.”
“Not scandalous.” Drew patted her hand. “You’re a widow now, Ellie, and your status has some benefits. Pass the decanter, would you?”
She set it near him much as she had often passed the decanter to her late husband. “You’re not happy inheriting the title, are you?”
“I’m not happy with life.” Drew poured himself more wine. “There you have it, the selfish, titled lord in the making. I’m a quick study.”
“Is it the though of inheriting title making you miserable?”
“I’m not miserable, though I soon will be. Amherst and Greymoor spent much of their time warning me about predatory mamas, Prinny’s greedy committees, and the unassailable imperative of setting up my nursery.”
Rather than peevish, Drew sounded genuinely bewildered.
“Would you be relieved were the title to pass to someone else?”
“I’d have to die for that to happen, but yes, I probably would be relieved.”
Amherst had told her she should be honest with Drew. Good advice—much better advice than Dottie Holmes had handed out.
“You might get your wish.”
“So you’ve been allowing yourself that comfort, have you?” Drew’s smile was ironic. “That’s fast work, Ellie my girl. I’ll have to commend Amherst on his timing.”
“What?”
“It’s hardly news you and Dane weren’t exactly setting the sheets on fire.” Drew sipped his wine, gulped it, more like. “Even if you can’t manage a bull calf, being the mother of what legally be Dane’s only legitimate child will earn you something in the way of coin and respect.”
Ellie rose in indignation. “You are not a very nice man when you over-imbibe, Drew Hampton. I am carrying Dane’s child.”
“Of course you are, love.” Drew nodded his congratulations. Then he went still and peered up at her, all his nasty humor falling away. He grabbed her wrist when she would have stomped away.
“Of course you are.” He repeated it as a statement, as if Dane had just clobbered him mentally with the truth. “Sit down, please.” He set the decanter out of reach and rose to hold her chair. “Dane would be so pleased. How are you feeling?”
“Angry with you. Sometimes very angry with Dane.”
“Most of us were, most of the time,” Drew said, resuming his seat and covering her hand with his. “This changes things, Ellie.” He sounded eager, not bitter.
“I might have a girl, Drew, and even if I have a boy, you’ll be the uncle. You’ll have to show the boy how to go on.”
“I can do that. I think.”
“Drew?”
“Hmm?”
Ellie withdrew her hand. “About Amherst. I haven’t… He hasn’t…”
“Of course not.” He patted her wrist. “You’re to be a mother.” To Ellie’s mind, that observation was a glaring non sequitur, but Drew wasn’t finished. “We don’t need to write to the solicitors just yet. You’re feeling well?”
“Mostly.” Ellie ducked her face, a blush rising. Why had nobody warned her? Pregnancy made one’s personal business the happy topic of others’ conversations, created peculiar relationships with cousins with whom one had been only cordially distant, and conjured pointless tears by the bucket. Worse, impending motherhood inspired one to kiss a handsome, kind, unsuspecting neighbor.
As if one were some strumpet on a corner in Seven Dials.
Drew chattered happily right through dessert, while Ellie passed on the trifle and recalled her earlier words. She hadn’t, with Trenton Lindsey, hadn’t…yet.
***
“Your lordship shouldn’t be here.”
Cook gave Trent the benefit of her opinion as she kneaded dough on a floured board. Like most of the women his father employed, she was buxom and comely in a sturdy, blond, English way. Her tenure at Wilton had been brief, because she was also outspoken and a shade more intelligent than the earl’s usual underling. She hadn’t been quite smart enough to keep her criticisms to herself, but she was clever as hell with desserts, and for that, Trent forgave her much.
She was trapped, up to the elbows in her floury dough, and thus unable to avoid the discussion Trent sought. “You shouldn’t order me about when I’ve come to beg favors of a pretty lady.”
She smacked at the dough with a closed fist. “You want your apple cake again so soon?”
“I will never turn down apple cake,” Trent assured her, as the scullery maid decamped for the pantries. “If ever I fall into unconsciousness, you’ve only to wave a slice under my nose and I’ll come right in a trice. The dessert menu wasn’t on my immediate agenda, however.”
Neither was flirting and flattering the help into doing their jobs, come to that.
“You’re after some trifle then,” Cook concluded heavily, as if her employer were a small boy who’d make himself sick on his sweets.
“I’m after some better fare for my staff,” Trent said, his tone losing its teasing edge.
“Your people never go hungry,” she shot back, smacking the dough over. “Never.”
The footman blacking the andirons apparently needed to be elsewhere, too, which left Trent alone with the queen of his kitchen.
“The servants aren’t hungry, though they’re not satisfied, either. You’re not at Wilton, Louise, and you needn’t perpetuate my father’s stingy ways.”
“I beg your pardon?” She stopped her kneading, her disapproval of Trent all the more palpable for being silent. He couldn’t tell if her ire was because he’d used her given name, or he’d dared speak ill of his father, whom she, for some reason, regarded as the apogee of all a titled head of household ought to be.
She ploughed her fist into the dough again. “His lordship the earl is not stingy. He practices economies, is all.”
Wilton was a nipfarthing, penny-pinching, cheese-paring excuse for a peer.
“We needn’t practice his economies here,” Trent said, pleasantly of course, despite mention of Wilton. “Stop buying coarse flour for the servants’ bread; stop setting the worst butter on their table; stop relegating them to viands only the hounds would enjoy. If you need me to establish their menus, I shall.”
The bread dough took a sorry beating—as did Trent’s patience—while he held his ground.
“Louise,” he said quietly, “you may not like what I have to say, but if you’ve some reason for putting poorer fare before the help, you’ve only to tell me. I’ll listen and I won’t turf you out for speaking up.”
“You’ll listen,” she muttered, “and then you’ll do as you lordly well please, like your papa. Don’t blame me when you’ve no coin for your own.”
Like his papa? Wilton would have let the woman go without a character when she’d presumed to criticize him for visiting his own kitchens.
“I would never blame another for my own woes, Louise, but does that mean you’ll make me an apple cake tonight? I’m off to Wilton in the morning, and a piece or two in my saddlebags would see me nicely on my way to Hampshire.”
Her expression became thoughtful, and the dough was allowed to lie on the
board, thoroughly subdued. “You’re for Wilton tomorrow?”
“I’m carrying letters from some of the other servants. Let me know if you’d like me to take a note or two for you.”
“I will.” She resumed abusing the dough, her expression shuttering.
“And Louise?”
“Cook, if you please.”
“If I didn’t say it before, I’m saying it now.” Trent waited until she met his eyes. “You have my thanks, for staying here when I was not much in evidence. For not running off to a better post. For keeping my people fed when I wasn’t paying enough attention.”
She jerked her chin at the door. “Out of my kitchen with you. I’ve work to do.”
“And an apple cake to make.” Trent sauntered off, though he had the sense turning his back on Louise was not an entirely prudent course.
Chapter Six
All the way to Wilton, through the shady bridle paths and farm lanes of Surrey, to the busier thoroughfares and cultivated fields, into the rich farmland of Hampshire, Trent considered a single, unexpected kiss.
Ellie—in his mind, she was Ellie now—had murmured some little platitude in response to his blurting out his widowed status. She’d gamely resumed their negotiation thereafter, not even fixing herself a cup of tea until they’d agreed to meet upon his return from Wilton and finalize details: She’d see to borrowing the stallion from Greymoor while Trent sent word to his solicitor to draft an agreement.
Then she’d walked him to the door of that cozy little parlor, leaned up, and kissed his cheek in parting.
And he, in a complete and irredeemable display of masculine miscalculation, had turned his head, to cadge another little whiff of her scent. Their mouths had brushed, caught, paused and then…
His mouth had come awake for the first time in years, startled into awareness by the unexpected softness of her lips on his. The rest of his body had followed at a roaring gallop, until he’d wrapped his arms around her, gathered her close, and reveled in a kiss so unneighborly, so unchaste, she’d been panting and dazed when he’d let her step back, likely horrified to the soles of her slippers.
Trent should have been horrified, too, and likely would be, when he had to see Ellie again, though first he hoped to talk himself out of wanting to kiss her exactly like that, over and over and over.
He’d been starving for such a kiss, going mad, shutting down, function by function, to cope with the ache of its loss from his life.
And he did ache, bodily, because Ellie had kissed awake his long-dormant lust, and now he could not argue or ignore it back to sleep. In hindsight, Trent could see all the instants she’d leaned on him or taken his arm, the times she’d been close enough to touch, the moments she’d allowed his body a little too near hers. His awareness had been stirring restlessly the whole while, threatening to come back to life, one sniff, one lean, one smile at a time.
Like a flaming spill touched to a well-oiled wick, a single kiss had him adjusting himself in his breeches two days later and completely unable to focus on the upcoming days at Wilton. Ellie’s taste haunted him, for he’d driven his tongue into her mouth with no thought to teasing preliminaries, no pausing to silently ask permission. That kiss had been the most aggressive, glorious, erotic kiss he’d ever bestowed on a woman, and she’d been too stunned to do more than allow it.
He dismounted and jogged beside his horse in an effort to exercise off his lust, though he was soon winded and back in the saddle. He’d gained another mile in the direction of Wilton Acres, and no distance at all from his memories of Ellie Hampton and the desire they inspired.
***
“Amherst.” Gerald, the Earl of Wilton, nodded coolly at his firstborn over a glass of excellent brandy. The future earl might have been a passably good-looking man had he not inherited both vulgar height and dark coloring from his blighted mother. Then too, Amherst had acquired a yeoman’s complexion since last Wilton had seen him.
“Wilton.” Amherst, ever inclined to the courtesies, bowed slightly and marched into the library as if he already owned the damned place. “You look well.”
“For a prisoner?” Wilton gave the word a touch of ironic emphasis, though the situation was enough to make a peer of the realm into a Bedlamite. “Oh, I thrive here, Amherst, unable to vote my seat, unable to socialize with my peers save for the gouty baron or two in the immediate surrounds, hoarding up my allowance like a schoolboy. You cannot imagine all the ways I thrive.”
“While you,” Amherst replied evenly, “cannot imagine all the ways your children did not thrive, deprived of their rightful funds by your venery. Think on that, when you can’t afford another couple of hounds.”
The damned man was bluffing, though Wilton gave him credit for bluffing convincingly.
“You’re here to pay the trades? I cannot think scolding your father sufficient reason to lure you from your busy life.” Though from what the London staff had reported, napping and swilling brandy figured prominently on Amherst’s agenda.
“I’m here to tend to the finances and to see you.” Amherst poured himself a drink, which was a small victory. The civilities between father and son were such that the prisoner had not offered his warden a drink, though apparently one was needed.
“You’ll see me depart for some grouse hunting,” Wilton replied. “The season grows near, and journeying north takes time.” Particularly when a man intended to tarry among the demi-reps in London for a few weeks first.
“Enjoy yourself.” Amherst sipped with an appearance of calm, though the vein near his left temple throbbed. His mother had been given away by the same sign any number of times. “Know that Emily will be denied her come out if you go. Five years ago, you stole every penny of Leah’s trust and all but cut Darius off. For five years, you will rusticate, or anyone you care about will suffer.”
“You would not dare.” Amherst had his mother’s stubbornness, but none of her vitriol. Goading him was uphill work. “You would not dare to hurt Emily merely because I’m inclined to go shooting as I have every year for the past thirty.”
Amherst studied his drink, while Wilton considered tossing his brandy at his son.
“You certainly dared to hurt Emily’s siblings.”
“Go to hell,” Wilton spat and stalked toward the door. Before he could quit the room, he heard his firstborn son and heir murmur, “You first, Papa.”
***
“It’s the sweet time,” Mrs. Haines told Trent when he and her two sons had come back to the farmhouse for a mug of ale. “Hay is off, shearing’s done, the garden is producing well, and the crop is in the ground. The stock grows fat on summer grass, and the people can pause and rest up before harvest.”
“Or grow fat on their mother’s cooking?” Trent suggested, finding a perch on a sturdy porch rail.
Mrs. Haines’ smile was the mirror of her sons’ generally genial expressions. Hiram and Nathaniel shared their mother’s blond hair, blue eyes, and sturdy proportions too.
“You’re welcome to stay for the noon meal, my lord, though I’m guessing Imogenie Henly is pacing her parlor waiting for you to call on her papa,” she offered.
“Her papa ought to be keeping his fowling piece handy,” Hiram, the older son, muttered. “That girl will get some poor lad to the altar by first frost, but it won’t be me.”
His younger brother Nate held his mug over the porch railing and let the last few drops of ale fall on the pansies below. “Won’t be me either. I’ll be too busy getting after the wood, tidying up the stone walls, clearing the brush from the bridle paths, or his lordship will know why.”
“Those are suggestions,” Trent said, downing the last of his drink. “Those tasks can all wait until after harvest, if need be.”
Mrs. Haines collected three empty mugs. “That work had best not wait. Come November, the days are short, the nights are cold, and these two get cozy with their pints.”
“As long as we’re not cozy with Imogenie,” Hiram retorted. “We’ll get
the work done, Mother.”
“I know you will,” Trent interjected, bowing his leave to Mrs. Haines. Both men accompanied him to the shady paddock where Arthur was munching grass. Nate took Arthur’s bridle off a fence post and went to fetch the horse.
Hiram hung back, pushing dirt around with the toe of his big, dusty boot. “About Imogenie?”
“This isn’t the Dark Ages,” Trent replied. “You don’t need the lord of the manor’s permission to walk out with a pretty girl, Hi.”
Hiram snorted. “I’m the last fellow she’d glance at. She’s been spending time at the manor, my lord.”
“At the manor?” Hiram’s implication sank in, turning a pretty summer day sour. “Wilton’s enjoying her favors?”
“Aye, if that man enjoys anything. The damned idiot female is trolling to become his countess, though her pa’s a mere tenant, albeit a prosperous one. Wilton would no more marry her than he’d marry Henly’s prize bitch.”
“So why say something to me?” And yet, cleaning up after a father’s messes was an oldest son’s obligation. “I can’t stop either one of them from their dalliance.”
“Have a word with Henly’s missus,” Hiram suggested, “or send Imogenie to work at your London house.”
Out in the paddock, Arthur, a good, dutiful beast, shuffled toward Nate, having apparently napped and grazed enough for the present.
“If Imogenie thinks she’ll be Wilton’s next countess, she’ll hardly take to service, Hiram. The best she could hope for in Town is to catch some tradesman’s eye.”
“Better that than dropping your pa’s bastard on your doorstep.”
“He’s not that stupid.” Wilton was that arrogant, however, and like a bully made to stand in the corner, he’d use any means to chafe against his banishment to the countryside.
Nate slipped the bridle over Arthur’s head, then fed the horse a bite of carrot.
Trenton: Lord Of Loss Page 8
