“Ask.”
“If you could call on Elegy Hampton, Lady Rammel, in my absence, I’d appreciate it.” Simply saying her pretty, feminine name was a guilty pleasure.
Darius’s expression became unreadable in an entirely different manner. “Lady Rammel, the widow?”
“We were briefly entangled, though now we’re not. She’s a dear lady, and her circumstances are trying.” Thanks in no little part to one Trenton Lindsey.
Darius smirked as only a handsome younger sibling could. “If you insist I’ll do the pretty and let you know how she’s getting over you, but perhaps you ought to look in on her yourself.”
Trent’s very own thought—a useless, mostly selfish, but also sincere thought.
“Brat.” When Trent had shown his brother to a guest room, he prepared to do battle with his cook, though he was fortified knowing Darius—notably soft-hearted where Wilton’s rejects were concerned—would turn the woman off without a character. Trent found his cook in the kitchen preparing ingredients for the next day’s meals.
“Greetings, Louise.” They were alone, which suited Trent’s purposes. “I’ve come to scold you.”
“That’s Cook to you.” She went right on chopping walnuts. “And you’ve no business below-stairs, my lord. You want to scold the help, you ring for us and dress us down above stairs. The earl does his scolding before the footmen for good measure.”
Which bit of heinousness Trent knew only too well.
“Be glad, then, that I am not my father,” Trent rejoined, only to hear something muttered along the lines of “that’s for damned sure.”
“Louise,” Trent said pleasantly, “I can sack you.”
She came up scowling, hands planted on her hips. “You don’t mean that. You aren’t nasty enough to sack me.” She made this a base insult.
“I am not nasty, but this is to my credit, not yours. I am out of patience with you, and if you countermand one more of my orders, misinterpret, ignore, or otherwise subvert my authority, you are gone.”
“You wouldn’t.”
“Have I threatened this before?”
Her hard blue eyes grew thoughtful. “You have not.”
“Nor will I threaten again,” Trent assured her. “You may feed simpler fare to the help but of no less quality than what you put before me and my guests, or you will soon need concern yourself with how to feed only my former cook. I’m weary of this constant battle in my own kitchen, and it’s beneath you as well.”
“Beneath me?” She opened her mouth to launch a tirade, but Trent popped half a walnut into her maw.
Had all her teeth, did Louise.
“Chew. You’re less likely to choke if you do. Now, having settled matters between us for the last time, I’m off to Wilton again the day after tomorrow and will gladly bear your letters when I go. I’m sure Nancy enjoys your correspondence. My brother and Mr. Spencer will tend the manor in my absence, and you are to show them better courtesy than you do me.”
“That worthless Irish…”
Trent tossed another walnut at her, which bounced off her chin. “Catullus Spencer is the most trusted member of my senior staff. You will show him every respect, Louise.”
“Your papa wouldn’t have let such a one as that presuming Paddy hold his horse.”
Trent headed for the steps. “And now my father is banished to Wilton Acres, while Cato Spencer has the run of my house. Think how far you’ll get without a character, Louise. All around here know how badly you’ve treated my help, because the help gossip, as you well know. Until tomorrow.”
He left her slamming things onto the counter and muttering, but their skirmish had been brief, and he counted it a victory, because Dare was right: Trent really did not need a rebellion in his own kitchen, and enough was enough.
He climbed the steps to the nursery, there to find Darius usurping the story hour for an uncle’s nefarious purposes. Trent repaired to his rooms, soaked away as much of the day’s frustrations and fatigue as he could, then sought his balcony.
He hadn’t seen Ellie for some days, and her absence left an ache. Not a purely sexual ache, but Trent opened his dressing gown and stroked himself lightly anyway. When he eventually found his pleasure, he found some comfort as well, an echo of the pleasure he’d shared so easily with Ellie.
He found a load of longing and sheer, bodily loneliness, too.
As an experiment, it was ten minutes successfully spent. He’d learned that self-gratification didn’t fix the part of him that missed Ellie most, though it made climbing into bed and dreaming about what he’d lost with her that much easier.
Chapter Seventeen
“You needn’t announce me,” Trent told the butler. “I’ll just go on up.”
Mr. Wright gave him a slight smile. “Very good, my lord. Her ladyship is likely on her balcony at this time of morning.”
The balcony that adjoined her bedroom and private sitting room. For the love of God, when would Trent learn to simply send a bloody note?
He went up and knocked on the sitting-room door and got no answer, which made sense if Ellie was out on her balcony. He pushed open the door, calling her name softly, and still heard no response.
If there were a merciful God, Ellie would not be asleep in her bed. His faith was modestly rewarded when he found her dozing on her swing. She had curled down on her side, her slipper dangling from her foot, her lips slightly parted, a pair of wire-rimmed spectacles askew on her nose.
The sight of her hit him low in the gut and had him hunkered beside the swing without knowing how he got there.
“Ellie?” He carefully unhooked the spectacles from her ears. “Love? You’ve company.” She batted at her nose but subsided back into sleep, so he kissed her cheek.
She batted at her cheek, which had him smiling like an idiot when she opened her eyes.
“Oh, blighted Halifax…” she muttered and tried to push up, but her hair got trapped between the slats of the swing’s back.
“Hold still.” He freed her hair but brought down the precarious anchorings of her bun in the process.
“I must look a fright.” Ellie sat up and stretched. “But you are a welcome sight. Sit and let me apologize for not even waking up to greet you. Who escorted you over this time?”
“Peak. He’s visiting in your stables. You look well rested.” She looked…delectable, dear and desirable. Trent accepted the place beside her. She passed him some hair pins and set about fixing her hair. “I’ve intruded on your nap, for which I apologize.”
“It’s easy to do—the intruding part,” she assured him, twisting her braid back up and taking pins from his palm one by one. “I’m still dozing off here and there the live long day. You might take up the sport yourself. You still look a little…”
“Like I ran the Derby and lost?”
“Tired,” Ellie said softly. “You look tired, Trenton, so tell me what has you so fatigued.”
Missing you.
“I’m off to Hampshire again,” he said, glad for the pins in his hand. They prevented him from taking her hand in his, but also had her touching him, however fleetingly, as she put her hair to rights. “I must threaten my father into submission before his bad behavior results in another half-sibling.”
Ellie grimaced as she shoved a pin into a coiled braid. “One hears of older men siring children. I’ve never understood the appeal of having offspring who would see one toothless, confused, and laid low with the rheumatism before the child was breeched.”
“That is rational adult thinking, something my father has never held in great regard. Though it is the fate of most mortal men to either die young, or slip into senescence, my father no doubt believes himself every bit as attractive, fit and sound of wit as he was at university. Then too, he’s every bit as amoral.”
“Having a parent you cannot respect”—Ellie took the last of the pins—“must be a trial.”
How easily this troubling conversation came to them, and how much Trent
had missed her.
“I wouldn’t mind not respecting him.” Ellie’s fingers laced with Trent’s, and his relief at her touch was pathetic. “I mind very much that I can find nothing, not one thing, to like or trust about the man.”
“Nothing? Tell me about him.”
“He’s arrogant, stubborn, and without the redeeming sense of a greater order that rescues so many of his peers from insufferableness. God might make mistakes, but not Wilton.”
“He was like this even when you were a boy?” Ellie put his hand on her thigh and traced his knuckles with her free hand. She wasn’t wearing any rings and she still sported an abundant crop of freckles. “Or has Wilton become set in his ways as age has overtaken his sense?”
“I’m still adding to my list of nevers, if that’s what you’re asking.” Trent should withdraw his hand, but given the topic, he let himself have the contact—needed it, in fact.
“What is your list of nevers?” Ellie leaned forward, or into him. In any case, the soft weight of her breast pressed against his biceps, and he knew—knew—she hadn’t meant it as anything sexual. More significantly, he wasn’t responding sexually. Her closeness was simply…comforting.
“I started my list when I was about five. I had to print the first entries,” he explained. “I intended it to illuminate my efforts to be Wilton, when that fateful day arrived, or so I told myself. Mostly, I kept a record of needless suffering by a lonely and very confused little boy.”
He told her about the bones he’d broken trying to learn to ride the first nasty pony his father had put him on, about the lung fever resulting from his efforts to skate, about the tearing shame of seeing his sister Leah try not to cry while she was forced to watch him being caned as an adolescent.
“The worst was when he took me out to the kennels—I would have been about seven—and led me to believe I was to be given a puppy. In a sense, I was.”
Ellie remained quiet beside him, and before he could turn the words back, they were running past his lips.
“Wilton told me I either drowned the runt or watched while he shot the bitch and her entire litter. I had to learn to make difficult decisions and see them through. He insisted on that lesson on many occasions.”
The feeling of the puppy struggling as Trent held it in the depths of the horse trough threatened to choke him.
“Trenton.” Ellie’s arm slid around his waist. “I am so sorry. You did not deserve to be treated that way. No child does. Damn your father to… to… Hades.”
Trent’s throat was too constricted to agree with Ellie’s sentiments, but he kept his fingers laced with hers, taking care not to hold too tightly.
“It’s well your father is off in Hampshire,” Ellie went on. “Lest I arrange an accident for him when next he’s in the hunt field. To think Dane, who was basically harmless, didn’t even see thirty years and such a one as Wilton is given nigh twice that…it tries one’s faith.”
While Ellie’s reaction restored a man’s faith. “I must deal with him nonetheless, and possibly my in-laws as well.”
Ellie frowned at their joined hands. “Is that wise? You suspect those people of wishing you harm.”
“Like most bullies, they’re sneaking around to do it. If I confront them, likely they’ll desist. Then too, I’m thinking of sending Emily down to Wilton Acres for a time, and I need to solicit Mr. Benton’s opinion of this scheme.”
“He’s your steward?”
“And Wilton’s warden.”
“Your errands are hardly cheering. You will be relieved to have them behind you, and then you can turn your attention to the harvest at Crossbridge.”
“I’ll look forward to it. I wanted to let you know that while I’m gone, my brother, Darius, will mind Crossbridge for me, and he’s been instructed to keep an eye on you.”
“An eye on me?” Ellie retrieved a pillow from the rug and stuffed it behind her back. “Am I in need of supervision?”
“Hardly.” Trent let her slip her fingers from his, though it was difficult. “You might be in need of the occasional friendly face or casual caller. Heathgate and Hazlit might drop over as well.”
She considered him while the breeze brought him the scent of her gardens in high summer, and of her. “Is this guilt? Do you think I’m pining away here without your shoulder to fall asleep on?”
He rose, smiling at the consternation on her face, though both the rising and the smiling managed to wedge themselves into that growing category of things that were difficult.
“You are indiscriminate in your napping, my dear, as this morning’s visit proves. This isn’t guilt, but it is concern. I can be concerned for a friend, can’t I?”
She regarded him owlishly, and Trent had the notion she might nod off while considering her answer, but then she smiled, a soft, pleased smile.
“You may be concerned, but only concerned—I have certainly been concerned for you. Come along, we can tour my rose garden while I escort you back to Arthur’s side. Tell me how your children are settling in at Crossbridge, and you may inform Mr. Spencer he will never see little Zephyr outside of Andy’s keeping again.”
“He’ll keep an eye on you, too, though from a discreet and friendly distance.”
“Have you left anybody in the neighborhood who won’t be keeping an eye on me?” Ellie asked as they wound their way through the house. “Any able-bodied men, that is?”
Trent thought for a minute. “Peak, possibly, but Peak is rather attached to Cato, so maybe even Peak will ride over this way in my absence.”
“Peak? He’s the slender lad with the dark eyes. Cato’s shadow?”
“The very one, or his conscience.” Or something.
Trent led her on a shady path out toward the gardens. “You’re not to be running loose without footmen while I’m gone, Ellie. Don’t relax your vigilance. I haven’t found my culprit, and Mr. Soames remains at large.”
Though even if he had found his culprit, Ellie might still have decided that a life of independence suited her better than a headlong rush back up the church aisle.
“So even Mr. Soames may be keeping an eye on me from the safety of the woods,” Ellie marveled. “I can only think of one person who won’t be dedicating himself to surveillance of me in the coming days.”
“Who would that be?”
“You.”
***
“Just you,” Ellie repeated, because Trent seemed surprised by her answer.
She’d felt his kiss on her cheek as she struggled up from sleep, had known he was there by his scent, and some other sense honed by having been more intimate with him than with her own late husband.
She’d been glad to see him, for it confirmed he was safe and whole. She’d been gladder still to touch him, and most glad of all that he still seemed to like her touch as well.
Though she was angry with him, too, and that bore study. She’d been angry with Dane for their entire marriage and remained angry with the poor man even in death.
They ambled along in silence, until Trent bent to sniff a pretty red rose. “I’d pick it for you, but we’re barehanded, and there are those thorns.”
“There are, though tell me, Trenton, is it supposed to be like this?”
“Is what supposed to be like this?” He was stalling, as men will, when they’re quite certain what was asked but not certain at all how to answer without getting in Trouble.
“We’ve ended our liaison,” Ellie said softly. “I still rejoice to see you, I still enjoy the scent of you, the sound of your voice, the knowledge that you’re well and your children are thriving in your care.” She should tell him about the anger, though, too.
She’d never once taken Dane to task for his negligence, never demanded he attend her, afraid he’d neglect her yet further if she became that sort of wife.
“You rejoice to see me?” His tone said he suspected Ellie of a qualified sort of rejoicing, which was perceptive of him.
“Of course I do.” Ellie smiled, sadly
, because he was still stalling and seemed unaware of it. “I suspect we’ve gone beyond what’s in that manual, though.”
“There’s no manual, Ellie,” he said, his gaze traveling over the lovely gardens in the summer sunshine. “There’s only you and me, and how we want to go on, and I can understand why more intimate attentions from me aren’t appropriate right now, but that doesn’t mean… What?”
“Hush.” She shook her head, unwilling to hear from him how much folly he might tolerate from her today, when tomorrow his answer might be different.
“I miss you, too, and that’s all that need be said.” Because he might tell himself it was her safety he wanted to preserve, but in his hesitance, and his silences, she heard his unwillingness—his inability—to admit other reasons for them to be apart.
His attachment to his first wife, his unspoken resentment of his entire marriage, his right to enjoy a few years unencumbered by any spouse before again seeking a prospective countess.
Whatever his reasons, Ellie had no wish to face them.
He peered down at her. “I miss you isn’t adequate,” he said quietly. “It’s in the right direction, but it isn’t nearly adequate.”
“If you try to say more, we’ll just end up kissing, and then where will we be?”
“Perishing damned Halifax.”
She walked him to the stables, and when he bowed over her hand in parting, his lips touched her knuckles.
“Thank you for calling,” Ellie said, taking a step back. “I will pray for your safe return from Hampshire, but you really need not keep checking on me.”
“Until my journey is accomplished then.” He kissed her cheek, hesitating before he straightened, as if making sure his boldness registered. He might have breathed in through his nose in that single moment of gratuitous nearness.
He mounted his trusty steed and cantered off, while Ellie wondered what it meant when a woman told a man, twice, that he need no longer call on her, yet in some shameless, lonely corner of her heart, that woman still treasured him and the kisses he insisted on giving her, and couldn’t wait until he called again.
Trenton: Lord Of Loss Page 25
