Benton tugged at his cravat. “She has enough bad memories here.”
“So get her over them. Put your suite in the east wing, build a dower house to live in. Set it up however you need to for Em to be happy. You’ve turned Wilton Acres into a profitable enterprise. You should enjoy the fruits of your labors.”
“You’d let us stay here?”
“She’s my sister.” His baby sister, and Wilton had held a blade to her throat. Trent knocked back a slug of brandy. “I want her happy, plain and simple. God knows I don’t want to live here, but you’ll have to put up with Ford from time to time. He’s the heir, God help him.”
“I love children. Especially boys.”
“You are doomed. Utterly doomed.”
“When can we marry?” The question was painfully full of hope.
“That’s up to you and Emily. If you become engaged, you might consider having the nuptials at Belle Maison. Your family needs to know you’re marrying well, and I’m sure Nick and Leah will want to put their imprimatur on the match.”
“Bellefonte will claim he knew we’d suit.”
“He will probably be telling the truth. Lady Warne can stay here for the nonce, and she can help Emily plan the details.”
That Emily’s life, at least, was falling into place was some satisfaction. Not enough, but some.
“What about you?”
Benton was a canny soul. He hadn’t used Trenton’s title, but he couldn’t exactly address his employer by name, either, could he?
Trent endured a pang of longing for Ellie, like the first sharp shaft of autumn light slants through a forest still lush with summer greenery. Piercingly sweet, but tinged with loss.
“What about me?”
“You’ll toddle off to Crossbridge and let the widow slip through your fingers?”
Trent held up his empty hands. “She has slipped. Lady Rammel is a good friend. She brought the reinforcements that arguably saved my life and Emily’s, but she’s gone, Aaron. When all is said and done, Ellie’s gone, and I’m not sure what that means.”
Because Ellie had provided such generous, intimate comfort before she’d left, Trent would always be in her debt. Could a woman love like that and simply walk away?
“Did you invite her to stay?”
“For a suicide’s farce of a funeral?” Trent took another tot of his drink. “I did not.”
“What else was she to do?”
Trent sighed mightily, wishing canny Aaron would go make calf eyes at Emily. “My father killed himself; my wife killed herself; and for most of my tenure in Lady Rammel’s life, my father had people trying to kill me as well. Ellie is entitled to reconsider our situation.”
To put distance between them, God help him. Was this what he’d left her to feel? Anxious, hopeful, helpless? Though Trent wasn’t giving up. Falling back to regroup, taking a repairing lease from his repairing lease, but not giving up.
“Elegy Hampton would have you,” Aaron said, expression serious. “She made me promise I’d see that you ate. I was to note when you went to bed and what you had for breakfast. I was to make sure you kept your nightly tryst with Arthur and not for the sake of the beast, because he hardly notices who tosses him his hay. I was to write to her if you seemed to be going into a decline. For God’s sake, man, she’s at least six months pregnant and can’t be tarrying wherever she pleases.”
She had been the embodiment of feminine abundance in his arms. Lush, warm, generous…though more than a bit round. Trent mentally started counting months.
“She didn’t want to leave?”
“I heard Heathgate lecture her. His marchioness has had some difficulty in her confinements, and he grew very stern with Lady Rammel about her duty to the title and her own life, and what an unpleasant death a complicated childbed can engender. He out-gunned her, though it took some heavy artillery.”
“I would have liked to have heard this discussion.”
Though Heathgate had the right of it. A woman heavy with child should be propping her feet up before her own hearth.
“Lady Rammel did not want to leave your side,” Benton said emphatically. “Heathgate put the fear of miscarriage in her, and God knows what else he said.”
Trent set his drink down, feeling the first rekindling of forward momentum since his father’s death.
“I’ll find my sister and wish her well, then take myself off at first light. Mind my first niece or nephew isn’t a six-months child, Benton.”
“A six-months…? Oh, right.” Benton’s ears colored nicely. “No chance of that. Yet.”
Trent left at first light, as intended, but he took his time, seeing the countryside clothed in the pleasant attire of early autumn. The temperature remained comfortable for traveling, the roads dry. The journey had become familiar enough that he hardly had to remind Arthur which lanes and turnpikes led where.
When Arthur turned up the lane to Deerhaven, darkness had already fallen. Trent caught the horse in his unsanctioned suggestion, though, and kneed him right along until they reached the Crossbridge turn-off. At the foot of his own drive, Trent dismounted and walked Arthur into the trees, letting the gelding pick his way by moonlight to the bridle path leading to the back of Ellie’s property.
“You were right, old son.” Trent patted Arthur’s neck. “My apologies.”
They stood for a long time, Arthur likely glad to rest, Trent glad to see the light burning in Ellie’s window. He wasn’t about to intrude again uninvited, but he could wish in the dark, and hope the woman who’d told him good-bye so convincingly, then braved distance, darkness, and worse to save his life might still entertain a fondness for him.
A passionate fondness, though what woman facing impending motherhood should have to fend off a randy widower?
“I’m tired, Arthur.” Trent’s horse flicked an ear in agreement. “I want my own bed, and I want to see my children asleep in theirs. Cato’s leaving us, you know? But we’re to have his cousin Kevin.”
Rather than wake his help, Trent intended to put Arthur up himself. He didn’t light a lantern, the moonlight in the stable yard illumination enough for loosening a girth.
“Trenton Lindsey?”
From a bench under a tree in the stable yard, Ellie’s voice rang out, full of curiosity, and something else—relief?
“Elegy Hampton, what are you doing abroad at this hour?”
“Mr. Benton sent a pigeon to Crossbridge,” she said, emerging from the shadows. “I set my grooms to watching in the village. Are you well?”
“I am.” With the saddle over one arm, he led Arthur into the barn. “Let me get a lantern from the saddle room, and you can explain to me why you’re lurking in barn yards when you should be in bed, sipping peppermint tea and swaddled in quilts.”
“It’s only coolish,” Ellie rejoined, following him into the barn. “Not exactly cold. You’re sure you’re well? You look tired to me, and one worries.”
Trent slipped Arthur’s bridle off and let the horse find his stall. “Of course I’m tired. While it’s good of you to be concerned, it’s hardly worth lying in wait for me. Come along.” He took her hand and pulled her toward the saddle room, where a soft glow beamed from under the door. “The night is chilly, not just coolish, and I’m sure we’ve some blankets in here, and a—holy Halifaxing saints, Catullus!”
Trent wasn’t fast enough to pull Ellie back with him, so she got an eyeful of Cato Spencer’s muscular form, naked from the waist up, his falls undone, his hips working a slow thrust and retreat while Peak, perched on the edge of a table, used both arms and legs to clutch Cato close.
“Cato?” Peak’s voice was dreamy, but before Trent could haul Ellie from the door of the saddle room, Peak’s face came into view over Cato’s shoulder, and the curve of one soft, naked, female breast caught Trent’s eye.
“Oh, gracious.” Ellie dissolved into giggles, though Trent had wits enough to tug her away and close the door behind them. “Gracious Halifax.” Ellie�
��s eyebrows rose, and fell, and rose again in the moonlight. “That was certainly unexpected.”
“Holy perishing… Unexpected?” Trent glared at the closed door and took a half-step toward it when Ellie’s hand on his arm stopped him.
“She’s wearing a ring, Trenton.”
“What? Who?”
“Peak. Or whatever her name is. On her left hand.” Ellie pointed to her own left hand, though no rings graced her fingers. “Mine no longer fits.”
“That was all she had on!” Except for a smile Trent would never, ever forget.
“You’re upset?”
“Bad enough I’m harboring an Irish peer in my stables,” Trent retorted, “but he’s harboring a blasted…female.”
“Mr. Spencer is a peer?” Ellie’s brows went traveling again. “Our Cato?”
“That would be Glasclare,” Cato rumbled, coming out of the saddle room decently clad and closing the door behind him. “My apologies for abusing your hospitality Amherst—or it’s Wilton, now, isn’t it.”
“Not if you value your life.”
“What does one call you?”
“What does one call you?” Trent shot back. “Keeping some sort of personal harem in my stables, for God’s sake, Catullus. That woman groomed for me, groomed at the local meets. What were you thinking?”
“I can answer that.” Peak emerged, dark hair tucked up into her cap, dark eyes fixed on Cato. “He was thinking to keep me safe.”
“You’re a female.” Trent’s tone was such as a gentleman ought not to use on a female, much less on a possible countess. He’d apologize for that later, when he’d settled his nerves with a drink or three.
Peak exchanged a smirk with Ellie, who looked again on the verge of giggles. “Trenton, may we finish these explanations up at the house?”
Rather than succumb to the merriment tugging at him, Trent took Ellie by the hand.
“A fine idea. The house, where it is nice and warm, and certain viscountesses can put their feet up, while they swill peppermint tea, and behave themselves in a manner befitting their delicate condition.”
“You could toss me over your shoulder,” Ellie suggested. “Though I might overbalance you, mightn’t I?”
Yes, she could overbalance him, preferably right into a shared bed.
Cato kept his peace and kept Peak’s hand in his the whole way up to the house. Trent waved his butler off but ordered a pot of tea for the ladies.
When the party assembled in the library, a cheery fire taking the chill off the evening, Trent aimed a look at his best lad.
“Tea’s on the way, unless Peak would like something stronger? Her feminine sensibilities have no doubt been sorely tried, living in my stables with the likes of you, Catullus, particularly given the liberties you were taking, for the love of God and all His creatures.”
“Careful,” Cato said, smiling besottedly at Peak, “lest you give insult to my countess.”
“Congratulations.” Ellie patted Peak’s hand. “You must be very pleased.”
“She is,” Cato answered, and clearly, so very clearly, the Earl of Glasclare was even more pleased than his lady.
Ellie beamed up at Trent, her smile sweet but also pleading. A wife sent her husband such a smile, a silent request for understanding, for forbearance and tolerance when exasperation threatened.
Nick and Leah exchanged such smiles, Benton and Emily, Heathgate and his marchioness.
A fearful weight of dread and determination eased in Trent’s chest, and he took a place beside Ellie, helpless not to return her smile.
“Peak is the lady caught in a compromising position,” Trenton guessed. “The one facing marriage to a scoundrel.”
Cato kissed his wife’s knuckles. “Chesapeake Whitley Spencer. I could not be her alibi, because I was with another lady at the time, behaving myself for once, and my Peak was pressured to take another for her own, as was I. I might have married for duty, but I could not allow Peak to be shackled to a varlet. To the undiscerning eye, Peak makes a passable boy. She’s been horse mad since birth, and she refused my honorable offers—until recently.”
“I don’t want to hear about your other offers,” Trent interjected. “Do I take it you’re well and truly married?”
Another kiss to the lady’s knuckles. “Special license. I’m Church of England when the Regent is looking. Peak understands because her papa is cut from the same cloth.”
“Congratulations, then,” Trent said, saluting with his glass.
“Catullus,” Peak said, “you wanted to explain about Rammel to his lordship.”
Amazing how lovely Peak’s voice sounded now that it belonged to a female.
“After the shock we encountered in that saddle room,” Trent said, “explain carefully and only if you must.”
Because anything affecting Rammel affected his widow, too, and as much upheaval as Ellie had endured, Trent wanted nothing so much as to get her to bed.
To sleep.
Mostly.
“First,” Catullus began, “you need to know Louise has been taken into custody and bound over for the assizes on charges of attempted murder. Mr. Soames saw her tramping about in the woods with a fowling piece, and then heard about the attempt on your life. He fled the area out of fear of Louise coming after him, but his missus got word to him at his brother’s place in Sussex.”
“I am losing staff from this estate at an alarming rate,” Trent said, though the expression on Cato’s face suggested his explanations weren’t complete.
“I hesitate to embarrass a lady,” Cato went on.
“How could you embarrass a lady more than you already have?” Ellie gently asked.
Cato colored up, to the very tops of his ears. “As to that… Lord Rammel, may he please rest in peace, came upon me pressing my attentions on Peak the morning of the hunt meet.”
Ellie’s grip on Trent’s hand tightened. “The day Dane died? You and Peak weren’t…” She waved her hand.
“We were only kissing,” Peak said. “Or Cato was kissing, and I was trying to warn him it wasn’t safe.”
“Hush, love. This will be difficult enough.” Cato patted her hand, the gesture indicative of a man doomed to decades of marital bliss. “Peak and I were kissing, but his lordship came upon us, and Peak scampered off, leaving me to face a grinning and amused Dane Hampton.”
“Dane was a tolerant sort,” Ellie said, “and it was just a kiss.”
Cato looked anywhere but at Dane’s widow. “It was.”
“His lordship misconstrued what he saw,” Peak offered softly. “He did not know my gender, so he assumed Catullus was importuning another man.”
“I see.” Ellie’s tone said she saw nothing.
“Not yet you don’t,” Cato said. “Forgive me, my lady, because I mean the man no disrespect. When Dane saw me with Peak, he drew erroneous conclusions about Peak, but also about me.”
“He thought you preferred men,” Trent supplied, lest Cato trot out some less delicate term.
Cato studied the ring on his countess’s finger. “He attempted to take the same liberty with me.”
Ellie’s free hand went to her rounded middle. “He kissed you? Dane kissed you?”
Cato nodded again, looking miserable.
“A kiss-kiss?” Still, she did not comprehend.
“A carnal, forbidden kiss between men,” Cato said. “I’m sorry. I tell you this only because when it became apparent he wasn’t going to desist despite my lack of, shall we say, welcome, I backhanded the blighter and told him to keep his sodding paws off me.”
That was probably the short version.
“You struck my Dane?”
“Only the once. Miss Coriander saw him kiss me and saw me belt him. His lordship laughed heartily, cantered off on my horse and died.”
“Sweet Saints.” Trent left Ellie’s side long enough to pour Cato another finger of brandy. “So you went through the inquest, wondering what else Andy saw, to whom she talked, and if y
ou would swing for murder. Why didn’t you leave?”
“Peak hadn’t yet married me. I could not leave without implicating myself in murder, and if she came with me, she might have fallen under suspicion, too. Thank God, Heathgate is a sensible sort, even if he does take life too seriously. I have worried about the child, though. She might have seen her father going at me like a sailor on leave.”
“My lady, are you well?” Peak asked.
“You outrank me,” Ellie said distractedly. “Trenton?”
“Right here, love.”
“I need to put my feet up.”
“Of course you do.” Trent resumed his place beside her. “Catullus, you and your bride may consider yourselves my guests for the duration, but right now, Lady Rammel needs some peace and quiet.”
“Come along, mavourneen.” Cato tugged Peak to her feet. “You can scold me for my lack of tact all night long, for once in the comfort of a nice, clean, fluffy bed, may God be thanked.”
Trent poured Ellie another cup of tea, added sugar, and then a dollop of spirits.
“Drink.” He passed her the cup. “This will warm your innards.”
“My innards are a busy place,” Ellie murmured, but she took a sip, then another. “Interesting drink.”
“Talk to me, Ellie. It has been a night for surprises.”
“Why would Dane have kissed Catullus?”
He could think of no delicate phrasing, no deft allusions. “Dane kissed Cato because he desired him. He desired him the way most men desire women.” As I desire you.
Ellie looked adorably perplexed, also a trifle unnerved. “But Dane was my husband. I’m having his baby.”
“For some individuals, the two are not mutually exclusive. He loved you, Ellie.”
“But he kissed Catullus,” Ellie said, setting her drink down very carefully. “On the mouth.”
“He did.”
Ellie pushed herself forward and rocked herself to her feet. “Me, he did not kiss on the mouth.”
“I rarely kissed my wife on the mouth. She didn’t enjoy it.”
“I am not Paula.”
“For which I thank God.” Trent paced along with her as she began a slow orbit of the library.
Trenton: Lord Of Loss Page 33
