by Lara Temple
‘I was not...’
‘If you’d leaned forward any farther, you would have toppled into the pit.’
‘That wasn’t excitability.’
‘What was it, then?’
What was it, then?
She hadn’t even realised she’d been so obvious. The thought that he had watched her while she’d been unaware that she was showing her pleasure was not only embarrassing, but unsettling.
‘It isn’t kind of you to make fun at my expense, Lord Westford.’ She’d meant to sound authoritative, but her voice wobbled.
He frowned and stood abruptly. ‘I was not making fun at your expense. Enjoying something fully and honestly is nothing to be ashamed of.’
‘It is embarrassing.’
‘Only if you are embarrassed. You shouldn’t be. Damn, it wasn’t my intention to make you check yourself...you do that far too often already.’
As if on impulse, he came to sit beside her on the sofa.
‘If you must know, watching you take pleasure in the play was another of the few times I have enjoyed myself since I stepped off the Hesperus in London. You made me forget how much I’d been dreading that evening, and you reminded me why my mother and my grandfather loved the theatre as much as they did.’
She was blushing again, in a completely foreign tug of war between pleasure and mortification. This whole conversation was utterly out of her control, and yet she did not want it to end.
Her curiosity rushed into the breach. ‘Why were you dreading it? I remember you saying something to your grandmother about an incident that had occurred there...’
He smiled, but it was that careful, shielding smile. She wished she hadn’t called it up again.
‘What a memory you have. I don’t know if it merits the name of “incident”...’
‘It must, to have left such bitterness.’
He gave an impatient sigh. ‘We went to see a play.’
‘Which one?’ she prompted.
‘The Lives of Henry the Fifth.’
‘Oh. That was one of our favourite plays as children.’
‘It was one our favourites on the ship as well. My mother would play young King Henry, and Patton, our bosun at the time, made an excellent Falstaff.’ He leaned forward, his gaze on the carpet. ‘I saw the notice when we were in London, my second or third summer in England. I told Mary I wished to see it. She suggested it to my father, and it led to one of the rare battles between them. Certainly the first that she won.’
‘What happened?’
‘Nothing much. We all went—my grandparents as well. Perhaps they thought a show of familial solidarity at the theatre would put paid to the tattle about my father’s first marriage. I remember entering the foyer... I was impatient because my grandmother had stopped to speak to a woman with a monstrous wig...and then I saw my grandfather. Not Lord Westford. My mother’s father. Whom I had been told had died soon after my mother’s death.’
Genny’s breath caught. She’d had no idea about that lie. She could almost see the scene. A boy standing in the foreign but wondrous world of the theatre, that linked him to his mother and her family, feeling their loss. And then...
‘Oh, God...’ she whispered.
‘That was close to my thoughts at the time. I believed I was seeing a ghost. He must have felt me staring, because he turned and froze...’
Genny watched in shock as hot colour spread over Kit’s face, and without a thought she took his hand in hers. He looked down, but barely seemed to notice her transgression. He was present, yet miles and years away.
‘I can still see his clothes...down to the embroidery on his waistcoat—intertwined grey and black and white lilies. My mother’s favourite flower. He just stood there, staring at me. He looked...stricken. Miserable. It can’t have been more than a few short moments, but I remember realising the magnitude of the lie. I knew it wasn’t he who had perpetrated the deception, but them. I knew that he had wanted no part in it but had given in because they’d convinced him it would be best for me.’
‘The poor man... I had no idea. What did you do?’
‘I went to him. My father tried to stop me.’ Kit rolled his shoulder, as if feeling the weight of a hand settling on it. ‘They all did. My grandmother caught my arm and hissed something in my ear, Lord Westford had my other arm, and my father went and spoke to Nathan...my maternal grandfather. Nathan looked at me and said, “I’m so sorry, Kit.” And left.’
The silence stretched again. While he’d talked she had unconsciously intertwined her fingers with his. His hand was much darker than hers and worn rough at the knuckles. Not a gentleman’s hands.
‘I ran away. Again. I had grand ideas of disappearing completely, but after spending a freezing night sleeping under a bridge I found my way back here. I was sent down to Dorset and then to school.’
‘I’m so sorry, Kit,’ she said. His hand tightened on hers and she realised she’d unconsciously mirrored his grandfather’s words.
‘Don’t be. It was merely an interlude. I feel sorrier for Nathan. He lost his daughter and his grandson in one fell swoop.’
‘I had no idea they severed your ties with him. That is unforgivable. I’m so glad you found him again, despite their efforts...’
He looked up with a frown. ‘How did you know I found him again?’
She faltered. ‘I... Mary must have mentioned something.’
‘Did she? I daresay she is the only one who has ever mentioned his name.’
‘How did you find him?’ she asked hurriedly.
‘I had a book he once gave me, and the publisher’s name was written inside. He’d told me he often bound books for them, so I went there and some kind soul took me to his shop.’
He smiled, and Genny could see the echo of relief and happiness.
‘He tried to convince me to return to the Hall, but not very hard. We compromised by sending a letter saying that a school friend had invited me to his home for the summer. He was a duke’s heir, so they didn’t object. My friend Rafe told his mother the same, and we both stayed at Nathan’s house. The following winter Rafe ran away to the army, so I hadn’t that excuse, but I went to Nathan’s anyway.’
‘Didn’t your father mind?’
‘If he did, he never said anything, and I think my grandparents were relieved to be rid of me. I was the one blot on the Carrington landscape at the time. This was before Charlie’s parents and sisters died in India, when it was still expected that there would be more sons, so I was definitely expendable. Until I joined the army myself I spent a good part of my time away from school with Nathan. He was a good man. Everything he had he’d earned himself, and he was never bothered by his lack of roots. He encouraged me to explore the world and not to let others decide what I was worth. It was the best possible advice.’
‘He sounds a little like my grandfather.’
He smiled, turning her hand absently in his, his thumb brushing rhythmically over the heart of her palm.
‘I thought the same when I met General Maitland. My grandfather had all the flamboyance of a man of the stage and letters, but his roots were practical and kind. Your grandfather was the same under his martial façade.’
The pain of memory and loss, of sitting by her grandfather and holding his hand as he faded away, was suddenly so vivid she untangled her hand and went to the window, fighting long-forgotten tears.
‘I miss him,’ she said to the clouds skimming by. ‘Every day.’
She heard Kit rise from the sofa and move towards her. But she knew she was in no state for any more excitability.
She turned, planting her hands on her hips. ‘This isn’t working.’
He stopped. ‘What isn’t working?’
‘My plan. It has been well over a fortnight and neither Mary nor Serena is showing signs of any interest, let alone attachmen
t. Other than when she is forcibly seated next to someone at dinner, Mary finds every excuse to sit with Emily and Peter or his parents, and as for Serena... Well, no one would believe she was once one of the foremost flirts of the Peninsular Army. I might not be very well versed in such matters,’ she said, thinking of Julian’s comment, ‘but it strikes me that the men will need a little more encouragement than they are being given if we are to make any headway.’
‘Quite true. But, to use an inelegant phrase, we may have transformed Carrington House into a trough, but we cannot force your sister or my stepmother to drink.’
The lump in her throat thickened and she swallowed. ‘So there is no point, is there? We should stop.’
Stop and put an end to this. You will go back to your ship and I will go back to my comfortable uncomfortable life and Mary and Serena will have to find their own paths in life.
It would be safer.
She didn’t like excitability. She didn’t want it.
Liar, said another voice. You like it far too much. And therein lies the rub.
* * *
‘We should stop.’
Genny was right. He’d seen it as well. When not forced into proximity with one of the men on their list during dinner, Mary invariably chose to sit with Emily. He might have hoped that at least one of the male guests would see her reticence as a challenge, but, as Genny had said, men needed some encouragement.
The sensible course of action would be to admit defeat and return to the Hesperus until the wedding. It would put an end to his grandmother’s cutting remarks and Julian’s snide asides. Not to mention put some much-needed distance between him and the source of his increasingly unsettled nights.
All excellent reasons to do precisely as Genny was suggesting. To say, You are right; let’s put an end to this.
Genny was waiting. She looked as she had that day she’d walked into the library and issued her first set of commands: resolute and resigned. And cold. As if she hadn’t moments ago been almost in tears over her grandfather and his.
She would return to her life acting as buffer in his grandmother’s household. Julian might toy with her, might even care for her, but it was unlikely he would extract her from that life. They would all exit this interlude precisely as they had entered it.
It should have been a relief, but it felt horribly wrong.
‘Perhaps you are being hasty,’ he said.
‘Hasty?’ she asked.
‘Your grandfather wouldn’t approve of abandoning a blockade without reviewing what went wrong, would he?’
‘What I did wrong was try to impose my own wishes upon two women who are their own mistresses,’ she replied tartly. ‘You said yourself that I cannot save them from bondage if they do not wish to be saved. It is hubris.’
‘It may be hubris, but it is well-intentioned, and I think it is too soon to admit failure. What we did wrong was provide our prey with too many degrees of freedom. It isn’t a siege if your adversary is allowed to wander about between assaults, sampling pies in neighbouring markets and wandering back when he pleases.’
Laughter chased some of the coldness from her eyes. ‘It is very ungallant to liken your stepmother to a pie.’
‘Don’t split hairs. Still, if you wish to concede defeat...’
‘Of course I don’t, but...’ She sank onto the sofa with a thump, her shoulders sagging. ‘I don’t know what to do. I keep hoping I shall see that spark of...of true happiness on Serena’s face. You must remember it from Spain. She was always so...alight. And I know everyone thought Charlie was rather staid for her, but she loved him. And I wish... I wish I could help her find even a little of that again... But I don’t know what else to do.’
Kit had never reckoned that confusion and pain could act as a sensual stimulant, but Genny confused and did odd things to his libido. His pulse was quickening again, and his body was remembering precisely how she’d felt in the garden—warm, soft, with all those luscious curves her very proper gown had failed to hide pressed against him, her inner warmth bursting its barriers, sweeping him along.
‘I still think we should make one final push,’ he said, ignoring his mind’s suggestive take on the phrase. ‘With modifications.’
‘Modifications?’
‘Yes. We remove the degrees of freedom. We need to tighten our blockade.’
Her mouth curved in and out of a smile. ‘I think we are carrying this martial analogy too far.’
‘You started it. And blockades are naval territory—my speciality.’
She straightened. ‘Very well—how would we tighten our blockade? Are you suggesting we kidnap those poor men and put them on your ship with Mary and Serena?’
‘I wouldn’t do that my precious Hesperus. I have my limits. I was thinking of the Hall. In Dorset.’
‘The Hall... A house party!’ she said, her gaze growing intent.
The Generalissima was back in command, he noted, almost with regret.
‘Once Emily and Peter remove to his grandparents’ house in Hampshire we can invite a select group to the Hall,’ he said. ‘Away from the distractions of London. You offered me as bait before...’
‘I didn’t mean—’
‘Yes, you did,’ he interrupted. ‘You laid me out like a leg of mutton for the foxes. Well, on board the Hesperus I have a few other legs of mutton for our antiquity lovers, and I could arrange to bring them to the Hall as lures for a select group of gentlemen. I have to sail the Hesperus to Portsmouth in any case, so we shan’t be too far from the Hall. And, since Mary and I must be in Hampshire in less than a fortnight for Emily’s wedding, we have the perfect excuse not to extend our invitation for more than a week. Any more and I will likely lock them in a cellar. Or myself.’
‘You wouldn’t need to bring anything from your ship,’ she replied with enthusiasm, her eyes growing hazy with plotting again. ‘I have told you the Hall is already crowded to bursting with your treasures.’
He tried not to smile at the sight of Genny, back at the helm. Perhaps it was the lack of sleep, but he wasn’t as resistant as before to the thought of returning to the Hall for the first time since his father’s death. In fact, he could kill two birds with one stone. As Genny had pointed out, the cursed Carringtons were his responsibility now. It was time he went to the family seat.
‘My grandmother might not agree to be uprooted from London so soon after coming here,’ he said. ‘She appears to be thriving.’
Genny waved a dismissive hand, her eyes intent on some inner calculation. ‘Leave that to me.’
He pressed his mouth firmly down on a smile. ‘Don’t mind if I do.’
‘Good. Do I have your permission to send out invitations?’
For a moment he considered the wisdom of spending a week in a house he hated with his witch of a grandmother, a group of men who, though worthy, were hardly scintillating company, and the woman he was aching to bed.
In fact, there was nothing to consider. It was clearly, categorically, unwise. If any of his friends heard of this, he would lose for ever his reputation for calculated caution.
‘Faint heart ne’er won decent husband for fair stepmother,’ he said resolutely.
‘“Once more unto the breach”, then, Lord Westford?’
‘Once more.’
He held out his hand and she smiled and placed hers in it. It took every ounce of his will not to pull her towards him and kiss that smile into something entirely different.
Chapter Twelve
‘And this is the Capità’s cabin,’ the first mate announced in a heavy Catalan accent, motioning the visitors inside with a flourish that would have been comical if the room had not completely justified it.
Emily gave a gasp of appreciation which Genny echoed silently. It was the loveliest room she’d ever seen on board a ship. Kit certainly knew how to surround himself with th
e good things in life.
It was larger even than her room at Carrington House, with a wooden table at its centre covered in maps and books, and many more books filling the shelves along one wall. The floors were covered with carpets in deep, earthy colours that contrasted with a trio of watercolours of birds and mist-shrouded mountains.
There was also a bunk.
She’d thought that the bunks in the cabins assigned to them on the Hesperus for the short voyage from London to Portsmouth were quite generous compared with other ships she’d sailed on with her grandfather, but this...
This bunk should not in all fairness be called a bunk at all. It was far longer and larger than most beds at the Hall, and made even more imposing by a deep wine-coloured silk covering and tasselled brocade cushions the colours of a sunset. The light from the windows made the fabric shimmer, as if at any moment they might dissolve into warm liquid and spill towards them.
It was a bed made for pleasure.
And it had probably served that purpose well and often.
She turned to look at the paintings instead. If Kit lay against those cushions these were what he would see—the slight, light, almost wistful lines of birds and mountains. The sybaritic setting should have overwhelmed their fragility, but they were powerful counterpoints to the sensuality of the bed and the earthy tones of the carpets and the heavy furniture.
It was a disorientating room in more ways than one.
Just like its owner.
‘Well!’ Emily announced. ‘That is the last time I shall feel sorry for Kit when he is on a long voyage. I would love a room like this—wouldn’t you, Peter?’
Peter looked rather less enthusiastic than Emily, but perhaps that was due to the rising motion of the ship as it slipped out of the Estuary and into the Channel.
Mary sat down heavily in a chair, her hands tight on the armrests.
‘Mary...?’ Genny asked and Mary gave a wan smile.
‘Perhaps I should have travelled by carriage with Serena and Lady Westford, after all.’
