Finding sleep eluded him, and nothing to hold his interest, Marcus thought of the brandy downstairs. He had some in his room but the decanter was unaccountably empty. Unless Henstall had interfered again and ordered it not refilled. The man still thought of himself as Marcus’ father. It wasn’t as if alcohol would affect his health—as an immortal he would recover from any physical damage. Devil take it, one of his friends needed to keep himself sotted in order to stay sane. Marcus just wanted a reprieve from the agony ripping at him night and day.
It was dark, but he didn’t bother lighting a candle. He’d see his own way downstairs. He knew all the nooks and crannies of this house, every crack and imperfection. They were natural consequences of centuries of existence, at least for some. Not for him, though. He knew people as old as this house, fellow immortals, and they showed none of the vagaries of time. Except, perhaps, for a weariness of the soul.
At the age of thirty-one Marcus was only beginning to understand what he could do and what life might hold in store. The prospect sometimes elated him, sometimes filled him with horror. Two months ago, at the height of the London season, he wished for nothing else. Vigorous and popular, with a lover who was the most beautiful woman in the country, he’d savoured life to the full. Then it had come crashing down in a public and spectacular way. Now? Now, nothing.
He paused at the top of the stairs. He usually used the nearest ones, occasionally coming across a startled maid when he used the staircase meant for the servants. The staff here knew his ways, and most just bobbed a curtsey or nodded a bow and carried on. He hated pomp, barely put up with it when he needed to employ it, like at court, a place he avoided like the plague.
A sound drifted down to him from above. A cry, like a woman in distress.
He didn’t stop to think, but hurtled upstairs, taking the steep oak steps three at a time. Two floors brought him up to the nursery level, where the sound grew clearer. Familiar smells assaulted him: furniture polish, soap and chalk, an elusive smell that sank into its surroundings and never quite went away.
Following the noise, he opened the door to the night nursery. Moonlight glimmered through the windows and a shaded candle stood on the table.
Instead of the nursemaid, he found the woman he couldn’t get out of his thoughts. She was in a shapeless robe, just the kind of thing he’d been thinking about, only hers was worn, the pink faded to almost white by frequent washing. Underneath a white frill poked out at the neck. Her hair was neatly braided, and while one braid was coiled around her head and pinned at the top, the other had fallen free to tumble down her back, the ends unravelling as she rocked the wailing baby in her arms. The child was robust, too big for Ruth’s fragile frame.
Before he could out-think himself, Marcus stepped forward and took the struggling child from her.
The baby’s squalling stopped, and it hiccupped as it—he—stared up at Marcus. They gazed at each other, and Marcus watched as the face screwed up and he prepared for another yell. “Be quiet,” he said. At the same time, he spread his senses and entered the child’s mind. “He hurts,” he said absently. “His mouth.”
“He-he’s teething.” Marcus glanced at Ruth. Her mouth was open and her eyes wide, for the instant before she recovered herself. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know they would disturb you.”
“They didn’t. I was awake anyway.”
“I just managed to get Peter to sleep.”
He glanced at the crib. Not the rocking ones he’d ordered from York, but older ones that sat firmly on the ground. “Do you think they hate the cribs?”
“I think it’s a mixture of getting used to new sleeping places and the pain. How did you do that?”
He gazed at the child. He could take some of the baby’s discomfort, and really he’d undergone much worse in his time. To a child unused to pain this would be an alarming intrusion. The baby’s eyes were drooping. The poor scrap must be exhausted. He glanced at Ruth. So must she. “What are you doing attending to them? Where’s Andrea?”
“Sleeping,” Ruth said. “She spent the past two nights sitting up with them, so I said I’d take charge tonight.”
“I see.” His lips firmed. He’d send a message to the agency in York first thing in the morning for another maid. He did not want Ruth acting the part of nursemaid, even though he’d told her she must do it. He didn’t like to think of her attending to someone else’s children, wearing herself out on the tasks someone else should be doing. He wasn’t a monster, not a complete one at any rate. He understood babies needed attention at these times.
“The experts say to leave them,” Ruth said. “If we did, nobody would get any sleep. They’re stubborn.”
It was on the tip of his tongue to say “Like their father,” but what did he know about that? “Like their mother.”
“You knew her?”
He frowned at her. Her response was too eager, too needful. He felt her anxiety, saw it in her wide eyes and hopeful expression. “Yes, I knew her. In both senses of the word.” He did not want her thinking him a saint, which he might appear if he let her.
“When you said earlier—”
“I know what I said.” What madness had driven him to confess the truth to her? “I meant it. The timing is wrong, for one thing.” He could not father children willy-nilly. Immortals needed to put some thought into the making of children. “She was already pregnant when she invited me into her bed. Then she tried to blame the pregnancy on me.”
He lifted his upper lip in an expression of wry distaste. “I should not have gone near her in any case, so in a way this is my punishment. Society blamed the babies on me, and I had very little reputation to lose. What I had I would have lost if I did not take them so society still considers them mine. They are not, and I will not acknowledge them as such.”
“I see.” It hurt her that he could dismiss such precious babies so easily. She turned away to pick up the single guttering candle. Walking to the empty fireplace, she found another candlestick with a fresh candle and lit that from the old one.
“Did you burn all that candle tonight?”
“I was reading.”
Reminded of their conversation at dinner, he recalled she enjoyed reading. “You could not sleep?”
“No, I could not. The babies have grizzled all night.”
Having accomplished her task, she set the fresh candle on the table and snuffed out the old one by the simple expedient of pinching it between her fingers. It hissed, and a thin trail of smoke rose from the dead wick. She stared at it as if it held answers to all her questions, which he did not doubt were rioting through her fertile mind.
The baby had fallen asleep. Instead of handing the boy to her, he took him over to the empty crib and laid him down gently. The baby grumbled a little, but settled when Marcus pulled the covers over him. Sending a soothing message of tranquillity to the child, he straightened and turned to Ruth.
In her night-rail and robe, she appeared even more fragile. She might be tall, but her body was slender as a reed, fragile as a piece of fine china. Before his mind could tell him what a bad idea it was, he reached for her and pulled her close, to press against his body. When he curved his arm around her, he encompassed her easily. He used his free hand to tip up her chin, and then he kissed her.
She was deliciously warm and soft. When she gasped, he discovered her taste. Sweet, hot, yielding. Addictive. That word gave him pause, but it did not let it stop him from tasting her thoroughly.
When she moaned softly, he made a small sound of appreciation that reverberated right through her. He felt it, and he wanted more. He was holding her closely, so close she probably felt his erection, but she did not move away.
He could lose himself in her.
He must not. With a groan, he finished the kiss and released her. Turning, unable to utter a word, he left the room and went to find the brandy he’d been in
search of so long ago.
* * * * *
Ruth stared after him, her fingers touching her mouth, still tender from his kiss. Even if she’d thought of it, she would not have pushed him away. He’d held her so carefully, but with a promise in his hard, muscled body. She’d never felt a man so close, so hot before, and in an instant several things became clear to her.
Like how her sister could let a man—two men—take her. If what Marcus said was true, Rhea must have known two men intimately. Why there were so many conventions set around the meetings between male and female? Just how much had she risked tonight?
Everything, and for her sister’s seducer.
According to his account, Rhea had seduced him. How much could Ruth trust his word? She had no idea, only her instincts, which said he told the truth. Instincts were notoriously volatile.
As must hers be. Between her legs, her private parts throbbed, tender where wetness gathered. She had never felt this way before, but then a man had never kissed her with such devastating effect.
Why had he done it? Probably because she was there, she concluded wryly. A female, relatively young, in her nightclothes. From the dire warnings her mother gave her daughters, that was enough to inflame the senses. Men did not need much, she’d told them.
This one didn’t. He had changed her with that one kiss. Perhaps for good.
Chapter Five
Already Ruth felt an odd feeling of home about this place. Odd because she never felt that way about anywhere, even the house she’d grown up in. This dark, rambling house with few residents suited her mood, but it also fitted her instincts. She had never known such space before, such opportunities for solitude. When she awoke, she left her bed without even considering the matter and was at her washbasin, rinsing in cold water before she was properly awake. Unused to the chill, she was mildly surprised not to find a crop of goose bumps when she passed the sponge over her body.
Then the realisation hit her. She gasped, and goose bumps rose on her skin, though not from cold. Rather, from the memory of last night. He had kissed her, as a man kissed a woman—as if he’d meant it.
She shivered and reached for a clean shift. Nursery maids should always keep themselves clean, for fear of contaminating their delicate charges, but Ruth liked the feel of clean linen against her skin. She possessed precious few indulgences, but this was one of them.
Perusing her new clothes felt almost wicked. She touched the fine fabrics, letting her fingers run over the cloth. Eventually chose a gown of deep green and a petticoat of the same colour. It seemed a shame to fasten her practical white apron around her waist, but she was not here to look beautiful, even if she could.
When she glanced in the mirror above her washbasin, the colour on her cheeks shocked her. She was almost pretty. That would never do. He might take it into his head to kiss her again, and then where would she be?
On her way to being ruined. With her sister’s sad example to recall, Ruth was determined not to take that path. Except—Rhea’s stories made her wonder. Rhea had been a flirt of the first order and had thoroughly enjoyed her exploits, right to the end, including her affair with Marcus.
What would he be like naked? Powerful, no doubt. Would his skin be soft or hard under her hand? Would he rise, as the bulls in the field did, to serve her?
Such crude images sprang into her head, then Ruth clapped a hand over her mouth. Swiftly, she found her most enveloping and plainest white cap. After dragging all her hair back, she wrapped it in an uncompromising knot. When she stabbed her scalp with a hairpin, she welcomed the pain. Served her right for having such wicked thoughts.
Like a bad angel, her conscience whispered in her ear. Why not? What do you have to lose?
That brought her back down to earth. She snorted as she tied the strings of her decent linen cap under her chin. As if anyone would want her. Marcus—his grace, that was—had probably merely done it to tease her. Still, it was pleasing to know she was not a total drab.
With a swirl of her skirts, Ruth left the room and went into the nursery to attend to her charges.
The scent of hot chocolate assaulted her nostrils, indulgence in a cup. The mill stood on the flagstones next to the hearth and Andrea sat at the table in the small sitting-room, a positive feast laid out for her. “The babies are sleeping, but they’ll be awake soon.”
The remnants of a meal lay on a plate, but to Ruth’s disappointment, little remained. “His grace has asked you to eat with him when you are awake,” Andrea said, as if it was commonplace for a servant to eat with her master.
“I see. Are you all right here for a while?”
“Perfectly.”
Ruth must never forget her position in this household, as she had been in danger of doing last night when he’d kissed her. She could not work here without meeting him ever again. The sooner she approached him and cleared the air, the better. She would demand he did not touch her again in such a way. She had her rights, and she would exercise them.
She left the nursery with her chin in the air and her jaw set. His grace would leap on any weakness, so she must take care not to show any.
This time she only took two wrong turnings before she found the breakfast room. What a pity the duke did not employ more servants, otherwise she could ask them, but as it was, she needed to pass myriad closed doors before she found a corridor she recognised.
She would navigate through the staircases. They appeared to be the one fixed element in the whole arrangement. That and the view through the windows, when she could see them. Maybe she should find herself a compass.
Still smiling at the thought of holding a compass to steer her way through the house, she pushed open a door and found the breakfast room. Although the morning was advanced, the leisured classes tended to eat at this time, or even later. If they rose earlier, they ate a small meal in their rooms.
The duke was sitting at the table in his shirtsleeves. He had not waited for her before beginning his own repast, but breakfast was frequently an informal meal. At home, food was doled out on small plates, as someone once told Ruth’s mother smaller plates made what was on offer look more generous. It did not.
He glanced up, then got to his feet and motioned to a place far too close to his for Ruth’s liking. “Help yourself from the buffet, Miss Carter. Would you like tea or coffee?”
After thinking wistfully of the hot chocolate the nursemaid had received, she answered, “Coffee, please.”
“Ah. You wanted something else? Milk, perhaps?”
“No, sir. Coffee is fine.” She refused to tremble, or to show him anything but the politest of manners, but it cost her to do so.
“You should be more honest. I shall speculate as to what you prefer, since I don’t intend to waste my question for the day on such trivial matters.”
Her mind was in such turmoil, she had forgotten that foolish pact. She must think of something relatively innocuous, so he did not press her too hard in return. Above all she wanted to create distance between them.
Annoyingly, the serving spoon rattled against her plate when she helped herself to some scrambled egg. She took her plate to the table.
He shot a glance at her meal. “Ruth, you will not last until dinnertime if you don’t eat more. You need sustenance. I insist.” He got to his feet and picked up a plate, even though he already had one at his place. She didn’t look around, but heard the chink of spoon on plate. Then he reached over her shoulder, removed the modest helping of scrambled egg and replaced it with a brimming plate of viands. Everything, from devilled kidneys to chops, eggs, ham and bacon was arrayed there. “That is a proper breakfast,” he said.
“I’ll never eat all that!”
“Then leave what you don’t want. The pigs on the home farm will be glad of your leavings.” As he took his seat, he smiled crookedly. “Nothing goes to waste.”
“I�
�m glad to hear it, sir.” Ruth took up her knife and fork and attacked her food. After her third mouthful, she laid her cutlery neatly on the plate. “I don’t wish to keep you, sir.”
“I have nothing better to do.” He picked up the folded newspaper that lay by the side of his plate. “Shall I read to you?”
“I could not possibly—” What? Impose on him? If he wanted to, she could hardly ask him to desist.
“As I said.” He shot her a sharp glance over the top of the paper. Shaking it out, he scanned the page. “This is the court page. Utterly tedious, but perhaps you enjoy hearing of the acts of the frivolous. In any case, most of society is out of town. Apparently the king is once again indisposed.” He glanced at her.
Ruth pretended not to notice and continued to eat as he summarised the court page for her. Even she had heard of some of the people listed. It was as if the night before had not happened, that he had not met her in a state of undress and stolen the most devastating kiss she’d ever experienced in her life. Not that she had much to compare it with, but still, she couldn’t imagine anything else affecting her more.
No more kisses. She could not bear it. It appeared the duke did not want to revisit his action. That was just as well, because she certainly didn’t. Her teeth closed over her fork, jarring her.
“Ruth?”
Even his use of her name kept her on edge. Forcing a tight smile, she glanced at him, and then away. “Sir?”
“Please don’t do this.”
“What?” She was doing her best to behave properly.
“Don’t hold back.”
Shock rippled through her. He could not mean…? Why not, since he’d seduced her sister? Only the fact that he had taken the children in reconciled her to his treatment of her. She had begun to believe he was misunderstood, but he had kissed her, and had he wanted more?
With sparks of anger rippling along her veins, she put her knife and fork on her plate, ignoring the clatter. “Sir, I think you assume more than I ever meant. Perhaps I am better remaining in the nursery wing. Or leaving this house.”
War Chest: Even Gods Fall in Love, Book 5 Page 6
