Seducing Mr. Sykes

by Maggie Robinson

  “Absolutely not!”

  The bellow came from the study, causing Mrs. Fitzmartin to interrupt her local points of interest lecture.

  “Another biscuit?” she asked gamely, as if there weren’t shouting coming from the next room.

  “No thank you.” Sadie set her teacup down.

  What if they decided to reward her heroism by sending her home?

  That wouldn’t do at all.

  There was nothing for it. She slid to the floor and began to twitch and moan, being careful not to kick over the tea table. Sadie sincerely hoped Mrs. Fitzmartin would not follow suit.

  “Virgil!” the woman shrieked. “Dr. Oakley!”

  The thunder of footsteps alerted Sadie that it was show time.

  “The smoke! The smoke! I cannot see!”

  “You would if you opened your eyes, Lady Sarah.”

  Smug bastard. Even with her eyes closed, she knew who spoke.

  “What is wrong with her?” a female voice asked.

  “An excellent question, Miss Churchill. I would say nothing.”

  Damn that Mr. Sykes. He was all too perspicacious.

  “Sometimes individuals react to trauma after the fact. She has lost everything to the smoke and water damage, all her little bits and bobs, you know. Step aside, please.” Sadie could hear Dr. Oakley kneel down next to her, his joints creaking. His warm hand rested on her forehead. “No fever. Lady Sarah, can you hear me?”

  “Throw some water on her.” Mr. Sykes again.

  Ooh, if she ever got the opportunity, she’d throw some water on him.

  “My puppy. Where is my puppy? We must save little Lancelot.” Sadie was tired, and somewhat desperate. It was the best she could do.

  “Lady Sarah, wake up. You are in Puddling, and you have been very brave.”

  Dr. Oakley was so nice. She hadn’t really seen all that much of him this past month, being perfectly healthy, but wouldn’t mind having her forehead rubbed with such tenderness a while longer.

  Since her mother died, tenderness had been in short supply at Marchmain Castle.

  She fluttered her lashes. “Who are you? Who am I?”

  Mr. Sykes bent over her, his eyebrows ferocious. “All right, all right, I’ll do it. Anyone who would act in this nonsensical fashion must be disturbed. I warn you, Lady Sarah, I will not be taken in by you and your antics. For the next three weeks, you shall behave yourself, avail yourself of counseling and accept your fate. Then go home. And don’t ask who I am, because you damn well know.”

  “You’ll do what?” Sadie asked, not caring for his tone.

  Dr. Oakley patted her hand. “The governors have decided the best place for you is Sykes House. There really is no other suitable accommodation at the moment. And there is precedent here for using the property as a respite for our Guests. I’m sure you’ll be very comfortable.”

  Sadie sat up and grabbed Dr. Oakley’s soothing hand. “What? I can’t live with him! It’s—it’s not proper! He is a man!” And a disagreeable one at that.

  “How astute you are, Lady Sarah. I don’t live in the house itself, but my father’s staff will be at your disposal. Reverend Fitzmartin will be welcome to give you your daily instruction—I can send a carriage for him. But I warn you, I will not extend my family’s hospitality beyond this next month, whether you are fit to rejoin society or not. I have my limits.” He glared at her, then turned to glare at the other governors.

  “I won’t do it!” Sadie said.

  He raised an eyebrow. “Oh? Then I assume you’ll want to return to your father’s house.”

  “No! I mean, I’m not ready!”

  And then Sadie did something most uncharacteristic. She broke into genuine tears, sobbing quietly onto her plaid-clad lap. There were no wolflike wails or arm-flailing, just honest dismay to find herself in such a predicament.

  She never cried. It wasn’t worthwhile. Now to fight—to yell and shout—that was the way to express emotion. What was more pointless than a woman’s tears? She took a shuddering breath.

  Miss Churchill patted her head. “It will be all right. We haven’t lost a Guest yet. I’m sure with a little more time, you’ll know your duty.”

  Duty! Duty was for soldiers and mothers and prime ministers. She certainly owed no allegiance to her father, who had only realized her usefulness when he was strapped for cash.

  Mr. Sykes tugged her elbow. “Come on. Up and at ’em. Miss Churchill, could you see about acquiring some proper clothing for our Guest? She cannot go about Puddling looking like that.”

  Not to mention that Sadie didn’t have a fresh pair of knickers left. Or a hairbrush.

  “Can’t I go shopping?”

  “Not allowed, and anyway you have no money.” Mr. Sykes seemed to take extraordinary pleasure in that.

  “But surely, this is an emergency. I realize I’m supposed to remain in Puddling for the foreseeable future, but there is no dressmaker’s shop here.”

  “We’ll contrive something, don’t you worry, my dear.”

  Sadie looked at Miss Churchill, whom no one could admire for her fashion sense. The woman looked like a Quaker, all in gray with a very depressing bonnet on her white curls.

  “I—I can sew, if I have suitable fabric,” Sadie offered. So what if she’d never made an entire dress—she’d been resourceful all her life. She’d tailored these trousers, hadn’t she? If she wound up resembling Miss Churchill during her stay here, she really would go mad.

  Chapter 4

  Of all the bedeviling nuisances. Tristan installed his charge at Sykes House, with orders for a hot bath for his unwanted company to get the grime off her. He didn’t care what she put on afterward, as long as it wasn’t those scandalous trousers.

  But he wouldn’t see her anyway. He wasn’t about to dine with the madwoman every evening. He’d go mad himself.

  Tristan stomped off to the garden folly that he’d turned into his own home. The ingeniousness of the Sykes’s Rococo-style pleasure gardens had been known far and wide across the land since 1757, when they had received their first formal visitor. Even Farmer George, King George III, had come once to discuss heritage vegetables and roses with Tristan’s great-grandfather before the monarch had gone cuckoo.

  In fact, the late king was something of an inspiration to the villagers. His mysterious illness had given them the idea to open up as a rest spa without the filthy-tasting mineral water. Puddling was a calming sort of place—nothing to do, nowhere to go. A place of quiet and reflection and great natural beauty. The steepness of the hills was ideal for healthful exercise, the weather clement, the air fresh, unspoiled from the black belch of factories.

  Several people were encouraged to open up their weavers’ cottages to paying Guests, and the simplicity of the surroundings were a balm to the over-stimulated, over-fed and over-bred sons and daughters of the nobility. One could think here, and repent of youthful and embarrassing indiscretions.

  Word of mouth spread quickly, and soon the village’s coffers were full of insurance money from Britain’s first families designed to reserve a spot, if necessary. Lunatics could turn up in any generation, and it was best to be prepared.

  In 1807, Tristan’s own paternal grandmother, Lady Maribel de Winter, the Duke of Huntington’s youngest daughter, was consigned here. She had vociferously objected to being housed in a humble weaver’s cottage, and wound up in Sykes House.

  Where she promptly drove Tristan’s grandfather to distraction, then marriage.

  History would not repeat itself if Tristan could help it.

  He forged up his path. It always cheered him to see the red Jacobean folly on the hill. When they were boys, Tristan and Wallace had thought it a great lark to take turns sleeping in the various quaint outbuildings scattered throughout the gardens, but the Red House had always been Tristan’s favorite.

  It had never been intended for full-time occupation—in fact, Tristan could remember his
grandmother and mother taking tea there with their friends, a chamber pot tucked discreetly behind an Indian screen and servants running back and forth to the main house for extra lemon slices and cakes.

  But when Tristan had returned to Puddling after the debacle with Linnet, he sought privacy. Sir Bertram had always been an interfering sort of father, and now he had even more reason. He’d lost one son, and wanted to make sure the surviving one upheld the Sykes banner, especially after Tristan’s scandalous divorce.

  But the man had meddled enough in Tristan’s affairs. It had suited Tristan to use his design skills to expand the folly and make the little building a home. And to see Sykes House at the far, far end of the wide sweep of gardens. He was always welcome to use the house’s amenities, but even now that his father was abroad, he rarely stopped in.

  Tristan was rather grubby himself. After he’d gotten the women settled under Dr. Oakley’s care earlier, he’d helped the villagers fight the fire. Tristan sniffed his sleeve. He was afraid his clothes were now fit for the burn pile.

  He was greeted by his valet-cum-butler-cum-cook, Anstruther, whom Tristan had stolen—liberated, really—from the main house a few months prior. The two of them lived rather simply in their five rooms, which suited them both.

  Sykes House’s formal entrance was about a mile from Puddling proper, but most of the servants summoned by the bells of St. Jude had dashed down the shortcut through the estate’s back gate. Anstruther had done his share, and had changed into a fresh set of clothing from the last time Tristan had seen him.

  “I have a bath ready for you, Mr. Tristan. But it may have cooled. What took you so long to get home?”

  “A meeting with the governors about the madwoman. Lady Sarah. I had to bring her here.”

  “Here?” Anstruther was plainly aghast.

  “Not here here. She’s at Sykes House. You needn’t have any contact with her. I don’t plan to.”

  Anstruther was, on the whole, not especially fond of women, including his own wife Mrs. Anstruther, the housekeeper-cook at Sykes House. He was much relieved to be away from her and happy to be in Tristan’s bachelor quarters.

  Tristan was sure there was a secret story somewhere, but as he had one of his own, didn’t pry. Marriage was usually until death, and if one were ill-matched, death would be preferable. As far as he knew, the Anstruthers had not spoken in a couple of years, which had made things a touch awkward in the servants’ hall. The old butler had jumped at the chance to defect to smaller quarters with fewer responsibilities.

  “I’d like some tea. No, make that a whiskey,” Tristan said, untying and unbuttoning as he went to the bathing chamber. A quick look in the mirror told him a bath was most definitely in order. His face was as black as a chimneysweep’s. No wonder Miss Churchill had handed him her lace-edged handkerchief.

  “If you have no further need of me, Mr. Tristan, I shall pick some fresh lettuce to go along with your supper.”

  Tristan waved him away. The vegetable garden was directly outside Sykes House’s kitchen door. Maybe Anstruther wished to catch a glimpse of his estranged wife and stick his tongue out at her.

  Tristan tossed his clothes in a corner and sank into the tub, not much minding that the temperature had cooled. There was a great deal to think about.

  Perhaps three Guest cottages were not sufficient, especially given that an emergency might occur, like today. Stonecrop was the newest and most up-to-date, the most desirable; the others were eighteenth-century buildings with fewer amenities and reserved for less particular and exalted Guests.

  The Puddling Rehabilitation Foundation prided itself on attentive, appropriate care, but there was no reason the governors couldn’t monitor five Guests rather than three. The waiting list for Puddling’s special services was extensive. Not that Tristan thought the village should be running a hospital—that would rather defeat the purpose of individual, tailor-made care. But surely a few more modern cottages would improve the quality of residency, and, more to the point, increase the villagers’ income. It was share and share alike here—every Puddlingite received an annual bonus for simply living within Puddling’s boundaries.

  Sipping his drink, he cast his mind about for vacant lots and land close enough to the center of the village. Keeping an eye on the Guests was a group effort, and no cog was too small. Even the schoolchildren had their role to play.

  Could Reverend Fitzmartin handle the additional responsibility? The man was almost eighty. For the first time, Tristan doubted his decision to hire him.

  But if Fitzmartin wasn’t up to it, the plain fact was the man wouldn’t live forever, may God forgive Tristan for borrowing trouble. Or perhaps an assistant could be hired. A young curate who wanted to make his mark, who would see the opportunity for his career. Many a Puddling padre had advanced in the church, being silent repositories of society’s juiciest scandals.

  Tristan could draw up some plans. Not charge for his services, of course. Simplicity was best, but a few harmless flourishes—

  He was getting ahead of himself. He’d have to run any proposal by the governors, and they might think he was being too ambitious.

  He ducked his head under the tepid water, scrubbing his hair with the bar of soap and rinsing. When he popped back up, the soap slipped straight from his fingers with a splash.

  “What the blazes are you doing here? Anstruther!”

  “If you mean that cadaverous old man, I saw him clear across the lawn. He was carrying a basket, heading toward the main house.” Lady Sarah was sitting on the towels that were placed on a wooden chair. His towels. The towels he most desperately needed just now.

  She adjusted them beneath her bottom. At least she was no longer wearing a pair of gentleman’s pants, but he couldn’t say her dress was becoming. It was so...brown. “He left the front door wide open, you know.”

  Tristan counted to ten. He suspected it would only amuse her if he went off like a rocket. “Lady Sarah, my door is always open to you. But perhaps now is not the time for a little chat.”

  “I didn’t know you lived here. I thought it was a garden folly.”

  “It used to be. How may I help you, Lady Sarah?”

  She looked about. “It’s rather charming.”

  “I find it so.” Tristan counted to twenty. “It may have come to your attention that I am presently in my bathtub.”

  “Yes, I see that. Your housekeeper helped me with mine. She is much nicer than Mrs. Grace.”

  Tristan resolved to speak to the woman at the earliest opportunity to be nastier.

  Once he had clothes on.

  Lady Sarah frowned. “Her name is Anstruther too, I believe.”

  “That is correct.” A wave of gooseflesh marched up his neck and into his scalp.

  “Is she your man’s wife? Or his sister?”

  “Lady Sarah, I will be happy to discuss the relationship status and genealogy of every single member of my staff at another time. It cannot have entirely escaped your notice that I am naked. In my bath.” His hands were now beneath the water where they needed to be.

  “So you are. And right where I want you so you can’t run away or fob me off. I thought we should get a few things ironed out.”

  “And what might they be?” Tristan ground out. He longed for a very hot iron to toss in her direction.

  “My routine. Who is to monitor me?”

  Even before Mrs. Grace set the kitchen on fire, she had fallen down on her job. Someone should have been with the madwoman at all times, accompanying her on her walks. Lady Sarah Marchmain was not to be trusted. Those tartan trousers were proof of that.

  “I will inquire. It was more important to find you a place to stay. I trust Sykes House is suitable?” The Sykes family might not own a duchy, but no one could find fault with the comfort and decoration of the manor house.

  “It’s all right. Nice enough. The gardens are exquisite.”

  Ignoring her first two senten
ces, Tristan felt a surge of pride. The gardens were exquisite because of his efforts, but he wasn’t going to claim credit. Nor did he wish to discuss gardening when he was bollocky bare-ass.

  “If that is all then? I am sure you could use the time before dinner to become more settled. The library is at your disposal, of course.”

  “Will you be joining me? For dinner, I mean?”

  Tristan heard a tiny bit of wistfulness in her voice, but he stuck to his guns. “I’m afraid not. I have other plans.” He was eating fresh lettuce.

  By himself.

  “Just as well. I have nothing to wear.”

  “You’ve got something on now,” Tristan pointed out.

  “Mrs. Anstruther persuaded one of the maids to lend me a dress. I know it’s probably her best. But look.” She pointed to her feet. No, her ankles. Actually, her calves. The madwoman was showing quite a bit of leg. None of the Sykes servants were as tall as Lady Sarah, not even the men.

  “You can hem it or something. Didn’t you say you sewed?”

  “Are you absolutely, positively sure you cannot take me shopping? I don’t think my father would like to know I was in a servant’s castoffs. They might depress me and cause me to do something I shouldn’t.”

  Like invade a man’s bathing chamber. Tristan wondered what her “depression” might lead her to do next.

  “We’ll see.”

  She leaped up, clapping her hands. “Oh, goody! You are not as horrible as I thought you were. I’ll be ready at nine tomorrow morning. Unless that is too early for you. Stroud is the closest town, isn’t it? And I expect the Puddling Rehabilitation Foundation will pick up the tab, as it was Mrs. Grace’s negligence that caused me to lose all my beautiful things.”

  “If they were so beautiful, why have you been strutting around in men’s trousers since Sunday?” Tristan asked.

  Point, Sykes.

  Chapter 5

  Sadie sat back down, enjoying how his face went from smug to dismayed.