“Plan to live up to your moniker, do you?” she asked blithely as if she hadn’t a care in the world.
“The cripple of Talavera?” he bit off, turned and walked toward his chair.
When he was seated, she looked at him with ferocious resolve. All the better to hide the tears she wished to shed over his deplorable physical state. Darling, how hurt you are. “I meant the term the ton dubs you. ‘Difficult’.”
He brandished a hand as he fell backward into his huge over-stuffed chair. “Yes. See him now. The Difficult Colonel. The Scourge of Talavera. So difficult he cannot even rid himself of a pesky chit with silly ideas in her head.”
I will not be insulted. Or deterred. Sniffing, Lacy removed her bonnet. With it came a few of her hairpins and the fall of her platinum hair about her shoulders. Wonderful. She had planned its cascade, just like that. Wes loved her hair. Among other attributes. She planned to use every one of them in her assault on the famous colonel whom she had loved at first sight.
“Lacy,” he sounded so weary. “You must not stay.”
Smiling to herself, she strode to the large table on which a few books lay spread open and put down her hat. Then she began to unbutton her coat. “You cannot make me go, Wes.”
He ran a hand through his auburn hair. “Do not remove any more clothing, Lacy!”
She let her coat drift from her shoulders and slung it over a nearby chair. Today, she’d donned the blue serge gown that matched her eyes. These were one of her assets with him, and she was no fool when it came to men’s attentiveness to her. Especially Wesley Stanhope’s. From the moment she’d seen him at his brother Adam’s house last April, Lacy had known the dashing colonel instantly, completely. Understood him, too. She had proven it that first night they met when she found him in his brother’s library and kissed him. Now, it remained for her to prove it to him. And sadly, military man that he was, he was too bull headed to see that she knew what was best for him. Me, of course.
She walked toward him.
Finally, she stood fore-square before him. He was so huge and she so much shorter that facing him while he sat, she was only a head taller. The height was one she would employ. She gazed down at him, her resolve to be resolute with him dwindling as she took in how sallow his skin, how bleary his eye and how lax his bad arm. “I will not leave you, darling.”
“Lacy.” He winced. Whether from physical pain or mental torture, she could not decide.
“No good can come of this. I cannot marry you. Will not.”
She put her hands on her hips. “Why not?” Say it! Once! Then we will be done with this fantasy of denial!
“Look at me!” He swept out a hand.
“I am, my love.”
His eye squeezed shut. “I am ugly.”
“Handsome.”
“Blinded!”
“In one eye.”
“My left arm is broken.”
“Was broken.”
He huffed. “My left leg is twisted and painful to walk on.”
“We can correct that with—”
He shot up from his chair to tower over her. “No. We. Cannot!” He teetered on his feet.
She caught him with two hands to his upper arms. “I must.”
“You are mad, woman, to think you can—”
So she leaned up on tiptoes and kissed him. His mouth, so firm and strong, held for a split second, then melted to hers. She wrapped her arms around his and held him, steady and fierce, as she caressed his mouth with her desire for him.
“Lacy,” he murmured as he broke away and stared down into her eyes. “Lacy, you must not do this.”
She brushed her lips on his. “What will you do, Colonel Stanhope?” She leaned up and spread tiny kisses along his lower lip and to the corner where his dimple marked his left cheek—
near the endearing scar. “Have Charles throw me out?”
“I will have him take you to town. Get you a room in the inn. Arrange to put you on tomorrow’s coach back to London.”
“The roads are closed,” she told him with immense satisfaction. “The rain is horrible. I had to pay the coachman double just to bring me here from town.” She nuzzled her nose along the corded column of his throat and placed her mouth to the hollow there where his pulse beat frantically. “And I daresay, you have no coach here. I cannot ride a horse to town in this rain. So you see I am here on your doorstep, darling. Give over.” And then she kissed him sweetly.
He steadied himself, braced his legs wide and wrapped her close. This near, her stomach fit into the hollow of his loins. Her eyes drifted shut.
He lifted her chin with two fingers. “Christ, you are so lovely. So determined. Some smart man must have danced attendance on you while I was in Spain.” He combed her hair back from her cheeks and let his fingers descend through the length of her curls, down to her waist. “I am no man for you.”
She nestled closer and felt the proof that his statement was definitely false. “I’ve come to prove you are just that.”
With one arm, he clutched her so fiercely that he nearly lifted her off her feet. His mouth on hers, he groaned. “What once was a good match is now an impossibility.”
“You are still my Wes. Still wise and witty, young and—”
He shook her. “Ancient with the stench of death about me! The men I killed. The men who fought with me and died. My horse! Gutted by cannon fire. Me! A wreck of a man.”
“But alive,” she argued so rationally, she might have been in Inns of Court.
“Ba!” He set her to her feet and pivoted from her to lumber toward the casement window then open it. Chill autumn air breezed in with the smell of wood fires and burnished foliage.
“You will listen to me and do as I say.”
“I am not one of your men, Wes.” She had come armed with her logic. “I am the woman you love. The one you proposed to before you left for Spain. I am your match. Your equal. Now and in all things. I mean for you to be my husband.”
“You are meant for a man who can do his husbandly duty.”
“To bed me? Darling, I just felt evidence that you are capable of that!”
He turned, a snarl curling his upper lip. “Fuck you? Aye, I could. Now. Here. But not well.”
His coarse word thrilled her, but she knew he used it to repel her. She smiled because he couldn’t. “How do you know until you try?”
He shook his head. “I could have you where we stand, I daresay. For some mad reason, I seem to want that with you.” He raked his hair. “But I mean more than possessing you, Lacy. I mean providing for you. Crippled as I now am, I earn less income. I have no means to support you, dear girl. I am pensioned. A pitiful sum it is, too. Furthermore, I am never to return to service.”
“You do not know that. You—”
“Look. At. Me.” He glared at her with his one good eye. “How can I lead my men now? I could not see half of them!” He touched his patch. “I will never again wield a sword!” He raised his left arm only as high as his shoulder. “Be reasonable!”
“So you won’t return to the King’s Hussars. So you have only a pension. I have money.
A dowry. You would have accepted it before. You can take it now.”
“No!” He banged his cane down into the carpet. “How can I hold my head up if you provide our income?”
“Oh, damn, Wesley. How many men live off the incomes of their wealthier wives?
Hundreds! Money knows no gender.”
“My manhood does.”
She couldn’t help but grin at him. “Yes, your manhood knew my gender a few minutes ago, and the recognition had nothing to do with my money!”
“You are stubborn as hell!”
She preened. “Precisely. A perfect match for you, Difficult.”
“Lacy. I will not marry you. Ever. Accept it.”
She lifted her chin at him. “And I will not leave you. Ever. Accept it.”
“If you stay, dear girl, the rumors will kill you. No man will ever
have you.”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “You will.”
“Everyone will conclude you live in sin with me.”
“I conclude that if you will not make me your wife, I will make you my lover.”
His eyes danced down her form. “Lacy, my god. Do not do this. I am not worthy of you.
Not now. Perhaps, I never was.”
“Absurd! You were always and still are worthy of me.”
“If I was before, there was still the Stanhope family curse.”
“Rubbish. I hear your brother Adam and his new wife now claim the curse does not exist.”
“Perhaps for them this is true. But now, for you and me?” He glared at her and her heart broke with the sorrow she saw beneath his gruff façade. “The curse would destroy both of us.
There is too much against us.”
“You love me,” she insisted and knew her petulance was not the way to argue with him here. She had to sound impervious to his ranting and remain unaffected by his words.
“There you see! The first characteristic of the curse. The partners profess to care for each other.”
She inhaled, catching up her own courage in the process. “I care nothing for your family history. I know you love me. I love you. And we shall be together! Now. Here. Always.”
He snorted. “We cannot. You must go.”
How to wheedle my way in here and stay? She held her arms akimbo. “How will you dispose of me? The weather conspires to defeat you.”
His face crumbled.
What had she said? She scrambled for a lifeline. She could not be defeated now. “I am here until the rain stops and the roads are open.”
He shook his head and walked away. His shoulders sagged.
She advanced. “While I am here, you must let me help you. For all we were to each other, you owe me that.”
“Perhaps. But do not delude yourself. I am not well, Lacy. Besides,” he ground out,
“What can you do in a few hours?”
Pray god, it is more than that. “I’ll show you! Give me the running of your house.”
“What?” He chuckled. “Darling, I think you have gone daft.”
She strode toward him, ran her hands up over the massive chest and corded muscles that had made her mouth water months ago. Now, she felt how he had lost strength from disuse and malaise. She would make him what he had been. In body. Mind. And heart.
“Yes, my love.” She reached up and sweetly kissed him once upon his stern mouth. “I am mad for you, Wes. Tell Charles I am in charge.”
“He won’t take kindly to that.”
“I know.” She could have predicted that the butler would take umbrage at her command.
But she’d also seen something else in the servant’s eyes. Something she could use. Desire. And if she had to, she would persuade Charles to her own ends. Anything, everything, to make Wes whole again. And hers. “But he will agree, won’t he, for a few hours, as you say? And I need his help. Tell him that whatever I want I must have.”
“And when the rains stop, you will leave.” It was not a question but a demand.
She smiled a tiny concession. For now. “I will go.”
“Charles?” Wes called for his man.
This time, Lacy paid more attention to the tall, well-proportioned blond who walked into the great room of the old lodge. Wes’ long time companion and servant on the battlefield was perhaps five or more years older than his master. With broad shoulders and a lean torso, Charles had a certain likeness to Wes about the eyes and mouth that made Lacy wonder if Charles were a by-blow of Wes’ father. That man, the Earl of Stanhope, was renowned for his many wives, mistresses and conquests of servant girls. If Charles was a Stanhope by blood, that would bind him to his master in ways that might be advantageous to Lacy. If his heritage made Charles more amenable to helping her save Wes, then so be it. She would avail herself of whatever familial devotion Charles possessed.
“Lady Featherstone refuses to leave,” Wes told him.
Charles, who had been drying a glass with a towel, paused to consider Lacy. “We can put her in the bedroom upstairs in the back.”
“Is it near the Colonel’s bedroom, Charles?” she asked, cool as lemonade in June.
“No, my lady.”
“I wish to be placed in a bedroom adjoining his.”
Wes arched a dark auburn brow. “Lacy, that is not proper.”
“My very presence is not proper, Wes. And you have agreed that I have the run of the house.” She glanced at Charles. “Do you sleep with the Colonel?”
Charles blinked. “Sometimes, when he has the nightmares, I stay, yes.”
“Where?”
“Where, my lady?”
She nodded, looking impervious to his shock.
“In the trundle, under the—”
She waved a hand and smiled like the mistress of the house. “There will be no more need for you to trouble yourself.”
“That,” Charles said with finality, “is my duty.”
“Now, it is mine.”
Wes looked as if he had just swallowed an elephant. Shock and surprise warred with laughter as he told his man, “Charles, you must do as the lady requires.”
“Thank you, Wes.” She beamed at him then turned a consoling gaze on Charles that she knew usually had men hanging on her every word. “I appreciate your help, Charles. My purpose is to ensure that the Colonel has every comfort and every delight available to him to recover fully.”
Charles took in her lips, her eyes, her hair. If he had listened in on Wes’ and her conversation from the other room, he knew that they had kissed. Her lips were swollen with their kisses. Her eyes were bright with the promise of sensual delights to come. Her hair was down, a pale blonde cloud of curls upon her shoulders and draping the tips of her breasts. She was ripe for an affair.
Charles’ blue eyes sparked with his intuitive knowledge of it.
Her breasts blossomed with it.
At once, she concluded she had been so right to come here. To challenge Wes. To make him kiss her and caress her. Make him see reason and passion. She would make him so happy, so excited, so healthy again, that he would take her to his arms and his bed. He would make love to her. But he was stubborn, and this would take time and ingenuity. So if she had to cajole Wes in ways that might be a bit unusual for a lady of society, she would.
Charles would comply.
And Wes would hurry to marry her.
Chapter Three
That night, she rose from the supper table as Wes finished his meal, rubbed his eye patch and his one good eye. She had ordered the fires built higher in the old lodge, and the temperature in this nook of the great hall was cozy. Wes needed the warmth to kill the chill in his bones and muscles. That plus hearty food would help her on her mission to restore him to his former self.
She smiled at him. “Wait here, Wes. I will help you to your room. I wish to speak with Charles and will return in a minute.”
She picked up Wes’ plate and wine glass. Charles swept to one side to let her pass, his role as butler usurped by her.
She hastened off to the kitchen, thinking Charles a decent cook but lacking an imagination with which to embellish the meat and potatoes. Cabbage didn’t help his repertoire, either. When he appeared in the kitchen, his hands full of her plate and glass, she told him she would help him cook tomorrow night’s meal.
“I did not know ladies could cook,” he told her, part challenge, part question.
“I can,” she informed him with aplomb. “When I was a child, I loved our cook. She was a kindly woman, full of stories as she baked cookies and pies and dressed foul. I learned much as I sat there, watching and asking her questions. She died last year, and I miss her still. But I remember her each time I enter a kitchen.”
Charles’ expression went lax. Clearly stunned by her familiarity, he frowned. “I ordered a pig from the butcher last week. It should come in the morning.”
Trying to chan
ge the subject and keep your authority? “Wonderful. But I want fresh fish for tomorrow night’s meal. Do buy three nice trout. Or a large salmon. I want fresh rosemary and thyme, too, for a stuffing.”
“Yes, m’lady.” He turned away and caught up a bucket to get fresh water from the well in back of the smokehouse.
“I’m going upstairs, Charles, to read to the Colonel. There will be no need for you to assist us tonight.” Or any night hereafter.
A tick worked in the corner of Charles’ right eye. If Lacy had doubted Charles was of Stanhope blood, she did not now. Good-looking devil. But not my devil. She grinned at him and bid him sleep well.
Finding the dining room deserted, she grew miffed that Wes had managed the stairs alone. Without her. So. You mean to escape me. Not so, my love.
Catching up a book form the reading table, she made her way up the broad wooden staircase and adjourned to her bedroom. She shut her hall door with a resounding thud, intending to give notice to Wes she was here. Ever here. Not going anywhere.
With haste, she hustled to step from her gown and undo her chemise. The stays were such a bother, and she muttered in her consternation. When she was naked, she rubbed her hands over her breasts and down her ribs to her waist and the smooth curve of her hips. Her eyes closed as she caressed her nipples, one by one then pinched her soft areolas in glee.
You are about to have Wesley Stanhope.
She sighed. Delighted with herself. Her courage. She leaned over to view herself in the damn tiny mirror on the dresser. So much for the furnishings in old hunting lodges where women were never expected to stay for long! She grinned that she was here and ready for her own assault. Then she brushed her hair to a high sheen and finally reached for her Chinese silk robe of peach and ivory. This last was the jewel of the carefully selected wardrobe she’d brought with her, all chosen to entice Wes. To make him see reason.
She swirled, grabbed the book and made for the connecting door. Then she flung it open.
He sat on the edge of his large feather bed. The high fire Charles had built in the hearth blazed, accenting Wes’ auburn hair with flames of red and gold. Struggling to remove his shirt, he shot his head around when she suddenly appeared at his side. “Hell, Lacy. Stop this. Go get Charles.”
Lady Featherstone's Fervent Affair Page 2
