by Shana Galen
For the sake of Lady Lorraine’s virtue, Ewan hoped that he could.
Thirteen
“I missed you,” Lorrie said as soon as the Viking stepped into the library. She’d attended a rout with him tonight, and though he’d always been within reach, between the games and the conversations about this poet or that novel, she hadn’t been able to speak to him alone. Finally, six hours later, she could say the one thing she’d wanted.
The Viking took the seat opposite her, across from the desk. He wore the same clothes he had to the rout, sans cravat and with his coat draped negligently over his arm. Now he dumped that coat on the chair. She should probably worry that she had grown used to seeing him in this state of undress, but privately she liked the informality.
“I’m sure you didn’t miss me at all.” She hadn’t expected him to claim to miss her too, but some response might have been polite. She busied herself stacking the papers he’d brought with him. “You probably had better things to do than listen to me read contracts and reports, although the surveyors’ report on the estate in Yorkshire was rather well written. I’d like to see the house one day. It sounds very pretty.”
“My father can’t pay the mortgage, so it soon won’t be ours.”
“Yes, well.” The papers were straight, and she had run out of ways to occupy herself. Lorrie chanced a look at the Viking. “We had a very quiet evening last night. My father and I played chess. I’m horrible at chess because I talk myself through every move and then my opponent discovers my strategy—if I even have a strategy, that is. I suppose you occupied yourself doing the things war heroes do when they aren’t guarding silly girls like me. Invaded a small country or saved an old woman from a burning building.”
“I went to my club.”
Lorrie dropped the pen she’d been about to trim. “You have a club?”
He made a sound of assent.
“Like Boodles or White’s?”
“No. The Draven Club.”
“Oh, that one. Yes, I hadn’t thought of it as a club, I suppose.” She sat and leaned her hand on her chin. “And what do you do there? Gamble and tell old war stories?”
“We have an excellent cook.”
She laughed. “Of course you do. You would not go otherwise. Did you have an enjoyable evening?” She was certain he did, and she didn’t want to hear how much he’d enjoyed himself away from her. “I really don’t know why I should have missed you so much.” She stared at the fire, speaking almost to herself. That was easy to do since he was such a good listener. She cleared her throat and met his clear gaze. “I went to bed early and then I couldn’t sleep, which meant I had time to think about your family’s predicament. There must be some solution, some way to save the family. Your brothers are not married. What if one of them married an heiress?”
“Are you volunteering?”
“No.” Her hands began to straighten the papers again. “If I’m not to marry Francis, I suppose I would rather go home to Beauchamp Priory. I miss my friends and my work at the school.”
“You like it,” he said.
“The school? I suppose I do, though it can be quite drafty in the winter, and I do wish the chairs were a bit larger.”
“I mean you like teaching,” he said after she had closed her mouth.
“Oh. I don’t know. I suppose—”
He made a slashing gesture with his hand. “You do. Why did you decide to help that boy?”
“Martin?” Being a creature of abrupt changes in subject, she never minded them. “Oh, well, the village teacher didn’t seem to have any extra time for him, and his father is a farmer, so I knew Martin would have to help with the harvest and might not ever come back to school if he didn’t show any progress—”
“Lorraine.”
She stilled. No one called her Lorraine without “Lady” before it. Her friends and family had always called her Lorrie. “You used my Christian name.”
He nodded. “It seemed the best way to make you stop talking. And here”—he gestured to the library—“it doesn’t seem necessary to use titles.”
Not that she ever used a title with him. She always thought of him as the Viking. “Then I should call you Ewan?”
He gave her that half smile she liked so much, one that said the idea pleased him. “Why did you go to help at the school?”
“Oh, I see.” She had to think back to what had motivated her to go to the school that first time. “I suppose I wanted something to do. Something besides paying calls and embroidering handkerchiefs. My grandmother was alive then, and she would always tell me that a noble family, such as ours, had a responsibility to its tenants and indeed to the county and the country itself. She was a great benefactress of the hospital, but I have never been very good at a sickbed.”
“Really?”
She narrowed her eyes. “I do believe you are teasing me…Ewan.” The name felt quite delicious on her tongue, soft and lazy—very much unlike the man himself.
“I suppose originally I intended to see what I might do for the school—sew lace curtains for the window or some such thing—but after I made the curtains and spent more time there, it became clear what the students really needed was more attention. Well, I had all of this education from my governesses over the years, and the children seemed to like me, so I began to spend more and more time there when I was in the country. After a while, I went every day, and when Mr. Fletcher worked with the upper-level students, I worked with the lower-level ones, and then we would trade places.”
“Do you miss it here in London?”
“Sometimes, but I like the social whirl too. When I’m in the country, I sometimes miss London. One grows tired of dining with the same eight families all year. And then at the close of the Season, one is tired of all the great to-do and happy to return to the quiet of the country.”
“And my cousin is able to support the continuation of this lifestyle?”
She frowned. Who was he… “Oh, you mean Francis.” She felt her cheeks heat. What was wrong with her? She loved Francis. How could she forget about him even for an instant?
“I have told him I don’t really care about all of that. I just want to be with him, but he wants to please me, of course. That is why we will have to wait and marry with my father’s blessing and the dowry.”
“I wouldn’t wait.” He sat back, crossing his arms over his chest.
Lorrie became momentarily distracted by the way the muscles of his arms seemed to swell under the thin linen. “You wouldn’t?” she said absently.
“If you were mine, I wouldn’t wait a day.”
Lorrie blinked and looked away from his biceps. “If I were…yours?”
“If a woman loved me as you love Francis, and I loved her in return, I wouldn’t wait for permission. I take what I want.”
“You take it.” Her voice sounded rather faint. She actually felt rather faint, or at least strangely dizzy. She cleared her throat. “But a woman—a bride—is not a city under siege or a new saber one wishes to acquire. You cannot simply take a woman.”
“Don’t you want to be taken?”
Oh, yes, she did. But Lorrie wasn’t even certain what they were discussing any longer.
“By my cousin, I mean. Don’t you want him to take you to wife?”
“I…” She should say yes. To do any less would be disloyal to Francis, but she had seen some rather unflattering aspects of Francis just lately. Honestly, she didn’t know what she wanted anymore. “I don’t know.”
His expression never changed. “Then what do you want?”
Her head had begun to spin. “For a man who doesn’t speak very much, you certainly have a lot of questions tonight.”
“Questions you avoid answering.”
“Perhaps it’s your turn to answer a question.”
He raised one shoulder as though he ha
d nothing at all to hide.
“Very well, then.” What did she want to know about him? Correction—what did she want to know that she could ask him here and now? “Why don’t you like to wear neckcloths?”
His brows came together, and he gingerly raised a hand to his exposed neck. “Have you ever worn a cravat?”
“No.”
“They’re deuced uncomfortable.”
“And you think my corset and the hairpins poking me all day are comfortable?”
“I have no idea. But I feel as though I can’t breathe or swallow in this.” He lifted the strip of linen, which looked quite limp. “Do you want to see how it feels?”
“Very well. You won’t ask to borrow my corset later, will you?”
“Absolutely not.”
“Good.” She held her hand out for the linen. “I had an uncle who—” She stopped speaking when she noticed he was coming toward her. “What are you doing?”
“I will tie it on you. You’ve never tied one before, and you won’t know how.”
“Oh.”
“Stand.”
She did, and he stood before her, looping the neckcloth around her exposed throat. She was level with his chest, and she stared at the row of buttons that led from the middle of his chest to his neck. The first was undone, revealing a patch of skin. She had the strangest desire to taste that skin. She wanted to taste him. She could smell his scent, the light aroma of forest and wild lands on his hands and the shirt near her face. Or perhaps the scent lingered on the cloth he tied about her neck.
He tightened it and began to tug it and loop it.
“Your uncle liked to dress in women’s underthings?” he asked evenly.
“What? Oh.” Her face felt hot, and she did not think the heat came solely from the inappropriate topic of conversation. “I cannot be certain, but once, I overheard my aunt and my mother speaking. My aunt complained that Teddy—that is my uncle—stretched all her chemises and corsets, and she didn’t understand why he wouldn’t buy them in his own size if he insisted on wearing them.” She glanced up at his face, but his gaze was on her throat. “Does that shock you? It shocked me.”
“Nothing shocks me anymore. Your uncle sounds harmless.”
“I suppose he is.” She swallowed as Ewan adjusted the cravat a last time.
He stepped back to admire his efforts. “I’m not as proficient as some.”
She touched the material, seeing the elaborate style of it with her fingers. “It’s not so bad. I imagine you become used to it.”
“I don’t. The longer I wear one, the tighter it feels. I imagine hands closing on my throat and squeezing until I cannot breathe.”
The neckcloth seemed to grow tighter with his words. He reached toward her neck, and she half feared he would draw the material tighter, but instead he yanked it loose.
“A memory from your days in the army?”
“One of the few times I thought I would fail in my task. In Draven’s troop, if you failed, you were dead. The missions left no room for error.” As he spoke, he unwound the cloth from her neck. “One of the enemy caught me unaware and choked me until I was unconscious. He must have thought I was dead and left me. When I awoke it was to Beaumont’s pretty face and a bucket of cold water.”
“That sounds rather unpleasant.”
“Not as unpleasant as death.”
He pulled the cloth away from her throat, slowly, far more slowly than was necessary, and the teasing material made gooseflesh appear on her arms.
“And that is why you do not wear a cravat,” she whispered.
His hand replaced the material of the cravat, sliding up her neck and then down to finger the lace at the top of her night rail. Lorrie held her breath, feeling the warmth of his fingers so close to the flesh of her breast.
“Any more questions?”
“Why do you hate Francis so?” she said, without thinking. Who could think with a man like him so close?
Immediately, she wished she hadn’t asked him. All the warmth fled from his eyes, and she felt as though a bucket of ice water had been thrown over her.
His hand dropped away from her. “That is in the past.”
“I don’t think so.” She should stop talking now. He obviously did not wish to speak of this, but her mouth often moved without the consent of her brain. “He seems to bear you quite a lot of animosity, and I do believe the feeling is mutual.”
He leaned back against her father’s desk, his thighs resting on the edge. “You wouldn’t believe me, even if I told you.”
“It is hard to know what to believe when I only have one side of the story.”
He gave her a long, assessing look. He’d seemed to open up to her the past few evenings. He’d spoken more, been silent less, even offered answers containing more than yes or no. Lorrie did not need to be told she was beginning to see a side of him few ever did. And so many foolish people considered him a dumb brute. They didn’t know he could make sharp retorts or witty observations or clever ripostes. In short, they didn’t know him at all, and the truth was, neither did she.
But she wanted to know him.
The silence had gone on for several moments, and she couldn’t stop herself from breaking it. “Perhaps you think that because your father always believed Francis, that everyone else will too. But I’ve always known you to be truthful. Give me a chance.”
His hands, which had been resting on the edge of the desk, lifted and fell again as though in indecision. “There are a hundred reasons I hate my cousin, all of them small and petty. It’s the whole of them together, more than one incident, that makes me hate him.”
He didn’t trust her. She could see the wariness in his eyes, the way his lids lowered and his pale lashes veiled those ice-blue depths.
“Tell me one reason you hate him. Give me one incident. I know about the letter he had your father send and his role in this swindle.” She ticked off her fingers. “You need only give me ninety-eight more examples for me to understand as well as you.”
He barked out a low laugh. “You should have been a general. You are relentless.”
She straightened her shoulders. “My governess always told my parents my persistence would be an asset when I grew older.”
He looked dubious. “I will tell you one incident.”
She nodded eagerly, backing up until she sat in her father’s chair. She had known he would never tell her eight incidents, much less ninety-eight, but this was something. “Go on.”
He closed his eyes, the image of defeat. “I used to carve wood figures.”
* * *
Her expression of eager anticipation turned to one of skepticism. “Wood figures? I thought this was a tale of your childhood with Francis.”
“If you want me to tell it, you shall have to stop speaking for a moment.”
She closed her lips and pretended to lock them. Ordinarily, such a gesture would annoy him, but just like everything else she did, he found it slightly adorable. She had a way of worming under his skin until he told her things he had not intended. He hadn’t wanted to share his father’s predicament with her, but he had anyway. He hadn’t meant to tell her how much he desired her, but he’d confided that as well. She was the first person he had ever met to whom he genuinely enjoyed speaking.
Correction: She was the only person he’d ever met to whom he enjoyed speaking.
“As I said, I used to carve wooden figures. I’m good with my hands.” He glanced down at his hands, trying not to think about how good he’d been at using them to cut off the life of enemy soldiers. “When I was a boy, I carved about seventy-five or a hundred soldiers out of wood.” He had carved eighty-three, but she did not need to know the exact number.
“Goodness. Just the soldiers or the horses and cannons too?”
“Mainly infantry, but some cavalry and
cannons as well.” It had taken him hours to carve the figures over several years. Not that the time to complete the task had mattered. He was alone most of the time after he’d been sent home from school. Occasionally his father would hire a new tutor who made an effort for several weeks to teach him, but the men all gave up eventually. And so he’d had time to carve. He’d made each soldier unique, giving him a name and a facial expression as well as specific hair color and eye color. He’d even made up a history for each soldier, devising previous battles and heroic acts for his little men.
He’d known each of their names and ranks, and he loved nothing more than ordering them in various lines where he could pretend they were marching or moving into battle formations. It had been his only source of pleasure as a child, since he could not read and had no playmates.
“My brothers and Francis had been home from school on a break.” He hardly remembered which one now. But the other children rarely invited him to play with them, and as they were all older than he, they teased him for still playing with toys. “And I had left my soldiers in the garden when we’d been called in for a meal. The little men had been in formation, and I’d planned a great battle for them. It was one of the few times I hadn’t wanted to leave what I was doing and eat.”
“Oh dear. Something happened to the soldiers, didn’t it?” she asked, her expression filled with concern.
“I was inside longer than anticipated because Francis or one of my brothers had broken a lamp and blamed me, and my father had taken me to task for it.” That was what his father had called it when he took a birch to Ewan’s back and shoulders. “By the time I returned, the figures were completely destroyed.”
“What do you mean?” she asked, sitting forward.
Ewan swallowed. It still angered him, all of these years later. “Francis had destroyed all of them.”
“How?”
Ewan tensed his jaw. “Deliberately and thoroughly.”
He could still see the devastation now, though he saw it with his child’s eyes and through the blur of tears. That day had been one of the few times Ewan had cried as a child. He’d stared at the scattered remains of his soldiers, all of them so painstakingly carved and a sound like that of a wounded bird had broken from his lips. He knew it was silly, but he felt as though his friends had been murdered. Charles and George and Stephen and Timothy—their small faces and the expressions he’d given them—smashed into bits of wood. He’d tried to gather them, as a mother hen does her chicks, but there was no saving them. Every single one of his precious soldiers was destroyed. Not even one had survived the massacre.
