by Ava Stone
Robert laughed this time. “You do have an active imagination, Astwick. ‘That beautiful lady’ holds me in as much contempt as I do her. It will be a miracle if we’re actually able to conceive without killing each other, and then, God-willing, let it be a boy so we don’t have to go through the entire process again.”
Tears formed in Chet’s eyes and his face turned red as he held in a laugh. “I know you, Robert. And you’re going to enjoy the entire process enough to do it over and over. You’ll have a whole bloody brood. Damn, I’m jealous.”
“Well, go be jealous somewhere else, will you? We’re leaving in the morning and I’ve got to get my work in order.”
After another good natured jab, Chet left and Robert sank back into his chair. He still couldn’t get the hurt look on Lydia’s face out of his mind. Why did Lady Astwick have to be such a dragon?
~ 7 ~
Robert got very little sleep that night and was relieved when morning finally came. He shaved and dressed quickly before tapping on the connecting door to Lydia’s chamber. She didn’t respond, so he pushed it open and peered inside. “Lydia, we’re leaving within the hour. Get up.”
Without opening her eyes or saying a word, she reached blindly for a pillow and threw it at the door.
Robert smirked. “Very amusing. But honestly it’s time to get up. I’ll be back for you soon.”
He went down to breakfast and enjoyed black coffee, poached eggs, and toast. He made sure that everything had been loaded onto his coach, sent letters off to Caroline about the need for a governess and to Luke about a missing emerald pendant, and then he climbed the stairs back to his wife’s room. As before, there was no answer to his knock.
When Robert opened the door, he couldn’t believe that she was still sleeping and hadn’t moved an inch since he’d left her. Patience wasn’t really his strong suit, but truly this couldn’t be tolerated. He strode across the room and ripped the covers off her.
He wasn’t quite sure what he expected to find, but a prudish, cream-colored, muslin nightrail that buttoned to the top of her neck and made her look like a Quaker wasn’t what he had in mind. At the moment, she didn’t seem at all like the harlot he’d always thought of her as. “Lydia, we need to leave.”
“Go away.” She reached in vain for the covers at her feet.
Robert sat next to her on the bed and gently touched her cheek. “Come on, my dear, it’s time to get up.”
Lydia opened one eye and grimaced. “I am sleeping, Masten. Leave me alone.” Then she rolled over, giving him her back.
With a sly grin, Robert bent down to her ear and whispered, “If you don’t get up, then I’m going to climb in there with you.”
Both of Lydia’s eyes flew open and she looked back at him in shock. “You wouldn’t dare.”
Robert pretended to loosen his cravat and then chuckled at her aghast expression. With a roguish grin, he chucked her under the chin. “Perfect, you’re awake. We’re leaving in ten minutes. Be ready to go.”
She sat bolt upright at that, and glared at him. “Ten minutes! I can’t possibly—”
“Then you should keep that in mind tomorrow morning and get up the first time I ask you. Ten minutes, Lydia. We’re on a schedule.”
***
Robert’s schedule meant very little to Lydia. She washed and dressed in her usual speed. Then she made a trip to the schoolroom to kiss both Petey and Penny goodbye. When she saw tears in the boy’s eyes, she gently wiped them away and promised him that she would find the perfect place for the three of them to live.
Penny looked sad at that. “Wot ‘bout Lor’ Masten? Won’ ‘e be with us too?”
Lydia shook her head. “No, my dear, Lord Masten will not live with us.”
“Why not?” Penny’s little lip trembled. “Is it ‘cause o’ me an’ Petey?”
Did the child actually have tender feelings for the rigid and overbearing earl? Lydia was surprised at that, but tried to explain the situation as best as she could. “No, of course not. It’s just that his lordship is very busy with his stables. But he will visit us every now and then.” Especially if they had children of their own. He’d probably be around more than she’d like.
“Oh.” Penny nodded understandingly. “Petey don’ like ’orses.”
Lydia smoothed Penny’s brown hair off her face and kissed the little girl’s forehead. “We’ll make do, Penny.”
Then she kissed Petey as well and retrieved promises from both children to listen to Mrs. Norris and be on their best behavior. She said a few parting words to the nurse and then went down to breakfast.
She didn’t get to eat.
With his arms folded across his chest in the breakfast room, Robert wore an irritated scowl. “I told you ‘ten minutes’ well over an hour ago.”
“Well, that was just simply not enough time. Besides I needed to say goodbye to the children and reassure them that I wasn’t abandoning them.”
His dark mood didn’t appear to be appeased by this bit of information. He rushed her out the front door to his awaiting carriage without breakfast. Lydia fumed, but Robert seemed unconcerned about her anger. She folded her arms across her chest and sulked as she rested her head against the window and finally fell back asleep.
***
She could not possibly be comfortable in that position. Robert moved from his spot and took the seat beside her. Tenderly, he moved Lydia to his arms and held her. He had to be more comfortable than the wall.
She looked like an angel as he gazed down at her peaceful, sleeping face. Her hair smelled like gardenias and he wanted to pull out her pins and feel it fall about his arms, though to do so he was sure he’d wake her. She wouldn’t be happy to find him messing with her hair. Robert breathed in her scent and smiled to himself. She had certainly grown up in the last five years.
As her weight rested against him, he soothingly stroked her arm and then fell asleep himself. When he woke up, she was sitting across the coach from him again, but now knitting. He stretched and yawned, and she smiled at him from her seat. “Sleep well, Masten?”
“What happened to Robert?”
“Robert shouldn’t wake me up in the mornings.” She smiled and her light blue eyes twinkled at him.
“Oh!” He laughed and returned her smile. “You’re punishing me. Well, my lady, it will take more than that.” He watched her knit, intrigued. He’d spent little time thinking about her over the years, but when he did, he never envisioned her knitting—or saving little orphaned pick-pockets for that matter. “What are you making?”
Lydia briefly met his eyes and then refocused on her yarn and needles. “Socks for my brother.”
Brother?
Robert tilted his head toward her with a raised brow. “You have a brother?”
This time Lydia didn’t look up from her work, but she smiled. Her voice was soft and musical. “Yes, Masten. I’m guessing there are many things we don’t know about each other.”
He watched the yarn fly quickly over her needles and decided she must be right. “Who is he, your brother?”
She continued working. “Henry’s a lieutenant in the navy, and he holds me in as much esteem as you do. I’m sure you could beat me liberally and he wouldn’t lift a finger to stop you.”
Robert frowned. That was an awful thing to say. Did she really think he wanted to hurt her? He hadn’t necessarily been kind over the years, but he’d never harmed her. “And yet you’re making him socks?”
Lydia dropped her needles to her lap and looked across at her husband with a sorrowful expression. “I’m all he has left in the world.”
Sobering words, to be sure. Her brother hated her, but she had kept him in her heart. The same could not be said for Robert. He had seen Luke only a handful of times in the last few years, and never had he openly admitted to caring about the reprobate. “I’m thinking there are sides to you I know nothing about, Lydia. Pretend like we’ve just met and tell me who you are.”
Lydia blushed
, apparently unaccustomed to his attention. “Nothing much to tell, Masten. My father was in the navy and gone most of the time. My mother was afraid of her own shadow, and I have an older brother who once upon a time loved me. He used to protect me. Papa died from injuries he received in the Battle of Aboukir Bay, and Mama died when I was barely nine. Aunt Agnes took me in then and…” Lydia smiled at the memory. “Well, then my life was peaceful, more so than it had ever been anyway.”
“Was it?” He liked it when she smiled.
“My cousins, James and Hannah, were both gone by then. Aunt Agnes was alone and so was I. She doted on me and for the first time in my life I felt truly safe.” She sighed and leaned her head back against the wall of the coach. “I was her constant companion, which is how I found myself at Staveley’s years later. And you know the rest.”
“Luke.” Robert frowned. It was bothering him more and more that his brother had ever touched her.
“Yes.” She picked her needles back up and worked quickly.
“But why?” Robert asked. In the time he’d spent with her over the last few days, she didn’t seem at all like the wanton little thing he’d thought her to be. “What was it about my brother?”
She wouldn’t look at him and stayed focused on her yarn, but she blushed from head to toe.
“Lydia?” he prodded.
“You don’t want to hear about that.”
He crossed the carriage to her side and placed his hands over her needles until she met his gaze. “Tell me.” He had to know.
She swallowed hard and her shoulders sank. “He looked at me, Robert, like he could see into my soul. I felt safe with him. He showered me with attention and affection. Was there ever anyone more charming? I honestly think your brother could sell wool to a sheep farmer.”
Robert thought about her words. She was right. When his brother wished it, he could be the most charming of men.
“And when he kissed me…” She looked down at her hands, unable to meet his eyes any longer. “Well, what you’ve always said about me is true, Robert. I would’ve done whatever he asked of me.”
Robert studied her face and saw pain reflected there. She had loved Luke. It was as plain as day. That thought was sobering. Did she still harbor feelings for his degenerate brother? “Found the man of your dreams and instead got saddled with his stodgy brother, who takes every opportunity to remind you of your indiscretion.”
Lydia’s eyes rose in mild amusement. “Are you stodgy?”
He laughed, happy to break the tension and to see a twinkle back in her eyes. “Chet says I am. Astwick, that is.”
“I like him.” Lydia smiled and Robert loved the look on her face. “He has an infectious laugh and puts me at ease.”
“He likes you too. You should smile more often, Lydia. Your eyes light up when you do.”
Suddenly, they were thrown in the air when their carriage wheel found a hole in the road. Lydia fell to the floor of the coach and heard Robert yell out in surprised pain, “Ahh!”
Gaining her senses, Lydia turned in his direction and stared in horror at one of her knitting needles protruding out of his shoulder. “Robert!”
He sank back in the seat and pulled the needle out of his arm. Lydia tried to catch her breath as his shoulder dampened with blood. She knelt at his side to examine the wound, but Robert was attempting to remove his neckcloth and jacket. “Let me,” Lydia insisted.
She undid his knot and pulled his arms through his jacket sleeves. She dropped his unwanted clothes to the floor by her side. Robert pulled his shirt over his head. Lydia gently placed her hands around the wound and tried to judge the damage.
Though he could feel his blood pounding toward the hole in his shoulder, her hands brought with them a soothing comfort. He hardened from just her simple touch on his naked skin. It was annoying to discover that his body could betray him at a time like this. “It’s just a flesh wound,” Robert barked and tried to shake her off.
“Stop moving, Robert, and let me look.” After a few moments of examination, she slid her dress up and ripped off a long muslin section of her petticoat.
Robert watched her breathlessly, relieved she hadn’t noticed his arousal. He should be focused on his throbbing arm, but instead he hid a smile when she turned back to face him with a strip of fabric. She pressed the material to his wound and then wound the rest of the muslin around his arm. He decided almost despite himself, that the pain was well worth having her hands on his skin and the attention she gave him.
“I’m perfectly fine, Lydia,” he insisted, more softly this time. When she met his gaze, he winked at her and then pounded the top of the carriage for the driver. “Watch the holes, Henderson, my wife’s going to skewer me down here.”
“Oh, Robert, I’m so sorry.” Her face was still pale, but he couldn’t help but grin at her.
“You know, my dear, I’m fairly flush in the pockets, and I’ll be more than happy to allot up to a thousand pounds a year toward socks for Lieutenant Warner. Just put those damned things away, will you?”
She nodded quickly and threw her yarn and needles back into her valise. The color started to return to her face and she looked sheepishly at her husband. “Are you sure you’re all right?”
“Yes.” He smiled at her and pushed a loose strand of hair behind her ear. “Lucky, I had such a quick thinking nurse.”
***
Why was he smiling at her? Considering the fact that he hated her and she’d plunged a knitting needle into his shoulder, he should have been seething. The Robert Beckford she’d known up until now would have been. Had he hit his head on the wall of the coach? His smile was completely disarming. It made him seem approachable and…appealing. “You wouldn’t have been injured in the first place if it wasn’t for me.”
“True,” he conceded, and his smile grew larger. “But then we wouldn’t have this tale to tell our children one day.”
Our children?
“Are you really serious about this, Robert?”Her throat began to close in on her.
He nodded without hesitation. “The more I’ve thought of it, the more it makes sense. I have no faith in my brother, Lydia. I wouldn’t be a good steward of my title to let it fall into his hands.”
None of that really made any sense to her, though it sounded like it meant something to him. Still it didn’t seem like a good reason to bring a child into the world— spitefulness. “Perhaps he will surprise you after all and be worthy.”
Robert scoffed at that and shook his head. “If he was going to do that, he’d have done it long before now. I promise to be a very generous father, Lydia.”
She tilted her head and frowned. Generous? Children needed more than generosity. There was such a difference in the way she was reared and the way she saw James rearing his children, the way she wanted to rear Petey and Penny. In the Carteret home, despite paint-covered morning rooms and the usual squabbles between siblings, the children’s lives were very peaceful. They didn’t have any of the anxiety she had grown up with.
Robert’s expression was curious and he gently touched her chin. “You don’t believe I’ll be generous?”
He was so close to her and still shirtless—impressively so. His warm hand on her chin made her blush. She tried to smile and shook her head. “Oh, I have no doubt that you would be, my lord, but—” she retrieved his shirt from the floor and handed it to him— “the happiest children are those who are loved, not those who are needed for some other purpose.”
She could feel him studying her face and he threw his shirt back on. “You think I’m not capable of love then, Lydia?”
How should she respond to that? She had never seen any kind of love from him. Only kindness on occasion. “Could you possibly love a child and despise his mother at the same time?”
He frowned and leaned in close to her, tugging up at her chin to meet his eyes. “Lydia, we didn’t marry under the most suitable of circumstances and I have been less than kind to you over the years, but yo
u are growing on me and I certainly don’t despise you.”
She wasn’t convinced of his sincerity and moved back to her side of the coach. “Growing on you? Not really the basis for starting a family.”
“Well, I’m certainly not in love with you,” Robert admitted. “But I’m finding that I like you, Lydia. That’s better than a lot of people have.”
He liked her? She never would have guessed that, not in a million years. But his words were true. Not everyone’s parents liked each other. She didn’t believe hers had ever gotten along, yet they had three children. But did she trust Robert? Nothing from the last five years demonstrated that she should. She leaned against the velvet squabs and let the rocking motion of the carriage send her back to sleep.
~ 8 ~
When Lydia awoke it was dark outside. The carriage wasn’t moving and she was alone. As she tried to orient herself, she could hear angry male voices nearby. One of them sounded like Robert’s.
She rubbed her eyes, opened the carriage door, and let herself down onto the ground. They were in front of a small inn with a hinged sign blowing in the wind. The Fox and The Hare. It seemed like a quaint little place. Lydia looked up at Henderson in the coachman’s box and the driver shrugged. “I wouldn’t go in there, Lady Masten.”
But the voices were growing louder. She followed their sounds into the spacious taproom. Lydia stood cautiously in the doorway as she surmised the situation.
Robert was glowering at an old man. She deduced by his attire and apron that he must be the innkeeper. Though he was much smaller than her husband, he held his own with a proud stance.
Lydia scanned the room with her eyes. Some patrons were passed out across their tables, some were seated at the bar, and some had been playing cards in the far corner, but at the moment, all awake eyes were fixed firmly on her husband.
