“No tea for me.” Loris would hare away to her hearth and leave him out here among the bats and owls. “Bear me company for a bit?”
As her employer, Thomas could demand, command, order, imply, and summon, but he tried to keep his imperiousness within the confines of what she owed him as his employee. At four in the morning, she owed him not one damned thing.
“It’s too hot to sleep.”
“That it is,” Thomas said, closing his eyes and leaning his head against the back of the swing. “Fairly threatened in his last correspondence to pay a call, and when I didn’t wave him off, I knew he might invite himself down. He is not a man who sits still for long, in any case.”
“You have spoken of him as if he were a friend. You certainly respect him. Are you concerned you won’t know how to interact with him as a peer, rather than an employee?”
Thomas shifted his arm so it rested along the back of the swing, nearly touching Loris’s shoulders. Linden was cursed with employees more astute than was convenient for a tired, new owner. Thomas, having long been an astute employee himself, understood their motivation: Look after the employer, or the employment could come to a quick, unhappy ending.
“That’s your problem,” Loris concluded. “Fairly is no longer your employer, and he’d be your friend if you’ll allow it.”
Frightening notion. Fairly took his few friendships very much to heart. “That is a problem, how?”
“You have no discernible taproots, Thomas.”
Loris’s use of his name in the darkness was a caress to Thomas’s weary soul. Because his eyes were closed, he felt rather than saw her lean her own head back against the swing, encountering his arm and letting her head rest against his forearm.
“Am I a tree, to have taproots?”
“We all have taproots. My father is a taproot for me. He is what makes me so determined to do well with Linden, to avoid ever being any man’s dependent, but he is also where I learned all I know and love of the land. I cannot divine your taproots.”
“Maybe you can’t see them.” Or maybe Thomas had systematically hacked himself free of them.
“Roots grow underground, of course. If you watch, you can usually tell where they lie. The horses are a taproot for Nick. Pride in the appearance of Linden holds Mrs. Kitts in place. I cannot tell what anchors you.”
Were Thomas’s breeding organs not beginning to throb insistently, he might be able to focus on this business of taproots.
His tired body had chosen now, though, to betray his gentlemanly intentions where Loris was concerned. The whole idea of something sunk deep and tenaciously into rich, dark soil lent itself to naughtiness, and Loris deserved better than that.
“I had best be going,” Thomas said, though he didn’t move. “The sun won’t be up for another hour, and one can at least try to sleep.”
“You should hang a hammock on your balcony. The back of the house usually catches a breeze, and that’s preferable to indoors on nights like this.”
Nights like this… in the past week, the heat had become so concentrated the nights no longer cooled off appreciably. The air bore a sultry, pent-up feeling that compounded with Thomas’s wayward imagination to conjure thoughts neither decent nor restful.
“Loris….”
“Yes?”
Kick me off this porch now, but kiss me first. “Both of us need not keep watch in the stable. I can sleep in of a morning, whereas you cannot. Why don’t you let me take the watch and call you if Penny needs assistance?”
“Have you ever birthed a foal?”
“I have, and because Fairly is a physician, when he was on hand, the experience was appallingly educational. I know enough to summon assistance when I see a little hoof waving at me from beneath Penny’s tail.”
And clearly, a woman who could argue practicalities like this was not falling prey to wayward thoughts, which realization should have dashed cold water on Thomas’s imagination.
“That is spectacularly indelicate,” Loris said. “Maybe tomorrow night I will let you take the watch, provided Penny doesn’t foal today. She’s very, very close.”
If God were merciful, Beckman was foaling the mare out at that moment, for Thomas’s self-control was trying hard to slip from his grasp.
“I’ll be off then.” Thomas pushed to his feet. “Get yourself inside and drop the crossbars, if you please.” He reached a hand down but, in an effort to clasp Loris by the upper arm, inadvertently grazed her breast. Still, he hauled her to her feet, bringing her body almost flush against his.
A pause, while she gained her balance, and he brushed his lips across her forehead. Once, lightly, before stepping back.
“Good night, sweetheart,” he whispered. Then he was down the steps, and feeling his way along the darkened path winding through the trees.
* * *
“You couldn’t sleep?” Beckman asked.
Nick slid down the wall beside Beck, though even now, at the coolest hour of the night, when the horses dozed in their stalls or napped in the pastures, the barn was barely comfortable.
“I will be glad when the situation here has resolved itself,” Nick said. “Penny seems fine.”
Beck was a first-rate horseman. He paid attention to the animals, took their welfare seriously, and took pride in his work. That last had been a long time coming, particularly with Chesterton running the operation. Beckman had learned a lot from Jamie, and was big enough that the other lads hadn’t tangled with him when he’d ignored or subverted one of Chesterton’s orders.
Which he’d done nearly as often as Nick and Jamie had.
“Penny will drop that foal in her own good time,” Beck said, moving a wisp of hay from one side of his mouth to the other. “When I started my shift, Miss Tanner was fast asleep on the baron’s shoulder.”
Well, of course. Damn Sutcliffe to the muck pit.
“He owns the estate, Beckman, and she’s a grown woman.”
The light was trickling into the sky to the east. Whoever said the darkest hour came just before dawn had never worried his way through an English summer night.
“You could charm her,” Beck suggested.
Beckman had a sense of humor, though it was subtle. Nick cuffed him on the shoulder in case the comment was serious.
“Charm her, and then what? Once the harvest is in, I’m moving on.”
“I like it here,” Beck said, which Nick hadn’t seen coming. “I thought shoveling horse shit all day, going days without a proper bath, living like this would surely drive me to Bedlam, but Chesterton needed constant watching, and the animals appreciate good care.”
Nick had waited nearly two years to hear these words, and while they comforted, they also underscored the fact that before long, neither he nor Beckman would be on hand to protect Loris Tanner from miscreant stable masters—or from handsome barons.
“Get some sleep,” Nick said. “I’m the stable master now, so you have to do as I say.”
“Such wit, Nicholas. Or perhaps the heat is making your delusional.” Beck tossed aside his wisp of hay, rose, and sauntered off into the gloom.
While Nick remained where he was, prepared to worry his way through an English summer day. Sutcliffe was right to be concerned about the stable, for even bad luck couldn’t explain all the sickness and injury that had plagued the Linden horses.
Had Nick been able to locate Micah Tanner, he might have worried less, but apparently no one had succeeded at that task.
Sutcliffe would get around to trying though, and then who would protect Loris Tanner from what the baron might find?
* * *
Loris Tanner came striding around the corner of the manor house, her hair tidily braided, her appearance neat, nondescript, and utterly practical.
“How can you move with such energy in this heat?” Thomas asked, rising to hold a chair for her.
“I didn’t come to sharee on your breakfast,” she said. “We have matters to discuss.”
Good morni
ng to you, too, madam. “Don’t we always have matters to discuss, and won’t our discussion be more pleasant if you’re seated?”
She sat, back not touching the chair, hands folded in her lap, a picture of maidenly submissiveness, but Thomas knew better. Loris Tanner was keeping her powder dry, and woe unto him who couldn’t dodge her shot.
“May I offer you some sustenance? Toast? A cup of tea? I’ve ordered the kitchen to keep some on ice, as long as the weather is so beastly.”
Her head came up. “That is quite a luxury.”
More like a necessity. “I own a warehouse full of ice, and what I haven’t set aside for my own use is making me quite a tidy sum in this heat. Now, let me fetch you a cold drink, and then you can tell me what has put that thunderous frown on your face.”
Her tired face, damn it, and even a trifle pale.
Loris Tanner didn’t rail and carry on as most other women would, but she quivered with upset silently nonetheless. Her very stillness indicated how agitated she was.
Thomas set a cold glass of sweetened tea before her on a linen serviette. “I like it with sugar and mint, but tell me what you think of it.”
Loris sipped the drink, then set the glass down, her expression surprised. “That is wondrous lovely.”
Wondrous lovely, indeed. “In India, they’ve been drinking spiced tea with ice for centuries. You didn’t sleep well, my dear. Not that anybody could in this heat.”
She stood, turned her back, and muttered something unintelligible, so Thomas rose as well and stepped up behind her until he was close enough to catch the scent of lemons and spices from her hair.
His favorite of her repertoire of fragrances. “I beg your pardon, madam?”
“You mustn’t kiss me,” she said, barely above a whisper.
Thomas stood near enough that he could have tipped his head and visited the offense on her again, this time on the nape of her neck. While his senses inebriated themselves on Loris’s scent, his mind grappled with her words.
“I mustn’t kiss you. I wasn’t aware you had suffered my kisses to any great degree, but then, it is hot, and a man’s recollections can be addled.”
Loris turned and tapped her forehead twice with her finger. “You’ve stolen kisses from me, here. It won’t serve, and you will desist.” She might have been scolding an unruly puppy, so stern was her tone. Thomas stood his ground, and so did Loris, which left them toe-to-toe in the morning shade.
“I am not to kiss you here.” Thomas brushed a finger against Loris’s brow. “Then where would you like me to kiss you? Here?” He drew a finger down her cheek. “Or here?” The same finger touched her lips fleetingly.
Kisses her forehead had been gestures of utmost restraint and respect, and she was in a taking over that?
“You are mocking me,” Loris hissed, still glaring up at him from close range.
Thomas would not dare. “I am paying you a compliment. Let us sit, so we might be civilized with each other.” He took her bare hand in his and led her back to the table, where she sat, just as poker-straight and indignant as before.
He took a fortifying sip of very cold tea, which he probably ought to have dumped in his lap.
What would Fairly think, to see the “ever-competent Jennings” trying to explain himself to the ever-more-competent Miss Tanner?
“I gather you don’t object so much to kissing—which is harmless enough in itself—as you do to the implication I might not stop with kissing?” Thomas began.“You admit you’ve attempted liberties?” she shot back, color rising in her cheeks.
“A few brotherly pecks on the forehead do not a seduction make,” Thomas responded gently, though such forwardness might a seduction portend. “What have you against kissing?”
“I am not a Puritan. I have been kissed. Kissing is all well and good between those whose affections are pledged, and those who can trust each other to exercise restraint.”
A countrywoman’s attitude, tolerant and sensible, though Loris’s tone was colder than Thomas’s tea.
“Do you think, Loris Tanner, I would force myself on you?”
She raised troubled eyes to his, and Thomas saw not insult in their depths, but abused trust. Whoever had kissed her had failed either to exercise restraint, or to pledge his affections, the rotter.
“I would not force myself on you,” Thomas assured her frostily. “I need not, and I would not. An unwilling woman holds no appeal whatsoever. Never has, never will. Do you believe me?”
She reached for his glass of cold tea, though her own sat at her elbow. “If I were to believe any man, it would be you.”
In other words, Loris did not believe herself safe even with him. She had dozed at his side in the damned barn, and because of a brush of his lips to her forehead, she’d filled in all her tunnels, lit her Greek fire, and loaded her cannon.
Thomas stood, tugged Loris to her feet, then pulled her over to the deepest shade on the terrace.
“No squawking, if you please, madam. This requires privacy.”
* * *
Loris braced herself, expecting to find the baron’s mouth mashed to hers, her body trapped in a suffocating clinch. Then his lordship’s hands would start roaming and squeezing.
He might progress to odd noises and even more awkward endearments.
In the past, if Loris simply held still, she could outlast unwanted amorous advances, and her indifference had been deterrent enough. With the viscount, she’d capitulated to his assurances that “kissing is the prelude to much greater pleasure.”
Pleasure for him , possibly, though befuddlement and consternation had been Loris’s reaction.
She turned her head, hoping to avoid the inevitable, though the baron’s hand cradled her nape. To her surprise, he held her loosely, stroking his hand down the length of her braid, resting his chin against her temple. A breeze sprang up, fragrant with lavender, a scent that had Loris relaxing despite her situation.
She was tired, and Sutcliffe’s embrace was comfortable. Comforting, even.
“Put your arms around me,” Sutcliffe said, his voice blending with the soft breeze and the slow, rhythmic caress of his hand on her back. Loris complied, despite the clamoring of common sense to the contrary.
Thomas Jennings was the first man in her acquaintance whom it was truly, bone-meltingly lovely to be near. She vowed to stop him if he really misbehaved—knee to the vulnerable location if needs must—but for the moment, she leaned against him.
He exhaled, stirring the hair behind her ear.
To be held in such an undemanding way was sweet and restful. Loris closed her eyes, took in the scents of flowers and expensive shaving soap, and rode the slight rise and fall of Thomas’s chest as he breathed.
He kissed her brow—no offense in that.
Lazily, he expanded the range of his wanderings to include her eyelids, her cheekbones, the line of her jaw, the turn of her neck. By the time he was exploring the tender spot below her ear, Loris was angling her chin to accommodate him, and her body was tucked snugly into his.
Gracious lovely days, she ought to say something, but this was no assault, and yet these intimacies were doubtless more than the lesson Sutcliffe had intended. A demonstration, perhaps, of gentlemanly restraint.
The baron hadn’t kissed Loris’s mouth. She wished he would—kiss her mouth and be done with it.
“You deserve to be kissed,” he said, “not trifled with, but pleasured, the way a lady is entitled to be pleasured even in the passing gesture of a kiss,” he murmured against her throat.
Despite the heat of the morning, a shivery sensation skittered up Loris’s spine.
Sutcliffe grazed his lips along her neck and cradled her jaw against a callused palm. He pressed the softest of kisses to Loris’s slightly parted lips, then withdrew, leaving her every opportunity to step back, slap his face, and pretend he had taken advantage of her.
Which Loris could not do, drat him. She sighed in defeat, not even opening her eyes les
t she find the baron mocked her.
She knew less than she’d thought about kissing, much less, and Sutcliffe knew too much. Loris couldn’t even resent him for that, because his instruction was… lovely, and heartbreaking.
He was right: This was a woman’s due, this unhurried, attentive exploration of her pleasures and preferences. Grief assailed Loris, grief for a girl who’d been too unworldly to recognize disrespect when it leered and groped at her, a girl who’d been weary of lies and yet unable to hear them when it mattered most.
Damn them all, the liars and viscounts, the drunks and debauchers.
On that thought, she took possession of the baron’s mouth, kissing him in earnest, escalating the soft, sipping play of his lips on hers to firmer contact. He met her challenge, his tongue tracing her lips—a question, an invitation, never a demand. When Loris joined him in a tentative exploration, Thomas welcomed her, teased her into bolder maneuvers, then retreated into more delicacy and invitation.
He shifted his hips—yes, he was aroused; no, she was not horrified—and swept a hand over her breast in a passing caress.
“And now, madam, the restraint I promised you. The restraint any gentleman should promise you.” The baron eased his mouth away and returned to a simple embrace, his hand on Loris’s back in languid caresses.
Heat lightning quaked through Loris’s insides, the aftermath of a storm that left the air more close than before the cloudburst. This demonstration had altered forever her horizons and her sense of herself.
Also her sense of him.
Sutcliffe was too good at this. He ought to give kissing lessons and write treatises on the topic.
“You,” he whispered against her hair, “are a Congreve rocket with a lit fuse.”
His lordship sounded gratifyingly winded, and nearly as dazed as Loris felt. Poetry abruptly made sense to her. All the callow, giddy looks exchanged in the churchyard shifted from silly to enviable.
“Sweetheart?” Thomas murmured, trying to tip her chin. “Loris?”
This careful, coaxing swain was his swaggering lordship?
Pleasure of an entirely different sort chased off Loris’s upset. She’d done this to him, left him winded and whispering. She’d surprised him and turned a demonstration of gentlemanly restraint into a trial of his lordship’s self-control.
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