Thomas

by Grace Burrowes

  “Miss Tanner, my fate is in your hands,” Fairly said, patting Nick’s shoulder. “Your devoted servants are worried about you, as am I, in case anybody wants the opinion of the only medical man on the scene.”

  So that’s why Thomas’s brows formed nearly a single line over his eyes? Fairly and Nick looked worried, while Thomas… his gaze was steady, but behind his regard, Loris sensed a panic he might not even admit to himself.

  “Nicholas, perhaps you’d keep an eye on the horses,” Loris suggested.

  “Yes, Nicholas,” Thomas added, snatching the flask from Nick’s hand. “Water the horses, or something. Keep the men away, and have Beckman fetch my horse and Fairly’s.”

  “Your servant,” Nick said with an ironic bow. He managed to look lordly even barefoot, half-sopping, his shirt-tails hanging out. “Miss Tanner, please listen to Lord Fairly. If Sutcliffe bothers you, I’ll kill him.”

  “My thanks.” These offers of murder on her behalf were all quite touching, but Loris was more interested in the contents of the flask.

  “Is that water?” Fairly asked, plucking the container from Thomas’s grasp. He uncapped the flask and sniffed. “Smells like water, and it should be cool because Haddonfield kept it in the stream. Small sips, Miss Tanner.”

  Loris had drained her own flask hours ago and hadn’t realized how thirsty she’d become.

  “You’re parched,” Thomas said, brushing her hair back from her forehead. “Fairly, finish your interrogation, then I’m taking Miss Tanner to the house, where she will rest for the remainder of the day, and for once take an order without arguing.”

  His palm was cool as he cupped Loris’s cheek. She really ought to argue with him, because he needed her to argue with him, not because she in any way took issue with his proximity or his generosity.

  “Sutcliffe,” Fairly said, his fingers going to the buttons at Loris’s wrists. “I know you’re concerned, but I need to ask Miss Tanner a few questions, and your hovering doesn’t help.”

  “I’m not going anywhere,” came from Thomas just as Loris murmured, “He can stay.”

  The relief in Thomas’s gaze was more potent than all the summer heat and still air combined.

  “I am outvoted,” Fairly said. “Marriage has accustomed me to this indignity. Miss Tanner, have you been bustling about in the heat a great deal lately?”

  “From morning to moonrise,” Thomas said, unbuttoning Loris’s other cuff. “She’s racing about, as if the demons of hell were snatching at her hems.”

  “I’ve been busy,” Loris said, as each man rolled back one of her cuffs.

  Thomas produced a handkerchief and dampened it with the water from the flask, then pressed the cool cloth to her wrist.

  Heaven, in that simple gesture of consideration.

  “Have you been getting enough fluids?” Fairly asked.

  “I have my ale, water occasionally. Tea twice a day.”

  “You need more water, lemonade, cider, nothing approaching spirits of any sort,” Fairly said. “My guess is you are tired lately, even making allowances for your activity level.”

  “Any damned fool can see she’s exhausted,” Thomas muttered, re-wetting the cloth and pressing it to Loris’s forehead. The relief was nearly erotic in its intensity.

  “I attend my duties,” Loris said as cool water dripped from her temples. “Summer is a busy time at Linden.”

  “You have shadows under your eyes,” Thomas growled, though his touch on her cheeks with the cool cloth was deft and sweet. “You’re pale, you haven’t your usual spark. People will say I’ve worked you to flinders, when in fact I haven’t even been able to track you down, much less order you to slow your pace.”

  “You’re babbling, Sutcliffe,” Fairly muttered, as he again took Loris’s wrist.

  “His lordship has been working in the heat as well,” Loris said, for Fairly ought not castigate a man for being concerned. “I will admit to some fatigue, and I am quite thirsty, now that you ask.”

  “Fairly, refill the flask,” Thomas said, shoving the little container at the physician.

  Fairly went off on his assignment, while Thomas undid the bow at Loris’s throat.

  “You’ve been avoiding me. You infernal, stubborn woman, why would you avoid me? If you don’t want me pestering you, all you need say is that you’re not interested. I’m not a brute, I don’t force myself on anybody, and if it hasn’t become apparent, your well-being matters to me. I would never take—”

  “I didn’t know what to do,” Loris said. “I’m not used to that. I’m sorry. I dreaded seeing you again, feared you’d regret the time spent with me in the pergola. I longed to see you again, and that will not do. My father longed for his drink, you see. I’m muddled, and there’s work to do.”

  Thomas sat back, snatched her hat, and waved it slowly before her like a fan. The resulting breeze was worth more than rubies.

  “You’re not making sense, love.”

  “Because of you,” Loris said, closing her eyes. “I can’t think, I can’t sit still, I can’t stop thinking, and I have no energy. This is all your fault. I’ve missed you.”

  Now she was babbling, though having some time to rest against the tree, and having been given some water, Loris realized she was not on her mettle. Her thoughts were in disarray, and she wanted nothing so much as to tear off her clothes and plunge into the stream.

  “Confusion is a symptom of heat exhaustion,” Fairly said, putting the cool flask into Loris’s hand. “You need rest, fluids, cool, and quiet. Your strength will come back more slowly than you’d like, and you must not become overheated again in the near future. Sutcliffe, I suggest you take Miss Tanner to the manor, order her a cool bath, and set the housekeeper to plying her with lemonade for the next week.”

  “The next week?” Loris squeaked. “I can’t sit on my backside swilling lemonade for the next week. Somebody must find the boys unlatching our gates and deliver them to Squire Belmont for a stern lecture. We ought to marl the fallow pastures, because the hay is off and rain due any day, and now would be an excellent time to see to it. The cheeses should be turned in the cheese cave, the maiden ewes need to be moved, the—”

  Thomas wet the cloth and this time placed it right over Loris’s mouth. Even that felt heavenly.

  “You’ll make me a list.” He moved the cloth to Loris’s throat. “Fairly will vouch for me. I take orders exceedingly well. Utterly trustworthy, that’s me.”

  His voice was a little too brisk.

  “Trustworthy, to the life,” Fairly added, with equal good cheer. “I’ve given Thomas responsibility for the viscountess’s well-being on occasion, not simply my own life, so surely, you must permit him to step and fetch for you, Miss Tanner. Otherwise, he’ll plague you with his company, and I know you’ve done nothing to deserve such a penance.”

  Thomas balled up the wet handkerchief and fired it at Fairly’s chest. “Cease with the character assassination, my lord. If you behave, I’ll write to your viscountess and tell her you’re in a decline for lack of her company.”

  Fairly’s brows rose. “You’d do that for me?”

  Beckman led Rupert and a white mare up to the lane. He too had found his shirt, though he was smiling faintly, and Beckman was not a fellow Loris had seen smiling often.

  “We’re for the manor house,” Thomas said, scooping Loris up and rising with her as if she weighed no more than a fluffy sheep. “Bring her hat, Fairly.”

  Such was the lassitude into which Loris had fallen that she let Thomas carry her to Fairly’s horse and deposit her into the saddle. Fairly passed Loris the straw hat, and then Beckman handed her the reins.

  “Keep to the shade,” Fairly said. “A cool bath, fluids, rest, and a few days ordering Sutcliffe about will restore you to fighting shape.”

  “And entertain the rest of us,” Beckman muttered as the baron swung aboard Rupert.

  When Beckman smiled, he bore a resemblance to Nick that Loris hadn’t noticed b
efore, or perhaps all grown men shared a certain look when they were being adorable.

  “To the manor,” Loris said. “Baron, if you’d lead on?”

  Thomas gave Rupert the office to toddle forth, and soon Loris was in the shade of the home wood, contemplating a cool bath, rest, good food—and a proximity to the baron for which she was utterly unprepared.

  * * *

  “I know your stable master from somewhere,” Fairly said, as he and Thomas enjoyed a bottle of wine on the back terrace. “When his hair was wet, earlier today, I got one of those flashes, memory that might be from reality or might be from a dream. When last I saw him, his hair wasn’t as light, but then, he’s in the sun a lot, and perhaps in winter his hair darkens. My recollection of him was from a ballroom, in evening attire.”

  Crickets were singing, and lavender scented the breeze. The sun hadn’t quite set, and the air was at least moving.

  “Loris doesn’t know much about Nick,” Thomas said. “He showed up shortly after her father disappeared. Any task thrown at Nick, he handles with uncomplaining competence. Witness, he and Beckman are off inspecting the gate latches Loris swears somebody is systematically opening. More wine?”

  “Loris?” Fairly asked, ever so casually.

  “Miss Tanner.”

  “She called you Thomas earlier. Heat exhaustion can cause mental confusion, but I don’t think the lady was confused about what to call you.”

  Thomas was confused, but also at peace, to know Loris was dozing up in an airy bedroom in a corner of his manor house. He kept to himself that Nicholas Haddonfield’s little flask had born a coat of arms that Thomas was sure he’d seen before.

  “The lady works too hard,” Thomas said. “I’ll see that she doesn’t imperil her well-being again.”

  “Speaking of threats, what do you hear of this Chesterton fellow?” Fairly asked, putting his booted feet up on a wrought iron chair.

  Thomas had shared meals with Loris at this table, and he wished she’d agreed to join him and Fairly for dinner again. Not to polish her manners, not to bring her employer up to date on estate matters, simply to be with him at the end of a long, tiring day.

  “Nick told you about Chesterton?” Thomas asked.

  “Your stable is short-handed, and the Linden stable is the last place I’d expect Greymoor to have skimped on staff. I pried, I poked, I casually observed. You know how it’s done.”

  Thomas finished the last of his wine, a fruity white Loris would have enjoyed.

  “You’re lecturing me for keeping a detail of my present situation from your notice,” Thomas said. “Chesterton will soon leave the area in search of coin. I’m not your responsibility anymore, Fairly, though your concern is appreciated.”

  The title had done that, eased Thomas away from Fairly’s tendency to mother-hen all in his ambit. The change was awkward, but overdue.

  “Very baron-ly of you, my dear Thomas, establishing the picket lines, flexing your authority under your own roof. I’m impressed. Well done and all that, but it won’t wash. You are my friend, have been for ages, and friends worry over one another. Pass the strawberries.”

  Thomas took two, then passed over the rest of the bowl. What a comforting way Fairly had with a scold.

  “Chesterton is at the local lodging house, hoping for work,” Thomas said, twisting off the strawberry stem and firing it into the lavender bed. “All but two of his former employees have moved on, either drifting into Town, or looking to sign on somewhere as the harvest work approaches.”

  Fairly bit into a strawberry. “Somebody is unlocking your gates, you say?”

  “Loris—Miss Tanner—says. Local boys without enough supervision, Chesterton’s friends, or my own staff protesting my ownership or Miss Tanner’s authority.”

  Fairly remained quiet for so long, Thomas wondered if he’d fallen asleep. The viscount was by no means an indolent man, but Thomas had been surprised when Fairly had suggested they strip off boots and shirts to assist with the crew in the river.

  The water had felt divine, and the physical exertion sheer glory, for worrying over Loris had nearly tied Thomas in knots. Fairly’s suggestion had also allowed Thomas his first opportunity to work side by side with the men who labored on his land, to take their measure, and let them take his.

  Which was probably exactly what the viscount—who owned many estates—had intended.

  “I’ve been meaning to raise a topic that I expect will be sensitive,” Fairly said.

  Darkness was gathering. If Fairly had waited this late in the day to raise a topic, the matter was sensitive indeed.

  “We’ve never had secrets from each other, Fairly.” Mostly because Fairly was exactly what he appeared to be: brilliant at trade, reluctant at viscount-ing, and besotted with his wife.

  “I have never had secrets from you,” Fairly said, taking another strawberry from the bowl. “You had a title for more than a year before I knew anything of it, but Letty says I mustn’t chide you for that.”

  Bless Letty. “I’ve no interest in voting my seat.”

  “Nor have you even visited your family seat. Not in all the time I’ve known you, which is nearly ten years, Thomas.”

  Fairly had been merciful in one regard. He’d waited until the sun had fled to raise this topic. Thomas could clench and unclench his fists silently, could mentally steel himself to risk Fairly’s disapproval—also Letty’s.

  “Sutcliffe Keep has sat on a Sussex hillside for centuries,” Thomas said. “Absent a lot of expensive ordnance, I couldn’t blast it into the sea if I wanted to.”

  And he did want to, though Theresa would then be homeless.

  “I have letters, Thomas,” Fairly said, softly, gently. “They came to the Pleasure House after your remove to Linden, and they came from Sutcliffe Keep. Whoever she is, she’s persistent.”

  Determined. Theresa was determined, in all her undertakings, whether they led to her ruin or sent her flying on her pony over a stile Thomas’s older cousins had been reluctant to attempt on full-grown horses.

  “I am persistent too,” Thomas said, though what he truly was, was tired and missing his land steward. “The lady is adequately provided for, and I will ignore her letters as I have all of her previous correspondence. This does not concern you, Fairly.”

  If Thomas had to choose—loss of privacy over this issue, or loss of the viscount’s friendship—he knew not which pain he’d select. Theresa’s decisions had driven every possible friend from her side, every hope of a decent match.

  Perhaps driving friends away was family inclination.

  “You concern me,” Fairly said. “Worse, you concern my viscountess, and thus I must intrude where gentlemanly discretion would urge me to hold my peace. I know this much, Thomas, whoever she is, she won’t go away. Family doesn’t. They own you, and you own them. It might take decades, but that bond must be acknowledged.”

  Fairly spoke from sad, difficult experience, and he meant well.

  “I do not deny the bond, Fairly, but neither can I deny her betrayal.”

  As the absolute darkness before moonrise descended, the sky came alive with occasional flashes of heat lightning. Perhaps at long, long last, badly needed rain would bless them.

  Fairly rose, helping himself to one last strawberry.

  “Before I retire, I need only burden you with one more sentiment. Whoever she is, a mad aunt, a tippling mama, a cousin who bore your child out of wedlock, she can do nothing to alter the regard Letty and I have for you. There’s family, Thomas, and then there’s family. Good night.”

  On that extraordinary speech, Fairly ruffled Thomas’s hair and disappeared into the library, making not a sound.

  Thomas remained on the terrace, choosing a strawberry by feel from those remaining in the bowl. He selected a smallish specimen, for they were often more delectable than the larger berries.

  Summer sweetness graced his palate, and the wind stirred the trees, creating a delightful breeze. No light came fr
om Loris’s window, so Thomas had no excuse to leave the darkness.

  Theresa had betrayed her younger brother, seen him all but banished from Sutcliffe when he was little more than a boy, and sent him off to university while she sank into as much vice as a country existence afforded a young woman of good family.

  The sheer bewilderment of her choices still stunned Thomas every time he tried to examine the past he shared with only that one, disgraced sister.

  Tonight, however, a question nudged aside the intractable sense of having been betrayed by the only person who’d mattered to him.

  Loris Tanner had been repeatedly betrayed by her father, publicly humiliated by him, her welfare threatened over and over by Micah Tanner’s choices, and yet never once had Loris voiced disloyalty to him. Loris acknowledged her father’s failings, but she yet saw his strengths, and would rejoice at his well-being if he came riding up the Linden Lane tomorrow.

  Thomas could not imagine rejoicing at the sight of his sister, but for the first time, he acknowledged that neither did he wish Theresa ill. He didn’t open her letters, but he was reassured by them all the same.

  She managed a legible, steady hand, she kept track of his direction, and she continued to post her correspondence from Sutcliffe, all of which was—damn her, and damn Thomas too—very reassuring.

  * * *

  Loris slept intermittently for nearly eighteen hours, then rose from her guest bed, dressed in clean clothes brought over from her cottage, slipped down the maids’ stairs, and swiped two sandwich halves from a stack on the kitchen counter.

  She escaped the manor without encountering either the baron or the viscount, and took the path through the gardens to the stable. Penny and her filly were enjoying the hospitality of the foaling stall, and nothing started a lady’s afternoon off quite as nicely as paying a visit to a healthy baby horse. Then too, Seamus had had a mishap in the pasture, according to Nick, and Loris wanted to look in on her gelding.

  The foal was asleep, her mother curled beside her in the straw. The sight sent a queer pang through Loris’s heart, as if the last bite of her sandwich half had got stuck in her throat.