Rock Hard Daddy: A Single Dad & A Virgin Romance

by Rye Hart

  “Perhaps I should also count myself as a god,” he suggested. “Hephaestus and I have certain things in common. We’re both cripples. Of course, he could still walk.”

  “He limped,” she agreed. “But that would be progress for you, would it not?”

  Chapter Four

  Her words were intended to prod him. But he said nothing in response. His gaze returned to the window. Outside, El Diablo stood, his proud head raised as if he were listening to the wind speak in his language.

  “Yes, Miss Lockwood, limping would be progress. Please leave. I apologize for my rude behavior. But there is no courteous way to tell you that you are not welcome here and that your presence in my private quarters is an intrusion. You must leave.”

  “Your father hired me.”

  “Then he can sack you,” Lord Richard retorted, restored to ill temper.

  “He would have to pay me for work I have not done,” she said amiably. “It would be a very bad business arrangement.”

  “He’ll show you the door and damn your impudence!”

  “My arrangement with all my clients is that I must be paid, once I am hired. Fortunately, I have been successful and after my patients finished their tantrums and had the courage to make an effort to restore themselves, they did not want me to leave until I had helped them achieve their goals. Are you less than they?”

  “Miss Lockwood, I am weary of—“

  “You are weary because you are lazy,” she said kindly. “Doing nothing of purpose all day is enervating.”

  “You are insulting! How dare you speak so to me? You are a nobody and you have the audacity to address me in such a manner?”

  “I am very much your equal in this, Lord Richard. I am as determined as you are defeated; as knowledgeable as you are ignorant; as skilled as you are untutored. I can help you if you will agree to help yourself instead of closeting yourself in your bedchamber to wallow in the self-pity that you inflict on your family and your household servants as if their affection and respect mean nothing. You have done nothing to deserve their regard and yet you expect to be permitted to berate them indiscriminately, when their only crime against you is that they can walk and you cannot. Is it not time that you conducted yourself in the manner of a former officer and demonstrate that you were worthy to wear the uniform?”

  “You know nothing of a man’s life in the military,” he said wearily. He was not looking at her. Once again, his eyes were fixed on the sight of El Diablo outside the window.

  “You are quite wrong. A number of my former patients were soldiers. They impressed me with their bravery when they were not facing guns or bayonets.” She stood up. “I will leave you for now, but I will return tomorrow morning and we will begin our work together. But first, I have something for you.”

  From the inside of the cuff of her blouse, she pulled out a white feather. “I believe that you understand the meaning of this?”

  Lord Richard’s eyes blazed. “You importunate woman!” he said, his voice low, the syllables rumbling over a rough-hewn path of his angry words. “How dare you call me a coward?”

  She was heading toward the door. “If you will not rise to the challenge before you, then I must regard you as a coward.”

  “Don’t you dare leave before I dismiss you! You are a servant and you have the effrontery to leave before I have given you permission?”

  “Then stop me,” she said, and closed the door behind her.

  She was not surprised, hours later, when a servant came to tell her that the Earl would see her in the library. It was patently a command, and one that she had been expecting. Cressida put down the journal into which she had been recording her notes from her first meeting with Lord Richard and followed the servant down to the library.

  The Earl was angry. At his side, his wife appeared worried.

  “Miss Lockwood, I have just come from my son’s bedroom. I am offended that you would come into my home and insult my son. He has been horribly afflicted from his fall and you show him the white feather and term him a coward? By what right do you behave in such a manner?”

  “My lord, you hired me to help your son. He has enough people who feel sorry for him. He needs someone who does not pity him. That someone is me. Is he angry at me? Good. Perhaps he will endeavor to prove me wrong. Please have his manservant go to his room and clean it. It has the appearance of an East End lodging room badly in need of attention. Then, please have some of your servants remove the furniture that is not needed. He needs a bed, and his desk, two chairs, one by the window, and the table. Everything else must go. It is impossible for him to exercise when all the space is taken up with furniture. One more thing: he will need a chair with wheels. He has isolated himself in his bedchamber and that is unhealthy. He needs stimulation. How soon can you procure one?”

  The Earl had intended to deliver a stinging rebuke to Miss Lockwood, but her observations were sound. He saw that his wife was paying close attention to the conversation. She would never disagree with him in public, but he sensed that she perceived value in the young woman’s abilities.

  “We will have the furniture removed,” Lady Constance said. “You are quite right. The room is not conducive to my son making any progress of any kind. My husband had a chair manufactured immediately after Lord Richard’s accident. He has refused to use it.”

  “Splendid!” Cressida said, clapping her hands together as if she were applauding the couple for their actions. “We don’t have to wait. Your son and I will go down to the stables tomorrow morning. It’s high time that Lord Richard renewed his acquaintance with the horse that caused this injury.”

  “Miss Lockwood,” the Earl began cautiously, realizing that this young woman, if challenged, could be a most worthy foe. “I wanted to have El Diablo put down after the accident, but my son would not let me. I am not at all sure that it would be wise to bring him into contact with that monstrous beast.”

  “The horse represents an adversary who vanquished him,” Cressida said. “Adversaries must meet; often they are the only ones who truly understand each other.”

  “Miss Lockwood,” Lady Constance began. “I agree with you that his chamber must be cleared of obstacles, and heaven knows it needs a good cleaning. But he will be most upset to have his possessions removed. He has a pistol.”

  “He will not use it. Send servants with whom he does not customarily interact. He will likely resent their actions for some time and it would be unfair to inflict that burden on those servants who are caring for him daily. Send them in together, and under no circumstances are they to say anything to him other than what is necessary. They simply need to state that they are obeying their orders. He must be told why the furniture is being removed, and why the chamber is being cleaned: it is so that he will be able to walk. They have their orders. ”

  “I fear that poor Rheims has a terrible time of it. He and my son were once very amiable together, but now he treats Rheims shabbily,” Lady Constance said sadly.

  “That will change. The furniture must go, but the pistol can stay. He will not use it,” Cressida repeated.

  The Earl visibly relaxed. Why, he could not say, but there was something about Miss Lockwood that inspired confidence. “If you are wrong, Miss Lockwood,” he said, “you can be sure that I will prosecute you for your error.”

  “Understood, Your Lordship, but please keep in mind that, if I am wrong, I would be dead. If he were to shoot anyone, it would be me.”

  “I am fearful that he will do harm to himself.”

  “He will not. He is angry at his situation but he is not yet in despair. That is the situation which we intend to avert.”

  “Thank you, Miss Lockwood,” said Lady Constance. “I have told Cook that you will take your meals with Nanny. I shall show you to the nursery.”

  The discussion in the servants’ hall at supper that night was lively. Rheims’ disclosures to the staff were, just as Louis’ had been earlier, a revelation. Mr. Lincoln pursed his lips and
was doubtful. It was not for him to gainsay what the Earl had decided, but it was obvious that the nursemaid did not understand how to deal with the gentry. Barbara, the maid who had been sent to clean Lord Richard’s room while two of the groundskeepers removed furniture, reported that Lord Richard had been in a proper pet when the men began moving out his belongings. He was so enraged that he had barely noticed her, and she’d been able to work quickly.

  “It looks very peculiar now,” she said, “with almost nothing in the room. But if he really is going to walk again, I suppose the nurse must be right. He’d never be able to take a step with all of that still in there.”

  Rheims was relieved that he hadn’t been given the assignment. “Miss Lockwood told me that he will need to be dressed for outside tomorrow,” he informed the others. “He’s going to be taken down to the stables to meet up with that horse.”

  “The stables!” Mr. Lincoln exclaimed. “She must be mad!”

  Rheims said nothing; it was not for him to dispute Mr. Lincoln’s verdict. But he privately thought that perhaps Miss Lockwood’s brand of madness was exactly what the Viscount needed.

  Chapter Five

  Lord Richard had too much pride to balk like a recalcitrant child in front of the grounds men and his nurse when she informed him that his wheelchair awaited him outside, and that the men were there to carry him to it so that they could go outside to take advantage of the lovely October day. She had counted on this reaction and maintained a sunny flow of chatter as he sat, sullen and stiff, in the makeshift chair the two men made with their hands as they bore him out of the manor house. Cressida thanked them once Lord Richard was outside and seated in his chair.

  “I’ll wheel now, until Lord Richard is doing it on his own,” she told the grounds men sunnily before dismissing them.

  “Might I ask where we’re going? Or is this an abduction?”

  “Don’t you know? The stable lads have been instructed to bring out El Diablo. I expect that he has missed your company. Animals are very loyal, you know.”

  “El Diablo is not loyal,” Lord Richard argued. “He is a horse. He threw me. It’s quite simple and only a prattling woman would decide that what’s needed to make me walk again is a reunion with the beast that threw me.”

  “It’s not simple in the least. You will probably have to regain his respect. And perhaps allow him to apologize.”

  Lord Richard turned in his chair to glare at her. “You ought to write children’s stories,” he told her, sneering. “Pennington and the Penitent Horse.”

  “That’s splendid!” she announced. “Perhaps I will do so. I shall have to credit you with the idea. Or rather, I shall have to name you as the author; it’s very difficult, I hear, for a woman authoress to have a manuscript accepted for publication. Only think how well received a manuscript from Lord Richard Pennington would be. Do you draw at all? Someone will need to do the illustrations.”

  “You’re mad,” he said with resignation, turning back around. “Quite barking mad.” But his tone was moderate and as she pushed him, he looked around, noticing the trees in the beauty of their autumn coloring. Cressida doubted that even the most bitter of men could be immune to the glory of fall in England and she detected that Lord Richard was no different. His head turned to note the flowing majesty of the maple’s brilliant leaves, the stately grandeur of the bright oak and its finery, the elegant, festive look of the trees arrayed like autumnal debutantes showing off their beauty to their swains.

  Richard, his senses alive to the vitality of the world as they had not been since he’d immured himself in his quarters following the accident, consumed the sights with his eyes. This was beauty beyond anything he remembered; was it truly a unique autumn, or had he been too intent on the manufactured world of the Season to bother noticing anything that was not accompanied by a saddle or a petticoat? The outside air—how had he gone without it for so long?—was like wine, aromatic and heady. Why were there no landscapes of the Pennington grounds inside the manor house? Surely there were English artists capable of recreating the scene on canvas. He would speak to his father about it this very afternoon.

  Then he saw the buildings emerge. The stables came into view where he had spent so much of his youth, endlessly astride a horse, mastering the skills needed to be a cavalry officer even in his boyhood. He saw the paddock, now occupied solely by one animal, one who truly deserved his own kingdom, for there was no horse that could match him.

  Cressida could see his shoulders tense, even beneath his cloak, as they approached the paddock where El Diablo awaited. The horse had noticed that he had arrivals to his realm; he watched them draw nearer as if he had not decided whether he would grant them an audience.

  “He’s rather massive, isn’t he?” Cressida said.

  “Seventeen hands,” Lord Richard said proudly.

  “It’s no wonder that you fear him,” Cressida commented.

  “Fear him? I’ve never feared a horse in my life,” he scoffed. “Who said such a thing?”

  “No one; I merely assumed that because you had avoided him since your fall that he frightened you.”

  “Your assumptions are incorrect,” he said brusquely.

  Standing behind him as she pushed the chair, Cressida observed the change in his posture. The stiffness she had perceived previously changed. His shoulders were set back, not in anxiety, but in readiness, rather like an officer preparing to meet a foe. But a worthy foe, one which merited his respect rather than his disdain.

  El Diablo nickered as they approached the fence.

  “Poor thing,” Cressida said. “I don’t suppose he gets much attention anymore. Everyone’s afraid of him.”

  Lord Richard started to deride her continued effort to ascribe human emotions to a horse, but then he stopped. El Diablo was shaking his head, pushing his nose across the fence as if he were trying to reach Lord Richard. Lord Richard reached out his hand to pat his horse, and El Diablo neighed, sounding pleased at the contact.

  Cressida stood back so that she did not intrude upon the scene. Richard began by petting El Diablo, rubbing his muzzle and then bending beneath the fence slat so that he could rub the horse’s shoulders. El Diablo stood in contentment while he received the attention that he had missed.

  “I believe he’s been lonely,” Cressida said at last.

  Lord Richard didn’t answer. Just as he had savored the sights of the autumn scenery, he was now reveling in the smell and touch of his horse. How had he managed to stay away for so long, locking himself inside a prison of his own making where the only odors were the daily smells of food cooking, of people, of the manor itself? He had always been happiest when he was out of doors; how had he failed to realize that he was bound to be wretchedly miserable if he denied himself what had long been a chief pleasure? It was not just walking that he had been deprived of, he realized as El Diablo lowered his head and blew gently out of his nostrils. It had been life itself.

  Richard laughed. “Devil,” he said affectionately, taking his handkerchief and wiping the moisture from his face.

  “Perhaps a trifle deficient in etiquette?” Cressida suggested.

  “El Diablo has always made his own rules.”

  “An enviable situation.

  Richard patted the horse again. “Yes, it would be.”

  Lord Richard was in no hurry to leave, so Cressida stayed behind him, not intruding upon what was happening. When the stable lads and grooms went by, they seemed startled to see Lord Richard. One of them, a burly, bearded man with a shock of red hair that looked as if his head had caught fire, came over.

  “My lord!” he bellowed. “It’s good to see you. Looks like this brute has missed you.”

  “I believe he has,” Lord Richard said. ”Hello, Harry. How are the rest?

  “Doing well, sir, doing well. You haven’t seen Turnip’s foal, my lord.”

  “So old Turnip came through, did she?”

  “Shall I bring her out? You were always good to Tur
nip and she’ll be glad to see you.”

  Harry seemed eager to trot the horses out so that they could renew their friendship with the young man who had been gone from them for half a year. Richard paid attention to each one, and each one appeared to welcome the return of their master, but it was clear that his closest bond was with the horse that had thrown him, and before leaving, Richard wanted to see El Diablo again.

  It was past lunchtime when Lord Richard was ready to return to the manor. He admitted that he was tired, but when Cressida apologized for not realizing that this was exhausting, he put his hands on the wheels of his chair and turned half way so that he could speak to her.

  “It’s good to be tired for a reason,” he said quietly. “Thank you.”

  “If you’re willing to thank me for your horse blowing his nose on your face, my lord, then you’re welcome. I daresay we have more such adventures in store.”

  “I don’t promise to thank you for all of them,” he warned darkly. But he was smiling as he turned back around.

  He was very handsome when he smiled. His features were designed for good humor, she realized; the high cheekbones and lean jaw allowed humor to present itself fully across his face and his eyes were vivid stages for mirth. It was not mirthful, she realized, for him to spend two hours with the horse that had thrown him, but it was part of the healing process. He would find out that, just as she had warned, there would be new causes for weariness and not all of them would be as pleasant as his interlude with the residents of the Pennington stables.

  Chapter Six

  The Earl was genuinely appreciative when Cressida, in answer to his summons, came to the library later that night.

  “Miss Lockwood,” he said without preamble. “I must thank you for what you have done. My son is a different man today. He came to the library before supper to ask me why we have no painted landscapes of the grounds. I had never considered such a thing, but of course now I will commission an artist. It’s the first showing that he’s made of interest in anything at all since the injury. I also learned that your outing to the stables was a success.”