by Lisa Bingham
“Of all the stubborn, ill-managed children it has been my pleasure to teach, you’ve got to take the prize.”
She appraised him for a moment with a determined blue gaze. One so clear and steady that Sullivan could nearly believe she had the ability to see straight through him.
“Give me your hand, Master Richard.”
She held out her own, palm up. He was confronted with incredibly slender fingers. The skin was smooth and ladylike, but he could see by its character that Miss Wickersham was not a stranger to hard work.
“Your hand.”
Realizing he must not press his “savageness” too far, Sullivan obeyed. Just as he’d imagined, her flesh was delicate and soft. But the bones and muscles beneath were tensile and strong.
She indicated that he should rise and led him toward a privacy screen which had been placed in the corner to disguise the porcelain chamber pot.
Pushing the clothing into his arms, she said, “A proper gentleman does not disrobe in front of anyone other than his manservant. Not even in the presence of his wife. Consider this for future reference, Master Richard.”
She shooed him behind the elaborate wooden shield, but even though his governess was hidden from view, Sullivan could feel her presence on the other side. He could almost see her waiting impatiently, her arms folded, her toe tapping a restless tattoo against the polished floorboards.
Sullivan quickly investigated the things he’d been given. To his utter disappointment, he realized his governess had offered him an oversized rough linen workshirt, a huge pair of broadcloth trousers, and the scrap of fabric he’d worn as a loincloth when he’d first arranged a meeting with Lady Sutherland’s bloodhounds.
Briefly annoyed that he had none of his own clothing, Sully sighed. What he wouldn’t give for a decent pair of breeches and a solid pair of boots in this cursedly cold country. But his captors had taken his disguise at face value and had never bothered to see if he owned a wardrobe more extensive than a single scrap of linen.
Sullivan considered his governess, then swiftly covered himself with the loincloth. After slipping his arms into the billowing shirt, he stepped from behind the screen.
Miss Wickersham looked up from the spot she’d been glaring into the floor. For the first time since his arrival, Sullivan believed he might have caught her off-guard. He thought he detected the briefest glimmer of shock.
But then she frowned, marching from the room like a general in search of her troops.
“Greyson! Greyson, come teach this heathen how to clothe himself properly!” he heard her call as she stamped down the staircase.
Chuckling softly to himself, Sullivan leaned against the bedpost and waited.
Where was that man?
Chelsea came to a halt in the doorway of the scullery. Both Greyson and Smee had disappeared for the time being. Just when she needed them most.
Tamping down a groan of frustration, Chelsea reluctantly returned to the foyer.
If she had been given any real idea of what it would be like to care for Richard Sutherland, she would have refused to participate. She would have offered her apologies and been quit of the whole affair. No woman alive—no proper woman—should have been asked to involve herself in such a scandalous muddle of affairs.
No proper woman, a voice echoed deep in her head.
Chelsea hesitated in midstride and drew to a reluctant halt. Could she even lay claim to such a title now? No proper woman would have touched Richard Sutherland while he was unconscious. No proper woman would have gazed upon him while he was unclothed.
Most notably, no proper woman would have allowed herself the burst of undeniable pleasure she’d experienced when he’d emerged wearing nothing more than a loincloth and a loose, flowing shirt.
True character will out.
Chelsea’s eyes squeezed shut for a moment as the words resounded in her head. Hadn’t that always been Papa’s favorite phrase?
Evidently, he’d been right. Though Chelsea might appear the conservative, genteel woman to those who met her, deep in her own heart she knew the truth. That Chelsea Wickersham was but a name she’d plucked from thin air. That her lineage had no more breeding to it than if she were the daughter of an impoverished Irish ferryman.
Oh, Papa, why didn’t you live longer? Why didn’t you see what would happen once you died?
Pushing away the flood of brackish images that invariably descended at the memories of her father, Chelsea moved determinedly toward the stairs.
She had developed a reputation for herself. A place. She had abandoned her previous identity as if it had never existed, and she refused to feel any guilt for making such a clean break from her past. Once she’d made a gentleman of Richard Sutherland, she would move on again. To another employer. Another nursery. She couldn’t deny that the idea was far from inviting. But what other choice did she have? A woman alone had to find a means of employment. Even if it meant working with the likes of Richard Sutherland.
Chelsea flung open the door with the deft flick of her wrist. Richard Sutherland leaned indolently against the bed. His hair had been washed and combed, but Greyson had not yet had the opportunity to cut it, so it hung in dark, thick waves to a point just beyond his shoulders.
The black-brown waves might underscore his primitive state, but it was the way Smee’s shirt hung about the lean sculptured mass of his body that caused a tingle of desire to dance in her veins. If possible, the scant covering of the loincloth and the rumpled drape of the linen shirt seemed more dangerous than when he’d stood before her completely naked.
She opened her mouth to speak, hesitated, then stated, “Greyson is unable to serve as your manservant for the time being, so I suppose I shall have to take his place since Smee has disappeared and your grandmother is still in London.”
She eased toward him, wondering how to accomplish the task of dressing her charge without losing every last shred of her own personal dignity. Finally, steeling herself for the worst, she decided to look upon the next few moments as a challenge. She would regard him as a wayward child. A mischievous boy.
“Master Richard, I think you should button your shirt first of all.”
He blinked uncomprehendingly.
“Have you no grasp of the language at all?”
He offered no sign of having understood.
“Very well.” She began the task of fastening the garment. His skin was warm. Firm. Intoxicating. Midway down his chest, she stopped. “Finish, please.”
To her complete shock, he reached out to begin unfastening the buttons of her own bodice.
“Master Richard!” She slapped his hands and backed away as if she’d been burned, praying that her cheeks were not beginning to reflect a rosy hue.
He adopted such a crestfallen expression, she realized he must have misunderstood. “Your buttons.” She pointed to his chest. “Tend to your buttons.”
Though he seemed subdued, he complied. Only after he was completely covered by the huge shirt—from neck to midthigh—did she feel any measure of relief.
“Finish with your trousers,” she instructed, backing away. But before she could move too far, he grasped her arm.
An immediate charge radiated from that point of contact, like a match touched to gunpowder. Chelsea’s mind willed her to retreat, but her feet remained welded to the floor. She could only stare at the broad masculine fingers wrapped around her elbow. A sparse dusting of dark hair beckoned to her. His wrists were strong and well formed.
“Ye—” She cleared her throat when the word emerged as a squeak, then repeated, “Yes?”
He offered her a long, soulful glance. One that caused his ice-green eyes to gleam with bits of brown. She felt quite sure that he had sensed her disquiet. Then he solemnly reached out to refasten her dress. A wanton wildfire spread through her chest to drizzle deliciously through the rest of her body.
Once he’d finished, he didn’t withdraw. Hesitantly, he t
ouched her chin, her mouth. Not in an overly familiar way, but in the manner of an artist who searched a statue for texture and form. Just when she feared the last of her grand avowals of control would tumble to her feet in a pile of dust, he stopped.
Chelsea barely managed a husky “Thank you for fixing my buttons, Master Richard.” Touch me. Touch me again.
Shaking her head to clear it of such thoughts, she armed herself against this man’s appeal and moved to retrieve the trousers from where Richard had left them behind the privacy screen. Sitting on the edge of the bed, she held the breeches out and motioned for Richard to put them on.
His head tilted in confusion.
“You must finish dressing, Master Richard.” It was the only way she could maintain her sanity.
When he didn’t respond, she tapped his calf and urged him to comply. The strong muscles rippled as he stepped into the leg. Dark, wiry hairs tickled her skin. She shifted with untold reluctance.
“Again, please,” she murmured, barely able to speak without having the command emerge in a kittenish purr. She hated herself for displaying such weaknesses—she who had always been so iron-willed. But from the moment Richard Sutherland had entered her life, years of training and dedication had seemed to drain free like sand from an hourglass.
Richard climbed into his breeches, and she automatically complimented him on his obedience. “Very good. Soon, we’ll have you more than adequately prepared for the afternoon.” Standing, she drew the pants up to his waist. All the while, she thanked heaven that Smee’s trousers were so wide that they could be held at a relatively safe distance away from Richard’s body. She didn’t know what she would do if her knuckles were to skim against his flanks.
“Button, please.”
When he didn’t do as he’d been told, Chelsea knew that she could not, would not, fasten the placket. Luckily, he seemed to interpret her command, because he obeyed after an interminable pause. Heaving a silent sigh of relief, she took a piece of twine and circled it around his lean waist, then folded the top band twice to hold the makeshift alterations in place.
Finished, she regarded her charge with a critical eye. If possible, he seemed even less the titled gentleman and more the savage. If the women of society were to see him this way, they would either swoon at his feet in delight or run screaming into the night. And the men … well, there was no telling what a man would do. Probably challenge him to a duel simply on principle.
She hoped Richard would never be seen by anyone outside of Bellemoore in such a state. Clad in the too-large shirt and too-short pants, he had the appearance of a bizarre rendition of Robinson Crusoe. By the time she had him trained in his duties, she hoped he would seem more like a mysterious gentleman of means.
Tugging at her apron strings, Chelsea crossed to the armoire in the corner. Removing a larger, dove-gray Mother Hubbard pinafore, she exchanged the smaller wrap for the all-encompassing shield. While her back was presented to Richard, she repaired the tatters of her professionalism. By the time she had knotted the bow at the base of her spine, Chelsea Wickersham, governess, had returned.
“We are pleased with your progress this morning, Master Richard,” she announced, offering him a huge smile as she walked to the door. “Come along. It’s time for our lessons.”
Gesturing for him to follow, she marched into the hall.
Sullivan hiked his pants more securely around his waist and trailed behind her with a secret smile. Somehow, he sensed that he’d rattled Miss Wickersham. She might not show it in any particularly betraying expression or action, but he could tell.
For this time—this time—she hadn’t dared to pat him on the top of his head.
Chapter 8
The clatter of carriages and the cacophony of foot traffic cloaked the sound of Gregory Cane’s boot heels striking the cobbled walk. Dodging into a narrow alley, he escaped the bustle of the London side street and climbed the rickety steps leading up the side of a timber structure named the Wayfarer’s Inn. It was a quiet little establishment run by two women who had once served as Episcopal missionaries in the Indies. They doted upon strangers who needed a place to sleep—for an hour, a day, or a year.
Gregory entered by the upper landing, assuming a stealth that came second nature to him now. His green eyes glittered. His blunt features were etched in determination and remained slightly bitter. No one saw him enter the chamber at the end of the hall. Just as no one had seen him leave.
Rupert looked up immediately, betraying the fact that he had not been reading the book resting in his lap. “Any news?”
Gregory glanced at the figure sleeping in the nearby bed and kept his tone low in deference to the recovering invalid. “No one could tell me anything about Sully or a mysterious Sutherland heir. But I’ve located Nigel. He’s staying at Lindon Manor for the summer.”
Lindon. The name lingered on his tongue, bittersweet, and inexplicably enticing.
“When do we leave?”
“Tonight.”
“What will we do once we arrive?”
Gregory’s expression revealed a brief flash of anticipation, regret and fury before becoming set and determined—and therefore much more menacing.
“We return the good Lord Sutherland’s attentions in kind—but first we must dress for the occasion.”
Hundreds of candles rained light upon the opulent ballroom of Lindon Manor. The crush of people in the overheated dancing hall caused the tapers to don misty halos. The room seemed to be cloaked in an ethereal cloud. Broad windows had been thrown open to catch the slightest hint of a breeze, but the musky odor of an impending storm offered little relief. Except for the tortured dance of the delicate lace curtains, the heat had drained the room of its vibrant energy, shifting the focus of the evening’s activities from dance and recreation to slander.
Nigel, Lord Sutherland, seventh Earl of Lindon, damned the interminable evening. Feigning an interest in the conversations being bandied about, he laughed heartily at the joke he’d been told by the Baron de Guy. Slapping the man on the back, he congratulated the florid-faced Frenchman for his sterling wit while inwardly he prayed that the pompous ass would move on to a fresher audience.
The baron began yet another tale, and Lord Sutherland clenched his jaw in irritation. Short of offering this influential man his back, Nigel was pinned as effectively to his place as a bug to a board. His only outlet for the restlessness he suffered was to roam the room with his eyes.
The gala was about to decrescendo from its frenetic high. Already, he could feel the submerged drive of the evening beginning to ebb. Soon, the attendees would grow as restless as he, and the latent entertainment being offered would not be as attractive as an evening in bed—either one’s own, a lover’s, or a stranger’s.
Sutherland surveyed the chattering clumps of people milling about the grand gilt-and-lacquered ballroom in a jaundiced manner. In all honesty, he doubted if any of his guests had come with their minds set on much more than “seeing and being seen.” They had downed ungodly amounts of champagne and imported delicacies from the buffet while distracting one another with bits of gossip, verbally placing themselves on a pedestal while dragging a friend or acquaintance through the mire. But Nigel didn’t care. His own objectives for the gathering had been just as selfish.
His position as Earl of Lindon had not been easily obtained. For all intents and purposes, he had inherited the title when Richard Sutherland III had been exiled for treason and no other Sutherland males could be found.
Nigel’s lips twitched with remembered satisfaction. He would never forget the sweet revenge he’d experienced when Richard Albert and his wife had been taken bodily onto the convict ship. He would never forget the tang of triumph when he’d watched the elder Albert Sutherland wither away from the daily drops of poison Nigel put in his tea.
He’d been little more than twenty years of age, but he’d still managed to obtain his goals. He’d become lord of the mano
r, the seventh Earl of Lindon. Unfortunately, he’d been unable to completely escape the whispers of innuendo that had accompanied his quick advance in station.
Thirty years should be long enough to prove oneself, he thought, especially when no solid evidence of his complicity had ever been uncovered. But the peerage was slow to forget such a titillating bout of conjecture. No one cared that Sutherland shipping had boomed over the last decade. No one bothered to congratulate him on the tripling of his fortune. No one wanted to peer beyond the intriguing scandal.
So every year, beginning the first week of June, Lord Sutherland hosted a three-week celebration: hunting, picnics, dinners, and sport. He invited his guests to the renowned Sutherland summer retreat in Scotland and launched the festivities by throwing a party. The biggest, most expensive, most exclusive party of the season. If some of the ton felt he was trying to buy their approval through a display of excess … they were right.
Lord Sutherland felt an imperceptible tap against his sleeve, an action that would have gone unnoticed in the push and bump of the celebration if he had not seen the figure who had approached him with a quiet sense of urgency.
Reginald Wilde was—as always—impeccably dressed. An elegant black cutaway clung to his sinewy figure, revealing the compact frame of a man accustomed to regular exercise and moderate diet. His wheat-blond hair had been combed away from a high forehead; his brown eyes constantly searched the assemblage.
“Excuse me, Lord Sutherland.” The words were nearly lost in the crush of voices and the oom-pah-pah’s of the brass band in the corner of the room. A band, of all things, Lord Sutherland thought absently as he checked to see if the Baron de Guy had noted Wilde’s appearance. When Nigel’s wife, Estella, had informed him that she had hired a brass quintet—as was popular in those damned soirees the colonies hosted—he’d nearly succumbed to a fit of rage. But she’d been right again. His guests had been entranced by the sounds emanating from the shiny horns and had scrambled to find room on the dance floor among the crush of people already there. The strains of a waltz by Chopin took on an entirely new personality when interpreted by the deep-throated lilt of the shiny instruments.
