by Olivia Drake
Alicia’s blue eyes widened; then she turned her attention to tidying a pile of spelling primers. “It’s quite simple. Mama doesn’t need me anymore. Nor does Gerald. And Drake…” A subtle husky quality entered her voice. “Drake sleeps during the day, so I’m free to do as I please.”
“Ah.” Her curiosity pricked, Sarah sank onto the window seat and studied her friend. “Does your husband know about this school?”
Alicia hesitated, then firmly shook her head. “I shall tell him when the time is right. He will approve.”
“I wouldn’t be so certain. He seems fixed on making his way in society. He’ll forbid you to spend your time with the lower classes.”
“Oh, but you’re wrong. Drake has given employment to many poor souls. He helps the needy, and I must, too. I am determined to show him that we’re compatible in more ways than…” Alicia’s voice trailed off. There was a softness about her mouth, a delicate flush to her cheeks.
“Bedsport,” Sarah murmured, struck by understanding. “He pleases you in the bedchamber.”
Her eyes dreamy, Alicia twirled the globe on the desk. “That does seem to be a time when we’re in perfect accord.”
Sarah felt a sharp stab of something remarkably like … jealousy. She tried to deny it. Charming though he might be, Drake Wilder walked the wicked path of a rake, and she didn’t envy Alicia the heartache that surely lay in store for her. Yet through the wall of her bitterness, Sarah yearned to feel a man’s touch again. To wear a look that bespoke private pleasures in the bedchamber. To be adored, cherished.…
For no reason she could fathom, her gaze strayed to James. The sunlight gilded his tawny hair, and she wondered how different her life would have been if she had chosen him five years ago, if he had been with her instead of out riding that unruly stallion—
She banished the useless fancy. It served no purpose to harbor regrets. If she’d married anyone else, she wouldn’t have William.
Her heart clenched sweetly as she gazed across the study at her son. Not for all the adoring swains in the world would she give him up.
What was James saying to him?
William sat straight at the desk, his small face sober and attentive. For a four-year-old he was far too still. He didn’t swing his legs like other children or fidget on the wooden seat. Perhaps she oughtn’t have brought him here. But they spent so little time together, and she’d wanted to make up for all the times she’d been too mired in her own unhappiness to give attention to him. He was so reserved, Sarah hardly knew what to say to him anymore.
She pressed her fingernails into the window seat. James didn’t appear to be having any such trouble. The deep murmur of his voice drifted the length of the study, and though she strained her ears, she could not discern his words.
“I’m so glad James has agreed to help,” Alicia said. “It’s been good for him to get out of his house. He’ll make a fine instructor for the school. Don’t you agree?”
Sarah assumed an indifferent expression. “He won’t last beyond the first day. He’ll succumb to his cantankerous nature.”
“He hasn’t acted cantankerous this past fortnight. I do believe that having the wheeled chair has changed him for the better.”
Sarah didn’t agree. All too often, she’d skillfully parried the sword of his sarcasm. If he had grown more tolerant with others, it was only because he’d focused the full force of his resentment on her. She opened her mouth to say so when something astonishing happened.
William hopped out of the desk and onto James’s lap. The two of them rolled toward the doorway, James deftly turning the large, iron-shod wheels with his hands. He wore no coat and his shirtsleeves were rolled to the elbow, displaying the strong muscles of his forearms.
Alarmed, Sarah hastened across the study. “Where do you think you going?”
James shot her a look of supercilious amusement. “Calm down, Duchess. I’m merely taking Will for a ride up and down the corridor.”
Irrationally angered by their rapport, she curled her fingers into fists. “His name is William. And he is staying here with me.”
“Nonsense. He wants to help me test this contraption.” He glanced down at the boy clinging trustingly to his neck. “Don’t you, Your Grace?”
“I would, sir.” William lifted his hopeful gray eyes to her. “Please, Mama, may I?”
The ice in her melted a little. “Well … if you hold on tightly … and promise to be very careful—”
“A little less mollycoddling, if you please,” James broke in.
The impertinence of him, Sarah fumed, to criticize her maternal concern. But before she could retort, he rolled the chair away, picking up speed far too quickly. Worried, she hurried out of the study to see the chair careening down the corridor toward the front of the house. The wheels clattered over the bare marble floor. As they neared the foyer, a workman stepped out of the library.
He spied them and leaped back. The chair swerved.
Sarah’s heart surged into her throat. The scene seemed to freeze into agonizing slowness. They would crash.…
Then James glided into a neat turn. They came racing back, and a squeal of laughter barely registered through her petrified senses.
William’s laughter.
They were both laughing, man and boy, as the chair rolled to a smooth halt, the wheels caught by James’s deft grip. But Sarah barely noticed him.
With a strangled cry, she snatched her son up into her arms, hugging him close, kissing his soft cheek, touching his small form to reassure herself of his safety. With each shaky breath, she drew in his little-boy scent. Awash with a numbing relief, she glanced over his head at James.
The wretch was smiling at Alicia, bantering with her as she delivered a good-natured scolding.
Sarah had forgotten his smile. She had forgotten that flash of white teeth, the dimpling of his cheeks, the twinkle in his blue eyes. And she had forgotten how her insides could twist into a knot at the sight.
“Mama, you’re squashing me,” William complained, wriggling in her arms.
She loosened her grip. “I’m sorry, darling,” she said, giving him another kiss before reluctantly letting him down and smoothing his rumpled hair. “It’s just that … I’m glad you’re happy.”
James looked at her, and his smile vanished. By the sardonic curl of his lips, she knew that he had seen her unguarded emotions. She loathed him for exposing that vulnerability in her. Fury welled up in a choking flood, and she pressed her lips together, determined to hold her temper in front of her son.
Alicia glanced at both of them, then took hold of William’s small hand. “How would you like to go down to the kitchen with me? Mrs. Molesworth, our cook, has baked a chocolate cake.”
Obediently, he took her hand and they walked away, disappearing through a door that led down to the basement rooms.
James cast her a hooded glance. “He was never in any danger, Duchess.”
“Never in danger?” Beset by rage, she curled her fingers into fists. “Is that all you can say? You nearly killed my son.”
“Don’t be theatrical. Will enjoyed it. You oughtn’t shelter him so much.”
“His name is William,” she said again through gritted teeth. “And I’ll be as theatrical as I bloody well please. After all, he is my son, not yours.”
A granite stillness descended over James’s features. Into the silence came the faraway sound of workmen pounding somewhere upstairs. Then James swung his chair around and rolled into the study, leaving her standing alone in the corridor.
In spite of her anger, Sarah felt ashamed of her thoughtless cruelty. Of course, he would never have a son. Why had she not considered that?
She marched after him. “I’m sorry,” she said stiffly. “I didn’t mean to offend.”
Flanked by bars of sunshine from the windows, he sat watching her. His lips curled ever so slightly as if he contemplated a scathing riposte. But he said the last thing she’d expected. “You really ought
to marry again, Duchess.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Will needs a father.” James paused, his blue eyes intent on her. “So why don’t you run along to one of your social events and bedazzle the gentlemen?”
A dozen retorts sprang to her tongue. But she could only sputter, “Are you telling me to leave?”
“How perceptive of you,” he went on in that biting tone. “And before you go, let me give you some friendly advice. This time, try to choose a man who won’t leave you for another woman.”
A wallop of pain rendered her speechless. “How dare you … presume to pass judgment on me—”
“It’s Will I’m thinking of. You need a husband who will give him the attention he needs.”
Restless with anger, she paced before James. “What can you know of my son’s needs? You’d never even met him before today. I’ve cared for him since he was born.” She remembered that day, the agony … and the joy of holding him to her breast for the first time.…
“Tell me, Duchess, do you know what Will wants to be when he grows up?”
She scowled at the insolent, godlike expression on his handsome face. “He is the duke, of course,” she said frostily. “What else can he be?”
“He wants to be a coalman. He wants to drive a dray and deliver the coal—”
“I know what a coalman is,” she snapped. “And you’re making up this Banbury tale.”
“Ask him, then. Each Tuesday morning, Will sits by the nursery window and sees the coalman down in the courtyard. Apparently he’s a jolly fellow, always whistling, always giving a friendly wave.” James paused, a faint grin showing a hint of his dimples. “Besides which, the coalman is very dirty. That part does appeal to small boys.”
The image jolted Sarah. Against her will, she pictured her son kneeling on the window seat in the nursery, waving to a filthy tradesman. In the midst of a very proper horror, she had to repress a strange, aching desire to smile. “How do you know all this?” she scoffed.
“By talking to him. It took a little coaxing, but Will has quite a lot to say.”
He did? Again, Sarah had that disconcerting sense of inadequacy. The sense that she had failed as a mother. In less than an hour, James had learned something about her son’s innermost dreams.
“Don’t look so stricken,” James said in a neutral tone devoid of cold mockery. “There are things a boy won’t tell his mother. He needs a father in his life, that’s all.”
Did he? Was she, in her bitterness toward men, cheating William of a normal life?
She caught James watching her as she paced, his gaze narrowed on her, following her every movement. There was something in his scrutiny that caused her breasts to tighten. To ache with the need to feel his hands …
No. Appalled at herself, she denied the feeling. She wasn’t attracted to this man. She loathed him.
“Go,” he taunted softly. “Begone from here, Duchess. Go to the park or to the shops or wherever else you can flirt with the gentlemen.”
She had the perverse desire to stay right here, to show him that he could not dictate her life. Seeing a crate filled with geography primers, she walked to it, sinking down to her knees, graceful despite her slim orchid skirt. She reached inside and took out a book. “I told Alicia I’d help her, and that is what I intend to do.”
James wheeled closer, angling his chair beside the crate. He cast a derisive look at her fine muslin gown with its daring décolletage. Any other man she would have suspected of enjoying the display of her bosom. But not this man.
“Now, there’s a sight I never thought to see,” he said in his disparaging tone. “Her Grace of Featherstone kneeling before me.”
Immediately she realized her mistake. From this perspective, she was forced to look up at him, to endure his sulky attractiveness at too close a range. “Go away,” she said, reaching for another book. “I’ve work to do.”
“I’ll unpack here. Your admirers await you.” He reached for the primer in her hands.
She held tightly to the book. “What makes you so certain I have admirers?”
“Fishing for compliments?” he jeered. “You know you’re beautiful, with those violet eyes and kissable lips. You can’t resist flaunting your breasts at any man you meet. Even me.”
A strange fierceness in his eyes made her heart beat faster. Did he really find her beautiful? And why did she care? “I’ve done nothing of the sort! So leave me be.”
“I want you gone from here.”
“That is your misfortune, then. I am not yours to command.”
He yanked again at the book, but she refused to let go. For a moment they engaged in a silent tug-of-war. Aware of his superior strength, she clenched her teeth, her fingernails biting into the leather cover. She wouldn’t let him win this battle of wills. She wouldn’t—
Abruptly he gave a pull so powerful and unexpected that she followed the book into his lap. Sprawled ungracefully, her bosom pressed to his chest, she could only stare at him in shock.
His eyes glittered back at her. “Damn you, Sarah,” he growled. “Damn you.”
The extreme frustration in his voice startled her. Through his shirt, she could feel the heat and strength of his upper body. Breathlessness assailed her. “What … what have I ever done to you?”
“This.” Seizing her hand, he brought it down to his breeches, forcibly shaping her fingers around his male member.
Speechless, she couldn’t move. He felt long and thick and hot, a man in full arousal. For her.
Excitement rushed over her, reckless and irresistible. She couldn’t catch her breath. “James,” she murmured shakily. And she brought her mouth to his in a kiss.
Chapter Twenty-two
“Now, there’s a sight,” Drake said, surveying the audience at Astley’s Amphitheatre. “Lady Markem’s lover just pinched her bottom.”
Alicia had been enthralled by the amazing fire-eater in the center ring. She had been enjoying little William’s delight as he stood with his mother at ringside, too excited to sit. Seeing Drake’s lazy grin, Alicia couldn’t help but smile back. “Lady Markem?” she scoffed. “Impossible. She’s the doyenne of propriety.”
“Have a look, then.” He handed her the opera glasses. “First balcony over there.”
Unable to resist, she peeked through the magnified circles. To the left, leaning over the wall of the balcony, stood the buxom, middle-aged lady with a gangly young man who was definitely not the staid Lord Markem. The man tickled her beneath her fleshy arm. Even above the din of the crowd, Alicia could hear her squeal as she playfully slapped his hand.
Aghast, Alicia let the opera glasses fall to her lap. The fire-eater took a bow and left the ring. Amid cheers from the crowd, she murmured to Drake, “It is Lady Markem. How can she behave so immodestly in public?”
“Her iron underdrawers must have finally rusted through.”
Working her features into a severe expression, she whispered, “Mind your tongue. And behave yourself.”
Drake flashed her a grin, his teeth white against his swarthy skin, his blue eyes full of the devil. “Never. This is a night made for amusements.”
A shivery awareness danced over her skin. He sat beside her, his leg brushing her skirt, his coat sleeve pressed to her arm. As he turned his attention back to the entertainment, she reveled in the excitement of his presence. He took genuine enjoyment in the spectacle, laughing easily, clapping with vigor.
She was especially impressed that he had kept his promise to William, procuring excellent seats for the early evening show almost within touching distance of the performers. Barely tall enough to see over the side, William stared agog as an acrobat rode into the ring, standing on the backs of two white horses. They cantered side by side around the huge ring, kicking up sawdust, passing so close that Alicia could see the slender man’s straining thigh muscles and hear the faint jingle of the harness. The man did a back flip, followed by a handstand, and the onlookers roared their approval.<
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With undukelike abandon, William jumped up and down. Sarah crouched to say something to him, her eyes sparkling in the brilliance of the magnificent glass chandelier. They laughed together at a roly-poly clown who skipped into the arena.
Alicia’s heart overflowed with a yearning delight. How much happier Sarah had been this past fortnight. She and James had flirted rather than fought, and Alicia suspected a romance, though neither would admit to it. With a pang, she wished that James could have accompanied them tonight.
But Drake didn’t yet know about the school, let alone that Lord Hailstock’s son was assisting her.
The horses rode out of the ring, and a surge of music from the orchestra drew attention to the adjoining stage. The green velvet curtains lifted, and a barrel-chested announcer proclaimed the next act. He made a sweeping gesture at a man in a red-lined black cape, who removed his tall hat and bowed to the audience.
William ran to Drake. His brown eyes large in his small face, he said with reverent awe, “The magician.”
“So it is,” Drake said, smiling as he tousled the boy’s dark hair. “I told you he’d be here.”
His easy affection toward the child warmed Alicia’s heart. She hoped someday they would have children, for Drake would be a wonderful father. They would be happy together, and he would surely love her.
In a haze of dreamy contentment, she watched as the magician pulled endless scarves from his sleeve and then drew a rabbit out of his hat. The finale of the evening was a mock battle between performers dressed as the French and British cavalry. The clash of their swords, the leaps of their horses, made a grand spectacle that had William cheering his country and booing the enemy.
Afterward, in their coach, the young duke talked enthusiastically, asking Drake questions about the training of the horses and how many hours the acrobats must practice. Then, in the midst of one of Drake’s answers, William gave a great yawn, tucked his head against Sarah’s side, and fell promptly to sleep.
