10. Chastise. Sympathize. Scandalize.

10

Chastise. Sympathize. Scandalize.

“By all that’s holy and blessed…” Ed began after everyone returned from their excursion to town several hours later.

With most guests retiring to their rooms, to rest, change and ready themselves for dinner, Warrick and his friend stole a few private moments in Lord Ballenger’s study, where Warrick had gone to thaw his body—and cool his ardor—after the heated exchange with Miss Prim (his new name for her, if she wouldn’t permit him to cast about for appropriate rhymes anymore).

“What?” he prompted when Ed remained silent, curious over his companion’s tense posture, especially given the relaxed air between them both for the last hour or more.

After exchanging superficial pleasantries over first port and then snuff, and then back to beverages, Ed now stood by his future father-in-law’s desk, his one hand clamped, white-fingered, around his tumbler.

“What has you in a dither?” Not accounting for unexpectedly inheriting the title—and the betrothal—when his two older brothers met their end in the last year, Ed was generally the most calm, congenial of fellows. But now? “You look like you want to cuff someone.”

“Aye, you.”

Incredulous over that revelation, Warrick set aside the snuff tin he’d been idling with. “Explain yourself.”

“Tell me I need not be anxious over you imposing upon of Harriet’s governess.”

Caught. “Imposing?” Stalling? “Whatever makes you say such a thing?”

“I saw you both.” Ed scowled as though he’d swallowed the snuff instead of only inhaling it. “In the garden late morn. When I rode back to retrieve some giggling chit’s cloak and scarf as the carriages rolled on.”

Well and truly caught.

What did one do once across enemy lines and threatened with capture? Running was out, so it fell to deflection. “That little annoyance?” Warrick spat remarkably well, given the hard, anxious thump of his heart. “I don’t know what you think you saw, but I simply bade her to summon a footman or two, to see me returned inside.”

Ed’s craggy face remained inscrutable. “And you needed to clasp her hand for that?”

Damn. Absolutely caught. “What of it? She has a lively mind. We discussed Latin.” Had they? Ed looked understandably doubtful, so he added, “Talked of my injury and some physician her uncle knows. And May Day.”

“May Day?” His friend’s skepticism knew no bounds.

And mistletoe and kissing. And me seeing her sans clothing. “And something of her parents.” What had she said? “She misses them dreadfully. There was nothing untoward about it.”

Liar.

“Hmmm.” Ed shifted, brought his port slowly to his lips but stopped just shy of drinking. “And her batting away your hand?”

“She took umbrage when I— When…” Warrick rubbed his fingers over his lips. “When, ah…”

After a slow swallow, Ed lowered the glass. “When you spouted something inappropriate?”

Shame threatened to warm his cheeks. He clenched his jaw against it. “Well, it isn’t as though I can sprout anything inappropriate.” Like a serviceable prick. “Despite your advances toward marital-bed occurrences, words are all I have left.”

Ed placed the drink on the nearest glass-top table and took four strides, until he knelt in front of the despised Merlin’s chair. “Richard.”

Ack. His name. The one from school when they were boys. “What? To consider anything about her diverting… Any curiosity is inconsequential. Nothing can come of it.” He spared a dark look toward his groin. “You know that.”

“Then why trifle with her?”

“I wasn’t trifling!” Without intent, the words exploded. “I cannot sprout nor can I trifle. We both know I cannot. I am destined to buy some rich mushroom’s insipid daughter with my title. Not that I can do the faceless unfortunate any good either.”

With his ever-strengthening hand—the one that remained—Ed gripped the flesh above one knee and squeezed. Warrick knew because he saw Ed’s fingers move. Not because he felt anything.

“What harm can come from a mild flirtation?” Warrick asked, sounding both defensive and subdued; the ache in the question surprised them both.

Ed moved his hand to grip Warrick’s where he’d fisted both near the hated handles that directed his chair. This he felt. Warm comfort from the best of mates. A stern squeeze of chastisement as well.

Ed sighed, as though surrendering—but not before asking, “What harm, Rich? Have you stopped to ask yourself what harm courting anything between the two of you might do to her? Or, more importantly—more selfishly, to my thinking, since you are the one I care about—what it might do to you ?”

“Ahhh, Warrick. Wassail?” Lord Ballenger said the next night with a heavy dose of disappointment, once the men relocated to his study after dinner and before some games began, noticing the glass Frost had just handed him. “No need to keep drinking that here, ladies not present and all that.” His host gestured toward the sideboard where an array of bottles awaited his preference. “Especially as there exists more than sufficient port and sundry others.”

Knowing surrounding eyes were on him once again, Warrick did what he did best. He entertained. He sought smiles. Sought to direct attention away from himself and back into the rumpus of the others.

“One cannot top well if one is tippled, you know. Hard to seduce when one is in their cups.” That brought the anticipated chuckles, and kept him on the path of being his outrageous self.

Until he could escape. Roll off somewhere that promised solitude. Where he didn’t have to present loud joviality when all he really wanted to do was knock down a bottle of brandy and knock out a wall, or mayhap two.

For, ever since the forbidden governess took herself off (directly after a few recitations of You evil, vile wretch! —among others—that echoed behind her fleeing form, gonging about in his brain and bringing guilt), seemed all his mind wanted to do was wallow.

Wallow in regret—that he wasn’t standing. That his accounts and pockets weren’t brimming with blunt. That he hadn’t had a chance to apologize, sincerely this time, because he did regret offending Miss Prim’s prim sensibilities during their not-quite tryst in the garden. Most of all, Warrick regretted that he wasn’t, even remotely, in any state to follow her or give serious attention to continuing their flirt.

The familiar anger that had ridden him constantly during the weeks after they landed on English shores had roared back with a vengeance. Sadness and the beginnings of acceptance had been trampled under the rage.

After sucking down the few remaining swallows of wassail, he handed off the glass to Frost and shook his head: Nay, do not hand me another, lest I should crumble and crush the glass within my grip, having not a care of slicing or shredding my flesh further .

As though you need more injuries?

What he needed was the ability to sit a horse again. To march out of this happy holiday home, coax forth and catch up a horse, saddle it and swing up without care. Without any bloody assistance. To race off toward London and his bachelor townhouse—not his family estate, nor toward his mama (and siblings) which lay in opposite directions.

What he needed was to escape back into his private bedchamber and the bottles his servants would bring without censure lining their expressions.

For their wages, at least, he had continued to pay.

Despite one brief—very brief —illicit (only because he’d been told to leave her alone and engaged her in flirtation anyway), moonlit encounter with Miss Primrose in the ballroom during the deep hours of last night, melancholy had replaced his morose turn of mind by the next afternoon.

But failed to herald much improvement. Because the seasonal, celebratory visit had eclipsed by both in a blink and with excruciating slowness. And here he was, saying goodbye to Ed and his mother, Lady Redford, as they prepared to depart Redford Manor, along with Lady Anne who accompanied her new intended and future mama-in-law.

Most of the guests, including his ride Frost, were bound here another day, with plans to depart in the morning at first light. Shocking, that—that ol’ Saint Nick had managed to endure the revelries this long. About the only thing bringing a smile to Warrick’s face today was the scowl on his friend’s. Still wallowing, he took a perverse pleasure knowing Frostwood was, in his own way, just as miserable.

And what kind of man does that make you? To revel in the suffering of others?

A petty, petulant one whose peevish prick still refuses to poke properly.

All thoughts of pouts and penises vanished when Lady Redford bustled over, seeking him out amidst those present and standing around (would that he could), milling about in the Great Hall near the entry, witnessing the spectacle of a couple of grand carriages, containing other guests, depart.

“Dear Richard, do your mother and I proud. Eat, stave off imbibing too much.” She accompanied this gentle harangue with a fierce hug so of course he could take no offense. “And listen to that surgeon your mama found for you. She wrote me, in alt over stories she heard about him. He’s had notable success with others injured severely. He?—”

He—Warrick—had endured enough. More hope? More promises? More disappointment .

Crushing disappointment the more it occurred.

So he cradled her hands, pressed her frailer, feminine ones between the strength of his, and forced a smile. “You know I will endeavor to do my best. I meet with him later in January.”

“Good. Good.” A kiss to his cheek and a “I shall see you both, and your brothers and sisters too, this summer” and she was off.

Leaving him disappointed, once again.

This time, from bidding her comfortable presence goodbye. Also from the small sliver of hope she’d left dancing about his head.

Perhaps when he and his family visited Lady Redford in six months as promised, he’d have some sort of progress to show for the dreaded, forthcoming visit with this lauded, crack-brain of a doctor.

Damn that sliver of hope.

Late that evening, Aphrodite trod down the backstairs once seeing an exhausted Harri tucked safely to bed after an energetic day where the child sought to visit with everyone . To do everything . Her antics entertaining those around her, her enthrallment with everything from discovering Sir Lancelot (brother of the already mourned Sir Galahad, with neck still intact) out near the lake to her giggling delight over a finger-singeing game of snapdragon.

Aphrodite’s feet ached from use. From darting after her bouncing charge throughout the manor house and over the estate gardens…

The gardens. Which she pointedly refused to think about. For to do so only courted scandalous enticement she could well do without.

She forced her mind back to Harri and how the girl had laughingly led Aphrodite on a merry chase today:

1. To the lawn for shuttlecock.

2. Up the stairs to the portrait gallery to regale the remaining guests with stories of “the pompous ancestors of Papa’s who deserved to be pasted or pinned with bows”. (By now, not only did everyone know of her exploits with ribbons and subsequent punishment—only because Harri herself freely shared—but her parents had quite given up trying to confine their youngest to the nursery.)

3. Back down to the card rooms for whist—“Does anyone care to wager me?” (They did not , not after learning how soundly the child had trounced her mother, while learning the game.)

All in all, this—the last full day the Larchmont home would overflow with guests—had been a mix of high spirits occasioned by deep doldrums. “Everyone will be gone t-tomorrow,” Harri had cried against Aphrodite’s chest moments ago as she sat with the girl before sleep claimed her. “And I shall be all alone once more!”

Oh, the trials of youth.

Leaving the back stairwell for the hallway, she dabbed her handkerchief over the shoulder of her dress—slightly damp from Harri’s recent tears. Let the girl cry while she was still young enough to do so, for the more years one gained, the less one was allowed to indulge in tears and the deeper the hurts cut.

Though she would deny it outright, Aphrodite suffered lassitude over the coming quiet as well. In the last sennight, she’d grown rather used to the bustle, to the morsels of news gleaned from London and abroad.

What you have, missy, is grown rather used to dodging a certain gentleman relegated to the main floor and his fixed—if inappropriate—attention.

Affronted at the very thought, she lowered her arm and tightened her fist around the handkerchief. I am sure that need not be dignified with ? —

And there he was—in a circle of others, so easily spied the moment she reached the end of the long corridor, despite the number of men milling around his seated form. She stumbled two steps back. Then inched forward yet again.

Why had she thought to drop by the kitchens below, to enjoy a cup of tea before retiring to her attic room?

Because, you daring hussy, you hoped to gain another glimpse of the inappropriate lord. To entertain a further flirt.

Nay, I ? —

Deny it no longer, lest your fingers ache from lines: I shall not covet a man above my station. I shall not think of him, dream of him, yearn for ? —

A silent groan strangled up her throat. For it was true. She had avoided him with stellar success the last fifty some-odd hours and knew she’d not be granted this chance again.

The chance to see him one last time.

Lout or no, fiend or not, she could not deny he fascinated.

“Warrick, when are you going to make use of the mistletoe?” someone asked, which only made her lips tingle.

“The next time a good opportunity arises.” His deep rumble of a voice easily carried her way though she’d retreated to a halt just inside the doorway…

Carried right through her ears and fairly swept her off her feet.