30. Falling For You

30

Falling For You

Why was she telling him this?

Why did a red-green, irritated-envious, utterly disordered haze suddenly color everything in the room?

Warrick strove not to let his instinctive, inexplicable reaction show. “Aye?”

Inexplicable? Mate, you know why ? —

“Mmm. He was an amiable gentleman, music tutor to Lady Harriet. He stayed all summer.”

All summer?

Warrick had to swallow before asking, “At the Ballenger estate?”

“In the village. But he visited frequently.”

Visited frequently . His posture stiffened to stone, hand lifted from its relaxed perch upon the dog’s head as he spread hands before him upon the table. Locked them in place. “Visited for Harri’s lessons.”

“Certainly, those, and to see me as well. To escort me out?—”

“Out? Where? Was Lady Ballenger apprised of this?” And why the devil did he sound so jealously angry about the notion?

“If anything, I think she encouraged it.”

Was his Prim gloating ? Being braggartry toward him? His ire must have shown, because she immediately added, “Well…if not encouraged , Lady Ballenger didn’t censure our activities in any way.”

“Did you fall for him?”

Not like I have for you.

Did her eyes convey that? Or did he only wish it were so?

“Not sufficiently to leave with him when he asked.”

“Asked? As in marriage ?”

She gave a slow nod.

“Are you trying to make me jealous?” And why did he both yearn to hear every detail of their moments together and, at the same time, want to quash them from her memory forever more?

“Jealous?” She laughed, but did not sound at all amused. “Would you not have to care about more than stolen lap kisses to be jealous? Of course I know better. Know better than to suspect you harbor any feelings toward me. Certainly know better than to aim so far above my station.” As though what she blathered could be nothing but the truth—however distant in reality—she slapped her hands together, the sound and action muffled by the towel—before retrieving a spoon, avoiding his gaze as she trifled with the stew, scooping vegetables and meat to test for readiness. He could already tell by the lack of smell things were not finished boiling.

Nay, naught boiled but his ludicrous jealousy.

“I am only attempting to explain what you inquired about. Any newfound confidence, I trust, likely came from the summer I spent with him.”

An entire summer. Days and days. “Did he grant kisses? Your music tutor.”

Warrick bit the edges of his tongue the moment the words were out. Too late, Rich.

Abandoning the spoon with the partially cooked chunks with a plop back into the kettle, she spun to face him, hands upon her hips. “He didn’t steal them, if that is what you ask.”

Didn’t steal them. Didn’t steal kisses—as he had. Not giving her a choice.

And bit upon or not, his traitorous mouth kept going. “So you gave them?”

Gave kisses to this unnamed bastard of a music tutor he felt the strong urge to pummel.

“A few.”

And what else? What else did you freely give? He clamped his lips at the roar that sought to escape. Clenched his toes—or at least tried to—and squashed the urge to stomp from the snug kitchen which had grown overwarm. He knew better. Falling on his face first and arse second was no way to impress his prickly Prim.

She didn’t marry the fellow.

He sought to console himself. The dog sought to console him as well, giving a light whine as Mercury rubbed his snout against Warrick’s thigh. He stared at the action, no clue whether he felt it, his thoughts in a turmoil. She did not leave her job as governess for the man.

Did not accept an offer. One that, from what he could glean, had come from a very suitable suitor.

Or—

Or…

Had she accepted the man’s kisses and found him wanting?

At the new thought, joy bubbled up through the jealousy.

Mayhap there had been something wrong with him. Like you?

“Was he aged? Infirm?” Like you? “Ugly as a troll?” he all but spat, his personal control floundering worse than a hooked fish upon the shore.

She did not laugh at his absurdity.

Did not answer, either. Only twitched in place, brow puckered and lips pursed, staring at him as though he had green skin, warts upon warts, not a strand of hair upon his head but copious tufts of it protruding from his ears and nose.

“Forgive me.” The apology tasted like ash. “I did not mean to imply only an aged, ugly old fool would find you worthy of courting. I…” He faltered.

Faltered more when she slapped the towel in front of him upon the table and glared at him as she took her leave without saying another word.

The baleful look cast once over her shoulder after she called Mercury from his side enough to make him feel about toenail tall.

Prim. Courted.

Hours later and the notion still plagued.

The fear, the very real fear, of how close she had come to being lost to him forever.

The jealousy did not sit well with him. In fact, it had set up camp at the base of his spine, not just the niggling ache he had the last hours or so—since tumbling off the harpsichord bench pell-mell—but fiery. Sharper. More intense than anything he had experienced since those first months of healing.

He strove to ignore it.

Both the physical pain as well as the emotional. Wasn’t about to let something as insignificant as envy—for a paltry music teacher, no less—or the wringing in his back, sensation he should be grateful he could feel, dissuade him from whatever he chose to do. However he chose to act.

And just what is it that you are contemplating?

He was of multiple minds on that…

Seduction. Friendship. Desperation?

Desperate longing, of a certainty.

He had yet to decide which course to pursue.

Because circumstances—his infirmities, familial responsibilities, necessity of a sinfully wealthy wife—bid him to pursue nothing at all.

No matter that his envious heart ached at the notion of remaining idle.

Things remained ruinously strained between them all the rest of that evening, and deep into the next day.

Between ordering her evacuation from the drawing room and harpsichord, and ruining the calm so recently restored between them by insinuating the only man who might offer for her was akin to an ancient troll, Warrick had cause to regret every second.

If only he could confide the reasons why he acted the surly brute: out of respect for her concerning the former, attempting to preserve her delicate sensibilities by not shocking her—not with words (for once) but with the evidence of his visibly growing desire; and as to the latter, his own buffle-headed jealousy.

Neither of which he was at liberty to convey.

After a strained nuncheon, Aphrodite retreated to Arbuckle’s front two rooms, the ones she claimed he entertained patients in. No surprise, that, given the unusual furnishings Warrick had glimpsed in one and the supplies laid out within easy reach in the other. Seeing those meticulously sharpened supplies had made him realize when the man wasn’t performing Tyrannical Duties, Arbuckle must have been an accomplished surgeon in his day. Likely still was. He might think of the man as an ancient annoyer, but he couldn’t be much more than Warrick’s own father would have been, had he lived.

He knew she went in there not only to escape the tenseness surrounding them, but because she planned a thorough cleaning of something. When he’d wondered aloud at the bucket of rags, the water she heated, she’d mentioned “a good scrubbing to keep myself busy”.

Determined to set things right between them, and feeling strong after the early night and deep sleep—if still plagued with the nagging, growing pain low in his back—he used one of the kitchen chairs as a crutch to traverse the distance and upon reaching the doorway where she had seated herself on the floor, both she and the soapy bucket in front of her surrounded by towels and drying implements, he greeted her more cheerfully than he felt.

“What may I do to assist?” Not giving her time to protest, he swung the chair into the room and settled in it. “Please. Let me help however you need. Mercury has already romped this afternoon and snoozes—quite loudly, mind—alongside the kitchen firebox.”

One good-sized window provided ample light, and though this day continued as cold as the one prior, they had both taken to wearing scarves—and for her a shawl as well—which mitigated the chill.

With less hesitation than he might have expected, she nodded toward one of the clean, unused rags. “I am checking his older tools for rust, cleaning what I can. Something I did often after coming to live here.” She gave him a small smile, burdened with more reserve than he liked, and handed him what she had been working on. “From the looks of some of these, they haven’t been cleaned since I left. It will save me a step if you will dry.”

’Twas an easy thing to grab his own cloth and apply it to the dripping metal. She wore again the soft blue dress she had upon her arrival. He found it very fetching, but knew better than to mention that. The freckles dancing over her nose were visible as she sat facing the window. For once, her hair was not constrained in a tight knot near her neck, but instead bound in a loose braid that marched several inches past her shoulders.

He had to yank his attention from the yearning to free every bit of that braid and focus on the sharp steel she handed him next.

Did Aphrodite know she tidied the stage of so much torture? His job of drying took much less time than hers of washing and scrubbing. It had taken not a moment to determine how close a match this room was, with certain tools and odd furnishings visible, to the one where he’d worked with The Tyrant those early months in London.

“So.” After several quiet moments, he ventured, “How musically accomplished is Harri, now, after your young Adonis of a music tutor tutored her thus?”

All must be forgiven, he hoped, given the loud laugh that bellowed from her then. “Not accomplished at all. I claim more talent.”

“Oh horrors.” He exaggerated his gasp. “Please say it is not so.”

“All right, I may embellish. Only a modicum, I vow. He tried an abundance of instruments with her when she did not take to the pianoforte. All, I fear, were less than stellar. Although she has now announced her intention to master the cello.”

At the thought of the delicate if vibrant Lady Harri, seated, skirts raised, the big body of that instrument—one only intended for men—resting between her legs, his howl of laughter matched her own.

But thoughts of Harri brought others to the fore…

“That night, when we kissed.” His hands paused in their task. “What became…”

“You mean the night you dragged me onto your lap and practically proposed—after kissing me most lewdly?”

“You thought it lewd?” He grunted. “I thought it rather chaste.”

“If that was chaste”—the instrument she now scrubbed made a loud plop when it fell into the bucket of soapy water—“I cannot dare contemplate what you consider salacious.”

“Did you suffer ill consequence?” he asked, the drying cloth wound tight within his fist.

Her arm splashed into the bucket as she sought what she’d dropped. She avoided his gaze. “From our actions?”

“From mine, yes.” That brought her eyes back to him.

“You take responsibility, then? Do not plead inebriation as your excuse?”

“I may have claimed being soused at the time, but nay, I was not. I knew full well what I did, and with whom. Might have ker- plunked —jumping being out of the question—in with both dead feet, fearing I would never again be granted such an opportunity.”

“Opportunity? To seize a kiss beneath the mistletoe?”

“To seize one with you.”

Would there be? Another opportunity? he wanted to ask, needed to know. But knew better than to risk the accord that had developed between them again. “What happened afterward? To you? I have always wondered.”

“After that disaster of a kiss?”

“Nay, the kiss was anything but a disaster. Everything after it was rather disastrous.”

That surprised her. That he would confess such a thing.

He and Lord Frostwood hadn’t waited until morning to depart, instead had sent round for Lord Frostwood’s carriage and left as soon as it drew up—at Lady Ballenger’s urging, no doubt.

Aphrodite only knew because she had seen it brought around as she climbed the stairs, faint-hearted after the reprimand received moments prior from her employer. “I thought I would be dismissed posthaste.”

“But you weren’t.”

“Nay. Though I did receive a stern talking-to. Was threatened with several thousand lines myself.”

“No, you weren’t.”

“It felt like it. I expect you had something to do with my retaining my position within their household.” Suspected, but had never known for certain, being unwilling to do anything other than reply Yes, my lady to everything Lady Ballenger had sought to shrill, shriek or scream at her that woeful evening. Lord Ballenger watching on, silently, a grim frown—of commiseration or condemnation, she never knew which—flat upon his features.

“I may have persuaded an ally or two to make certain the Larchmonts knew you had no choice, faced with the compelling antics of men solidly in their cups.”

“And you?” she asked archly. “Repercussions?” Though she knew there hadn’t been any.

“Why do you think we left off that night? Did not wait until morning? Dangerous, it was, traveling with so little light; the moon not yet up and much of the sky blanketed by winter clouds. Ed was quite overset with me, I tell you, when he learned of the entire contretemps.” Shifting one foot with his hands, to balance his weight, he leaned forward and tugged on her arm, pulling a rusted scalpel from her unresisting hold, as well as the stiff-bristled brush she had been scrubbing at it with. “Here, let me attend to that one.”

His offer surprised her. But not enough to halt what she needed to ask. “And what would he think if he knew you were here with me now? Your close friend, Lord Redford?”

She made sure to emphasize the title, because that was the pertinent part of her question. No matter how interactions betwixt the two of them continued to defy expectation and amaze her down to her core, they could not forget who they each were. What worlds they—separately—inhabited.

He opened his mouth, closed it. Made a murmur of consideration as his thumb nail scratched over the bristles. So he was actually thinking it through? Not just prattling off some drivel to curtail her valid concern? That heartened her.

“Likely, he would care naught. For by now he knows more of Harriet and what value you provide. More than that, he would be insanely grateful for any assistance or improvement you could bring to…my situation.”

He turned his attention downward, to the brush in his hand, but not before she saw the frown deepening the grooves on either side of his lips.

His situation…

He spoke of his desperate bid to find an excessively rich wife. The one she could not help but be aware of based on conversations Harri relayed between her sister and brother-in-law, Lord Redford. Not to mention Richard’s own mutterings at times both distant and recent.

How easy it was, remarkably so, to forget Richard was even a part of the strata of the titled, elevated few. So easy that, given how he made her feel despite her determination to the contrary, she could no longer think of him as a condescending, pompous peer—even on the rare occasions he might behave like one. Not since opening the door and finding him standing and naked and so hauntingly, temptingly close.

Every time he startled her with something complimentary (“Prim, you beauty, where did you learn to make stew so divine? Tell me it wasn’t The Tyrant…”); every time he gracefully acknowledged something she did for him (“You spoil me, sweet Aphrodite. Clean clothes, again?”); something she did for the dog (“You are remarkably patient combing through those damp, tangly knots each time he comes in.”), his deep voice rolled through her both unexpectedly and familiarly. His tone and words a balm that soothed every hurt she’d endured over the years.

From her parents’ demise, to being shuffled from one relative to the next, to the virtue-threatening actions of peers that scared a young, new governess into more sleepless nights than she wanted to admit… Lord Warrick’s, Richard ’s words and actions bolstered her confidence. His very presence buffered her against the storms of life.

He was the only man to affect her thus. Certainly the only one to ever voice his appreciation so readily.

Being acknowledged, having a lord treat her like a person ’twas such a novel experience. And yet one she had quickly come to revere. As she did the man himself. How would she get on when they left and each went back from whence they came?

When she had no news of him? Could no longer see his comforting smile or devastating, wicked grin? Could no longer delight in his forthright humor and sometimes naughty conversations?

When at night, instead of conjuring him sleeping snug in the bed below hers, she would have no notion of his whereabouts? Of who else he might spend time with. Of what challenges and travails he might face—without her there to assist?

The thought of the years looming, with unimaginable, never-ending loneliness, the years without him lumped a tangle of its own in her throat.

As though privy to her turbulent thoughts, he shook his head, his features brightening. “Come now, you have been in here an age. I hear Mercury stirring and am sure your limbs”—he raised his eyebrows at her, ensuring she noticed he did not say legs —“could use a good stretching. Take a pause, as long as you like.” He tugged the lip of the bucket closer to his chair, until he could lean over and lift the entire thing—with only a single tightening of his frown. “Leave that whole batch.” He gestured to the bottom drawer she had just opened, the one with the most, and most rusted, items revealed thus far. “I can work on those this afternoon. You are doing more than enough with food and fires.”

Drat him, he proved again his thoughtfulness? Now? When she already struggled so? Was weak to everything about him?

“Pardon me.” Before he caught a glance of her shimmering lashes—before he could ask about her precipitous flight—she raced from Uncle’s treatment room and Richard’s balmy presence.

Stormed up the stairs and escaped into the privacy of her bedroom, her heart lashing the inside of her chest like sails thundering in a gale.

Oh, falling stars and fallen hearts. There was no denying it, not any longer.

She had fallen in love with the man.

Drat him. And damn her silly widgeon of a heart.