6. Chapter 6

CHAPTER 6

S ome whimpers floated up to Thomas. Some mumbled sounds that maybe sounded like words if both parties were foxed beyond the pale.

Except he wasn’t soused—not a drop of alcohol in his blood for the first time in a long time.

And he couldn’t quite figure out the nonsensical sounds coming from the girl on the floor of his carriage.

She could very well still be feeling the after-effects of the laudanum.

Unfortunate that he’d given her too much, for she never should have slept as long as she did. Until her eyes had blinked open, bleary as all hell, he’d had the sinking feeling that he’d managed to kill her within twenty-four hours of being under his care.

Another unintended death he’d have to live with.

Other than the mumbles and whimpers, she made no motion or attempt at words during the three-hour ride to Springfell Manor. She hadn’t even twitched when he’d set a fur over her hunched shoulders to keep her warm in the cold air.

He had spent the ride staring down at the girl’s dark hair, sigh after sigh coming to his lips.

His cousin, Nemity, was the solution to this.

If this girl was a relation to him, then she was also relation to Nemity, even if it was through a distant stretch, as they would be related by marriage, not blood.

Nemity could save him from whatever this…this thing at his feet was.

A girl.

Keep calling her a girl. A girl.

If she was a girl, then she wasn’t a woman.

And that’s what he needed her to be—a girl.

No matter what he had discovered about her last night.

After the laudanum had sent her to dreams, he’d yanked her tattered clothes off and thrown them in the fire, dumping her into the tub before his eyes caught full sight of her naked body.

And dammit to hades, it wasn’t a girl’s body.

It was a woman’s body, full and through.

Even through the filth on her skin, he recognized full well what he was looking at. As did his cock.

Breasts that were perfectly proportioned to her body, with just enough heft in them that they would spill out of his hands were he to hold them, a waist that curved in far too much for her lack of food, but then hips that flared back out, begging to be gripped. Every curve on her more enticing than the last.

He abhorred having to touch her for the vermin crawling her skin, while at the same time, her body was one that begged to be touched.

Completely inappropriate.

If he was going to do one thing with honor in his life, this was it. So he had yanked Izzie out of the tub—set her soaked, pliable, filthy body on the floor, as he couldn’t leave her drugged and in a tub of water. He had fetched Mrs. Havergrove, who could barely stumble up the steps from the kitchens. For propriety’s sake, he’d set Mrs. Havergrove in the drawing room in a chair facing the tub, not that she was any real help to him. The old bat had fallen asleep within minutes, her jaw slack and snoring loudly throughout the whole of the debacle.

Which had left him with the girl-woman that still needed to be scrubbed thoroughly to get rid of the vermin crawling all over her skin. He was the only one to do it. The maid had disappeared directly after she’d been attacked by Izzie, and he couldn’t even consider having his butler or his new driver touch her naked body.

Which had left only him to attempt to do the job with a modicum of the respect it warranted.

He had been full into the middle of scrubbing the hell out of her skin before he finally accepted the fact that he was dealing with an actual woman and not a child. Not a feral animal.

It was after he’d given her face a third scrubbing that he realized not only did she have all the makings of a woman, the lines of her face were strikingly beautiful. Dark lashes long on her cheeks, fine, high cheekbones that could use a little extra plumping of fat, with full, cherry red lips centering her face.

He’d stopped in that instant, staring at her for far too long.

Immobile for such a stretch of time, he was grateful Mrs. Havergrove had fallen asleep and didn’t catch a glimpse of him dumbstruck.

He’d been annoyed at his cook for falling asleep when he wanted her to at least observe and bear witness to the admirable fact that his hands did not veer into territory they shouldn’t have as he scrubbed Izzie’s body clean. But in that moment of staring at Izzie’s face, he was grateful for the unending drams of whisky Mrs. Havergrove had imbibed.

For he’d been doing a shit job of handling the task with impeccable innocence.

It had been fairly obvious how much his hands liked the feel of Izzie under his fingertips. Yet the mere thought of taking advantage of her in her unconscious state sent his stomach churning. So it hadn’t been hard to be respectful, cleaning the vermin and filth from her skin, from her hair.

Honor within him that he’d thought long forgotten had been the only thing allowing him to soldier on with a modicum of propriety.

Still, he wasn’t proud of how fast his cock had sprung to life.

Nor proud of how painful his balls were when he’d walked out of the library after depositing Izzie on the settee, secured in a proper dress that the maid had procured from the trenches of his late mother’s wardrobe.

After finding a comb, he’d spent three hours by the fire, untangling Izzie’s dark hair, strand by strand. Why he had done so, he wasn’t sure, when cutting it all off would have been so much easier. But shearing her would have been taking something from her, and he didn’t have it in his gut to do that.

In those hours with her hair in his hands, one thing had become very apparent.

Taking her into his home wasn’t going to work. Not when she was a full-grown woman—even if she was a feral full-grown woman.

His cousin, Nemity, had to be the answer. She needed to help him on the dilemma of what to do with Izzie. She could take the girl, turn her into a lady, and then he could marry her off.

That was the best course of action. The only course of action.

The carriage hit a rut and Izzie whimpered, almost as though she was in pain.

His lips tightening, he tore his stare off of her head and set his look out the window, refusing to glance down at the bundle on the floor by his feet.

They reached Springfell Manor by midafternoon, and Nemity’s butler, Mr. Flourin, greeted Thomas as he stepped down from the carriage.

“Good afternoon, my lord. We were not expecting your company today. Should I prepare a room?”

Thomas shook his head as he closed the carriage door behind him, leaving Izzie curled on the floor. “No, Flourin. I will not be staying long. The roads are good so I’ll be returning to Ravenstone today—assuming Mrs. Lonstrick is about?”

“She is. She and Mr. Lonstrick are with the children in the gardens.”

“In this weather?” Thomas’s brows furrowed and he glanced up at the grey sky. It wasn’t windy like it had been for weeks now, but the chill of the air ran deep.

“Yes, my lord. Something about tricks they were teaching the puppy that you presented the children with that could only be performed outdoors.”

Thomas nodded. He probably should have trained that puppy himself before foisting it upon the children. “I’ll walk around outside to the gardens.”

Mr. Flourin’s lips pursed. “You will?” The man did take great pride in properly introducing visitors to Springfell.

“I will.” Thomas needed time to gather his thoughts on presenting his proposal to Nemity, for he’d not been able to get his mind quite together in the carriage. Ridiculous. Three hours and he couldn’t find a way to think properly with that girl cowering at his feet.

He turned back to the carriage, opened the door slightly and looked in at the lump that didn’t look up at him. “Stay in here.”

The girl didn’t move, didn’t acknowledge him. Maybe she’d fallen back asleep.

He’d bring her into the manor house once he’d warned Nemity and Callum about her…peculiarities.

Closing the door to the carriage, he walked around the outer east wing of Springfell at a fast clip, and just when he rounded the corner that led to the gardens, Callum, Nemity’s husband, popped up in front of him.

Thomas’s suspicious gaze centered on his cousin-in-law. A year ago, he’d hired Callum from an organization known as the Guardians of the Bones to trail his younger brother, and then he’d had the guardian shift focus and protect Nemity when her life was in danger.

To Thomas’s annoyance, that move had resulted in Callum and Nemity getting close—too close—and they had married several months ago.

After his younger brother had died, he suspected Callum of hiring another guardian to watch over him—most likely at Nemity’s request. That man had arrived at Ravenstone as his new driver—and though never confirmed, Thomas’s suspicions had only increased until he’d fired the man a month ago.

No matter what Nemity thought, he didn’t need watching over. He was fine. Fine.

“Thomas.” Callum moved to block Thomas from continuing around the rear corner of the manor. “It is good to see you out and about, and looking somewhat…awake.”

So Callum was going to blatantly call him out on it? Not at all gentlemanly.

The last few times Callum and Nemity had visited Ravenstone, they had found him not at his best—a belligerent drunk, to be precise.

Thomas raised an eyebrow at him. “How did Flourin beat me to you?”

“You took a leisurely walk around the grounds. He cut straight through the house to let me know of your arrival.”

“Even with his hobble?”

“The man can be quick when he needs to be.” Callum tilted his head toward Thomas. “What brings you here?”

“I have a favor to ask of Nemity, and well, I guess, you.”

“What is it?” Callum clamped his arms across his chest at the mention of his wife’s name. He’d been overly protective of her ever since he’d first been introduced to her. To be expected, for how much the man was obsessed with his cousin.

Thomas pointed past him to where he could hear Nemity and the children in the gardens, laughing as a dog barked. After they had married, Nemity and Callum had assumed guardianship of her best friend’s children after her best friend had died. “Let’s go find Nemity and I can explain this once instead of twice.” He took a step around Callum, aiming to find his cousin.

Callum sidestepped to his left, blocking Thomas’s path. “Or you could tell me now.”

Thomas eyed him. “Why?”

“Because Nem is in a delicate state right now.”

“What are you talking about?” Thomas’s hand flicked out. “I can hear her laughing.”

Callum glared at him for a long moment, and then shook his head. He turned to his side and looked down into the gardens to find his wife and the children. “Watch, but don’t let her see you.”

Thomas stepped up to where he could see into the gardens. Nemity stood near the pathway by the grand pond, tossing a ball between her and Georgette and Jacob, while the puppy that Thomas had found a month ago and delivered to the children was yapping about, trying to steal the ball from one of them.

The scene went on for some time, with Georgette and Jacob dissolving into giggles every time the puppy got close, until Nemity caught the ball and threw it far down the pathway along the pond.

“She doesn’t look delicate,” Thomas said.

“Just watch.”

The puppy started running after the ball and Georgette and Jacob chased after it.

The second they were running away from her, Nemity turned from them and bent over a nearby plant bed with her hands on her knees. Her torso started convulsing.

Thomas’s look whipped to Callum. “What is she doing? Is something wrong with the babe?”

Callum sighed. “She’s dry heaving. She vomited breakfast twenty minutes ago.”

Thomas stared at her form. At the angle she had curled, he could see the small mound sticking out of her belly. He couldn’t keep the worry out of his voice, for Callum had said months ago she was in this exact same state, not able to keep any food down. “Is the babe growing?”

“It is. The midwives we’ve had here have both said the babe is growing fine—though I don’t know how, for how little food she has been able to keep in her stomach.”

“Why is it still happening?”

The children squealed as the puppy snatched the ball in its teeth, then dropped it, then picked it up again before Georgette could steal it.

With peals of laughter ringing through the air, the three of them ran back toward Nemity. The second they turned toward her, Nemity bent over and made it look like she was picking up a rock. She laughed at the mess of them running back to her as she stood straight.

The children proceeded to wrestle the ball out of the puppy’s mouth, and then started tossing it between them again, just out of the dog’s reach, much to the puppy’s great delight.

“I wish I knew,” Callum said. “I sent for a third midwife from Edinburgh, though I haven’t told Nem about it yet.” His hand rubbed the back of his neck as he stared down into the gardens at his wife. “And Nem refuses to let the children see her sick because of how their mother died, so she’s been killing herself trying to make everything appear perfectly normal for them.”

Thomas considered his cousin for a long moment. She was made of much sterner stuff than he’d ever given her credit for. “Is it working?”

Callum shrugged. “It has been so far. They haven’t questioned her. The puppy you found and gave them helps quite a bit in entertaining them.”

Thomas nodded uncomfortably, his fingers scratching along his jawline. Callum thought his gesture far grander than it was. When really, he’d stumbled upon the small foxhound on a ride, saw that it had no mother, and picked it up because it was better than letting a perfectly good hunting hound go to waste.

Not that he wanted to raise it. Giving it to Georgette and Jacob had been more selfish than kindhearted.

Also selfishly, he thought it might change their suspicious eyes upon him every time he was at Springfell. The children instinctively thought very little of him—not that he had given them any reason to believe he was a good man.

“Beyond that, the children are quite excited for the babe, and keep on asking when it will appear.” Callum looked to him.

Thomas nodded. “How much longer will it be?”

“Another five, six months, the midwives tell us. I imagine the children will lose interest by then.”

Nemity laughed again, and Thomas heard it then, blatantly obvious. The way her laughter came, nice and loud as was her way, but also strained with a little hiccup at the end, as though she was trying to force every last drop out of the sound.

Thomas heaved a sigh.

He couldn’t do this.

Couldn’t add his problem onto hers. Couldn’t ask Nemity to take on a feral girl and turn her into a lady so he could marry her off and get her out from under his care.

Thomas backed up so Nemity wouldn’t catch a glimpse of him.

He knew his cousin worried on him, whether he wanted her to or not.

Callum stepped with him out of view of the gardens, then turned to him. “So, what was it that you came here for?”

“Nothing.” Thomas shook his head. “Nothing that cannot wait.”

A screech—a painful one that could be animal or human—shot into the air. But it came from the opposite direction of Nemity and the children.

Damn.

On instant alert, Callum’s eyes flew about, ever the guardian that he was. “What was that?”

“I believe that was the thing I was going to bother you about, but am now not going to.”

Callum eyebrows drew together. “What does that mean?”

Thomas flicked a finger out toward the gardens. “It means go back to your wife and the children and the dog, and don’t even tell Nemity that I was here or she’s bound to fret and decide she needs to stick her nose into my business.”

Callum glared at him for a long moment, then nodded. “Let me know if you need any help with whatever it is you’re not telling me.”

“I’ll do so.” Thomas gave him a nod.

Callum turned and disappeared around the corner of the manor.

Thomas hurried back to his carriage, his pace quickening when he saw the open door of the carriage.

The empty carriage.