Title Sinful Tales of Desirable Ladies

by Lucinda Nelson

  Maggie went out into the gardens when Henry went to bed. It was early in the day, but she supposed he’d been doing a lot of travelling. And drinking. Still, there was something strangely disappointing about him retiring the moment he’d arrived home. Why had she been waiting for him in the first place? As Maggie asked herself this, she kicked a stone along the path and frowned irritably.

  Perhaps there was no mystery to Henry Rivers. Perhaps he was just the surly beast he seemed. Maggie tried to convince herself of this, but still that niggling feeling that there was something more to him continued to prevail. She didn’t think he was necessarily a good man. Maggie wasn’t a fool. She didn’t think it was likely that she’d discover a soft center to Henry. But there had to be something more. She felt it in her gut.

  Yet the more time she spent around Henry, the more she wondered if she should just give up on that notion. The trouble was that she didn’t feel able to give it up. Henry had infiltrated her head. She thought about him constantly, though he was nothing but cruel and unkind to her.

  Every day that she’d spent with Lord Crawley, she’d tried to get more information on Henry. Unfortunately, Lord Crawley hadn’t been especially forthcoming. It was clear that he didn’t want to speak about Henry. He wanted to speak about her. And that was extremely tricky for Maggie to do without lying. On account of this, most of their time together was spent discussing other subjects; books, politics, places they’d like to visit.

  They didn’t share a great deal in common, but that didn’t matter hugely. It was just pleasant to have someone to talk to who didn’t know her circumstances. It allowed her to pretend, for a short while, that she was herself again.

  It saddened Maggie that he probably wouldn’t visit her again. She sat down on a bench and looked out over the gardens. She had tears in her eyes, but it wasn’t despair. They were angry tears, and she refused to let them fall.

  Once she’d recovered herself, Maggie went back inside to join Alicia for their lessons. She didn’t tell Alicia that her father was back at first. She didn’t think Henry would be especially receptive to someone intruding on his sleep, as Maggie was sure Alicia would do if she knew that he was home. So they went about their lessons as usual.

  “Miss Riley,” Alfred said, from the doorway of the library where they’d chosen to have their lesson for today. “Lord Rivers is awake now.”

  “Thank you, Alfred.” Maggie had asked Alfred to inform her the moment that Henry was awake. As Alfred bowed and left the room, Maggie looked down at Alicia with a smile.

  “He’s back?” She blurted, with an expression of astonishment. Her small, oval face was motionless with surprise. She’d been waiting so long for her father to come back that she looked as if she didn’t quite believe it now that he finally had.

  Alicia stood abruptly and grabbed Maggie’s hand. “Come quickly,” she insisted, as she pulled Maggie to her feet. Maggie laughed and stood with her. There was something so wonderfully infectious about Alicia’s joy.

  As they walked towards Henry’s study, Alicia could hardly keep herself from running. She walked ahead of Maggie, tugging her along by her hand at a brisk pace.

  “Slow down, Alicia, slow down,” Maggie said, through smiles.

  “We have to be quick,” Alicia answered, in a shrill voice. “He might leave again.”

  Maggie’s smile slipped away when Alicia said this. What an awful thing for a child to fear; that her father’s presence would only be short-lived. Was it a valid fear? She had to wonder this as they got closer to the study. How long would Henry be staying before he disappeared again? She told herself that the only reason she cared about the answer was because it would affect Alicia, who didn’t deserve to be treated with such apathy.

  As they reached the door and Alicia knocked on the door enthusiastically, Maggie remembered the way Henry had trembled like a leaf while his daughter had been missing. That moment had convinced her that he cared, far more than he let on.

  There was a moment of silence after Alicia knocked. The girl looked up at Maggie and lifted her hand to knock again. Maggie took hold of her tiny fist and shook her head with a small smile. “Wait a moment,” she suggested.

  A tense second passed, before they heard Henry’s voice. “Come in.”

  He sounded tired and aggravated. Maggie wondered if she should turn Alicia around and take her back to the library. Come back in the morning, when Henry might be in a better mood. But she knew that dashing Alicia’s hopes would be too much for her.

  Maggie smiled reassuringly, and Alicia pushed through the door. She didn’t stop in the doorway, but ran into the study and around his desk. “Papa!”

  Henry looked surprised, though God only knew why. Had he forgotten he had a child? He blinked as Alicia threw her arms around his legs and tried to hold him. She wasn’t tall enough to reach his torso. She was bouncing up and down in her excitement.

  Maggie didn’t move any further into the room. She stood in the doorway, watching Henry’s face a little warily.

  “What time is it?” Henry said, with a look in Maggie’s direction. “Shouldn’t she be in bed?”

  “I was about to take her to bed,” Maggie replied. “But we heard that you were home and she wanted to see you.”

  “And you didn’t think to make her wait until morning?” His countenance was stiff, but it wasn’t as fierce as usual. There were deep purple rings under his eyes, which were bloodshot. He looked almost sick. Even his voice was unusual. It was unsteady and rough.

  With a hopeful stare, she willed him to embrace his daughter. To make her feel like he’d missed her. But behind the tension in his face, she saw something that she didn’t understand. It looked almost a bit like fear. He was looking down at Alicia like she was a foreign entity that terrified him. He hadn’t even put his arms around her.

  “I’m very busy,” Henry said. He hadn’t said a word to Alicia yet.

  Alicia looked up at her father, her cheeks pink with rapture. “I missed you, papa. Where did you go? Was it an adventure? I wish I could have come with you.”

  Henry looked down at her. She was practically sprawled across his lap. “It wasn’t a trip for children,” Henry answered.

  “Why?” Alicia wondered. She was clearly settling in to a lengthy chat about where he’d been and what he’d done.

  Henry didn’t answer. He looked up at Maggie and said, “It’s late. You should take her to bed.”

  Alicia’s smile fell away and she drew back a little so she could look at him properly. “But papa, I’m not tired.”

  “That’s irrelevant,” Henry answered. “It’s bedtime. We’ll speak about this in the morning.”

  It didn’t look like Alicia believed that anymore than Maggie did. Alicia looked to Maggie, as if she could impart some understanding, but Maggie had none to give. Her heart tightened at the sight of disappointment replacing the rapture that had been in her face just moments earlier.

  “Come, Alicia,” Maggie murmured. She smiled for her, but her brows were still puckered. She put her hand out and inclined her head towards the door.

  Alicia came slowly, looking back at her father as she did so. Maggie threaded their fingers together and held her hand, though she wanted to pick the girl up and hold her against her chest. She wanted to comfort her, more than anything, but she daren’t do so in front of Henry.

  She wouldn’t weaken her position with womanliness when there was something she needed to say. Hand in hand, Maggie and Alicia stood in the doorway. Maggie fixed him with her stare. Without taking her eyes off of him, she called for Beatrice, who was passing in the hallway.

  “Yes, miss?”

  “Could you take Alicia to bed, please?”

  “Certainly.”

  Beatrice took Alicia’s hand and ushered her into the hallway. Alicia hesitated, looking back at her father, before allowing herself to be pulled along.

  In her absence, Henry resumed whatever he was doing. He pretended she wasn’t even th
ere, and Maggie stood simmering like a pot of water on the fire.

  “What was that?”

  Henry looked up at her from beneath his dark, low brows. “Pardon?”

  “You haven’t seen her in two weeks,” Maggie reminded him, her voice cutting through a cold silence.

  “One more day won’t hurt,” he rebuffed. “And I don’t think it’s any of your concern, Miss Riley. Do you not recall our last conversation?”

  Maggie fell quiet and pursed her lips. There was so much she wanted to say. So much brimming beneath the surface. She bit her tongue hard to keep it all from spilling out. She thought of her brother, of his warnings, and started to turn to leave.

  But then Alicia’s forlorn face entered her mind, and Maggie stopped. She turned back around and fixed him with her stare. Perhaps it was foolish, but she was unafraid. “Do you love your daughter, Lord Rivers?”

  Henry’s expression changed. Where before there had been cold authority, now there was something gentler. “What?” He asked, sounding as if he didn’t understand the question.

  “Do you love your daughter?” She asked again.

  He blinked rapidly. “A stupid question.”

  “Is it?”

  “Of course I do,” he balked. “She’s my daughter.”

  “And yet you treat her like a burden, an annoyance. Do you think she is too young to see that? To feel that?”

  Henry’s jaw slackened and, for an instant, she saw a flicker of something she hadn’t seen before in his expression. She tried to read it, but it vanished as quickly as it had come. “You overstep,” he said. Though it was clear that he was trying to sound formidable, he was raspy and quiet, as if he couldn’t quite get the words out.

  “I understand that,” she replied, nodding slowly.

  “You put yourself and your brother at risk.”

  “I understand that too.”

  “Then why?”

  Maggie looked down at her hands, her strength wavering slightly. “I care about your daughter,” she answered, more softly. “I want her to be happy.”

  “And is she not? She has everything she needs here.”

  Maggie took a sudden step closer, towards his desk. “She needs a father,” she answered, with a new, urgent quality to her voice. “She needs an attentive, kind, present father. And you are none of those things, Lord Rivers.”

  As she said this, Henry stood. “You-” She knew that he wanted to condemn her, but the words froze in his mouth. His expression was layered with viciousness and insult, and something else she couldn’t read. Though his torso as tense, his hands were trembling at his sides.

  “No one has ever spoken to me that way before.” His voice shook with rage, but remained low and quiet. “Do you understand what this could mean for you?”

  She did. And it was terrifying. Maggie knew that this could very well be a terrible mistake, but she couldn’t hold her tongue when there was a child involved. “Perhaps someone should have said this to you sooner. Perhaps then your daughter would not be so unhappy.”

  He came around his desk towards her, and she held her ground. She lifted her chin higher, refusing to waver, but she had to admit that he was intimidating. His body was colossal, and his face looked as if it had been carved from marble. He looked like a Greek God and behaved like one too. Intemperate and unpredictable.

  When he reached her, they were barely an inch apart. She could feel the warmth from his body, his breath on her chin. “You are my governess,” he breathed, through gritted teeth. “Not my wife.”

  “Thank God for that,” she replied, in a quiet but terse voice. Instead of retreating, she stepped closer still, so that their chests brushed and their noses were almost touching. She could smell the musk of manliness on him. It made her want to take a deep breath. And that was a peculiar, unwelcome desire. “I couldn’t stand to be your wife.”

  It was cruel. The moment the words were out of her mouth, she knew that she’d made a mistake.

  She watched his face fall.

  He’d always seemed so impervious to the force of her words. So irritably indifferent to her opinion. And Maggie had been foolish enough to take that as a challenge, which she’d risen to. And now she saw the consequences.

  His shoulders curled with tension, but his countenance softened into the rawest misery. His lips parted slightly, and she saw his eyelashes start to glisten.

  Maggie had never felt such regret.

  “Henry…” she whispered, lifting her hand towards his cheek as if she meant to touch him. But she didn’t. When he saw her hand, Henry eyes froze over. He snatched her wrist and gripped it, but not hard enough to hurt.

  He stared into her eyes, holding her wrist motionless between them. Was there an earthquake or was he shaking? He pursed his lips back together, and she saw his cheek quiver as his teeth clenched. He looked as if he meant to say something, but he only stared.

  After several moments, he let go of her wrist, which fell limply back to her side. She tried to compel her legs to move, but she remained still. Her mouth opened so that she could apologize. She’d take it all back, but Henry didn’t give a chance to. He moved past her, knocking her shoulder as he squeezed through.

  Maggie turned to watch him leave, feeling like she’d been punched in the gut. He didn’t speak another word, or look back at her. He just left.

  Chapter 12

  Lord Henry Rivers, Earl of Radingley

  Seeing her had been so hard. Having spent the last two weeks trying to put his daughter out of his mind and trying to banish his fear of abandonment, seeing her had been like a knife to the gut. Of course he knew that he couldn’t avoid her forever.

  Just one more night, he’d told himself.

  And then Maggie had chosen to make her opinion known. Every word she spoke had felt like the lash of a whip, which he’d taken with an immense amount of fortitude. Until the last strike.

  I couldn’t stand to be your wife, she’d said.

  She wasn’t the only one.

  When Henry left the study, he didn’t stop there. Though his body was still recovering from two weeks of heavy drinking, he needed the numbness back and drinking was the only way to achieve it. He got a carriage into the local town and went to his usual tavern.

  “Bourbon,” he said, as he tapped the bar with his fist. As soon as the drink was poured, he tossed to the back of his throat and swallowed. “Another.”

  The owner of the tavern blinked at him. Though he was used to seeing Henry drinking here, he didn’t usually drink so quickly. But it wasn’t the man’s place to say anything, so he didn’t. He just did as he was told.

  If only Maggie took the same approach.

  Henry drank for a few hours, tossing back glass after glass. When the room started to spin, Henry put his hand in front of his face and tried to count his fingers. He was sure there was twice the amount there usually was.

  Frowning, he got down off the barstool. Or, at least, he tried to. The moment he was on his feet, he staggered and wound up swinging his whole weight into the man who sat on the stool beside him. He was so drunk that he didn’t even understand that it was his fault.

  Unable to stay upright, he put his arm out against the bar to support himself and knocked the man’s glass off the counter and into his lap. The man jumped back, his lap soaked, and pushed Henry hard. “What do you think you’re doing? You damned idiot.”

  Henry tried to fix his eyes on the man’s face, but it was blurry, as though perceived through frosted glass. When Henry didn’t answer, the man pushed him again. Henry’s back struck the bar hard, shooting pain through his spine, which made him angry.

  In a dizzy spell of rage, he launched himself at the man and delivered a punch to his gut. But his opponent was practically sober and Henry could hardly stand. He didn’t know what had happened until he heard the crash and felt something warm drip down his head.

  He lifted his hand and touched the warm drip. His fingers came away red. The man had smashed a
glass over his head and was lifting a bottle with the same intention. Henry could hear shouting and hollering, but he wasn’t sure if they were cheering or trying to stop the man. Probably the former.

  When his opponent pushed him up against the bar and raised another glass, Henry put his hand up just in time. The glass smashed into his palm, gashing it.

  “Out! Out!”

  It was the owner, shouting at the top of his lungs. Henry felt himself being dragged outside, then released. He was alone, and he felt suddenly cold. In his drunken state, he didn’t think about taking a carriage. He just started staggering forwards.

  In his condition, it took him almost thirty minutes to get home. A walk that would have ordinarily only taken him fifteen. He had to stop several times and almost passed out on the side of the road.