One Night with the Major

by Bronwyn Scott

  At least that wasn’t hard. The house, it turned out, wasn’t all that large, only twelve rooms in total; in addition to the rooms above, there was a nice-sized front parlour, a dining room, an office for the master of the house, a small sitting room for the lady and the kitchen. Pavia dragged a finger over the butcher block, picking up dust. The kitchen hadn’t seen use in a while. Then it hit her what the dust meant: there were no servants. No one was coming. No one had been here for a very long time. What had Cam said? He hadn’t been home for six years?

  Her stomach growled, hungry and nauseous all at once. Pavia pressed her palms flat against the surface of the big work table to stave off the panic. Tears threatened again. The exhilaration of the two previous days was non-existent now, the thrill of an adventure gone. The reality of what she’d done settled on her mercilessly. She wanted her mother, desperately. Her calm mother, who worked tirelessly behind the scenes of her father’s busy life, who never showed her temper. Her mother would know what to do. Her mother would take her in her arms and smooth back her hair and tell her everything would be all right. But things weren’t all right: she was alone with a strange man, in a strange place and it would be ages before she saw her mother again.

  Had her mother felt like this when they’d come to England? An outsider in a foreign land? She’d known nothing of the culture or the people. She’d had only Pavia’s father to rely on. You have Cam came the quiet prompt of her conscience. Yes, she had Cam, wherever he was. Right now, having Cam wasn’t worth much. The enormity of what she’d given up when she’d defiantly stormed out of her father’s house on Cam’s arm began to swamp her. Exhilaration could not keep the loss at bay.

  Pavia shuffled to the front parlour and sank down on a threadbare sofa, a puff of dust rising from the upholstery as she sat, miserable and hungry. What had she done? Was it just last night she’d thought nothing could go wrong? Now nothing seemed right. Pavia shivered and wrapped the faded red throw over her. She would rest a bit and then she would pull herself upstairs and dress. She would need to walk into town and find a way to purchase food. She had some coins in her trunk. Just the task of hauling herself upstairs seemed daunting. Going into town, finding town seemed super-human at the moment. You’ll feel better after a rest, she reminded herself. The morning sickness never lasted more than a couple of hours. Pavia yawned. Perhaps when she woke, a walk would be the perfect thing to restore her spirits.

  * * *

  Cam returned to the house shortly after ten o’clock, a basket of food supplies strapped to his saddle. It had taken longer than he’d planned to get what he needed. He tied his horse outside and pushed at the door with his shoulder. It would need some work right away. It had stuck last night, too. He’d been forced to kick it open in order to carry Pavia over the threshold. But he’d been determined to keep at least one wedding tradition.

  It was the least he could do to make up for what must have been a very plain, uneventful wedding for her. No one had come. He’d not expected anyone to, but the look on Pavia’s face as she’d walked down the aisle, fleeting as the look was, suggested she’d not really believed her family would desert her. Whatever disappointment it had brought her, she’d hid it well. She’d been beautiful, radiant, all day. Nothing had outwardly dampened her spirits: not the anti-climactic trip to the noisy train station, or the long delay in Didcot, or the arrival to a closed-up house in the dark.

  Cam stepped into the narrow hall of the manse, using a foot to shut the door behind him. He hoped the house by daylight hadn’t daunted her. He’d wanted to be back before she woke, but it hadn’t been possible. He caught sight of her in the parlour and smiled. His bride, asleep under the red throw, her dark hair spilling over the edge of the sofa, long and silky. Then he caught sight of her face and his smile faded. She was pale and there were dried tear tracks on her cheeks. Had she been sick this morning? He was struck with remorse. He hadn’t remembered. He hadn’t thought about her being ill and alone in a strange place. He should have waited to go into town until after she woke.

  Cam put out a hand on her leg and gently shook her. ‘Pavia, wake up, I’ve brought breakfast.’ Was that the right thing to say? Weren’t pregnant women always hungry? He didn’t know. In fact, this morning, he was suddenly feeling very much at sea. He had a pregnant wife and no idea what to do with her, apparently. He’d left her alone and now he didn’t know whether or not to offer her food. Perhaps the food would just make it worse? For a man used to commanding men and making split-second decisions in the heat of battle, this was unknown territory. He was not used to uncertainty, to not knowing exactly what to do in any given situation.

  Cam knelt beside the sofa and smoothed back her hair. She was beautiful and she was his. She was trusting him to take care of her and the babe. He would figure this out. ‘I have apples and cheese, some fresh milk, eggs, a rasher of bacon, some bread, ham, butter and jam,’ he tempted.

  Her eyes fluttered open and she smiled expectantly as if she could already taste the hot, melted butter spread on warm bread. ‘Toast? With jam? It sounds delicious.’ One would have thought he’d promised her the finest of French crêpes with crème fraiche and berries. Then she sighed. ‘I am sorry you had to do it. I was going to go for food after I rested, but I fell asleep. Not a very good start to being wifely, letting my husband go out for food while I laze away the morning.’

  Cam leaned forward and kissed her forehead. ‘You are expecting our child. No apology necessary. I can’t say I made the best starts at husbanding either. I left you alone to wake up in a strange place. Were you ill this morning?’

  ‘Nothing I couldn’t handle.’ Pavia sat up, carefully. ‘I’m pregnant, Cam. I am not an invalid.’

  ‘I don’t know much about pregnancy. It doesn’t come up often in the Hussars.’ Cam chuckled, but it wasn’t all that funny. Not to him anyway. He was used to being competent, knowledgeable. But he was out of his league at present. The nearest he’d been to pregnancy was Fortis’s brother Frederick’s ever-expecting wife, Helena. Even then, that was just through letters sent to Fortis. He’d been abroad for all five of her pregnancies. It was a rather stark reminder of all he didn’t know about his role as a husband and a father-to-be.

  He was feeling decidedly awkward when Pavia laughed. ‘Me either. It’s my first time, too. We’ll learn together. Now, how about that breakfast you’ve promised me?’

  In the kitchen, they managed breakfast, but just barely, relying heavily on Cam’s military campfire cooking skills. To her credit, Pavia tried her best, but after burning the toast twice in an effort that took half the loaf, she was on the verge of tears before Cam intervened. ‘It’s harder than it looks,’ he assured her. In the end, they put a creditable meal of scrambled eggs, toast and bacon on the butcher block, but reality was sinking in. Pavia was no cook. She’d not been raised to be. She’d been raised to prepare menus for a cook, not to execute those menus. She’d been raised to run a house, not to clean one. And neither had he. He knew how to ride, how to shoot, how to fight, how to manage men. None of their skills would be very useful here in his twelve-room manse.

  ‘We’ll need to hire some help.’ Cam took a bite of eggs. They couldn’t live on camp food for ever. ‘I didn’t keep anyone on after the last time I was home. It seemed pointless, knowing I would be gone indefinitely. There’s just a man in the village who looks in on the place from time to time.’ He was regretting that decision in hindsight. He’d had a good look around this morning. So much needed to be done. He’d let the place go in his absence. But he’d never thought he’d be bringing a wife here, raising a family here. The vow he’d made himself on the steps of the Honeysett town house was starting to seem impossible. He’d made a muddle of taking care of his new bride so far.

  Pavia looked up from her buttered toast, her dark eyes wide. ‘Can we afford to hire help?’

  Can we? Her simple words warmed Cam inexplicably and diminished some o
f his doubt. He reached across the butcher block and grasped her hand. ‘We are not paupers, Pavia. We will live in comfort, if not luxury. We could hire a housekeeper-cook from the village to come in during the day and a gardener to help with the grounds a few times a week, and a boy for the stable.’ Certainly not the corps of servants their fathers’ homes boasted. Cam thought it best not to mention that. It did no good looking to the past. It was gone, for both of them.

  Pavia nodded, assured by the idea of a cook-cum-housekeeper. ‘Why are you smiling?’

  ‘Because we’re having our first household discussion as husband and wife.’ Cam’s thumb ran over her knuckles in a small caress. ‘We’re making decisions about how to run our household and how to manage our expenses.’ It was a good beginning, he thought, and a very different start than any he could have imagined. He definitely couldn’t picture himself and Caroline discussing the household in the kitchen. Then again, they’d have had a score of servants to wait on them, a London town house of their own, courtesy of his grandfather, and it would already be staffed and stocked courtesy of Caroline’s mother. There would have been no decisions to make, no authority to wield. For a man used to doing both, it would have been an empty transition from son to head of his own house.

  Pavia held his gaze. ‘You’re thinking of her, aren’t you?’ Her hand tightened inside his grip. ‘I’ve cost you everything, haven’t I? Money, a home, servants, every privilege.’ She tried to pull her hand away, but Cam held firm.

  ‘I was thinking of her,’ he replied honestly, ‘and how glad I am that it’s you I’m with, how glad I am to be here, a complete master of my future. Pavia, you haven’t cost me everything, you’ve given me everything I’ve ever wanted.’ He bent his forehead to hers. ‘I know it’s not easy, but I think we’ve made a fabulous start. We might not be great at cooking—’ a seductive smile flirted on his lips ‘—but we’re good at other things and we have all our lives to sort out the rest.’

  Her arms went about his neck as her voiced teased with feigned naivety. ‘What other things do you mean?’

  Cam kissed her earlobe, breathing in the jasmine scent of her. ‘Things that happen in the bedroom. Maybe the kitchen just isn’t our room,’ he murmured. He wanted to scoop her up in his arms and carry her upstairs, lay her down on those dusty covers and make love well into the afternoon. But his bride had other ideas.

  ‘And maybe the kitchen could be,’ she whispered against his lips. ‘We just need to practise.’ She disengaged from him long enough to come around the butcher block. Her hands went to the waistband of his riding breeches, working the fastenings open and sliding his trousers past his hips, as she held his gaze with a hot, wicked glance, once more the dancer he’d met in the tavern. There was an innate boldness to her that more than compensated for whatever she lacked in expertise.

  Cam was already hard with imagining, with desire, when she bade him sit on the edge of the slab and, with one last, hot look, took the long length of him in her hand and began to stroke. Good lord, he wouldn’t last long at this rate. She kissed him hard on the mouth, as her hand moved on him. ‘My only regret,’ she whispered huskily, ‘is that the butcher block is too high to use my mouth on you.’

  Cam groaned. He was going to lose it, right here in the kitchen if she kept up that talk. Already, he knew he’d never walk into the kitchen and see it the same way. Her thumb stroked the tip of him, tender and teasing, bringing his desire to a boiling roil of heaven and hell. He strained against the motion of her hand. ‘Cup me,’ he instructed hoarsely. And she did, her other hand reaching for the hidden sac beneath his phallus, her fingernail tracing the sensitive seam of them until Cam was reduced to the most primitive of exhalations as he shuddered, his body wanting release and yet refusing it, struggling to prolong this pleasure, to hold on to any small amount of control he had left. But she wrested that from him, too, until all he could do was let the climax envelop him as she held him, his head buried against her shoulder. They stayed like that for a while, his head against her, his arms wrapped about her waist, her hand on his exhausted member.

  ‘Did you like it?’ Pavia whispered as his breathing settled.

  He laughed softly. ‘No honeymoon to the Lake District could be finer. We’d be limited to one room there.’

  Pavia shook back her hair. ‘One of the benefits, I suppose, of not having any servants. We have the place to ourselves.’

  Cam raised his head and gave her a considering glance. ‘One of the benefits. Another would be the ability to wear one’s dressing gown downstairs without drawing undue notice.’ He tugged at her sash, his desire stirring once more. ‘Your turn, wife. Up on the butcher block you go. There’s a recipe I want to show you that involves jam.’

  Chapter Ten

  ‘Tell me about the house, Cam,’ Pavia asked dreamily, as Cam licked the last of the jam from her breasts. It had been a rather erotic breakfast despite its ignominious beginnings.

  ‘I’ve never lived here. This house used to belong to my great-aunt Lily, my grandfather’s sister. It was a holiday retreat for her and her husband, Elliott.’ Cam passed her a napkin. ‘But I spent summers here, when I was younger and Grandfather allowed it. After I turned fourteen, it was simply not good enough for Grandfather.’ Cam leaned against the butcher block, watching her, his blue eyes contemplative, remembering.

  ‘Why wasn’t it allowed?’ Pavia used the corner of the napkin to wipe a spot of jam from his mouth. She liked this light intimacy, these quiet conversations.

  ‘It embarrassed my grandfather that they didn’t have anything grander, but Lily would always say, “Why? It’s just the two of us and it’s close to the river for Elliott’s fishing”.’ Cam smiled. ‘I loved being here. It was different than anything I’d ever known. The house was warm and cosy, full of overstuffed chairs and braided rugs. A boy could run and play without fear of knocking over precious knick-knacks or being yelled at for making too much noise.’ He grinned. ‘Do you want to know a secret? Great-Aunt Lily and I would bake biscuits. We’d roll out the dough right here on this very butcher block. I think I ate more of it than we baked.’

  ‘It wasn’t like that at home, I take it?’ Pavia gave a soft laugh, ‘I’m imagining you as a little boy with dough on your fingers. Were you a darling or a terror?’

  ‘A darling. Aylsbury wouldn’t have it any other way even if I wasn’t an heir. I was top of my class in mathematics and history at Eton. I studied very hard for that. Grandfather was proud, of course. I distinguished myself quickly in the military. He is also quite proud of that. It’s all a credit to the Aylsbury name.’ Cam said it all lightly, wryly, but Pavia sensed the bitterness beneath. He’d given his life in service to his family, making them proud. All for what? At the first sign of disobedience that family had abandoned him—they couldn’t even be bothered to come to his wedding.

  ‘And now this,’ Pavia said softly. His world had been perfect until she’d interrupted it.

  Cam drew a breath. ‘Yes, now this. The golden child has displeased the dynasty.’ He grinned as if to say he was unconcerned by what his family thought. She wondered how long that nonchalance would last. His hands bracketed her hips as he leaned forward, eager to dismiss the unpleasantness of his family. His forehead touched hers. ‘What about you? Were you an angel or an imp?’

  ‘An angel. Did you really need to ask?’ she teased, but she was decidedly uncomfortable with the subject. Her childhood had been different by English standards and that was putting it mildly.

  ‘And?’ Cam coaxed. ‘You have to say more, I told you more.’

  ‘You will think my upbringing scandalous,’ she warned. ‘Maybe it’s best you don’t know.’

  Cam kissed her eyelids. ‘I want to know everything about you. What’s the fun of marrying a stranger if you can’t uncover them?’

  ‘I think you’ve uncovered quite a bit already.’ Pavia laughed.

&n
bsp; ‘Tell me, Pavia. I promise not to be scandalised,’ Cam begged, his blue eyes dancing with irresistible mischief.

  ‘All right. Remember, you promised,’ Pavia said sternly. ‘I lived in the zenana at my uncle’s court in Sohra with my mother and all the other women and children. My father was gone on business, travelling all over Asia, making his fortune.’ She watched his face for a reaction. ‘Are you scandalised now, like every other Englishman who doesn’t truly understand the function of a zenana?’

  ‘Hardly,’ Cam assured her. ‘You forget, I’ve been to India. I know what is real and what are the fictions. Now, I believe I promised to show you the house. Let’s start in the dining room.’

  The dining room was empty, no table, no chairs, no hutch for dishes. It was just a space, until Cam began to talk, walking her about the room, painting her a picture with his words. ‘There used to be a rosewood table with six chairs, here in the centre. Aunt Lily had a hutch against the wall over there where she kept her silver candlesticks and china with pink roses painted on the edges.’

  The room came to life for her as Cam talked. Pavia could see the table with a white cloth, the pretty dishes and the candlesticks; it was a homely image. Something tugged at her heartstrings. They would create such images here, too, for their child, for each other, perhaps. It would take a while. Today, there wasn’t even a table to sit at and, even if there was, she hadn’t the faintest idea of what to cook.

  Nostalgia softened Cam’s eyes when he looked at her. ‘I have mostly good memories of this room and the meals we shared in here. Dinner was far more informal here than it was at home.’