Another curtsey, and Abby had blessed, delightful solitude in a home where no felonies had been or would dare to be committed. A riding habit was perhaps the easiest garment for a woman to get herself into and out of unassisted, so Abby changed into her nightgown and dressing gown.
The bed beckoned, but she helped herself to a cup of tea and a ginger biscuit, because she’d eaten only as much as she’d dared at luncheon. Ginger biscuits aided digestion, something a botanist would know.
Mr. Belmont had certainly known what to do with an unexpected foal.
Abby took her tea to the bed, then brought the rose to the night table as well. She climbed under the covers and closed her eyes, hoping for sleep.
Instead her memory presented her with the image of Axel Belmont, standing hands on hips over a damp foal shivering in the snow. Tracks in the snow suggested the filly had been born at least an hour past, and yet, the mare was still trying to lick her baby dry.
Much foul language had ensued while Mr. Belmont had begun casting off his clothing, tossing it at Abby as if she were his valet. He’d stripped off everything above the waist, then knelt and used his shirt to towel the filly dry.
The snow had been bloodstained, the cold air had crackled with Mr. Belmont’s profanity, and yet, his ministrations to the filly had been gentle and thorough.
He’d been oblivious to his own nudity, while Abby had been unable to look away. She’d stood a few yards off, holding his clothing—a heavy bundle of fine tailoring—and marveling at the sight of a healthy adult male without his shirt.
Gregory in the full bloom of youth would not have looked as Mr. Belmont had—lithe, powerful, impervious to the cold. Axel Belmont’s torso, shoulders, and arms were a mosaic of muscle and movement, a testament to the Creator’s eye for beauty.
Mr. Belmont had cursed as he’d rubbed every inch of the filly’s coat dry, but Abby had given thanks for the very sight of him. Had a valuable animal’s life not been at stake, that gift would never have come her way.
When the filly had risen to nurse—assisted by Mr. Belmont and his blue-tinged encouragements—Abby had scolded him back into what clothing had not been ruined. He’d complied readily, alas, apologizing all the while for the necessity of disrobing on such a damned cold day.
Lying in the cozy bed, a fire crackling in the hearth, Abby slid her nightgown up to her thighs and closed her eyes. Axel Belmont without his shirt was a sight she’d never forget and certainly intended to savor now that she had privacy to do so.
She touched herself, as she learned to over years of pouring over naughty books, and more years of solitudinous wifehood. She was widowed now, and this solitary pleasure was even more her right than it had been when Gregory was alive.
In Axel Belmont’s house she was safe from whoever had killed Gregory, and whatever evil Gregory might have invited into his life.
While Abby was helpless to defend herself against the image of Axel Belmont, kneeling bare-chested in the snow as he alternately cursed and pleaded with a new life to fight its way to the coming spring.
“The filly is thriving,” Axel said, dishing up eggs for his breakfast companion, “though livestock is probably not the topic a host should embark upon with a guest at breakfast.”
Buttered toast, the crusts cut off, came next. Two slices, because if Axel put one slice on Abigail Stoneleigh’s plate, she’d eat only a half.
She poured herself a cup of tea, stirred in sugar and cream, then sat back and closed her eyes, the cup held before her, the steam rising around her like High Church incense.
“I did worry about mother and baby,” she said. “I take the running of Stoneleigh Manor seriously, and horses are worth a pretty penny. I must compliment Mrs. Turnbull on my comfortable bedroom. After a night under your roof, I’m exceedingly well rested.”
Mrs. Stoneleigh had spent a night under Axel’s roof sleeping like the dead, as it were. He’d checked on her twice, the first time thinking to offer a game of chess after their evening meal, the second…
Papa’s instincts, maybe. A man’s curiosity, more likely. Axel had cracked the bedroom door enough to ensure the coals had been banked and hearth screen was in place, then decided that the bed curtains ought also to be drawn.
Which was either overly conscientious of him, or very… presuming.
He set the plate before her and took his seat at the head of the table. “You are a new widow. You must rest as much as you please, and my staff will not comment, lest Mrs. Turnbull scold them before I can turn them off for their own safety. Eat your eggs.”
Mrs. Stoneleigh heaved out the sigh of long-suffering women everywhere, then took a sip of her tea.
“Eat, Abigail.” Please. She picked up her fork, and Axel admitted to relief.
“You never considered remarrying?” she asked, taking a bite of eggs.
He’d ordered a cheese omelet with chives, garlic, and other seasonings, and Cook had done the hens proud.
“I considered the notion a time or two. My aspirations are academic, so reason prevailed.”
She bit off a corner of her toast. “Reason?”
“The problem was simple lust, or loneliness, or a troublesome combination of the two. One needn’t remarry to deal with either difficulty. You will no doubt have to guard against such temptations yourself in the coming months.”
She regarded him with—could it be?—another half-amused smile over a second forkful of eggs.
“Ladies are not supposed to be greatly troubled by the first of those ailments,” she said. “I don’t believe a gentleman is supposed to allude to it either.”
Good God, he was out of practice with polite women. Caroline was probably howling with laughter from some celestial perch.
“Ladies are quite susceptible to the loneliness,” he said. “Most men know how to exploit any confusion between lust and loneliness, I am ashamed to admit. More tea?”
“Please. Have you no friends, Mr. Belmont?” she asked, when he’d passed her the refilled tea cup.
What fool had sought some verbal sparring over breakfast? Axel fetched the basket of fruit from the sideboard and began tearing the peel from the ripest orange.
“My brother is my friend,” he said, the words oddly satisfying. “I am cordial with all my neighbors, and a few others whom I regard as friends.” All of those friends knew not to visit too frequently in late winter, when Axel preferred to lavish time on the specimens in his glass houses.
And ignore the fact that Caroline had died in early March.
“Eat, Abigail, and no more of this Mr. Belmont nonsense over breakfast. You will sour my delicate digestion.”
She stilled, a corner of the toast pointing toward her open mouth.
“That’s the way. You take a bite, chew, and swallow, then repeat.” Her company was more diverting than the morning newspaper, also more worrisome.
She set the toast down. “If you say, ‘good girl’ I will not answer for the consequences, Mr. Belmont. My own mood is less than sanguine, in case you hadn’t noticed. Which reminds me, I will need to send a note to Mrs. Jensen.”
He’d noticed her pale complexion. He’d noticed she needed to eat. He’d noticed that she slept as if cast away, but a simple walk across the fields had tired her.
“You need more frocks?” he asked, putting half the peeled orange on her plate. More frocks meant a longer stay under his roof, possibly.
Mrs. Stoneleigh was abruptly absorbed with her remaining piece of toast. “I have need of some personal effects, and Mrs. Jensen can send along a bottle of laudanum.”
The substantial meal in Axel’s belly lurched disagreeably. “No laudanum. I will divert you with cards, music, scintillating repartee, or good literature. If you insist, I will play my damned violin. I will bore you to sleep with discourses on the successful grafting of roses, on which topic I am a noted expert. I will walk with you, or read damned Scripture by the hour, but no blighted—”
“Stop lecturing. You are inc
apable of scintillating repartee. If you truly think I am at risk for abusing the poppy, then have her send over a single dose.”
Now, when Axel wanted to pitch crockery in all directions, Mrs. Stoneleigh was dispatching her eggs.
“You are well rested, a hint of color graces your cheeks, your eyes are clear, and you do not seem to be in any obvious pain.” Axel knew, he’d known as a boy, how need for the drug turned a reasonable person into a begging, screaming, incoherent wreck. Thank God that Caroline had understood and accepted his position on this at least. “No laudanum.”
“I am not in obvious pain, because some suffering is personal, and not evident to the almighty male eye. I am not asking for an entire bottle, and I am not obliged to remain here as your prisoner.”
She dabbed at the corner of her lip with her serviette, the movement confoundedly dainty.
“Mr. Belmont. Axel,” she went on, “you were married, you are the father of two children. Can you not conceive that my husband’s unexpected death might have disrupted the regular occurrence of certain bodily functions that occasionally cause a woman discomfort?”
Before Axel’s eyes, her countenance flooded with color, right up to her hairline. Whatever her supposed indisposition—
A drop of raspberry jam marred her otherwise clean plate. Raspberry was a staple in every woman’s herbal, useful for…
“One dose,” Axel said, turning her plate so the orange sections were closest to her. “I will watch you take it, and you will not ask for more.”
She tipped up her empty tea cup, studying the dregs, ignoring the succulent fruit.
“You make pronouncements as if your word is law, but on other issues, you can be reasoned with, somewhat. What is it about a medicinal dose of laudanum that bothers you so?”
Axel knew what it was to interrogate, to fire off questions in search of truth. He’d put enough questions to Abigail Stoneleigh that she was due a few of her own, though tomorrow, he’d be taking a breakfast tray in the glass house reserved for his roses.
He went to the window, which looked out on a bleak, snowy landscape. In the distance, the broodmares were heavy, dark shapes, heads down against the winter wind.
“My mother,” Axel said without turning, “died of an intentional laudanum overdose the very night after my brother’s wedding. She’d been addicted for years, but we didn’t see that final maneuver coming. My father was gone a little over a year later, dying essentially of a broken heart—or guilt—though he managed to hang on long enough to see me engaged.”
“I am sorry.” Axel hadn’t heard her move, but she was beside him, a gentle hand on his shoulder. “Gregory told me that in India the whole issue is openly accepted. There are places for addicts to go and consume themselves to death, places where opium is offered like tea or coffee. Their society shrugs, and tolerates the whole tragedy, which he seemed to think was far more sensible.”
“Ours shrugs and ignores it.”
She rubbed the middle of Axel’s back in circles, drawing the tension from him. In winter, Caroline had applied her scented lotions to his back, soothing the dryness caused by cold weather.
“How old were you when your mother died, Mr. Belmont?”
Whatever difference did that make? “Sixteen. Matthew was seventeen, nearly eighteen, marrying a woman who was in need of an immediate husband for the obvious reason. Our mother opposed the match, and when it went forward over her protestations, she took her own life.”
Mrs. Stoneleigh dropped her hand. “Your poor brother and his poor wife.”
“And my poor father, and on and on. I do not generally speak of this.” He did not ever speak of this part of his past.
“Of course not. You’d rather ask near strangers whether they’ve taken lovers or have unpaid gambling debts.” She poured another cup of tea, added cream and sugar, and brought it to him. “We need not discuss this further.”
The tea was good. Comforting, and prepared exactly as Axel preferred. “You still want your dose?”
“I do. By this afternoon, my back will be in stitches. I doubt I’ll come down to dinner tonight. I do not normally speak of this either. I try not to even think of it, if you must know. Shall we sit?”
Axel held her chair, realizing that his expectation—his near wish—that breakfast degenerate into an argument was to be thwarted. He was confident life without a female in the house was a more peaceful existence than the alternative, but Abby Stoneleigh had refused to prove his hypothesis true.
Yet. “Your back pains you?”
She flicked a glance at him, inherently feminine, nothing he could read, then dabbed her finger in the drop of raspberry jam and licked the tip.
“Midwives have told me a child could improve the situation, but that solution seems both drastic and unrealistic now.”
Axel had known exactly when Caroline’s menses were bearing down on her, because she’d go from laughter to tears to bellowing mad in the course of an hour. Then, without warning, she’d be up in bed, sweet, sleepy, and achy, willing to cuddle for hours, apologizing for the previous three days of dramatics.
He’d comforted her as best he could, feeling privileged to do so.
“You are lost in thought,” Axel’s guest remarked. “Reminiscing?”
“If you can call it that.” He finished his tea in a single gulp and stood. “My apologies for being a poor breakfast companion. I’m off to finish perusing your ledgers, and I will retrieve your medicinal tot. If I am back in time for luncheon, will that serve?”
She rose before Axel had a chance to hold her chair. “You will be careful at Stoneleigh Manor?”
“Do you caution me for a particular reason?” He was revisiting the scene of a murder. Of course he would be careful, and he would ensure every lock on the property was changed too.
“Whoever killed Gregory,” she said, “seems to have known his schedule intimately, and knew how to enter and depart the premises undetected. That suggests the murderer was a familiar, possibly somebody on staff, or a frequent visitor. They might even have had a key.”
Which meant Abigail Stoneleigh was afraid of her own staff, and not without reason. Well, damn and blast. Axel would hire more than one locksmith to expedite the job.
“Before I depart for Stoneleigh Manor, would you like to visit the new foal with me?”
Because every indisposed woman longed to tramp through the cold and snow to see an awkward, gangling bit of livestock whose acquaintance she’d already made.
“Fresh air appeals,” Mrs. Stoneleigh said.
Axel ushered his guest to the hallway, settled her cloak about her shoulders, and stepped back rather than tend to the fastenings beneath her chin. He did, however, take her arm as they crossed to the stable yard, pleased she’d make the outing with him.
A fellow incapable of scintillating repartee liked to know that his company, however prosaic, yet held some attraction for a woman who might well have told him to go to blazes.
“You’re worried about your brother.”
Matthew Belmont’s new wife settled into his lap, which eased all of his worries. He and Theresa had been married only a handful of weeks, and with each passing day, Matthew’s ability to recall his years of widowerhood faded.
“Axel sends felicitations.” Matthew set Axel’s letter aside and wrapped his arms around Theresa. “He reports that Remington and Christopher appeared to enjoy their recent visit and nearly waddled back to their studies.”
“And?”
Theresa had a way of caressing the nape of Matthew’s neck that positively wrecked his concentration. Positively and most agreeably.
“And Axel has a murder investigation on his hands. His immediate neighbor was shot dead, and for reasons my brother isn’t being entirely forthright about, the widow is now visiting at Candlewick.”
Theresa appropriated a ginger biscuit from the tea tray on Matthew’s desk, took a bite, then held it up for Matthew to do likewise. No biscuit had ever tasted better, an
d Axel claimed ginger settled a woman’s digestion in the early months of pregnancy.
“Do you fear Axel has taken a murderer under his roof?”
“A lady who conspired to commit murder, perhaps. I’m more worried that Mrs. Stoneleigh is conspiring to commit… marriage.”
The matter wanted discussion, so Matthew rose with his wife in his arms, gently deposited her on the sofa, and took an armchair across the low table from her. Theresa had bloomed since their marriage. She no longer wore only drab colors, her smiles had acquired a hint of devilment, and her affectionate nature had become inventive.
Alas, Matthew’s affectionate nature had failed to lock the library door.
“Axel is lonely,” Theresa said, rising to fetch the bowl of biscuits.
She offered them to Matthew, who took three. Affection, at the rate Matthew and his spouse expressed it to each other, was a delightfully taxing aspect of married life.
“My brother is… I hesitate to use the word, but it fits: vulnerable. He wishes us well on our nuptials, then dispatches his sons for an extended visit here. I’d wager Axel has spent his days since returning to Oxford in his glass houses, eating from trays, when he eats at all, soil staining his fingers, and little sprigs of greenery peeking from his pockets. He’s always been widow-bait, but now that I’m married…”
Re-married, though Matthew’s heart didn’t feel that way. Conjugal union with Theresa was the institution as it was meant to be enjoyed.
“Widow-bait, Matthew?”
“Richard coined the term, though he was referring to Nicholas Haddonfield.”
Theresa helped herself to a second biscuit. Her dresses were high-waisted, but because Matthew’s marital enthusiasm for his wife—and hers for him—had already resulted in conception, the dress was snug across the bodice.
Distractingly snug.
“When last I saw Nick, he struck me as restless,” Theresa said. “He’s waiting for the social Season to start, so he can begin bride-hunting, and yet, he’s enjoyed his time here in Sussex.”
Nick Haddonfield, though an earl’s heir, had spent the last two years working as a stable master on the neighboring estate. The post had provided a reprieve from the matchmakers and allowed Nick to keep a close eye on a younger sibling.
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