Thank the Lord, Darleston seemed to understand. He withdrew and used his own hand to finish off. His climax added to the mess upon Lyle’s clothes. Heaven knows what his valet would make of the stains.
Darleston rolled onto his back on the grass beside Lyle. They remained in companionable silence for several minutes, just watching wispy grey clouds drift across the heavens.
‘It’ll work.’ Darleston’s soft murmur broke the silence.
‘Maybe. I guess we’ll find out.’ Maybe the gamble would pay off and existing as a threesome would make them stronger, maybe it’d descend into an unholy mess; either way, he knew he was in it for the distance. ‘Why is Lucy here? You never really said.’
Darleston sat up, got to his feet and straightened his clothing. ‘She’s claims she’s with child.’
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
As he climbed the stairs to the servants’ quarters, Darleston thought how fortunate it was that the Hills housed their guests’ servants apart from their employers, in attic quarters that were also separate from the household servants’. Finding an opportunity to accost Lucy’s maid would have been infinitely harder if she’d been sharing her mistress’s room, not least because he had no intention of setting foot anywhere near his wife’s boudoir. As it was, he had to navigate the winding, slant-ceilinged attic passages with a single paltry candle to light the route.
Despite Lyle’s instructions, he found the layout disorientating. In the servants’ domain there were no pictures or pieces of furniture to use as landmarks. What was underfoot yielded no help either, since it was all pitted, badly laid floorboards, which groaned so much at each footfall that it seemed pointless to attempt stealth. Right, right, left and then fourth door along on the left, just past a narrow window that looked out over the woodland, or at least it apparently did if you could boost yourself high enough off the floor to see outside. He didn’t bother to check. Dear God, he was glad he hadn’t been born a servant.
Outside the appropriate door, Darleston took a moment to compose himself. At first, his gentle knock prompted no response. A more solid rap resulted in hurried scurrying about within, and then finally, the door cracked open an inch.
‘Milord!’ Panic filled Sally’s blue eyes and she dropped a hasty curtsy, although she took care to keep the door between them. He doubted it was out of modesty. He’d seen Sally Scott in her nightrail on countless occasions and once or twice naked in his wife’s bed.
‘I require a word.’
Fear smudged darker streaks through the cornflower-blue of her irises. ‘Yes, milord. Of course.’ She dug her teeth into her blood-flushed lips, but made no move to allow him within.
‘You may send your lover out before I come in.’ Darleston folded his arms across his chest. ‘I’ve no mind to be overheard.’
Immediately she stepped back from the door, bobbing up and down in acquiescence. Darleston followed her in. The room, which was under the eaves, had a pitched ceiling that required him to bend uncomfortably in order to avoid knocking his head. It possessed plain whitewashed walls, a simple straw-stuffed mattress on a short iron frame, and a squat cupboard that held a washing bowl and jug. Sally’s clothes hung from a hook upon the back of the door. Spartan and unappealing, it was exactly what he expected of a maid’s room, except the pair of man’s trews poking out from beneath the coverlet.
‘Leave,’ he repeated.
Sally turned to the bed. ‘You heard him. Time to go.’
Darleston averted his gaze as a squat, sturdy male emerged from beneath the bed frame with the tails of his shirt tucked around his privates as if to disguise their obviously aroused state. ‘I won’t keep her long,’ Darleston remarked as the man hastily pulled on his breeches. ‘Not that you should be in here. What’s your name?’ He waited for the man to provide it, which, having been indoctrinated through years of household service, he naturally did.
‘Cobbs, milord.’
‘Aye, well, Cobbs, you won’t remark upon my presence and I won’t speak of yours. You’re Mr Aiken’s man, correct?’
‘I am, milord. You won’t hear a peep out of me. Ain’t none of my business what the quality do of a night.’
‘Very true. You may leave.’
Cobbs gave a sharp nod and scuttled out of the door. Darleston toed it shut behind him. The moment he turned back to Sally, she flicked open the ribbon fastening of her nightrail and swooned onto the lumpy bed in a pose of virginal surrender. Darleston paused a moment, holding back a burst of laughter. Sally was bonny in a simple earthy way, wide-hipped and big-thighed, softer by far than the bed on which she lay. He had no doubt she could provide a soul with endless pleasure, but he had no more desire to sample her voluptuous curves than he did to fuck his wife. ‘That’s not what I’m here for.’
She sat up and crossed her arms, clearly disappointed. ‘What do you want then, if not pleasure? You cut off mine so that all me bush’s a-tingle and you’ve seen off the means to satisfy it.’
‘I said I wouldn’t keep you long.’
She grinned, showing off a curiously symmetrical smile. ‘Few gentlemen ever do. A quick poke is all they’re ever about. They don’t think of anybody’s pleasure but their own.’
He’d always suspected that she topped up the pittance of a wage she earned primping his wife by bedding the gentlemen of Lucy’s acquaintance. ‘I want to know what your mistress has been about these last five months.’
In an echo of the flounce Lucy had made earlier when he’d addressed her in the parlour, Sally rose before him, her full lower lip extended into a pout, and tapped two fingers to his chest. ‘Why should I tell you? You offer nothing in return. You won’t satisfy my whims – assuming you know how to offer a woman carnal pleasure, and one has to speculate not, given my mistress’s complaints – and I’ve no cause to betray my mistress’s trust.’
He turned two shiny guineas out of a pocket. ‘And think that Mr Cobbs’ reputation is on the line along with your own.’
She shook her head. ‘He knew the risks when he offered to tickle my fancy. You’ll have to offer more than that.’ A calculating gleam lit her blue eyes.
‘More than two guineas.’ He dashed a hand through his hair. ‘Very well, name your price.’
‘Twelve guineas.’ Darleston stared at her, incredulous. ‘Or four and a good poke.’
Lord damn it, no amount of information was worth that much. The woman was downright insane. She sidled closer to him, dipping her palm to cover his loins. ‘Just ’cause one woman ain’t to your taste, don’t mean another can’t satisfy.’
He’d never had any problem with women, only with Lucy, and his predilection for men had nothing to do with that. It wasn’t something the love of a good woman – or a bad one, in this case – was going to solve. He simply enjoyed the pleasure of both sexes.
‘Fine.’ He knocked her hand away. ‘Twelve guineas. This had better be worth it.’
Vexation etched lines of rage across her pretty face. They vanished equally quickly. She gave a tut and twirled away from him to compose herself, and then sat primly upon the bed. ‘I suppose you want to know who she’s entertained, all that sort of flummery?’
He gave a nod. ‘And when she last bled.’
Sally shook her head. ‘There ain’t been anyone that she’s entertained in that way.’ As if possessed of sudden energy, she rose and paced right past him to the rear of the little chamber. Being much shorter she did not have to duck her head.
‘I pray you don’t expect me to believe that. Lucy can’t go above four days without some manner of shafting, before she starts rutting with the furniture and whatever else is to hand.’
Sally remained with her back to him, clutching the edge of the washstand. When she finally turned, her teeth were scraping ruts into her lower lip. ‘There’s been frolicking, of course there has, and some bottom-warming, but I swear none of the gentlemen have taken her like that. I know, for I’ve had to satisfy her with the jade wand.’ Her words petered off.
‘Sally, for God’s sake. Do you expect me to believe that she’s let Oxbury and that fox Littleton do nothing beyond suckle her tits and redden her arse since February? Or am I supposed to believe they’ve swived her arse but haven’t indulged in the taking of her cunt?’
‘It’s true.’
‘The devil it is! And how many others have there been alongside those two?’
‘A few,’ she huffed, ‘but the arrangement’s been the same throughout. They’re allowed to use her tits and her arse, but no man’s to dip his wick in her honeypot.’
‘Fine,’ he snapped, not accepting her word for a second. ‘A few’ in Lucy’s case would likely amount to half of the aristocracy in London. ‘Then be so good as to explain how she’s come to be with child, because it’s not divine. She’s not giving birth to Jesus Christ and I’m damned sure it’s not mine.’
Sally dug her teeth into her lips so hard it drew blood. A thread of scarlet clung to the edge of her front teeth. ‘She’s … she’s increasing?’
It this were an act, it was an improbably impressive one. How could her maid not know?
‘Aren’t you supposed to know that sort of thing? You’re in charge of her rags.’
‘I am, but … I’m not sure of the count.’ Suddenly on the defensive, Sally stuttered over her words. ‘She’s … we’ve moved around a lot, and she prefers to conduct her intimate toilette alone.’
Darleston ticked the tip of his nose with his steepled fingers. ‘How long since she’s bled?’
Sally swore under her breath, and then began totting dates up upon her fingers. ‘’Twere before Bath. Prior to leaving London, I think. Yes, it was the night of the Pemberton ball, I remember, because she had such appalling cramps that we had to send word at last minute that she couldn’t attend.’
‘And that was?’ Lord, he had no patience left for this extraction. All he wanted was a name, something he could throw in Lucy’s face come morning as proof of her infidelity and lies.
‘April,’ Sally announced. ‘’Twere April. Middle of the month.’
‘And it’s now June.’ Thus making Lucy a mere two months gone. Hardly surprising that she wasn’t showing yet. Still, it was confirmation enough for what he needed. Prior to Lucy’s arrival at Field House, they’d not seen one another since mid-February, a fact that entirely ruled out the possibility of him being the father. It would have to do, since he didn’t believe for a moment that he’d extract a name from Sally. ‘I’ll have your payment sent to you.’ He paused on the threshold of her room, and glanced back at her worry-etched countenance, so different from that of the saucy, flirtatious woman he’d initially faced. ‘You said you were in Bath. What for?’
Sally slowly tilted her head, so that she looked up at him from beneath her brows. ‘So Lady Darleston could take the waters.’
‘She’s been ill?’ he asked, his mind suddenly whirring with possibilities. The waters wouldn’t see off the clap or the pox, but that didn’t mean folks didn’t soak themselves in some misguided hope. Given Lucy’s love of sexual excess, a dose of either couldn’t be ruled out. Of course, most bathed there for gout, but he didn’t suppose that to be her problem. She tippled, but not generally to excess. Lucy preferred to keep her wits about her and her senses sharp. Alcohol dulled the sort of pain she craved. ‘Has she seen a physician?’
The fright that bleached Sally’s skin told him he was finally asking the right questions. It was not a babe he had to worry about, or who his lady wife had lain with, but whatever malady had sent her to a quack.
‘Just some stomach cramps. Seems plain enough what they are now.’ Sally’s eyes suddenly came alive and glittered. ‘You’re sure I can’t persuade you to partake?’ she crooned, giving her hips a saucy wiggle.
The girl was terrified, afraid that before long she’d be without a position, but not because of anything he might say or do. Rather, she knew that whatever was afflicting his wife, it wasn’t likely to be pregnancy.
‘No,’ he said quietly. ‘I’ll away and leave you to your rest.’
* * *
‘Darleston.’
He stirred slowly, waking from the dark dream with cobwebs of woe still clinging to his skin like a dusty raiment. He’d slipped back into his past, falling through layers of memory to the days before his marriage. He hated … hated anything that forced his hand. He could no longer look at his mother and see her as the same woman who had nurtured him, brought him into this world. She’d severed the link between them, accused him of unnaturalness and satanic practices, when all he’d wanted was to love and have that love returned.
The parchment upon which the words he had to speak sat crumpled within his fist. His brother’s hand curled tight around his shoulder. ‘It won’t be that bad.’ Neddy offered in reassurance. ‘One night, that’s all you need offer her and then you can ignore her if you wish.’
If he wished … All anyone cared about was that he should produce an heir, a squalling babe to carry on the family line. What he wanted, what he craved, wasn’t of interest or relevance. There was no way he’d be allowed to ignore his wife’s bedchamber.
‘Darleston … Robert.’
Someone shook him and he rolled over, trying to ignore the tug back to reality.
The delicate rose scent of Emma’s perfume delivered him fully from the dream. He lifted his head off the pillow just as she settled her derriere level with his waist. ‘What are you doing here?’ His words came out slurred. Darleston pushed himself up a little and gave his head a shake for good measure.
‘I had to make sure. Lyle said you were back, but I had to know it for myself.’ Her shoulders hunched up towards her ears as she spoke. She’d come to him wearing nothing but a simple linen nightdress that even in this dim light – he’d left the curtains open – left nothing to the imagination.
Mouth suddenly dry, Darleston stared at the long plait of hair that dangled over her narrow shoulder and longed to tug upon it and pull her to him. He’d known that she would fret from the moment he’d pushed her into her father’s study and shut the glass door between them. Lyle had confirmed it, as did her presence, but he’d still been right to stay away.
‘You shouldn’t have come here.’ It made him ill to see the pain in her eyes at his words. ‘It’s too risky,’ he tried to explain. Couldn’t she trust him over this? ‘I won’t abandon you. There’s nothing to fear on that front, but while Lucy’s here, ’tis better that we remain apart.’
Emma folded her hands neatly in her lap. Every muscle in her body had to be pulled taut. If the strain increased, he feared she’d snap.
‘I know it. I understand. I do.’
Yet she was here in his bedchamber and his cobs felt achy because of it. Through the thin weave of her shift he could make out the puckered tips of her nipples. The memory of tasting them, of being inside her, flooded his senses with feverish warmth. It didn’t matter to his heart that his brain told him there was too much risk associated with her being here. Like any warm-blooded man, he wanted what lay before him. ‘Does Lyle know you’ve come?’ he asked, trying rather unsuccessfully to get a grip on his rampaging libido. He wanted to soothe away the tension from her limbs and replace them with a very different sort of ache. The memory of sliding into her and having her sheath grip his cock and being allowed near enough to hold her close clamoured at his senses.
‘He’s asleep,’ she said. ‘But I couldn’t. I didn’t mean to come, or cause you alarm. I just needed to … I made sure that nobody saw me.’
Of course she did, and why should anyone see her slipping down the corridor like a woeful spectre at this hour of the night? It was impossible to make out the mantel-clock, and he didn’t care to reach for his timepiece, but he’d swear to it being nigh on three, maybe even four o’clock.
‘Emma.’ Her shoulders quivered as he reached out, but, rather than touch her, he tugged back the covers, exposing a space in his bed for her to climb into, so they might sit side by side.
At first she made no move to join him. ‘Do you love her?’ she asked instead.
Who? Lucy? ‘Good Lord, no! Never. The marriage wasn’t my choice.’ However, it had been his choice to accept it. He could not lay the fault of his marriage entirely upon others. After all, he had stood there and spoken his vows. No one had pressed a gun to his head, or a sword to his heart. For a time he’d even done his best to honour the promises he’d made in the cold, dismal church. ‘All that exists between me and Lucy is wretched. She’s here only to make worse what is already rotten.’
‘I feel that I’ve slighted her.’
Darleston’s mouth fell open as he stared at her. ‘You’ve not. How could you have?’
‘I’ve lain with you, her husband.’
Heaven help him, but the only wrong he could see in that statement was that she’d only lain with him once, when he’d like to make it a good score of times.
‘By the same token I’ve slighted you, by lying with Lyle without ever seeking your consent. Lucy has wronged me hundreds of times over.’
‘Two wrongs don’t make a right.’ Nor did two hundred.
‘No, they don’t, but I won’t have you carrying the guilt for something that was already broken. Don’t grieve for her. She doesn’t deserve your pity or sympathy. If she learns of this, she’ll destroy you, not because she cares for our marriage but out of pure malice. She’s made other lives hell for doing much less than lying with me.’
‘I have upset Lyle too.’ Raw pain twisted her pretty face into a mask of anguish. He didn’t believe she’d willingly hurt anybody. Rather she’d choose to absorb all discord into herself and keep everyone harmonious and safe.
Darleston patted the vacant space beside him again. ‘You have not.’ That was a little white lie, but Lyle would get over it. ‘He’s just adapting to the changes in our relationship. Emma, please. You’re cold.’
Finally, she consented. The moment she settled into the space he’d made, Darleston tugged the covers all around them. ‘Lie down and talk.’ Not that there were any words to make things right. Ignoring the fact that she stiffened, he cuddled up close so that she might feel the warmth of his body. Only the thin cloth of her shift stood as a barrier between them. Couldn’t she see that love had nothing to do with marriage vows and puritanical moral codes? Cupid’s arrows struck where they pleased. He’d been pierced the first moment he saw her. Moreover the wound hadn’t healed; it’d deepened, so that his whole body throbbed from needing her.
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