by Hope Tarr
Fueling those fantasies was the fact that Ralph didn’t seem to see her as a little girl, but as a woman. Back at the paddock, he’d certainly treated her as such. If only she weren’t so woefully ignorant of worldly ways, so patently parochial, she might have done more than guide his hand to her breast. Unschooled though she was, she fancied she’d stirred him. Had Kate not interrupted them, at the very least he would have kissed her, she felt sure of it.
“I am nineteen,” Bea persisted, steering the conversation safely away from Ralph Sylvester. “Most of my friends in London are engaged by now.”
Kate cocked a dark brown brow. “Speaking of engagements, do you mean to see that nice Mr. Billingsby when you return?”
Bea held back a groan. “I suppose I shall.”
The prospect of facing not only her aunt but also her plain-as-paper suitor was enough to make her reconsider staying on another week. And yet wasn’t Mr. Billingsby, so mild-mannered and steady, so conventional and well, dull, precisely the sort of husband that a girl—a woman—such as she might very well need?
Pulling back her shoulders, she forced herself to face the person whose love and esteem mattered the most. “You must believe in me again, Kate, believe that I’ve learned from my errors, for truly I have. I feel as though I’ve grown a lifetime wiser this past week alone.”
“A lifetime is a rather long time.” Kate wrapped a consoling arm about Bea’s shoulders. “What I do believe is that you are a bright, lovely young woman with a healthy curiosity and a great deal still to learn of men. As such, accept the advice of a sister who has lived nearly a decade longer than you have and put any romantic thoughts of Ralph Sylvester from your mind.”
Bea sucked in a sigh and held her peace. Put any romantic thoughts of Ralph from her mind.
Kate might as well ask her to travel to the moon.
September 1892, Nine Months Later
“WOOLGATHERING, RALPH?”
Rourke’s question pulled Ralph back to the present. Snapped back to consciousness, he wondered how long he’d sat at his desk staring off into space, his fountain pen dripping ink onto the draft of Rourke’s speech to railway shareholders, the latter lying forgotten on his blotter.
Ralph shook his head as if to rid it of cobwebs and slid the pen into its stand. “Forgive me, Patrick. From here on, I promise you my undivided attention. Now, where were we…?” He glanced down at the badly blotted paper on which they’d made but poor progress so far.
“The devil if I know.” Rourke blew out a heavy breath. “I can’t concentrate for the life of me, either.” He scraped a big, blunt-fingered hand through his unruly auburn locks and began pacing the carpet.
Ralph regarded the Scotsman with a mixture of pity and amusement. Whatever ailed his friend and employer, he’d lay odds it was of a domestic nature. When it came to his high-spirited wife, Kate, and their one-year-old daughter, Lucy, the otherwise iron-willed railway magnate turned mushy as porridge.
But then life had a way of creeping up on a man. In the course of the past decade, Ralph had softened himself. He’d become accustomed to sleeping in beds instead of camping in stairwells, to wearing custom-tailored suits instead of foraging clothing from rag-and-bone shops, and to taking his meals at a proper table instead of pulling pilfered market fare from the linings of his pockets. He’d not only lost his edge, he’d lost his desire to have an edge. Scalawagging was a young man’s sport, and he would be one-and-thirty on his coming birthday.
A life free from want was that very thing for which he’d scrapped, stolen and repeatedly lied. And yet now that he’d achieved it, he oftentimes felt like a wishbone at risk for being torn apart. He was a servant and yet more, a friend and yet less than an equal. Limbo, he supposed, described his place or lack thereof to perfection. And limbo’s shifting sands made for a bloody unreliable foundation upon which to build a life.
Glancing back over at Rourke’s furrowed brow, he judged that what the Scotsman mostly needed now was a friend. “Care to tell me why you’re hell-bent on wearing holes in Kate’s new Persian carpet?”
Scowling, Rourke stopped pacing long enough to push up the spectacles that were forever sliding down his crooked bridge of nose. “Kate’s breeding again.”
Ralph straightened in his chair. “So soon? But Lucy is scarcely weaned.”
Rourke flushed a shade of crimson deeper than his usual ruddy-cheeked hue. “I thought we were as yet safe. I should have taken greater care with her. I should have used…”
“A prophylactic,” Ralph offered, easing back into his seat.
Thinking of the tin of French Letters gathering dust on his bedside table, he felt his spirits slipping toward sadness. He hadn’t had a woman in nine months and he was hard-pressed to put his finger upon why. As always, he had a plentitude of prospective partners, including the housekeeper, Hattie, a handsome woman for all she was forty-odd and on the plump side from a recent pregnancy. Listing toward middle age though he was, his libido loomed as large as ever, a ravenous, thrashing beast he struggled to sate several times daily with naught but his own hand. In those straining, seeking moments, one woman alone took shape in his fevered fantasy.
Lady Beatrice Lindsey.
In the nine months since her leaving, he’d thought of her often, but heard from her not a word. Absurd though it sounded, those first few months he’d actually supposed she would write. But then her silence only confirmed what he’d known in his heart all along.
She was too bloody good for him.
Rourke’s voice, roughened with worry, had Ralph reining in his renegade thoughts. “Aye, and yet ’tis scarcely the way a man thinks to go about making love to his wife.”
“Pray convey my congratulations to Lady Kate…I do beg your pardon, Mrs. O’Rourke,” he added quickly. As easygoing as the Scot ordinarily was, he could be touchy in matters to do with his wife.
Rourke’s face went ashen. “Kate would have my head on the serving platter were she to know I’d let the cat out o’ the bag so soon.”
As you would have my cods if you knew what I was thinking of doing with her baby sister, Ralph mentally answered. Aloud, he said, “You wanted a fertile female, a good breeder and that is what you’ve got. Why not set your mind to accepting your good fortune and spawn a dozen more babes if you will? It’s not as though you’re wanting for rooms.”
Rourke was the only man of Ralph’s personal acquaintance whose home was quite literally his castle. When he’d bought the estate at auction several years ago, it was in near ruinous shape. Over the past year, Kate had used her remarkable household management skills and innate good taste to transform it into a true palace.
Ralph cast his gaze about the library, one of several recently refurbished rooms. Taking in the burled walnut chimney piece, Italian crafted furnishings, and the floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, the latter lined with volumes of the classics bound in cranberry-colored tooled leather, he had to admit his friend had done bloody well for himself. A good many of those books had been taken down and read or at least perused, including a certain Indian advice manual, The Kama Sutra of Vatsyayana awaiting him in his room.
The ancient Hindu text, translated from the Sanskrit by the British scholar Sir Richard Burton a decade before was a nearly two-thousand-year-old treatise on how to make love to a woman. Ralph had found the book by chance a few weeks ago. He doubted his friend realized it was on his shelves let alone had gone missing. Then again with a railway empire, a beautiful wife who adored him and a rapidly filling nursery to his credit, Rourke didn’t seem to require the author Vatsyayana’s sage advice.
Ralph, however, could do with a bit of help.
Tamping down his envy, he rose, rounded the desk, and clapped his friend on the back. “You’re to be a father again. News such as this calls for toasting, not brooding.”
Rourke answered with a glum nod. “You’ve the right of it. It’s only that… Damn it to hell! I never meant to love a female so bloody much. If anything were to go
amiss with the carrying of this child… Were she to be taken from me, I’d go mad. Aye, I’d go stark raving.” His voice faltered, and he cast his gaze away.
Ralph squeezed his friend’s slumped shoulder. “Pull yourself together, man. Women have been birthing babies since Eve bit into the apple. Your lady’s blood may run blue, but she’s still a fine, sturdy woman.”
Rourke raked his hand through his thatch of reddish brown hair yet again. At this rate, the poor bastard would be bald before the birthing. “I must take the greatest care with her while not seeming to hover. Kate hates hovering. And you know as well as I how obstinate she can be. If she thinks I’m trying to limit her liberty in any way…” He finished the thought with a shake of his head.
“Kate wants this baby as much as you do, maybe more,” Ralph replied, knowing he must stand as the voice of reason. “She’ll take care for the child’s good as well as hers, and sail through this pregnancy as she did the first and a good many more, I’ve no doubt.”
Rourke shoved fidgeting hands into his coat pockets, the garment in need of a good pressing for all that it had been pristine that morning. “I can’t begin to think of going through this again, at least no time soon. And now her sister’s come to stay the week. The last time the bothersome baggage visited was fair near our undoing. But this time she can make herself of use by entertaining Kate and keeping her quietly occupied.”
Ralph’s heart tripped. “Lady Beatrice is coming here?”
Rourke looked at him as though he’d grown a second head. “Not coming, she is here. Did you not know?”
Ralph shook his head, aware his palms had begun to perspire. “I did not.”
“You should come down to supper more often if only to keep abreast of the news. Aye, we, or rather Kate, asked her up for Lucy’s first birthday, which is tonight. She arrived a few hours ago. She and Kate have been holed up in her room thick as thieves ever since. I canna help but think there’s a cat soon to be let out of its bag.” Rourke’s gaze sharpened. “I remember you giving her riding lessons when last she was here.”
Ralph forced a shrug. “We only went out once before she was called home to London. By her father,” he added, feeling the old rancor rise.
He wondered if a like family drama was behind her present visit or if indeed she’d only come to celebrate her niece’s natal day. He wondered if she’d thought of him at all in the past nine months. He wondered if she was looking forward to seeing him again, at least a little bit.
Rourke cleared his throat, folded his former pugilist’s hands behind his broad back, and stared down at his toes. “I know your custom has become to take your supper in your room, but I could do with a bit o’ masculine support. Say you’ll sup with us tonight?”
Usually Ralph declined his friend’s invitations to dine. With a good book and a decanter of Scotch awaiting him in his room, family dinners where he was the sole single person, the token bachelor and third wheel didn’t present much of a draw.
But the memory of warm blue eyes, moist full lips and silken gold hair moved him to break with custom. “Yes, Patrick, I believe I will.”
WHY, I SHALL BE SO SELF-POSSESSED, you shan’t recognize me, Ralph.
Seated at supper later that night, Ralph studied Beatrice from across the silver-laden dining table, the gasolier overhead setting off the glinting gold in her hair, which she wore drawn into a loose knot at her nape, no “rats” or fake fringes of hair, no pads or combs, no artifice at all. Even with the Sevres porcelain epergne centerpiece of candles and hothouse blooms standing like a barricade between them, their eyes still managed to meet with fair frequency.
Dressed in a simple dusky rose-colored silk tea gown, she was even prettier than he remembered and he remembered quite a lot. One of the lovelier innovations to emerge from the Rational Dress Movement, the loosely constructed garment mimicked the medieval era with its simple, flowing lines, allowing for the wearer to remain uncorseted. The thought of spanning Beatrice’s slender, supple waist with his two hands, of feeling her firm flesh unfettered by any foundation garment set his cock stiffening and his body blazing.
Nine months ago, she’d been a woman-child, coltishly graceful, adorably uncertain at times. From what he could tell, she’d grown up indeed, wholly a woman for all that she tickled Baby Lucy’s belly, cleaned her plate like a country girl and teasingly remarked upon Kate’s “glow.” Ralph couldn’t have said whether Kate glowed or not. As always, he only had eyes for her sister.
“Ralph, is the Scotch broth not to your liking?” Lady Katherine—Kate—called to him from the far end of the table.
Aware of Beatrice’s gaze riveted upon him, he forced down a spoonful of the soup before answering, “On the contrary, I am savoring it immensely. You have changed your recipe, have you not?”
Kate flushed with pleasure. “You are discerning as ever, Ralph. I instructed Cook to add a bit of an India spice, turmeric. It’s costly, but one only requires a pinch and I think—hope—it affords that little dash of specialness.”
That little dash of specialness, indeed. Catching his eye, Beatrice plucked up her fan-folded napkin and blotted the corners of her mouth. Innocent though her downturned face might appear, he marked her shoulders shaking. The little minx was smothering a snicker! Relieved she hadn’t changed entirely, Ralph found himself battling a telltale ticklish twitching himself. God, but he’d forgotten how very good it felt to have her about.
The dinner stretched on, the conversation revolving around the guest of honor, Lucy, busy banging her spoon on the tray of her high chair. Besotted with the baby, Rourke and Kate scarcely seemed to glance Beatrice’s way. Ralph, on the other hand, couldn’t tear his gaze away. Still, it was a relief when the final course of fruit and cheese was cleared to make way for the birthday cake, a tiered and glazed monstrosity festooned with confectionery roses and pink sugar icing bows. It was altogether so unwieldy that the housekeeper, Hattie, had to roll it in upon a cart. Moist eyed and beaming, Rourke lifted Lucy into his arm and led a rousing rendition of the “Happy Birthday” song. Returned to her high seat, Lucy punched her tiny fist into the cake’s top tier.
“She takes after her da,” Rourke proudly proclaimed, scooping a spot of frosting off his daughter’s chubby cheek. “That’s my right hook, I tell you.”
Hattie, a mother herself, produced a towel and took charge of cleaning up the baby. Looking on, Bea shot an adorably naughty look her sister’s way. “What a pity Rourke’s clever photographer friend Mr. St. Claire isn’t on hand to immortalize the moment.” The blurred wedding portrait of a kicking Kate pinned upon Rourke’s lap, taken quite against her will, remained a tender topic in their household.
Kate picked up the cake knife and aimed a dagger look her husband’s way. “I believe Hadrian has immortalized quite enough moments in my family so far as I am concerned.”
Looking sheepish, Rourke sidled up to his wife’s side. “Och, Katie, I thought you’d forgiven me ere now.” He planted a smacking kiss upon her cheek, and then made a show of jumping back and covering his privates.
Kate flopped a sad-looking slice of cake onto a plate and paused to lick frosting from her finger. “Sometimes I think I must have two babies instead of one,” she said, then blushed fiercely as if belatedly realizing what she’d as good as revealed.
Beatrice rose from the table. Stepping over the dog, she made her way to her sister’s side. “Let me help you serve, Kate. At this rate, you’re as bad a butcher as Lucy.”
Feeling very much the outsider, Ralph looked on as though watching actors in a play. The laughter and the teasing, the private jokes and the shared memories were as alien and exotic to him as Vatsyayana’s translated book awaiting him in his room. Messy, chaotic and at times complicated, this was family life, he realized with a pang. Even before his mother had walked out on him, he’d never experienced it, not really. “Cake, Ralph?”
Ralph looked up. Beatrice had rounded the table to his side, a dessert plate in eithe
r hand.
Cake besmirched by baby snot and spit-up hardly seemed much of a treat, but given the pretty person offering it, he accepted with a smile. “Thank you,” he said, his gaze drinking in the sweet curve of her cheek, the lovely long column of her neck and the shadowed swell of her breasts where the gown’s simple square-cut neckline dipped ever so slightly.
She set the dessert down before him, and he caught himself thinking how very good that smooth, pretty hand would feel cinched about his cock. “I made sure to find you a piece that wasn’t squished.” He started to stand, but before he could, she slipped into the empty seat beside him.
“Squished?” he echoed, feeling his pulse pick up at her nearness. Her scent, jasmine, was wreaking havoc with his mind.
“Yes, squished—from the baby.” She forked up a bite of cake and smiled at him, not only with her mouth, but with her eyes.
The temperature inside him spiked yet another notch, and he slipped a finger beneath his starched shirt stock. “Oh, right.” He forced his gaze downward to his dessert plate.
One of the more pristine specimens being served, his slice boasted an intact pink rose atop. Would Beatrice Lindsey’s breasts be tipped in a like shade of pale pink or were her areolas and nipples more the coral color of ripe peaches? Roses, he decided, and took a bite.
“Hard as a bloody brick,” he said beneath his breath and only afterward did it strike him he wasn’t only speaking of the confection.
Beatrice laughed. The soft tinkling put him in mind of the set of wind chimes his mother had kept in the window of the last lodging house room they’d let. Drifting off to sleep summer nights amidst that makeshift music remained one of his gentler childhood memories.