by Carla Kelly
‘Dinner is served, my lady.’
Alex rose and offered his hand to his father to help him stand. The big hand with its rider’s callouses still hard on the palm hesitated, then closed around his and gripped, shifting over the evidence of Alex’s own hard riding, the strength that endless practice with the foils gave, the healed scars on the knuckles.
The older man allowed him to get him upright, then he shook off Alex’s grip. ‘Take your mother in.’
‘Of course, sir. Mama?’ Alex gave her his arm and saw his father turn to Tess, hesitating behind.
‘Miss Ellery.’
She came forward and rested her fingertips on his forearm. Had she ever sat down to a formal dinner before, even a small family affair? He doubted it. But her chin was up and she seemed confident enough. The woman who could stand up to loutish sailors and fight off randy attackers could cope. Not my little nun anymore, he thought with a twist of something remarkably like regret.
With four ladies and three men the table was, of necessity, unbalanced. Alex took the seat on his mother’s right and smiled encouragement at Dorcas, pale but determined, opposite him. Tess, diagonally across on his father’s right, was looking composed and appeared to be discussing Brussels lace, of all things, with Matthew, but the table was too large to hear clearly. She was on her own.
What was it his father had asked her? Whether she was one of the Buckinghamshire Ellerys, that was it; that was what had discomposed her so. Strange.
The meal seemed endless, with the quality of a dream. It was as though ten years had passed in ten hours with the wave of some malevolent sorcerer’s wand. The table was the same, the china service the familiar one, the decoration and pictures in the dining room unchanged and yet everyone in the room had aged and altered.
And then Tess turned her head, looked directly at him and smiled. If she had reached out and touched his hand, he could not have felt the gesture more directly. This is the right thing, the smile told him. Take courage, you can do this.
* * *
Somehow they all got through the meal, maintained a light, empty social chatter through every course. When his mother rose to lead the ladies out Matthew went to take his father’s arm and supported him from the room. Alex did not make the mistake of offering his own assistance.
He went to present himself in the drawing room, but found only Maria. ‘Miss Ellery and her companion have gone to bed and Mama is with Papa.’
‘Not very entertaining for you.’
‘I am used to it,’ Maria said with a shrug and her faint smile. ‘Matthew will be off to some local alehouse or another, I have no doubt, so at least we may be comfortable and I am all agog to hear about your life in London.’
* * *
It was almost eleven before Maria yawned her way off to bed, to dream, she assured him, of mantua makers, Almack’s and strolling in Hyde Park with her brother, to the envy of every other young lady.
Alex found the decanters, poured himself a brandy and made his way to the library. It still had the old familiar look of neglect, despite having been polished and dusted. Alex trailed a finger along the edge of a shelf and it came away clean. No doubt his mother and sister had their own books in their boudoirs and bedchambers, not in this bastion of male importance with its leather bindings and gold tooling, massive furniture and imposing lecterns and atlas stands.
Did his father or Matthew ever set foot in here? When he had lived at Tempeston the library had been one of his refuges, a treasure trove of stories and facts, imagination and mind-stretching realities. No time for those now.
He found the massive volume bound in red leather and lifted it down, flipping through the pages. Eden, Eldridge...Ellery. James Augustus Finmore Ellery, third Marquess of Sethcombe, married...had issue... Four sons, five daughters. One son and two daughters died in infancy, the other three sons married with families of their own. Two of the surviving daughters also married. No familiar names amongst that host of hopeful youngsters. His finger reached the bottom of the list.
Jane Teresa Ellery, born 1775, died, unmarried, 1809.
1809. Died unmarried. This was Tess’s mother, surely. He stood there, his fingernail scoring a line under the name. Why did that matter so much, to him? To Tess, obviously, the stigma of illegitimacy must be why she was so resigned to a life in service. But for him? He could pity her, admire her stoical determination to overcome her heredity and make a living for herself, but it was more than that—he felt winded as though he had received a blow in the diaphragm.
When the reason hit him it rocked him back on his heels. The heir of the Tempests did not marry anyone but a pure-bred aristocratic heiress. But marriage? Where had that come from? Surely he had not been thinking of Tess in those terms? The door handle rattled. Someone was coming.
Chapter Fifteen
The room was deserted, but there was a branch of candles on the table next to a untidy pile of journals that seemed out of place in the rigidly ordered space. Tess lifted them and flicked through. Notes and Queries, The Gentleman’s Magazine, Proceedings of the Royal Society. She straightened them into a neater pile and set it next to the thick red book they had been balanced on, the Peerage.
‘Drat the man. Where is he?’ It seemed as she stood there that she had been mistaken and the silent room was not empty after all. Tess told herself firmly that there was nothing to be alarmed about. This was not a Gothic novel, there were no ghosts and her nerves were merely a trifle overset. She had disturbed a servant setting things to rights, or perhaps the earl employed a librarian or—‘Alex!’
‘I’m sorry, did I alarm you?’ He rose to his feet and emerged from what must be an alcove behind a massive atlas stand, an open book in one hand. He seemed pale in the candlelight.
‘Oh. Oh, Alex.’ Tess was not conscious of moving, let alone running, but somehow she was in his arms, her own tight around him. And she was crying, with no idea why.
‘Hey, what’s this? Tess?’ His fingers were under her chin, tipping her head back. She managed a comprehensive, unladylike sniff and blinked the tears away. ‘Who has upset you?’
‘No one. Everything. I’m so sorry, I should never have come here with you. Your mother doesn’t need us—Dorcas and me, that is. Your father is... I had some stupid idea that you only had to walk in and he’d forget whatever had made him reject you and he would welcome you with open arms. But he is hard and angry and bitter.’ She stared fixedly at the amethyst in the folds of his neckcloth. ‘You were quite right. I am sentimental and foolish. There isn’t some Christmas magic that will make this all right. It is hard enough for you without having me and all your staff here.’
‘Tess.’ Alex pulled her in closer, apparently careless of the effect of her wet cheeks on his crisp linen. ‘If it wasn’t for you this would be a hundred times more difficult. I want to rant and hector and lay down conditions. My instinct is to give my father an ultimatum, to force him to surrender all the business of the earldom into my hands, to pay him back by making him weak and dependent on me and to kick Matthew out on half his allowance and see how he fends for himself. Then I look at you and tell myself not to do anything that would make you think less of me.’
There was a weight on top of her head, and she guessed he had rested his cheek there. What was it that his father had done? Whatever it was it must have been dire indeed to generate this much resentment and confusion.
‘You are a very civilising influence on me, Miss Ellery,’ Alex murmured. Warmth stirred her hair as his breathing steadied.
‘The earl hasn’t shown you the door,’ Tess ventured, wondering why his father might do such a thing. Alex seemed quite content to stand there all night holding her. It was lovely, but not...easy.
‘He knows he needs me. He is going to pretend he doesn’t know my mother went against his prohibitions to write to me because
if she had waited much longer he would have had to do it himself and this saved his pride. My father might be stubborn, belligerent and bigoted, but he is not a fool and he is devoted to the earldom. He will do his duty by it and he is not going to cut off his nose to spite his face.’
‘It will make a great deal of work for you.’ It would turn his world upside down, the world that Hannah said he had created for himself from nothing. ‘You are going to do it, aren’t you? You’ll stay.’
‘I don’t see what else I can do. This is my duty. Not to him, but to the estate, and to my mother, of course. I will certainly not be able to concentrate on anything else. I’ll have to stop my own business, stop travelling, stop dealing.’
‘But you love it,’ Tess protested, pulling back against his arms to look at him.
‘I’ve had ten years of freedom.’ Alex shrugged. ‘Now it is time to bend my neck to the yoke.’ He made a disgusted sound. ‘Listen to me, full of self-pity for having to do my duty, for having to accept privilege and make some return for it. My family needs me, my inheritance needs me, our tenants and dependents need me. I can do some good for my mother and sister and for Matthew, if he’ll let me. And heaven knows, there should be satisfaction in mastering something I should have been learning from my majority.’
‘You are a good man, Alexander Tempest.’ Tess lifted her hand to his cheek so she could turn his head and look into his eyes. ‘A very good man.’
For a moment, as he met her gaze, she thought he was going to swear at her, throw her hand aside. When he spoke his voice was low and angry and fierce. ‘No, I am not a good man. If I was, then I’d forgive him and I’d do this willingly. But I cannot forgive, I cannot forget and I want to make the old devil beg me to do both. Does that make me any better than he is? I doubt it.’
It cost her an effort of will to keep still, keep her tongue silent with the questions clamouring for an answer. ‘I let myself dream about a life on my own terms,’ he added. All the old cynicism was back in his voice, his expression. Once she had believed he genuinely did not care. Now... ‘It was only an illusion, of course. This place, this title, was always waiting for me.’
‘It is not all bad.’ She made herself put into words the truths that had been haunting her. ‘You will marry now, have a family.’
The shadowed face became even starker. He turned abruptly, went to the table, picked up the Peerage and slammed it back into a gap on the shelves, one hand lingering on the spine as though to trap it there. ‘Go to bed, Tess,’ Alex said without looking round.
‘I wish I could help.’
‘You cannot help, little nun.’ His back was still a blank barrier. All she had to read was his voice, and that had lost all its flexibility, all its music.
She ignored the words, answered only the pain under them, went to him, pressed herself against that long, strong spine and held on to the broad shoulders, her cheek against his shoulder blade. She could hear his sharply indrawn breath, the hammer of his heartbeat.
‘I am not a nun.’
‘I wish you were.’
‘Why? Why on earth should you want that?’ She stayed wrapped around him as though touching would make him easier to understand.
‘Because then you would be out of reach, forbidden, protected by your vows. I want you too much, Tess. I want you in my bed, I want you naked under me, to be inside you, possessing you. Is that clear enough?
‘Yes.’ Oh, yes.
‘Then, run. Cling to Dorcas, stay at my mother’s side, make Maria your inseparable companion, because I am just about at the end of my tether, Tess, and I want you to be safe.’
I love you. Her lips formed the words, silently. Why had she not admitted it to herself before? It wasn’t simple desire, or even liking that she felt for him, it was love. Should she say it? No. Alex is not for me and never could be, not forever. But for one night, two or three, while he needs me...
It went against everything she had been taught about morals and virtue. But where was the morality in denying Alex comfort? Where was the virtue in denying her own feelings for him? Tess lifted her hands from his still body and stepped back, away. ‘I would never run from you, Alex. I would never feel I had to. But I will go now.’
* * *
In the luxury of the Chinese Bedchamber, with its painted scenes of exotic gardens and groups of figures, Tess surrendered to the ministrations of the highly trained lady’s maid that the countess had allocated to them. She wondered how Dorcas had coped with being waited on for the first time in her life. Well enough, she supposed, for when she eased open the door and looked into the Rose Chamber Dorcas was fast asleep in a nest of pink satin bedcoverings.
After she had washed and undressed, the maid helped her into her nightgown and robe and then proceeded to let down her hair and brush it. ‘One hundred times, Miss Ellery?’
‘Yes, thank you.’ It would give her time to gather her courage. There were bottles of scented waters on the dressing table and she sniffed each in turn and wondered whether to dab something more exotic than her usual lavender water behind her ears. No, it was the unsophisticated Tess whom Alex seemed to want, not some elegant lady. It was going to be nerve-racking enough without pretending to be anything but what she was.
The first thing was to find Alex’s bedchamber, otherwise she would be wandering about blind and, knowing her luck, would probably end up in the earl’s room. ‘This is such a large house,’ she remarked. ‘I have never been in one so extensive. I suppose all the family rooms are clustered in the middle for convenience and the guest rooms out in these wings.’
‘Oh, no, miss, they are all spread out. Lord Moreland has his suite in the West Wing, her ladyship and Lady Maria are in the central block and Mr Matthew prefers the tower rooms. Lord Weybourn has the suite with the park view, just at the other end of this wing.’
Hardly a close and loving family, Tess mused as she made conversation about the lovely views from all aspects. But it was wonderfully convenient for her. She had been quailing at the thought of tiptoeing through the silent corridors, no doubt patrolled by attentive servants, but now she knew exactly where she was going.
The maid tucked her up in bed, moved the Argand reading lamp to the most convenient side and tried Tess’s patience to screaming point by enquiring if Miss Ellery required some hot milk? Or some biscuits? More blankets, perhaps?
Alone at last Tess lay still, listening to the clock ticking. Finally it struck the half hour. Past midnight. Surely everyone would be in bed by now? Alex always sent Byfleet off once he had changed for dinner, apparently preferring the solitude to having someone help him out of his evening clothes, so there was not even that to worry about.
When she opened the door all was quiet, the corridor dimly lit by a shielded lamp on a table. Tess walked rapidly, her bare feet silent on the polished boards. She found the door, eased it open and tiptoed into a dressing room. It was unoccupied and she stood listening, inhaling the faint aroma of Alex’s cologne. When she plucked up the courage to try the door the bedchamber was deserted, also. She crossed to the far side and found a sitting room, equally empty.
Where was Alex? Surely not still in the library? The room was lit by three Argand lamps, the fire was banked up behind a guard and decanters were ranged on a dresser, so he was obviously expected to be sleeping there. Tess unfastened her robe and folded it on to a chair, climbed into the bed and sat there, prey to nerves. Should she take of her nightgown, as well? That seemed very bold, but then, being here in the first place was so shocking that nudity could hardly make things worse. Besides, it was hardly a very seductive garment—always assuming Alex would need seducing. Tess wriggled out of it and got back under the covers. She had never slept naked before.
The clock struck one. It felt very...gauche, sitting there bolt upright, the sheets clutched under her chin. Tess lay down. She could try to re
lax, just close her eyes. He wouldn’t be much longer, surely?
* * *
She woke to the sound of someone moving around the room. Glass clinked against glass, someone sighed, as though weary, there were two thuds that she recognised as shoes being tossed aside. Alex.
Tess eased herself up against the pillows and found he was standing with his back to her. He took off his coat, dropped it on a chair and began to untie his neckcloth one-handed while the other held a glass with a finger of dark liquid in it. He set down the glass, took off his waistcoat and then started to unfasten his evening breeches.
I should say something. But her mouth was too dry. The breeches dropped to the floor and, thank heavens for maidenly nerves, the hem of his shirt dropped, too. Even so, even covered to mid-thigh, the sight of a pair of strong, muscled, hairy male legs was shocking. Exciting... I cannot sit here spying on him. Tess cleared her throat.
Alex spun round. ‘What in Hades are you doing here?’
He sounded both angry and confused, but there had been one moment, one blink of an eye, when his face had lit up with welcome, with pleasure. It gave her the courage she needed to speak. ‘I wanted to be with you. I need to be with you, Alex.’
Now she could not read his face at all. Alex grabbed a robe from the end of the bed and dragged it on, yanked the sash tight. ‘If anyone discovers you are here, even if I come no closer than this, then you are ruined, Tess.’
‘Ruined for what, exactly? I am not some young miss about to embark on her Season, someone whose virtue and purity is as important as her bloodlines and her dowry. I am destined to earn my living, not to wed. Will knowing what it means to lie with a man make me any less able as a companion, any less competent as a teacher?’
‘No.’ Alex picked up his glass again, stared at it, then slammed it down.
‘I will not go from your bed to some den of vice to take part in wild orgies,’ she said. ‘I am not going to sell my body as a result. I know you desire me. I did not need you to tell me that in the library this evening. I desire you, too, and you know that, also.’