“Thank you.”
He waved that away with a show of impatience. “Should you like to go out for a while? It’s warm enough, at least the sun is out, and you can bundle up.”
She actually shrank back into her chair. “Oh, no.”
He eyed her. “Coward.”
“You’re right about that if it means I want to avoid more awful insults.”
Knight said nothing, merely took a turn around the room. Lily stayed put and watched him. She couldn’t seem to help herself. She sighed, remembering the feel of him, the sensation of his hands on her, how his mouth—
“Lily, stop it.”
Knight swallowed. He’d turned to say something and there she was, staring at him as if he were naked, or soon would be, by her hands, her eyes hungry for him. God, it was wonderful and intolerable.
“I’m going out, Lily. I shan’t be here for dinner this evening.” He headed for the door, then stopped abruptly. “You will be here when I return, will you not? You don’t intend to bolt again?”
She shook her head, saying nothing.
“I bid you good day.” And he was gone.
And Lily thought, I keep driving him from his home, but I don’t know how or why. She rose slowly and left the library just as Theo and Trump came in, Knight’s secretary laughing at something Theo had said. Lily heard Theo exclaim over the very excellent collection his lordship possessed on horse breeding.
“Hi, Mama,” Theo said, smiling brightly at her. “This is just wonderful, isn’t it?”
Lily patted his arm, then smiled at Trump. “Thank you for your assistance.”
She was halfway up the stairs when there came a knock on the front door. She paused, hearing Duckett walk to the door in his magisterial way and open it.
His greeting to the visitors was glacial. Tradesmen? she wondered. Then she heard her own name—Lily Tremaine. Oh, God.
Duckett regarded the two specimens that stood on the front steps. One of them looked fit enough to kill his own mother, with his low forehead and mean eyes; the other one had bloodshot eyes, a weak chin, and a very ugly face. And here they were asking for Mrs. Winthrop, save they had her name wrong. He said in a voice cold enough to freeze honey, “She isn’t here. There is no Lily Tremaine in residence here.”
Monk eyed the short and dark and impressive butler. What a scabbler, this puffed-up little cock. “Lookee ’ere, we knows she’s ’ere. Fetch ’er, else ye’ll be sorry. We’re friends of ’ers, we are, and—”
Not at all likely, Duckett thought, and very efficiently slammed the door in their faces. It was done so quickly that Monk had no time to react. Boy automatically took a step back at the black rage on Monk’s face and nearly fell down the remaining five stone steps.
“Ye bastid!” Monk raised his fist to pound, then thought better of it.
Duckett turned, his face troubled. He saw Lily and quickly went over to her.
She looked more puzzled than scared, he thought, but she was clutching the railing. “Who were they, Duckett?”
“A couple of scoundrels, ma’am. They’re gone now. Odd, they asked for you by your father’s name. It was Tremaine, wasn’t it?”
She nodded, relief flooding her. She felt the full weight of her lie in that moment but resolutely shrugged it off. She’d gotten a brief glimpse of the big man, the one who’d spoken to Duckett. He was a villainous-looking creature and she wouldn’t trust him as far as Sam could spit, a phrase of the child’s that she found particularly apt at this moment. They had known Tris, obviously. They had known of her, just as clearly. What could they possibly want with her? It was a question she couldn’t answer.
“They probably made a mistake,” she said finally to Duckett, and that stately individual just looked at her.
She went upstairs to the guest chamber that overlooked the front of the house. She saw the two of them standing in the park opposite. One was speaking, the other gesticulating toward the house. Lily quickly pulled away, twitching the curtain back into place.
She was afraid. Something was very wrong.
“Mama?”
Lily turned to see Laura Beth standing in the doorway, Czarina Catherine under her left arm. “Yes, love?”
“Czarina wants to play now. With a grown-up, she told me.”
“All right,” Lily said, her voice distracted. She had to get hold of herself. She and the children would be leaving London in a couple of days. She had to stay in the house until then. She said, smiling and calm, “Let me see what Sam’s doing first, Laura Beth.”
She was just in time. Sam was standing on a chair in front of a very old oil painting of some Elizabethan Winthrop complete with a wide white ruff, silk doublet, and stuffed trunks.
There was a quill in his outstretched hand and he was poised on the brink of artistdom.
“Sam, don’t you dare.”
He whirled about and tumbled from the chair, landing on his bottom.
After seeing that he wasn’t hurt, Lily allowed herself full rein. “What were you going to do?”
Sam twitched and hemmed and hawed and admitted finally, “I was going to give the fellow a mustache. He needs it, Mama. He’s got no upper lip. It makes him look shifty.”
“Oh, Sam, how could you? I admit that the fellow isn’t such a wonderful specimen to look at, but you can’t do things like that. The painting doesn’t belong to you. I should draw a mustache on you.”
“That is a sight I should enjoy.”
Both Lily and Sam stiffened in appalled silence.
Knight came down the corridor to them. “That, my dear boy, is a great-great-great-someone whose noble appellation, fortunately, I am unable to recall. He was, I was informed by my tutor, quite a villain.” Knight moved closer to the painting and stood there studying it, stroking his chin. “I think you’re right, Sam. He has no upper lip. I should, however, appreciate it if you would refrain from including a mustache at this time. Perhaps he’ll improve given another century or so.”
With that monologue completed, Knight saluted Lily and left them, striding down to his bedchamber at the end of the corridor.
Stromsoe suddenly appeared. He harrumphed as he passed, giving Sam a look that could curdle milk. “Evil boy” he was heard to mutter under his breath.
“Clodpole prig,” Sam called after him.
Stromsoe paused and Lily held her breath. She grabbed Sam’s hand, squeezing it hard. The valet didn’t turn in the end, thankfully, but continued after his master.
“Oh, dear,” Lily said on a sigh. She rose to her feet and pulled the chair to its rightful place.
“Give me the quill, Sam.”
“Ah, Mama—oh, all right.”
Sam expected a good tongue-lashing, but it didn’t come. He saw that Lily was frowning, a worried frown, and he felt guilty about the silly portrait and the prig valet, though not that sorry. Stromsoe also had little upper lip and a weak chin to boot.
“I’ll play with Laura Beth, Mama,” was his handsome offer.
“Thank you, love. Be gentle with Czarina Catherine, you hear?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Mrs. Allgood cleared her throat. Lily looked up from the puzzle she and the boys were putting together.
“His lordship requests your presence for dinner, Mrs. Winthrop.”
Theo, who was studiously examining a likely piece to fit into the corner of Brighton’s Royal Pavilion, looked up. “Oh, do, Mama. And tell Cousin Knight how much I accomplished in the library today.”
“Do,” Sam said. “Tell him I shan’t draw any mustaches on anyone, including the pictures of the ladies.”
“He’ll be very relieved, I’m sure,” Lily said and nodded.
“I’ll go, too,” Laura Beth said.
Mrs. Allgood smiled. “His lordship did request that you bring the children down so he could enjoy them, Mrs. Winthrop.”
Lily agreed. There was nothing else to do. Sam and Theo were excited and Laura Beth was dancing a little jig, far too clos
e to the partially assembled puzzle.
She didn’t trust Knight. She imagined that Duckett had informed him of their visitors. And of the name by which they’d requested her.
“Oh, dear,” she said. She looked at the boys. “Never,” she said, “never tell a lie. It turns into a monster maze with more twists and turns than you can imagine. It doesn’t end. Don’t do it.”
Theo gave her an odd look, but Sam, who couldn’t wait to see his lordship, was already at the door.
“Let’s go, Mama,” said Laura Beth and lifted her arms.
Ten
Knight stood in isolated splendor in the middle of the drawing room, waiting. He was dressed in evening garb, stark black and white, an impressive display, so Stromsoe had assured him earlier.
“You’ve the form, my lord,” Stromsoe had said in an unheralded emotional outburst, “the form so, er, well formed to make gentlemen gnash their teeth in envy.”
Knight had regarded his usually morose valet with some amazement. Then Stromsoe had ruined his promising beginning by quickly moving from compliments of his master to a whining diatribe about Sam’s naughtiness—if indeed it was only naughtiness—to the inappropriateness of children in general in a gentleman’s town house, to ladies who were widows who behaved improperly in his, Stromsoe’s, view.
Knight had halted his monologue, harking back to Sam. “That painting would not have been hung even by the artist’s doting mother. My ancestor was very likely blind, or possessed of execrable taste. It would only have helped had Sam added the mustache. In fact, I may yet let him do it. Now, Stromsoe, you will cease your complaints. Mrs. Winthrop and the children will be leaving Wednesday for Castle Rosse.”
Stromsoe had looked as if he’d burst into happy tears at the news, or at least shout a few hallelujahs, and Knight wondered suddenly if he and all his servants had become so used to their placid, predictable existence that threatened change upset them inordinately.
Knight now looked toward the double doors, wondering what was keeping Lily and the children. He’d backed her against the wall, he knew, smiling at his strategy. With the invitation to the children, she would be forced to come. And that, he’d already admitted to himself, was why he’d returned home. He had truly intended to stay away until midnight at the earliest. He’d planned to visit the opera and take Janine, a lovely and large-breasted courtesan, to bed with him, but it hadn’t happened. He’d been walking along, trying to enjoy the late afternoon, but had found his thoughts going to Lily. Always Lily. It was damnably porous of his brain to do this to him.
She was the only woman in his entire adult life who had made him lose control, who’d brought him to his knees. He’d behaved abominably. Had he continued his assault the previous night in the hackney, he wouldn’t have given her pleasure, he would have hurt her. He’d been a savage, a barbarian, and he was appalled at himself. He didn’t like it, not at all.
Damnation, he was a gentleman. He’d mentioned that fact to his brain on and off since the previous night, but it hadn’t slowed the furious lust he felt for her, the instant and overpowering effect even her name had on him.
He’d known her for such a short time in the infinite scheme of things. His reaction to her was absurd.
He heard her soft voice just outside the drawing room doors and felt his body respond. He cursed, swallowed, and willed himself to indifference. All in all, a very tall order.
Sam bounded through the door and came to a panting halt six inches from Knight. “Sir, I’m sorry, truly, it wasn’t Mama’s fault, she stopped me and scolded me but good, and I swear I won’t do it again.”
Knight looked down at the worried little face that wasn’t anything like Tris’s face but nevertheless was becoming dear to him, and thought, I never wanted to protect my mother as much as he does. And she’s his stepmother, not his real mother. “I never assumed it was your mother’s fault,” Knight said mildly. “It has all the earmarks of a Sam operation, not a Lily operation.” Sam laughed, as Knight had intended.
“He won’t do it again, sir,” Theo said, coming up to stand beside his brother.
“Don’t ever make assurances you have no way of keeping, my dear Theo. Given Sam’s record, I shouldn’t venture even one very small assurance.”
“Oh, sir,” Sam said. “I’m not that bad.”
“You’re probably a good deal worse,” Knight said and then grinned, ruffling Sam’s hair.
Knight looked up to see Lily, a wriggling Laura Beth in her arms. She wasn’t dressed for the evening—he hadn’t given her the time. But she looked so exquisite in her plain muslin gown that his heart ached. He wanted her, desperately.
“Good evening, Lily.”
When she raised her eyes to his face, he had the overwhelming urge to grab her, throw her over his shoulder, and ride away into the night with her. Good God, he thought, appalled, if his sire could see him now he’d howl with uncontrollable laughter. And call him a fool, among other things, to confuse old-fashioned manly lust with something else, a something else that didn’t exist except in the minds of weak females and between the pages of lurid romances.
“Hello, my lord.”
He cocked an eyebrow at that formality but had no time to respond. Laura Beth was at his feet, tugging at his trouser leg. “Good evening, snippet.” He hoisted her up and felt her thin arms go about his neck. She gave him a very wet kiss on his cheek.
“Yeck,” Sam said. “Don’t, Laura Beth. That’s slimy.”
“She’s just a little girl and doesn’t know better,” Theo said and earned a sotto voce “Prig” from his brother.
“I brought them to see you,” Lily said quite unnecessarily.
“Yes, I appreciate it. Now, all of you come over by the fire and tell me what you did today.”
Lily hung back, watching the viscount with the three children, smiling at how each of them clamored for his attention. Laura Beth sat in marked splendor, quite like a little princess, on Knight’s lap, while the boys took up positions on either side, both of them talking at once. She heard Knight laugh and slow them down.
She seated herself in a stiff-backed chair away from the group. I could have stayed gone, she thought, staring at the intimate family tableau. They wouldn’t have missed me. They have him, they—
“Mama,” Sam called over to her, “what did you say the name of that thing was?”
Lily shook off the altogether silly thought. The fact of the matter was that she couldn’t do without them.
“What thing, love?”
“Come here, Mama,” Theo said, moving away from Knight. He patted the chair to the right of the viscount.
Lily walked over to them. She met Knight’s eyes, and the look in them nearly undid her. Fierce and tender, all at once, and hunger—wild and gentle—again, both at once. She shivered, wondering how he could evoke such opposites together to such a devastating effect on her.
“Come closer to the fire, Lily.”
She wanted to shout at him that he was the one making her quiver and shake and shudder, not the temperature of the bloody room. Instead she smiled.
“Now, my dear Sam, what thing are you talking about?”
“The thing I found behind that ugly chair in that awful green bedchamber.”
Lily swallowed, her eyes avoiding Knight’s. “I don’t remember anything about that,” she said very firmly. “Now what—”
“Of course you do, Mama. It was long and skinny and very old, you said, like something out of the sixteenth century. Cousin Knight wants to know all about it.”
Cousin Knight realized at that point that this thing of Sam’s was likely something forbidden and that Lily was covered with fear that he’d pounce on the lot of them for disturbing a precious family heirloom of yore. He said easily, “Tell you what, Sam, why don’t you bring me this infamous thing tomorrow morning. We’ll examine it together, just the two of us.”
“Yes, sir.”
There, Knight wanted to tell Lily, does that conv
ince you that I’m not a monster?
Thirty minutes later, after the children, complaining and carping, were finally induced to go with Betty to their beds, Knight and Lily were seated in the formal dining room, she at his right. There was silence save for the sound of clattering forks and knives. Duckett was flanked by only one footman—Charlie.
“More rump steak pie, ma’am?” Duckett inquired.
“No, thank you, Duckett. I’m quite stuffed.”
“On what?” Knight asked, eyeing her plate askance.
“I could say the same of you. You haven’t given a thought to your roast suckling pig.”
She was right, he knew, but all appetite had fled when she’d first come into the drawing room. Only an insatiable appetite for her filled his mind. He drank his wine, then dismissed Duckett and Charlie. When the door closed quietly behind them, he said abruptly, “Duckett told me about your visitors.”
Lily froze, her fork suspended over a cold mound of mashed potatoes, and automatically began shaking her head.
“I see. So you wouldn’t have mentioned it to me, would you? Just like the lady and gentleman in the park—you would have been protecting me? Or is it something else? You have a stained past, Lily?”
“No, how absurd.”
“Duckett told me they had all the earmarks of thieves, smugglers, or even murderers.” Knight paused for a moment, looked at her full in the face, and added in quite a grave voice, “He also said they asked to see Lily Tremaine.”
Lily quickly looked away from him. She stared hard at those mashed potatoes. They didn’t move. She forced an indifferent shrug. “It is odd, isn’t it? I have no idea who they were. Duckett got rid of them. He’s completely unflappable.”
Knight rose and fetched the brandy decanter from the sideboard. She was telling him the truth. It was strange, but after so little time he knew her, really knew her. “I’ll pour each of us some. I fancy you need it.”
She didn’t demur. She sipped at the fine brandy, feeling its warmth down to her knees. It was wonderful. She’d never tasted brandy before. She said as much.
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