Thank the heavens. Anything to remove him from this situation. The last thing he wanted to discuss with Henrietta was the moral standard to which both sexes were held.
And what if his visitor was Battencliffe? If Alexander could get at the root of the falling out between his old friends, he might feel like he was accomplishing something at last. “Show him out here.”
“Would you like me to occupy the girls?” Henrietta asked in a tone that told him their current conversation was merely set aside for now. But if she could untangle his daughters’ affairs in the meantime, he’d be grateful. More than that, he’d owe her.
He waved a hand toward the far end of the courtyard where the babies frolicked. “If you would.”
She fixed him with a stare that penetrated straight into his brain and out the other side. “At some point, you’re going to have to learn to deal with them directly.”
“Isn’t that what governesses are for?” And mothers. Fathers were meant to dole out adequate sums of money when required, but for that matter, Alexander was short on blunt.
“You’re not going to have me much longer.” Her eyes sparked with the striking cleverness that had so captivated him eight years ago. Once more, that particular beauty of her speared him through.
“Wait.” He reached for her hand. “You will make some lucky man a wonderful wife someday.”
She opened her mouth, no doubt to argue the point, but he squeezed his fingers about her knuckles. Thankfully, she did not try to pull away. “I know, you’re still thinking. I can’t help but wish it could be me.”
Her eyelids shielded suddenly bright eyes, and a pang of regret tolled in his chest. What they might have had together.
“Come along, girls.” Her voice was thick. Avoiding his gaze, she held out her hands to his daughters and led them toward the house.
The thought of an impending separation settled uncomfortably beneath his heart and dulled its beat.
“Sparks … I should say, my lord.” Henrietta’s embarrassed stammer pulled Alexander from his thoughts. What the devil was Sparks doing here in place of his brother, Battencliffe?
True to form, the Earl of Sparkmore barely reacted to Henrietta’s slip, but then he barely reacted to much of anything. Slow and steady as any tortoise, he inclined his head before plodding in Alexander’s direction, each measured step falling with a heavy thump on the paved garden path.
Rather than wait half the afternoon, Alexander strode to meet him. “My lord, to what do I owe this honor?”
“I have come from my brother’s.” Like his footfalls, each of Sparks’s words were measured, enunciated with precision.
“I might have guessed as much. I don’t suppose he gave you a reason for not answering my summons personally.”
Sparks blinked like a man who had just emerged from too many hours spent in his wine cellar. “Oh, it was pure chance I happened to be with him when he received your note. I won’t repeat his exact words. Suffice it to say, he’ll pay you a visit when Lucifer can sustain an ice house.”
“Did he send you to deliver that message?”
Again that slow blink. If anything, Battencliffe had sent his brother purely for the annoyance factor. “Of course not. Thought I’d come to see you myself since you’ve returned. You must have an interesting tale or two you can recount over a bottle of brandy.”
“I’ll tell you of India if you tell me what’s happened between your brother and Lindenhurst.” A prospect that might well require more than one bottle—which was just as well, since Alexander’s throat was suddenly parched.
Chapter Seventeen
Henrietta entered the library to find Alexander seated with his back to the door, staring out the window, his fingers curled about a glass of brandy. The empty carafe at his elbow indicated he was not nursing his first drink.
“Are the girls with you?” he asked without turning around.
She stared at the back of his head, not that her glower did her much good. “If you’d turn about like a proper gentleman, you’d see they are not.”
He remained in place, but his knuckles whitened on the glass. “Who is watching them?”
“They’re perfectly fine up in the nursery with Satya.” She had little choice there, after all, and Alexander did trust the man. “I only thought to find a book to read to them.” Determined to ignore his foul mood, she turned back to the shelves to peruse the titles. “Do you think they’d like Robinson Crusoe?”
“Don’t you think that strikes too close to home with the shipwreck and all?”
He had a point there, but she’d never mentioned the shipwreck to them. “Do they know anything of it?”
“I told them what I could in terms they’d understand. Francesca obliged me to give an explanation for why she couldn’t scale her papa’s ribs for a while.”
She glanced toward the bookshelves. “What of the works of Mary Wollstonecraft? At least that would edify them.”
“Please do not turn them into bluestockings at such a tender age.”
Her lips twitched, and a smile threatened. Not that he could see it when he kept his back so stubbornly turned. “Does that mean you’ll allow it when they’re older?”
Even at that, he did not face her. “That would require your presence when they’re older,” he said, his tone hard.
Well. She pressed her lips together and exhaled through her nose. “And what has put you into such a vile humor?”
“I’ve just spent the better part of the afternoon entertaining Sparks. It’s enough to drive any man to the bottle.”
She glanced over and noticed the second dirty glass. “It looks to me as if you had help emptying your aunt’s brandy decanter.”
Alexander drummed his fingers on the table, and half turned his face toward her. A lock of hair slumped into his eyes. “If you must know, I was hoping to loosen his tongue and see if he’d tell me anything. To the devil with it!” He pounded his fist against the wood, and the glassware jumped. “Why can no one tell me what’s happened while I was gone?”
Blast that lock of hair. It possessed some sort of magical powers. How else was she to explain why she stepped closer to him, the urge to brush it out of his face rising? “What is it you want to know?”
“What’s happened between Battencliffe and Lindenhurst.” He forked back the fringe on his own. “Battencliffe won’t even deign to see me. He has to send his brother instead, and all Lind can do is hint and crow over Battencliffe losing everything in my dealings. I don’t understand. You wouldn’t happen to know anything, would you?”
Damn it all, he would have to ask about that period in her life. “I’m afraid not. They were your friends, and while Battencliffe was convivial enough when I went out in society, Lind hadn’t yet come back from the war. When would I have had the chance to converse with either of them before I heard of your marriage? After that, you can hardly blame me for avoiding your acquaintances.”
“But you might have heard something.” Tension hovered in the line of his shoulders.
And if she were to close the distance between them, place her hands on either side of his neck, and throttle him? No, she must not entertain such notions. They were too likely to lead her astray.
“Very little. I preferred to keep to myself and not have to listen to news of anyone who reminded me of our relationship. You do understand.” She bloody well hoped he did, because she was tired of explaining it to him. “I heard enough to know they had a falling out some years ago, but I did not run after the information.”
He beat his clenched fist rhythmically on the table. “Damn, damn, damn.” Then he stopped, as if he’d suddenly realized his language was not quite fit for mixed company. “Forgive me. It’s just all so frustrating. Life has gone on here for the past eight years and I’ve missed it all.”
As much as he seemed to need comfort, she resisted the temptation to lay a hand on his shoulder. “Yes, well, you’ve lived your own life in India, haven’t you?”
&n
bsp; He turned his head toward the window once again. “I suppose I have, if you can term it life.”
What on earth was that supposed to mean? Her heart pattered a ridiculous sort of dance that might have resembled a reel. But no, he couldn’t be referring to his family. He couldn’t possibly be expressing any sort of resentment toward the turn his life had taken when he disembarked.
Could he?
“Tell me about India.” She didn’t know where the words came from. They’d just popped out, shocking herself as much as she must have shocked him.
He watched her out of the corner of his eye. “What is it you want to know?”
“Nothing personal,” she rushed to reply. Good heavens, no. She did not need a reminder of his marriage, and she did not wish to know the details of how it had come about. She might well learn something she’d rather not hear—something that would tear open old wounds. “Only … What was it like? It must be very different from England.”
“Oh, it is.” He looked past her, out the window, where the gray-green of the coastal cliffs inclined toward the sky, and smiled as if to himself. “It was hot, for one thing. Beastly hot. You’ve never felt such a heat that seems to press on you. It weighs you down from all the water in the air. Sometimes it feels thick enough to cut through.”
She’d experienced air that thick in the coastal fogs, but they had carried a chill likely to pierce through layers of the thickest wool. She could not imagine heat like that. “It sounds hellish.”
“It is, at first, but you get used to it after a fashion. It helps if you don’t insist on dressing like an Englishman.”
She thought of Satya’s light cotton garments. Here they offered him little protection against the elements, but in such a hot climate? “Did you dress like the natives, then?”
“As often as I could, which is to say, not as often as I’d have liked.” One side of his mouth twitched. “The English who live there haven’t a lot of sense, you know. So far as possible, they act as if they’re still in London. The men dress in cravats and coats and waistcoats, the ladies in gowns. They spend a fortune importing English food, drink hot tea, pay calls, hold balls. I had to make an effort to fit in, if I was to do business.”
She stepped closer and leaned a hip against the table. Her hand naturally fell flat on the polished wood. An invitation, perhaps, but she couldn’t help herself. “Why travel halfway around the world when you can do those things at home?”
“Why, indeed.” He glanced beyond her again, his expression remote. “Especially when there are so many new things to see. You’ve never seen such colors in your life. The women dress in yards and yards of fabric, draped just so, in the brightest shades. Even the Indian sky looks different. Imagine the deepest shade of blue you’ve ever seen here and multiply that a thousandfold.”
She couldn’t picture it. “It must hurt to look at.”
“No more than the sun. It shines so brightly, you have to close your eyes against it even in the early morning.” He settled back in his seat, his gaze far away—across two oceans, if she didn’t miss her guess. “You can’t imagine the sounds, the smells, the taste of the food. They eat the spiciest of concoctions there, but never made from beef. They hold cows sacred.”
She closed her eyes and tried to reconcile all he was telling her with the accounts she had read. After his departure, and before she heard of his marriage, she’d devoured every book and article about India she could get her hands on. The written words had given her a sense of being closer to him. She’d thought, if she could place herself where he was, even if just in her mind, they’d somehow maintain their connection across the miles and miles of endless sea.
How wrong she’d been.
“And you’ve never seen such opulence as the Raja’s palace.” Absently, his hand covered hers, his palm warm and roughened against her skin. “The most intricately carved white marble, gold leaf over entire rooms, lapis and pearl inlays. They leave nothing undecorated. A simple arch cannot remain simple. It must have scallops. And the jewels. Our king is known for his extravagance, but next to the riches of Nilmani he looks like a pauper.”
“I cannot imagine such a thing.” Not that she’d ever been in the circles to have seen beyond the receiving rooms of the palace when she made her bow or even the king’s pavilion at Brighton. But she’d heard from those who had seen them.
He leaned closer, and she caught a whiff of some foreign spice, both hot and intriguing. “Imagine the gaudiest thing you’ve ever seen.”
“Gaudy, like the wallpaper in Lady Epperley’s formal dining room?”
“My aunt has questionable taste at best, but even she looks downright staid in comparison.”
A wicked impulse arose in her to needle the tiniest bit. “Gaudy, like some of the jewelry in that box?”
He chuckled, and his long fingers tightened over hers. He barely seemed aware, but goodness, she was. Skin sliding over skin, even in so innocent a spot as the back of her hand, was enough to send a jolt of current through her nerves. “Most of that jewelry was acquired in India, so, yes, you’re getting closer.”
“But I cannot think of anything worse.” She could barely think of anything at all with his hand covering hers.
“It does not matter.” He shook his head, then caught her gaze. Held it. “You know, it’s a pleasure to hold a conversation with you. One where we’re not resentful and adversarial. The way it used to be. I wish things could be that way again.”
Unable to reply, she stared at the tanned skin on the back of his hand, and let the truth of what he’d just said settle over her. The reminder of his unanswered proposal simmered in the air between them.
“In the end, I believe I prefer England, after all.” He placed his free hand under her chin and raised her gaze to meet his once again. “My family is here.”
She wanted to look away, but could not. Something about him compelled her to maintain the contact. “Yet you stayed so long.”
“You know why.”
She did. Beyond his marriage, he’d left to rebuild the fortune his father had lost in an investment gone sour. The man had been left with a single ship at the time of his demise, and Alexander had thrown all that was left into that one vessel and sailed east in a wild gamble to replenish the family coffers. Ultimately, he’d sacrificed himself for the betterment of his mother and sisters, so they could live comfortably. Still, she could not chase away the thought that he might have come back sooner if it hadn’t been for his marriage. Heat rising in her cheeks, she looked down to find she’d somehow twisted her fingers into her skirts.
“It is not all beautiful,” he said harshly. “There is also great danger.”
She knew of that, too. Of cobras that could strike without warning. Of lions and tigers. Of rampaging elephants. Of strange illnesses borne on the air.
“The British defeated the Maratha while I was there.”
“You were involved in a war?” She recalled vague reports from the newspapers of England once again at war, even after Napoleon’s surrender, but that conflict was so far away.
“No, the fighting took place to the west. We only kept watch on the proceedings in case things went badly for our men, and we found ourselves surrounded by enemies.”
She shuddered at the idea of being hemmed in so far from home. “Thankfully that did not happen.”
“No, but it didn’t keep me out of danger.” A shadow passed over his features, and another frisson of foreboding snaked a path down her spine. The things he’d seen—unimaginable, magnificent, and terrifying—but something worse lay behind his words.
Her heart jumped. “What were you involved with?” she asked reluctantly.
“Company business, ironically enough. Harry and I were assigned to escort a shipment to Delhi. Nothing important, except to an Englishman. Proper English goods, nothing the locals would have wanted, but the thieves who set upon us didn’t know that until it was too late.”
“My goodness.”
“Oh, we came out of the fighting. There was only the small matter of Harry insinuating himself between a blade and my chest.” His tone carried a lightness more appropriate to a drawing room, but that only added to the heavy chill that settled over Henrietta’s shoulder.
You could have died and I would not have known it for six months.
How nearly that statement had come true.
“Good Lord,” she said weakly.
“That wasn’t the end of it.” He captured her gaze. Held it. His stare carried the entire force of his will, strong as any storm at sea. “In saving me, Harry was wounded. Before we reached Delhi, he’d succumbed to a fever.”
That pronouncement echoed through Henrietta’s brain. A chill ran up her spine.
“I … I’m grateful.” Grateful to a man she’d never known. “That he saved you, I mean. And thankful you came through. I’m very sorry for your friend.” The words seemed empty enough for all she meant them. For all Alexander had put her through, hearing of his death would have been far, far worse.
She closed her fingers against an urge to smooth the lines from his forehead.
He shook himself and patted her hand. “It does no good to dwell on matters we can no longer change. Tell me, have the girls resolved their differences over those felines?”
The abrupt change in subject gave her pause, but only for a moment. “You know they have. They wouldn’t dream of getting into another quarrel over the kittens if it means neither can have one.”
“Yes, but how long can you hold that over their heads?”
“For as long as it works.”
He reached out again. This time he turned her hand over and laid her palm to his, their fingers enlacing. “You really are wonderful with them.”
The longing behind the words caused her cheeks to heat, and just as it had earlier in the courtyard, her throat swelled. “I’m only trying the best I can.”
“You’re a damned sight better at it than I am.” He studied her with a strange intensity.
She ought to look away but found herself riveted. What an odd change in his humor since she’d entered the library—through anger and frustration to … this, whatever it was. She didn’t want to consider it too closely. In hopes of lightening the mood, she said, “Do you know what Helena called her kitten?”
What a Lady Craves Page 16