It was the final touch of madness. Through a giddy sense of unreality rising within him, Aaron didn’t smile … barely. He bowed. “Hastings, miss. I’m roguishly likable, but vastly underestimated.” He was talking about the real Hastings … wasn’t he?
The odd child smiled darkly. “So am I. The underestimated part. I find it comes in very handily, don’t you?”
Aaron gave her roguish Hastings smile. “To be sure, miss.”
The child turned to the tall fellow who had been introduced by the unlikely name of Daedalus. “I like him, Dade.”
Dade—thank heaven for nicknames!—only gazed sourly at Aaron. “That’s what worries me.”
I truly ought to get out of here.
“Mr. Hastings has some post, missus.” A stout, graying woman who looked to be a housekeeper by her voluminous apron handed Mrs. Worthington a letter.
“Already? Aren’t you clever, Mr. Hastings!” Mrs. Worthington handed Aaron the letter without a glance at it, although Dade craned his neck slightly to see. Suspicious fellow—but since he was currently lying through his teeth, Aaron couldn’t justifiably take offense.
Enfolded within a scrawled and essentially unreadable note on the Green Donkey’s paper from Hastings was a sheet of rich vellum. Signed by Aaron’s cousin, Serena, who watched over the Earl of Arbodean’s sickbed. Aaron stepped away from the crowd for a moment to open Serena’s letter.
The earl’s health has improved. He is sitting up and taking food again. It is such a relief to hear him speak again! The physician is cautiously hopeful, but warns that Grandpapa is still fragile. Any upset could set him back. I reluctantly must suggest that you postpone your visit, just for a few days. Please, Aaron. For me?
In eternal gratitude,
Serena.
Aaron folded the letter thoughtfully. A few days? After the great urgency of the past weeks journeying home, he felt oddly as if he’d stepped down a stair that wasn’t there.
Having gotten the young ladies safely to London, Aaron knew he would be justified in leaving them there and being on his merry way. After all, none of this was his affair. However, his curiosity outweighed that drive toward his grandfather’s estate—not to mention his niggling sense of responsibility toward Miss Elektra Worthington’s honor.
He looked around him. This house was chaos and madness and everything he hated—everything he never wanted to experience again.
And yet he couldn’t leave. Until he had made sure that Elektra suffered no ill effects from her strange moment of complete madness, he was obligated to stay and watch over her.
At least for as long as he was able. If he got word that his grandfather was growing worse again, he would have to journey up north once more. However, a few days ought to be long enough to assure himself of her clear reputation, that no trace of scandal followed Elektra. If, say, a week went by without Society being alerted to her stumble, it was likely that it would never come to light. There would be new and fascinating scandals for the gossips to chew upon, and then Aaron would feel much better about leaving the outrageous female to her own devices.
* * *
Elektra found a room had been made ready for Bliss not far from her own. It had been very nearly cleared out, although the stacks of items in the hallway before it had simply grown. Bliss’s trunks—and trunks and trunks!—fit against one wall. It was hardly the gracious reception that Elektra would have liked for guests, but it was the best that Worthington House had to offer. At least, Bliss’s things had not ended up in Elektra’s precious sanctuary!
Quickly, Elektra set Lysander and Orion to shuffling things about in the farthest small room on the floor below. Orion had been using it to store past projects, but Elektra ordered him to throw half on the trash heap and to put the other half in his study down the hall! She was surprised that her brothers followed her wishes with so little protest.
I scared them. They were afraid for me.
It was a gratifying thought. She knew this agreeable compliance would not last, but it touched her nonetheless. They were all a bunch of sweet lummoxes sometimes!
It did not take long for her to gain the use of the small room for Mr. Hastings.
“You wish me to stay?” He blinked at her. “In the house?”
She rolled her eyes. “Well, you can hardly stay in the mews!”
Bliss joined in her plea. “Of course you must stay, Mr. Hastings! Your poor horse is so tired and we must feed and entertain you in reward for your kindness.”
Aaron gazed at the two young ladies helplessly. He’d meant to keep an eye on Elektra—but not under the same roof! Not sleeping on the floor below hers, knowing how she dressed as she slept—
Knowing that that door wouldn’t be locked, either!
Oh, his kindness just kept paying him off, that was for certain!
“I—” Green-blue eyes and sky-blue eyes fluttered beseechingly at him. He was no Greek hero to resist that siren call. He was just a man with a brand-new careful set of ethics and the need to look after those who asked it of him. “That’s mighty kind of you, miss.” He bowed his head in defeat. “I am grateful.”
I am doomed.
From the look in Daedalus’s eyes when he learned of the plan, he was indeed not long for this world. Seized by a sudden fey death wish, probably due to the imaginary Hastings infecting his mind, Aaron grinned mischievously at the sour eldest Worthington brother.
Poor bloke is as helpless as I am against the combined beauty of “the other twins.” Let him sulk!
Dade glowered more darkly. Avoidance seemed to be the best course. So it was that Aaron spent half an hour seeing to Lard-Arse and Bianca in the family stables behind the house—which consisted of a few rickety stalls remaining in a space that had been overtaken by a great cluttered workshop filled with bits and bobs and strange machinery.
“It belongs to the twins.”
Aaron turned to see the strange Atalanta shadowing him. She leaned against the stable door and twined her fingers through her mad braids.
“Poll went away, so when I want to see him, I squint at Cas and pretend.”
Aaron blinked. “Does that work?” If he looked at Bliss and squinted, it wouldn’t make up for not seeing Elektra.
She gazed at him silently for a long moment. Then, “No. It doesn’t work at all.”
Then Lard-Arse stepped on Aaron’s foot—on purpose, by God!—and when he stopped hopping about and diligently not-cursing, the girl was gone.
Dinner was surely to come soon, and Aaron still looked and smelled as if he’d taken a swim in a river and then slept on an inn floor. Good manners compelled him to try to do something about it, so he decided to try to find that room Miss Elektra Worthington had directed him to.
There were a great many doors in the hallway where Aaron’s room was located. He’d tried to pay attention to the path and landmarks through the stacks of books and strange assemblages of gears and pulleys and one strangely plaited sculpture made from strips of copper plating that reminded Aaron queasily of a man-eating plant.
At last he made it to the room halfway down the hall on the left that he could have sworn was his cluttered but comfortable room.
He opened the door and stepped inside with a backward glance to be sure he’d lost that eerie child’s pursuit.
His first clue that he’d chosen badly was the harsh squawk of something large and most definitely not native to the British lowlands.
He swung about to get a mad jumbled impression of a room filled with skeletons and rigidly stuffed creatures. What concerned him the most was the whirling dervish of white wings and red, burning eyes that dived at him with vicious three-inch dagger talons extended—
The door was just behind him, thankfully, and his hand found the latch on the first try, thankfully, and he managed to shut the door on the demonic winged beast—
Unfortunately, that was where his luck ended.
Stumbling backward, he tripped over the pile of books on his right. The
falling volumes drove him spinning off to his left to avoid the heavy wooden blows upon his skull—and he rolled directly into another, higher arrangement that teetered over his head—
Aaron shouted out in alarm, hoping for succor before he was buried in books and dust and mad, disturbing sculptures that had no place in a family home—
He flung both arms over his head and went helplessly down before the onslaught.
At last it was over. Only the sound of more books falling, on and on down the hallway, like a string of slithering dominoes, until the very last pile of books thumped into the very last doorway and the thrumming, twanging sound of fraught metal finally stilled.
Unbelievably, he found himself still alive.
Aaron breathed in a slow lungful of dust and bitter, molding paper. A great weight of books and machinery pressed him hard into the floor, and something sharp was poking him rather disrespectfully close to his groin, but he could not reach his own crotch, for his arms were pressure-locked about his own head.
So he did what any brave, self-respecting bloke might do in such a situation.
He inhaled and began to yell for help.
Chapter Thirteen
When no one came to Aaron’s aid as he lay stifling beneath the weight of several centuries of literature, he began to curse. When still no one came, he began to beg.
Finally he heard movement, almost more as a vibration through the rubble than as sound. Someone was coming.
Unfortunately that someone stopped in the book-crossing progress directly over his chest ribs, and he felt the last of his breath wheeze out of him as the books above him settled more firmly about and on top of his body.
“Ugh.”
It was all he could manage.
He heard some shifting activity above him, and then he began to see daylight through his crossed arms. Small glints of daylight began to seep through the jumble of books.
Finally, the last book above his face was removed, and he found himself gazing gratefully up at the dusty smeared elfin features of the Devil’s Spawn.
She glared at him. “Well, now you’ve done it, haven’t you?”
“Ger … off!”
She scrunched her strange little face at him. “You get off. This is my house and these are my books and you ruined everything!”
“Ger … o … off!” His wheeze was fainter than ever, but he saw Attie’s little face lift away from the gap and then her weight lifted from his chest. He took a better but still-hampered breath, so grateful to feel his ribs expand that he might have cried if he hadn’t heard the voice of Elektra’s eldest brother, Dade.
“What a bloody mess! Attie, what did you do?”
“It wasn’t me! It was that nasty Hastings man! The blighter ruined my book cave!”
Aaron heard Dade sigh. “Attie, you never take responsibility for anything. You are as bad as the twins. And don’t say ‘blighter.’ It isn’t appropriate.”
“I didn’t say it about you,” Attie muttered resentfully. “I said it about Pasty Hastings.”
As much as Aaron would have liked to see the brat get a good dressing-down from her brother, he would rather live to see the sun set, so he sent up a last desperate shout for help. He couldn’t be blamed for the quavering tone of it, to be sure. It was the weight of all the bloody books!
Dade’s look of surprise was almost worth it—at least until the eldest Worthington let a speculative look cross his regular features.
The bastard wasn’t really considering leaving him to die, was he?
“Mr. Hastings? Oh, heavens! Are you all right?” Aaron heard the voice he most wanted to hear at that moment—a thought so ironic that he didn’t allow himself to think it later, that he looked to the mad Elektra for rescue!—which thankfully seemed to remind Dade that it was better to be a Good Samaritan than to leave a man to die by literature. Either that, or he was leery of explaining matters to the magistrate—or, worse, his sister.
Aaron felt in no position to be picky about his savior’s motives!
Dade let out a sigh of resignation. And turned his head to speak to his youngest sibling. “Attie, will you fetch Zander and Rion, please? This is going to take more hands.”
In the end, it took all the Worthingtons, some more helpful than others, like Archie and Iris who stood watching the entire proceedings like eager spectators at a sporting event, side by side with a serenely interested Bliss and a pregnant Miranda. A bucket brigade of sorts was formed, the brothers and Elektra digging their way to him despite the primate antics of spindly little Atalanta.
As Aaron was helped from his word-filled quicksand, he cynically wondered if someone ought to be roasting chestnuts.
“Put him in his room!” That was Elektra.
“We’ll never get him out again” came a protest, which sounded like Cas, the brother who was a twin.
“We’re just as likely to lose him in Orion’s study!”
The room with the attack bird? “Not Orion’s study!” Aaron gasped.
“See?”
He was half carried, half dragged down the hall over the hundreds—thousands?—of spilled volumes, then dumped on a narrow bed. A cloud of dust rose from the covers, but it was a real bed, with a mattress.
At last. He hadn’t lain in a real bed since he installed himself in the tiny cabin of the ship from the isles.
Aaron felt cool hands on his forehead. He opened his eyes to see concern in Elektra’s green-blue gaze. Several strands of her hair hung down, long enough to trail over his half-open shirt and stream cool fire onto the skin of his bare chest.
Near-death by literature might be worth it if a bloke can be nursed back to health by a goddess.
She smiled, and it was the sweetest curl of her lips that he’d yet seen. “Mr. Hastings, has it occurred to you that you might be considered ever so slightly accident-prone?”
Her voice was soft. Her fingers were soft, and if he was not mistaken they lingered just a little as they left his hair.
Her fingers tangled in his hair as she kissed him …
The flash of memory sent heat through his bloodstream. “Miss, you’re the only accident a man needs.”
Her lips took on a wry tilt. “To ruin your life, you mean?” She straightened. Her hands fell away from him. He saw that she sat with one hip on the dusty mattress—entirely improper for a lady with a man.
God, she doesn’t think of me like one of those damned brothers, does she?
He reached out and caught that retreating hand. Nothing seemed to matter to him but to know that she saw him as a man, not a brother, not a servant.
She went quite still, but she did not pull her hand away. “Mr. Hastings—”
“That is not my name.”
She blinked. “Henry, isn’t it?”
God, yes, right. He was Henry Hastings, and she was death to his dreams! Except that he couldn’t drum up the same sense of horror as he had a few days past.
Her hand curled into his. “Henry?” Her touch was light and cool, like the touch of silk. Soothing … and he was so damned tired. So many nights on the tossing ship, in haylofts, tied to chairs …
No, don’t miss this—she’s being so sweet—
But I’m horizontal—in a real bed—and there’s no hope—
* * *
Elektra sat back. Her hand slipped from his lax grasp. “Henry?”
He was fast asleep, poor man. She gazed down at his relaxed features for a long moment. He was a secretive fellow, despite his seemingly outgoing manner. She hadn’t realized until this moment how his expression always retained a shadow of wary alertness—as if he thought something was about to leap from the shadows at any time. Now, however, he looked—well, one hesitated to use such a word about a rascal like Mr. Hastings, but it was the best she could think of—heroic. A champion. A man upon whom damsels in distress called when shining armor was required.
Elektra knew that her brothers had made themselves scarce, as they usually did when there was a m
ess to clean up, but she cast a glance toward the door, just in case Attie lurked there.
Attie was ever lurking, poor little mistrustful one.
Then, in the single moment she found herself alone with only her own wishes to see to, she leaned closer and lightly ran her fingertips through the thick, golden-brown hair at his temples. Warm. Silky.
Just as she remembered, every night when she blew out her candle and allowed the memory of that wondrous kiss to fill her thoughts. She had almost convinced herself that the entire impact of that moment had been her imagination, overexcited by her fear and exhilaration at her own daring deed.
But if she’d imagined the whole thing …
Why did it feel so wonderful to touch him again at last?
A distant male voice, raised in some sort of debate, penetrated the quiet of the room. Elektra sat up, then stood and briskly rubbed her palms together.
There was a mess in the hall. She could shout the roof down before her brothers would take care of it. She decided that a hard task like that would be just the thing.
Just the thing to make her forget the feeling of her fingers deep in his hair … and his hot mouth …
Books. Hundreds of books. Lying all over the hallway.
She turned away and did not look back at the sleeping man in the bed. Not even once.
Well, perhaps once.
* * *
There were, in the end, over two and a half thousand books in the hallway.
Truly? Elektra counted the careful stacks of fifteen again. They lined the longest wall of the attic, standing two stacks deep. It was true. They stood neatly squared, spines out, all turned the same way, titles readable. Now, one could, if one wished—and she most heartily did not!—systematically catalog the collection with some semblance of order.
The other oddments—where had that awful sculpture come from?—were shoved unceremoniously into random elderly wardrobes and dressers with recalcitrant drawers, or packed tightly into crumbling trunks.
Elektra sneezed for what had to be the fiftieth time. She dusted her filthy hands. “Enough.”
Strangely, once begun, it hadn’t been as overwhelming a task as she had imagined. And she’d actually had a bit of help!
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