“Thank you on the pug’s behalf,” she said with a smile up at Semper, whose gaze remained politely fixed on the puppy. When he nodded in acknowledgment of her thanks but did not look at her directly, she returned her attention to the puppy, who was head down and tail up in the food bowl. “What a feast for you, Boots!” she cooed. “That will see you through to morning.”
Caroline, like Semper, had her back to Sir Antony to allow him to exit his bath with a modicum of decorum and privacy, but such considerations were ignored when the occupant of the bathtub exclaimed with derision at her moniker for the pug,
“Boots? Surely you didn’t name such a splendid little fellow for that buffoon Big Boots Beresford? It makes a mockery of him and Peter the Macaw.”
“Beresford? How could you think—Well, yes! Why not?” she teased, hearing the twinge of jealous disapproval in his voice. “As soon as I saw pug’s wrinkly little face and those big brown eyes staring up at me with such adoration, my immediate thought was to name him after Beresford; a gentleman known throughout Wiltshire not only for his larger than average boot size, but, if gossip from the county’s numerous haylofts is to be believed,” she added, turning to face him, “is far larger than the average where it counts most—Oh my! You are—”
“Don’t—”
“—splendid.”
“—be obvious, Caro!” He grumbled with acute embarrassment over her outburst of spontaneous admiration.
But as she had no shame in fixing her stare between his long legs, or seemed to think Semper’s presence an impediment to her brazenness, he sighed his defeat and gave up the attempt of maintaining propriety. Still, he managed to towel dry himself, toss aside the wet bath sheet, snatch up the silk banyan off the stool and quickly cover up his nakedness all in record time, and all under Caroline’s unblinking appreciative gaze.
“I can’t be the first to compliment you,” she said with a pout as he joined her by the fireplace, “so my honest response shouldn’t be that much of a surprise. Besides,” she added from under lashes, “I took a peek earlier.”
This candid admission dropped his jaw. He was in equal measure embarrassed and pleased by her irreverence and reaction to that most intimate part of his anatomy. And if Semper had not sprung into action the moment Caroline had turned to face the bathtub, dashing about collecting up the discarded clothes strewn across the floor, no doubt to hide his own embarrassment, it was on the tip of his tongue to make a quip that at least her eyes were finally somewhere other than riveted to his close-cropped head of auburn hair. Strange, that even with his body covered, in Caroline’s company he still felt completely naked with his head uncovered. He itched to grab the silk embroidered nightcap Semper had placed beside the banyan, but he left it, reasoning that once they shared a bed—he most definitely did not make love wearing his wig—what was his head without its wig in the grand scheme of their life together?
“My dear Lady Caroline,” he said in a tone he hoped was authoritative, though he could not control his smile when she looked up at him with wide-eyed expectation, “you invade my dressing room with a pug named after a buffoon—”
“I did not say so. You did. In truth, it was Beth, my baby niece, who gave pug his name, because he is always running off with one of her silk boots. She pronounces it booffs. Every time Beth sees the pug she giggles and calls out ‘Booffs! Booffs!’ So Boots it is.”
“I am pleased to hear it. But as much as that story is delightful, it has not diverted me from wondering if, when we are married, you intend to make a habit of peeking into your husband’s bathtub?”
“When we are married I shall have my own dressing room, as you well know, my lord, but that won’t stop me sharing your lovely bathtub, when invited to do so, of course. And you will invite me.”
He put up an eyebrow as if to quell her belligerence.
“Will I indeed?”
“Yes. And although I do believe in a husband and wife having separate private apartments, I do not believe in separate beds. Jane and Salt share a bedchamber, and so shall we.”
“Shared with an assortment of animals, no doubt,” he said under his breath, and was heard.
“Of course. Viscount Fourpaws sleeps at the foot of Jane and Salt’s bed, or did until Merry decided she needed the company.” She frowned in thought. “Or perhaps it was Fourpaws who decided to sleep with Merry after Jane and Salt started having babies? I must ask…”
“Please. Don’t,” he stated, slipping on a pair of embroidered mules before joining her by the fireplace. “The sleeping arrangements of others do not interest me.”
He leaned against the mantel, hands in the pockets of his banyan and watched her feed the pug the morsels of lamb, her long mane of bright copper curls tumbling over her left shoulder and brushing the floor. He wanted to carry her off to the bedchamber, to pick up where they had left off at the bathtub. However, he curbed this very natural desire and took his thoughts to the waiting samovar full of hot water and his ritual tea-making. Tea and confession first, and then to bed…
“They cry a lot when they are new,” Caroline offered. “Babies. Human babies cry a lot. On balance, and please do not repeat this to my brother or to Jane, I prefer my animals.”
“You always have.”
“Yes. But I thought once Jane and Salt had their babies, I might change my opinion. I do love them all, and will love the ones still to come, and I particularly enjoy Ned and Beth, now they are walking and talking and we can play games together. I’m sure I will love Sam just as much when he is a little older, too. But… I am not so altered at being made an aunt that I do not love my animals just as much, if not more, than before Salt had his babies. Is that wrong of me?”
“It is not wrong to be truthful. But it would be wise not to convey these feelings to the doting parents. I have yet to meet Ned and Beth. I was introduced to Sam today, and though I have a very limited knowledge and experience of infants, he did present as a well-looking baby.”
“Yes. He is. He reminds me of one of those fat cherubs painted on the ceiling of the ballroom. All he requires is wings and a tiny bow and arrow.”
“He does indeed! I have heard it said that females who are not so enamored of babies become entirely different beings once they have one of their own to have and to hold.”
She wrinkled her freckled nose. “Do you expect me to have lots of your babies?”
He had made the comment in a general sense, not meaning to highlight her doubts about her feelings for babies and children in general, so the studiousness of her enquiry coupled with screwing up her little nose at the idea caused Antony to give an involuntary bark of laughter. His grin remained when Semper, having just walked through from the bedchamber, heard Lady Caroline’s question and immediately tripped over his own feet. Thinking he was helping move an awkward conversation in another direction, but realizing later he only made the situation even more embarrassing, not only for Semper but for all, Sir Antony said to Caroline,
“It is not an expectation I have thought deeply about. That is not to say we won’t have—um—lots of babies. What I expect, and have known for a very long time, is that married life with you means sharing our home with an assortment of friends, furry, four-legged and feathered. And I have always been comfortable with that arrangement. After all, you would not be you without your menagerie. We both share a love of animals. As to babies and children… I confess to not allowing myself to think about that aspect of our married lives which results in babies…”
Caroline frowned, not entirely pleased with this admission. She passed the pug his bone, which he had dropped into the bowl but seemed unable to grip again with his little teeth.
“Did you not—Did you never think of us in that way?”
“I could not allow myself to think of us in that way.”
“Could not? Not ever? Not even on my fifteenth birthday when I kissed your cheek and told you I was going to marry you?”
“Certainly not! You were only fi
fteen.”
Caroline shrugged a shoulder in dismissal.
“That is not a reason.”
“It is when I am eight years your senior!”
“Perhaps you did on my seventeenth birthday?” she coaxed. “It was a particularly hot month. Remember? It was so hot I went swimming in the lake most days, and you came to stay, and you and Salt were out riding one day and caught me stretched on the steps to the summerhouse in my wet chemise. Surely you remember that?”
Sir Antony wiped a hand across his face with eyes closed. Of course he remembered. He remembered how the sodden chemise clung to her every luscious curve. How her hair when wet, went a dark ruby red, and that it fell in dripping coils to her thighs. That it was only the fortuitous placement of two of those coils that provided coverage for her nipples. He had stared without blinking at her curvaceous loveliness until his eyes dried of moisture.
He refrained from commenting.
“Of course you must! I was about to wade back into the lake, when Salt tossed me the bath sheet, droning on in his brotherly way about never swimming in the lake without my governess present. He made me promise to wear my hideous bathing gown over my chemise, and have at least one of the footmen by the lake, because if I got myself into difficulty there would be no one about to shout out for help and I would drown. Of course I wasn’t listening, even though I pretended to be contrite. The entire time Salt was being brotherly at me I was smiling on the inside because I knew you were staring at me. You did not blink once! Admit to it!”
“You fumbled about with that bath sheet, making no attempt to cover yourself,” Sir Antony grumbled. “You purposely stood there in all your glory knowing I was staring at you! I’d have had to be born without male parts and no natural inclinations not to stare at you! And you knew it! Teasing a man like that is nothing to laugh at, Caro! God, I had a damn difficult time sitting comfortably in the saddle after that!”
Caroline smiled her satisfaction. “So you did look at me. You did look at me in that way so you must have thought about us together, nak—”
“Yes! Yes! All right! I’ll admit to it that once,” he confessed to cut her off.
“Just the once? That is not very romantic.”
“Romance has nothing to do with it!”
Caroline pouted and then said cheekily, “I’ve often thought of us together in bed, naked. I can’t be certain, but I am very sure, which is almost the same as being certain, the first time I imagined us naked together was just before my fourteenth birthday—”
“Good—God!”
She giggled at his stunned expression and more so when she undid the large button of her damp cloak and let it fall from her shoulders. Sir Antony took a step forward, to grab the cloak, but Semper was there first and was quick to catch the heavy garment before it fell and smothered the unsuspecting puppy happily gnawing on his bone.
He had forgotten his majordomo was still in the room. He tried to continue to forget he was still in the room.
“You’re in your nightgown!”
“Silly! Of course I am,” Caroline replied mildly. “I was in bed when I decided to make this visit. You didn’t expect me to be fully clothed at this time of night, did you? That would have taken hours. No, please don’t wrap that wet thing about me again,” she ordered when he snatched the cloak from his majordomo. “Make me a hot cup of tea and I shall be warm again. Besides,” she added, skipping off towards the open double doors she presumed led into the bedchamber, “there’s always the bedclothes to snuggle into… It’s this way…?”
Sir Antony rolled his eyes to the ornate ceiling, shoved the cloak back at his majordomo, who had stuck out his arm to receive it, face devoid of his thoughts, and was about to follow the love of his life into his bedchamber when she came scurrying back to fetch the pug puppy. She scooped him up with profuse apologies for leaving him behind, and was about to pick up the chewed bone when Antony took the bone from the pug and stuck out his hand for the puppy.
Caroline hesitated.
“Boots has never been left alone before. To point out fact, this is his first time away from his brother and sister—”
“Brother and sister?”
She nodded.
“I have found good homes for two of Penny Pug’s litter, and I am keeping Boots, whatever Salt says to the contrary, because he is the runt of the litter. So that leaves me with two…”
He smiled at her concern.
“I am sure you will find good homes for them. If not…” He shrugged. “I have no objection to two more joining your animal family, if that would ease your mind…”
Caroline ran up to him, threw her arms about his neck and kissed him. “Thank you! Now I feel very much better.”
“That said,” he added gravely, though his mouth twitched to smile, “I’m perfectly willing to share my house, but not the bedchamber with your menagerie. I like my sleep, and so must you…”
“Jane and Salt share their bedchamber with—”
“What your brother and his wife, or any other couple alive, do in the privacy of their apartments is not important. I am only interested in our bedding arrangements.”
Caroline cocked her head in thought. “But when we have babies—”
“—we shall revisit my edict.” He caressed a long thick strand of copper hair that fell over her left shoulder, saying softly, “Perhaps you would rather return to your own bed…”
That settled it. After giving Boots a nuzzle, she reluctantly handed the puppy to Semper, who had just returned from dumping the wet cloak on a footman in the servant passageway. If he hadn’t been asserting his position as master in his own home, stern expression fixed in place, Sir Antony would have laughed to see his majordomo recoil at having his immaculate person defiled when the puppy promptly licked him across the chin.
“Semper, perhaps Mrs. Semper would do the Lady Caroline the supreme kindness of caring for Boots until her ladyship returns to Salt House—”
“—in the morning,” Caroline interrupted.
“In minutes, if you don’t take yourself off to the bedchamber!”
“How unromantic!” Lady Caroline declared, but did as she was told when Sir Antony pulled a face and looked struck down with embarrassment. She was gone less than a minute when she poked her head around the door, tumble of fiery red hair sweeping the floor.
“I apologize in advance for his puddles!” she called out, interrupting Sir Antony’s murmured conversation with his majordomo. “Boots doesn’t have any manners—yet!”
“Thank you, my lady. I am confident Mrs. Semper will manage splendidly,” he stated without turning round. When there was no cheeky comment in response, he could not help himself and glanced over his shoulder. Of course she was still there, smiling at him. He silently mouthed the word “go”.
Caroline put up her chin and looked defiant. When he raised an eyebrow, she reluctantly did as she was told, but not before poking out her tongue.
~
LADY CAROLINE’S ARRIVAL at South Audley Street under cover of darkness went unnoticed and would go uncommented by the inhabitants of Westminster; all were within doors and sleeping at such a late hour. With the lack of a full moon and fog hanging low over the rooftops, even the adventurous were disinclined to wander the streets without good purpose. If the drunken gentleman on horseback or the weary seller with his empty wheelbarrow ventured to notice the sedan chair, neither was sufficiently bothered to recognize that the coat of arms emblazoned on the black lacquered panel under the curtained window belonged to the Salt Hendon earldom.
There were those, however, who were alert to all possibilities and did have purpose. Two hatchet-faced associates of the thief-taker employed by Sir Antony and reporting to Ralph Semper lurked deep in the shadows on the opposite side of the street, coats pulled up around their ears and hats low on their brow to stave off the cold night air. They were the night watch, in place to keep an all-night vigil on the Templestowe residence.
The day wa
tch had spent daylight crisscrossing the environs of west London following a carriage occupied by Lady St. John, her companion Mrs. Smith and, for a time, Lady Dalrymple. Mr. T had advised the night watch he was confident that after such an eventful day, Lady St. John and her companions would not be setting foot outside the premises that night. Thus the associates allowed themselves to close an eye and get a few hours’ sleep in a doorway. The arrival of the sedan chair with a liveried linkboy carrying a flaming taper to light the way had the associates nudging each other awake.
They watched the chairmen negotiate the sedan chair up the two shallow steps and across the threshold, admitted into the wide foyer by the porter. The door was shut on the cold night air, and the linkboy disappeared with his taper down the steps to the servants’ entrance below street level. An hour ticked by, and then another, and just as the associates began to wonder if the occupant was spending the night, the sedan chair emerged from the townhouse, carried by its burly chairmen, the liveried linkboy scurrying up the servant steps with his taper relit to again lead the way.
The associates observed with only mild interest as the chairmen carried the sedan chair back the way they had come, disappearing into the darkness, the flame of the taper hazy in the mist.
What they could not know—the unsuspecting chairmen and linkboy were just as ignorant—was that the occupant of the sedan chair who departed the premises was not the occupant who had arrived at the townhouse two hours earlier. Wearing a fur-lined red cloak similar to that worn by the Lady Caroline, and confident the chairmen would not know one red cloak from another, a female came sailing down the curved staircase, hood pulled up over her coiffure and head bent to conceal her face. She was seated inside the chair and had pulled the door closed before the porter had rallied the dozing chairmen from the powder room under the staircase.
Salt Redux Page 25