He rubbed his chin and smiled. “To grow such a thing requires some work, dear lady. And I suppose, from the tone of your voice, you would not be appreciative. But you do not like my clothes? I thought it would be an excellent disguise of sorts, so your neighbors would not guess who was coming to call in the dark hours of the night.”
“Once the servants know, the neighbors will be fully apprised of your comings and goings. And once the neighbors know . . .”
“Should I expect a visit from your brother?” Max asked, pulling off his jacket. He folded it carefully and then tossed it in the general direction of a chair.
“My brother would care more about the unstylish cut of your jacket than the fact it is present in my bedroom.”
“You are rather bothered by my wardrobe, I see. Well, until I get to Armadale’s tailor, I shall have no choice but to remove everything while I am in your company.”
While Claire watched him, Max tugged at the knot of his cravat for a moment, and then dropped his hands to his side.
“Of what would your brother particularly disapprove, do you think?” he asked.
Claire felt a sputter of impatience, wondering why he wished to discuss her indifferent brother when there were much more engaging topics for this evening, like the birthmark on Max’s thigh. She opened her lips to protest, when she caught the glint in his eyes, and took her cue.
“He would utterly despair of this rag of a cravat,” she sighed, and tucked her finger into its knot to loosen it.
“I will have you know I only just purchased it and it is of the finest Oriental silk,” he protested, though not too emphatically.
The cravat followed Max’s jacket to the floor near the chair.
“And what of this vest? My brother would think that embroidery is regrettably provincial,” Claire said as she unbuttoned the elegant garment.
Max frowned. “I am rather fond of this vest, I brought it back from Paris.”
“And everyone knows the French have no sense of style.” Claire dropped the vest to the floor, too impatient to bother with aiming for the chair. She leaned into Max’s chest and his arms promptly came around to embrace her. He smelled of soap and leather and, impossibly, of the Yorkshire woods. She would be perfectly satisfied to remain like this forever, but this night held the promise for much more.
“I regret to inform you that my brother would likely disapprove of this shirt,” she said, as she started to tug at his waist.
“He seems an extraordinarily fussy gentleman,” Max said softly. “On what grounds do you suspect he would vote to censure it?”
“You do not know my dear brother. He would censure on no greater grounds than that I would approve. And I do approve this garment on you, you understand.” Claire slipped it off, and licked his bare chest. “But I prefer it not on you.”
“You and I seem to have shared tastes, my lady,” Max said. “We differ, however, in that you seem possessed of much greater patience. I am happy to accept your brother’s harsh judgment on all my clothing, and remove them immediately.”
“But I am not yet ready for that, Max. And I recall a certain episode with rose petals, during which you took your own sweet and excruciatingly slow time,” Claire reminded him. “I thought I was going to faint from the agony of it all.”
“I see,” he said thoughtfully, reaching for his waistband. “Then you ought to be sympathetic to my pain.”
“Yes,” she answered, putting her hands over his and pulling them away. “But only enough to consider that these breeches must go.”
“Is that also your brother’s assessment?”
As his breeches fell to the floor, she smiled up at him. “To be honest, I do not care a mouse’s squeak for my brother’s assessments. I am guilty of deluding you, for my own purposes. I will have you clothed or not, and do not care what anyone else says.”
He kissed her so thoroughly, she thought she truly was going to faint away.
“Then neither do I,” Max said between breaths. “But all the same, I am grateful you saved this lesson in fashion until we left the Longreaves’ home.”
“The ladies might have been impressed,” Claire said.
She waited for him to say something about his scarred body and hideous injuries, about his unfitness as a lover. It was not so long ago when he would have shied away from anything as intimate as this, so revealing and honest. But much had changed in a few month’s time, for both of them.
“Do you think so?” he asked, his lips brushing her hair.
“Oh, yes,” Claire said, and laughed. “But not half as much as Charles would have been impressed.”
“Charles?” Max pulled away, and looked confused. “Charles Longreaves? Surely that is not so?”
“Surely it is, Max,” Claire said, finally pushing him down on her bed. “I hope you did not think otherwise?”
***
Of course he thought otherwise, and she knew that very well. Her light bantering was amusing and clever, but did she not realize how easy a target he was for her teasing? The fault was all his, however, for he was unaccustomed to the intricacies of polite conversation, of innuendo, and of riddles. He and Camille took everything at its own value, disdaining subtleties of any sort.
Or so he would believe. And yet he had ample evidence that the relationship between his sister and James Cosgrove had been developing for some time, right beneath his own crooked nose. Claire saw it right away, he guessed, but then, she missed very little.
“Did you think Charles and I were enjoying a few intimate moments in the library?” she murmured.
Max thought she had been sound asleep. He had no idea what she meant, until he realized she picked up the conversation where they left off an hour or so ago.
“Why would I believe otherwise?” he asked. “I heard something about a bone, and imagined he demonstrated the sturdiness of his arm while allowing you to assess his muscles.”
“You have managed to fabricate quite a story from the mention of a bone, my dear. But you need not fear for my virtue on that account, for the bone is from something long dead.”
“Another Mr. Longreaves, perhaps?”
“More likely a beast from before the time of the Conquerer,” Claire said, pulling herself out of his arms and off the bed. She wore nothing, but it was too dark in the room to appreciate that. However, she saw well enough to walk across the room and bring back a little wooden box to place directly on his chest. “Did you not know I enjoy finding fossils?”
Max struggled to recall some of their earliest conversations, but then he might have been paying closer heed to the shape of her lips than what they uttered.
She went on before he could make up some answer. “My family used to visit the Longreaves at their estate in Lyme Regis, and Charles and I found all sorts of marvelous things. His collection is much bigger than mine, of course. And now he has that wonderful little bone.”
“And I have you. Does that give me any advantage?”
“Are you suggesting I am part of your collection? I am not overly fond of the idea of being clustered together with Lady Pamela and Mrs. Goodson,” Claire said.
“Who are Lady Pamela and Mrs. Goodson?” he asked.
Claire sighed into the darkness. “Your dinner companions, if you can manage to recall anything occurring so far back as three hours ago. Goodness, Max, how on earth do you manage?”
“I am not altogether sure, but I shall have to keep you close to my side while we are in London, so I do not mistake a chimney sweep for the king,” Max said. “I thought her name was Prudence.”
“She must have made quite an impression on you,” Claire said, as she opened her box of treasures and Max felt something sprinkle lightly across his chest. Undoubtedly, they would awake with grains of sand between the sheets.
“
Oh, she did. But her talk of melons is nothing next to a conversation about bits of bone and fossilized shells,” he said.
“Truly, you did not talk about melons? How very vulgar.”
“No worse than going to a man’s library to examine his bones,” Max pointed out.
“Or allowing a man into one’s bed,” Claire said, and sighed. “Though I suppose it depends upon the man.”
They spent the next half hour studying her fossils in the dark, as she placed each in his hand and described where she found it and when. He knew this is how she worked with his blind sister and understood how the two women were able to share so much with each other. Claire’s sensitivity to texture and color and scents made the world vivid for anyone unable to appreciate it all; her own appreciation was a gift she bestowed on everyone she met, and most particularly on Camille and him. Max’s utter contentment with his life, hitherto unknown to him, was his last waking thought on this night.
That is why it was all the more surprising when he awoke to the dawn, and realized his dreams were about his mother, and a wooded landscape with sun dappling through the leafy oak trees.
Chapter 8
Max left Claire most reluctantly, located nearly all his discarded garments, dressed, and hoped he exited by the same stairway that led him to her bed the night before. The servants had already started their day, but he believed he managed to escape without anyone but the stableboy aware he spent the night in their lady’s bedchamber.
He gave the boy a few generous coins, but knew the royal treasury would not be sufficient to buy anyone’s silence. And then upon mounting his horse, Max realized he was missing one of his leather gloves. If he intended to go about these nocturnal activities with any sort of impunity, he wryly considered, he would either need to be more careful, or carry more coins in his pockets.
Of course, there really was only one thing to do if he wished to put an end to rumors and innuendo. But his lady seemed rather pleased with her independence and, he guessed, intrigued with carrying on a clandestine affair. He relished intrigue, or else he would not assist Armadale with his business in Portugal. But intrigue, whether it was to intercept smugglers on the Tagus or navigating the London mews to a lady’s bed, could be damned uncomfortable.
Even so, and despite his weariness, he returned to his home to bathe, enjoy breakfast with his sister, aunt and uncle, and then listen to his housekeeper’s plans about transforming the large winter parlour into a ballroom. It all sounded rather awkward and involved heavy lifting of furniture and carpeting, but he assured Mrs. Belden that if his sister and Lady Claire expected it to be done, then so it would.
Six hours and ten minutes after leaving Claire’s house by way of the servants’ stairs, Lord Maxwell Brooks, the Marquis Wentworth, properly ascended the front stairs of the building and rapped at the door.
“Lord Wentworth,” Claire’s elderly manservant said solemnly. “My lady awaits you in her breakfast room.”
He put out his right hand, which Max took to be an overly informal greeting between men of different class having no particular business arrangements with each other. But when Max returned the gesture, he realized the man was only pressing a leather glove into his hand. He said nothing, and Max merely nodded his appreciation.
And perhaps they had a business arrangement, after all.
Max walked down the hall, following the sounds of clinking silverware, and entered Claire’s breakfast room without being announced.
She smiled up at him, as if this was the most familiar thing in the world. And in some ways, it was.
“I have saved eggs and kippers for you, Lord Wentworth,” she said and nodded her head.
He first thought she was merely exercising her little habit of nodding when she thought deeply on a subject, but realized she was gesturing towards the corner, where a very tiny woman was busy at the fireplace.
“Then this shall be my second breakfast,” he said, taking the seat next to her, rather than at the other end of the table. “But I shall not complain, for I have always been partial to kippers.”
“Are you really, Lord Wentworth? I do not believe I have ever heard a gentleman state such a preference.”
Max reached for the toast and butter and heaped the small fish on top. Actually, he was not all that partial to kippers, but felt rather committed to his point.
“Have you shared breakfast with many men, Lady Claire?” he asked after swallowing his first bite. The kippers tasted, well, fishy.
She nodded her head most vigorously, in the direction of the diminutive maid.
“I have shared my breakfast with enough,” she said, and mouthed several additional words he did not understand.
He merely smiled. “It is rather pleasant.” He wondered who would first bore the other to sleep. But then, as he was utterly exhausted, it might not be much of a contest.
“You look rather splendid this morning, my lady,” he said, changing the subject. From the corner of his eye, he saw the maid look up at him.
“Yes, indeed,” Claire acceded. “But I also had a splendid night.”
She knew she provoked him for he could see it in her bright eyes. The vixen knew very well he enjoyed it at least as much as she did, but she now had him bound and gagged, for he could say nothing with the captive audience in the room.
“I am glad to hear it,” he said and took another bite of his kippers. “What shall we do today? I am quite at leisure.”
“Are you?” She sounded surprised. “Did you not intend to take Lady Camille to Greenwich today?”
“Uncle Brooks and Aunt Adelaide believe there is nothing more important but that she visit the Tower. For my part, I would be content to merely describe its dimensions to her, for I do not much like the place.”
“Whyever not? I was there not too long ago, to visit the menagerie.”
“To view an assortment of caged animals with nothing to keep them engaged but the taunts of cruel people is not my idea of a pleasurable outing,” Max said. “The history of the Tower is a sad one, in all ways. And I prefer places that make me forget sad things.”
She said nothing, but the slight nod of her head confirmed she contemplated his words. Surely she was about to suggest a visit to Astley’s or to Hyde Park, to walk among the ton. But apparently her thoughts were elsewhere.
“Little Mary tells me that only a rare gust of wind or willful mischief could cause a cinder to ignite the rug in front of a fireplace,” she said.
“Who is Little Mary?” he asked, before realizing the obvious. He turned to the maid, who bowed so low he thought her forehead would touch the floor. But of course she was closer to the floor than most people.
“And are you an expert on the subject, Little Mary?” he asked.
“I am, my lord,” she said, in a deep voice for one so small. He studied her and realized she was many years older than her diminutive appearance would suggest. “I have worked in this house for all my life and I have always put out the cinders.”
“It is a job of great responsibility and special skill,” he said.
“It is not so very rigorous a task, my lord. I have been ably doing it since I was ten years of age.”
Of course. A serving maid without education or oversight was perfectly capable of doing something ably and without consequence that a well-tutored young gentleman of high expectations managed to completely mishandle.
“And you remember to do it every night?” he asked.
Little Mary looked down at the floor. “Begging your pardon, my lord. I have already confessed to Lady Glastonbury that I might have fallen asleep some nights and not gotten to it until the morning. But by then the fires start anew, of course.”
“Indeed. And how have you and Lady Glastonbury come to discuss such things?” Max turned to look at Claire, who seemed to be avi
dly following the discussion. “Does your lady intend to instruct blind orphans on household chores?”
Little Mary looked painfully distressed. “As to that, I cannot say. Though I am sure my lady could do such instruction quite wonderfully.”
The maid adored Claire; that was certain. But then, it was hard to imagine who would not adore her. Her husband must have been the only man in all of England who felt otherwise. And things did not turn out so well for the brute.
“I was curious about this and other things. Little Mary and I have, from time to time, spoken of many things of a practical nature, like kneading bread and waxing furniture and birthing babies. I confessed to a sudden interest in cleaning out the grates.”
“I see. It is a fascinating topic,” Max said levelly.
“It is, Lord Wentworth. It certainly is. I was surprised and somewhat gratified to learn that the negligence of one night’s work is extremely unlikely to start a conflagration.”
“It is near impossible, my lord,” Little Mary asserted, her head bobbing in emphasis. “I have never heard tell of anything of the kind happening. Though now that I think of it, I believe there was a great fire somewhere up north, where a young boy . . .”
“Thank you very much, Little Mary,” Claire said hurriedly. “You have told us precisely what we wanted to know, and you may go now.”
Little Mary bowed neatly and fairly ran from the room.
“Do you see, Max?” Claire said.
“I see that even servants know of my family’s story all these years later and from so far away. I shall never escape it, it seems.”
“You already have, Max. Or very nearly so,” Claire said, insisting on what he did not yet entirely believe. “You are not the man I met at the Armadale ball so many months ago. Nor even the wanderer who appeared in the woods when we met a second time.”
“I am he,” Max said solemnly. “I shall always be he, to my eternal grief. I only now have a better barber.”
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