by Georgie Lee
Without a word, he crossed to her, took hold of the buttons and began to undo them one by one. She didn’t dare face him and tempt him more than she already had. With each subtle loosening of the bodice, her skin tightened, especially when his fingertips brushed the back of her shoulders. She held on tight to the front of the dress to keep it from sliding down when he reached the last button in the centre of her back. Despite wanting to let go of the fabric, to face him and have him show her all the pleasure she’d been denied for the last five years, she didn’t move.
She peered over her shoulder again and twirled her finger at him. ‘Turn around while I slip into the other gown.’
The pupils of his eyes were wide, darkening his gaze, and his chest rose and fell with each measured breath, making clear the effect the intimate moment had had on him. His human reaction offered a glimpse of the very real man beneath the controlled barrister she wished she could embrace. ‘I’ll stand outside if you insist.’
‘You can remain. I don’t want you to feel uneasy about my safety.’
He arched one surprised eyebrow at her before spinning slowly on his heel to give her the required privacy. With quick moves she slipped out of the dress. This teasing thrilled her, but it also put her on edge, for if she allowed things to continue any further she might compromise herself in a way she could never undo. She might not have had a baby with her husband, but it didn’t mean she wasn’t capable of having one with another man. She wanted children, but refused to taint them with the scorn of illegitimacy.
She flung the old dress across the bed, took up the new one and pulled it on. Thankfully the two buttons at the back were ones she could reach. She was both relieved and disappointed to not have to call on Bart’s assistance again. They’d been weak while alone in the carriage, and even though they’d both resisted temptation here, there was no telling how it would be tonight when they were alone at his house with no interruptions or soirées to attend. Surely he had a housekeeper or maid who could help her dress and prevent any further temptation? She hoped the woman proved as discreet as Bart believed.
Without allowing him to turn around she went to her wardrobe to fetch appropriate shoes to match the dress, then fastened her diamond necklace and matching earrings in place. The set had been a wedding present from Walter and the only thing of value he’d given her. Then she gathered up the last few items she needed, put them all together in the valise and faced Bart. ‘What do you think?’
His reaction to her in the dress made her blush. It wasn’t mild appreciation, but a look of pure desire to quicken her pulse. She lifted her chin in pride and drank in the silent compliment, refusing to shy away from it or him. In his presence she felt beautiful and wanted for more than her assistance in catching criminals, but as a woman. She opened her arms and spun slowly before him.
‘Will this be enough to charm your parents into forgiving me for my serious breach of etiquette?’ she asked in all innocence, as if she hadn’t noticed his reaction.
* * *
Bart took a deep breath, more cautious of his movements than the time in France when he and his men had backed out of a barn where an unexploded cannonball sat smoking in the ruins. Moira was like the ball, smouldering and dangerous to him, but instead of wanting to back away, he wanted to rush forward and lose himself in the fire of her eyes. It took every bit of control Bart had ever mastered on the battlefield and in the courtroom to resist going to her and claiming her as his. They were alone, with all the troubles and threats facing them outside the door. In her arms he could forget the constant struggles to keep evil from consuming England and innocent people, and him, but he wouldn’t succumb. Circumstances had placed her under his protection and he could not take advantage of it.
With her sparkling jewels enhanced by the finery of her dress and her pale skin, he was forced to face the reality of her situation and his. There was a great difference between them, one he wasn’t certain they could bridge. These were the things she wanted, things he could not give her, and after years of her family making her sacrifice everything she’d wanted in life, he couldn’t make her will subservient to his. He was doing what was best for her by not approaching her or giving into every single emotion building between them.
Bending down, painfully close to where her thighs were covered by the silk, he took hold of her valise and then straightened. With a self-control he felt slipping more than once, he rose to stand over her. ‘The dress is perfect.’
* * *
‘Mr Bartholomew, I was told not to expect you this evening,’ Tucker, the Denning family butler, greeted him, the wrinkles around the bottom of his eyes deepening when they went wide with his shock. This wasn’t the first time Bart had confused the kind old servant who’d never been able to lie and cover for him the numerous times when Bart, as a boy, had been out late or up to no good, no matter how many pounds Bart had offered him for his silence.
‘My plans changed, allowing me to come,’ Bart explained.
Tucker’s expression shifted from surprise to discomfort. If Bart’s father had given the man orders to deny him entrance, Tucker would carry them out faithfully. It didn’t appear he had as Tucker stepped aside and allowed them admittance.
‘And who should I announce?’ Tucker asked, ready to lead them through.
‘The Dowager Countess of Rexford.’
Tucker offered what Bart imagined would be the first of the many amazed looks he’d receive tonight. Then, without anther word, he turned and made for the back sitting room.
‘What kind of event is this?’ Moira asked, taking in the staid pictures of past Dennings from previous centuries lining the halls. The weight of ancestry and reputation settled on Bart as much as the possibility of facing his father and trying, for the first time since he was boy, and before he’d realised the effort was futile, to get on his father’s good side.
‘One of my father’s regular political soirées for the men he serves with on the Navy Acquisition Board and their wives.’
‘I know you said manners would keep your father from turning me away, but what about you?’ she prodded with an impish smile.
‘It’s possible. As my father is fond of reminding me, I’m the commonest of commoners.’ If his father knew of his work for the Alien Office he’d be proud. He certainly wasn’t proud of Bart’s accomplishments as a barrister as he made abundantly clear each Christmas when he complained about Bart having sacrificed a brilliant career in the military at a time when a man could really assert himself, and of wasting his father’s connection with the War Office to defend widows from thieves.
Tucker stopped at a cheerfully lit sitting room where laughter and female voices hovered above the deeper tones of the men’s conversation. Something inside Bart rebelled at being here. He’d endured these people enough while growing up, thinking to join their ranks until the day his father had unceremoniously made it clear Bart wasn’t one of them.
‘Brace yourself, the moment of reckoning is upon us,’ Bart whispered, eliciting a smile of mischief from Moira as the butler stepped into the room and announced them.
‘The Dowager Countess of Rexford and Mr Bartholomew Dyer.’
Bart and Moira stepped forward in unison, met by a stunned silence from Bart’s family.
The rest of the guests paused in their conversation long enough to give them a perfunctory look before returning to their chosen topics, unaware of how astonishing it was for the youngest son to arrive home and with a woman of all people. He was the only brother not married, and even if his siblings took little more than a passing interest in his domestic arrangements, their wives and his mother were very keen on the subject.
His mother rose out her chair near the fireplace, her daughters-in-law falling into place behind her, all of them rushing forward to satisfy their curiosity.
‘Bart, how wonderful to see you,’ his mother
effused, more focused on Moira than her son. ‘We were told not to expect you.’
His sisters-in-law peered out from around Bart’s mother, craning to hear every innocuous word.
‘I have some business with Father I need to discuss tonight. It’s very important.’
‘Your father?’ The colour drained from his mother’s round face. ‘You aren’t here to cause trouble, are you?’
‘Not at all. It’s a matter of state.’
‘State?’
‘Trust me, all will be well and there’ll be no trouble.’ He leaned over and kissed his mother on the cheek. She was short and stocky, his and his brothers’ height having come from their father, but her natural fullness could be seen in the solidity of her sons, none of whom shared their father’s lankiness.
She viewed him out of the corner of her rich brown eyes, her worries somewhat eased but not entirely banished. Then she turned to Moira, waiting for the introduction.
‘Lady Denning, may I introduce Lady Rexford,’ Bart obliged, conscious of the whispers of amazement flying between the women behind his mother. The ladies were aware of Moira and Bart’s brief engagement, as was his father who’d blamed him for it falling through, but none of them had met Moira before. Bart wasn’t certain if their tittering was because of their knowledge of the past affair or their amazement at Bart being accompanied by a titled lady. Most of them had been present for the discussion between Bart and his father two Christmases ago when Bart had made his feelings about the aristocracy, and his father’s ambitions among them, clear. It was not Bart’s proudest moment and one of the few times he’d lost control of himself during a debate. His father could rattle him in a way that would be the envy of every opposing counsel.
‘Lady Rexford, it’s a pleasure to have you here tonight,’ his mother greeted. ‘Allow me to introduce you to my daughters-in-law.’
The noise of the introductions and the overly zealous welcomes from the ladies caught his father’s attention. Lord Denning stood at the far side of the room, talking to a couple of men Bart vaguely remembered as having some connection to an arm of the Government. His father’s eyes went wide at the sight of Bart and then narrowed, his mouth drawing down into his usual disapproving frown. He didn’t so much as nod at Bart as he returned to his conversation, but it was clear from the tight grip on his claret glass that he was irked and it put Bart’s teeth on edge. His father was unhappy when Bart didn’t show up and unhappy when he did. He wished the man would bloody well make up his mind about what he wanted.
‘Lady Rexford, you must come and sit with us. We’re gossiping and we’ve run out of original stories to tell,’ Richard’s wife, Lucinda, encouraged, drawing Moira to the chairs where they’d been perched before Bart’s arrival.
‘I’m afraid I haven’t been in London long enough to gather any stories to share,’ Moira apologised, smiling with genuine delight at the ladies’ welcome.
‘Then it will give us a good reason to repeat our own,’ Mary, his second-eldest brother Stephen’s wife, laughed before they resumed their seats and began their tales.
Bart watched them, touched at how easily the ladies included Moira in their circle. If he were free to pursue any of the ideas she’d brought to his mind while she’d sat across from him in the carriage, as enticing then as the moment he’d turned to face her in her bedroom, then this would be a very welcome omen. Instead, it was another reminder of what they’d lost five years ago. If she’d been with him from the beginning, and they’d endured all the hardships and challenges of his life together, it would be a different thing altogether, but he couldn’t chain her to it now.
Bart’s brothers approached him, less interested in his companion than they were in what was occupying him of late. Bart described his last trial, and an upcoming case, unable to share with them his secret work. Despite having to hold back on the one subject, besides Moira, commanding his attention, the old rapport with his siblings was a heartening tonic against the scowls their father continued to lob at him. It’d been a long time since they’d been together like this, laughing and talking about old times. His brothers were men he admired and he missed the closeness they’d enjoyed as boys. With their father indifferent to everyone but Richard and Stephen, they’d banded together, loyal to their mother and each other. Time had pulled them apart, but not the bond which had once linked them. Bart missed it, and for this reason alone he considered coming here more often. He tugged on the cuffs of his shirt, aware of how he thought about this every time they were together, but never followed through on his pledge. His father’s presence made it difficult for him to enjoy being here.
‘Ignore him,’ Andrew suggested, offering Bart a glass of port when he caught Bart giving another sidelong glance to their glowering father.
‘I have been for years.’
‘Have you? Or is everything you’ve done been to spite him?’
‘Not everything.’ He glanced at Moira, who laughed at something his mother said. ‘But perhaps a good many things.’
‘At least you have the courage to admit it.’ His brother understood. He’d also refused a career in the clergy to pursue his interest in importing merchandise from abroad, but his quiet lifestyle as a well-to-do merchant whose name never appeared in the papers in connection with a notorious criminal or trial didn’t gather his father’s wrath like Bart’s did. ‘Not all of us do.’
He nodded at Stephen. Like Richard, he’d never experienced their father’s disdain in quite the same way as his younger brothers had when they were growing up. His sudden fall from grace when his importance to the line had diminished after Richard’s son was born was something he continued to wrestle with, often putting him at odds with his younger brothers.
A man waved for Andrew to join him and before he went he clapped Bart on the back. ‘Don’t give up. You still might garner his regard some day.’
‘Have you?’
‘Maybe not his regard, but a little more of his notice, and a little less of his churlishness.’ Raising his glass to Bart, Andrew strolled off to join the man who’d summoned him.
Bart regretted seeing him go, along with his other brothers as various matters soon drew them away until one by one Bart was left alone.
‘How am I doing?’ Moira asked as Bart came to sit beside her on the sofa, the place having been abandoned by the ladies when they rushed to greet yet another newcomer.
‘You’ve charmed them all.’ He set his untouched port on the table beside him. ‘But it isn’t the women you need to win over. It’s my father.’
She took in this stern man who continued to stand with his friends, having made no move to greet his son or his son’s female guest. ‘A formidable task, but during my marriage to Lord Rexford, I became adept at soothing over a crotchety old man.’
The thought of a man old enough to be her father with all the humourless joy of his own touching her killed his good mood. She was too young and pretty to have been sacrificed to Lord Rexford simply because her father had wished it. ‘You never should have had to learn a skill so intimately.’
‘My father did what he thought best for me,’ she said quietly, studying her hands where she rested them in her lap.
‘Was it?’
‘Fallworth Manor couldn’t support me, my aunt and Freddy and his family. My father was dying and afraid for my future. He arranged the match with Lord Rexford because he believed he was protecting me from a future of straitened circumstances,’ she explained with a kindness to make Bart ashamed at having railed against her father, and at one time her. ‘He couldn’t have known Walter would barely outlive him, that there’d be no children and the estate would go to his nephew, or that you’d rise so well in your career after I broke things off with you.’
She traced her ring finger which was bereft of whatever wedding band she’d once worn.
‘I’m so
rry for being so callous. I never realised the situation you were in.’ One of necessity and uncertainty in which she and her family had reached for what they’d viewed as the sure thing rather than taking a chance on a young man with no standing or fortune of his own.
His father had tried, in his own way, to do the same for Bart many years ago when he’d secured the curacy and a steady income. His father had been outraged the morning Bart, then sixteen, had refused his acceptance to Oxford and a career in the clergy by buying a commission. Instead of being proud, he’d railed at Bart for undermining his efforts to find him a good position and hoped he remembered the comfortable life he’d thrown away when he was dying in a ditch of typhoid fever in Germany. The hard bastard. His father hadn’t appreciated Bart’s desire to better himself and succeed through his own hard work, but had been furious he hadn’t followed his dictates, and in doing so, had caused him some embarrassment. In the end, it always came back to his father and how he imagined Bart’s actions reflected on him.
‘Decisions aren’t always easy to make, especially when things or situations are murky,’ Moira lamented.
‘Are they ever clear?’ Bart longed to take her hand and still the restless encircling of her finger. He was glad to see her wedding ring gone even if it didn’t mean a place for him in her life after this affair was over.
‘No, I don’t suppose they are,’ she agreed with a winsomeness to tell him she understood the obstacles between them. Moira craved the calm of domesticity and he wasn’t the man to offer it to her as the events of this afternoon had proven. ‘And they’re about to get a touch more difficult.’
She nodded across the room and Bart looked up to see his father approaching them.
‘I hope you’re ready to woo him.’
‘I’ll do my best.’
They rose to greet Lord Denning, who stopped before them, hands behind his back, less solicitous than the female members of his family.
‘You said you weren’t coming,’ he barked at Bart.