Duty performed, he strode rapidly after Jocelyn. In his experience with his own family, domestic crises were usually resolved without his aid, but perhaps if he settled this one swiftly, his wife might be returned to a receptive mood—
He forgot that pleasant thought upon entering the narrow foyer and cracking his shin on a large wooden crate. He could hear the maid and footman shouting at each other in the back of the house, out of sight. Jocelyn’s usually unruffled tones were sharp and anxious in response. But he could not rush forward to end the dispute without falling over a few dozen containers and the unfamiliar woman bent over them, obliviously unpacking books and papers and stacking them across the floor.
Giving up any hope of sweeping Jocelyn off her feet and into bed, Blake politely removed his hat and bowed. “Good evening, madam.” He could not be faulted for ending on a questioning note. He was fairly certain he’d never met the woman before.
With strands of long gray hair slipping from beneath a cap that oddly sported a quill tucked into a ribbon, the rail-thin lady studied him for a moment. “Tony’s brother is back,” she announced before gesturing at an unopened box. “I’m sure it’s in that one. If you would be so good?”
She handed him a crowbar.
Before Blake could decide if he was disarming a lunatic, aiding a trespasser, or rescuing someone locked in a box, Jocelyn reappeared. “Mother, what did you say to Richard? He is not anywhere about, and he promised he would not leave without me.”
Mother? Blake suffered a foreboding that warned him to head for his loft now, but proper etiquette had been ingrained in him since birth. He waited expectantly for an introduction.
“I merely told him that Harold boasted he’d sold Africa to the greengrocer in town. He would have found out anyway. We need to remove these crates to the study, where they belong. I think I should like the rose bedroom, if you do not mind. It has a good view of the river in winter.” She took the crowbar from Blake and attacked the container she’d ordered him to open.
“You told Richard where to find Africa at this hour?” Jocelyn cried.
Blake had had just about enough of being ignored. He grabbed the crowbar and stopped the destruction of the crate. Both women turned to stare at him in bewilderment.
“Lady Carrington?” he asked in a voice heavy with irony.
Jocelyn stepped upon a container between them and flung her arms around his neck. He’d be gratified except he knew she wanted something and that it would be directly opposed to his own desires. But her breasts pressing against his chest had a way of distracting his wits. If this was her method of settling arguments, he might grow used to it.
“I’m so sorry, Blake. I did not mean to immerse you in our family dramas so soon. I’ll take care of it, I promise. Shall I have Molly bring you a brandy and light a fire in the study? Please, ignore all this—”
Damn it all! She would never learn he did not want coddling like the rest of her harebrained relations. He cut her off by squeezing her close, stealing a quick kiss, and setting her back on the floor. “I do not want brandy if Richard is missing. Africa is his bird, I take it?”
He refrained from rolling his eyes at the family squabble that ensued—joined by the maid’s protests—and applied himself to keeping the crowbar from Lady Carrington, who evidently meant to take squatter’s possession of his home by emptying her treasures in the front foyer. And everyone called the lady an invalid? He’d hate to see the dowager viscountess in full health then.
Once Blake had sorted through the recriminations and had the story, he assigned the footman to carry the boxes to the carriage house, ordered the maid to douse the lamps, and donned his hat again.
“I’ll find Richard. You settle your mother,” he told Jocelyn, who looked ready to follow him out the door.
“Richard won’t go with you,” she said worriedly, twisting her hands. “I’m the one he trusts.”
“Then he needs to learn to trust me. You cannot go out at this hour.” He glared sternly at her. “Remember, I told you, I have my uses. And I don’t need coddling.”
Blake stalked out, and Jocelyn nearly wept in panic. In the past, Richard’s wanderings had caused hysterical arguments in every home they’d ever lived in. His disappearances—and the ensuing search and anxiety—were one of the many reasons Harold had threatened to lock him up and her brothers-in-law had thrown them out.
She couldn’t be thrown out of this home. Blinking back tears as she repeated that refrain, Jocelyn steadied her shaking fingers on the newel post. This home was hers.
And instead of shouting and complaining like the rest of her family, Blake had stepped in to help. She hadn’t asked him to accept responsibility for her burdens—he simply had. That raised a very odd sensation in her neglected heart.
She regarded her mother with resignation. “You could have given me some warning, Mother,” she said with a sigh. “I thought you were happy with Elizabeth.”
“Nonsense, dear, this is home. You’ve chosen a fine young man, but really, we can’t put my papers outside. We’ve always kept them in the study. If you’ll help—”
“No, Mother, the study is Blake’s. He does important work there. We’ll figure out something in the morning. Did they carry your trunks to the rose bedroom? Let’s see if they’ve been unpacked. How was your journey? You look well.”
With each sentence or question, she steered her mother away from the crates and up the stairs. She desperately wished to go in search of Richard, but Blake was right—again. Even a simple village could be dangerous at this late hour. She prayed Richard was safe and would not hide if he saw Blake coming.
She settled her mother in the rose bedroom at the back of the house, had Molly bring up hot tea and start a fire in the grate, while listening for the sound of Blake and Richard returning. She didn’t know how many nights she’d spent fretting over her brother while soothing her mother or sisters. It felt extremely odd to have someone sharing the responsibility that had been solely hers these last six years, and longer.
“It is very hard to trace Charlemagne’s origins,” Lady Carrington complained, settling into bed with her tea tray. “It is quite unfair that Tony’s brother might come and go from France when I am the one who must talk with scholars there.”
Antoinette’s brother was French and probably had not visited in years. With a war going on, a journey back in time would be just as likely as one to France, but Jocelyn bit back a retort. At least she understood her mother. Lady Carrington was a historian who took comfort in a past of medieval courts and kings. Would Blake comprehend her mother’s peculiarity?
Jocelyn could appreciate that dealing with family eccentricities might make Blake cynical, but her case was the exact opposite of his. While the Montagues huddled together, chirruping sympathetically to one another over any disaster, the Carringtons followed their own independent interests to the exclusion of all else, including one another.
She’d unwittingly followed that familiar path when she’d paid off Harold without consulting Blake. In her experience, trusting others was a road to ruin. How would she ever explain that to her white knight? Or learn to change her ways?
If Blake would just bring Richard safely home and not threaten to throw her out on her ear, she would figure it out.
Blake returned in the wee hours of the morning with a weeping Richard and no parrot. If he hadn’t suspected something wasn’t quite right about the boy before, he knew it now, although he could not quite analyze the difficulty. He just knew no normal lad of seventeen would ingeniously determine the best way of breaking into the greengrocer’s at midnight without causing alarm, then do nothing more than wander about, calling loudly for a bird.
It had taken powers of persuasion Blake had not known he’d possessed to prevent the grocer from waking the magistrate, and to convince Richard to come home. Having to leave the bird behind once it had been discovered had compounded the difficulty.
As Blake guided Richard into the now
empty foyer, the sight of Jocelyn asleep in one of the ancient chairs in the front room added to Blake’s aggravation. Rationally, he understood that none of this situation was her fault. He would like nothing better than to shake every member of the Carrington family until what little wits they possessed fell out their ears for leaving Jocelyn, their next to youngest, to deal with her addlepated brother and mother.
But in every other way, Blake was reduced to the towering fury of a tantrum-throwing toddler. His life was meant to be sane. Orderly. Following the path of intellectual pursuits. Cryptology appealed to him because it made perfectly logical sense.
People didn’t.
“You made Jocelyn cry,” he scolded Richard. “You promised you would stay home, and you scared her when you weren’t here. I don’t want you to do that again, do you understand?”
Richard nodded miserably, although Blake suspected the boy did not fully comprehend and might not even remember in the morning. He needed to have a little talk with his wife about Richard’s limitations.
“Go up to your room. We’ll talk about Africa in the morning.”
This time, Richard nodded a little more eagerly. As the lad hurried for the stairs, Blake sighed and turned to his sleeping bride. She hadn’t changed out of her elegant evening gown, but her hair was tumbling from its pins, and red creases marred her cheek where it had been pressed into the rough fabric of the chair.
He turned the lamp down to its lowest setting, placed it on a stand so he could see the stairs, then lifted Jocelyn into his arms. She stirred and snuggled close to his chest, murmuring, “Richard?”
“He’s safe,” Blake assured her.
That was apparently all she needed to hear before curling up against him and falling back to sleep. Blake had to wonder how exhausted she must be to sleep so heavily no matter where she lay. The second day of their marriage had admittedly been wearying. He couldn’t take advantage of her exhaustion.
He had to keep reminding himself that behind his wife’s delicate beauty lurked a deceptive mind. He shouldn’t feel sorry for her. Instead, he was wondering just what kind of life she must have had with a dotty mother, a felonious older brother, three apparent harpies for sisters, and a younger brother with wits to let.
That didn’t mean he had to encourage her deceptive practices or allow her to work her sticky web around him. He had a purpose that ran counter to hers.
Carrying his sleeping beauty up the stairs, he nearly tripped over a wandering kitten, came down hard on his weak leg, and cursed before righting himself again. He ought to be awarded medals for surviving the combat zone he now called home.
He wasn’t thirty yet. There was still time to get himself killed by kittens, stairs, and French thieves before his next birthday.
25
Jocelyn woke with her corset crushed into her breast and a man’s heavy arm around her waist. She inhaled sharply and went from groggy to wide awake in an instant.
Beneath the covers pulled up to her shoulders, she was still wearing her evening gown, although it and the corset had been loosened, exposing a scandalous amount of bosom. She squirmed, and the arm at her waist tightened.
“Don’t move. I’m not awake yet,” Blake grumbled from behind her.
“Then you need to do a better job of unfastening me,” she countered, wriggling to adjust the corset stay that was cutting into her flesh.
A male hand instantly tugged at her back laces, loosening them before she could scarce take a breath at his audacity.
“You found Richard,” she said, seeking confirmation that she had not dreamed hearing him last night. Or dreamed of being carried up the steps.
“And we need to waylay him before he attempts to sneak out again this morning.”
The hand around her waist slid upward, pushing aside silk and loosened stays to locate her breast, clothed only in frail linen. Jocelyn suffered unseemly urges as her husband’s fingers found her nipple. She shifted in discomposure, not knowing how to deal with the physical needs he aroused.
“Then shouldn’t we be getting up?” she asked testily.
“I am,” he mumbled, pulling her closer.
He was wearing only breeches. Her nearly bare back pressed into Blake’s bare chest, and Jocelyn swallowed hard at the intimate contact. The bulge pressing against her bottom added to her alarm.
“No time,” she stated flatly, pulling away from the fascinating shelter of his arms and throwing back the covers to let the morning air cool them.
He rolled over and buried his face in a pillow after she slid from his grasp. “I cannot take much more of this.”
She tumbled from the bed before her husband decided to assert his marital rights. He had every legal and moral right to do so, she knew. It was just a matter of time before he claimed her. And she wanted him to show her more of the pleasure he’d taught her. But in her experience, pleasure seldom lasted long and usually ended in disaster. She had better things to do than tempt fate.
She wanted to resent Blake for breaking her happy bubble of believing he despised her and would be delighted to live elsewhere. But if she was honest with herself, she knew Blake had never hidden his intentions. She had known from that first kiss that he was a man of passion. And her heart fluttered at the thought of having a real marriage, one that involved kisses and caresses and more. If only she could believe in happiness . . .
Retreating behind a dressing screen, Jocelyn shed her crushed gown, washed, and tugged on a simple morning dress with drawstrings instead of hooks. She hadn’t dared take on the expense of a personal maid. Molly had helped fasten her hooks last night, but the housemaid had more important duties, like stoking fires in the morning.
Now that her mother was here, they could help each other dress, as before.
Or—Blake could help her.
The images of such intimacy shivered Jocelyn down to her toes, so she mentally shut them out. She tugged on stockings, tied garters, and listened to her husband grumble and the bedpost squeak as he rolled out.
She hadn’t braided her hair last night. Blake must have removed the pins because it tumbled in heavy lengths down her back. She hastily rolled it around her hand and pinned it to the back of her head, covering the mess with a cap.
Taking a deep breath, she dared step from behind the screen.
Silhouetted against the dawn light coming through the lacy curtains, Blake stood bare-chested and rumpled. A river of dark hair flowed down his broad torso to his partially unfastened breeches. He was all magnificent male animal, glaring at her blearily while rubbing his whiskered jaw.
She gulped, but before she had a chance to escape, he strode around the bed and ripped the cap off her head, flinging it to the dressing table, and bringing all that raw masculinity entirely too close for comfort.
“Why do women hide their hair?” He yanked out her pins until the tresses tumbled to her waist again. “You were gifted with all this glory and you hide it under abominable gewgaws. I’ll never understand.”
Before she could even think of a stunned reply, he dragged her into his arms and kissed her.
It was a kiss of possession. One that laid claim to her soul and warned he would not be put off much longer. It was a kiss that weakened her knees and her will and would have her pulling him down on the bed if she did not have the nagging reminder of family impressed upon her brain.
She pushed free, her palms encountering broad, muscled flesh and freezing there for just a moment before she could step away.
She couldn’t meet his eyes. “There are things I—”
He grabbed a clump of her hair, preventing her from fleeing, while reaching for a brush on the dressing table. “Let me braid it until your maid can see to it. I told Richard we will speak properly to the grocer this morning about Africa, so I suppose we must be ready, or like a child on Boxing Day, he will be anxiously wandering the halls.”
Jocelyn sighed, gave up her fretting, and succumbed to the pleasure of Blake running the bristles thr
ough snarls and tangles, gently working them loose. “Richard is not entirely a child,” she said. “He’s simply been allowed to behave like one since it’s easier than dealing with his hysteria. He’s capable of quite complex thought.”
“He put all my puzzles back together, so I gathered that last part,” Blake said dryly. “Do the physicians know what’s wrong with him?”
His strong hands holding her steady while gently teasing her tresses apart distracted her thinking no end. She kept waiting for his fingers to stray—She caught her breath imagining his hands on her breasts and tried to stay with the conversation.
“My father called in the best physicians when it became apparent Richard was not normal. Their treatments only made him worse. He is not a moron, as Harold calls him. He can learn and probably knows more than all of us put together. He just does not do well with people.”
“Does he analyze numbers and letters as well? I may give him the wheel and let him work out the cipher.” He gently massaged her head as if he needed to be doing while thinking.
“He is obsessed with birds,” Jocelyn said with a sigh of pleasure at his stroking. “He has written scientific treatises on the behavior of wild water fowl, then pitched a fit and shut himself in a wardrobe after we’ve removed chicken eggs from under his pillow. His interest in your puzzles is surprising, but he’ll read anything set before him until his birds distract him. I cannot predict what will arouse his curiosity.”
Blake’s hands on her acted as a catharsis for all the fears locked up inside her. It was a relief to finally speak of her brother’s troubles to someone who was not shouting to have Richard locked in an attic like a madman. “His behavior was much more amenable when we lived here.”
“Stability,” Blake suggested. “He lived here all his life and knew what to expect from one day to the next.”
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