Her Perfect Gentleman: A Regency Romance Anthology
Page 67
“You. Startled. Me. You. Great. Looby.” She punctuated each word with a smash of his knuckles to the solid English oak. “And I almost had it.”
“Almost had what?” He whipped his hand free and clutched her shoulders to turn her to face him. “What are you doing?” Another crash came from behind the closed door.
She pushed him away and bent to look in the keyhole. When she straightened, the expression on her face gave him pause. Forget pause. It gave him fear for his life. She pushed him aside and started for the staircase at the end of the corridor. “Thanks to you I shall be forced to climb a ladder to see to my son.”
“A ladder?” He caught her by the elbow at the top of the stairs.
“What?” she fairly shouted. And apparently thought better of it as she clapped a hand over her mouth and leaned over the balustrade to peek down at the second-floor landing.
“Two questions.” He pulled her back a step and lowered his voice. “Why is your son locked in the nursery? And why do you need a ladder to get him out?”
She eyed him suspiciously. “How did you…”
He crossed his arms and gave her his “Did you really just ask that?” look.
“Humpf. I would ask why you are up here, but I don’t really care. Now if you will excuse me.” Distinctly harried, she tipped down the stairs with him close on her heels.
“Where are we going?” he asked. He followed her to the first floor and down the corridor to a door set into the paneling and silk wall paper. The servants’ stairs were narrow and worn and the new shoes he’d donned for dinner had slick soles. When he slipped the third time she grabbed his arm and dragged him down the last half dozen steps into the butler’s pantry.
“We aren’t going anywhere.” She stuck her head out the door, looked to the left and then right, slipped out, and slammed the door shut against his nose. He didn’t remember her being this much trouble. He sniffed. Copper. He smelled copper.
“Oww, dammit, Minerva, that was my nose. I’m bleeding.”
She snatched the door open and raised the candle in her hand. “You are not bleeding.”
Sebastian grinned. Worked every time. He shouldered his way out of the pantry and followed her into a cloak room behind the kitchens. “I want to talk to you, Minerva.”
“You have tendered an apology.” She threw a cumbersome wool shawl around her shoulders. “I accepted. We have nothing further to discuss. Good night, Colonel Brightworth.” She picked up her candle and placed it in the lantern hung by the door to the kitchen gardens. Her lush mouth set in a grim line, she stormed out of the house.
Sebastian contemplated the closed door. After a good night’s rest his charms and powers of persuasion might return to him. Yes, and pigs might fly in and fry themselves up for breakfast. “Peel, is that you standing behind me preparing to tell me I am an idiot?”
“I would never presume, Colonel Brightworth.” The butler stepped out of the noisy kitchens into the relative quiet of the cloak room.
“Is she truly going to try and get into the nursery with a ladder?”
“She did last time, sir. Lady Creighton insists on keeping the only other key and Mrs. Faircloth would rather her ladyship not know about Master Edward’s…”
“Need for a good caning?” Sebastian removed his new jacket and waistcoat and handed them to the butler. “Make certain Robbie gets those in case I have to be buried in them.”
“Very good, Colonel.”
Ever the watchful informant, Robbie had alerted Sebastian to the opportunity to come to Minerva’s aid. He had neglected to inform Sebastian as to the ladder climbing aspects of the task. A quick reconnaissance and Sebastian remembered where he’d find the spot beneath the nursery windows. The vigorous litany of decidedly female curses led him to a very agitated Minerva wrestling a tall ladder in the moonlight. Once again he was struck by how more deeply beautiful the woman was than the girl had been. The light of the full moon kissed her skin with lover’s lips. She threw her head back to check the position of the ladder. The sheen of moisture on her cheeks and brow engulfed him with the memory of her face in the throes of passion. He gulped for air.
“Are you going to stand there or will you make yourself useful and hold the ladder?”
“What?” Something in the night air had washed out the bridge between his intellect and his tongue. Or someone.
“Oh for pity’s sake.” Minerva tied the shawl around her waist and tucked her skirts up over it. Her hands on the side rails and her foot on the bottom rung set Sebastian in motion. He grabbed her by the hips and dragged her off the ladder.
“You are not going up a ladder in that gown.” He tested his shoe on the first rung and started to climb.
Minerva clutched his forearm. “He won’t open the window to you. Let me go. You hold the ladder.”
Sebastian closed his eyes for two slams of his heart against his ribcage. The warmth of her hand seeped through the fine lawn of his shirt and settled into his skin. Damn. He gathered his cocky smile and arrogant tone for a volley.
“Minerva, I have been here less than a day. In that time, you have dropped a tea tray, decimated a flower arrangement, nearly broken a very expensive vase, fallen on your back like a green silk turtle, slammed a door on my nose, and flung a sharp piece of metal into my eye. Neither of us dares to imagine what will happen should I hold this ladder for you to ascend to the nursery.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” She was even prettier when she was outraged. “And most of it is entirely your fault, Colonel Brightworth.”
He took her hand off his arm and breathed a brief kiss onto her fingertips. “It is flattering to a gentleman to know a lady is made clumsy by his very presence.”
She snatched her hand back. “Clumsy? Clumsy!” She tried to tug him off the ladder.
“Leave off, your ladyship. I am trying to save you from being pushed down the aisle to meet your groom in a bath chair. Stay. Here.” He clambered up the ladder out of her reach.
“I am not anyone’s ladyship. Yet. Nor am I a dog, sir.” Her voice floated up into the half-light produced by the full moon through the trees. Lilacs and night air followed her words and eddied in the dark around him.
“That much is clear, madam. Dogs do as they are told.” He smiled at the mere thought of her outrage.
“I would be shocked to know you own a dog. Dogs are an expense. Like wives.”
She had every right to fling his words back at him. Creighton and Fitzhugh made certain he did not doubt it as they passed around the port after dinner. Those words had hurt her and he’d never meant to hurt her. Not because of the task he was here to perform. Or the money. Hurting her had been the hardest thing he’d ever had to do. And yet he’d come all this way to hurt her again.
“Can you see him? Colonel?”
He placed his hands on the casement and peered through the window. A battle of some sort had been fought in the nursery. The victor now sat on a pile made of an upturned table, a three-legged chair, broken dishes, and the possible remains of his dinner. Unperturbed, Minerva’s son looked to be scrutinizing Creighton’s much-read Tales of King Arthur.
“The boy is fine. I cannot say the same for the nursery.” Sebastian worked to raise the window. The ladder began to shake. She wouldn’t, would she? A small hand wrapped around his calf. Of course, she would.
“What has he done? Are you certain he is unharmed?” Please, God, don’t let her climb any higher.
“He is fine. We, however, are going to land in Lady Creighton’s rhododendrons if you don’t get back on the ground where you belong.”
“Stubble it and open the window. This ladder isn’t as sturdy as I thought it was.”
From the sound of her voice he tried to imagine where her lips might be. Mistake. Huge mistake. Well, not quite not huge yet, but getting there. “The ladder isn’t the only thing on shaky ground,” he muttered.
“What did you say?”
“I said… What the devil!” Her head b
rushed his hip. Her hand landed on his left buttock. “Minerva, stop!”
“Do cease shouting at me. I am trying to see to my child.” Mercifully, her hand shifted to clutch the back of his shirt.
“We are both going to see St. Peter if you do not stop molesting me and allow me to climb into the nursery and open the door for you.” The window budged a bit. Sebastian slipped his fingers in the gap and worked to raise it higher.
“Molesting you? Don’t be ridiculous. I am more concerned a fall will have us seeing Lady Creighton.” Her head brushed the back of his bicep. Even through the fabric of his shirt the silk of her hair sent a delicious shiver down his spine.
The window screeched and rose several inches. “If we fall from this height and end up seeing Lady Creighton we will know two things.”
“And what might that be?” She took a step down the ladder. A cool evening breeze too the place of her warmth across his back.
“First, we will know we have both been very naughty.”
“And second?”
“The rumors are true, and the devil is entertaining his aunt.”
“The devil is… Colonel Brightworth! Lady Creighton is not the devil’s aunt.”
“I stand corrected.” Damn, the window stood open barely enough for him to wriggle inside. It refused to give another inch.
“She’s his twin sister at the very least.”
The ladder shook with their laughter. He’d feared the last nine years had stolen her wicked sense of humor. It was merely hidden beneath the perfect-wife-for-an-earl façade. And once she became a countess in fact? It did not bear contemplation. Not on his part. Not anymore.
“Are you going inside or will you concede it is better for me to confront Edward?” Her voice came from several steps down. Dare he hope she might be persuaded to go back into the house and wait for him to open the door? Knowing Minerva, not a chance in hell.
“I will go. You stay where you are and once you are assured all is well—”
“I don’t remember you being this talkative before you went off to war.”
“I remember putting my mouth to better use in your presence before I went off to war.” He waited for her response. Either he’d shocked her into silence or she contemplated his violent death. Discretion being the better part of valor, Sebastian stuck his head into the nursery and levered his shoulders and arms over the window sill.
“Who are you?”
Sebastian looked up, half in and half out of the window. “I’m Colonel Brightworth.”
The lad remained seated atop the shambles he’d made of his dinner. He nodded gravely, as if a stranger crawling through his window happened every day.
“Might I beg your assistance?” He had little experience with children. Perhaps Minerva was right, but the thought of her hanging out of a window terrified him. He extended one arm and stuck his hand out to the boy. “Can you pull me inside, Mr. Faircloth? I appear to be stuck.”
“Is my mother with you?” He turned another page, but did not look up from the book.
“Ladies do not climb ladders.” What an odd child. Sebastian placed his palms flat on the thick Turkey carpet and tried to drag himself from beneath the sinking window.
“My mother does. She’s done it three times.” Green eyes, Minerva’s eyes, peered at him from beneath a thick mop of chestnut hair. Roger Faircloth’s hair. And a thinner, paler version of the man’s face.
“A gentleman does not make it necessary for a lady to climb a ladder. Ooff!” The window casement dropped onto his back.
“I’m not a gentleman.” The truculent child flung the book onto the bed across the room and with some effort gained his feet. “I’m a cripple.” Chin up and fists clenched, he glared defiantly at Sebastian.
From his position, trapped between the window and the floor, he saw it at once. Edward Faircloth’s left foot, though encased in a leather boot made to match the right as much as possible, was obviously clubbed. No one had bothered to tell him. Why would they? In good Society, children had a place – out of the way, out of sight, out of mind until needed. He, Creighton, and Fitzhugh had spent many an hour in this nursery whilst on holiday from school because Creighton’s parents had little use for him so long as he stayed healthy and grew up to do his duty. Sebastian had never had occasion to speak with any child, let alone one with an infirmity. This wanted a delicacy and kindness he had not possessed in a long time. If ever.
The ladder began to bang against his legs. Minerva had some explaining to do, but not from the top of a ladder. Devil take it. He closed his eyes and flung his back up against the window. It moved. An inch or two. He heard something very like a boyish giggle. However, by the time he opened his eyes a stoic eight-year-old countenance glared into his. To hell with kindness.
“For a cripple you’ve done a dashed good job of destroying Creighton’s nursery.” Heaven help him if Minerva heard. “Get over here and pull me in before your mother comes up here, climbs over me, and lands us both in the cemetery.”
For a moment, the boy looked at him as if he were some sort of sea creature washed up on a beach. “No need to shout at me,” he groused, one side of his mouth twitching to grin. A few halted strides and he grasped Sebastian’s outstretched hand and leaned back, both feet planted firmly on the floor. “You’re heavier than Mama.”
Sebastian pushed against the wall beneath the window sill with his free hand. And reminded himself to give Minerva a good caning for putting herself in a position where her son had to drag her into a room from the damned window. Without warning he shot free of his casement prison and landed face first on the floor. Thank heavens for thick carpets. The sound of wood shushing upward caught his ear. He glanced up to find young Edward’s gaze fixed on the window in an attitude of horrified chagrin.
“Dearest, are you all right? Why did you lock the door? Aaack!” Minerva fell into the room and landed, decidedly not on the floor, but on top of Sebastian. Her offspring, sneaky little blighter, hadn’t offered a word of warning. Sebastian hadn’t the strength to groan.
What he did have were several sensations that had no business in the nursery. The sort a man had when a warm, silk-clad woman ended up with her head resting on his arse and her hot hands clutching handfuls of his shirt. He rolled over to help her to her feet. Worst idea in a long line of bad ideas. She loosed her hold on his shirt as if it were on fire. It wasn’t. He was. Lust blazed through him from every spot where her body was pressed to his. And her flushed face was on a level with his…
He truly could not help it.
Sebastian raised himself on his elbows, cocked an eyebrow, and grinned.
In return he received a glare frosty enough to freeze a Spanish July. “Oooh!” Minerva planted one hand on his stomach, the other on his hip, and pushed herself into a crouch over his prone body, her face now nose to nose with his. “Reprobate,” she muttered. She lurched to her feet.
“Minerva, for the love of— Have mercy. You just stepped on my— Hell and the devil!” The woman managed to step on one of his hands, both of his knees, and a portion of his anatomy that had grown hard as one of Lord Elgin’s marble statues whilst she scrambled about on top of him.
“Don’t shout at my mother!” A reedy childish voice penetrated Sebastian’s haze of pain and indignation. A tirade of ear-splitting barking erupted from beneath the bed.
“I wasn’t shouting.” Sebastian shifted himself onto one knee. “What the hell!” A long reddish sausage with fur latched onto his forearm. The more he tried to shake it free the harder it bit. Ferocious growls emanated from deep in its chest.
“Precious, let the man go.” Minerva set to pry the creature from his flesh. “I am so sorry, Colonel.” He’d have believed the sincerity of her apology had it not been delivered whilst laughing. Oddly enough, he didn’t mind. Her laughter enthralled him. “Edward, take her before she bites me.” A fate she narrowly missed as “Precious?” turned her toothy attentions to her once her snout was made to let go o
f Sebastian.
He tugged a relatively clean serviette from the wreckage of Master Edward’s dinner and wiped at the blood on his arm. It appeared the dog had few teeth. Mercifully the ones it did have were either small or dull or both. His new shirt had taken the brunt of the attack.
“You did better than Lord Creighton.” The boy stood, shoulders hunched and hands in pockets, a look of grudging respect on his face. “He had tears in his eyes after Precious bit him.”
“Creighton? She bit Creighton and he wept?”
Minerva rolled his sleeve up away from the wound and took the serviette from him. “She bit Lord Creighton in a somewhat more delicate portion of his anatomy.” She tied off the makeshift bandage and let her eyes fall to Sebastian’s crotch.
“I’d have wept too.”
“Quite so.”
“I have a horse I would love to introduce to your dog, Mr. Faircloth.”
“You are still riding Lovey?” Minerva’s expression hovered somewhere between aghast and amused. “The poor grooms.” She touched her fingers to her lips in that Minerva way. He knew no other words to describe it. It haunted his dreams. Her eyes sparkling dew-lit bright and her lips quivering behind delicate fingers. It never failed to make him smile. It meant she was happy. What had he landed himself in, coming here to take on Creighton’s ridiculous task?
Sebastian drew himself to his full height and clasped his hands behind his back in his best Colonel Brightworth pose. “Mr. Faircloth, you owe your Mama an apology.”
“Colonel.” Minerva’s firm tone and pleading eyes needled at him. From long experience Sebastian knew the boy needed this far more than she did.
Edward dropped his head and scrubbed the toe of his good foot across the green and gold carpet.
“You disobeyed her request to open the door. You forced her to climb a ladder to see to you. What did I tell you about ladders and ladies?” He ignored Minerva’s frantic throat clearing.
“A gentleman does not make it necessary for a lady to climb a ladder,” he mumbled.
“And are you a gentleman?” Sebastian struggled to maintain his stern visage and austere tone.