“You are a good brother,” Daniel said. “Recall that Bellefonte has a countess, just as you have Digby’s mother to while away an idle hour or two with.”
“Or three.”
The earl’s coat was open, suggesting he’d departed the household in some haste. He took the gazebo’s opposite bench with the air of one escaping a madhouse.
“They’re already planning the next assembly,” he said, darting a glance toward the grand edifice flanking the garden. “Witches never stirred their cauldrons as gleefully as those women plan a lot of stomping, twirling silliness. Banks, what would a sermon expounding on the evils of dancing cost me? Frame your answer carefully, for I hold the Haddondale living.”
George nudged the earl’s boot with his own. “Last I heard, the manse was riddled with bats and creeping damp, Lord Sober Generosity. Mice droppings on the pantry floor, spiders in the stairwells. You’ll be lucky to get a drunken Dissenter to minister to the flock when that gets out.”
His lordship thwacked a large boot against his brother’s toes, a beat and rebeat of the fraternal variety.
“Oh, you’re a great help, George. Mr. Banks, you see the disrespect a belted earl endures from his own siblings. The manse can be set to rights when the weather warms up.”
“Replacing rotten wood will take forever, Nicholas,” George retorted. “Mr. Banks needs accommodations now if he’s to tutor the young scholars of the parish.”
“I beg your pardon, Mr. Haddonfield,” Daniel interjected, “I haven’t agreed to tutor anybody.” Particularly not a troop of little anybodies who’d make Danny’s absence from Daniel’s life even more painful.
But then rattling around the earl’s house for weeks, dodging the scolds—and kisses—of a certain forthright lady wasn’t a wise plan, either.
The long-dormant rotten boy in Daniel stirred to life: dodging Lady Kirsten’s scolds—and kisses—might be enjoyable.
Not dodging them would be even more enjoyable—also wicked.
“I’m happy to explain Latin to the youth of the parish,” Daniel went on, “but one typically undertakes that effort at the vicarage, where the occasional boy can live in. His lordship can’t have a pack of juvenile miscreants running tame about the earldom’s very seat.”
“I can’t?” Bellefonte asked—wistfully?
“You can’t,” George said. “Get your own little miscreants, Nicholas. You can’t have mine. Besides, Banks isn’t after making tree forts, dams, and tin soldier battles with these boys, he’s to educate them.”
“Banks,” Daniel said repressively, “has agreed to teach Latin to one small, most well-mannered child, not bring discipline to a Highland regiment.”
Both brothers peered at him, and before Daniel’s eyes, fraternal schemes blossomed in the sunny, muddy garden. A precocious turtledove cooed from the direction of the stable, then the earl and Mr. Haddonfield spoke at once.
“The dower house,” they pronounced.
The earl took the conversational reins and set off at a brisk trot. “Harold Blumenthal asked me when you’re removing to the vicarage because he has two boys, right terrors, both in need of preparation for public school. He wanted to make sure you were settled in among us before he sprang the boys on you.”
Harder for an unsuspecting vicar to blow a hasty retreat after he’d set up camp, in other words.
“Are these young gentlemen twins?” Twins had the ability to anticipate one another’s thoughts, in Daniel’s experience. This gift in the hands of mischievous boys boded ill for tutors, governesses, and sleeping dogs.
Boys like that would love a manse infested with bats and spiders.
“They’re the kind of twins you can’t tell apart,” George said. “Every other generation, the Blumenthals produce a matched set. The last time it was a pair of girls, and they were said to have turned Mad King George’s head in their day. Both of them. At the same time, as it were.”
While the Haddonfields had produced half a regiment of attractive blonds, some of whom were indiscriminate kissers.
“As pleasing a prospect as instruction of these budding ne’er-do-wells might be,” Daniel said, “we have yet to settle the matter of a venue for their education.”
“Oh, we’ve settled that,” his lordship said, crossing a pair of worn riding boots at the ankle. “A little vinegar and scrubbing, some beeswax and lemon oil, and the dower house will provide as much room for the little dears as you please. And just think, if they’ve a notion to build a tree fort, I’m on hand to assist.”
The aristocracy must be allowed their queer starts. Both brothers were grinning hugely.
“Nicholas builds the best tree forts,” Mr. Haddonfield pronounced, “but don’t let him start on any tunnels. Our papa had nightmares about Nick’s brilliance as a sapper.”
Mr. Haddonfield and his brother were grown men, raised with every privilege, and yet, hiding from their womenfolk on a crisp afternoon, they were also simply a pair of brothers, shamelessly fond of each other, fiercely loyal, and trying to adjust to Mr. Haddonfield’s recent departure from the earl’s household.
Danny deserved the same sort of allies in adulthood, not simply the impotent protectiveness of an uncle aging in the solitude of some moldy vicarage.
“Shall I remove my effects to this dower house?” Daniel asked, rising. He could be packed up and gone from the Belle Maison manor within the hour—a sensible prospect, surely. A prudent man removed himself from temptation rather than repeatedly imperiling his honor and his immortal soul.
The earl and his brother rose as well, his lordship leading the exodus from the gazebo.
“My countess won’t have you moving out just yet, Banks,” the earl said. “The dower house will need some attention first.”
“A lot of attention,” Mr. Haddonfield added, bringing up the rear. “Lady Bellefonte will want to see the undertaking done properly.”
“Not Lady Bellefonte,” his lordship replied, wrinkling a splendid nose. “She’s consumed with the details of Della’s come-out. I would say Nita is the one to take on the task, but she’s abandoned us for her sheep count, so that leaves—”
“Kirsten,” Mr. Haddonfield concluded. “She’s the best one for the job, if you ask me. Kirsten could domesticate a dungeon so a man would want to linger among its comforts. A pity, really.”
“This way,” Bellefonte directed, leading Daniel around the side of the house. “We can enter the library directly, and George can dodge the pickets.”
Mr. Haddonfield halted in the knot garden. “I ought to say hello to the ladies, Nick. I can’t exactly claim I came over here to tend my correspondence.”
“They’ll hold you prisoner until supper,” his lordship groused. “Then I will have to work on my accounts, which Vicar will frown upon because it’s the Sabbath.”
Daniel had been known to glance at his accounts of a Sunday—a brief exercise, in his case.
“My guess,” Daniel said, “is that Mr. Haddonfield came to borrow a few children’s books from the library. Digby has a restless imagination, and will benefit from new material. Mr. Haddonfield stayed to play a game or two of chess with me—he’s the courteous sort—and to discuss his stepson’s education.”
“That’s not even a lie,” the earl marveled. “Banks, you’re good. You’re virtuous, but you’re also good.”
“The Archbishop of Haddondale gets the sofa nearest the fire,” Mr. Haddonfield allowed, resuming their progress. “His Reverence needs his rest if he’s taking on the Blumenthal Brats.”
When all three men had dispensed with coats and boots, Daniel lay back on the sofa of honor nearest the blazing fire. The earl was already snoring in a capacious wing chair, stockinged feet up on a hassock, while Mr. Haddonfield had grabbed a pillow and sprawled on the blue sofa against the inside wall.
The library was quiet, peaceful, an
d cozy—a fine place to begin contemplation of next week’s sermon.
Or to recall a soft, sweet kiss that must not, for any reason, be repeated. Ever.
Five
Kirsten’s Sunday afternoon followed a pattern: the ladies embroidered, knitted, tatted lace, and otherwise avoided doing anything interesting, while the menfolk snored for an hour or so in the library, then stole off to Nicholas’s woodworking shop to tipple and whittle.
The enforced inactivity grated on Kirsten’s spirit, but because Sunday was a half day for the servants, she could at least escape to the kitchen in the name of assembling a tea tray.
A footman would bring the tray up for her—she’d committed the mortal sin of poking her head into the servants’ parlor to ask for that assistance—so when her errand was completed, Kirsten simply barged into the countess’s parlor unannounced.
“Mr. Banks reminds me of Christopher Sedgewick,” Della was saying, “though I daresay Mr. Banks’s charm is more enduring than Mr. Sedgewick’s proved to be.”
And there, predictably, the conversation went headlong into the nearest muddy ditch.
The countess’s expression turned resolutely cheerful. “Kirsten, were you able to find us a fresh pot and some biscuits?”
Mr. Banks isn’t anything like Christopher Sedgewick.
“You have a point, Della,” Kirsten said, mildly of course. “Both Mr. Sedgewick and Mr. Banks are tall, dark haired, brown eyed, and well-favored, if you don’t mind a bit of a nose on a fellow. Mr. Banks has the more pleasing voice, probably developed of necessity when one frequents a pulpit.”
Kirsten took a seat near the window, where Nita had liked to sit. What had Nicholas imparted to his spouse regarding the estimable Mr. Sedgewick or the estimable Viscount Morton?
Or any of Kirsten’s former beaus and suitors?
“Was your mission successful?” Susannah asked. “George will doubtless be over to look in on Nicholas, and there’s an end to our ginger biscuits.”
Hang the damned biscuits. “The tea tray will be along directly,” Kirsten said, and because her sisters were looking anywhere but at her, she added, “I expect we’ll see Mr. Sedgewick and his lady in Town this spring. I understand her confinement concluded happily before Christmas.”
With a son, of course. A son at Yuletide in the biblical tradition, to ensure that the earldom to which Mr. Sedgewick himself was heir continued for yet another generation.
“Now that we’ve run Nicholas off with talk of dancing and punch recipes, we need poetry,” Susannah announced. “Wordsworth, to hasten spring with thoughts of lambs, daffodils, and new life.”
That comment hurt, though Suze was simply trying to leave Sedgewick in the conversational dust.
Kirsten rose, lest she put her fist through the nearest window. “I’ll find us some cheerful verse, though I doubt the snow will last even another day. The sun has already turned the churchyard nearly to a bog.”
The sun had also brought out red highlights in the new vicar’s hair as he’d stood on the church steps, visiting with his flock. Kirsten had particularly liked the look of him in earnest discussion with George and Elsie’s boy, Digby.
Not many pastors would take the time to converse with a child when a pat on the head would have sufficed.
Kirsten let herself into the library and came to an abrupt halt.
Nicholas had last been spied striding across the garden, presumably on the way to his woodworking shop in the stable. Neither he nor George, who might have been expected to come calling, were in evidence.
Kirsten’s brothers had apparently been a corrupting influence on Mr. Banks, though, for he lay on the sofa closest to the fire. In the entire library, that spot enjoyed the greatest warmth and privacy, for the sofa’s back faced the room.
She closed the door soundlessly and prepared to trespass, for Mr. Banks in repose was an intriguing sight.
Dark lashes fanned his cheeks, which in sleep underscored his leanness. One hand was flung back over the sofa’s arm, his lips were closed in a sculpted line, and his hair—why hadn’t Nick’s valet trimmed Mr. Banks’s hair?—lay in soft waves around a tired face.
A fallen angel, one who didn’t quite fit on the sofa, for a stocking-clad foot was propped on the sofa arm nearest Kirsten, the toes heavily darned. In a well-fitted riding boot, that much stitching might lead to blisters. His knee was bent, so his second foot was flat on the velvet cushion of the sofa.
The state of Mr. Banks’s stockings offended Kirsten’s domestic sensibilities, but the rest of him was breathtaking in repose, all of the caution and reserve abandoned, the healthy beast on shameless display. Kirsten’s sisters would have withdrawn quietly, rather than intrude on Mr. Banks’s privacy, but her sisters were destined for good matches and happy marriages.
Mr. Banks stirred, so the hand resting across his flat belly drifted lower, over his falls.
Leave. I must leave this instant.
His thumb moved, and Kirsten’s middle became a quagmire of fascination, guilt, and troublesome stirrings. That thumb took up a rhythm, stroking slowly over the dark wool covering his breeding organs, back and forth, back and forth.
His lips parted. Kirsten took a soundless step closer.
He is aroused. That thought barely had time to coalesce before another crowded in behind it. He is arousing himself while yet asleep.
Men actively embraced even solitary sexual pleasures. Thanks to Sedgewick and Morton, Kirsten knew more than she should about the male body and what passed for the brain assigned to manage it. She hadn’t known men were prone to these urges even in sleep.
Mr. Banks moved on the sofa, undulating his hips up against his hand. The movement caused upheaval inside Kirsten that was in no wise moral. She wanted to kiss him. To undo his falls, to sin with him in general, though specifics were threatening to swamp her imagination.
She’d taken an entire step in retreat from her own wickedness when Mr. Banks groaned softly and cracked open his eyes. Not a vicar but a satyr beheld her, passion, power, and fire in his slitted gaze.
His hand did not pause, but he rasped one word.
“Go.”
Kirsten fled, making not a sound, and she did not return to her sisters’ company in the parlor.
* * *
“Letty, I love you more than life itself, but that boy needs to spend time with Daniel.”
Fairly’s wife made a beautiful picture, the baby in her arms, Sabbath sunshine streaming in the window. Mother and child shared dark hair and flawless skin, though the infant grinned merrily, while Letty’s expression was mulish.
Lately, Fairly’s viscountess had been a study in mulishness, as had his quasi-stepson.
“Danny needs more time to become accustomed to us,” her ladyship said, shifting the baby to her shoulder. “He’s been here only a few months, and children don’t adjust as easily as adults do.”
Children often adjusted more easily than adults. Letty had raised no children once Danny had been weaned, that she should be an expert on them, but she loved both of her offspring ferociously.
“Let me take her,” Fairly said, plucking the baby from her mama. “She’ll drool on your gown, shameless little wench.” The weight of the child soothed and comforted but didn’t make the next words any easier.
“Danny has been here nearly six months, my love, and he’s becoming more unhappy. He threw his porridge this morning, and he’s not a boy to waste food.”
“All boys throw their porridge from time to time.”
No, they did not. “All I’m suggesting is a visit, Letty. A call on a family member, no more than an hour. Danny needs to know his uncle is getting on well and has a good living not far from us.”
Fairly had called in favors from the Earl of Bellefonte without mercy to ensure Vicar Banks didn’t heed a saintly impulse to take up missionary se
rvice in Darkest Africa.
“The weather is still quite brisk,” Letty said. “In a few weeks, we can consider a visit. The children might take a chill if we make the effort now.”
Nobody had said anything about bringing the baby along. Fairly took a seat beside his wife, while his daughter banged happily on his shoulder.
“You are afraid if Danny sees his uncle, he’ll want to bide with Daniel and you’ll never have your son under our roof again. I understand your fears, Letty, but many boys Danny’s age are preparing for public school. He’s not a baby. He is, in fact, very bright, and he’s a young fellow who will want a profession.”
With the vicar as Danny’s pattern card of male virtue, the boy was doomed to a life of industry and integrity, perhaps even a life in the church.
Thank God, as it were.
“Danny isn’t you!” Letty snapped. “He’s not six years old, living in some dirt croft with his mother, thinking himself a poor Scottish lad, when an auntie snatches him away to a wealthy household in the south of England. Danny is my son, and for five years, I left him in the care of that woman.”
Letty rose and started a circuit of the parlor, skirts swishing, while Fairly patted his daughter’s back. Once that woman had been mentioned, Letty had to wind down on her own, or tears were sure to follow.
“She didn’t love the boy,” Letty wailed softly. “She never loved him, and Daniel did the best he could with the situation, for which I am grateful, but I’m now in a position to be the mother I always ought to have been. One bad morning in the nursery won’t change my mind.”
The third bad morning in the nursery in a week, though Fairly hadn’t the heart to tell his wife as much. He hadn’t the heart to take the birch rod to Danny’s backside either, which boded ill for tomorrow’s porridge.
And everybody’s nerves.
“As far as the world is concerned, you are the boy’s aunt,” Fairly said, trying a new tack. “Daniel is his father, and the sort of father who’d want to see his son more than every six months.”
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