“Take Bert with you.”
“Bert?”
“Yes, unless you want to carry him the rest of the way when he finally comes a cropper?”
The mental picture of Sidmouth slung over a donkey’s back undid Richard. He couldn’t stifle the first guffaw, and then both he and Thorne broke into uncontrollable laughter.
“Wha’s so amusing?” Sidmouth now was trying to extricate his greatcoat from the simple wood hook by the door, but was seeming to have a great deal of difficulty. Finally, he gave it a mighty jerk and then stood staring at the great woolen pile of it on the floor as if attempting to puzzle out some great mystery.
Richard considered how he’d marveled at Sidmouth’s poise and ease with gargantuan amounts of drink. Now he understood. The man was fine as long as he was seated. He just couldn’t stand, walk, or reason.
He moved to the mountain of a duke’s side, picked up his coat from the floor, and gently helped him get his arms into the sleeves. “There, now we can get you home to bed.”
Suddenly, a tear rolled down Sidmouth’s cheek. “Not welcome in bed at home.”
Richard said nothing, but decided to keep that confidence to himself. He suspected this maudlin display had something to do with Sidmouth’s missing duchess. Both he and Thorne bundled up for a trip to the barn to take Bert along for insurance. After assuring the donkey he was being pressed into aristocratic service, Thorne scuttled back to the warmth of his cottage with a wave to Richard.
At first, the duke trotted along at Richard’s side as if the brisk winds had braced him for the walk home. Then he slowed and tripped a couple of times. Richard finally convinced him to climb aboard Bert, who gave both of them an evil look, but plodded along fairly well under Sidmouth’s weight, while the man’s boots dragged along on the ground. After about an hour of the slow going, Richard never thought he’d be so glad to see one of Lady Blandford’s grooms come to take Bert while he steered the drunken duke into the lodge.
It wasat least midnight when Harriet closed the book she’d been reading and marked her place with one of Nicholas’s childish notes he frequently left her. Her head had no more than hit the pillow when there was a great noise and commotion at the entrance to the lodge. Since she could hear the bellowing all the way down the passageway, she was at once alert.Nana. She assumed the worst.
She threw on her warm woolen wrapper and shoved her feet into her slippers. When she opened her door, Sidmouth’s footman was still outside her grandmother’s bedchamber door, but she looked inside on her way to investigate the noises, just to be sure. Nana still slept peacefully thanks to the smidgen of laudanum she’d slipped into her tea.
Proceeding down the passageway toward the great hall, she could recognize the voices now. The bellowing one was all too familiar. The more calm, mollifying one made her insides clench and the juncture of her thighs pool with moisture. Damn that man. Why was he here, now, in the one place in the world she’d thought she’d be safe? She couldn’t let them wake up the whole household, so boldly closed the distance.
The two men seemed oblivious to her presence, so she stood firmly in a wide-legged stance and gave them the whistle she used outdoors to get Max and Fleur’s attention when they took off after a stag. She was sure all of her ancestors whose portraits lined the great hall were enjoying her discomfiture and fearing for her sanity.
“What?” She threw her hands wide in an imploring gesture. “Do you two want to wake the entire lodge and our ancestors, too, while you’re at it?”
Sidmouth opened his mouth as if to protest only to have Richard clamp a hand over his face.
“Thank you,” she said, and called for Carrick, her butler. “Please show these two gentlemen to their beds for the night.” With that, she shook her head hard, pivoted, and turned back toward her side of the lodge.
Once Harriet was settled back in her bed, she thrashed about and turned several times, pounding her pillow to find a more comfortable position. “Ooh…” She flipped over onto her back and stared at the ceiling, wide awake. How was it possible to smell his scent even when he was all the way over on the other side of the lodge?
She finally sat up, lit a candle, and put her robe and slippers back on. Her heart nearly stopped at a tapping at the long window in her room overlooking the terrace that wrapped around the lodge. When she went to investigate, Richard was gesturing madly for her to let him in.
Harriet raised her eyes to the ceiling as if praying for guidance, but already knew what she’d do. The minute she opened the window on its hinges, he was inside and immediately divested her of her robe.
She sighed and snuffed the candle. “Richard, would you like to share my bed tonight?”
His only answer was to shed his clothes by the fireplace before hauling her up against him and walking her back toward her bed.
“I’ve been wanting to do this for days,” he whispered, before settling her at the edge of her bed on top of the sheets. He laid her back and pushed up her shift above her knees which he spread wide before sinking to his knees and parting her moist, pink folds. He followed a flutter soft kiss with a thorough laving that left her whimpering and tearful. When he joined her and pulled her up next to him, he cautioned, I’m going to make slow, careful love to you in a real bed till the first morning light, but there’s only one rule.”
Although she barely trusted herself to speak, she shuddered and asked, “What could that possibly be? You have a whole list of rules of your own, but seem to have no compunction about the rules that govern the rest of society.”
“No screams. I don’t want to die tonight.”
12
With the early dawn mist rolling in from the sea, Richard was grateful he had Bert to hang on to while walking along the high bluff on his way back to the safety of Rose Cottage. Even the beast’s random brays were comforting in a fog so thick, it was hard to divine directions, including up or down.
The minute his senses, honed by years of watch at sea, had detected the approach of dawn, he’d crept from Lady Blandfords bed and out of her chambers the same way he’d entered the night before. He’d mussed the coverlets as well in the guest chamber he’d been assigned the night before. He refused to give Sidmouth the tiniest excuse to order him back to his ship, or, Saints preserve Ireland, off him in his sleep.
Leaving his lady in slumber in pre-dawn darkness with her dark red curls tumbling all around her pillow was the hardest thing he’d had to do. Ever. For the first time since he’d left home years before to sign up for the Royal Marines in Dublin, he’d questioned the wisdom of the life he’d chosen.
He would leave it to Thorne to pen a note for the lady inviting her, Nicholas, and possibly Nana to join them, along with Sidmouth, for Algernon’s production of “Othello” in Falmouth.
