Gareth: Lord of Rakes (14 page)

“But, Gareth, what does this do to the bequest? There are time constraints…”

“You’ve shown enough good-faith progress with its terms. I should be able to bully and intimidate our way to some lenience. It’s not like anybody wants to see the damned thing examined in Chancery.”

Felicity was reassured by his casual unconcern, but she’d be more reassured when his bullying had borne fruit. To come so close to meeting the terms of the will, only to be thwarted by… nature.

“I don’t think we should consummate our dealings until you’ve had the proper assurances from Callista’s solicitors.” Common sense was back in her grasp, at least to that extent.

Gareth had been busying himself with preparation of the tea, and Felicity had been so preoccupied she’d allowed it. He handed her a cup with two sugars and a tot of cream, exactly as she preferred.

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome. Shall you have a sandwich or some of this crumb cake? I did not eat before coming here, so I will be able to do respectable damage to Mrs. Crabble’s offerings if you’re not up to eating.”

“How good of you.”

“One makes sacrifices.” He served himself a sandwich and a piece of cake, but set the plate down rather than tucking into the food. “How do you feel, Felicity?”

“Awkward.” Awkward, sad, pleased that he’d come himself to investigate and not sent Brenner around, or demanded a report from her in writing.

“Still? You are the most determinedly proper woman I have ever met, and I have met some formidable dames. You have no need to feel awkward with me.”

“Oh, no, none at all,” she replied. “My own sister doesn’t know my bodily cycles. Mrs. Crabble isn’t sure how much milk I take in my tea—though there’s cream on the tray when the marquess comes ’round. No man, not even my own father, has sat in this room with me in my dressing gown and casually taken tea with me…”

Gareth sat back, his expression puzzled.

“I can’t tell whether you are angry at them because they didn’t see the genuine article of you, or angry at me because I won’t let you be invisible.”

A vexingly good question. “Both?”

“Or maybe”—a faint twist of humor came into his mouth—“you are angry with yourself because you let them
not
see you, and you enjoy when I look at you?”

Look at her, with her clothes on, with them off, and any state in between. “Oh, that too,” she conceded. Her strong, rich, sweet cup of tea abruptly felt like no comfort at all. Whatever reprieve the solicitors granted, it was only that—a reprieve, not a general pardon.

“Will you miss me, Felicity?”

She stood, wincing because she’d risen too quickly. “Of course I will miss you.” She turned her back on him and stared out the window at the chilly, gray expanse of the garden and mews. “I will miss intelligent adult conversation, I will miss your affection, your humor, your moods. I will miss…”

He stood as well and came up behind her, wrapping his arms around her and pulling her back against his chest. She wasn’t supposed to answer him this baldly, not give him a litany so honest it hurt her—and possibly him too.

“What else will you miss?” he asked, his lips at her nape.

“I will miss having you for a friend.”

She felt surprise ripple through the man holding her so carefully, and Felicity knew in her spinster-virgin-budding-madam bones he’d been certain—bet-your-best-hunter certain—that she’d been about to say: I will miss having you for a lover, seeing you naked, kissing your naughty, handsome mouth. Some saucy, stupid, flirtatious reply she could not produce.

“I will always be your friend, Felicity.” He spoke with conviction, but the dratted man did not hush up and let her treasure the fiction that they could be friends.

“I have wished I could offer to be your protector, and that you could accept,” he said, still holding her gently.

“And I have wished I could accept too,” she said, leaning back against him. If it weren’t for Astrid, and hopes that Astrid might make a decent match…

But he wouldn’t offer, and she wouldn’t accept, making their words a mere exchange of wishes after all.

“Where do you hurt, my dear?”

“My…” She took one of his hands and placed it over her womb. “Here.” He began slow circles low on her abdomen, while Felicity stood there, leaning back against him and accepting the consolation he offered.

“You must have been up last night feeling uncomfortable.”

“I was up late reading, and then the cramps started, and I knew I was in for a night of it.”

“Does laudanum help?”

“Not really. It can dull the pain, but then I’ll wake up with a pounding headache, a parched throat, and a lingering, muzzy feeling. I’ll feel better by tomorrow.” In two or three days, at any rate. Or two or three years.

“We can copulate when you’re bleeding. It’s a slightly less tidy proposition.”

He was offering her a conclusion to their dealings because he was considerate, and not because he wished to hurry out of her life. She drew away from him and cocked a glance over her shoulder, wondering if she wished to hurry out of his.

She ought to wish such a thing.

“You are very unlikely to get pregnant if we do.” Wretchedly helpful of him to add that.

“Will it be more uncomfortable?”

“It could be, somewhat, but for your first time, I will restrain my more exuberant impulses, in any case.”

His exuberant impulses would be magnificent and they had only the one time. Ever.

“And what would you advise?” Because he’d advise what was best for her, regardless of any inconvenience to him.

“I am undecided.”

Surely
that
was a novel state of affairs for him? Felicity raised a hand to cradle his cheek, and he turned his head to kiss her palm.

“We can reschedule this… assignation for tomorrow or the next day, Felicity, and be done with it. It will be, as you can imagine, a bit untidy, but not much more untidy than it would be otherwise. You would probably be more self-conscious, though, than if we wait another few weeks, and that self-consciousness will, I believe, reduce your ability to…”

He sighed, an indication of the effort even a sophisticated man must make to sustain such a discussion.

“I will be less able to appreciate your efforts to make the experience pleasant,” she suggested.

“Just so.”

“Gareth?”

“Hmm?” He used both hands to stroke her now, and let one stray up to her breasts, where he fondled and kneaded with extraordinary gentleness.

“I would rather wait, if the solicitors will give us the grace period, and I would like to explain my reasons.”

Mrs. Crabble’s voice sounded somewhere below stairs, but Gareth’s hand neither paused nor faltered. “Explain, then.”

“I expect this encounter with you may be the only one I have with anyone, ever, and if it is to last me a lifetime, then I would like it to be as pleasantly memorable—as opposed to self-consciously memorable—as possible.”

“And I would want that for you as well, though I sincerely hope you do not limit your amorous encounters to this odd time you’ve spent in my company, Felicity. Considering the price you are paying, you deserve more return on your efforts than a single encounter.”

He sounded testy—every bit the marquess whom she tolerated, not the friend whom she cherished—though his hands were bringing her marvelous comfort.

“I can contemplate illicit intimacies with you because I understand it is necessary to secure my future and that of my household. No less compelling motive could induce me to such behavior.” A fine speech, and mostly honest. It had been more honest even twenty minutes ago.

“Determined to be proper.” Gareth slipped away from her and resumed his seat beside the table. “Your scruples would be admirable, Felicity, if they weren’t such a waste of you,” he said, biting into the sandwich.

Felicity took her seat on the chaise and finished a tepid cup of tea. After watching him eat for a moment, she sat back, her hand on her stomach.

“I feel better.”

He shrugged as he demolished his crumb cake. “It’s your breasts. They are quite sensitive, and any attention to them seems to arouse sensation in your womb as well.”

Felicity was prepared to ask him if there was a name for this sort of thing, when they were interrupted by a knock on the door.

“Lissy?” Astrid barged right in, clad in a walking dress with a pelisse and reticule over her arm. “Oh, it’s you.” She collected herself and curtsied, grinning. “If I’d known it would bring you a-visiting, your lordship, I would have become indisposed today too.”

Gareth did her the grown-up courtesy of standing and bowing, returning her smile as well.

“Hello, Miss Astrid, and what brings you to your sister’s bedside? Sororal devotion to the sick, perhaps?”

“Not a chance.” Astrid flounced into the room without further invitation, and appropriated a piece of crumb cake.

“Astrid, if you must serve yourself, at least mind your crumbs. Here.” She handed her sister a plate.

“Why thank you, Felicity. You are looking a bit more comfortable,” she said around a nibble of cake.

“I appreciate your concern.” Even if it was an excuse to eat crumb cake and goggle at the marquess.

“I did not have a nice walk, if you must know,” Astrid said, assuming a chair. “Today is too cold, damp, and windy, but I swear I would have lost my very mind were I to have stayed here playing cards with you.”

She bit off a sizable hunk of crumb cake and chewed with the focus and energy of a squirrel, while Gareth shifted to a seat beside Felicity.

The habit of taking his hand nearly overcame Felicity’s common sense. She reached for her teacup instead, finding it empty.

“I had a mishap,” Astrid pronounced dramatically, though the twinkle in her eyes belied the grave tones. “My everyday bonnet, the one I have hated since I was twelve years old, well, the wind grabbed it right off my head, and away it went, sailing toward the pond. I was certain I was seeing the last of the wretched thing—burial at sea and all that—when that charming Mr. Holbrook appeared and snatched it from the jaws of the gale. Bad timing on his part, of course, but we had a lovely chat nonetheless. He even tied my bonnet back on my head, though I suffered rather a scolding in the process.”

Felicity was torn between wanting to tear a strip off her unruly sister and wishing Gareth would.

“Oh, come, Felicity,” Astrid chided. “That bonnet truly is horrid, and Mr. Holbrook is an ever-so-comfortable fellow to pass the time of day with.”

“Miss Astrid.” Gareth’s voice was soft, relaxed, even casual, but with an undertone of disapproval that put a sting in every syllable. “If all goes well, in a very few months you will be presented to Society, if not at Court, and then, and only then—under strict chaperonage—will you begin having lovely chats with ever-so-comfortable fellows.”

Astrid gaped at him, her last bite of crumb cake poised before her mouth while Gareth went on.

“You know nothing about this Mr. Holbrook, if that is even his real name. He could be planning to kidnap you, extort money from your family, or do you personal injury. I know you took a footman with you to the park, but all the footman will do is tattle on you to your sister, unless somebody actually does attempt to do you bodily harm. No footman can protect you from the harm you do your own reputation—and your future—by behaving like a careless child. Do you comprehend me?”

Gareth had neither raised his voice nor risen from the chaise. Instead, he sat across from Astrid, maintaining a calm, almost bored demeanor. His words, however, had apparently landed like a series of well-placed blows to Astrid’s adolescent ego, and she gaped at him in consternation.

“You allow him to speak to me thus?” she asked Felicity, indignation and hurt in her voice.

“Any adult who cares about you is welcome to speak to you thus,” Felicity told her, and apparently even Holbrook had offered some remonstrations. “You take chances, Astrid, and sooner or later, there will be consequences. His lordship does not want to see you hurt any more than I do.”

Astrid put down the last of her crumb cake carefully, keeping her gaze on it as she rose.

“Excuse me please, Felicity.” She bobbed a curtsy. “Your lordship. I’ll be about my lessons now.” She stalked out of the room, spine straight and shoulders set.

“Was I too hard on her?” Gareth asked when Astrid’s steps had faded up to the third floor.

The question, the immediacy and uncertainty of it, elevated him yet further in Felicity’s affections.

“It’s so hard to know, Gareth. Maybe Mr. Holbrook merely handed her the bonnet and wished her a fine morning. Astrid is lonely, and Mr. Holbrook did seem to be a perfectly pleasant man. He, in fact, has chided Astrid almost as strongly as you have, but that’s not the point, is it?”

“The point is that she’s rash and probably shouldn’t be trusted on her own in public, or all your efforts to secure her future are going to be wasted.”

“You’re angry.” And while Gareth was frequently irritable, he was rarely angry.

He stood and paced to the hearth. “Andrew was two years younger than Astrid is now when our father died. His entire youth was over that day. I couldn’t protect him from the rumors, the gossips, the petty cruelties that followed that incident for years. You uncomplainingly jeopardize your entire future, and Astrid is
oblivious
—”

He jabbed at the fire with the wrought iron tool designed for that purpose, sending a shower of sparks up the chimney.

“She isn’t as oblivious as you think,” Felicity countered. “I believe she pulls these… stunts to make sure I am paying attention to her. Our circumstances have been greatly reduced in recent years, and she needs to know I still, to use your words,
see
her. Then too, she’s at an age in life when emotions can seem ungovernable. A year from now, she could be engaged. That doesn’t seem possible to me, and I have no idea how the notion would sit with her.”

She rose to stand beside Gareth at the hearth, and put a hand on his arm where he was leaning against the mantel.

“This is part of the reason I do not sire children,” Gareth said, pulling Felicity into his arms. “Bad enough that I became responsible for Andrew. The concept of parenting a female…” He shook his head, a wealthy, powerful, self-possessed man who apparently could be daunted by the common human undertaking of parenting a child.