Lady Myddelton's Lover (2 page)

             
Aline threw an arm across her eyes and groaned when Victorine, opened the curtains and sunlight poured its warmth across her face. What was it that they said about the harsh light of day, she wondered crossly. Somehow, knowing the night had passed brought a bought of nausea to her stomach and she lowered her arm, thrusting the coverlet away and pushing to sit against the mountain of frilled pillows piled behind her head. She glowered covertly at Victorine, who laid a pale gray morning suit across the edge of the half-tester bed with a secretive smile, as though she knew the reasons behind Aline’s dismissal of the entire staff for the night. Unfortunately, her thoughts then drifted to the new earl, and her toes curled in delight; it was infinitely much safer to fantasize in her mind.

“My lady?”

Victorine’s inquiry snapped her away from the daydream and she threw the blanket away, stepping from the bed to concentrate on dressing for the morning. She then sat at the dressing table, where her lady’s maid twisted her auburn hair into an elaborate coiffure, and slid two tortoiseshell combs into her crown, nodding her approval in the mirror.

“Thank you Victorine,” Aline said with a smile, fiddling with the high lace collar of her gown.

“You’re welcome, my lady,” Victorine turned to straighten the array of pins, rats, and brushes on the dressing table.

“My ‘At Home’ is today, and I think the lavender teagown—the one with the peacock embroidery—will look best, don’t you agree?”

“With the peacock slippers and sapphires,” Victorine added cheerfully. “I shall press the dress at once.”

Aline rose from the delicate seat and examined her appearance in the mirror. The reflection of a proper and circumspect Countess of Myddelton looked back at her with cool green eyes, her expression smooth and polite, and her carriage touched with just the right amount of state to caution others to keep their distance.

Nothing like the wild wanton last night, her brain taunted.

Her fingers twitched in agitation and she flushed, hastily turning away from the mirror and exiting the room as quickly as possible.

She stopped just shy of tumbling into the parlormaids walking up of the narrow servant’s staircase, carrying dusters and vacuum cleaners, and smiled anxiously when they curtseyed good-morning to her and stepped out of the way. She inclined her head to the servants she passed on the way down the two flights stairs to the ground floor, her heart beating a Sousa march as she walked towards the dining room overlooking the garden. She let out an audible sigh of relief at its emptiness, save the ringdoves hopping in their aviary in the brightest spot of the room. They cooed affectionately when she approached the cage, the largest, who she called Ned, fluffing his wings contentedly as she opened the wire door to feed them.

             
She brushed the crumbs from her fingers, lingering at the window to glance at the small garden. Not many houses in London possessed space for one, but her parents prized her deft touch—her “green fingers,” her father used to chaff—with flowers and plants, and when they chose Hugh for her, this space behind his London townhouse and the famed gardens at Myddelton Park were strong persuasions to acquiesce with their desires. She was stricken with a sense of guilt over her thoughts, and she banished her mental betrayal, closing the aviary and moving to the sideboard, where she helped herself to a bowl of porridge, some kedgeree, and a cold slice of leftover game pie.

             
“Good morning, my lady,” Her butler greeted politely, and he paused to check the covered plates and chafing dish on the sideboard. “Shall I pour your tea?”

             
“Thank you Truscott,” She replied, unfolding her napkin and placing it in her lap.

             
He brought the spirit lamp and a cup and saucer to her plate at the table, pouring and preparing her tea exactly as she liked to drink the beverage. Aline smiled her thanks and he bowed, retreating to a discreet distance behind her chair. She sipped her tea and ate her breakfast in a silence that, before last night, would have been companionable and reassuring, but was now suddenly hollow and lonely. The clink of her fork against the plate as she sliced the game pie was suddenly irritating, and she found herself angry at the echo of Hugh’s firm, cultured voice that seemed to cling to the heavy burgundy wallpaper and drapery of the dining room, decoration he refused to change even after ten years of marriage.

             
She had not thought of him from the moment Richard touched her.

             
Thankfully, her footman Charlie entered into the dining room before she could…before…she set her tableware down on that aggravating note to watch Truscott abandon his post and the tall, lanky young footman whisper something into her butler’s ear. She narrowed her eyes slightly when Truscott’s normally unperturbed expression briefly crumpled in an unidentifiable emotion. He nodded his leonine head and the footman departed. Truscott then approached her chair and cleared his throat.

“Pardon me, my lady,”

“Yes, what is it, Truscott?” She eyed him warily.

Truscott cleared his throat once more and clasped his hands before him, obliterating the image he carefully cultivated of a sublimely unflappable senior servant.

              “My lady,” He looked pained. “I do not mean to impugn upon the morals of the household, but ladies of your station are generally more discreet.”

She was briefly at a loss for words, and she t
ook a deep breath, forcing her mouth into a mild smile.“Has something disrupted the household?”

Truscott pursed his lips and glanced at the door. “I would feel better showing you the
disruption
rather than distress any housemaid who may accidentally overhear.”

Aline held a hand to stay his assistance and pushed away from the table, forcing her wobbling knees to unlock as she rose from her seat. “Please, do show me, Truscott.”

The butler bowed, opening the door for her to exit the morning room. He half-led, half-followed her, his anxiety over the situation causing him to muddle protocol as they walked down the hallway and towards the back staircase, ascending the flight of stairs to the second floor. When he walked to the door of the bedroom formerly occupied by her husband and practically flung it open, Aline suddenly knew why and what Truscott thought.

He gestured for her to precede him into the oak-paneled and very masculine bedroom, and he shut the door behind them and moved swiftly to the window, where he drew the heavy velvet blinds to let the daylight break over the room, which, despite her arrival this past May, remained covered with sheets. Truscott radiated abject disapproval, and she followed his gaze across the floor, where articles of clothing, a union suit, and a pair of scuffed boots lay strewn across the Aubusson carpet, and up to the bed, which looked like a battlefield of pillows, coverlets, and heavy blankets. She stepped
hesitantly towards the heavy four-poster bed, glancing at the Myddelton family motto carved above the family heraldry in jagged Gothic letters across the headboard.

Vincit pericula virtus
.

If only v
irtue did conquer dangers, her heart would not be in her throat as she stared down at the very large shape beneath the tumble of blankets. Aline gasped when the bedclothes shifted and heaved, and a tanned leg, sinewy and muscular erupted from beneath the sheets, followed by two arms, a pair of broad shoulders, and finally a scowling face heavy with sleep. He filled the bed completely, shoulders high above the pile of pillows behind his back, feet reaching the end-board, his arms spanning the width of the bed as he stretched and yawned. She could not look away as the blankets fell to his waist, exposing a chest sprinkled liberally with dark golden hair, which thinned into a whorled line down a taut, tanned belly to regions below. She clasped her betraying fingers behind her back and mustered a suitably disdainful expression as he rubbed his face with his hands and cast a bleary-eyed glance at her.

She felt rooted at the spot the moment lucidity filled his deep brown eyes;
he narrowed them with a grin, knowing exactly in which direction her imagination and the expanse of his chest took her thoughts. Truscott’s clipped tones interrupted their eye contact.

             
“I kept the housemaids away as best as I could, but I am afraid they will gossip with the scullery maid who lit the fires before I awoke.”

             
He looked startled at the butler and then cocked his head at her; his eyes glittered with laughter he dared her to share. She frowned at him, refusing to join in his amusement and turned to the butler.

“Truscott,
this is the new Earl.”

“My lady!” Truscott gasped in muted horror.

“Your lordship!” He turned to the earl and bowed low. “I tender my most abject apologies for my insinuations.”

“You are forgiven, Truscott,” Richard interrupted cheekily and swung his legs over the edge of the bed. “My bags are at the train station, and I cast myself on your mercy for something to wear before I run down to Waterloo to fetch them.”

“Of course, my lord!” Truscott preened beneath the earl’s praise and to her shock, hastened to uncover Hugh’s clothespress and began opening the drawers.

“My lord,” She
stepped towards the bed. “This is highly irregular. A gentleman would have acquired a room at a hotel.”

He raised his eyebrows. “Why should I do that, when there are rooms available in my own London house?”

“This was the late Earl’s bedroom,” She said repressively.

“Where would you have suggested I sleep? In the servants’ quarters?—or, perhaps in your own room?”

She glared at him, refusing to acknowledge his logic.

He smirked and then swept a sardonic look in her direction, his hand on the
pillow covering his nether parts from her gaze.

“Care to assist?”

Without dignifying him with an answer, she promptly pivoted on one heel and fled the room as quickly as possible.

The soothing hum of a feminine voice floating from behind one of the doors o
n his right caused Richard Myddelton-Thorpe—no, the seventh Earl of Myddelton, he reminded himself as he marveled at the novelty of the footman bowing his head when he descended the stairs—to pause in the landing on the first floor. He felt a surge of anticipation warm his blood, his curiosity about and desire for Aline unsatisfied by the events of last night, and he followed the voice to the second door, pushing it open and ducking inside the room. He froze in mid-step, groaning inwardly when a brace of feathered, furbelowed, and fripperied hats swiveled in his direction. He grimaced at his conspicuousness, his abnormal largeness, as their owners surveyed him in a cool silence broken only by the nervous giggle of a young girl, who blushed and ducked her head beneath the mass of curls fringing her small face.

He automatically sought the warm green eyes of Aline in the sea of women.
Ah, there she was, hiding her amusement behind her teacup. The knot in his chest loosened when their eyes met in mid-sip, the delicate pink that spread across her cheeks and to the tips of her ears one of attraction rather than derision.

“I beg your pardon ladies,” He stepped further into the room, a smile playing about his lips.

             
The rattling of Aline’s cup on its saucer as she set them down belied her cool appearance, and she smoothed her skirt before gathering the attention of her guests with the smallest of gestures.

“Ladies, may I present you to my husband’s heir, the new Lord Myddelton
. He has arrived recently from Australia.”

“That explains your fascinating accent,” Said a throaty voice to his left.

He turned to the speaker, whose cream and gold suit accentuated her Rubenesque figure and masses of thick black hair. She smiled widely and shot a sly glance towards Aline, who scrunched her nose adorably in reaction.

“Lady Idira Wilson,” The woman rose from her seat and extended a hand to him. Richard shot her a wary glance as he shook the hand she offered. “Aline’s dearest friend, my lord. Tell me, just
when
did you arrive from Australia?”

Her sloe eyes gleamed at him and he had the distinct feeling that this woman was deliberately teasing both he and Aline about the activities of the previous night. Before he could compose a reply, another woman, shorter and stouter, approached and extended her hand.

“The Marchioness of Vernon, my lord.”

“Charmed,” Richard raised his brows in startled bewilderment as Lady Vernon took his hand away from Lady Idira and shook it vigorously.

“Ladies,” Aline interrupted, amusement coloring her voice. “You are overwhelming the Earl with your interest.”

He turned to find her at his side and he obligingly followed her slender form as she introduced the other women to him. After the fourth or fifth lady-something-or-other, the names and faces began to blend, particularly as many wore similar hats. He followed Aline back to her chair and stood behind it, laying his hand possessively on its back. He moved his fingers until they pressed against the nape of her neck, her upswept red hair and the high lace collar of her blouse concealing his touch. She stiffened slightly in her seat and shifted her posture, but was effectively trapped in the chair by her role as hostess.

“To answer Lady Idira’s question,” He began, with a wink to the lady. “I arrived last night.”

If it were possible, Aline stiffened further in her chair, as the women exchanged mysterious
looks and nods, and the Ladies Idira and Vernon smiled knowingly.

“I regret not sailing for England immediately upon hearing the news of my cousin’s death. A distant cousin, to be more specific, but a cousin nonetheless.”

“We were all quite worried about dearest Aline,” A woman in a yellow hat covered with stuffed birds interjected in plummy tones. “Alone these two years with no word of her husband’s heir.”

“But she
had
word of me,” Richard said, looking down at Aline’s russet head in mock dismay. Her hand clenched in her lap. “We corresponded regularly these past two years.”

“Why Aline, you deceitful thing!” Another woman exclaimed, looking wide-eyed at Richard. “She has kept a certain gentleman waiting with the excuse of needing to care for the estate in the absence of the new earl.”

“It was a valid excuse Lady Frederick,” Aline’s head turned to the second woman. “However, now that his lordship has arrived, I shall retire gracefully to the dower house.”

Richard’s attention snagged on the mention of “a certain gentleman,” and he narrowed his eyes at the back of Aline’s head, willing her to look up at him. She ignored him, though she rubbed the nape of her neck with trembling fingers as she turned to bend her head to another woman’s conversation. The giggly young girl approached him shyly with a plate of cakes and a cup of tea, and he pushed away from Aline’s chair to accept them with a nod of thanks. Their fingers brushed and he looked sharply at her; she giggled again, her brown eyes immediately sliding to another woman in the room.

Her mama!

Richard groaned inwardly at this new, overlooked element of his elevation to the peerage and set both plate and saucer on the small table between the women. He must have looked grim, for the young lady stopped giggling and whipped away from him in a waft of innocent, untutored rosewater, nearly tripping over her dark blue skirt in her haste to take refuge beneath her scheming mama’s wing. This mama stared at him through her own lorgnette and sniffed her displeasure audibly before gathering her daughter and rising from her seat. Aline stood as well, clasping the two fingers the woman extended in farewell. Quite suddenly, and within moments of one another, most of the ladies slowly departed, some taking one last bite of the crumbly cakes or one last sip of the fragrant tea before lifting their bulk from the delicate chairs and settees strewn about the drawing room.

He could not help but glare coldly, responding to their lingering glances and cooing farewells with curt good-byes. Aline shook her head in disapproval as she accompanied her callers to the door of the drawing room. Lady Idira was the last to leave and she rose from her seat to approach him as she tossed a thick veil over her hat and tied it snugly beneath her chin.

“It was a pleasure meeting you, my lord,” She laughed slyly, tilting her head at Aline. “Do give my belated birthday wishes to Aline.”

“I will,” He replied, narrowing his eyes at the suggestion behind her words.

“Don’t look so suspicious, Lord Myddelton,” Lady Idira smiled, revealing a row of small white teeth. “Heaven knows that if I won’t bite, there are, well, others who gladly will.”

Her flirtation was so unexpected and outrageous; he could not help but laugh. This drew Aline’s attention, he noted smugly, and he raised the hand Lady Idira extended to his mouth, slanting a peek at Aline’s face from the corner of his eye. Her glorious mouth pressed into a prim line of disapproval, a visible disapproval that deepened when the woman chuckled in her rich, throaty voice and motioned for him to bend his ear.

“My lovely friend is overburdened with a very strict sense of propriety,” Lady Idira murmured. “I am counting on you to relieve her of it.”

***

             
Idira had lingered far beyond the fifteen minutes allotted a caller during an “At Home.” The jealousy Aline felt was surprising and unexpected in its intensity, and she held back a step, forcing herself to smile as her friend walked over to thank her for the tea.

             
“Are you truly going to shut yourself up in the Dower House? I cannot imagine such a fate.” Idira shuddered delicately.

             
“I don’t want to be in the way,” Aline flicked a glance up at the earl, flushing once more beneath his lightly mocking regard.

             
“Tell Aline she will not be in the way,” Idira placed a hand on the earl’s arm. “She’s just come out of mourning—so tiresome—and now she’s going to molder away in a dowager’s house!”

             
“I couldn’t think of you leaving,” He grinned lightly. “I count on you to assist me with being an Earl.”

             
“See, Aline, you
are
needed here!” Idira exclaimed. “You saw the trick Mrs. Hawkins attempted with her dreadful daughter Mabel—imagine Mabel Hawkins multiplied by fifty, and you have half of London’s scheming mamas and their daughters descending on this poor neophyte of a peer.”

             
Aline felt herself smile despite her brief, irrational moment of jealousy. Idira always had a sense of ridiculous and one could never express any negative emotions towards her light-hearted, animated friend. She met Richard’s eyes, which twinkled wickedly, and finally laughed.

             
“Excellent!” Idira clasped Richard’s arm and swept a dark glance up his length. “Now, you delightful man, you must escort me to my motorcar. Au revoir, ma chère.”

             
A slight twinge of wistfulness wove into her previous jealousy as she heard Richard and Idira’s mingled merriment waft from the staircase. Laughter did not come easy to her, and for a brief moment, she felt the specter of Hugh in her drawing room, turning her attention towards a weighty article in the
Times
he wanted her to read so she could help him prepare for a speech in the House of Lords. She shivered despite the warmth of the room, and quickly marched to the embroidered tassel hanging from the ceiling and tugged hard to summon the housemaids to clear away the jumble of cups, saucers, and refreshments her callers left behind.

             
She distracted herself with collecting the knick-knacks the ladies always left behind (a piece of half-finished embroidery, a feather from a hat,  handkerchief, and so on), mentally noting who owned what so she could send a footman on to deliver the items to her careless guests. She put these in her sewing basket and then readjusted the placement of a few chairs before pausing, her eyes catching the uneaten plate of cakes and the teacup Mrs. Hawkins convinced her unfortunate and silly daughter to serve to Richard.

She picked them up in both hands, careful not to slosh the cold tea and shook her head ruefully. With five daughters, and Mabel fortunately the last, she could not blame the woman for wanting to settle them in as advantageous a match as possible.
Her own parents, worried about her future as they aged, were similarly pressed to settle her with a husband who could guide and shelter her from the uncertainty of spinsterhood. She was very grateful to them, and to Hugh, Aline thought adamantly. Now Richard…Richard was something different, something disturbing and sensual that unsettled and excited her. She could not decipher her feelings entirely, but she shocked herself with the knowledge that she wanted to explore this not entirely unwelcome sensation...