Chapter Fourteen
Three Weeks Later
V erda paced her maid’s chamber she had taken for her own since seeing the reptiles in her bed as if she were a nocturnal ghost. The long clock’s chime of three had woken her. Quite telling for two reasons: one, she shouldn’t have heard only three chimes in the first place, considering how distant her chamber was compared to the others, and two, had she been asleep…
Therein lay the crux. She hadn’t been sleeping. Caring for an infant even with said infant’s caretaker had left her spent. The treks up to the schoolroom level at all hours of the night assuring herself the two were well were taking their toll.
Three weeks . It had been three blasted weeks before Lord Pender and Mr. Oshea had finally announced Lord Pender would be taking the carriage the next morning into Alnmouth to pick up Julius’s new wet nurse.
This macabre castle was straight out of the Middle Ages and was freezing, making it impossible to get warm. Snow clung to the metal strips of the mullioned windows and was still pouring from the sky with a melancholy wind adding to its haunting enigma. The curtains, so threadbare, did nothing to keep out the cold, so she stoked the fire to a blaze. With freezing fingers, she went to a chest of drawers where Lizzie had unpacked her own unmentionables. She dug out a pair of woolen stockings and pulled them on.
Even donning her heaviest wrapper did nothing to ease her restlessness. She went through the sitting room door to her own chamber and peered in where Lizzie slept as soundly as a contented cat in the huge bed.
Verda’s walk earlier that day had been cut short due to the unrelenting rain and winds. She was in the most deserted portion of the castle, wasn’t she? Who was there to see if she did a quick turnabout and back that was sure to stir her circulation. She lit a candle, because she wasn’t a complete idiot, and exited to the corridor by way of the sitting room.
Shadows flickered like long-boned fingers against the walls. She closed the door behind her to retain the heat. Just a quick march to the portrait gallery and back. You can do this , she told herself.
Halfway to her destination, she heard a voice.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
Her own gasp extinguished the light after she’d caught only his demonic eyes. Terror rippled over her and she backed away. Her arm was snagged in the dark, tugged against a warm, hard chest, lips captured—
The instinct to struggle was immediate until the tip of his tongue touched the seam of her lips and she dropped her candle.
“Blast it,” he groaned against her lips. “That’s my foot.”
Mr. Oshea, not Lord Pender . At her gasp, his tongue entered her mouth and stroked hers. Her lips molded against his. Called home to a bright summer morning. A meadow dotted with grazing sheep and fresh grass covered in dew and a colorful array of flowers in every shade of rainbow hues. Blues that filled her spirit, playful pinks, cheerful yellows, and deep reds that stirred a passion she’d never guessed she possessed.
This wasn’t her. Clandestine meetings with a man she barely knew and may have killed his father. Secrets. She pulled away yet still clutched his arms in an iron grip. “Mr. Oshea?” She should have been indignant. Outraged. Not this breathy heroine with no brain in her head like those she imagined in Mrs. Radcliffe’s novels. Somehow, her fingers edged up and found their way to the nape of his neck and touched the silky strands of his hair.
“Miss Fairclough?” Noah appeared, holding his own candle and the baby. “It’s my Julius. He’s hungry, ma’am.”
Verda jumped away from Mr. Oshea—guilt, shame, not remorse or regret. Oh, lord . She didn’t need the Duke of Rathbourne or the Earl of Pender to humiliate her. She was making a fine hash of the situation without anyone’s assistance. “Of course, Master Noah.” Her voice quivered with self-condemnation. “I’ll take him. Run and get the cylinder.”
“One moment, Noah.” Mr. Oshea had picked up her candle and he lit it from his nephew’s. “Hurry now,” he said a second later.
The little master pierced her with a perception beyond his years. The insightful look lasted but a second before he dashed for the stairs.
Verda laid the crying infant against her shoulder and followed Mr. Oshea back to her sitting room. She lowered to the settee while Mr. Oshea stirred the embers in the hearth and added more fuel.
“What the devil were you doing prowling about?” Mr. Oshea demanded.
“I-I couldn’t sleep. I-I thought if I did a quick walk, it would help.”
Julius’s cries grew stronger.
She met Mr. Oshea’s eyes. “We have to do something to help him,” she said. “I can’t bear it when he cries.”
“Why couldn’t you sleep?”
“I’m worried.”
“About?”
“Little Julius, Master Noah, I don’t know.” You.
He took the baby from her and rocked him.
“This is getting to be a habit,” she said more tersely than she’d intended. She pointed at him. “You… You kissed me.”
“And it was quite delicious. I’d like to do it again.” The look he slid over her had her wanting to throw the windows wide to breathe since his presence seemed to suck the oxygen from the chamber. “But next time, I want all that hair unconfined.”
He was the absolute devil.
She narrowed her own gaze. “And what were you doing in this wing?”
“Making certain you were safe, of course.” He let out a sigh. “Miss Fairclough, until three weeks ago, you were terrified of holding Julius. We still don’t have a wet nurse. Nor a nursemaid. Forgive my bluntness, but your lack of confidence when it comes to an infant does not leave me inspired.”
Her shoulders fell. She had no argument for that. “What a dreadful thing to say. I thought I was handling the situation moderately well.” How devastating that he could be right on all accounts. She would make a horrible nursemaid, let alone a mother.
*
Sander considered recanting his words at the dejection written in Miss Fairclough’s face. But he couldn’t very well tell her his brother had disappeared from his bedchamber and Sander hadn’t been able to find him. Appointing himself as her personal guard was all well and good, but telling her might terrify her into rushing back to London on the first mail coach in the height of winter. It was true. He did not believe his brother would assault a woman against her will, but… what if spirits were involved? A man not in full control of his faculties represented risk. And how was he to convince her to marry him if she feared his brother?
He opened his mouth to reassure her she was safe from the earl, but Noah hurled through the door. “Here it is, Miss Fairclough. I have it.”
Verda rose from the settee and moved within smelling distance of Sander. He swallowed another groan just as he was once more inundated with the distinct fragrance of powdered violets. It was just so out of place in the musty confines of Stonemare.
He handed off Julius and she returned to the settee. Noah clamored up beside her, cylinder in hand.
Sander knew he should leave, but his head refused his commands to obey and he took up the wingback chair and watched her. A dark broodiness went through his body from his toes up.
“You’re getting really good at feeding my Julius, ma’am,” Noah said.
“Thank you, Noah. It’s very nice of you to say”—she sent a pointed gaze at Sander—“as my lack of confidence fails to inspire some individuals.”
“Not me,” Noah said with great enthusiasm.
After situating Julius on her lap, she took the cylinder from her greatest champion, smiling at him. “No, not you.”