Chapter 10
Chapter Ten
Tessa had never hated a cowlick before, but sitting across from Mr. Tilbury, she had the distinct urge to chop his right off. He sat straight as a board, chin lifted higher than the moon. His legs were crossed and he scratched his chin thoughtfully.
And she clutched her skirts to keep from reaching across the chessboard and flattening that little lock of hair.
“Miss King, you’re scowling. Are you uncomfortable?” Tilbury didn’t even look up from considering his next move.
“No. I’m quite well, thank you.” They were in a well-populated drawing room where various card games were being played at different tables, and a few chess matches as well. “I suppose I’m finding it difficult to focus tonight.”
She moved a horse boy across the board, gave a little neigh beneath her breath.
“Are you ill?” Tilbury asked.
“No.”
“You just coughed. Or cleared your throat?” Now he was scowling. “Frankly, it sounded rather… barnyard, but my ears must be faulty.”
“Oh. No. No coughing or barnyard noises from me. Well, I suppose I did clear my throat. Merely to soothe a tickle.”
He moved a bishop all the way across the board, and she whistled the length of the movement.
“Do you have something to say, Miss King?”
“Not at all.”
He leaned back in his chair. “That whistle… are you mocking me?”
“Of course not.”
He drew in a breath as she moved a pawn. God speed, little fellow.
“You seem at times to be a sensible woman.” He picked up a pawn and considered the board then snapped it down efficiently and picked his words carefully. “But sometimes you seem a… teasing sort of woman.”
“I suppose I do have moods, Mr. Tilbury. You, surely, also experience fluctuations of emotional states.”
“I try not to give into them.” Yes, her mother would adore this man. If she was capable of adoration. She moved her castle and refrained from whistling this time. “Do you find anything amusing, Mr. Tilbury?”
“Of course.”
“Just not yourself.”
“Does anyone enjoy laughing at themselves?” He moved, then his gaze caught on something across the room. “Lady Chattaway approaches.”
Thank the merciful heavens.
“Tessa!” Lady Chattaway called when she was closer. “Come here, dear. I have news.”
“Excuse me.” Tessa left Tilbury at the table and pushed across the crowded room. “Is everything well?” she asked Lady Chattaway when she reached her.
“Perfect. Better than before. You’ve a new room. I’ve asked Lady Crossvale to move you to your own space so that I… Well, I didn’t tell her the truth about why I needed to be alone in my chamber, but I’m guessing you know.”
She wanted privacy for Lord Brawly’s visits. “Of course. Though you could make use of”—she lowered her voice—“his accommodations instead of your own.”
Lady Chattaway hooked their arms together and dragged Tessa from the room “We like variety. I do apologize, Tessa, but you’re out. How is Tilbury’s courtship going? Are you warming to him?”
They climbed the stairs, lifting their skirts.
“I do not think I am,” Tessa said.
“A pity. He’s quite good looking.”
“Would you be terribly upset if I decided not to marry him?”
Lady Chattaway patted Tessa’s hand. “I’d be annoyed you’re not closer to claiming carnal knowledge, but I do prioritize your happiness, and if continuing as a companion is what you wish, I’ll find you a position. You know that.”
“Thank you.”
“Bah. Gratitude is boring. Find a deserted corner of this too-big house, Tessa my girl, and see if his good looks are wasted. New information could lead to a change of heart.”
“Are you telling me to kiss him?”
“At the very least, dear. You’re more creative than that.” Lady Chattaway winked. “Take your Mr. Ives as an example. He’s quite the imagination.”
“What do you mean?”
“Did you not see him riding round the estate yesterday in nothing but his smalls?” Lady Chattaway popped open a fan from her pocket and fluttered it by her neck. “My, my, my. They should use his physique as the model for all future statuary.”
That’s what he’d been about in the stables, then, flinging his cravat and shirt off. “I wish I had seen it,” she mumbled.
“That’s the spirit!”
At the top of that flight, Tessa tried to turn the corner and go up another, but Lady Chattaway pulled her down the hallway. “We stop here.”
“But this is the floor the family sleeps on.”
“Lady Crossvale said you were close enough.”
“That’s kind of her.” Tessa moved more slowly now, heavy with hesitation. “But I should have liked to be consulted.”
Before they could move fully away from the stairs, a figure streaked out of a room and toward them, small and impish and drooling.
Tessa caught the toddling child just before she could tumble down the stairs. Her mother reached her a few seconds later. Daphne Ives was tall and willowy with a few strands of silver at the temples of her dark hair, and the child tumbled, giggling, into her mother’s arms from Tessa’s fierce hold.
“Thank you, thank you, Tessa,” Daphne said, rubbing her nose against the little girl’s cheek. “She simply bolted and was too quick for me to catch up.”
No wonder. Daphne’s belly was taut beneath her skirts. That explained why Tessa hadn’t seen much of her down below.
“Should you be lying down?” Tessa asked. “Would you like me to take the little one to her nurse?”
“Oh no. Nurse is in the garden with the eldest two children. And little Lizbet just woke up while I was ensuring your room is properly prepared. I promised Mother I would do so.”
“That’s not nec—”
“Excellent, Excellent,” Lady Chattaway called from several steps below them. “I’ll leave the two of you to it, then.” She huffed back down the stairs, and Daphne strode in the other direction, down the corridor.
Tessa trotted after her. No other choice. She’d known Daphne all her life, but she was eleven years older than Tessa and Remmy and had always been more like an adult to them than a playmate.
“You must not exert yourself,” Tessa said. “I’m sure Mr. Strickland will not be pleased.” Mr. Strickland was a terribly wealthy American who’d earned his coin through shipping. The only real interaction Tessa had with the man was watching him scowl at anyone who inconvenienced his wife.
“Mr. Strickland knows better than to try to keep me passive, no matter how far along I am.”
A head popped out from a room they passed on the left. Mr. Strickland, all auburn hair and blue eyes behind silver-framed glasses. “She’s right.” He grinned then disappeared, and, looking quite smug, Daphne opened a door at the very end of the corridor.
“Here we are,” she said, stepping aside so Tessa could enter.
The room was small but lovely, and Daphne had thrown the windows open. Sheer curtains flared in the wind and a small bed closed in with blue silk curtains sat in the middle.
“It’s Nora’s room, but she asked to be housed in another wing of the house where there are less people. And with six children and counting, it’s no wonder she needs the space. I think she is trying to rival Mother for offspring.”
“Thank you.” A request to change rooms perched on the tip of her tongue. But she had already inconvenienced Daphne, so she swallowed it.
“Of course.” With Lizbeth popped on her hip, she crossed the room to a tall, elegant wardrobe. “Your clothes have already been put away.”
“Thank you.” Everything done without her consent. But lovingly so. “It’s a beautiful room. I’ll be quite comfortable.”
“Wonderful. You are like a sister to all of us, and we’re glad to have you to ourselves.
If you need anything, I’m just down the hall, and Kit is across the hall and Frederick and Horace are near the stairs, and Remmy is next to them, and—” She broke off with a laugh.
“We’re all about you. Just call out and someone will come running. ”
“I will.”
Daphne left, Lizbeth waving over her shoulder with a slobber-glistening hand.
It was a lovely room. Thick carpet and freshly painted walls.
A small cheval glass hung above a table and porcelain washbasin with little pink flowers painted round the edge.
She stood at the window, breathing in the fresh air for several moments.
The Ives family was so… nice. They always had been.
Warm and inviting, protective and loving.
Her own family had never left her feeling half so safe.
Yet Verity… Oh, she was so glad to see her sister happy and whole. The girl had been her one great worry. Tessa had escaped to a better life, but Verity was still trapped.
“Bloody hell.”
Tessa yelped and spun around.
Remmy stood in the still-open doorway, looking vaguely nauseous.
“What are you doing here? If you’re looking for me, don’t.
” He looked both ways down the hallway behind him.
“I clearly do not need a bed to misbehave, but given the chance… I refuse to test my fortitude. I will not survive another seduction, and neither will your reputation.” He said the last bit in a tone somewhere between a hiss and a whisper.
“I’m not here for… that. I’ve determined to leave you alone. Haven’t you been able to tell?”
He shrugged. “I’ve been busy.”
“Doing what?”
“Thinking.”
“Not naked horseback riding?”
His grin had a wolf in one corner of it and a court jester in the other. “Did you see?”
“No. I was visiting my family.”
“Is that why you look so displeased?”
Did she? She touched the space between her brows, found it dug into deep trenches. “If I am displeased it’s because I’ve been picked up and moved about without any consideration. Again.”
“How so?”
“Lady Chattaway wishes for some privacy, so she and Lord Brawly can—”
“Ah, yes. I see.”
“I shouldn’t be here,” she said.
“Why not?”
Was he being purposefully obtuse? “Because I’m not an Ives. I’m the subject of your mother’s charity.”
“Is that what we’re calling matchmaking?” He grimaced. “Do you like this room?”
“It’s perfectly beautiful, but I shouldn’t be here!”
“Did you tell Lady Chattaway that?” he asked. “Or my mother? Did you refuse the offer or ask for other options?”
“No—”
“Hell, Tess, you have to say what you want.”
Why was he so angry with her? She’d done nothing wrong. “I’m in a precarious position. I cannot demand choices when I have none.”
“Well, you should.”
“You’re impossible.” She’d not known how it would be between them the next time they spoke, but she’d never imagined he’d irritate her so.
There existed an unfinished tension between them after the stables, and she’d been avoiding him.
She did not want to know if this irritation would fizzle out or…
spark something else to life. Clearly it was going to be more like a raspberry wet and gross across her forearm.
She did not stick out her tongue, but she did try to leave.
Unfortunately, he filled the doorway, broad and immovable. “Move, if you please.”
“No.”
“You must!”
“Not until you tell me what you want.”
She rolled her eyes.
“No, Tessa. Do not shrug it off. Tell me what you want, even if you cannot tell anyone else.”
“Why is it so important to you?”
He shrugged. “It’s important to you. Now, tell me.”
She wanted for her life to not have exploded.
“Tessa,” he bit out. “Tell. Me.”
For her options to be more than vicar’s wife or widow’s companion.
Her silence brought him a step closer to her, and she had to crane her head back or look at his large, lovely chest. Looking up didn’t help much because there was his strong jaw, his kissable lips. But all of it immovable now, just like him.
“Tessa King,” he growled, “tell me what you want.”
“For you to touch me!” She rocked back on her heels with a gasp. Oh God, where had that come from? She spun around, needing distance from him. But he followed her deeper into the room.
“What do you mean?” His words were soft yet rough, and she shivered.
She’d not known what she meant when she spoke. The desire had clawed its way onto her tongue of its own accord and leapt into the air. She could not take it back now because spoken words were forever, but also because… she meant it. A shock, that.
She chose each word carefully. “It is only… I have never known a man as I have come to know you since my return, and we have not even… touched in all the ways there are to do so. And I think that… if I choose to become a companion again, I may never know that sort of touch. And so… if I choose to become a companion, I should like...” She licked her lips.
No retreating now. “I should like to know a man in that way. And I should like that man… to be you.”
“Why me?” he said quietly.
She raised a shoulder, dropped it, searching for more careful words, more truthful ones. “I am comfortable with you. And you are experienced in that sort of thing. Being a rake, I mean. So my experience… with you… would be… optimal.” She peeked over her shoulder at him.
He worked his jaw side to side, his gaze far, far away from this room. “Optimal.”
“Yes.”
Slowly, he turned on his toe and made for the door, seeming to make each step as carefully as she’d chosen each word.
At the door, he looked over his shoulder, just a little, enough for her to see his profile, still hiding whatever he was feeling.
“If you decide to be a companion again, let me know. See how easy that is, to say what you want?” One long stride took him out of her sight.
She closed the door then collapsed breathless onto the bed.
He would do it. He would sleep with her, ruin her, if she asked him to. She could have one night or one week of lustful bliss beneath his hands and lips. That should be a clear tic in the column for companion.
But it left her feeling a little bit empty and full of longing instead.