Chapter 5 #2
Years of dealing with strong-willed Lovelace children carried her through, her gaze locked on his, her feet fixed to the floor until he finally grimaced and broke the contact.
“There is a night stool behind the screen,” he said. “I’ll return later to tend the fire. I’ll endeavor to not disturb you.”
The door closed on him, leaving her unsatisfied in so many ways. What, besides infidelity, had gone wrong in the Lindhorst marriage?
And what would Lindhorst look like under his coats and linens?
The answer to the first question was none of her business, and the second one…
She drained her glass, used the night stool and then turned down the lamp. Still wrapped in the heavy robe, she stretched on the bed and pulled even more covers over her, sending up a prayer, putting James and his friend Gordon into God’s hands for safekeeping.
But sleep wouldn’t come. Besides the cold wind whistling through the room so that she still couldn’t get truly warm, she kept remembering the look in Lindhorst’s face—his shrug, his cockiness, the grimace when she accused him of being unconcerned.
And the warning thrust of flirtatiousness when she pried into his marriage.
That had been a barrier put up to hide something. Some vulnerability.
And she’d rather not see him naked if he thought it might remove some of her barriers.
Shivering into the bedding, she closed her eyes, remembering how he’d warmed her on that short but very cold ride.
She must have managed to doze because when she opened her eyes, a gale force wind blowing icy bursts of snow had snuffed out the light and she saw a dark shadow fighting the flapping shutters.
* * *
Lindhorst knelt at the bedchamber hearth stirring the fresh coal as stealthily as possible.
He’d awakened minutes earlier, shivering in front of the waning kitchen fire, his arse and back aching from the stiff wooden chair. He’d banked those coals and fled upstairs where he found another fire in need of fuel, plus a much softer chair.
One glance at the bed, and then he jerked his attention away. She’d left the lamp burning and in sleep, she looked younger, the worry lines softened, her golden hair loose on the pillow.
He was just settling onto the cushion when a loud crack brought a burst of icy air that doused the lamp and sprinkled snow across the wooden planking.
The shutters had sprung free, the brace holding them skittering across the floor. Uttering a curse, he hurried over, struggling to hold one shutter closed against the gale, while trying to grasp the other one.
“I have it.”
Neda was there, wrangling the shutter to where he could reach it and slam it closed, and then bracing her back against it.
She was still swathed in her robe, soaked again, probably.
“There’s no glass?” she exclaimed breathlessly.
“Can you fetch the bar? I think it flew near the—”
“I know where it is. I almost tripped over it.”
In the dim light of the fire, he saw her dragging the heavy bar back. Working together they were able to heft it into place and secure all the latches.
“Won’t the whirlwind knock the bar off again?” she asked.
She had a point. The blasted tools and nails had been cleared from this room. He’d have to find another way.
“Can you relight the lamp?” he asked. “There are spills on the mantel.”
While she hastened to the hearth, he shoved and jostled the tall clothes press in front of the window.
The approaching light flickered in the draft. “That will help but a little,” she said. “Perhaps the kitchen will be more snug.”
“Or just more uncomfortable. At least here you have a bed. And if you will allow it, this chair is much easier on my backside than the one downstairs.”
A long pause followed. He could almost hear her thinking.
“You’re cold and your coats are wet.”
“I’ve been colder and wetter. Before I inherited, I had a brief stint with Wellington in the Peninsula, with plenty a weak campfire.” Not that he didn’t prefer a warm bed. And with a warm lady in it…
He sighed, settling onto the chair and pulling a shawl around him. “I’ll be fine, my lady.”
She mumbled something and carried the lantern away.
The bed ropes creaked, and the bedclothes rustled.
“Lindhorst,” she said, her voice soft. “I am sensible. Practical too. And very, very cold. I had to remove that wet dressing gown of yours. Whoever was meant to put in your windows ought to be birched. Now, there is just enough room here. You might as well shed the wet coats and get in this bed instead of catching your death in that chair.”
He threw off his blanket and approached. “Are you sure?”
She lifted a hand and wagged it, eyes still closed. “It will be warmer for both of us. But no wet coats please.”
He shed his coats and footwear, went to the other side, slipped under the bedcurtain and covers and turned on his side toward her.
Her back was to him. It would be easy enough to drape an arm over and draw her closer.
Instead, he rolled onto his back and stared up at the blue velvet.
The covers moved with what might be a chuckle. “Well, Lindhorst, it seems this is a cold night in hell. You have me in your bed.”
“I don’t recall that I ever said that I wanted you in my—”
“And I don’t think much of your technique this night in achieving that goal. Go to sleep.”
His technique? He supposed that being pursued by a man who everyone believed was a womanizer might make a lady think… Oh hell. He remembered what Elliot Pickworth had said after Lindhorst’s dance with Lady Loughton: his pursuit of her was a matter for the betting book at White’s.
Once she found out about that, all hope for something more honorable was lost for him.
“Thank you,” he said. “Most unexpected. I shall not overstep.”
Silence followed, and for a long time he thought she had fallen back to sleep.
He heard stirring and looked her way. She had turned on her side and was facing him.
“I am sorry,” she said. “You may ask me prying questions if you wish, without disrobing. This is intimacy enough for me.”
For now, it might be.
“Yours was a love match?” he asked, wondering what it would be like to be loved by this lady.
A long pause was followed by a sigh. “There was a strong attraction.”
Not love, then. Perhaps he would have a chance, for he’d wager the lady felt an attraction for him.
“We grew to care for each other, though perhaps Henry’s first love was business followed by politics.”
The late Lord Loughton had been a keen man for investments and heavily engaged in the wartime parliament. He was very rich, and he’d taken a very rich bride.
“But you had a good and lasting relationship,” he said. “You don’t regret your marriage. You were an heiress as I recall. You might have had other choices.”
“I miss Henry. I miss the companionship, the true friendship, as well as…” She waggled a hand.
“Some things become less important over the years. As for other choices, I decided not to think about what might have been. Henry was a good husband and father. I was sixteen when we met. Henry… Henry was eight and twenty. Imagine? He always said I was older than my years, but I was not so old as to stop matters from getting too far one night in the summerhouse. But I didn’t want to.
Stop, that is. Fitz was a six-month baby. ”
“Was he indeed? I am shocked.”
In truth, he was a bit shocked. Not at her, of course.
He knew Henry Lovelace, Lord Loughton, as a personable, sensible, conservative man with no known vices except working too hard.
Perhaps he’d had as wild a youth as many of his peers.
How else could he have seduced a young girl and got her with child?
“Don’t think badly of him. I was wicked then, and it was as much my fault as his.
He was so rich I knew he wasn’t after my money.
My parents were dead. In fact, most of the family were dead, at least the male members, and the title had gone into abeyance, the entailed property returned to the Crown.
But there were substantial unentailed assets, and those became mine.
My guardian had investigated him and approved of him as a suitor.
As for me, well, he was handsome and caring and willing to hold an intelligent conversation with a young girl.
I was deadly tired of my guardian’s tight leading strings.
Had we not had that encounter in the summerhouse, we might have waited two years until I was eighteen.
But we were both steady enough to make a go of it. ”
“And indeed, you did.”
Ten children. Dare he ask about that?
“I’m told some women find childbirth easier than others. Did you?”
“My confinements were relatively short. I know I was fortunate, that it isn’t that way for most.”
“Yes. For my wife it was difficult.”
He glanced and found her watching him.
“Ours was not a love match,” he said. “Nor was there, to be frank, a strong attraction. After my two boys were born… I thought it best not to bother her. When they died, I thought…”
Ought he to say more or just shut his trap? A small hand settled atop his own.
“I wanted to reconcile and try for another child. She told me she’d given me an heir and a spare and could not help it that they hadn’t lived. She said she’d fulfilled that part of the marriage contract and there wouldn’t be any more.”
The anger he’d felt then stabbed at him now, but the pain that inevitably followed seemed more bearable.
“As much as I tried, I couldn’t woo her, and I wouldn’t force her.”