Chapter 5
J uliet scrubbed the dark printer’s ink from Tobias’s fingers. Oh, how she loved his hands! They were strong and beautiful, capable of working the massive printing press, making words come out upon the page.
He was such a remarkable specimen. She did not know how she was so lucky to have found someone like him, and he was all hers. She had finally learned the error of her mistaken ideas about needing to prove to society that her Mama was the greatest of all mothers, and she had eschewed the idea that she needed to marry an earl or a duke to do so.
No, she had finally embraced the credo of her family and that was that the most important thing was true happiness and being one’s self.
It was amazing to her how long she had put off the inevitable. How she loved Tobias Miller! He was beautiful. As she stared at him sitting in the copper bath, she poured hot water over his form, drinking in the way it sluiced over his hard muscled chest. Then she poured water over his dark hair and massaged her hands through those thick locks.
She was happy to play valet to him. For his body was a wonder that she could discover again and again.
He let out a low hum of happiness as she ran her fingers through his hair.
“Is it really true?” she asked. “My brother blurted out that your sister should marry him?”
“Oh yes,” he said, his eyes closed as he dropped his head back along the rim of the copper tub. “All to prove that Mercy would be accepted into the family. Apparently, he decided the best way to do so was in the most practical sense.”
“But it’s a very good idea,” she said back.
“Do you think so?” he replied, stilling.
She stroked her fingers along his temples. “From everything I can see, Mercy would be perfect for our family. Absolutely perfect for him. And I think that we should set about making it happen,” she said firmly.
He blinked and ran a hand over his face, leaving droplets of water to dance upon his bronzed skin. “I agree with you, actually. It’s not often that a brother would wish to foist his sister at a man, but it seems to be in the air.” His lips turned in a slow grin. “Your brothers foisted me at you.”
She playfully threw a scoop of water at him as she knelt beside the bath. “Now now, you did not need any foisting. You fell for me immediately at the moment you saw me.”
“You know, it’s true,” he said before he leaned forward and kissed her softly.
“You see?” she said, letting out a sigh of utter contentment before she teased, “I am irresistible.”
He laughed. “It is true. As am I to you.”
She laughed and then kissed him lightly. “I do admire your confidence.”
“We did kiss the first moment we met.”
The joy flowing through her could hardly be real. And yet it was! She wished everyone could feel like this. “And we’re kissing again and again and again, and we shall get to kiss for the rest of our lives.”
Swiftly and with a growl of hunger, he pulled her into the tub. She let out a cry of shock and delight as she settled onto his naked lap and water soaked her thin night rail. As she gazed up at him, her heart swelled.
“Our lives will never be boring,” she said before she frowned. “Do you ever wish—”
“Juliet,” he cut in quickly. “If I wanted boring, I would’ve married someone back in the United States.”
She grinned at him. “We make the most interesting of matches, and now it is time to do my brother and your sister a good turn.” She waggled her brows and laced her hands at the nape of his neck. “Everyone pushed and maneuvered us about, especially Leander. I think it’s time that we do a little pushing of our own,” she said.
He wrapped his arms about her and grinned. “I agree. They won’t know what’s coming.”
Juliet pursed her lips. “Personally, I think your sister should say yes at once.”
“She won’t,” he groaned. “Not Mercy. Mercy’s seen too much of the world’s untrustworthiness to take such a proposal at face value, and I can’t blame her.”
She frowned at that. “We’re so different, your sister and I.”
“I should hope so,” he teased.
She batted his shoulder. “You know full well what I mean.”
He nodded. “Maybe she would’ve been very like you if she had not been so utterly abandoned by our parents. If I had not gone off to fight…”
“I understand. I would not wish to know the suffering that she has, the hardships that you two have seen,” Juliet breathed. “But what I do wish is for her to be happy. She’s your sister, after all. We should all be happy.”
“Is this love talking?” he said.
She splashed him with water. “Of course, it’s love talking. Everyone should be in love. Everyone should feel love from their toes to the hair on their head,”
He gently took her chin between his thumb and forefinger. “I love you,” he said. “I love you with all my heart, and I’m never going to let you go.”
“Then we’d best move up the wedding,” she teased. “They all want it to be a grand affair at St. Paul’s, but I say we run away immediately to Gretna Green.”
He shook his head. “Oh, no. I think we should manage Leander and Mercy into a double wedding.”
“My goodness! What a marvelous idea.” Her eyes widened. “When did you become as manipulative as a Briarwood?”
“Oh, I have been watching, and I’m a quick study,” he assured. “I think that I will fit right in.”
“My family always knew that you would,” she said softly. “They never would’ve allowed you within an inch of me if they didn’t think so.”
And with that, he tilted her head back. “I’d like to show you how much I love you right now.”
Juliet’s lips parted, and she stared up at the man who had seized her heart.
“Please do,” she teased.
Leander exited the king’s chambers and drew in a long, shaking breath.
He had hoped to see the king in a better state. That had not proved to be the case. This summer was one of the worst of England’s history. Leander was uncomfortable with the fact that his own party wished to oust the king and put the Prince Regent in charge because the truth was Leander was not entirely certain Prinny was up to the job.
Did Leander think members of his own party would do far better in the running of the country? Absolutely. But the truth was Prinny was a tricky fellow. He had very little stability and did not have a strong sense of character. Prince George was easily led, and he was childish, impulsive, and selfish.
Leander crossed to the windows, grateful they were open, and sucked in the warm air drifting in from the gardens. He gripped the sill.
Hector, who had been waiting for him so that they might go into the city and examine a particularly bad set of water pumps in St. Giles, stepped into the quiet room.
“Brother, are you all right?” Hector asked.
A muscle tightened in Leander’s jaw as he glanced back over his shoulder and looked at his younger brother, who was a powerful man himself. How did he answer that? “Yes. Yes, I am.”
“You seem shaken,” Hector ventured.
Leander let out a dry laugh that had no humor in it. “I’m deeply grateful that I am not staring into a mirror when I look at our king.”
Hector crossed into the room slowly. “You’re not going mad. You never have been, and you know it.”
Hector nodded his head. He did know it. There was no madness about him. Oh, he was a mad fellow in the sense that he loved life more than most people ever could. He treated it as if it was short because it was, and he lived in the moment, which was really the only sensible thing to do.
But there was something not quite right about him, and he’d known it since he was a child.
But seeing the king shook him because what if things had been just a little bit different?
What if he had lost himself like the king was losing himself? But he never had and never would, nor had his grandfather, who seemed to be the source of the affliction that Leander had. His own affliction was one of mood, not mind.
His grandfather and he both had a strange contradiction of being on top of the world at one moment, feeling as if he could conquer everything and do all, and then plummeting down into a morass of sorrow and despair.
It was an extremely difficult way to live, and he was grateful that those times happened rarely. When they did, he and his family managed them and he hid away from society, but he’d never been a danger to anyone, and he’d never been a danger to himself.
It was still a secret. A condition which had kept him from seeking a wife. For he trusted few with it. He showed the world almost everything about himself. But this vulnerability? He did not want that exposed because he knew how cruel and unjust people could be.
The king, on the other hand? The king’s dilemma was not one of mood. No, his mind was broken. He was deluded and completely so, imagining all sorts of wild scenarios and acting in completely inappropriate ways.
The king had to be looked after by doctors and could not manage his estate or his country.
Hector crossed to him and placed a hand on Leander’s shoulder. “Is the king mad, then?”
Leander ground his teeth. This was the worst time to lose their king. France was falling apart. They needed a steady hand. Leander swallowed and said, “I think that whatever is happening to him is a tragedy, and I wish it wasn’t so. But I am deeply grateful that that is not me. I only pray that the king comes back to himself.”
“You’ve never left yourself,” Hector said softly.
“I know,” Leander said, turning his gaze to the gardens. “But does it bother you when I have an episode of my peaks and valleys?”
Hector lowered his hand from his brother’s shoulder. “Look at me.”
Leander resisted for a moment, then he did as Hector asked because he and his brothers had always been honest with each other.
“It doesn’t bother me,” Hector said simply. “It’s who you are, and I love you. But it can be hard because it’s difficult to see you in that sort of pain and know that, for a brief period of time, you must simply go through it. But that’s all right, Leander.”
Leander nodded. He was grateful for his family. The truth was most people wouldn’t understand. Society wasn’t very forgiving of that sort of thing. His grandfather had hidden it too.
He only knew that his grandfather had had the same difficulties because his grandmother had told him when he was quite small, and then he had heard stories.
So, he did not feel alone, and he was grateful that his grandmother had shared the stories because the truth was that he would’ve felt terribly isolated if she had not.
He was so grateful that he had his family. And he hoped that Mercy might understand one day too. It was why he’d picked her. She was no silly miss. And if anyone could accept him as he was, surely it was her... If he could convince her to say yes.