Chapter 21
Twenty-One
Thomas was absent from breakfast, and Harry provided the excuse that he had been asked to settle a boundary dispute between the fields of two tenant farmers.
He would be back for dinner, of course. Soon a rider came to the door with a message for Mr. Phillip Drake.
He must return to Cambridge. There had been a fire in the building where he had his rooms. Nothing of his had been damaged, but he needed to come and claim his possessions and find new rooms.
Phillip swore and apologized to the ladies.
“There’s nothing for it. I must away.” He bowed and went to make his preparations for leaving.
Mr. Swinton started to grumble that perhaps the Swintons might need to leave, too.
“Nonsense,” Harry said. “It’s too bad, but we hope Phillip will be back soon. Meanwhile, we will have a lovely day here at Sommerleigh, won’t we?”
“But what of the whist? We need a fourth,” Mrs. Swinton said.
“Well, I’ve never played, but I was fascinated by it last night. I promise not to slow the game too much. And, of course, I will play with my husband.” Harry trilled a laugh. “I wouldn’t dare to partner either of you.”
That arrangement was satisfactory to both the Swintons.
It was now up to Harry to entertain the Swintons for the rest of the day, an undertaking she found very heavy going. She felt Thomas’ absence terribly. And not just because he would have relieved her of the burden of the Swintons.
She was used to him.
That did not explain everything she felt, but it would serve as a placeholder for now.
She took the Swintons on a walk in the gardens, and around every privet hedge, she expected to see Thomas coming towards her with his long stride, his dark hair, his grin.
At luncheon, there was no one to encourage her to eat. But she tried to eat as if he were there, to please him.
In the library, she and the Swintons read the newspapers brought from London. After eons of vapid chat, Harry was exhausted. She had forgotten how really tiring people could be. How wise she had been to leave London for the country.
She suggested they might all nap before dinner. Ever pleasant and accommodating, the Swintons agreed. Harry went to her bedchamber and surprised herself by falling into a deep sleep.
Smythe’s knock startled Harry awake from a dream in which she and Thomas were trapped in a rabbit warren where the soft, furry, and ever-multiplying rabbits pushed her and Thomas closer and closer together until the front of her body was rubbing against his and their faces were inches from each other.
Strangely, it was not a frightening dream, and she had no sense of being trapped or confined, just the feeling of a pleasurable achiness that made her squirm.
She might like to go back to that rabbit warren in future dreams. If Thomas were there.
Smythe helped her dress in one of her mazarine blue gowns and arranged her hair. As Harry came out of her bedchamber, Thomas was standing there, offering her his arm.
She took it. “I am extraordinarily happy to see you,” she said. Thomas put his other hand on top of her hand resting on his forearm. He had never done that before. She looked up to find his very blue eyes on her. “My lord.”
Harry’s plan was simple. Because she knew the Swintons’ code and her own hand, she would know the location of all the cards.
And her memory ensured she could recall every card played.
She might have enough of an advantage to make sure she and Thomas won the tricks needed to win the hand.
Thomas was just to play his best. He was not to worry or follow a complicated strategy.
However, he might feel Mrs. Swinton’s knee every once in a while in order to distract her.
Last night, Harry had said, “Maybe I should feel Mr. Swinton’s knee, as well,” but Thomas had dissuaded her from that plan. Yes, of course, she thought, I would be a distraction to nobody. In that way.
It fell to Harry to make the first deal. She fumbled with the shuffling, explaining she really only played Patience and rarely, at that.
“It’s so tedious to beat yourself, isn’t it?” she asked. The Swintons, ever agreeable, said yes.
“I have an exciting idea,” Harry said as she finally finished shuffling and cut the deck. “Let’s make it ten pounds a point!”
Mr. Swinton visibly salivated, and Mrs. Swinton batted her eyelashes and laughed. If that was Lady Drake’s wish. It would certainly make for a very exciting game.
Mrs. Swinton and Mr. Swinton talked and talked as they arranged their cards and the tricks were played. Harry listened and interjected occasionally. Thomas kept his mouth shut.
After Harry and Thomas won the first game eight tricks to five, garnering them two points, Harry started to have fun.
While the Swintons were chattering at the beginning of the hand, she would talk to Thomas about five teaspoons of sugar and seven hens and twelve minutes to four.
She didn’t know if she successfully distracted the Swintons from their counting, but Mr. Swinton started sputtering, and Mrs. Swinton repeated herself several times.
Harry and Thomas won the second hand as well, eight tricks to five tricks.
That meant Thomas and Harry had won a total of forty pounds this evening, more than the thirty-seven pounds Thomas owed the Swintons from last night.
However, a game was five points, and they had scored only four.
There must be a third hand. Thomas dealt, but as he did so, Mrs. Swinton let out an enormous yawn.
“Are you tired, Mrs. Swinton?” Thomas asked solicitously, pausing his distribution of the cards.
“Terribly so,” she said.
“Yes,” said Mr. Swinton, also yawning.
“Well,” Harry said. “Perhaps we should all retire. Are there any objections to stopping the game without getting to five points?”
There were no objections.
Harry was very sure the Swintons would leave the next day, their three-pound debt unpaid.
Despite retiring so early, Thomas dozed off quickly. He, who usually flipped and turned like a Maypole dancer for hours every night, fell into a comfortable slumber almost immediately after lying down.
He dreamed Harry came to him. She kissed the back of his neck and licked the shell of his ear. She snaked her arm around his waist and grasped his cock, rubbing her hand up and down his shaft. He turned to her and kissed her mouth, fondling a large breast.
A large breast.
He leapt out of bed. A naked Mrs. Swinton lay in his bed, smiling up at him.
“Lord Drake, come back. We were just getting to know one another.”
Thomas pulled on his breeches. “Mrs. Swinton, I beg you to return to your bedchamber.”
“You touched my leg under the table tonight.”
Thomas pulled on his shirt. “A harmless flirtation.”
“You left your bedchamber door unlocked.”
Thomas had never thought to lock his door. “I left it unlocked for my wife.”
Mrs. Swinton laughed and waved her hand. “Oh, Phillip told me all about that. I know you don’t bed her. Some illness she has.”
Thomas was suddenly aware someone else had entered the room. There was a spark and the blaze from a tinder box and then a match in the corner near the door. A candle quickly lit.
“Is it an illness . . .” A low throaty voice. The candle was held up and showed Harry in a nightdress. “Or is it madness?” Harry rolled her eyes and allowed some spittle to escape from her mouth.
Mrs. Swinton clutched at the sheets.
“Oh, don’t cover yourself up, Mrs. Swinton.” Harry darted to the bed and pulled the bedclothes down. “What fun is that?”
Mrs. Swinton was now out of the bed, searching for something on the floor.
“Are you looking for this?” Harry held out a dressing gown. Mrs. Swinton snatched at it and ran out the door.
Thomas was grave, his brows knit together.
Harry was suddenly worried she had misunderstood the situation.
“I hope I didn’t ruin some liaison you had planned, Lord Drake. She does have red hair, after all. But I couldn’t sleep and heard footsteps in the passage and followed her here,” Harry said.
Silence.
“Are you angry?”
An explosive sound from Thomas.
“You . . . in the corner . . . with the candle . . . madness . . .” He could barely speak. He fell onto the bed, weak. Tears were rolling down his cheeks. Finally, full-throated laughter and Harry understood.
She sat on the bed and watched as Thomas laughed until he could laugh no more.
Finally, he quieted and stared at the ceiling.
Harry herself fell back so she was also lying on the bed.
She turned her head and buried her nose in a fold of the sheet.
The bedclothes were warm and had the unmistakable smell of him.
That sharp and comforting and sweet smell. Somewhat woody. Like cedar, maybe.
Thomas cleared his throat. “I, uh, said nothing to Phillip about . . . our unusual arrangement. But I felt I must assure him that his inheritance was safe, that we would have no children. He must have assumed we were chaste.”
“An odd assumption, considering your reputation, my lord. But plausible, I suppose, given I am your wife.”
The voluptuousness of Mrs. Swinton’s body had not been lost on Harry. And what was that feeling she was having now? It was familiar. She experienced it whenever she heard about some frivolous youth going off to Oxford or Cambridge. Oh, yes. Envy.
A hand grabbed hers. “Lady Drake, you judge yourself too harshly.”
Harry did not like hand holding. She recalled nursemaids forcing her to take their hands. Moist palms. The feeling of being trapped and held to another person’s—a stronger person’s—side. One hand unable to perform the finger tapping and counting that sometimes kept her calm.
But she had no inclination to remove her hand from Thomas’. His hand was dry. Like the rest of him, it was warm. In her mind’s eye, she could bring up the size of his hand, the faint dusting of dark hair on his knuckles, his signet ring.
She had been tired earlier, but now she felt very much awake.
She turned her head to look at him and saw his head was also turned and he was looking at her.
The air in the room became very heavy.
“I must to bed,” she said and sat up.
“Yes,” he said and sat up, too, releasing her hand. “I will make sure there are no trollops lingering in the passage to attack my mad wife.”
At her door, she looked to the side.
“Goodnight, my lord.”
Thomas took a step to the side and moved into her view and crouched a bit so his eyes were level with hers. Those blue eyes.
“Goodnight and thank you, my lady. I promise your work will not be interrupted tomorrow.”
Her work. Yes. She must get back to her coprime variables.
In the morning, the Swintons made a hasty departure, not waiting to bid goodbye to their hosts.
They had been invited to a house party in Kent, they told Whitson, who reported what they said to Thomas and Harry.
The house party was to be at the home of a baronet, and several distinguished guests would be there, including the Ambassador from France and not one, but two marquesses. It should be most entertaining.
Several small knick-knacks were found to be missing from the Swintons’ rooms after they left. Nothing of sentimental value, no long-held family heirlooms. Thomas told Harry he counted himself lucky.
Later that day, Phillip returned from Cambridge.
There had been no fire. The message was a fraud, he said, turning accusing eyes on Harry.
Thomas then closeted himself with Phillip in the library.
When they came out, Thomas’ face was grave.
Phillip still smiled, but the smile was less sure.
He left shortly afterwards to go back to Cambridge.
Thomas walked with Harry in the gallery the next morning.
“Yes, he owes the Swintons and a few others money due to gambling losses. He had no idea the Swintons were sharpers, however. Mr. Swinton proposed he bring them to my house in exchange for forgiving some part of his debt. He was quite desperate, you see? Well, he has made a clean breast of the whole thing, we have totted up his debts and made a plan for repayment. His future allowance will be scant indeed, poor boy.”
Harry wisely said nothing.
Could infinite descent work to make a general case against primes? And what would she look like with red hair?