Chapter Six
I f Caroline possessed any luck Felix would never walk back through that door. Unfortunately, her luck had already proven ill when he’d shown up in the first place.
No, things had begun to go south before that, with his grandfather’s arrival.
She should have expected this. Some men cared not what women did as long as they didn’t cuckhold them.
Other men cared too much what women did, chaining them close.
Then there was another sort, those like Felix and Siswell, who let women do as they pleased, so long as they were allowed to play the knight in shining armor at her side.
Sigh.
She’d hoped Felix would be the first sort, the one who didn’t give a damn one way or another. Apparently, he was the type who liked to play knight.
Disaster of disasters, her husband was here to stay. She should not be encouraging him. He’d see the food and tea she’d brought in from the kitchen as a concession. No such thing! She couldn’t let him starve, but she would not let him stay, and she would not retreat to London with him, either.
But! Miracle, blessing, bit of good luck—there was currently nothing to hide at Hawthorne except for slow-going renovations.
The men she’d hired to patch the roof had come and gone, barely condescending to work for her.
Every time they’d asked a question, they’d demanded to speak to her husband.
Merely convincing them she was the one who held the purse strings had added too many days to their project.
The windows would be the same. She’d written to enlist her brother-in-law’s help to speed up the process, but she’d not heard back from him yet.
The front door opened, slammed shut. Felix. He could be careful. Everything here was fragile.
She fidgeted with the cups and teapot, but his bootsteps stopping in the doorway dragged her attention upward, arrested her heart before beating it into a madcap rhythm.
Oh no. The rain had done him well. His usually honey-colored hair was dark and slick against his skull, and a raindrop ran down his temple toward the wicked upward flick of the outside of one eyebrow.
He dropped the valise he carried on the floor by the door, unbuttoned his soaked jacket, and stripped himself of it, tossing it to a low couch nearby.
The linen of his shirt was wet, too, and it molded to his arms, outlined in loving detail every mighty muscle.
Throat dry. Tried to swallow. That star his almost kiss had sung to life in her on their wedding day? Throbbing.
“Sit,” she croaked. “Eat.” She managed to sit as well, busying herself with pouring tea to tame her body’s reaction to his. As he wandered closer, she saw the rain droplets dark against his buckskins. That article of clothing strained tight across thick thighs that flexed as he sat across from her.
“Thank you,” he said when she handed him a cup of steaming tea. Did he look at her? No clue. She could not look at him to see. She’d looked too much earlier, still suffered the severe discomposure of it all. “You have a mare.”
“Helen. A lovely girl.”
“But no groom.”
“Polly and I care for her. Hiring a groom is part of my plan.”
“Of course.” His voice clipped. “Have the chimneys been seen to? Or are you planning on burning the place down? I wouldn’t mind. Only… try not to be inside when it happens.”
“How very chivalric of you.” How snide of him. At least annoyance took the place of lust. “The chimneys are safe for use. No house fires.”
He grabbed a chunk of bread and lathered it with butter. “I assume you have no cook.”
“A woman brings provisions from the village. I have been enjoying simple fare.”
“Caro—”
“Do I look as if I’m starving to you?”
God, how his gaze raked across her, leaving shivers of heat in its wake. “Not at all.” How could he say those three words with such… greediness, such hunger?
She too was starving, every glimpse of him like a tempting morsel, a decadent treat she would never let herself have.
“How long do you plan to stay? We have no readied room for a viscount.”
“As long as it takes to convince you to return with me.”
“That will not happen.”
“Then I will stay until I am convinced of your safety.”
She growled, her hands fisting. God, why did he have to be so… so… “You are impossible!”
“You had to have known I would react this way,” Felix said. “Why else keep it a secret?”
“It was not a secret!”
“You should have asked for my help.”
“I do not need it.” She had a plan.
“I’d bet your plan, whatever it is, does not call for it.”
Curse him. She shrugged, maintaining the appearance of composure if not the truth of it.
“Caro, you should not be here alone, living in dust and broken windows.”
“A few months of discomfort is nothing. Besides, both problems will be fixed soon enough.”
“ Not soon enough.” He ran his hand through his wet hair, digging trenches into it just the perfect size for a curious woman’s hand.
“The roof is fixed. Now things will move much more quickly.”
Rain pattered like bullets against the windows. None broken in here!
He stood and circled the room, his long steps prowling, and his arm tensed with muscle as it extended to touch this, linger over that. He seemed tight and withdrawn, cheeks hollow and eyes dark.
“Have you ever lived here? Before you lived with your grandfather? Or visited or—”
“Yes.”
“Does it pain you to see it so deteriorated?”
“No.” He’d made a full circle of the room and sat back down, down his tea in three big gulps.
She didn’t believe him. Something about this house bothered him. And that bothered her. She’d not asked for this. She’d wanted a nice, convenient, oblivious husband with a house he didn’t have any feelings for at all. Mrs. Dove-Lyon had failed.
Perhaps Caroline could get her funds back. If only she could trade Felix in for a different sort of husband, the uncaring sort. Unfortunately, men were not horses. They should be. What British society truly needed was a Tattersalls for husbands. That idea cheered her. A bit.
She lobbed a small chuck of cheese at him, and it bounced off his chest.
Scowling, he plucked the cheese from his lap and popped it into his mouth, chewed, swallowed. “A direct attack, Caro? You want me gone that badly?”
“I want you to be less broody.” He was making her miserable with all his practicality. She’d been so optimistic. Now she was less so. Irritating man.
“No chance. Your turn.”
“What?” Her turn?
A bit of cheese flew through the air. Oh! Memory flickered to life. She caught the cheese with her mouth, grinned as she chewed. After she’d swallowed, she said, “Do you remember doing this as children?”
He nodded. “Try me again. I wasn’t ready last time.” He steadied himself in his chair, opened his mouth, his eyes gleaming with determination.
She hid a laugh and lobbed a bit of cheese. It hit him in the nose.
“Damn,” he muttered. “Again.” He caught the next one. “Ready yourself, Lady Foxton.”
She sat up straighter, opened her mouth, somehow not feeling as silly as she should. “Ready.”
He popped the cheese up in the air, and it descended in a curve toward her. She leaned forward and snapped it up easily.
He whistled, sinking lower into his chair. “I must concede to the master of cheese catching.” He paused. “Perhaps it’s that I’m the master of cheese lobbing. I make it easier to catch, whereas you only hit my nose.”
“Try once more.” She ignored that jibe and pinched a corner of cheese off the block. “You’ll do better this time.”
“Very well,” Felix grumbled, but he opened his mouth.
And Caroline could not remember what she was supposed to be doing. His lips were red, his tongue, too, and the gentle, mischievous face of the boy she’d once known had somehow appeared like a ghost on top of the chiseled visage of the grown man.
“Come on, then, Caro,” he said, those lips shaping words she wanted to… taste? “Aim and fire.”
“Oh! Oh yes.” It had become terribly hot. She tossed the cheese up, and he caught it handily. As he chewed, she couldn’t quite look away from the muscles working in his jaw.
Perhaps men and women should not eat together. It was too… stimulating.
Yet he appeared happier than he had mere moments ago, as if play had helped him shrug off whatever shadow had taken hold of him.
Not that she had any interest in making him comfortable here.
In fact, her time was better spent inventing a plan to run him off.
She could complete renovations with him here.
It was not yet time to invite women in need of escape within these walls.
But what sort of mischief would her body manage before those renovations were complete?
She had an inkling. Did not wish to find out for certain she was right.
But how to get rid of him?
“You miss your father terribly, don’t you?” His question made her flinch. Unexpected, a little like a prick to the skin when sewing. It drew the smallest drop of blood.
“I do.” But he would be proud of what she would accomplish at Hawthorne.
“Is your retreat here a means of grieving?”
“Perhaps. A little.” More accurate to say it was a way to honor him, to keep his ideas alive despite his death.
“Cannot you grieve in London?”
“No.” She stood to leave. “It grows dark. I’ll show you upstairs.”
“I’ve been here before. I can find my way.”
From her new vantage point at the door she saw only the back of his angled wingback chair, his long leg sticking out straight before the dark and empty fireplace.
“Several rooms on the first floor have beds, though I cannot vouch for the cleanliness of the mattress ticks. I’ve not gotten so far as that yet. ”
“Why are you doing this all alone?” His voice rose, low and flat.
“Not alone. I have Polly, my maid.”
“Where is she?”
“She went to the village for supplies. No doubt she will remain away until the rain clears. She is friends with the innkeeper’s wife.”
Silence, for an uncomfortable length of time. Then: “You’d have more than Polly in London. You could have a lover…”
“You?” She laughed. “ You do not want me.”
“Someone else. Not me.” His voice was flat, devoid of any emotion and impossible to read.
How odd to converse with a man without seeing his face.
How… horrid to hear a man you’d been lusting over tell you to take another man as a lover.
“No, thank you. Good evening, Felix. Do not let me know if you need anything. Feel free to leave tomorrow before I wake. No need to take your leave, either.”
When he didn’t answer, she left. Up the stairs and into her own room, where she paced and paced, her footsteps an added percussive rhythm to the rain against the window.
She’d forgotten to tell him to avoid the second room on the right.
With her luck, he’d stumble into her bedchamber after she was asleep and throw himself into bed with her.
A shiver raced through her, settling in the warm space between her legs.
What if he put his thigh there, pressing his muscle where she ached?
What if he put his hands on her breast, flicking her nipples into taut beads?
What if he set his lips against her own, licking the seam of them until she opened?
Her limbs were heavy with longing, and she fell onto her bed in a heap of unsatisfied desire.
He must leave. And she must do anything she could to get him to go. Discomfort might do it. A pampered viscount would surely run screaming after one night on a nasty tick near a broken window during a storm.
Or…
What if she simply told him. Felix, I need to remain here because I plan to make this house a refuge for women who have nowhere else to go.
What would he say? She knew him so little after a decade apart. Except that he was one of those annoying knight-in-shining-armor men. Oh, yes. Now she knew. A man who rode into battle for a woman would never let a wife run a house like that. Too dangerous. She could never tell him.
Friends. Spouses. Strangers.
They would never be more than that.
She possessed no other way to repulse him, then.
And she must discover it because he did not repulse her at all.
She wished he’d kissed her ten years ago, wished he’d kissed her on their wedding day, wished he’d kissed her today beside the ladder.
She’d sensed he might. His gaze had dropped to her lips, going as foggy as the air around them. Then he’d released her.
Naturally. She sighed, throwing an arm over her eyes. Then she laughed because if she really wanted to get rid of him…
She sat bolt upright.
If she really wished to get rid of him, all she had to do was seduce him. Try to. And watch him run away as if she’d set his hair on fire.