Chapter 13
Thirteen
The boy weighed nothing at all.
He stirred and whimpered when Sebastian first picked him up then turned his face into Sebastian’s chest, at the crook between arm and ribs, and went back to sleep.
Such a tiny scrap of life, for all that he must be nine or ten years old.
But he’d never be tall, even if he fattened out.
Malnutrition stunted them, didn’t it? He’d read that once in the paper, some complaint from the army recruitment officers about how short and unhealthy the enlisted soldiers were.
It hadn’t seemed to matter much. They’d all die anyway, shot to death or diseased.
He’d turned to the business pages and continued his breakfast.
But somehow they didn’t all die. Like this collection of bone and sinew and suspicion. He was wiry, for all that he was skinny. He’d probably be strong too, once he was well and had some food inside him. A creature had to be to survive in the wild.
But still, the boy seemed delicate in Sebastian’s arms as he trod up the stairs.
Small, and yet no end of trouble. Small, and yet he might lose Sebastian his wager.
Small, and yet he’d brought both Sebastian and Mrs Ardingly to their knees.
He could still smell the turpentine. The soap.
He’d felt the accidental glance of her wet fingers against his.
He’d seen the damp cotton that clung more finely to her form—finer than any tailor could fit cloth.
What a way to spend the day. And how ridiculous, when he had servants enough who could have done it. But she’d been determined to do the task herself, he’d seen that. And so he’d helped her to do it. Oh yes, he was doing a fine job of proving he had a heart. To the wrong woman.
But if Lady Frances had been witness, he could well imagine her bemused distaste. None of that would have impressed her, only made her think him soft in the head, not the heart.
She didn’t care for his heart anyway. He knew that well enough. This current excuse was as much a test as it was a delaying tactic.
She wanted to know how much control she wielded over him. And how much would remain once they were married. She was too used to ruling her roost, was Lady Frances. And while she tested him, she was free to look around…
Sebastian shouldered open the door to a guest bedroom. It was the one furthest from his father’s room. The shouts of his ravings might reach through all the intervening walls, but only just.
Holding the boy, he couldn’t pull the bedcovers back, but it was a broad bed, so he put the boy down gently on one side, then pulled the covers over him from the other, cocooning him between the fold.
He stepped back cautiously, praying the boy didn’t wake. He waited a few moments to be sure before leaving the room and locking the door behind him, for the same reasons as he’d locked the room below.
When he returned to the Willow Room, he found Mrs Ardingly tending the fire, though they had no need of it now. He supposed she just liked to have something to tend.
“He’s asleep,” he said, closing the door behind himself then belatedly realising he shouldn’t have.
“That’s good.” Her eyes went from the closed door to him and then away, to the now-cold bath. Scummy, brown suds floated on the surface, but she’d mopped up the floor. Of course she had.
“You’ve been so kind.” She took a step forward, hands tightly clasped in front of her. Her gaze was on the floor. It reached as far as his boots. “I don’t know how to repay you, but believe that you have my gratitude. Sincerely.”
While she refused to look at him, he was at liberty to study her from head to toe. The dress was no less ugly. Her figure no less fine. Her hair had come down in stray tendrils as she’d laboured at the bath. He wanted her, viciously.
As though she could feel the tracking path of his gaze, she brushed at her skirts then tucked a softly curling wisp of hair behind her ear.
He murmured a thank you for her thanks, as was polite. And impolitely, he studied her mouth as he said it, the way the full lips compressed and she gave a small nod, her attention still anywhere in the room but on him.
He walked to where she stood and propped an elbow on the mantelpiece above the fire.
From the corner of her eye, she must have seen him begin to fold down his shirtsleeves and refasten the buttons because she suddenly became intently interested in studying the wallpaper on the opposite wall. For a widow, she was amusingly scandalised by a man getting dressed.
“We need to talk about the wager, Mrs Ardingly.”
She gave a sharp nod. “And how to undo the damage I’ve done to your chances.”
“Much of it depends on Lady Frances.”
She glanced round just as he gave his cuffs a final straightening tug.
“If she deigns to still recognise me, you mean? Or perhaps she has already told the story far and wide and made me a laughingstock. Even more of one than I was before.”
“Not without incurring my displeasure. She knows about the wager, remember.”
She let out a rasp of laughter, very far from amused. “Oh, such terribly bad ton to rescue that boy! Clearly the polite and fashionable thing would have been to let him die.”
“Leave aside the boy for a moment. You leapt from a carriage in a crowded street and ran pell-mell for some distance with your skirts hitched almost to your knees.”
“How unladylike. How unwomanly to care so desperately for a child! But I suppose only men are to do the rescuing, and us women just stand by and admire it.”
“You could have called to me for help. I was riding close to your carriage.”
“And you would have spent ten minutes arguing with me, and by that time, if you’d ever deigned even to act, the boy would have been beyond help.”
“I think the truth is that you never thought to ask for help.”
“From you?”
“From anyone.”
Her nose wrinkled. There were faint freckles there, like the dusting of some fragrant spice. He could imagine tasting them.
“And why would I? Knowing what anyone’s reactions would be?
Precisely this—condemnation and ridicule.
Do you think I care? Do you think I care for anything except that the boy is safe?
Yes, I am conscious of the obligation I owe you, and I admit that your help has been…
has been…admirable, in its way, but don’t think to convince me I should have acted any differently. I would do the same thing again.”
Her grudging in its way made him smile, but it was a secret smile, not audible in his voice. “I don’t condemn you, Mrs Ardingly. Neither do I ridicule you. But I would ask that the next time, please feel certain you can turn to me for assistance.”
“You?” That doubting, aghast word made him smile again. “But this…but this doesn’t help you win your wager. It doesn’t help your standing. Why would you want to help me?”
“I suppose I’ve given the impression I would blithely stand by and let any number of young boys be beaten to a bloody pulp?”
“Yes! Those were almost precisely your words when we last discussed this matter. You’re in favour of small boys being beaten, do I need remind you? It makes for strong leaders or some such thing.”
His mouth pursed and he ran a thumb along the chamfered edge of the mantlepiece. “There is a vast difference between what happened in that alley and the necessary corrections of a schoolteacher.”
“Is there? For I see no difference of type at all, and in some cases, there is very little difference even of degree.”
“Mrs Ardingly…”
“Now you laugh at me, after saying that you would not! But you saw his back. That boy has been corrected and corrected and will wear the scars of it for life. You told me once, and quite proudly, that you were soundly thrashed as a boy. How does your back look, my lord? Or were your masters careful not to scar your high-born flesh?”
He said nothing for a moment, none of his thoughts being of a speakable nature. Yes, he had scars. No, his uncle had never been, and would never be, his master. And if she wanted to examine his back then…
Well. Enough of that.
He straightened and leant his back against the fireplace, crossing his arms.
She turned away, unable to bear looking at him, perhaps. Her shoulders rose and fell on an agitated breath. When she spoke, her voice was tightly controlled. “I should see how my aunt is doing.”
“Not yet. We have plans to make.”
She shook her head, letting out a breath of annoyance. “You can give me my instructions in writing.”
“Ah, but what a waste of paper that would be. Come now, Mrs Ardingly, turn and look at me. You can’t mean to be so easily defeated. I’m still sure of victory.”
“I care so little for your wager, sir, that you would need a microscope to find it.”
He laughed at that, as fully and freely as he’d laughed at anything in some time.
And still she stood with her back to him, her shoulders high, her spine rigid.
“I beg you, Mrs Ardingly”—the laugh was still in his voice—“insult me to my face. I’d hate to miss a drop.”
Her answer was to leave the room without looking back, stomping away with that mannish stride of hers. But his stride was longer; he reached the door at the same time she did and stopped her hand upon the knob, his fingers around her wrist.
“Talk about bad ton.” His voice was a murmur. He had no need to talk loudly; her ear was close to his mouth, her shoulder against his chest. “You said you were obliged to me, madam. The least you could do is hear me talk.”
“Very well.” She turned abruptly, her wrist still in his hand, pivoting on her heel so they were chest to chest. Her blue eyes fixed on his, bold and angry, her chin high. “Talk.”
Inevitably, his gaze fell to her mouth. A few inches of movement would close the space between them. He could try it. She would strike him.
It was too soon.
So he did not move at all, except his thumb, which traced the furious pulse in her wrist.
Her chest rose sharply at the touch, her bosom skimming his waistcoat. It was dizzying, how badly he wanted her. He couldn’t think like this, all heat and clamour and desperate hunger.
If he kissed her…
Yes, she would strike him. He could almost feel the sting of her palm on his jaw. She hated him too much to submit.
Think, Sebastian, goddammit, you’re playing a longer game than this.
With another brief stroke of her wrist, he stepped back, letting go.
“This wager benefits us both, remember?” He turned and walked to the window, hands clasped behind his back.
The evidence of his desire was very…evident.
It would be her turn to talk to his back for a while.
“I still mean to get you your ten men—the nucleus for your committee board—and to make this ball of yours a success. You saved one boy last night. Don’t throw away your chance to help thousands more. ”
“We could manage without you.”
But there was no heat to her words, no strength. It was rote defiance, just a mere footnote to let him know she was still angry.
“Perhaps. Given years. And in the meantime, all those boys… You gave delay as a reason for not requesting my assistance last night. You understand the benefit of getting your committee into action within mere months.”
“Fine.” That was a bookmark shoved between the pages, the Book of Defiance set down with an irritated smack. “What is your plan?”
“You will come to the Allingham’s ball tomorrow, and we will dance together.”
She laughed. “Oh, what a plan! One dance with you will set all to rights, I’m sure.”
He turned, mouth crooked in a smile. “It will be a start.” He was remembering the betting book at White’s.
Leighton’s wager that Mrs Ardingly would wed before the year was out had already made her a subject of interest. His attention would increase that tenfold.
And where interest was ignited, invitations would follow.
The picnic had proved Mrs Ardingly was perfectly capable of creating a good impression when given the chance to do so—and when free of her aunt.
That invitations would follow in the wake of their dancing, he was sure.
Every lady of his wide acquaintance took a great deal of interest in who he might marry.
Lady Frances had, of course, been the presumed choice of recent months, but there would be no harm in shaking those assumptions.
There might even come a great deal of good if he could shake Lady Frances’s own certainty.
He’d given her too much power. It wasn’t up to her to elevate Mrs Ardingly. He could do so himself.
It was time for Lady Frances to doubt her own power. Let her watch him dance with Mrs Ardingly; a blind man couldn’t miss the simmering connection between them. If he wasn’t allowed to act upon it, then he might at least make use of it.
“Is it a private ball? I have no invitation.”
“I will secure you one. The only question that remains…is with whom you will arrive.”
“My aunt—”
He shook his head. “No.”
Of course she glared daggers at him, cheeks burning with anger. He gave her no chance to speak.
“It will be Lady Frances.” He had no idea yet how he’d arrange it, but if he couldn’t manage, then he had no call thinking to make the woman his wife.
“Arrive with her, dance with me, make yourself pleasant to all, do not get drunk, and make no mention of small boys or beatings or charity of any kind. Yesterday’s rashness will all be forgotten. ”
“I see. And I suppose you will tell me what to wear, my lord?”
“Of course. The blue satin. I will send you some jewels to go with it.”
She bowed her head, entirely frigid. “How very, very good you are.”
Her curtsy was all sarcasm.
His smile was real.