Chapter 17
Seventeen
“Lord Cotereigh.”
Her voice stopped him. His hand was on the door handle. Damn the woman. Why couldn’t she give up on lost causes?
“If you pride yourself on your charity, Mrs Ardingly, you’ll let me be.”
Of course she didn’t. Again she came up behind him and lay a hand on his back, on his shoulder blade. She couldn’t know it, but the warmth of her palm settled right over that silver scar.
Quite without meaning to, his eyes sank shut and a breath ran out of him. His forehead dropped to the wood of the door. It was cold and hard and unyielding, and it anchored him against her touch.
“It was your uncle who beat you. Major Tait.”
So it wasn’t his father she wanted to speak of. No, she’d got a clue to her favourite subject, and so of course she would unravel him with that. He let out a hollow laugh without otherwise moving at all.
“Him and others. Don’t forget my schoolmasters.”
“But the major took no charge of your education.”
His eyes opened a crack. Polished mahogany met his stare, blurred into meaningless browns by the close distance. “On the contrary. He played by far the largest role.”
He turned, bringing them face to face. Chest to chest. Here again, by the Willow Room door.
He took her hand, and she went tense all over, but if she was going to be unwise enough to touch him in the first place…
Studying her fingers, he lightly pressed each one in turn, as though testing each different size. “My uncle,” he said, “made me exactly who I am. And I am very grateful.”
A pursed mouth and unimpressed blue eyes asked, Really?
He smiled, thin as a knife blade. “I happen to like who I am, Mrs Ardingly.”
Her scepticism only deepened. As did his smile. Slowly, he ran his finger down between two of hers, to the sensitive skin at the base between them. She looked away, focusing all her attention on the door by his arm.
“Your father isn’t well. I’m hardly going to judge you for that.”
“My father is a mad drunk.”
“He seems to be sadly grieving. I believe he spoke of your mother.”
“Ah, but which one? The dead, or the living? He grieves them both.”
She glanced back at him, the question obviously occurring to her for the first time. “Where is your stepmother? Major Tait’s sister?”
“In Ireland. With her lover. In Vienna before that, with a different one. In Yorkshire, for a while, with a groom. Now that was embarrassing.”
He traced his way down between her other fingers as he talked, outlining her whole hand in turn. She was entirely still, but she watched the path of his touch, her muscles tight, ready to snatch away at any moment.
He held tight. He was going to enjoy this hand, now he had it. Turning it over, he stroked the lines of her palm. Sparks ran up his fingers, his wrist ached with them; they joined the clamouring in his blood, a stupid, brainless riot.
But even as his hunger grew, he hungered just as much for this palm softly against his cheek; for another chance to close his eyes and let out a breath.
“He must have loved his first wife, your mother, very much.”
“Madly.” He meant that word. Madness. “And now you see the result. He can’t get past it.”
A different sort of stillness snapped into her bones. He glanced up at her face—yes, she saw the parallels too. She still grieved that boy, didn’t she? Alfred of the moonlight sailing.
“He remarried for two reasons,” Sebastian said, letting her come to her own reflections.
He wasn’t about to go poking through the shards of her sorrow.
“One, to provide me with a mother. A dismal failure, as you see. And two, because despite having an heir, he felt he ought to have a spare. There are fables enough about greed that I don’t need to tell you the lesson learned there.
I don’t believe she ever let him so much as touch her.
She bought a title and a substantial income and had no more need of him. ”
“But her brother stayed.”
“Her brother found our houses comfortable, our cellars good, our stables full. Her brother found close association with the earl and his family to be beneficial to his social aspirations. And, if he was welcome in our house, then clearly his sister’s infidelities were of no importance to my father—if the husband tolerates them, then society does too. ”
“But was he? Welcome?”
“My father was drunk and broken. And I was seven years old. In the street cant of young Tom, we were pigeons, ripe for the plucking.”
“But you tolerate the man. You are known to be close.”
He’d forgotten his seduction of her hand. He simply held it. “Why are you wearing no gloves?”
“I was hot. They were annoying me.”
“It does not matter what you want. Only what society says you must do.”
He spoke the words ironically, but she met his look squarely. “Words you live by.”
“Words I thrive by.”
It was her eyes that dipped to his mouth. He went hot everywhere all at once, his neckcloth a choking claw at his throat, her hand in his a burning branch. But it was only a fleeting glance. He saw her correct herself, a keeled-over ship dragging itself upright, fleeing cleanly before the wind.
She addressed his shoulder, voice firm. “Your uncle—”
A commotion cut her off, the sound of voices from the front of the house. He’d recognise that deep, rough voice anywhere. He knew the vicious anger.
“Well.” He let her hand go, and turned once more for the door, “they do say speak of the devil…”
With hindsight, with his uncle in this mood, he ought to have told Mrs Ardingly to stay back. But it didn’t even occur to him, just that they would set out together, hurrying stride for stride towards the source of the commotion. She wouldn’t have listened anyway.
They found the major in the hallway, Joshua, the porter, rushing to close the door behind him and block any interested stares from the street.
Lady Pemberthy came hurrying up from the opposite side of the house, arriving at the same time they did.
And Tom… Tom hung twisting and spitting from the grip the major had on the back of his coat.
“Found this rat climbing out of your window,” the major snarled. “And this stuffed down his shirt front!”
In his other hand, he held the mantel clock.
Sebastian’s uncle met his eyes, full of mocking triumph. “This is the urchin you rescued, is it? This the boy half of town thinks must be your bastard?” His gaze passed Sebastian and landed on Mrs Ardingly, who stood quivering at his shoulder—more in rage than fear, Sebastian was sure.
“You bring your fleas to the house of Thorne, do you, miss? Trying to climb society on my nephew’s shoulders and never caring how much dirt you get on him?
Pah.” He gave the boy in his grip a rough shake.
“I’ll throw this rat out for you, Cote, if you’re too soft.
But not before he’s had a lesson he won’t forget. ”
He threw the boy down, both Mrs Ardingly and her aunt calling out in protest as the boy hit the bottom step hard with a cry of pain.
Mrs Ardingly made to rush forward, but Sebastian held her back, hurrying forward himself. The boy still moved, thank God, scrabbling to sit up, spitting blood. He grinned, cut lip running scarlet over his teeth as he sneered up at the major. “Missing sumthink, you dumb cove?”
From his hand dangled the major’s pocket watch.
God, it was suicide to pick the major’s pocket and taunt him with it just then. With a shout of rage the major reached out, picked up a heavy silver candlestick from the sideboard and leapt for the boy. Sebastian got in the way, taking the blow on his arm.
“Good God,” someone was shouting. Joshua, the servants. The pain in Sebastian’s arm was white hot, deafening. “Get the watch, get a runner, quick, quick.”
Lady Pemberthy was screaming something, Mrs Ardingly was all ablaze, stalking towards the major, spitting scold after scold, as though he wouldn’t kill her, the mood he was in.
“Enough!” Sebastian shouted, straightening. He stood between the major and the boy. “You will put that down, or I’ll see you hang.”
His uncle was still, breathing hard, face red and ugly. He scoffed a laugh, tossing the candlestick down. It landed hard enough to chip the marble floor.
“Please.” Sebastian looked over at Mrs Ardingly. Lady Pemberthy was wailing, half collapsed against a wall. “Can you get your aunt away from here? She doesn’t need to see any of this.”
She searched his expression, loath to leave.
“I will deal with this,” he said. “But…please.”
Her reply was a quick nod. She did what he wanted. Going to her aunt, she gathered her up, politely asking Joshua to open the door, and took her from the house.
The door closed, leaving silence, apart from his uncle’s heavy breathing and Tom’s occasional sniff. He wasn’t crying; his nose was bleeding. Or so he’d surely say. Above them, behind them, Sebastian knew a dozen servants watched, tucked out of sight, motionless.
“Joshua.” Sebastian’s eyes didn’t leave his uncle’s as the porter came over. “Escort Master Tom to his room. See to it he has whatever he needs, including the doctor, if necessary.”
“Yes, my lord.”
He turned, then, to the boy behind him. “I’ll need to take that now.” He held out his hand.
Blue eyes spitting defiance, the boy handed the watch over. If his skinny hand trembled, they both chose not to notice it. “Thank you, Tom.”
He closed his fingers around the watch and turned back to his uncle, who scoffed as the boy was helped back up the stairs.
“In my study, Major. Now.”
An hour later, Sebastian climbed the stairs, his whole body heavy as lead. His head was aching, but it was only a dull counterpoint to the unholy throbbing in his arm.
Nothing was broken. He was sure of that. Just as he was also sure the blow would have smashed the boy’s skull like an egg.
He rapped lightly on Tom’s door before opening it. The boy sat sullen and pale in bed, looking up once to see who his visitor was before setting in to study the sheet over his lap with an even blacker scowl than before.