A Worthy Wife (25 page)

“Now who is being silly? This is snuggling. I mean holding, bare skin to bare skin, body to body. I mean I want to see every beautiful inch of you, touch you, taste you. Let your hair flow through my fingers to spread across the pillow. Hold you when you cry out my name,
and when your body sings with the pleasure I am aching to give you.”

“Oh, my.” She snatched the cool towel off his head to place on her suddenly overheated brow. “Do you think you are up for such…such strenuous activity?”

The way he felt, he might never be up again. “Hell, no, or we wouldn’t be talking, sweetheart. But soon.”

Chapter Twenty-Five

Soon. Aurora hummed to herself as she cut flowers for Kenyon’s room. Soon. Andrew was already up and about, almost entirely recovered, so his father should be on the mend shortly. Lucy and her pups had been restored to the stables, having grown too rambunctious and too untrained for the nursery—and poor Frederick having become too much an embarrassment to the ladies with Lucy nearby—so Andrew was out with them when he was not keeping his father company. This pleased Aurora, since now she did not have to feel guilty giving so much of her time to Kenyon.

Soon he’d need less. Kenyon was less fevered, less prone to waking all wild-eyed and wet. He hardly stirred at night, so she was able to sleep on the bed next to him, but not touching, with his soft, regular snoring a welcome sound to her now. Aurora could stop it by putting another pillow under his head, but then she’d awaken, heart pounding and stomach in knots, thinking he’d stopped breathing. A little snoring was a small price to pay for the reassurance and for not having to keep waking him, to be sure.

With his cheeks much less swollen, the earl had begun to let his valet shave him, so he looked more gentleman than rogue, but no less dashing. Aurora had stroked the bristle on his unshaven chin when she bathed his face with cool water; now she had to pretend to feel for fever as an excuse to touch the smooth planes of his jaw and cheeks. In a few more days she could touch him all she wanted. Now where had that immodest thought come from? she wondered. Unnerved, Aurora almost cut her finger instead of the rose.

Surely, she was the luckiest woman on earth, she thought. Or she would be, soon.

*

Soon, dash it. Kenyon was nearly recovered, except for a lingering weakness and a bit of swelling. But before too many more days had passed, he’d be able to make love to his wife. He ached, but this time inside, to show Aurora how much she had come to mean to him, how she had made his home into a place of warmth and laughter. And she had given him his son. All the words he’d never spoken to a woman and did not know how to say…he would show her. Soon.

Before the end of the week he intended to settle some other unfinished household business, too. He’d see about getting Wesley Royce’s inheritance restored, even if he had to shake it out of the snake who’d stolen it. And he’d visit Noah Benton and beat some decency back into the dastard, if that’s what it took to get Nialla reinstated. Turn his back on his own daughter, would he? Not once the Earl of Windham was recovered, he swore. Ignoring his own former lapses in familial feelings, Kenyon planned on shaming the Cit into providing a decent dowry for the chit, and for Christopher.

Thinking that he’d never regain his strength by lying on his back, Kenyon decided to start exercising. He’d begin with a short walk, say to and from the stables, to see how exhausted that made him. And he’d do it now, while Aurora was busy elsewhere, so she would not tell him it was too far, too soon. He was a man, and it was time for him to step out from under petticoat rule, even if he fell on his face.

The grooms had all the carriages out in the stable yard for washing on this sunny spring afternoon, so the earl waved to them as he passed, hoping none of his servants could see how his knees trembled with the effort. He leaned on the door when he was inside the large building, catching his breath while letting his eyes adjust to the dimmer light. He couldn’t see Andrew, even with his glasses firmly in place, so he started down the long aisle, greeting his cattle as he passed each stall. Not until he reached the last few stalls did he get a hint of Andrew’s location. The dogs were yelping; the boy could not be far away.

Kenyon’s legs almost gave out altogether—and his heart, too—when he reached the farthest box, the one that housed Wesley Royce’s great gray brute of a stallion. There was Andrew, trying to catch a puppy that had wandered into the stall. He was darting practically under the steel-shod hooves while the stallion blew through his nostrils and flattened his ears. Another moment and boy and dog would be ground into the straw under the huge horse’s feet.

Kenyon couldn’t shout, not with his heart in his throat. Besides, he might rattle the stallion even worse. “Andrew,” he whispered, “back up to the wall and edge yourself out of there, now.”

“But I have to get my dog.”

The earl’s blood was pounding in his ears. “Now, Andrew.”

But the boy made a last dive for the little mutt. The stallion snorted and reared up. Drawing strength from his soul, for he had none in his legs, Kenyon leaped into the stall, scooped up boy in one arm and dog in the other and heaved them both over the door before facing a mountain of maddened muscle.

“Father!” Andrew shrieked, which redirected the stallion’s attention enough that Kenyon could follow his own advice, flattening himself against the side of the stall and inching toward the exit. He spoke to the horse meantime, trying to calm him with his voice. Of course, if the stallion had understood Kenyon’s words about turning him into a gelding, or goldfish food, he might not have been so amenable. The earl slammed the gate behind him and collapsed onto the dirt floor of the stable. The pup came to lick his face. Kenyon shoved it aside, gasping, “That’s the one you chose? The stupidest mutt of the litter?”

Andrew’s bottom lip was quivering.

“Don’t you cry, Andrew. Don’t you dare cry.”

The earl hauled himself to his feet. His heart had not burst, the horse had not trampled him, and he had not died of fright for the boy, to his own amazement. He
sure as Hades was going to kill something though. Still seeing in his mind’s eye what could have happened, a red haze clouded his vision.

“What the devil were you thinking, you imbecile?” he shouted at the boy, relief and reaction making his voice harsher and louder. “That had to have been the most want-witted piece of behavior I have seen in my life! An infant knows better than to get in the stall with an unpredictable animal. How could any son of mine be so stupid, for pity’s sake!”

“Then you should have let the horse kill me,” Andrew yelled back, his face screwed up with the effort to hold back his tears. “Then you’d be rid of me once and for all, just as you always wanted!”

“I never wanted my heir pounded into a pulp, dammit!”

“But you never wanted me here, and you’re only going to send me away again anyway!” Andrew could not stop the sob that escaped from the depths of his despair. “I hate you!” With that, he turned and ran out of the stable, the puppy at his heels.

“Andrew! Come back here this instant!” But the boy kept running. Kenyon had not killed the boy, only his love. He swore, loudly enough to bring the grooms and stable boys racing in from the yard, then he picked Andrew’s spectacles off the floor. Still cursing, he swung around and hit the wooden upright beam with his fist, which did not do much for the beam, his temper, or the knucklebones of his right hand.

He threatened to dismiss every single one of the stable crew for leaving his son unattended. He threatened to have the horse shot, and the dog, and his wife, for taking the boy away from the safety of school, forcing Kenyon to prove to her just what a poor parent he was.

“Cut line, Kenyon.” Brianne was there, offering her handkerchief for his bloody hand. Royce was beside her, looking none too happy. “It was our fault Andrew got into trouble. We left him alone when we went up to the loft to…ah, to…”

“To check the roof for leaks,” Wesley finished for
her. “I thought Andrew knew better than to go near Thundering Avenger.”

“Thundering Avenger? That’s the brute’s name? You let my son near a horse named Thundering Avenger? And you leave him alone while you go off seducing my sister? I’d challenge you to pistols, by Zeus, if I thought you were a gentleman.”

“I know you’re angry, Kenyon, but shouting at Wesley won’t bring Andrew back,” his sister shouted back at him.

“No? But it will make me feel a great deal better to toss him out, along with his horse and his mangy dog, if I cannot call him out.” The earl took a step toward Wesley, forgetting the highwayman was wounded, forgetting a lady was present.

The lady kicked him in the shin. “If Wesley goes, so do I.”

“Now that’s the best offer I’ve had all week.”

Before the siblings could resort to name-calling, Wesley pushed Brianne behind him. “I apologize about not watching the lad closer. As for your sister, I intend to make her an honest offer.”

“Honest? Coming from a highwayman, that does not reassure me!”

Royce had a bullet hole in his shoulder, but the earl was swaying on his feet and dripping blood down his pants. It would not be an even match, so the younger man held his arm up. “We will discuss this another time, Lord Windham. For now, instead of arguing, why don’t you go inside and see your hand looked after, while Brianne and I go after Andrew before he gets any farther away?”

Kenyon jerked his head in agreement. “That’s Lady Brianne to you, sirrah. And you, Bri, get the straw out of your hair before anyone else sees you.”

*

Soon was obviously not going to be tonight.

“You hit my son?”

“Andrew is my son, too, by Harry. And of course I did not hit him, Aurora. I hit the blasted stable, which is why you are pulling splinters out of my hand, not
little boy’s teeth. What kind of an animal do you think me, anyway?”

Never knowing anyone to take his anger out on defenseless buildings, Aurora did not answer. She just kept dabbing at the blood so she could see the wood pieces.

“Confound it, I shouted at him, was all. If you and everyone else hadn’t been mollycoddling the boy, he wouldn’t have turned craven and run. He was in the wrong, dash it, putting himself in danger that way.”

Aurora pursed her lips, but still did not comment. She also did not probe quite so gently with her needle and tweezers.

“He’ll doubtless be back by supper, if Brianne and the make-bait don’t find him first, and I’ll apologize for yelling if you think I ought. I was just so worried, and it was such a stupid thing to do.”

“What, try to rescue his puppy? What would you have done, or Sir Timothy?”

Kenyon sighed, then gasped as she pulled a chunk of wood the size of a piece of kindling out of his hand. “I might also have shoved Brianne straight into the highwayman’s arms.”

“From what you told me, I thought she was already there. And I thought you liked Mr. Royce.”

“He’s a likeable enough devil, but not what I’d pick for my sister’s husband.”

“You did not get to pick her first husband either, recall. But what did you expect Brianne to do, tumble into love for a worthy vicar, or settle for a sedate squire? Wesley Royce will suit her fine. You’ll just have to see about his inheritance so they can scandalize the
ton
from someone else’s house. I’m sure you’ll be owing him an apology for this day’s work, too.”

“Let him find the boy, and I’ll kiss his feckless, felonious feet.”

But Wesley and Brianne did not find Andrew, nor did he appear for supper. Together with all the servants, they searched the attics, the cellars, and the conservatory, the wash house, the ice house, and the nearest tenants’ houses. Aunt Ellenette took to her bed, and
Aurora’s relatives took the pony cart back to their bog to see if he’d gone there.

“I wish Ned were here,” Aurora fretted. “He’d know where to look.”

Kenyon was trying to button his caped riding coat with one hand, getting ready to join the footmen and grooms and gardeners. “Nonsense, my dear. You might as well ask Frederick where Andrew is. Brianne and Christopher and I were raised here; we know every place a child can hide.”

They also knew every local cottager and village resident. Andrew did not. “But it will be growing dark soon, and he’ll be afraid.” Neither spoke of the missing glasses, now in Aurora’s pocket, and what unseen dangers Andrew could have stumbled upon. “Besides, neither you nor your brother are recovered enough to be riding cross-country like this.”

“We’ll do what we have to. If Kit weakens, I’ll send him back, so tell the watering pot not to worry. And you try, too, my dear. We’ll have him back. Soon.”

Chapter Twenty-Six

The bells were peeling for Andrew again, but not to celebrate his homecoming. Aurora had the estate fire bells rung to bring in the searchers, and the village church picked up the signal, Andrew was not found, and was not likely to be by the men on foot or horseback, searching roadside ditches and haystacks. He’d been abducted.

Aurora’s former maid, Judith, who’d formerly been able to ride a horse, was so heavy with child she’d had to walk the distance from her cottage at the edge of the estate to report what she’d seen: a dark carriage hurtling past, a small face pressed to the window. Her husband had saddled up and ridden after it, calling back that he would send messages to Windrush as soon as he could give a direction. But he had one sway-backed horse; the carriage had four gleaming matched chestnuts.