Her Beguiling Butler (12 page)

“Thank you, Mrs. Gordon.” His excuse to leave the house had been believed, it would seem. He swept off his greatcoat and turned once more for the servants’ stairs. “I will see her now and notify her of my return.”

He made for the second floor, taking the stairs two at a time. Knocking once, he opened the door when Alicia bade him enter.

She was already divested of her street clothes. In a rich royal purple robe of velvet, a gown of transparent white cambric beneath, she rushed to him and threw her arms around his neck. “I missed you.”

He welcomed the feel of her, the soft womanly glow of her in his arms.

She rubbed her nose on his. “You are freezing. Come have some whiskey to warm you.”

He barked in laughter. “Since when are you drinking liquor?”

“I’m not. I ordered a decanter brought to me so that I’d have it for you.”

He grinned at her. “You are mischievous. How do you know I like whiskey?”

“Don’t you?” she asked him in bright innocence. “Most men do. If you don’t, tell me what you prefer and I’ll order it brought up immediately. My butler is a most obliging man.”

“Minx.” He pinched her lightly on the hip.

She giggled and kissed him heartily.

He held her gently. “We’ll kiss more in a minute.”

She pouted. “If you promise.”

“I do. Right now I want to ask you a few questions.”

She rubbed her torso against his, her fingers tangling in the locks of his hair. “No. I need you to kiss me.”

“Alicia.”

“Yes, you see how good my name tastes on your tongue?” She worked at his serviceable cravat. “Changed your clothes, I see. Where did you do that?”

“I have a friend.”

She brushed her lips across his. “Do you? Convenient. Male, I do hope?”

“He is.”

She unlooped his neckcloth and began to work on the buttons on his serviceable black waistcoat. “And where does this friend live?”

“Mayfair.”

She pushed his waistcoat from his arms and it fell to the carpet. “But not in the Crescent?”

“No,” he said as she flicked open the placket of his breeches. He clamped a hand over hers. “Sweetheart, listen to me.”

“Yes?” she said, her purple eyes dreamy with desire.

“Tell me something.”

She sank her fingers inside his breeches and stroked the flesh along his hipbones. Her fingers were flames of need. “Of course.”

“Darling, stop. How did you hire Preston?”

The switch to such a bland topic had her blinking. “Preston?”

“Yes.”

“Robert said he had a recommendation from a friend of his. She came with a good reference.”

“From whom? Did he say?”

“Yes.” Alicia scowled. “I learned later it was Lady Farnsworth.”

He winced at the notorious name. “Farnsworth was one of—“

“One of Robert’s lovers? Oh, yes. I did not know at the time. But learned later.” She pursed her lips. “I learned of so many of his indiscretions.”

With a finger beneath her chin, he raised her face to gaze into her gorgeous eyes. “Darling, forget him.”

“I will. I have you, my darling man. And there is nothing or no one who can hurt me any longer.”

Would that he might ensure that.

She sighed in his arms, all willing wanton woman. “Take me to bed.”

Downstairs they knew he was here.

He threw back his head to stare at the ceiling. “I must not.”

“We can be quick.”

“We should be slow. I should be gone.”

She danced away from him and opened a drawer of her dressing table. She whirled toward him and extended a hand. In two fingers, she held a thin parchment paper. He knew the wrapping. Inside was a French letter.

“I found a few in Robert’s drawers when we cleaned them last year.” She grinned and swirled her long blonde hair over her shoulder. “I had no use for them…until now.”

Then she shrugged from her robe and her body shimmered beneath the cambric. And he could not refuse her.

He took the letter from her and tossed to the bed. Sweeping her up into his embrace, he sidestepped her robe and strode with her to the vast expanse of her downy bed. There he set her against the edge of the mattress, brushed her gown from her shoulders and gasped at her bare beauty. Before him, she stood as god had made her, lush and lovely, giving and his. Her breasts were large and firm, with ripe nipples of rose against the cream of her flawless skin. He cupped the wealth of her bosom and licked at the hardened tips of her breasts. She sighed and arched into his touch, her head thrown back, her delectable body on offer.

He sank to his knees to kiss the hollow beneath her hips and the indentation of her waist. He caressed her trim knees and then buried his lips in the wealth of her feminine flesh. She was warm, wet and musky to his tongue.

Sinking backward to the sheets, she urged him down with her. Like quicksilver, he shoved off his breeches and boots, then lay along her length, her servant in more ways than one.

He stroked her and she writhed. He laved her nipples and she keened. He opened her pretty pink folds and sucked on her so that she cried out in her delight. Her pleasure spurred him on. His cock jerked upward, hard as stone. She sank her nails into his shoulders and he knew she urged him on.

Fumbling to find the letter, he snatched it up from the mattress. In a daze of need, he wrapped the thing around him and bent to her once more. He smiled at the beauty of her. His. Forever his. He’d make it so. With the vow upon his lips, he parted her luscious flesh, slid along her silken folds and dropped inside her depths with a sighing ardor.

Lost in her torrid sheath, he plunged into the rhythm of his desire for her. He took her up into their mutual pleasure and clutched her close.

She was all things to him, perfect and pure. She’d had a man but he had done nothing for her but shame her and neglect her. She’d had a husband but he had never honored her, nor kept her in all sanctity.

But he would. He had no idea how, but he would.

He adored her. And she must be his. Because to be inside her was paradise and to possess her was more heaven than he had ever expected he’d attain. She shuddered in completion and he did the same, wishing he might give her all the pleasures of their joining without the sheath.

He rolled to his back and brought her to him, tight to his length.

He shoved a hand through his hair.

She mewled, cast an arm over his torso and snuggled closer.

He had to tell her who he was. He winced, knowing that would not solve every problem they had. Correction, every one
he
had. To proclaim himself once more in society was a task he did not relish. He’d given up such fripperies so long ago. Shamed by his father’s improprieties, he’d run from the disgrace of his sire’s drunkenness and gambling. The
ton
would talk like magpies if and when he ever reentered their world.

But he had to have this woman, this lovely creature who wanted him even now above and beyond social dictums.

God help him, but he had to find the culprit in this household first.

Late the next morning as he reviewed the week’s menus with Sweeting, he fought a headache and terrible malaise. True, he was tired from making love to Alicia, but he was young and healthy. Or he had been. And he wondered about that nightshade. Could the plant be dried? Disguised in food?

Rubbing his temples, he sat lax in a chair at the tiny kitchen table. No one among staff this morning seemed to glance at him oddly. Yet they must have all known that he’d remained in Alicia’s room longer than necessary. He sighed.

“You’re not well, are ye, Mr. Finnley?” Sweeting asked him.

He rubbed his throat and winced. “I think I took a chill at my brother’s.”

“Oh, not good. I can make you a tisane, if you like. An old recipe from me mum. Fix what ails you, I do predict.”

“Yes, thank you. I’ll take a remedy from you.”
And watch you at it, too.

“Why don’t you go into the parlor and rest. I’ll make my brew and call you when I’m ready.”

“Thank you. I will wait here.” He picked up the paper with the menus and read them once more. His vision blurred and he shook his head to clear it.

Sweeting went about her work, boiling water in the kettle, spooning out tea leaves and warming the pot. If nightshade could be dried like an herb and if she had mixed it in the tea leaves, he had no way to know.

“Come to the large table, sir.” Sweeting carried a tray laden with teapot, cup and saucer and a small cake.

“I brought you a poppyseed cake and orange jam. Tea is best with something to fill the stomach. What do you say?”

“I say thank you, Mrs. Sweeting. I’m very obliged.” He watched her while she poured him a cup of tea. “You brought none for yourself? Go. Get a cup. I insist. Join me.”

She smiled, then trotted off.

Within minutes, she was back and seated. Grinning, ready for a bit of talk, she nestled into her seat like a little rabbit burrows into its hovel. Then she poured herself a cup from the same pot. “Have you tried my cake?”

“I have,” he said, his mouth full. “Fabulous. Moist. You do have a fine touch. How long have you been in residence?”

“Here? Oh, year and years. A year before the first Lady Ranford died.”

“So you knew her better than most.”

She shrugged “If a cook can know her ladyship.”

“Was she a kind mistress?”

Sweeting frowned and sipped her tea. “Why do you want to know?”

“Curiosity, Sweeting.”

“Good enough. The first lady liked her position in society. Always out to call or to dinner. The theater too.”

“Did she have any pastimes at home?”

“What do you mean?”

He shrugged. “Some ladies knit. Play solitaire. Some perfect their skills at the piano or the harp.”

“No, nothing like that for her.”

“No collections or gardening?”

“No. She enjoyed her evenings out, rose late and had no time for anything but readying herself to go out again.”

“Hmm. Good to know. So the garden in the back is yours?”

“It is. Always has been.”

“I see.”

“Best way to get flavor into any of my dishes is to take fresh from my own plot.”

“I agree. Works best.”

So if the cook put nightshade in the tea leaves, she covered her tracks by drinking it herself and in his presence, too.

What a tangle.

To find Cybil Preston alone was another matter. She was dedicated, hovering over Alicia any hour of day or night. Finally in frustration, two days later, he’d encouraged Alicia to pretend to retire for the evening early one night so that Preston might adjourn to the servants’ parlor for the night. He hoped he might catch the woman in a talkative mood.

The only problem was that Preston had gone to bed early herself and Finnley never got a chance to speak with her.

That left him Grimes to plumb for his secrets. And Finnley vowed to do it this evening over brandy in the servants’ parlor.

Finnley rounded the corner of the sitting room and halted in his tracks. A lightning bolt of pain shot through his head. He clutched the door frame and stood a moment, blinking.

This morning he’d experienced a similar stroke but not as debilitating.

This blinding light was new. Disturbing.

“I say, are you well?” Grimes asked him. He sat in one of the kitchen chairs staring up at Finnley.

“A moment’s passing. Nothing drastic.” Finnley
continued to the table, putting down the bottle of brandy. “Mind if I join you?”

“Not at all.” Grimes shook out the morning paper and resumed his focus on the pages.

“Will you have a drink with me?”

“No, thank you. Tomorrow’s Sunday and I want to be up early and doing so I can take my half day with ease.”

“Good idea.” Finnley took a seat and poured himself a drink. He’d take this chance to get closer to the footman. “What do you do on your half days? Something amusing, I hope.”

“I call on a maid who lives next door at the Stanleys’.”

“Is that right?” Finnley had no idea Grimes had a romantic bone in his body. “Wonderful.”

Grimes nodded and went back to reading his paper.

“Any news in there of when they’re to bury the Duke of Kent?” he asked Grimes. The king’s youngest son had died six days ago and they still hadn’t announced his funeral plans.

The footman glanced over at him. “Nothing.”

“Seems odd, doesn’t it, that they don’t get on with it.”

“It does,” Grimes told him. “I suspect everyone’s waiting for ol’ Farmer George to go in his latest bout of madness.”

Finnley nodded. King George the Third who’d ruled for nearly sixty years had taken to his bed again last week, blathering about his mother and asking for his wife, both long dead, poor souls. “The royals prepare for his death constantly.”

“He’s too stubborn to die,” Grimes said with disdain.

“And the Prince Regent’s too eager to have it be so, ” Finnley said, stating a fact all in society knew to be the truth.

“You have the right of it there, sir.”

“I say, tell me something Grimes. How do you like it here?” No butler in his right mind would ever ask such a thing of an underling. Servants worked and were expected to have no views on their condition. But Finnley wished to shock—and he had.

Grimes let the papers drop to the table as he stared at Finnley. “What?”

“Are you satisfied with the running of the house?”

Grimes pulled a face. “Of course.”

“Good to know,” Finnley said, trying for nonchalance.

“Why do you want to know?”

“Curious. It seems the house has had so many changes in the past year.”

“To say the least, sir.”

“Did you like the former butler? What was his name?”

“Norden.” Grimes folded his hands upon the table. “A fine bloke.”

“Was he—perhaps—unsure of his footing? Suffering from dizziness? Headaches?”

Grimes grimaced and took his sweet time thinking about that. “He was old. Fifty. Maybe more. And headaches? Yes, now that you mention it, he complained of them.”

“Do you think that’s why he fell?”

Grimes rolled a shoulder.