Her Beguiling Butler (8 page)

“Who says I’m not?”

“My sweet woman, you are a creature of your time and convention.”

“Perhaps you misread me.”

“I doubt it.”

For an overlong minute, she stared at him. “I’ll show you.”

He grew wary of this budding determination of hers. Askance, he beheld her. “How?”

“In two ways. Agree to let me prove it to you.”

He hesitated, scanning the hard set of her features. “Very well. I agree. What are they?”

“Come with me to Sevenoaks. My governess will be buried in that town day after tomorrow.”

A day in a coach with Alicia? A night or more in lodgings? He’d never survive the temptation to savor more than her conversation. “A butler does not travel with his lady.”

“So you go back on your promise already?” She tsked. “Come, come. This is not like you. Besides, if you refuse to go, I will take Grimes.”

“No.” No other man should sit beside her. Jealousy, sharp as a rapier, cut through his reason.

She set her teeth. “Then I’ll leave alone.”

“Absolutely not. The roads are not safe. We’ve had too many riots lately.”

“Unless you accompany me, I will make the journey by myself.”

“You can’t! Ladies do not travel unaccompanied.”

“I have no male relative, distant or close, on whom I may depend. Only you.” She arched both brows to counter him.

“Your Aunt, then,” he suggested.

“No. She does not attend funerals. Ever. Not even of her those in her family.”

He shook his head. “I cannot do this. The
ton
would be outraged. You’d be banned for ever more.”

“I doubt I care.”

He grew frightened she’d destroy her future, her good name. And what if she were awarded the Bentham title? Ancient as it was, that would do nothing to enhance her standing in society if she were ridiculed for cavorting with her manservant. A title would only make her more likely to become a target of gossip. What else could he do but help her? “I’ll hire a traveling coach and leave your coach and coachman here.”

“Superb idea.” She lifted a shoulder. “You see how indispensible you are, Wallace?”

His name on her lips had him envisioning her beneath him, calling to him. “I will hang back. You will not introduce me.”

“If you say so, darling. I cannot drag you to the churchyard.”

“Churchyard?” He could not have her ruin herself in so many ways. “No lady goes to the burial of anyone. Not even family.”

“I do. I will for her. You cannot dissuade me.” She gazed at him, coy as a girl. “But I welcome your company in the coach and the inn.”

Confounded by her willingness to walk rings around him, he put on a scowl. “I do not like this.”

She merely smiled. “But you’ll do it.”

Hell, yes.
He’d follow her anywhere. “Only because you’ll find yourself a victim of a highwayman or a rioter.”

She softened in his arms, her lips caressing his. “You’ll love my conversation, dear sir.”

“Too much, I wager.” He drew away, much as he hated to part from her. “And the second task you would have me do? What is it?”

She glanced down at the button on his waistcoat and reached out a finger to toy with it.

“Alicia?” He caught her hand, stilled it. He could barely breathe, hardly speak, his throat was so thick, his heart so aching.

She struggled from his lap, gained her feet and whirled to gaze upon him. “We know not what tomorrow brings. We have only today. Tomorrow when we climb into my carriage and make the trip to Sevenoaks, you will be beside me. If you do not wish others to see you for what I wish you to be, that is your problem. As for me, I will have you as my lover.”

He clamped his teeth together. Damn if she wasn’t setting fires along his spine.

She stood before him, not pouting but insisting. “I want this. I need you. If you will not have me for a permanent companion, so be it. I will have you for one night,” she purred and he was lost to visions of her wearing nothing but her luscious skin. “For one grand affair. Because I care for you, Wallace, far more than I have cared for any man. And for once in my life, I wish to experience rapture in my bed.”

One grand affair. One love. Precisely what he’d never thought to gain or experience. Precisely what he’d never seen in his own parents. But with her, here it was—here she was. And he could not ignore her lure and his need to possess her. He rose. “Listen to me, Alicia.”

“No.” She cut him off with a swipe of her hand. “I will hear no objections. You want me.”

He opened his mouth to refute her claim.

But she stepped against him, one arm around his neck, and kissed him with all the fervor of a woman who was enchanted. Her lips were silk seduction.

And he could not push her away.

He caught her close, pressed her against him and seized her lips. She was heaven and he was in a fabulous hell. “Oh, my darling, you are so delicious.”

“And you won’t deny me.”

Though he called himself a fool, an idiot, a foul roué who took her offer too readily, he shook his head once. “I won’t deny you. Or myself.”

She smiled. Slowly, softly. Like an angel. ““Let’s see then. Have you a pair of fawn breeches? A waistcoat? Hessians? I have a pair of my husband’s and—“

He laid a finger across her lips. “Darling, I have clothes suitable to appear beside you.”

“Superb. I look forward to the transformation.” She giggled in anticipation and planted a light kiss on his lips. “From Finnley, my butler, to Wallace, my lover.”

She snuggled into his embrace and he clamped his eyes shut.

What in hell had he just agreed to
?

To become her lover for one night? How ridiculous that notion was! If he took her, kissed her, caressed her naked skin and sank inside her, how could he walk away?

And yet if she ever learned how he had deceived her, she would toss him out on his ear. Revile him.

Then her one night of rapture would not be recalled with any fond delight.

And he? What would he do when the only woman he had ever loved took his name in vain and cursed his existence as the liar he was?

He had no solution.

He could not remain in her employ—and he dare not leave her to an unknown villain.

She settled under the fur throw in the hired coach and avoided looking at Finnley. He sat across from her, huddled in a corner, as far from her as he could get. He’d crossed his long legs, beautifully clad as they were in very good looking fawn breeches. Both his waistcoat, a handsome ivory and sapphire brocade, and his coat, a superbly cut navy superfine wool, reaffirmed her conclusion of his excellent taste. He’d even done a superb job of a complex knot in his cravat. She could close her eyes and relish the looks of him, the dashing cut of his coal-black hair, mussed as it was with his occasional displays of frustration.

Well, too bad. She was confounded as well. Today’s display of his excellent choice of tailor only serviced her suspicion that the dedicated and trustworthy Mister Wallace Finnley came from a background far nobler than he had yet revealed to her. Certainly, from his education, even from his speech, she ascertained that he had had a decent education in rhetoric, decorum, business of running a household—and a group of servants.

What else was there?

She would learn.

“I daresay, good sir, it is the devil’s own day out there. The snow is deep as ever. And you will freeze if you do not come huddle with me under this carriage blanket.”

He shot her a longing look of those fierce blue eyes that warmed her to the quick.

She bit her lip, for he certainly meant to freeze her but he’d had quite the opposite effect. Throwing aside the corner of the fur piece, she lifted her chin at him. “Stop this nonsense and come get warm.”

He grumbled. But he came.

She took his hands. Even in his well-fitting leather gloves, his hands were cold. She tucked them under the blanket in his lap and snuggled close to him.

He jumped.

She jumped closer.

Oh, my.

What had she touched?

A more personal part of his body?

She wanted to chuckle.

But didn’t.

Retracting her fingers from his person, she fished for his hand instead. She had grasped another part of his anatomy which was not so much cold as hard.
Very.

Inside, she smiled and wondered how large he might be. Bigger than Ranford? She coughed to stifle her snort. Ranford had been big enough to cause her some discomfort, although it was not his size that accosted her senses but his lack of interest.

She shifted, the memory of her husband’s perfunctory service to his husbandly duties a dark blotch on his character. Virgin that she’d been when she went to him on her wedding night, she’d assumed his speed at the task was his prudence for her inexperience. But night after night,
his habits brought her more and more questions about the nature of coupling. When she’d asked him if she was lacking in performance, if she must do something, anything, he had laughed at her. Laughed.

That’s when she’d decided he was more of a cad than a mate. Less of a gentleman than anyone thought. Including her father. And perhaps even his reputed mistress. Soon after she had sought out through her Aunt a few risqué books about the art of marital bliss. Hortense had pretended shock, but soon relented and allowed her to borrow a few from her library.

“A woman must know what one is about, I always say,” she’d handed them over. “Best to return them to me when you are finished.”

When Alicia had arched a brow in question, Hortense replied that she did not think Ranford would appreciate such in his house. He’d consider them material to lock her away.

Agreeing that she needed nothing to pique Ranford’s interest in her new found independence, Alicia had handed them over after she had virtually memorized the texts and could envision the drawings with her eyes closed.

Informative, they had titillated and inspired her. Sadly for Ranford, they inspired her to confront him with his marital shortcomings, physical, emotional and even financial. He had not liked it, to the point where he stayed away from her. And that was wonderful freedom. She dared to daydream of a lover worthy of her own longings. Though she had not wished him dead and gone, Providence had aided her and within a few months she was to emerge from her cocoon and find a new delight in her life. With the man who was her butler—and yet was not.

Facing Finnley, she bit her lower lip. “I hope the snow will stop soon.”

He pulled fur blanket closer up over her shoulders. “We’ll make the service. Never fear.”

“Do you think any of the servants suspect us of running off together?” She curled her lips in humor.

“I hope not.” He hugged her to him, the heat from his body a comforting lure.

“Your idea to join me in the carriage on Oxford Street was superb. Thank you for this. We are well and warm and you aid me to say my farewell to a lady whom I adored. Your presence eases my mind and our journey.” She slid closer to him, her hip tight against his, her hand clasping his in the hollow of her lap. Good place for his hand. She shivered at the expectation of how he might touch her there without layers of coat and dress and petticoat and chemise between them.

She’d lead him on to what she wished to learn about him. “Have you traveled in Kent often?”

He frowned down at her and smoothed tendrils of her hair from her cheek. He was so tender, his fingertips touched her like angels wings. “Last year more than before.”

“Why was that?” she asked in her most nonchalant tone.

“I had a relative here who invited me to visit.”

Hmm. He would not tell her who that relative was. Secretive, again. “Did you stay long?”

He shifted his gaze out the window. Then reached over to pull the oil shade down. “A fortnight.”

“Where?”

“Dover.”

“Oh, well, then. Not far from Sevenoaks. Have you been to that town before?”

“Once on my through with my regiment after Waterloo. What was left of my regiment. We lost so many. More than half.”

“Did you leave the Army after that?”

“I did. I had no stomach for it any longer.”

“And what did you do afterward?”

“Worked with the Home Office. Then went to the Marine force on the docks. My regimental commander during the wars took a position there to track stolen goods from ships and warehouses. I helped him detect those responsible and put them in gaol.”

She stared at him.

And he shifted. Looked sheepish. As if he’d told her a fact she should not know.

“You did not tell me this.”

“No.” He raised the fur throw higher against her shoulders.

“Are you ashamed of it?”

“What? No. Not at all.”

“Why not tell me? It is unusual, to say the least. And I would have been intrigued to think that my very own butler had served to capture thieves and murderers. Imagine.”

“Most would not want a man like that in their house. They’d turn him away.”

“Is that why you did not tell me? You thought that I would not hire you?”

“Yes. Most in the
ton
do not wish to know anyone concerned with crime. Not Bow Street Runners. Not the Marine force.”

Intriguing.
“I think such men must be courageous and smart.”

He gave her a lopsided grin. “You have an open heart.”

For you I do.
“What qualifications must such an investigator possess?”

“One who remembers details. One who solves puzzles.”

She smiled at him. “Fascinating. How did you come by these skills?”

“A childhood spent alone allows one to dream and concentrate on any interest.”

She fingered the fall of the collar of his black greatcoat. “And what were your interests?”

“I was very sickly. So my interests were sedentary. Bugs and plants. I collected them all. My mother loved each one and my father hated them. Said they were subjects for a female.”

Detecting his bitterness, she squeezed his hand in sympathy. “As if there are divisions in the realms of the universe. Ridiculous. A person should be permitted to study whatever thrills him or her. Ants. Lilies. Rocks. Romances.”