Her Beguiling Butler (9 page)

He draped his arm around her shoulders. “Your views are those of a revolutionary.”

“Do you dislike me for them?” she teased without fear of his answer.

“Admiration is more the word, my pet.” He pulled her close to kiss her temple. “Now you must tell me what your passions were as a girl.”

She made a face. “I adored my brother’s toy soldiers and played battles with him. I commanded the French forces. Always. Jerome insisted I lose. But I won. Often. He was graceful about it.” She picked at the fur throw over her lap, envisioning Jerome’s delight at moving his men about the nursery room carpet. “I sometimes wonder if his boyhood games induced him to go to the wars.”

“Soldiering is far from a game. Sad that far too many think it a time for camaraderie, instead of the gory business it is.”

“Jerome wanted to be a hero. Wanted to impress my father with his exploits. He died trying.” She inhaled and cast off her gloom. “Enough of that. It’s over. What I must tell you is that I too know a bit about plants.”

Finnley’s brows shot up. “Do you? I never heard that.”

Had he spoken with someone about her? The way he said that implied he had. “Oh, I see. My servants talk about me, do they? Well, it happens, I know. But yes, I do know the value of oregano and lemon grass. Even nightshade.”

“That last is poisonous,” he said with some gravity.

“Yes, indeed. Did you know a few plants grew in the back garden?”

“Is that so?” he asked, his gaze on the opposite seat, but his eyes blank. “When?”

She examined him closely. “Mrs. Sweeting told me last autumn. Took me out to the patch and pointed it out. What’s wrong? Why do you frown?”

His gaze traveled to hers. “Sweeting told you about it?”

And when she confirmed it, he added, “It seems odd for it to grow in London.”

“A tough weed to survive the close air, eh?” she asked.

“Did Mrs. Sweeting say when she first noticed the plants?”

“No. I didn’t ask her.”
Should I have?

“Why did she tell you about them?” he asked her.

This question made her frown. He was very interested in the plant. Why? “I was in the kitchen one afternoon, talking about a particularly bitter tea she’d brewed for me that morning. I hated it and wanted her to discard it. She and I began to talk about my husband’s illness leading to his death. A rambling conversation. Nothing more. Then Mrs. Sweeting recalled how Lord Ranford had been confused and short of breath for weeks before he passed on. He’d suffered headaches too.”

“Did he really?”

“Yes, indeed. Made me wonder about the surgeon’s declaration of his cause of death. Heart congestion seems less to do with the head than the body, you see.”

Finnley agreed.

“And then there was the fact that Ranford’s valet fled the next day like a thief in the night. I wondered about that.” She had disliked the persnickety little man who never gave her the time of day without a sniff and upturned nose. “I was happy to have him gone though. He disliked me. He disliked the first Lady Ranford, too. Anyone close to Ranford got the gimlet eye from him. He was so loyal to my husband that he fairly squeaked with it.”

“And none of the other servants missed him?”

She gave a laugh. “Never. Though Mabel and Preston did comment on his hasty departure. They didn’t miss old Norden, either. He was an extremely good butler.”

Finnley threw her a faint smile. “You liked him? He was efficient?”

“Efficient? He was a general ordering his troops!” Alicia sighed. “Like most butlers, the house was his kingdom and he knew all that occurred there. He brooked no objection to his rule, though I will say, bar one, he was the most officious man I’ve ever met.” She raised a brow at Finnley.

He shook his head and dismissed her jibe. “Was Norden difficult to control?”

“Obedient in all things, unless of course, you wanted the soup spoon put down with the fish fork.” She pondered his death. Odd he should go months after Robert. “He was not clumsy and I couldn’t understand why he had fallen to the cellar. He looked like a rag doll at the bottom of the stairs. I hated to bury him.”

“Did you go to his burial, too?” Finnley asked, sounding incredulous.

She nodded. “I did.”

“Ah, me.” Finnley settled her back to his embrace more fully, his lips near her ear. “You give more to others than you receive.”

She liked being held and cossetted as if she were a prized possession. At length, her thoughts strayed to the nightshade. “After Sweeting told me about the poisonous plants, I had Grimes pull them from the garden. I was afraid of them. Silly, but still.”

“Wise of you,” he said, his voice faint, his body unmoving.

When Finnley said no more, she pulled back to glance at him. He brooded. “What disturbs you?”

“I don’t like poisonous plants around humans. When I was eight or nine, one of our under footmen went out into the field one afternoon, rubbed against a few wild berries, took a rash and within the hour, could not breathe. He died the next day.”

“Terrible.” She watched him. So caught up in his memories of the man who passed away so suddenly, he didn’t notice that he had revealed the fact that his household employed not merely one footman, but more.

She had been so right about Wallace. He was not from servant stock. His family had employed servants and his education had consisted of more than bugs. He’d had books and enough schooling to train his mind to solving the riddles of mysteries. And crimes.

She wasn’t totally sure why, but she shivered again.

He took her hand in his and smiled with more sympathy than consolation. “I’m sorry to be a mean cuss, Alicia. This is not—“ He waved a hand. “I hate this arrangement. It’s not what I want for you. For us.”

Us.
The word, the slip of his tongue, inspired her. She regarded him with hope. “I must apologize as well, Wallace. This subterfuge is not ideal. But I know not what else to do or how. I am not well versed in hiding an affair with a man. Especially my butler.”

“I would have wished our relationship other than it is.”

“So do I.”

“If we were of the same backgrounds, we might have had a chance at a more fulfilling friendship.”

Aren’t we of the same backgrounds?
“For the next few days, we are equals.”

He cupped her cheek. “We must not pretend.”

“But you’re here,” she whispered to him, “and part of you is willing.”

“Accepting how we admire each other does not condone the intimacy.”

“You quibble, dear sir.”

“Alicia, listen to me. When we return there will be no continuation of our affections. We cannot risk it.”

She reached up and brushed her lips over his firm mouth. “This is what I want.”

He wrapped an arm around her shoulders and drew her tightly to him. “God help me, so do I.”

He kissed her with fierce ownership, his lips almost bruising in their intensity. She moaned, wanting that and more from him. He responded and lifted her onto his lap, his arms fast around her, binding her close, muttering his need. He took her mouth again, his hands in her hair, delving, probing, massaging. Her hat fell off, her pins scattering. Her hair came down in a heavy fall in his hands and over her shoulders. He sent his hand up her leg along the outside of her calf. She welcomed his touch with a sigh. Past the edge of her stocking and her garter, he caressed the round of her thigh and then the bare skin of her hip.

She undulated at his open-handed claim and when he curled his fingers into the valley of her legs, she spread her thighs for him.

He stroked her with delicate fingers. “You are so sweet.”

She widened her thighs more. Those risqué books she’d read offered her nothing so thrilling as this rapture with him.

He traced the seam of her lips and probed between them with gentleness beyond any she’d known. “Darling girl, you’re wet, too.”

“Near you, I am warm and melting.”

He pulled back. “Look at me. Tell me what you feel.”

As he traced delicate lines upon her nether lips, she shuddered in hunger for more of him. “I want your fingers on me. Inside me.”

He did as she asked and sank a finger deep into her core.

She arched, delighted. Her breasts tingling, she squirmed a little in his arms.

“Shall you have more?”

Her only answer was a moan.

He chuckled lightly and drove another finger inside her channel. “Darling, you will undo me with your ardor.”

She hung on to him, her nails digging into his greatcoat. Her legs grew chilled but all she could think of was his hand, his fingers inside her, swirling and stroking, creating fires of urgent need. And she yearned for more.

She nestled to him. “I want all of you. Tonight.”

He hugged her near. “You have quite turned my head.”

“Success. And I know you’ll give me more.”

“You think me talented in bed, do you?”

“I know it,” she said with utter confidence.

“I hope to make our first time together glorious for you.”

Will there be more than a first time?
She clutched the wool of his coat as her breasts blossomed and her heart picked up a faster tempo. “It is now.”

He lifted a brow, his fingers busy with her willing body. “Like this?”

He found some impossibly sensitive spot that made her jerk forward into his arms. “You like that.”

“Give me more,” she pleaded.

He smoothed her stomach with an open hand and shifted her so that she lay up and his access to her was more complete. With his talented fingers, he parted her folds, flicked at the nub that showed her stars and rubbed it and circled it, pinched it and caressed it until she seized upward and then let the skies open up for her with a shower of bright lights.

He caught her to him.

She clutched him close and when the world pulsed back into light of day, she gazed at him. “Is it like that every time?”

The look on his face was one that portrait painters should seek to replicate. He was her lover, her enchanter, her partner. “A good man works for it every time.”

“Are you able?” she enticed him.

“I am, my dear Alicia. Only with you.” He pulled down her skirts and sat her up. Still in his lap, she let him arrange her skirts, pick up her hat and find a few pins.

She would be forthright with him. It worked, rattling him, drawing him to her even more. “Robert was not an attentive husband.”

Wallace met her gaze. “So it would seem.”

“He took no time with me. And I wondered why not. I could have learned. Would have. If he’d cared to educate me.”

He kissed her temple. “He had women.”

She nodded. Robert’s reputation was well known so she was not surprised that Wallace had heard rumors. “I wondered if he paid them a lot of money to respond to him. Still, I was insulted he took no care with me. It was as if he assumed I’d not be interested.”

“That’s not unusual for a man to neglect his wife.”

“I have since learned that.” She cleared her throat. “But I took time to learn a few things about the arts of bliss which he did not teach me.”

Finnley pulled away. “What are you saying?”

She tipped her head this way and that. “I have read books. Viewed pictures.”

His mouth dropped open, whether in shock or delight or both, she could not say. “I won’t ask where you got them.”

“I have one in my bedroom that I did not return to its owner.”

“I see,” he said with furrowed brow and a grin edging his mouth. “She shall remain anonymous.”

“She? What makes you think—?”

“Oh, no. You will not bait me,” he said chuckling.

“Men,” she fumed, crossing her arms.

He threw back his head to laugh heartily.

“Do not assume I am incapable of—of—“

“Passion?” he teased.

“Excitement. Delight. If you do, we are finished before we’ve begun.”

“I don’t.”

“I will not have it, do you hear me?” She was quite adamant.

“I do.”

“I will not live that way with a man who has no care of me. I will not do that again. Robert had enough years of my life. I will give no more to any other who would take me for granted.”

He brushed her hair back from her cheeks. “I understand.”

“But I do want this closeness, this affection with you.”

“And you have it, darling. You have it.” He settled her into his embrace as the coach rumbled on in the afternoon snowstorm.

If only now he would see that she wanted him in bed with her for tonight and tomorrow. She wanted all the passion she’d missed. All the laughter and kisses. Sighs and cries of rapture. She wanted that and she’d have it from him—or no other.

The coaching inn where they stopped for the night was six miles outside the town of Sevenoaks along the post road. Finnley remembered the place, a decent accommodation given the additional snowfall. The flakes had coated the roads and turned to ice. The accumulation, though half an inch, had slowed them, the paths so laden with last week’s accrual. When it seemed that the coach could not go on, the horses sluggish from fighting the slick ice, Finnley had agreed with the driver that they should stop and he’d recommended this place with decent beds and food.

Other travelers had the same idea and what was left for Alicia and him was a tiny room with a very small bed, a chair and table. Luckily, the room also had a fireplace and Finnley asked for logs soon after they arrived.

The inn was no fine place for a night of bliss with a lady he adored. That irritated him, but he had no choice but to stay here. He would not leave her alone in such a place. Protection was more important than propriety.

Still they were not far from his estate and his uncle’s. And though he’d not ventured here often, he knew not who might recognize him. He did indeed resemble his father to the inch. Save for the debauchery that killed the old man.

Shaking off the ill memories, he lifted the biggest log from the hearth. “I’ll build a fire now. We’ll need the heat. I’ll not have you ill.”

She thanked him. “Nor I you. Shall we go down to see what the keep’s wife has for us for supper?”

He didn’t expect much. Fine inn though it was, he knew the fare was not superb. Day-old bread and a thick soup, if they were fortunate, was most likely what they’d get.