If He's Wild (20 page)

“Well, yes, I know Germaine and Bayard, along with Alfred and Kate, have gone to the Radmoors’, but—” She frowned at him when he placed a finger on her lips and silenced her.

“Everyone is gone. I sent the servants off right after dinner, and they will not return until the morning of the day after the morrow. We have the entire house to ourselves.” He slapped her on her beautiful backside, gently rolled her body off his, and stood up. “And I believe I will now go to the kitchen and eat some of that food Mrs. Huxley left for us.”

“Naked?” Alethea sat up, holding the blanket to her chest as she looked him over. It amazed her that after such a satisfying bout of lovemaking, that tickle of interest was yet again skipping through her body.

“My house. No servants. Yes. I am going to the kitchen to eat something, and I am doing it naked. Coming with me?”

She climbed out of bed and picked up her robe. “I will come, too, but not completely naked.”

Hartley watched her march out of the room in front of him and grinned. He decided he would not tell her that the robe she was wearing hid very little. If it made her feel as if she was decently covered, he was not about to argue. He was enjoying the view far too much. Rubbing his hands together, he began to think of all the ways they could make love in the kitchen.

To Alethea’s shock and then pleasure, Hartley made love to her on the kitchen table. She was barely recovered from that when he dragged her into his office and made love to her on his desk, saying that he would always remember this and it would warm him on the days he was buried in work.

In the parlor he stretched her out on the window seat and made love to her with his mouth. In the breakfast room she pushed him up against a wall and returned the gift. Alethea lost all sense of modesty by the time they made love on the stairs. She was not sure she could walk by the time they staggered back into bed. Her last clear thought was that they still had not talked.

Dawn was just lighting the sky when she woke to the heat of Hartley’s mouth on her breasts. Alethea lifted her hand and threaded her fingers through his hair. “You are insatiable.”

“Only for you.” He gently bit the nipple he had nursed to a hard point.

“Hartley, you said you had something you wanted to talk to me about,” she reminded him, fighting back the demands of her body to just give in to his seduction.

He slid up her body and kissed her. “I want you to sleep in here. Every night.”

“Oh. Of course.” She blushed. “I was actually going to talk to you about that, too. I do not like to sleep alone, and yet we have done little else since we got married.”

Hartley kissed her again, relieved that she, too, was eager to sleep in the same bed. “Now, I said something to you when I was rescued, just before I passed out. You have never acknowledged what I said, and I know you heard me.”

“It is all right, Hartley. I know you were in pain and yet so overjoyed that you had been freed and I-I—” She stuttered to a halt when he gently placed his hand over her mouth.

“I thought that might be the way of it. I meant it, Alethea. I meant each word and would have been more eloquent had I been able to speak.” He was not sure the way her eyes widened so much it had to hurt was a good sign, but he continued, “I thought I was going to die.”

She moved his hand. “I know, and that is why you felt the need to say—”

He put his hand back over her mouth. “I felt the need to say it because I was afraid that, in my cowardice, I had forever lost the chance. I sat in the damned chair waiting for that woman to break even more bones and started to think of all I was losing, because I did not see how I could get out of there alive. Oh, I told her you would come, boasted of your family’s many gifts and how she could not run from them, but I did think I would die.

“And all I thought about was you. How I would not be able to hold you again, see you again, make love to you again. I even thought of how I would never see you round with our child or hear that child laugh. I did not think of my friends, or even Germaine and Bayard except to know that you would take good care of them. Not my title left without an heir or my lands. All I could think of was you and how I would die without ever telling you what you mean to me. I meant it, Alethea. I love you.” He frowned as a tear rolled down her cheek. “Are you crying?” He slowly moved his hand away.

“No,” she replied and used her hands to wipe the tears from her face. “Oh, Hartley, I am such a wretch. All this time I never mentioned it because I thought you did not really mean it as I hoped you did. I am so sorry.”

“Nothing to apologize for. I had guessed that. It was not the best time to make a declaration, but it had been one of the things I had thought I would never do, and I felt compelled to say it right away, the moment I saw you again.” He frowned as he suddenly thought over what she had just said. “Did you just say you hoped I meant it?”

“Is that what I said?” she asked, staring at a lock of her hair as she combed her fingers through and fighting not to smile.

Her heart was bursting with joy. He loved her. She had heard those two hoarse words in her dreams ever since he had said them and silently prayed every night that he would say them again and mean them. Now that he had she was giddy with joy and could not believe she was teasing him before replying in kind. The words had burned on the end of her tongue for so long she was surprised they were not branded there.

She laughed softly when he cupped her face in his big hands and made her face him. Alethea could see by the mock anger in his expression that he knew she loved him. If he had had a moment of doubt, he was far past that now.

“Alethea, when a man makes a declaration to a woman, I think she is supposed to respond,” he said. “Especially when she says something about hoping it is true and is lying naked beneath him.”

“Ah, so that is why you were in such a rush to get me in bed. You hoped the nakedness would prompt me to spill all the secrets of my heart.”

“Alethea,” he growled.

She laughed and kissed him. “I love you. I have loved you almost from the beginning. I think the seed for it was planted with the first time I saw you in a vision.”

“You have never said so.”

“Have I not? I bedded you despite the fact that you made no mention of marriage, and I was a virgin. I also said yes to your poor proposal.”

“What was wrong with my proposal?”

“Companionship, passion, and someone to help with Germaine and Bayard? Hartley, my own true love, only a woman madly in love with you would say yes to a proposal like that.”

He laughed and nuzzled her neck. She was right. It had been an appalling proposal. If he had realized just how bad it was then, he would have known that she was in love with him the moment she said yes. For a rake, he knew very little about women aside from getting them in bed. Now he had two living in his house, a wife and a niece. It would be interesting to see just how different his life was going to be from now on.

Hartley murmured his pleasure when she stroked his stomach. “Are we done talking now?”

“Hartley, do you want children with me?” she asked in a small voice, her fears of her own heritage hard to shake off.

“Of course I do. Why would I not want children with the woman I love?”

“Because whatever children we have will have a very good chance of having some sort of gift. I know I mentioned this before, but you said you did not care. I wondered if you still felt that way after meeting my family.”

“After meeting your family, I feel even stronger about it. Yes, they have skills I simply do not understand and may never do so. But the ones I have met are loyal, loving men and women. A child could not ask for a better family. If our child is born with a gift, they will all help in the raising to make sure the child understands the gift and uses it correctly. So, yes, I want a child with you. Do not worry about what I might say if there is a Vaughn or Wherlocke gift that comes with the baby. I will love any and all of the children we have, even if they can see ghosts.”

Alethea was almost weak with relief. “I hope this child does not have too strange a gift. You will want to adjust to such things before a second one comes along.”

Hartley propped himself up on his elbows and stared at her. “Alethea?”

She took his hand and placed it low on her belly. “Olympia told me there was a child the day we saved you, but I had no sign of it yet. Now I have. Yes, Hartley, you will become a father in seven or eight months.”

He stared at her belly, nearly completely covered by his hand, and then looked at her. It took a moment for the news to really sink into his mind, and then Hartley felt a stinging in his eyes. He blinked quickly and gently kissed the place where his child grew. A heartbeat later he sat up and stared at her in horror.

“My God, woman, I just made love to you on the stairs!”

“And the kitchen table and the desk and—”

“But you were with child while I was doing that.”

He looked so horrified, so afraid he had hurt her in some way, that Alethea was able to swallow her laughter. “It did not hurt the baby. You made love to me in odd places, Hartley—you did not bounce me down the stairs or the like. I am fine. The baby is fine. And we will both be fine no matter how often or where you make love to me.”

With a sigh that was filled with both relief and disbelief, he pulled her into his arms. “I love you, and I already love the child. I do not suppose Olympia said which it was?”

“No, only that there is a child. I may be wrong, it may be just a wish to please you with an heir, but I think it is a boy.”

“Do you have any names you dearly wish to use?”

“No. I think you do, though, do you not?”

“Yes, I would like to name the first girl after my sister and the first boy after my brother. They both died too young.”

“Then that is what will happen. I always wanted a child, but, due to the sort of names our family has, I always imagined they would be called Mary or John. Something common. I am already impatient to meet him. It will be a long wait.”

“And worth every month.” He kissed her. “I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

“And I think we ought to celebrate.”

“Really? How?”

He leapt out of bed, picked her up, and grabbed the blanket. “We have not made love in the wine cellar yet.”

Alethea wrapped her arms around his neck and laughed all the way down the stairs.

“Alethea, where are you?”

“In the parlor, Germaine,” Alethea yelled back. “I hear that tone in her voice, Justus,” she said to her son, who stared up at her with his father’s eyes. “She is just a little too happy.”

A moment later Germaine swirled into the room. She curtsied to Alethea and then to her young cousin Justus, who was struggling to pull himself up on his feet. Only nine months old and already tired of being an infant, Alethea thought lovingly.

She then looked at Germaine and nearly groaned. By the look of it, Germaine thought she was in love—again. For a girl who was usually so mature and sensible, Germaine had revealed an alarming romantic streak that had her thinking she had met her true love every other month. She fell for a pretty face, elegant clothes, and fine manners much too easily. Neither she nor Hartley had the heart to deny her her fun, however, and they were also confident that she would never do anything foolish such as rush off to get married in the middle of the night or destroy her good name. However, Alethea really wished she would get over this falling-in-and-out-of-love stage she was stuck in.

“Who is the lucky man this time?” Alethea asked.

“Tristan Maccleby. Baron Maccleby.” Germaine placd her clasped hands on her heart and sighed dramatically. “He is the most handsome, the most dashing, the—”

“—most poverty-stricken, debt-ridden, whore-mongering piece of pretty man flesh that has ever donned a pair of breeches,” Alethea said, having made a close study of all the young men currently prancing around the ballrooms and parlors of the ton for just this reason.

Germaine stumbled to a halt and looked at Alethea in horror. “Are you certain?”

And this, Alethea thought, was another reason she and Hartley did not do anything about Germaine’s many romantic flights. The girl heeded them when they told her what they knew about the chosen one of the day. She trusted them to always tell her the truth, and they treated that trust with all the respect it deserved.

“Afraid so. He is only welcomed everywhere because his father is a powerful duke.”

Germaine sighed and flopped down on the settee next to Alethea. Unfortunately, her action caused young Justus to fall down. He landed on his well-padded bottom and frowned at Germaine. Alethea laughed softly, for he looked very much like his father when he frowned, even though he had her black hair.

“Oh, I am so sorry, little man,” Germaine said and picked the boy up, kissing his cheek and apparently oblivious to the drool dripping onto her fine gown.

Alethea saw something when Germaine stretched out to get the boy and set her sewing aside. She inched up Germaine’s sleeve and frowned at the long scratch there. “How did you get this?”

“Oh, a group of us were out in Lady Gideon’s gardens, and I stumbled against a very large, very thorny rosebush. It was Lord Maccleby who helped me up, and he looked so much like a hero, with the sun glinting in his hair. You would never know to look at him that he is just a fortune-hunting, faithless, rutting swine. Oh, do not worry. It is just a scratch. It bled only a little.”

“I think I will still wash it and put some salve on it.”

Alethea stood up just as her son put his hand right on Germaine’s scratch. “Ah, no, sweet boy, that has not been cleaned yet.” She picked his hand off the scratch and gasped.

“What? Is it bleeding again?” Germaine looked at her scratch and frowned. “It is not nearly as red and ugly as it was a moment ago.” Her words slowed to a halt as she looked at Justus, who was wriggling in his mother’s arms in an attempt to get back on the floor. “But he is still just a baby! Should he not wait until he is older before he gets a gift?”

Alethea set her son down on the floor and then collapsed on the seat next to Germaine. “I know he is only a baby, but it sometimes happens that way. Our cousin Paul was only a toddling little boy when he began to get his warnings of danger. Maybe it is just that the air cooled off the cut, eased the irritation that made it red.” She searched in her sewing basket for a needle as Justus struggled to stand up again.

“What are you going to do with that?”

“Try to see if it was real or just that your irritation went away.” Alethea poked her fingertip with the needle. “Ow!”

Holding her breath, she stretched her hand out toward Justus. He frowned that adorable frown and grabbed her finger. To her astonishment and amusement, he gave the tip a loud, smacking kiss. All amusement fled, however, as she felt a distinct warmth that had nothing to do with baby drool. She knew what that warmth meant. She had never had a healer touch her who did not have that warmth. Gently taking her hand back, she looked at her finger and saw nothing.

“Maybe it was such a small cut it just closed up, and his drool washed the blood away,” said Germaine as she stared at Alethea’s finger.

“That could be the way of it.” Alethea had the sinking feeling it was not, however.

“Well, we cannot go around wounding ourselves and making him touch the wounds just to be certain. From what I recall of the healers that helped Uncle, healing anyone made them weak. We do not want to make poor little Justus weak.”

“No.” She looked at Justus, who had managed to get himself up on his feet and was bouncing up and down on his plump little legs. “He does not look as if he feels any weakness.”

Germaine looked at her arm again. “If he has a gift at such a young age, at least it is the healing one. That should be no great problem, should it?”

“Not unless he grabs someone who does not understand or is superstitious and heals some wound or illness. When a child gets his gift at such a young age, secrecy becomes very difficult to maintain.” She frowned. “Mayhap I should get Stefan and Darius over here.”

“You think they can help tell us if Justus is a healer?”

“Well, Stefan is one, and sometimes healers can sense each other. And Darius sees auras, and he says he is learning how to tell the aura of a seer from the aura of a healer and so forth. He felt it might be a useful thing in our family.”

“Then let us get them over here quickly.”

Even as Alethea got up to go to the bell pull and summon Cobb, she asked, “Why in such a rush? Justus is not going anywhere.”

“I would like an answer, and I think it would be very helpful if we have one for Hartley when he comes home.”

Alethea thumped her head against the door. “Oh hellfire.”

Although she knew they were doing their best, Alethea could not help pacing as she waited for Stefan and Darius to tell her what they did and did not know about Justus. Ever since Germaine had mentioned Hartley, she had been on pins and needles. He loved his son, and she had no doubt he would continue to love his son even if Justus proved to be gifted early. It would still be a shock, however.

“Well,” said Stefan as he set Justus down on the floor and brushed baby drool off his shirt. “I think you have yourself a very powerful healer.”

Darius nodded. “The aura is right.” He held out his hand. “And look there.”

She looked. “There is nothing there.”

“Exactly. When I arrived, I had a cut there. It was starting to heal, and then Justus touched it. I felt that warmth, Alethea. That warmth of a healer. And then I looked, and it was all healed. He is going to be a very powerful healer, Alethea. And look at him. He is not even wobbling. For such a small boy to heal a cut and not even get a little sleepy? Wonderful.”

Alethea dragged her hands through her hair and ignored the sound of hairpins dropping on the floor. “Oh, yes. Wonderful. Just what am I going to tell my husband?”

“I do not know. What
are
you going to tell your husband?”

That deep voice coming from behind her froze Alethea on the spot. She noticed that Germaine, Stefan, and Darius all blushed with guilt. Turning, saying nothing was wrong, and smiling was obviously not going to work now.

She turned to see Hartley frowning at Justus. He walked over and picked up his son, who gave him a big, loud, drooling kiss on his chin. After he looked the boy all over, he turned to Stefan.

“Is something wrong with my son?” he asked. “Is that why you are here, Stefan?”

Alethea rushed to Hartley’s side. “Oh, no, no. Nothing is wrong. Truly. I asked Stefan and Darius to come here because I think Justus is already showing signs of having a gift.”

“What? He is a baby.”

“I know.”

Alethea began to tell him all about Germaine’s cut, and how that had been healed and then poking her finger. She knew she was babbling but could not stop. She consoled herself with the fact that she was at least telling him the whole story. There was a lot included in the tale that did not need to be there, but she could not think clearly enough to stick to the exact points that needed to be told.

Hartley listened to his wife go on about Germaine’s latest infatuation, rose-briar scratches, pinpricks, drool, and calling on Stefan and Darius to discover the truth. When she finally stopped talking, he leaned forward and kissed her. Then he looked at Stefan.

“Justus is not sick,” he said.

“No,” Stefan answered.

“So you are here to find out something else about my son. About a gift?”

“Yes.” Stefan sighed. “Seeing as the women have been struck speechless, I will tell you that we are fairly certain that your son is already showing the signs of being a very strong healer.”

“I see.” Hartley looked at Alethea and then back at the others. “Perhaps, Germaine, you could take the young men to the kitchen and see if Mrs. Huxley has anything good to eat. And I thank both of you young men for coming so quickly in response to my wife’s call for assistance.”

“No trouble,” said Darius as he followed Germaine and Stefan out of the room. “It was wonderful to see the aura of a new, powerful healer. You should be very proud.”

Alethea looked at Hartley, who was staring at Justus. “I am sorry.”

He put his arm around her and pulled her close, then kissed the top of her head. “You have nothing to be sorry for. We both knew this could happen.” He chuckled. “I just did not expect it to happen to a child who cannot speak or walk yet and who seems to be an unending source of drool.”

“You are not upset?”

“Just answer me this—will there be more gifts?”

“No, I very much doubt it. Well, it is very rare for a healer to be anything more than a healer. There might be a tiny touch of something later, such as when he enters manhood, but nothing is as strong as the first gift that reveals itself.”

“So, I have a son who can heal people but still has three months to go before he is even one year old.”

“I am afraid so.” She stroked her son’s head. “He will be such a powerful one, too.”

“I love you,” Hartley said and kissed her.

“I love you, too.”

“Do not look so worried, love. I am not upset. A little uneasy, as he is too young to know how to be discrete, but not upset at all.” He grinned. “Hell, I have a very strong healer here. It could have been another Modred. Love the man though I do, I have dreaded the chance that our child could get his gift. No, Darius is right. I should be very proud, and I am. Now, since I know that Mrs. Huxley has baked gingerbread, I think we will wander down to the kitchens to celebrate.”

Alethea slipped her arm through his, and they started down to the kitchen. Olympia was right in what she had seen in her future. Alethea was very happy.