The Viscount Takes a Bride: A Steamy Regency Romance, page 9
“No, My Lord, but—”
“Marple, I am returning from a two-day journey. Surely, I am allowed to rest.”
The butler bowed. “I will send word at once, My Lord.”
Seth started toward the stairs but paused when he heard a soft laugh stream out from one of the drawing rooms. Following it, he found Margaret, Lily, and Lord Fersbury. He did not know Margaret’s brother was visiting.
She was conversing with him while Lily was seated beside her with her eyes glued to a book and her face flushed. Seth thought his sister looked odd, but he was distracted by how lovely and graceful Margaret looked. Her pale green dress was tastefully made to define every soft curve of her body, and her pale hair had silky tendrils framing her face.
Seth shifted his weight from one leg to another, commanding his body to behave, then he marched in to announce himself. Lily immediately ran into his arms, and he laughed while Margaret and Fersbury stood.
“Did you have a good trip?” Lily asked as she pulled away.
No, I did not because thoughts of my wife would neither leave me nor allow me to concentrate. “Yes, it was a good trip,” he replied, his eyes finding Margaret. Seth did not know what he expected to find in her expression, but it was blank, and he did not like it.
They had parted peacefully. In fact, they had been on the path to becoming friends after she had brought him tea in his study that night. Although he was suspicious and wondered what had suddenly changed her opinion of him and prompted her to be kinder to him, he soon allowed himself to enjoy the attention she gave him.
“My Lady,” he murmured, going to her and taking her hand. It was ungloved and delicately soft. When he kissed her knuckles, he lingered and raised his eyes to meet hers.
She is not indifferent. Seth grinned. Margaret was flying her colors delightfully, and her bosom rose and fell with her quickened breath. His blood rushed with need, the temptation to carry her out of the room and straight to his bedchamber overwhelming.
“Welcome home, My Lord,” she said, and his body stirred again. The words were nothing to her, but they affected him in a way that he had not anticipated. Margaret glanced sideways at her brother, who stood stiffly, regarding Seth without the tiniest measure of warmth. “Andrew is visiting.”
“Yes, I can see that,” Seth replied, returning the boy’s coldness. “How long will you be staying?”
“Eager to be rid of me, Saxton?” Fersbury retorted.
“It depends on whether or not you mind your manners as you have no doubt been taught to.” Seth saw Andrew’s eyes flare at that response.
“I beg your pardon?” Boys at Fersbury’s age considered themselves men, and Seth’s words had just implied he was still a child. Of course, that would anger him.
Margaret placed a hand on Seth’s arm and said to her brother, “Please, do not mind Lord Saxton. He has had a very long journey.”
Then she pulled Seth out of the drawing room and into the next one, a portrait gallery. “What are you doing, Seth?” she demanded.
Her informal address should please him, but her demeanor did not. “I am not doing anything,” he defended calmly.
“Asking him how long he will stay and implying he is still a child?”
“I asked so that I may prepare myself. His family detests me. Your family.” He folded his arms across his chest and regarded her with a dare to challenge his point.
“Yours detests me, too!” she spat, and he almost winced. She was as wounded by his mother’s treatment of her as he was by the foolish accusations and endless contempt.
“Quite a tale we have,” he murmured. “I daresay it sounds like Romeo and Juliet.”
Her fine eyebrows knit, and she placed a hand on her hips. “Well, I will not drink poison for you.”
“Neither will I,” Seth scoffed, thinking their argument childish. “I see we have returned to disagreeing with each other.”
“We are in disagreement because you were discourteous to my brother.” He was about to argue when she raised a finger. “I adore your sister, and I have never been rude to your mother. Anything that might be perceived as discourtesy was done entirely in defense.”
Margaret was right. He should not have behaved badly toward her brother, but he had not been able to help himself. The animosity between their families had gone on for so long that defending himself had become an instinct.
“You will apologize to him,” Margaret said, and Seth gaped.
“I do not believe an apology is necessary, but I will endeavor to behave better.”
“I should have known you would be too proud to do that.” She lowered her hands and brushed past him to the gallery exit. Without thinking, he caught her hand and drew her against him.
“It is not pride,” he said, his arms circling her waist. How he wanted to ravish her at this very instant, show her that this marriage was under his command, not hers. “If I am to be gracious to your brother, then he will have to do the same.”
“I assume you are giving me the task of ensuring he is polite to you,” she said, squirming in his arms but not with enough effort to entirely free herself. She did not want to, and it excited him. Seth was certain that if he reached beneath her skirts, she would feel ready for him.
“Who better to mediate, Wife?” She sucked in her breath as he called her that, and she looked away. Seth placed a finger underneath her chin and tilted her face up to his. “For the good of our household,” he whispered, leaning close enough for their lips to touch. When her eyes fluttered and closed, he pulled away, holding back a laugh.
Margaret glared at him, stepping back and folding her arms. She was trying to hide how affected she was. “I will do what I must, and I expect you to keep your word, Seth.”
“I will do no less, Margaret.” Before he could say more, she turned and walked out of the room.
He closed his eyes and squeezed the bridge of his nose. This was not how he had planned for this conversation to end. Would there ever be a time when they would be in complete harmony? I suppose not. He decided to visit his mother to hear what her summons was about.
Seth found her sitting on a bench in the small garden of the dower house. “You have returned,” she said when she saw him, and he inhaled, bracing himself for another disagreement.
“Yes, I have, Mother.” He took the hand she offered and kissed it then sat on the other end of the bench. “I received your urgent message.”
“And you took a while before you came,” she said. “I asked to see you the instant you arrived, and I saw you through my study window.”
Merciful Lord! “I had to greet my wife. It would not do to walk into the house and then leave without seeing her.”
The displeasure remained in Claudia’s features. “I see. Well, what I wish to speak to you about concerns her. Since you married, I see less of you. You rarely visit the dower house, and with Lily deserting me, too, I feel quite alone.”
Seth ground his teeth. “You called me here to complain about my absence when I am just returning from a trip?”
“You must be informed of your shortcomings, Saxton,” she returned.
“If you were so lonely, why did you not invite Margaret to dine with you or join her at the manor?” Seth asked, suddenly weary. Again, he thought his return to his family would give him some comfort, but he was facing one accusation after the other, and although Margaret’s had a reason, he was unable to fathom his mother’s.
“I have no wish to see her.” Seth heard the contempt in Claudia’s voice. “Observing the time you spend with your precious wife, I wonder what is keeping you from her bed.”
His eyes snapped to her face. “What?”
“I find the thought of your marriage unconsummated at this stage ridiculous, and I demand to know why?”
Seth stared at her. “How do you know about this?”
Claudia looked heavenward. “I raised you to possess enough wit to not ask me foolish questions. What, with the servants unable to keep their thoughts to themselves, what did you expect would happen?”
He had not thought of the servants carrying tales of his marriage about. It was true that he had been sleeping in his study because the thought of Margaret and a wall being the only things physically separating them was too much. If he had been sleeping in his chambers, he would have gone to her, tempt and excite her, so she gave herself to him.
“Need I remind you that Saxton needs an heir?” Claudia carried on, but he raised a hand to stop her rant.
“I am aware of my responsibilities, Mother, and I do not appreciate you reminding me of them.”
“Then what in the heavens and the world is the issue, Saxton? Even your wife seemed to have no excuse for—”
“You spoke to Margaret about this?” Seth was surprised and angry that she would call his wife and question her about their marriage.
“Someone had to!” his mother defended. “You are the last heir, and I am growing anxious. Is something wrong with your wife?”
“Why would you think that?” Seth shot to his feet, allowing himself a silent curse. Was there no end to his mother’s interference and condescension toward his wife?
When Claudia did not respond, he said, “I will not have this sort of conversation with you again, and you are not permitted to speak to Margaret on the subject.”
“You will dictate to me?” She looked up at him with wide eyes and a hand on her chest.
“It has become necessary to.” Seth did not spend another moment in the garden, and instead of returning to the manor, he went to the stables to fetch a horse before riding into the woods. Perhaps nature would be a better companion.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
“No!” Seth grunted and shoved his elbow into the ribs of the man holding him, and turning swiftly, he delivered a punch that knocked him to the ground.
He ran into the water to pull Simon out. He was floating with his face in the water, but Seth was hoping that he could wake Simon once he reached him. However, the lifeless eyes he saw upon taking hold of and turning his friend made him shake with terror.
“Simon!” He shook him, but no response came. Suddenly, Simon disappeared, and Seth found himself falling through a dark mist that was filled with chaos and regret.
He raised his head abruptly, and when he saw the walls of his study, he understood that it was the same nightmare he had had countless times. He wiped the beads of perspiration that had formed on his brow with his shirt sleeve and sighed, pushing his chair back.
Only when he stood did he realize how weak his legs felt and how fiercely his heart was pounding in his chest. He had not had the nightmare in more than five months. Why did it return now, though? Was it a reminder of his helplessness, how he had gotten into the water too late?
Seth ran his palms up and down his face, shaking his head. Then he shook his legs to get the life back into them before striding to the table where his liquor decanters sat. He selected one that was almost empty and poured all of the brandy into a glass, gulping half of it at once.
Seth carried guilt every day, both for reaching Simon too late and being unable to get him the justice he deserved. He had commenced an investigation immediately after the death, but he had not found anything about the men that killed him, and after a year of silence, he was forced to slow his search.
Perhaps the nightmare returning was the nudge he needed to recommence the search for those men. He finished his brandy and returned to his desk, drawing a sheet of parchment and writing.
“Has the letter been posted?” Simon asked his valet, Edlund, in the breakfast room the following day. He ate alone because while sleep evaded him after his torrid dream, it claimed him as the sun rose. He woke at past eleven, and when he dressed and went down, Margaret and Fersbury had already eaten.
In fact, he had not seen them because they were out on a morning ride, and he was glad for it because he did not think he could face both of them this morning after what had occurred the night before. The guilt would become unbearable.
“Everything you have requested has been done, My Lord,” Edlund replied as Marple appeared.
“The Earl of Kennington is here, My Lord. He is in the receiving room,” Marple announced.
Seth and Edlund exchanged a look, for the letter he had written the night before was to be posted to Spain to Kennington. “Please, send him in,” he instructed.
“What a coincidence, My Lord,” Edlund remarked.
“Indeed.” Seth rose, a smile gracing his lips for the first time that day as Asher Bexley, the Earl of Kennington, walked into the room.
“Saxton!” Asher bellowed, his grin wide and his eyes gleaming. He came to clap Seth on the back.
“Kennington, I thought you had fallen off the edge of the world.” Seth hugged his friend. Asher, Simon, and Seth had been inseparable from youth, but after Simon’s death, Asher left England to travel the Continent. He claimed it was to seek adventure, but they both knew it was to escape the guilt he carried too.
Asher laughed uproariously. “I would have dragged you with me, Saxton.” They sat down, and Asher immediately picked up a plate and began to pile potatoes and sausages on it. “I see your breakfast has not changed.”
“Why would it?” Seth asked with a grin. “Nothing about you has changed, either, and your hair is still as red as ever.”
“Oh, but I have changed,” Asher shot back, filling a cup with chocolate. The three of them had always had a deep appreciation for food, and it was what had brought them together in Eton. “I have grown fond of literature.”
Seth laughed. “What did it take? A woman reading to you?”
“Precisely. A French ballerina with the loveliest gray eyes. I am sure you would have stolen her from me had you seen her.” Asher began to eat.
“No, I would not,” Seth said, amused. “I am quite married now, you see.”
Asher nearly choked on his chocolate, and then he stared at him for several seconds. “What did you just say?”
“I am married, Asher.” He used his Christian name to show him that he was not jesting.
“How? When?”
“A little more than a month ago.” He grinned when his friend’s eyes bulged.
Asher set down his fork. “Did your mother force you?”
“No, she did not. In fact, I found and proposed to my wife myself.” That was not entirely true, but Seth did not have to tell him the entire story. What was more important was that Margaret was his wife now, and Simon was out of debt.
“Who is she?”
“You will have to wait until you are introduced,” Seth laughed. Asher protested, but his food took his attention, and he pushed his curiosity away for a while.
“How have you been, Saxton?” Asher was halfway through his meal, and Seth knew he was referring to their shared grief.
He sighed and finished his tea. “Sometimes, I feel as though he is still here.”
“It has been two years, but I still cannot believe that he is truly gone, and that we will never see him again,” Asher lamented. “Have you found anything through your investigation here?”
Seth shook his head. “Nothing. I wrote you a letter last night, and it was taken to the post this morning, you know.” Asher raised a brow, but he did not interrupt him. “I wanted to ask you to return, so we continue our quest for the truth.”
Asher smiled ruefully. “Our minds still think alike. I returned to do just that, Seth.”
“Good. We shal—”
He stopped when he saw Margaret in the doorway, and her head was tilted slightly to one side as she looked curiously at Asher. Seth stood and walked over to her, greeting her before turning to his curious friend. “Asher, this is my wife, Margaret Plymouth, Viscountess Saxton.” Asher’s eyes immediately enlarged, and he stopped his procession toward them. He did not recognize her until he heard her name. “Asher Bexley, the Earl of Kennington,” Seth introduced, looking down at her to see if she recognized him. “He is one of my dearest friends.”
Margaret did recognize him now because her eyes widened, too. She offered Asher her hand, and he bowed over it. “It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance again, Lord Kennington,” Seth remembered that she had been thirteen when she was first introduced to them, and Asher did not return to Carton Hill after that summer until Simon passed. Naturally, they would not recognize each other without the introduction.
“When Seth told me he was married, I did not imagine it would be you, My Lady,” Asher said, and Seth could see some emotion in his eyes. “My felicitations.”
“Thank you, My Lord.” Margaret gave Seth a slightly puzzled look before she turned to Asher. “Will you be staying with us?”
