Listen to the Moon (11 page)

She tried to pull John down beside her. “You can shout at them about it in the morning.”

He rolled off her, but he stayed propped up on an elbow. “Thea rises earliest of any of us. She must be allowed her rest.”

Sukey’s exhaustion left her no defenses against the affection that washed through her. He was so kind, worrying over Thea when he’d ought to be sleeping himself. She put her hand on his lovely, strong shoulder and yanked down hard. Surprised, he fell onto the mattress. “Sleep,” she ordered.

“Yes, Mrs. Toogood,” he murmured.

Sukey liked that.

* * *

John awoke in the dark. Either clouds covered the moon, or it had already set. Thea hadn’t come to wake them, so it was not yet half past five. He rolled over and reached for his watch.

His wife stirred. “What time is it?”

John realized that his watch was still in his waistcoat pocket, hanging on the chair by the window. It was too dark to see the hands, anyway. “Not yet half past five.” He turned back to feel for her face with his hands and kiss her.

A smile stretched his mouth of its own accord. Last night—well, he had satisfied her, that was certain. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been so aroused by a woman, so entirely consumed by enjoyment that no stray thoughts had intruded into their bed. He rolled his shoulder, feeling the scratch marks she’d left.

She curled an arm sleepily around his neck, pulling him down on top of her and spreading her legs. “I want to do that again.”

When John’s mouth fell open, she licked his bottom lip. He made a strangled noise, his body humming and still half-asleep, pleasure building as quickly and easily as in a dream. He pushed their nightclothes out of the way, feeling to see if she was wet. She was, and he entered her. Oh sweet Heaven, how she took him in. He moved slowly, unable to believe his luck at having married her.

She moaned and shifted, her small breasts brushing his ribcage. Supporting himself with one arm, he fondled them—for the first time, he realized. They fit neatly in his palm.

She reached between them to touch herself, already so damned wet he could hear himself slapping into her. He tried to match his thrusts to the rhythm of her fingers, tugging at her nipple with each one. She made straining, desperate noises. He wished he could see her face.

“Say something,” she demanded.

He’d be embarrassed by this later, but at the moment, flattered by the request, he opened his mouth and said the first thing that came to mind. “You’re insatiable.”

She laughed breathlessly. “I’m what?”

“Never quotted,” he said, using the country word. “How many times do you think I can fuck you today?”

“Five or six,” she gasped. “I’ll come and find you when I get bored of housework.”

He shut unseeing eyes. “I’ll be making an inventory of the pantry, and you’ll just walk in and demand I put my cock in you.”

“Yes,” she said. “Yes, and you’d do it. You would.”

“I would.” He gave her a fierce thrust. “The shelves would be in the way. I’d have to give it to you on the floor, on your hands and knees.”

She spent. John’s arms gave out gratefully. He buried his face in his pillow, body half off her so he wouldn’t crush her, and let his hips move, using her until he followed her into bliss.

She patted his hip. “Don’t worry,” she said teasingly. “I don’t really expect you to fuck me five or six times a day. I know you’re old and infirm.”

John turned his face to the side so he could breathe. He didn’t feel old and infirm at the moment.

The clock struck six. “What in blazes?” He sprang to his feet, waking soreness in unexpected places, and wrapped his shirt round his hand to snatch the lid off the brazier. The embers’ light was barely enough to see by, but there was no time to fuss with his tinderbox. His shoulders twinged painfully as he pulled the shirt over his head. Damn. He
was
old and infirm.

“Thea must have overslept.” Sukey pulled on her shift.

“Because Molly made her answer the bell in the night,” he said grimly. Her silence struck him as weighted. He gave her a sharp glance. “You’ve been here nearly three weeks. Is this a common occurrence?”

“No.”

“How uncommon is it?”

“I’m your wife, not your spy.”

His fingers stilled on his buttons. “I’m not going to report them to Mr. Summers. I only want to know.”

She frowned in surprise. Then she shrugged, combing out her braids with her fingers. The ribbons that tied them were frayed. He ought to buy her new ones. “Then wait and see for yourself. Do up my buttons, will you?” She glanced at him through her loose hair. “I’ll get the girls up if you start the fires.”

It stung to see her try to protect them from him. His mother had always shielded the underservants from his father’s temper too.

It was his first full day here. He didn’t want to start it by making everybody dislike him and think of him as a person one needed to be protected from. Yet he ought not to be lenient merely to curry favor, but begin as he meant to go on.

By making everybody dislike you?
he asked himself sardonically.

So be it. “I’ll wake the girls. You may start the fires and wake Mrs. Khaleel.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Suit yourself.” She tucked her hair into her cap. He wanted to do it for her. A few minutes ago, she would have let him.

He hadn’t done anything to merit the change. He was entirely in the right. He raised an eyebrow back. “I shall, Miss Grimes, thank you.”

Her pale blue eyes caught the light of the embers, fiercely smug. “I’m Mrs. Toogood now.”

His neck heated. Damn it all to hell. He hated looking like a fool. “My apologies. I shall, Mrs. Toogood, thank you.”

She snatched up the brazier by its handle and whisked herself out of the room, leaving him in the dark.

Chapter Eight

Molly and Thea were dim lumps when he opened the door to their room. “Girls?” Neither stirred. Anything louder would probably wake the vicar, and he had no desire to advertise their failing. He prodded a set of toes beneath the blanket with his foot. “Girls.”

Thea rolled over with a small yelp, huddling under the covers. “Who’s there?”

That woke Molly, who sat up and put herself squarely between him and Thea, crossing her arms across her full breasts in her nightgown. He carefully looked at the wall above her head, admitting to himself that he should have let Sukey do this. “It’s six o’clock,” he said in his mildest tones. “Get dressed and start your work. We’ll speak about this later.” He shut the door behind him and went to wake Larry.

When the maids were dressed and up and about the house, John found Thea in the living room. “Lost time can never be made up,” he told her gently. “A day that might have been pleasant and easy is now a day of anxiety and haste.”

“I’m sorry, sir,” she said as if hoping it would make him go away. She dusted like an automaton. A slow one.

“Thank you. I accept your apology, and I’m sure the rest of the staff will also. Mistakes happen.” He’d have liked to leave it there, but doing so yesterday hadn’t noticeably reassured her. Sometimes discretion was not the better part of valor. “I gather that you and the other servants have had a difficult time of it, and that the previous butler was not kind.”

She hunched her shoulders again, as if to hide that her breasts were growing. Her dress was too tight. He’d have to talk to Mr. Summers about a new one.

“I promise to treat you with respect,” he told her. “And I hope that you will do the same for me.”

She barely glanced up. “Yessir.”

“Remember that we rely on each other in this house. If one of us falls, we all do, like dominoes.”

“Yessir.”

“I think you will find that the best medicine for trouble is to keep your mind occupied. Over time, the pain lessens, and the satisfaction in industry and self-reliance grows.”

She nodded with an audible sigh. The magnitude of the situation seemed entirely lost on her.

“Thea, I’ve told you I won’t mention this or your nap yesterday to Mr. Summers. But many more slips, and he will remark it himself.” It was cowardly to shrink from sternness on his own account, and unfair to turn aside the blame onto another. But it was also the truth. He could not keep her from being dismissed if Mr. Summers found out she was sleeping in cupboards when she ought to be working. “I want to help you, but you must help me too.”

“With what?”

He remembered her apprehensive reaction yesterday when he said he wouldn’t tell Mr. Summers. As if, he realized with a burst of fury at his predecessor, she expected him to demand something in exchange. “With doing your work well. I will
never
expect more from you than that.”

She sighed again, heavily.

“I know this morning was not entirely your fault. Last night when Mr. Summers rang, why did you answer, and not Molly?”

She froze. “She was sound asleep and I was up, sir. I thought there’d be no harm in it.”

“I see. Is that the truth?”

She nodded frantically, the china Scaramouche she was dusting wobbling. She was lying or scared, but either seemed equally likely.

He moved closer to the mantel to catch the figurine if it fell, noting that Sukey, in her haste, had been obliged to sweep out the ash and light the fire without polishing the fire-irons or cleaning the inside walls of the fireplace. “Answering the bell at night is Molly’s task, just as it is yours to make up the first fires and wake the other servants. You may wake her to do it, and if she does not like it, you may refer her to me.”

“Yessir.”

“If you ever wish to talk to me about any difficulties you have in this house, I will listen.”

“Yessir, thank you, sir.”

There was nothing else to be said. “If the alarm is not enough to wake you, you might try setting it at the opposite end of the room from yourself. Thank you, Thea, that will be all.”

He went out of the room, unsure where to go. He was unfamiliar with everything, unable to simply do what needed doing himself to make up for that lost hour.

More than an hour. An hour for Thea, plus half an hour for each of the other servants, plus the time he was obliged to waste in chastising the girls. He went to find Molly, deciding to help Mrs. Khaleel in the kitchen afterwards, as that required no independent knowledge of anything.

His wife and Molly were in the study, so intent in whispered conversation that they didn’t hear him coming. “I didn’t tell him a thing,” Sukey hissed, “but he isn’t stupid.”

Could this morning get any worse? He was sorely tempted to eavesdrop further, but that was no way to gain the girls’ trust. He let his shoes click loudly on the floor.

They sprang apart. Molly gave him a wary look, but Sukey just tossed her head and hastened from the room. He had felt so close to her a quarter of an hour ago. He wanted that feeling back.

“Thea overslept this morning because she was doing your work in the night,” he said plainly. “Why is that?”

“I must have been sound asleep. It’s hard to wake me.”

What on earth was the secret? Was she bullying Thea into doing her work? Could she have found a means of leaving the locked house at night? Or was she trysting with the footman? A terrible suspicion struck him—but surely Mr. Summers himself could not be molesting Thea. “Did Mr. Summers request that Thea attend him?”

He could see that she took his meaning at once. “No, sir,” she said firmly. “It were my fault. I was sleeping too sound.”

“It had better not happen again, or you will be getting up at five to light the fires yourself.”

“Yes, sir.”

“I hope you will speak to Thea and give her leave to wake you in the night if necessary.”

“Yes, sir.”

“You may work through breakfast today, to make up for lost time.”

“Yes, sir,” Molly said. “But Thea shouldn’t have to miss breakfast, she didn’t do anything wrong.”

First Sukey trying to shield everyone from his terrible wrath, and now Molly? “As it happens, I did not ask her to. But if you wish to protect her, you would do better to encourage her to do
her
job, and not yours.”

She hung her head. “Yes, sir.”

“Thank you, Molly, that will be all.” Before going to the kitchen, he glanced in at Thea. She was staring blankly at the full ashpan, not moving. How tired
was
the poor girl? He itched to take the ashpan from her, get her on her feet again with a quiet word. The room would not clean itself. But he refrained with an effort.

* * *

“You didn’t eat breakfast, Mr. Toogood,” Sukey sang out as John carried the breakfast silver past the kitchen door. She stood at the sink, washing Mr. Summers’s plate and cup.

Relieved she wasn’t holding a grudge, John quashed the urge to snap,
When would I have done that?
He’d been run off his feet ever since his conversation with Molly—first laying out Mr. Summers’s clothes and shaving things with Larry, Molly underfoot emptying the chamberpot and bringing up water when that ought to have been done first. Then he’d helped Thea finish preparing the morning rooms for use, then shaved himself in the near dark before waking the vicar and dressing him. He’d laid the breakfast things, some of which had had to be returned to the kitchen because there were bits of yesterday’s butter and marmalade on them. Now if he could just polish this damn silver, he could finally consult with Mrs. Khaleel about the day’s remaining meals and what wines to bring up from the cellar…

“Shh,” he said, coming closer, and not dulling the edge in his voice as much as he’d hoped to. The tray was heavy. “Mr. Summers has a visitor, and very likely neither of them are fascinated by my eating habits.”

Her teasing smile faded. “Oh, I see,” she said drily. “Well, I’ve got an urge to start singing. Aye, there’s a
very
bawdy song rattling around in my head trying to get out.”

He regarded her impassively, inwardly mystified and vaguely hurt. Was she holding a grudge after all?

“Or you can eat that.” She pointed with her elbow, almost knocking Mr. Summers’s teacup against the side of the sink as she set it on the drying board. “Won’t take but a minute.” John glanced in the direction indicated, and saw two fat slices of toast dripping with butter and marmalade.

He opened his mouth to tell her he was busy—but he couldn’t. Something wobbled in his chest, and probably in his face too. Sukey ducked her head, blushing and trying to say with every line of her body that it was nothing and why was he making such a fuss?

John set the tray on a nearby table and took a slice of toast. He caught the edge of Sukey’s smile as she turned away to check the rising of a bowl of dough. Her apron pulled against her curves, and suddenly John was thinking of last night. And this morning. He blushed too.

Tonight he’d leave the candle lit so he could see her breasts and hipbones and crooked mouth.

But an hour later, watching her through the open door as he cleaned Mr. Summers’s dressing room, he thought,
She won’t even let me into bed tonight.
She and Molly were making a hash of the bed. What did they imagine was the purpose of making a bed with two people, if not to pull the sheet quite tight and straight? Reluctantly, he went to explain it to them, hoping against hope they would be glad of the knowledge.

“I’ve made a bed before,” Sukey said, frustrated, the third time he had her pull the sheet out because she absolutely refused to use her entire arm, held perfectly straight, to tuck the corner under.

“Yes, but likely not such a big one, and you were on your own in a boarding house. A man of Mr. Summers’s stature expects to get into a smooth bed and have his corners stay securely tucked through the night.” Besides, what was the pleasure in making a bed if it was wrinkled and uneven after? But she would undoubtedly mock him if he said so.

She flushed, and Molly said, “There’s no need to be unkind.”

Sukey froze, and John flinched inwardly. He hadn’t meant to be unkind, only state the obvious. But he couldn’t allow Molly to think she could dictate how he spoke. He raised one eyebrow, not very far, and regarded her until she slitted her eyes at him and went back to her work.

Sukey let out a breath at having avoided a quarrel. He heard her whisper as he went back to the dressing room, “I didn’t mind. Don’t get yourself in trouble on my account.”

Tomorrow is another day,
he told himself as he finished his hasty cleaning of Mr. Summers’s shaving things, wishing he could spare a full day for the vicar’s wardrobe, which was peppered with stray bits of dirt and old meals, particularly at the cuffs and knees. As he wrote it down in his notebook, he passed Sukey dusting another figurine.

She held it carefully in her apron to get at the back and beneath the folds of the girl’s skirt. The vicar must be fond of them—there was one in each room in the house—and she was taking care that they would gleam for him, just as she had polished Mrs. Pengilly’s silver.

“They’re all part of the same set,” he said—an uninspired observation. He hoped she wouldn’t think he was trying to condescend to her, when he only hoped to worm his way back into her good graces.

She glanced at him warily. “I like them, they’re bright.”

“Lady Tassell has a set. They’re from Bavaria.” He drew nearer to her. “Characters from the commedia dell’arte.”

Wrapping a corner of apron around her pinky finger, she wedged it between the figurine’s arm and body. “What’s that?”

“What Italians have instead of our harlequinade. You’re holding Columbine.” He ran a dust cloth over the empty mantel for her, and she replaced the little china girl on it, turning her to find the prettiest angle and stepping back to admire her.

“I don’t know what a harlequinade is either.”

Of course. Lively St. Lemeston had no theater. “It’s a kind of play using the same characters over and over in new situations.” He took his courage in his hands. “I didn’t mean to be unkind earlier.”

“Oh, Molly’s a mother hen, that’s all. You were right, I’m not used to anything so grand.” She sighed, looking about the modest bedroom, plainer and smaller than anything at Tassell Hall. “If you’d tried, you probably could have got one of the housemaids at Lenfield House to marry you.”

John knew several beautiful and accomplished women who worked at the nearby Tassell estate. “I had no wish to try,” he said quietly.

Her face brightened with one of her confident smiles that was half-bravado. Impulsively, he put his hands round her waist and lifted her onto the nearby footstool (intended for the more pedestrian purpose of dusting the ceilings). When he kissed her, she kissed back, her mouth soft and hot. The anxiety of the day curled into a ball and settled at the bottom of his stomach, out of the way.

Her hands curved over his shoulders. “I can’t half wait for tonight,” she whispered, and nipped at his jaw. “Please don’t dawdle locking up.”

The door swung open. “Now, now,” Mr. Summers said, dry amusement in his voice. “I know you’re new wed, but there are impressionable young women in the house.”

The ball of anxiety stretched and clawed at him. Of all the people to catch them! John stepped away, resisting the urge to look down at his apron for any telltale bulge in his trousers. “I beg your par—” His voice cracked.

Mr. Summers chuckled.

“It’s not his fault, sir.” Sukey bobbed her head with a hopefully sly smile. “I’m irresistible.”

John cringed. He hated that her insouciance charmed him so much when they were alone, and mortified him so before their master. It was
bitterly unkind to wish her quiet—especially when she was a better judge of the situation than he, for Mr. Summers cackled.

“So you are, my dear. Perhaps you had better remove yourself from her orbit, Mr. Toogood. Accompany me to my study, as I wish to discuss the Christmas brandy with you.”

In the study, Pantaloon leered at him from the mantel, a ridiculous old lecher.

* * *