Trenton Lord of Loss (Lonely Lords) (11 page)

Wilton was a nipfarthing, penny-pinching, cheese-paring excuse for a peer.

“We needn’t practice his economies here,” Trent said, pleasantly of course, despite mention of Wilton. “Stop buying coarse flour for the servants’ bread; stop setting the worst butter on their table; stop relegating them to viands only the hounds would enjoy. If you need me to establish their menus, I shall.” 

The bread dough took a sorry beating—as did Trent’s patience—while he held his ground. 

“Louise,” he said quietly, “you may not like what I have to say, but if you’ve some reason for putting poorer fare before the help, you’ve only to tell me. I’ll listen and I won’t turf you out for speaking up.” 

“You’ll listen,” she muttered, “and then you’ll do as you lordly well please, like your papa. Don’t blame me when you’ve no coin for your own.” 

Like his papa
? Wilton would have let the woman go without a character when she’d presumed to criticize him for visiting his own kitchens. 

“I would never blame another for my own woes, Louise, but does that mean you’ll make me an apple cake tonight? I’m off to Wilton in the morning, and a piece or two in my saddlebags would see me nicely on my way to Hampshire.” 

Her expression became thoughtful, and the dough was allowed to lie on the board, thoroughly subdued. “You’re for Wilton tomorrow?” 

“I’m carrying letters from some of the other servants. Let me know if you’d like me to take a note or two for you.” 

“I will.” She resumed abusing the dough, her expression shuttering. 

“And Louise?” 

“Cook, if you please.”

“If I didn’t say it before, I’m saying it now.” Trent waited until she met his eyes. “You have my thanks, for staying here when I was not much in evidence. For not running off to a better post. For keeping my people fed when I wasn’t paying enough attention.” 

She jerked her chin at the door. “Out of my kitchen with you. I’ve work to do.” 

“And an apple cake to make.” Trent sauntered off, though he had the sense turning his back on Louise was not an entirely prudent course. 

Chapter Six 

All the way to Wilton, through the shady bridle paths and farm lanes of Surrey, to the busier thoroughfares and cultivated fields, into the rich farmland of Hampshire, Trent considered a single, unexpected kiss. 

Ellie—in his mind, she was Ellie now—had murmured some little platitude in response to his blurting out his widowed status. She’d gamely resumed their negotiation thereafter, not even fixing herself a cup of tea until they’d agreed to meet upon his return from Wilton and finalize details: She’d see to borrowing the stallion from Greymoor while Trent sent word to his solicitor to draft an agreement. 

Then she’d walked him to the door of that cozy little parlor, leaned up, and kissed his cheek in parting. 

And he, in a complete and irredeemable display of masculine miscalculation, had turned his head, to cadge another little whiff of her scent. Their mouths had brushed, caught, paused and then… 

His mouth had come awake for the first time in years, startled into awareness by the unexpected softness of her lips on his. The rest of his body had followed at a roaring gallop, until he’d wrapped his arms around her, gathered her close, and reveled in a kiss so unneighborly, so unchaste, she’d been panting and dazed when he’d let her step back, likely horrified to the soles of her slippers. 

Trent should have been horrified, too, and likely would be, when he had to see Ellie again, though first he hoped to talk himself out of wanting to kiss her exactly like that, over and over and over. 

He’d been
starving
for such a kiss, going mad, shutting down, function by function, to cope with the ache of its loss from his life. 

And he did ache, bodily, because Ellie had kissed awake his long-dormant lust, and now he could not argue or ignore it back to sleep. In hindsight, Trent could see all the instants she’d leaned on him or taken his arm, the times she’d been close enough to touch, the moments she’d allowed his body a little too near hers. His awareness had been stirring restlessly the whole while, threatening to come back to life, one sniff, one lean, one smile at a time.

Like a flaming spill touched to a well-oiled wick, a single kiss had him adjusting himself in his breeches two days later and completely unable to focus on the upcoming days at Wilton. Ellie’s taste haunted him, for he’d driven his tongue into her mouth with no thought to teasing preliminaries, no pausing to silently ask permission. That kiss had been the most aggressive, glorious,
erotic
kiss he’d ever bestowed on a woman, and she’d been too stunned to do more than allow it. 

He dismounted and jogged beside his horse in an effort to exercise off his lust, though he was soon winded and back in the saddle. He’d gained another mile in the direction of Wilton Acres, and no distance at all from his memories of Ellie Hampton and the desire they inspired.

***

“Amherst.” Gerald, the Earl of Wilton, nodded coolly at his firstborn over a glass of excellent brandy. The future earl might have been a passably good-looking man had he not inherited both vulgar height and dark coloring from his blighted mother. Then too, Amherst had acquired a yeoman’s complexion since last Wilton had seen him.

“Wilton.” Amherst, ever inclined to the courtesies, bowed slightly and marched into the library as if he already owned the damned place. “You look well.” 

“For a prisoner?” Wilton gave the word a touch of ironic emphasis, though the situation was enough to make a peer of the realm into a Bedlamite. “Oh, I thrive here, Amherst, unable to vote my seat, unable to socialize with my peers save for the gouty baron or two in the immediate surrounds, hoarding up my allowance like a schoolboy. You cannot imagine all the ways I thrive.” 

“While you,” Amherst replied evenly, “cannot imagine all the ways your children did not thrive, deprived of their rightful funds by your venery. Think on that, when you can’t afford another couple of hounds.” 

The damned man was bluffing, though Wilton gave him credit for bluffing convincingly. 

“You’re here to pay the trades? I cannot think scolding your father sufficient reason to lure you from your busy life.” Though from what the London staff had reported, napping and swilling brandy figured prominently on Amherst’s agenda. 

“I’m here to tend to the finances and to see you.” Amherst poured himself a drink, which was a small victory. The civilities between father and son were such that the prisoner had not offered his warden a drink, though apparently one was needed.

“You’ll see me depart for some grouse hunting,” Wilton replied. “The season grows near, and journeying north takes time.” Particularly when a man intended to tarry among the demi-reps in London for a few weeks first. 

“Enjoy yourself.” Amherst sipped with an appearance of calm, though the vein near his left temple throbbed. His mother had been given away by the same sign any number of times. “Know that Emily will be denied her come out if you go. Five years ago, you stole every penny of Leah’s trust and all but cut Darius off. For five years, you will rusticate, or anyone you care about will suffer.”

“You would not dare.” Amherst had his mother’s stubbornness, but none of her vitriol. Goading him was uphill work. “You would not dare to hurt Emily merely because I’m inclined to go shooting as I have every year for the past thirty.” 

Amherst studied his drink, while Wilton considered tossing his brandy at his son. 

“You certainly dared to hurt Emily’s siblings.”

“Go to hell,” Wilton spat and stalked toward the door. Before he could quit the room, he heard his firstborn son and heir murmur, “You first, Papa.” 

*** 

“It’s the sweet time,” Mrs. Haines told Trent when he and her two sons had come back to the farmhouse for a mug of ale. “Hay is off, shearing’s done, the garden is producing well, and the crop is in the ground. The stock grows fat on summer grass, and the people can pause and rest up before harvest.” 

“Or grow fat on their mother’s cooking?” Trent suggested, finding a perch on a sturdy porch rail. 

Mrs. Haines’ smile was the mirror of her sons’ generally genial expressions. Hiram and Nathaniel shared their mother’s blond hair, blue eyes, and sturdy proportions too. 

“You’re welcome to stay for the noon meal, my lord, though I’m guessing Imogenie Henly is pacing her parlor waiting for you to call on her papa,” she offered. 

“Her papa ought to be keeping his fowling piece handy,” Hiram, the older son, muttered. “That girl will get some poor lad to the altar by first frost, but it won’t be me.” 

His younger brother Nate held his mug over the porch railing and let the last few drops of ale fall on the pansies below. “Won’t be me either. I’ll be too busy getting after the wood, tidying up the stone walls, clearing the brush from the bridle paths, or his lordship will know why.” 

“Those are suggestions,” Trent said, downing the last of his drink. “Those tasks can all wait until after harvest, if need be.” 

Mrs. Haines collected three empty mugs. “That work had best not wait. Come November, the days are short, the nights are cold, and these two get cozy with their pints.” 

“As long as we’re not cozy with Imogenie,” Hiram retorted. “We’ll get the work done, Mother.” 

“I know you will,” Trent interjected, bowing his leave to Mrs. Haines. Both men accompanied him to the shady paddock where Arthur was munching grass. Nate took Arthur’s bridle off a fence post and went to fetch the horse.

Hiram hung back, pushing dirt around with the toe of his big, dusty boot. “About Imogenie?”

“This isn’t the Dark Ages,” Trent replied. “You don’t need the lord of the manor’s permission to walk out with a pretty girl, Hi.” 

Hiram snorted. “I’m the last fellow she’d glance at. She’s been spending time at the manor, my lord.” 

“At the manor?” Hiram’s implication sank in, turning a pretty summer day sour. “Wilton’s enjoying her favors?” 

“Aye, if that man enjoys anything. The damned idiot female is trolling to become his countess, though her pa’s a mere tenant, albeit a prosperous one. Wilton would no more marry her than he’d marry Henly’s prize bitch.” 

“So why say something to me?” And yet, cleaning up after a father’s messes was an oldest son’s obligation. “I can’t stop either one of them from their dalliance.” 

“Have a word with Henly’s missus,” Hiram suggested, “or send Imogenie to work at your London house.” 

Out in the paddock, Arthur, a good, dutiful beast, shuffled toward Nate, having apparently napped and grazed enough for the present. 

“If Imogenie thinks she’ll be Wilton’s next countess, she’ll hardly take to service, Hiram. The best she could hope for in Town is to catch some tradesman’s eye.” 

“Better that than dropping your pa’s bastard on your doorstep.” 

“He’s not that stupid.” Wilton was that arrogant, however, and like a bully made to stand in the corner, he’d use any means to chafe against his banishment to the countryside. 

Nate slipped the bridle over Arthur’s head, then fed the horse a bite of carrot.

“For Imogenie’s parents’ sake, I hope you’re right,” Hiram said, taking out a plain linen handkerchief and mopping his forehead. “Ma says more than one man has thought himself smarter than God and learned differently.”

On that note, Trent took himself to the Henly holding, where Mrs. Henly set out a mid-day meal fit for six kings. Young Imogenie was helpful to her mother, bringing plates and dishes to the table and refilling drinks, but the damned woman found ways to lean into Trent, to press against his arm, and brush her fingers over his. 

She cast him portentous looks, simpered at his every comment, and flaunted her bosom all without drawing the notice of either parent. 

A baggage. A thoroughgoing, scheming baggage who thought she was up to Wilton’s weight, and likely believed herself possessed of Town airs. She was pretty, in a young, vivacious way that would fade all too quickly, particularly if she displeased Wilton. 

“Perhaps Miss Henly would be willing to show me the orchard?” Trent suggested when the meal was done. 

Her mother twittered, her father beamed—though, of course, the orchard was in plain view of the house and full of nothing but tiny, hard, green apples—and Imogenie fetched a shawl. When she came back to the table, she sported a lower décolletage under her shawl than she had previously. 

“Your father is one of the hardest-working men I know,” Trent observed as they strolled along. She was small, as Paula had been small, and Trent had to slow his steps to fit hers. “You must be very proud of your family.” 

“All he does is work,” Imogenie replied, tossing her head. “Ma and the boys are no better.” 

“But look how well your property shows. Your mama grows not only vegetables, but all of those lovely flowers and herbs. Her cooking and her table impress as a result.” 

“Which means nobody ever has any rest,” Imogenie spat. “These people know nothing but work and church and more work. It won’t always be this way, though.” 

Trent gave up on subtlety because they’d walked far enough from the house to not be overheard. 

“Miss Henly, if you think association with my father will change your circumstances for the better, you are sadly mistaken.”