Trenton Lord of Loss (Lonely Lords) (32 page)

Trent considered another half a glass of wine and decided against it. “I’ll give Louise one more chance, and then she gets the same severance and character the Town staff will receive.” 

“I’m glad you’re selling. The house wasn’t exactly commodious.” 

Neither were Trent’s memories of the place. “Put three young children in most houses and they aren’t commodious for very long. You’ve seen Belle Maison?” 

“Commodious, even for the Haddonfields. Leah’s happy there.” 

Very likely, Darius had made sure of that himself.

“I could send Emily out there for the winter. I’m thinking of sending her down to Wilton Acres for a while first.” 

Darius pushed a last bite of buttered peas around on his plate. “Wilton will hate having her know he’s confined there, but he’ll love having his pretty little girl to show off before she’s launched. I’d make it a short visit, though.” 

Because nobody, least of all his sons, trusted anything of value for long in Wilton’s ambit.

“I want him to see it as punishing Emily for his misdeeds. I must find some way to haul him up short, Dare, and I’ll tell him I’ve denied Emily the Little Season.” 

Darius poured them each an additional finger of wine, which was… encouraging. “What’s Wilton up to now?” 

To have somebody to discuss this with, somebody who knew Wilton in all his wily arrogance, was a relief. Ellie would have some useful insights, of course, but Ellie— 

Trent pushed his wine glass closer to the middle of the table. “Wilton is promising Imogenie Henly she’ll be his countess while he no doubt spanks her pretty bum and dares her to cry to Mama over it.” 

Darius rearranged his cutlery, knife and fork crossed over his plate. “Tiresome but predictable. She must not be carrying yet.” 

“One hopes not. One prays not.” Trent pushed back from the table, his wine untouched, for Darius’s show of faith should be rewarded. “I’m bound to deliver the requisite stern lectures all around in the next week or so. I had hoped you could stay here in my absence.” 

“I can. I can also go over those diaries of yours. I’m likely to see things you can’t.” 

Darius had suggested by letter that Trent read over the journals he’d kept since marrying Paula, a sad, fruitless exercise.

“What sort of things?” Trent led his brother through the house, darkness having fallen while they’d eaten. 

Ellie would be abed, her French doors open to the cool night air. 

“You said you’d found nothing of note the first year of your marriage. I recall borrowing your carriage shortly after I returned from Italy and the axle broke.” 

“I’d forgotten that.” 

“The axle didn’t snap. It came unbolted from the chassis,” Darius reminded him. “If we hadn’t hit a deep rut at a stately walk, there’s no telling who would have been hurt by such a mishap.” 

Trent paused at the foot of the stairs, memory assailing him. “Paula loved to take Ford out and show him off. I often went with them because Ford did not enjoy coach travel for the first three years of his life.” 

Darius started moving up the stairs. “I will not review those journals with the eye of the man who wrote them, confirming his own recollections with whatever’s on the page. I’ll see them with a fresh eye and add my own recollections as well.” 

Trent hesitated at the landing where the stairs turned at a right angle. “Read them if you must.” 

“What?” 

“I appreciate the help, Dare, don’t think otherwise, but the journals are personal.” 

Darius’s gaze gave away nothing. “I am your brother, and if you are killed, I will take that very personally as well. You may trust my discretion, Trenton.” 

A scold, not a reassurance. How Trenton loved his one and only brother. “I do trust you, utterly. Another thing?” 

“Ask.” 

“If you could call on Elegy Hampton, Lady Rammel, in my absence, I’d appreciate it.” Simply saying her pretty, feminine name was a guilty pleasure. 

Darius’s expression became unreadable in an entirely different manner. “Lady Rammel, the widow?” 

“We were briefly entangled, though now we’re not. She’s a dear lady, and her circumstances are trying.” Thanks in no little part to one Trenton Lindsey.

Darius smirked as only a handsome younger sibling could. “If you insist I’ll do the pretty and let you know how she’s getting over you, but perhaps you ought to look in on her yourself.” 

Trent’s very own thought—a useless, mostly selfish, but also sincere thought. 

“Brat.” When Trent had shown his brother to a guest room, he prepared to do battle with his cook, though he was fortified knowing Darius—notably soft-hearted where Wilton’s rejects were concerned—would turn the woman off without a character. Trent found his cook in the kitchen preparing ingredients for the next day’s meals. 

“Greetings, Louise.” They were alone, which suited Trent’s purposes. “I’ve come to scold you.” 

“That’s Cook to you.” She went right on chopping walnuts. “And you’ve no business below-stairs, my lord. You want to scold the help, you ring for us and dress us down above stairs. The earl does his scolding before the footmen for good measure.” 

Which bit of heinousness Trent knew only too well. 

“Be glad, then, that I am not my father,” Trent rejoined, only to hear something muttered along the lines of “that’s for damned sure.” 

“Louise,” Trent said pleasantly, “I can sack you.” 

She came up scowling, hands planted on her hips. “You don’t mean that. You aren’t nasty enough to sack me.” She made this a base insult.

“I am not nasty, but this is to my credit, not yours. I am out of patience with you, and if you countermand one more of my orders, misinterpret, ignore, or otherwise subvert my authority, you are gone.” 

“You wouldn’t.” 

“Have I threatened this before?” 

Her hard blue eyes grew thoughtful. “You have not.”

“Nor will I threaten again,” Trent assured her. “You may feed simpler fare to the help but of no less quality than what you put before me and my guests, or you will soon need concern yourself with how to feed only my former cook. I’m weary of this constant battle in my own kitchen, and it’s beneath you as well.” 

“Beneath me?” She opened her mouth to launch a tirade, but Trent popped half a walnut into her maw.

Had all her teeth, did Louise. 

“Chew. You’re less likely to choke if you do. Now, having settled matters between us for the last time, I’m off to Wilton again the day after tomorrow and will gladly bear your letters when I go. I’m sure Nancy enjoys your correspondence. My brother and Mr. Spencer will tend the manor in my absence, and you are to show them better courtesy than you do me.” 

“That worthless
Irish…
” 

Trent tossed another walnut at her, which bounced off her chin. “Catullus Spencer is the most trusted member of my senior staff. You will show him every respect, Louise.” 

“Your papa wouldn’t have let such a one as that presuming Paddy hold his horse.” 

Trent headed for the steps. “And now my father is banished to Wilton Acres, while Cato Spencer has the run of my house. Think how far you’ll get without a character, Louise. All around here know how badly you’ve treated my help, because the help gossip, as you well know. Until tomorrow.” 

He left her slamming things onto the counter and muttering, but their skirmish had been brief, and he counted it a victory, because Dare was right: Trent really did not need a rebellion in his own kitchen, and enough was enough.

He climbed the steps to the nursery, there to find Darius usurping the story hour for an uncle’s nefarious purposes. Trent repaired to his rooms, soaked away as much of the day’s frustrations and fatigue as he could, then sought his balcony. 

He hadn’t seen Ellie for some days, and her absence left an ache. Not a purely sexual ache, but Trent opened his dressing gown and stroked himself lightly anyway. When he eventually found his pleasure, he found some comfort as well, an echo of the pleasure he’d shared so easily with Ellie. 

He found a load of longing and sheer, bodily loneliness, too. 

As an experiment, it was ten minutes successfully spent. He’d learned that self-gratification didn’t fix the part of him that missed Ellie most, though it made climbing into bed and dreaming about what he’d lost with her that much easier. 

Chapter Seventeen 

“You needn’t announce me,” Trent told the butler. “I’ll just go on up.” 

Mr. Wright gave him a slight smile. “Very good, my lord. Her ladyship is likely on her balcony at this time of morning.” 

The balcony that adjoined her bedroom and private sitting room. For the love of God, when would Trent learn to simply send a bloody note? 

He went up and knocked on the sitting-room door and got no answer, which made sense if Ellie was out on her balcony. He pushed open the door, calling her name softly, and still heard no response. 

If there were a merciful God, Ellie would not be asleep in her bed. His faith was modestly rewarded when he found her dozing on her swing. She had curled down on her side, her slipper dangling from her foot, her lips slightly parted, a pair of wire-rimmed spectacles askew on her nose. 

The sight of her hit him low in the gut and had him hunkered beside the swing without knowing how he got there. 

“Ellie?” He carefully unhooked the spectacles from her ears. “Love? You’ve company.” She batted at her nose but subsided back into sleep, so he kissed her cheek. 

She batted at her cheek, which had him smiling like an idiot when she opened her eyes. 

“Oh, blighted Halifax…” she muttered and tried to push up, but her hair got trapped between the slats of the swing’s back. 

“Hold still.” He freed her hair but brought down the precarious anchorings of her bun in the process. 

“I must look a fright.” Ellie sat up and stretched. “But you are a welcome sight. Sit and let me apologize for not even waking up to greet you. Who escorted you over this time?” 

“Peak. He’s visiting in your stables. You look well rested.” She looked…delectable, dear and desirable. Trent accepted the place beside her. She passed him some hair pins and set about fixing her hair. “I’ve intruded on your nap, for which I apologize.” 

“It’s easy to do—the intruding part,” she assured him, twisting her braid back up and taking pins from his palm one by one. “I’m still dozing off here and there the live long day. You might take up the sport yourself. You still look a little…” 

“Like I ran the Derby and lost?” 

“Tired,” Ellie said softly. “You look tired, Trenton, so tell me what has you so fatigued.” 

Missing you
. 

“I’m off to Hampshire again,” he said, glad for the pins in his hand. They prevented him from taking her hand in his, but also had her touching him, however fleetingly, as she put her hair to rights. “I must threaten my father into submission before his bad behavior results in another half-sibling.” 

Ellie grimaced as she shoved a pin into a coiled braid. “One hears of older men siring children. I’ve never understood the appeal of having offspring who would see one toothless, confused, and laid low with the rheumatism before the child was breeched.” 

“That is rational adult thinking, something my father has never held in great regard. Though it is the fate of most mortal men to either die young, or slip into senescence, my father no doubt believes himself every bit as attractive, fit and sound of wit as he was at university. Then too, he’s every bit as amoral.” 

“Having a parent you cannot respect”—Ellie took the last of the pins—“must be a trial.” 

How easily this troubling conversation came to them, and how much Trent had missed her.

“I wouldn’t mind not respecting him.” Ellie’s fingers laced with Trent’s, and his relief at her touch was pathetic. “I mind very much that I can find nothing, not one thing, to like or trust about the man.” 

“Nothing? Tell me about him.” 

“He’s arrogant, stubborn, and without the redeeming sense of a greater order that rescues so many of his peers from insufferableness. God might make mistakes, but not Wilton.”

“He was like this even when you were a boy?” Ellie put his hand on her thigh and traced his knuckles with her free hand. She wasn’t wearing any rings and she still sported an abundant crop of freckles. “Or has Wilton become set in his ways as age has overtaken his sense?” 

“I’m still adding to my list of nevers, if that’s what you’re asking.” Trent should withdraw his hand, but given the topic, he let himself have the contact—needed it, in fact. 

“What is your list of nevers?” Ellie leaned forward, or into him. In any case, the soft weight of her breast pressed against his biceps, and he knew—
knew
—she hadn’t meant it as anything sexual. More significantly, he wasn’t responding sexually. Her closeness was simply…comforting. 

“I started my list when I was about five. I had to print the first entries,” he explained. “I intended it to illuminate my efforts to be Wilton, when that fateful day arrived, or so I told myself. Mostly, I kept a record of needless suffering by a lonely and very confused little boy.”

He told her about the bones he’d broken trying to learn to ride the first nasty pony his father had put him on, about the lung fever resulting from his efforts to skate, about the tearing shame of seeing his sister Leah try not to cry while she was forced to watch him being caned as an adolescent.