War Chest: Even Gods Fall in Love, Book 5 (4 page)

Restlessly, he took a turn about the room and then opened a door on the right. “Good night, Miss Carter. Ensure you are not late for dinner again. If you are early, you may wait in the yellow drawing room, which is through this door.”

She bobbed a curtsey, but he had already gone.

Chapter Three

Marcus waited until Miss Carter’s footsteps receded down the corridor outside—in the right direction this time—before he turned to his butler, who was doing a good impression of impatience, tapping his foot on the carpet. “Was she prying?” he demanded.

“Didn’t you read her?” Henstall answered. “I tried, but I didn’t find anything.”

“Neither did I.” Marcus shrugged. “I don’t concern myself with this mind to mind stuff mostly. I prefer more straightforward ways of finding out what I need to.”

He turned towards the decanters, then hesitated and returned to the table where someone had laid out coffee. He poured two cups and handed one to his butler.

Henstall took it with a thin smile and both men sat, on chairs facing each other either side of the fireplace.

“Besides,” Marcus continued after his first sip, “I found her difficult to read. I can assess her mood, but little else. I can, of course, tell when she’s lying.”

“Don’t be so arrogant,” Henstall said. “Pride comes before a fall, and all that.”

Marcus regarded the man who was more than a butler to him and shrugged. “I dare say you’re right, but I can usually tell when people are lying to me.”

“Not always.”

“No.” He finished his coffee and put the cup on its saucer, resting on a table by his side.

“You possess a fireproof tongue,” Henstall remarked, blowing on his steaming brew.

Marcus raised a brow. “I had no idea that was one of my attributes.”

A smile cracked Henstall’s weathered face. “It isn’t. I think it comes from the mortal side of you. Do you want her followed?”

“Watched,” he said. “I don’t think she wishes the twins any harm. In fact, when she thinks of them her mood softens. Perhaps she loves babies. When you found her, was she obviously prying?”

Henstall chuckled. “No. She looked more obviously lost, but you never know. After your recent near-death experience, you should be more careful.”

“What, the god of war can’t take care of himself?” Restlessly, Marcus got to his feet, and went to pour another cup of the strong brew.

“Sometimes he can’t. In myth, he was trapped more than once, and mainly because of his arrogance in assuming he was invulnerable. Marcus, I care about you. Why didn’t you send for me in London?”

He didn’t need to think about his answer, or about telling the one man he trusted above all others the truth. “Because I didn’t think I was in danger. The children were mortal, and so was their mother. I was trapped, but there wasn’t much I could do about it.” He turned around, leaning on the sideboard. “You’ve been telling me I should get married for a decade. I liked her well enough, so I considered the possibility. She’d already borne the children, so they could not become heirs, but we could have made more.”

“You hardly knew her.”

“That’s true enough,” he admitted. “However, she was sweet, pretty and in trouble. What else could I do? Then she died, and I was left—I would not have left the babies to the tender mercies of an orphanage. Even Coram’s provides basic upbringing and little else.”

After putting his coffee on the side table, he swept a hand wide, indicating the house. “Why should I do that when I have all these rooms to fill? God knows I could easily forget I had children in the house.”

“What of the other ailment?”

“I’ll recover.” He didn’t want to talk about “the other ailment” and how easily he’d been deceived. Believing himself in the throes of a passionate affair, he hadn’t seen the net enclosing him until too late.

The affair he’d conducted with Virginie had been public, passionate and scandalous, but he couldn’t have stopped it even if he’d thought about it more rationally. Circumstances separated them, and Virginie continued with her life, while Marcus was still trapped. The enchantment sank its claws deep into him and it wouldn’t let go.

“Mercury cannot find a cure,” Henstall said. “He says the cause is more than the initial arrow Eros sent into you. In fact, the effects of that are entirely gone. Eros cannot remove an enchantment that is not there.”

“I know that,” he growled. He’d reconciled with Eros, otherwise known as Edmund, Duke of Kentmere, because he had little choice. Better to sustain an uneasy relationship with a fellow Olympian than allow old grudges to set them at each other’s throats. The Titans, the enemies of them all, would love that, and do their best to break the alliance they were making. “I can cope. Like any addiction, it will pass.”

“Mercury says if you find another woman, you may recover.”

Marcus said nothing, but drank his second coffee at a single gulp. Then he turned around and headed for the sideboard—and the brandy decanter. To hell with it. He was going to be up all night anyway. He might as well put himself into a pleasant stupor.

He never slept the night through, rarely managed more than two hours at a stretch. Even gods needed sleep, at least this one did. Although he told himself the lack of sleep was killing him, the reason went much deeper, right down to something he couldn’t control, which infuriated him. He would defeat this, as he conquered all the challenges in his life.

“Amidei may go to hell.” Mercury was currently residing in the elegant form of Amidei, Comte d’Argento.

“Actually, he’s coming here on his way back to London. He sent word this morning and asked me to tell you.”

Marcus grunted. “I’d hardly call Castle Lyndhurst a direct stop on the way from Lancaster to London.”

Henstall shrugged. “He wants to speak to you. Don’t forget he’s the physician to immortals.”

Marcus was hardly likely to forget it. D’Argento made himself busy with more than messages. Communication would be a better description for the task he’d taken on himself.

Moodily, Marcus sipped his brandy. “So the busybody is coming here? Does he plan to stay long?”

“It’s not my place to say.”

Marcus snorted at Henstall’s frankly disingenuous response. The man reared him after his parents’ death. As a faun, Henstall was a minor immortal, but he’d made himself more important by rearing one of the gods—the god of war.

Marcus owed Henstall a great debt. Clever man, Henstall. Just as well one of them was. Marcus had never questioned his world or his place in it before recent disasters forced a reassessment, but he must conquer this worm burrowing deep inside him or die in the attempt.

Maybe dying was easier.

Henstall bade him goodnight and left, but both men knew Marcus would not be taking to his bed for a while yet. Nevertheless Marcus made his way to his bedchamber and allowed his valet to help him undress and get ready, as if he was climbing into the big bed and sleeping the slumbers of the just. Or the unjust, he was no longer sure. Once Vallery—a French immortal, and more importantly, a superb valet—left the room, Marcus sprang out of bed and strode around his room for a while. Anything to tire himself out long enough to sleep.

As usual, sleep did not come.

* * * * *

Ruth spent the next few days accustoming herself to her new position and the nursery routine. The duke took himself off to York the day after she dined with him, and when he returned two days later, he’d not sent for her. She heard him sometimes, but he never came up to see the babies, and she rarely left the nursery wing.

She was not disappointed. Of course she was not. His absence freed her from his dangerous presence, and his questions. What madness had made her promise to play that game?

Instead of worrying about things she could not have, she made herself busy acquainting herself with her nephews,

She had vaguely expected two helpless babies, swaddled and sleeping most of the time, but when she enquired of the nursery maid, Andrea, the other woman dismissed her concerns with a snort. “They have never been swaddled. The duke did not hold with the practice, and I agree with him.”

“But their limbs might not grow straight,” Ruth protested, concerned for the boys.

“Pooh, that is nonsense. Swaddling is unnatural for children as lively as these. They have never been still, and I hold that exercising their limbs is far more likely to have a beneficial result. They need to build their strength, not be unnaturally constrained.”

Watching the two babies, in the process of lying on their backs playing with their toes, Ruth thought she might be right.

Of course, it meant that the boys were not the placid babies she was used to, but lively, with characters already forming. Peter was forward and bright, always the first into mischief, but his brother did not linger behind. Andrew would ever push his brother to new feats, she was sure of it.

Every day she spent with them drove the boys deeper into her heart, and made Ruth sure she had made the right decision to come here. Now she had established herself, she was not sure that she might not be welcomed as the child’s aunt, but how could she have known that when she arrived? She could have had the door slammed in her face, and rather than that, she gave herself a new name. And she had the boys.

On Saturday, a week after her arrival, Ruth blinked awake to broad daylight. Fumbling for her watch, which she’d put on the nightstand, she checked the time and rubbed her eyes. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d slept until seven without interruption. Living in a comfortable, though not spacious, manor house had meant she heard all the movements when the servants rose at five, then the gardeners—arriving to tend to her mother’s pride and joy, her garden—then the maid coming into her room with hot water and a fresh pot. She always slept lightly, and the slightest noise could wake her. That was one reason why her mother had allowed her the little room of her own.

Swinging her feet out of bed, she found the floor pleasantly warm from the sunlight that streamed through the window. The sense of her surroundings and her current position swept in on her. Hastily she washed—in cold water, because she was not a guest or an honoured family member, but a mere governess—and dressed in one of her other gowns. Making her way to the nursery, she heard a sound. A child lightly grizzling, not yet in full flow. She opened the door.

Andrea turned and breathed a sigh of relief. “Could you pick up Peter, please? He’s waiting for his feed, but Andrew is not taking his breakfast well.”

At six months old, surely they should be weaned, or further along the way? Babies needed a firm hand, Ruth’s mother always said, not leniency.

The rocking cradles were dangerous for children like this. She would change the cradles to something more suitable for active children. The cradles swung from a hook on the support, and the babies were not still, as many could be. One of the children would fall out. They could swing that cradle too far. Peter, currently sitting in his crib, dragged himself to his feet. The cradle rocked madly.

Horrified at the potential accident, she swept forward and lifted the child into her arms, holding him tightly. He could have come to serious injury. Swallowing the lump in her throat, she loosened her hold and on the solid, warm body in her arms. He gazed up at her with a preternaturally mature expression, but that was probably a trick of the light, for the day was bright and this room shared the same aspect that hers did. She smiled and jiggled him in the way she knew he liked. He chuckled back, but his grizzling returned right on the heels of her relief. “This cannot be allowed to happen again,” she said firmly. Andrea, who had moved to sweep Andrew from his cradle, nodded, white-faced.

Ruth took a seat on the spare chair at the table and reached for the bottle. Peter knew what to do with it better than she did and guzzled the contents. “Surely they’re too old for the bottle?”

“You tell his grace that. These babies are six months old. They were three months old when their mother died, poor woman, and then they were in London for a month before his grace brought them here. He says he doesn’t want anything to do with them.”

“Where is the nearest town?”

Andrea glanced up. “York, ma’am.”

“How far away?” She had not marked the distance when she’d come on the coach.

“About ten miles.”

“Then I will go to York and find what we require.”

Andrea grinned. “There might be no need. Don’t you have permission to go into the attics?” Ruth nodded. “This is a big house and an old one. There must be some things up there.”

A smile spread over Ruth’s face. “So there will. I’ll make a list.” One thing Andrea said dismayed her. “You said you’d eaten breakfast?”

“I have, ma’am, but there’s another sitting in half an hour for the chambermaids. You can go down then.”

Just as well, because her stomach was rumbling as if she had not eaten well last night.

After she helped Andrea feed and settle the babies, Ruth went downstairs. Before she arrived here, belowstairs had been an unfamiliar world. The backstairs were part of the old fabric of this house, Tudor or Stuart, dark wood carefully polished to a sheen. After the first two flights, she went through a door and down another flight, this time of stone steps in a spiral, from the worn treads even older than the ones in the main body of the house.

The house contained a warren of passages and rooms, some service areas, and some for storage. They were stone flagged. The walls exuded cold and damp. That was, until she approached the kitchen.

She slipped into a huge room, with a fire roaring at one end, the spits already occupied by poultry and joints of meat. The woman in the large cap and sleeve protectors glanced around as she came in. “Breakfast is in the upper servants’ room.”

“Thank you.” Ruth didn’t think the woman was listening. She was instructing her two assistants before Ruth turned around to go to the chamber set aside for the upper servants’ use. This house must once have employed many more servants. Great houses like this could have up to fifty people to keep it in splendour, but at present, the provision of separate rooms for servants seemed superfluous.

Five people sat at table. Two footmen and three housemaids. Ruth took a plate, helped herself to the generous amount of viands on the sideboard and smiled her good morning. “It’s a splendid day, is it not?”

“‘Splendid’.” One of the maids giggled. “You’re a governess all right. Sit where there’s a place. Mrs. Brindlehurst ate earlier.”