A Valentine Wedding (13 page)

Alasdair knew that Emma’s liveliness of manner, the flirtatious edge to her conversation, came naturally to her. She was too bright, too articulate, too independent-minded to hide her wit. It discomfited some and delighted others. Their own banter had always had that edge to it. A competitive, provocative edge that sparked the sexual nature of their encounters. It was intimately connected to the lustful passion that had been so vital to their adult relationship.

Had been so vital? Or
was still?
The question brought him up short. Were they quarreling so violently because it was the only outlet for a sexual current that continued to flow as strong as ever between them?

Lord of hell! Alasdair swore under his breath. It was true of himself. He saw it now with all the clarity of a newly sighted man. It wasn’t simply a case of dog in the manger. He still wanted her for himself. He had not recovered from his passion … his love … for this impossible woman. Was Emma still confused? Did her attacks arise from confusion? And if so, how to get her to acknowledge it?

She couldn’t seriously intend to take Paul Denis
into her bed. It had to be an empty threat … or promise … or whatever it was.

That smooth-talking émigré, hanging out for a rich wife! He was plausible; his breeding was good; he was not unhandsome; he had a certain address; and he would be very willing. If Emma was determined to get herself a husband quickly, Paul Denis had plopped into her lap like an overripe peach.

And as for a lover! Alasdair caught himself grinding his teeth. A hackneyed reaction that infuriated him as much as having to acknowledge that the roaring green-eyed dragon of jealousy had him in its talons.

If Emma wanted a fight on her hands, he would give her one with pleasure, he decided with grim satisfaction. He was going to stick some serious spokes in that particular wheel. Emma and Paul Denis were in for a few surprises.

He was driving through the village of Chiswick. It was dark and the streets in this backwater were unlit except by the lamplight glowing from cottage windows. He turned his horses onto a narrow lane lined with small whitewashed cottages that all had an air of respectable prosperity, and drew rein outside the small gate of the dwelling at the far end, where the lane gave way to green fields and a cluster of outbuildings that denoted a small farm.

“I’ll be taking the ’orses to the Red Lion, then? Bait them there,” Jemmy said, in half question, half statement. When his master paid one of his infrequent visits to Chiswick, he tended to stay several hours.

“Yes, and take supper yourself.” Alasdair sprang down. “I’ll find you there when I’m ready to return.”

Jemmy tugged his forelock, took the reins and
whip, and scrambled into the driver’s seat, turning the horses expertly in the narrow lane.

Alasdair opened the small gate and trod up the narrow path to the front door. Curtains were drawn over the front windows, but he could distinguish a crack of light where they didn’t quite meet. He raised his hand to the knocker.

The door was opened before he could knock. A tall, gangly lad of about nine stood there, regarding him gravely from a pair of green eyes. “Good evening, sir,” he said politely. “I heard the gate creak. It needs oil.”

“Who is it, Timmy?” a voice called from the parlor.

“Lord Alasdair.” The boy stood aside to let the visitor into the small hallway.

“How are you, Tim?” Alasdair drew off his gloves, smiling at the lad. “How’s school?”

Tim seemed to consider the question, then opted for the unvarnished truth. “I don’t like Latin and Greek.” He took Alasdair’s caped driving coat and laid it over a chair just as a plump, pretty woman came into the hall, holding a baby on her hip.

“Alasdair!” she cried, reaching up to fling her free arm around his neck. “Why didn’t you send warning? I would have had a special dinner for you.”

“I have no need of special dinners, Lucy,” he said, bending to kiss her cheek. “Sally’s dinners are always excellent.” He stepped back and regarded her, smiling. “You’re looking well.”

“Oh, I’m getting fat.” She wrinkled a snub nose, then laughed merrily. “It’s living a life of idleness.”

Alasdair laughed with her, following her into the parlor. It was hard now to see in the placid matronly housewife the opera dancer who had inflamed him as an eighteen-year-old youth. Driven him into the
wildest flights of joy and youthful excitement. He had adored her, with a madness that had brought him to the gates of debtor’s prison. It was difficult to imagine now.

His son set a chair for him by the fire and then pulled up a stool and sat at his knee, clearly ready for the paternal inquiries that always accompanied his father’s visits.

The parlor was, as always, bright and neat as a new pin. The fire crackled in the hearth, where the brass fender and andirons gleamed. Alasdair felt himself relaxing in the cozy, homely comfort. He stretched his legs to the blaze, resting his gleaming hessians on the fender.

“So, what’s the problem with the Latin and Greek, Tim?”

“I’m not at all good at them,” the boy said. “Were you?”

“I wasn’t too bad at Greek.” Alasdair took a tankard of ale from a rosy-cheeked serving maid. “Thank you, Sally. Is this your homebrewed?”

“Aye, the master’s right partial to it,” Sally said. “Will I get you some supper?”

“Where is Mike?” Alasdair took a deep draft of ale.

It was Tim who answered him. “There’s a cow in calf. I wanted to help, but Mike said I couldn’t. He said it wasn’t work for me.” There was a distinct note of grievance in his voice.

“Now, Timmy, you know Mike wants what’s best for you,” Lucy said briskly. “You’re to learn your lessons and go to a proper school and grow up to be a gentleman like your father.”

Tim’s expression was one of pure disgust. “I don’t see why,” he said, his eyes on his father now. “I don’t want to be a gentleman, I want to be like Mike.”

“Now, Timmy, don’t you be talking like that!” Lucy advanced on him, her bright blue eyes flashing. “Such ingratitude! With all your advantages.”

Tim subsided with a mutinous mouth. Alasdair sipped his ale without comment. He wondered why he hadn’t noticed when his son had lost the tractability of early childhood. Alasdair’s parenting role had been very simple hitherto, but it had been directed toward supporting Lucy. It hadn’t so far taken into account the child’s emerging character.

“Here’s your supper, Alasdair,” Lucy said with relief as Sally returned. “Timmy, fetch the table to the fire.”

Tim dragged over a gate-legged table, and Sally spread a checkered cloth before setting out dishes and bone-handled cutlery.

“Will you take Ellen to bed, Sally.” Lucy kissed the baby and handed her over, then she refilled Alasdair’s tankard, helped him to game pie and a dish of roasted onions and another of baked cabbage and bacon. She was cutting bread for him when a door banged from the kitchen regions.

“That’s Mike.” Tim sprang to his feet and charged for the door, yelling, “Did she calve, Mike? Is everything all right?”

“So much for Latin and Greek,” Alasdair observed.

“Oh, you mustn’t take any notice of his fancies.” Lucy laid an urgent hand on his arm. “Indeed, you mustn’t, Alasdair.”

“Evenin’, Lord Alasdair.” A burly figure appeared in the doorway from the kitchen. He was wiping his hands on a cloth. Mud clung to his boots.

“Evening, Mike. Was it a heifer or a bull?” Alasdair inquired.

“A fine little bull calf.” Mike beamed and took the
tankard of ale his wife handed him. “Sired by Red Demon. The calf’ll be a grand stud in a year, I’ll be bound.” He sat down and bent to unlace his boots, saying apologetically, “Eh, I’m sorry for the mud, Lucy.”

Tim with an air of importance hurried over with the bootjack, and Mike ruffled his hair as the lad bent to help him. “We’re tryin’ to keep him at his books, Lord Alasdair, but I doubt he’d rather be out in the fields.”

“Yes, that I would,” Tim said firmly.

“You may think differently when you go away to school,” Alasdair suggested, forking a piece of pie into his mouth.

Tim glanced at his mother and said nothing. Her usually sweet expression was for once very forbidding.

The conversation roamed pleasantly around farming issues, horseflesh, and the hopes for a good harvest, and when, after an hour or so, Alasdair rose to leave, Mike rose with him. “Your horses’re at the Red Lion as usual?” he asked. “I’ll walk you round.”

Alasdair nodded his acquiescence. He sensed that the other man had something on his mind. Alasdair kissed Lucy, passed a caressing hand over his son’s tousled hair, refrained from offering any paternal instructions as to sticking with his books, and went out with Tim’s stepfather.

“Out with it, Mike,” he said when they’d turned into the lane and his companion had still said nothing.

“Well, it’s difficult, like. I know the lad’s not my own.” Mike drove his hands into the pockets of his britches. His long stride slowed a little. He took a deep breath. “But it’s like this, see. He’s got a right fine touch with the horses and cattle. He’d rather be
learning about crops, and harvesting, and what to look for in the weather, and consulting almanacs, than he would reading Latin and Greek.”

Alasdair wasn’t at all sure what to say, so he said nothing.

Mike continued. “Lucy has it in her head to make a gentleman of the boy. And with his father, like … I can see why. But living as he does … with us … well, I don’t see it working. No offense, Lord Alasdair.”

“None taken,” Alasdair said. “But he’s my son.”

“Not in my house, he’s not.”

Alasdair drew breath sharply. If anyone but Mike had said such a thing, it would have been a hostile challenge. But Alasdair knew and valued Mike Hodgkins. And he knew, an unpalatable fact perhaps, that the man spoke only the truth. Alasdair paid for his son’s schooling and for his upkeep. His contributions to the Hodgkins household were considerable, but they were financial, not emotional.

As if reading his thoughts, Mike continued bluntly, “We’re right grateful for your help, Lord Alasdair. I won’t say it’s not made all the difference in a lean year, but the lad’s happiness is all that really matters. The lad’s and Lucy’s. I think they’d both be happier if we made a clean break, as it were.” He gave a little sigh as if ridding himself of a massive burden.

“You’re asking me to drop out of my son’s life?” Alasdair demanded. “Not to see him again?”

“God’s blessing, no, sir!” Mike sounded horrified. “You’re the lad’s natural father and he knows it. He’d not know what to think if you disappeared. I’m only saying that maybe it’s confusing for him to think he has to live up to expectations that’re so different from what he knows. The lads he plays with …
even …” Mike paused. He pushed back his cap, running a gnarled hand through his hair. “His sister,” he said finally.

It sounded like an afterthought but Alasdair guessed that it was probably the central point of Mike’s argument. The difference between his own child’s future and his stepson’s.

“It’s not that I begrudge the boy his opportunities,” Mike said diffidently into Alasdair’s silence.

“I know that. And I know what a good father you are to Tim,” Alasdair said warmly. They had reached the door of the Red Lion and he paused. “But I’ll not have him thinking that I disowned him.”

“He’ll never think that, sir.” With an impulsive gesture, Mike took Alasdair’s hand between both of his own. “I just think he would be happier if he felt he wasn’t different from the rest of us.”

“You want me to bring the ’orses round, sir?” Jemmy’s voice spoke out of the darkness. He had been on the watch for Lord Alasdair and now appeared from the inn’s stableyard. He nodded to Mike, who nodded back.

Alasdair gestured his acknowledgment to Jemmy, who disappeared again. “I don’t ever want it said that I reneged on my responsibilities.” A deep frown corrugated Alasdair’s brow. For the first time he could see clearly what Tim’s life would be at Eton or Harrow. He would have no friends. He wouldn’t fit in anywhere. The family circumstances of his peers would be a galaxy apart from his own.

Alasdair realized that while he’d been congratulating himself on doing more for his natural child than anyone would expect, his plans for the boy’s future would do Tim a grave disservice. Unless …
“Should I take the boy in myself?” he said almost to himself.

“Only if you want to kill his mother,” Mike responded instantly and with some ferocity. “And 111 not stand for that, Lord Alasdair, I tell you straight.”

“No, of course not. Give me some time to think. I’ll come back in a week or so. I’ll talk to Tim about it then.”

The clatter of hooves heralded the return of Jemmy leading Alasdair’s horses.

“Good blood there,” Mike approved. “You’re a fine judge of horseflesh, Lord Alasdair.”

“Maybe my son has inherited that at least,” Alasdair said. It was an attempt at a jest, but he had the feeling that it had sounded more sour than jovial. He held out his hand to Mike, making up for that discordant note with the warmth of his handshake and his smile. “I’ll return soon. Don’t ever believe I’m not grateful for what you’ve done for Tim.”

Mike looked satisfied. He shook Alasdair’s hand briskly. “We’ll be looking forward to seeing you then. I’ll be having a word with Lucy in the meantime. Prepare her, like.”

Alasdair took the reins and whip from Jemmy and climbed into the curricle. It seemed that Mike now considered the whole matter settled. He gave his horses the office to start.

Jemmy, who was accustomed to chat with his master when they were driving alone, kept silent during the drive back to London. Lord Alasdair was clearly preoccupied.

Alasdair was thinking of life’s supreme ironies. That cozy domestic scene had been the ruin of his
relationship with Emma. And yet how truly un-threatening it was.
Now.

Honesty forced him to admit that three years ago, before Mike Hodgkins had appeared on the scene, the situation had a different construction. Then Lucy had been living under his protection with her child. He had visited Chiswick several times a week, and while their sexual relationship was on the wane, there was still great intimacy between them. He hadn’t wanted to expose that intimacy to Emma. It had seemed something very private, very special. And therefore, of course, very threatening to the woman about to become his wife. But in the arrogance of his own self-absorption, he hadn’t recognized that.