His to Keep (Regency Scoundrels Book 2) (21 page)

She moved the candelabrum and inhaled sharply at the sight of a breathtaking portrait. The woman’s dark luminescent eyes bored right into her soul. She had the most unnerving expression on her face. It almost looked as if she couldn’t decide between sneering and remaining complacent.

“Who is that in the portrait?”

Archie followed her arm holding the candelabrum. “That’s Louis-Daniel’s natural mother. She was quite a beauty, wasn’t she?”

“She has such a mournful look in her eyes. You can tell she had to have been a tortured soul.”

“Perhaps, she was tortured. I’ve heard gossip that said that the Marquis, wanted an heir, so he sent his wife out to find a man who would bed her and give her a child. Apparently, he knew he was the one that…couldn’t sire children…”

“So, he made certain that his wife had a child he could claim as his own.”

“It all came to nothing. The Revolution made it all rather redundant,” he sighed.

“Still, if she hadn’t done that if her husband hadn’t asked her to do that, Louis-Daniel wouldn’t exist.”

“Indeed,” Archie said.

“He looks to live a lavish life,” she said, looking at Louis-Daniel’s fine clothing. “He is more of a dandy than you.”

“Aye, but he’s not fop, or coxcomb or twiddle poop.”

She giggled at the last bit of slang that he imparted to her. “What does that last one mean?” she asked.

“It describes an effeminate looking fellow.”

“Well, Louis-Daniel certainly is beautiful, but I do not think he looks like a woman.”  

“Come, you should go back to our chambers, and I’m off to pay the little peculiar off.”

She smiled at him, glancing one last time at Louis-Daniel before he gently ushered her from the room.

“I’ll just dash downstairs and then, I’ll be back in a blink.” He winked at her, and ran off down the hall.

Sighing again, Gemma looked around at her surroundings. Now, she had to figure her way back to their bedchamber.

Plucking up her stamina, she tried to retrace her steps. When she finally recognized her surroundings, she breathed a sigh of relief.

Far down the hall, she heard a little boy talking.

Charles
.

She walked toward the voice, and stood looking in at the scene unfolding before her.

The Duke and the Duchess sat with Charles and it looked as if they were telling him a story.

“Then what happened to the troll?” he asked, stopping as he sensed Gemma’s presence.

“Aunt Gemma!” He sat up and lunged himself into her arms. “Come and listen to the story. It’s a fascinating tale. There was a great crash a few minutes ago, did you fall?” he asked innocently.

She laughed. “Not I, but someone shall have a sore backside come the morning,” she said, tussling his hair. He looked better than she’d ever seen him. His cheeks were rosy, and his eyes were sparkling.  

Isla sat in a far corner of the room. Charles wasn’t in a nursery, it was just a regular bedchamber but Isla had taken to looking after him as if she was his nursemaid. She wondered if Charles was better off here than he had been with Mallory. 

“I heard that thunderous bang and I thought that we were under attack. Isla assured me that wasn’t so, and the Duchess said that it was probably the sound of trolls fighting in a far off realm, and the echoes had reached our world.”

“Indeed.” Gemma suppressed a smile, for the lighthearted story obviously had Charles convinced. Soon, he too, would believe in the world of fairies, and maybe, maybe that wasn’t such a bad thing. Charles had seen far too much in his young life, and if he could recapture the childhood that he had almost lost, she was all for it.

“Charles, come, let Isla and I get you settled in for the night,” Margaret murmured, extending her hand to him. The Duke sat in his chair, a serene expression on his pleasant visage. His eyes kept closing, and he looked as if he was fighting the urge to go to Bedfordshire.

She should have felt like an intruder, and yet she had the strangest sensation she felt as if she was home. There was part of her that warred with that notion telling her that her home was back in Sussex, she was a St. Martin and she shouldn’t embrace her life as a Campbell so easily—so why was she?

“I never had the chance to thank you for helping me during my hours of need. Thank you, Isla.” 

Isla nodded her head crisply. “No need to thank me, my lady. My life is devoted to the family within these walls. You are part of that family now, and I’ll never let you down.” She smiled at her, and walked toward Charles. “Come my wee man, we must get you back to sleep, or else you won’t be able to finish building that tree house with Archie tomorrow.”

“I should think that Charles should come with me tomorrow, I should like some company, and I think that Charles will make a grand escort,” Margaret mused. 

“I will.” He smiled. “I’d like to see more of the island anyway. I mean the grounds you have here are really nice, but I’m starting to feel a bit caged in. I can see the sea, though, and that’s what matters to me. I always like to be near water.”

Gemma started to softly walk backwards so she could leave the room without much further disruption. 

Margaret shuffled quickly toward her. “Oh, I daresay you look as if you’re fully recovered, my dear. It is good to see. We have had such a grand time here since you arrived.”

Skye jumped onto the end of Charles’s bed and settled back down for the night. Obviously, during her illness Skye had become Charles’s faithful companion.

“Is he settled in, then?” She looked over Gemma’s shoulder down the dark hallway.

“You mean, Louis-Daniel?”

“Aye. I knew that was he making that dreadful noise. It scared Charles. I wish that Louis-Daniel could give up that part of his life. I had to calm the poor lad down and pray that Archie had heard it also. I don’t know what I would do without Archie. When he isn’t around, it’s such a bother to get the footmen awake so they can drag Louis-Daniel to his room. His father and I tried to do it once, and I couldn’t move for days afterward as it wrecked my back.”

Gemma frowned. “You might not want to tell Archie that. He’s under the impression that Louis-Daniel only debauches himself like this when he’s in residence.”

Margaret sighed. “Unfortunately, Louis-Daniel’s behavior does not change, no matter where we are. It truly does become tedious at times, but I don’t know how to cure him of it. He’s got such a terribly reckless streak in him—” Margaret broke off in mid-sentence her eyes lighting with joy. “I often wonder if he needs a lady to tame him. I confess I do not know how he could settle for one woman, he likes to make love to all of the ladies,” she sighed mournfully.

Archie walked into the room, having taken care of both Louis-Daniel and his lady-bird.”

“Archie!” She breathed. “It’s good to see you, son. Come, husband dear, we must away to our own bed. You look quite worn out.”

Archie’s father stood up, and yawned. “Aye, I think that sounds heavenly.” They left the room, leaving her and Archie looking awkwardly at each other. Charles was settling in, and he’d soon be fast asleep. 

“I adore your mother. She is quite the woman,” Gemma said softly. 

“I know,” he sighed, “my parents heard, didn’t they?”

“They did,” she said softly. “It appears they know all about Lord Lustleigh’s nocturnal adventures.”

He groaned. “I wish that Louis-Daniel would give it all up. He’s a pain in the backside.”

“You should ship him off to his uncle. Lord Hawick would reform his scandalous behavior. He’d have him toeing the mark before a fortnight passed. There isn’t a more respectable gentleman in Sussex.”

“I should make that suggestion to Mama and Papa. It would do him good, I think, to get away, and distance himself from all that he’s done in the last few years. And, if he’s going to inherit his uncle’s estate, he’ll have to know a bit about it before it comes into his possession.”

“As long as there is peace between our families, he shouldn’t have any problem, but it will take some work to convince Mallory that he doesn’t have to make war with your branch of the Campbell Clan.”

He sighed. “I never should have done what I did and I shouldn’t have allowed Louis-Daniel to do what he did. We were both fools, and we acted like blackguards. I do not know how I could ever atone for that.”

“You are on the way of making amends,” she murmured, reaching for his hand. “Come, why don’t we leave Charles and Isla in peace? I feel rather worn out myself.”

“Aye,” he said, leading her from the room. They strolled back toward their bedchamber, and once they reached it, they went inside and kept the door open. “That little scamp has the most incredible imagination I have ever seen in a child. It rivals the imagination Jamie had as a boy.”

“And you? What about your imagination?”

“It was there, but I wasn’t as fanciful as James or my sisters and well, the most fanciful out of all of us was Louis-Daniel. Shame he doesn’t seem to be able to drag himself out of his other worlds to spend time with us.”

She remained silent, thinking back to her own childhood with her two brothers and sisters.

“I had to be the sensible one as well. Luckily for me when I was Charles’s age, we still had our family fortunes intact and Malcolm was around and my father and mother were very doting and attentive parents. When Malcolm and Mallory shipped off to fight Napoleon, my father went mad under the strain and worry. He started staying out all night at local gaming hells, he started to come home drunk like Louis-Daniel where he could barely stay upright, he started to dabble in the stronger kind of snuff—and slowly, we lost him. I hated watching what it did to mother. I always believed that my father loved us enough to stay strong, but I don’t know who he loved more, his wife and children or himself,” she sighed, stopping when he reached their bedchamber.

“Is that what you really believe?” Archie asked her in a soft voice.

“If he really loved my mother, why did he cause her pain by turning into a wraith of a man? I mean they were supposed to have a grand love affair for their time, when they were courting they were known as the perfect couple—why did he abandon her when she needed him most? Why did he abandon us? Didn’t he think we were hurting? Especially after we heard of Malcolm’s death, and for a time, we were told that Mallory had gone missing. I didn’t like to see mother so shattered. She was literally sitting on eggshells hoping and praying for something that was already set in stone. For many months, she railed against Malcolm being dead, and then within the course of a year, our papa lost everything and died of shame and heartbreak, and yet, my mama was expected to keep a stiff upper British lip, and keep on going. War rips apart families, Archie. Napoleon had to be stopped, he did, but I still can’t keep wishing that things had turned out differently. Then, to top it off after everything that happened, my bloody stupid brother decides to go and become a privateer verging on the cusp of being a pirate! Just so he could make enough money for us to survive and so he could amass enough power to gain his revenge against Geoffrey Woodward, never giving one iota of a thought to us. Mother says she understands why Mallory became Captain Rafe Morgan, but I know deep down inside, she wishes he’d gone into another moneymaking scheme. Believe me, he had several speculating options, but he didn’t want to take any of them, because he craved adventure—he couldn’t seem to live without it. I worry what he will do now, shall he leave life on land for the adventure of the sea? I don’t want to see that happen to Elizabeth.”

“He’s home now that should count for something.”

“Mallory came home for Elizabeth, and we can all tell that it’s suffocating the life out of him. He’s getting the wanderlust. The restless energy burning inside of him just oozes out and fills whatever room he happens to be in. Mallory isn’t made to live on the land—he’s got the sea in his blood and in his soul. The sooner Elizabeth realizes that, the better off she shall be.”

“Maybe she will go off to sea with him. The question is, does he love Elizabeth and his child enough to keep his feet planted firmly on the ground? Of course, your brother, infernally stubborn man that he is will go to any lengths to do what he believes is right.”

“Why…what have you heard, Archie?” she asked softly. “He’s coming here, he’s coming to fetch me home, isn’t he?”

“And if he is?” Archie asked, locking gazes with her.

“I won’t go,” she said stubbornly. “I have no reason to now. I think I could build a life for us here but I won’t be separated from Sussex for long. I love Welford Abbey.”

“I know,” he said gruffly. “We shall go back once all of the storms have passed.”

“Do you really mean that?” she asked hopefully, looking up into his eyes.

“I do,” he said, his eyes were filled with love—and longing. She prayed that he would kiss her.  

Archie pulled her into his arms, and she flattened herself to him, drinking in his essence. A thrill raced through her.

“You’d better not let him have me and if you did, I would never forgive you.”

He drew back. “I won’t let him have you back. I am your keeper now.”

“I don’t like that you can keep me, but you shan’t be my keeper. No, I don’t need anyone to watch over me like a bloody hawk.”