The Outcast Earl (28 page)

With a smile on her face, Abigail thanked him. It was a good time to search the library.

Chapter Thirteen

“Grady, where is Lady Abigail?” Charles asked, swiping off his hat and placing it in Grady’s outstretched hand.

“I believe, my lord, she is in the gardens. She went out half an hour ago, and has not returned.”

Charles looked back at the open front door. The wind was gusty and the sky clouded, threatening showers. It was hardly a fine day for soaking in the sunshine. “Now?” he asked, unbelieving.

“She desired some fresh air, my lord, and wore her pelisse. I could see no reason she ought not?” Grady looked suddenly uncertain, an expression of discomfiture on his face that seemed out of place for the devoted man.

“It’s not your job to oversee her.” Charles sighed. “And as I’m not about to hire a governess, that task falls to me. In any event, I confess to not knowing yet if she ought or ought not, and likely I will run into trouble myself if I should try to corral her. What about her aunt?”

“Why, she did ask if I thought the weather would hold for a bit, my lord, and I said it was as likely as not to be raining by teatime. The aunt is napping. She spent the morning with the staff setting up the public rooms for Tuesday, and then retired immediately after luncheon.”

“And is anyone else waiting for me, expected to arrive, or going to need my time in the next hour?”

“Not that I’m aware, my lord.”

Charles grinned, running his hand through his hair as he’d done as a boy. “Excellent. Unless Lady Arlington awakes and wishes otherwise, please plan for tea in the library. I imagine it’s rapidly going to become part of the daily routine, now that there’s a lady in the house again, and the drawing room is going to be useless until at least Wednesday.”

“Yes, my lord.” Grady withdrew and Charles frowned.
Outside?
She’d shown no interest in the gardens until now. Still, the walks weren’t extensive—she wouldn’t be impossible to find.

At least, that was his impression when he opened the tall library doors and stepped onto the terrace. At the east end of the gardens, he could see the door marking the entrance to the walled kitchen and herb gardens, with a long path leading around to the cobbled road from the forecourt to the stables. Charles remembered Abby’s interest in the stillroom—he’d look there last, as he couldn’t see any movement among the low rows and beds. At the west end of the house, a low wall demarcated the end of the formal gardens. Beyond that, a rolling landscape dotted with trees crossed an expanse of lawn before a low fence marked the passage from lawn to pasture. The home farm, with its cattle and sheep and pigs, was located in that direction. He couldn’t imagine Abby traipsing off, even along the gravelled path that headed towards the long, low barns in the distance.

Before him, the formal gardens stretched away from the house in a large rectangle. Overhung with aging trees around the outside border, now bare of leaves, they were a cool, shady escape in the hottest months of summer.

It took him a long half-hour to track her, while keeping an eye on the house to ensure she hadn’t returned. Indeed, Abby had found the one place in the gardens into which he couldn’t easily see, and the one place he’d thought to escape any sudden outburst of rain.

The glass-enclosed gazebo had been his grandmother’s fancy. It was set at the back of the formal gardens, with a view to the rose garden and up to the house from one side and a view of the meadows between the gardens and the ancient forest from the other. If Abby descended the steps from the gazebo into the meadow, a long trail led towards the forest, with his grandfather’s shaded summerhouse built just beneath magnificent elms a quarter of a mile ahead. Deeper beyond that, the path led to a folly Charles had built against a hillside, practically overhanging the gurgling creek and waterfall that watered the forest.

Charles thanked his lucky stars that she’d stopped at the gazebo. It wasn’t open, as the daylight was short, but the large arches were fitted with screens and windows that could be cranked open to allow in the summer breeze.

Today they were closed. Until he’d stepped close enough to see that Abby had drawn back the window hangings, he hadn’t known she was even there.

Why she had gone and hidden herself away in a cold, uncomfortable little cylinder was beyond Charles, but he had every intention of asking her.

Abby was standing at the doorway to the meadow when he came in. She glanced behind her and lifted her lips in welcome, then turned back to her view. As Grady had said, she was dressed and bound up in her pelisse, a scarf even wrapped over her head and ears. She looked, Charles thought, good enough to eat, and if it hadn’t been so chilly as to make her uncomfortable, he’d have had her gown off and spread her naked on the large round bench in the centre of the room. He put the thought away until spring.

Instead, he stepped behind her, close, and slid his arms around her waist, drawing her back to rest against him. “What are you doing out here in the cold, hmm?” he asked. “I know you weren’t running from me—I wasn’t even in the house.”

Abigail shrugged. “I was thinking,” she murmured, then paused and continued, “I think, when Aunt Betsy leaves, I’m going to send Jenna with her. They’ll go first to Northumberland, to my cousin Libby and her husband, before returning to London in December. Your Annie is learning well enough, and is well disposed to our relationship, as she wasn’t trained by my mother’s housekeeper. But Jenna’s unhappy. Winchester House and her family are in London, she’s injured, and while your staff has been perfectly kind, she’s lonely.” She sighed. “I think it’s best for her, and I’d like your agreement to pay her wages, as well as what she might have expected in room and board, for several months until she’s healed. To be honest, I’m out here in the cold thinking about it because that means
I
will be alone here, away from everyone I’ve spent my entire life around. It doesn’t matter that I am angry at my parents, or if I’m questioning how things happened, or if I doubt that I was ever more than a pawn on the chessboard of their lives, to be sacrificed as needed. I’m not used to being without the companionship of my mother and sisters. Jenna and Aunt Betsy are my last links to my family. So I suppose I was seeing what it felt like, being out here alone.”

Charles frowned, brushing his lips over her ear as he contemplated her words. “Are you saying you want to invite your sisters to come and stay?” he finally asked.

Abigail smiled. “No, no. Well,” she clarified, “not until after the New Year, at least. Maybe Genevieve and Fiona then, except Fiona won’t approve of you at all. She dislikes men, you know, especially ones who always seem to get their own way, whether they actually do or not. Gloria will be planning a wedding, and while we could conceivably invite all of them, then we’d have to ask March, and, to be frank, I dislike the man. I can’t for the life of me see why Gloria has agreed to the match, except for the title she’ll have someday and the role running the old duke’s houses and entertainments that she’ll assume immediately. For all that he’ll inherit a duchy one day, March is an ass, and mean. I wouldn’t subject your household staff to him, let alone your neighbours. I especially wouldn’t want you thinking that you were entitled to behave like that.”

Charles chuckled, then sighed. “It is true that I live a fairly circumscribed life here, and what better role models could I have than Franklin, Danvers, Viscount Kresley and Mr Smart? Still, I find it to be full and fulfilling, but I have the estate and its people to occupy me. I can see how it must seem like a mausoleum to you, after years of tea parties, luncheons, walks in Hyde Park, and balls every night. And I don’t want you to be at loose ends.”

Shaking her head, Abigail disagreed. “That’s not what I meant—I expect to be as busy as I’d like to be. Aunt Betsy says that, in addition to managing the household, I should spend the first months redecorating your house. By the time it’s finished, I’m likely to be diverted by the prospect of populating the nursery and won’t have the energy or time for choosing paint colours and cornice designs.” She quirked her lips. “It’s not as though there’s no society here. Margaret is proving to be a good friend, though she’s somewhat older than I am. There are the others, too, and it will be prudent of me to develop a relationship with all of them, and to entertain them regularly, spend my time at the parsonage teas and so on. I will have a full life. It’s just that I’ll miss the
intimacy
of my sisters, do you see?”

Rubbing his cheek on Abigail’s temple, Charles considered her words. He did know what she meant. He’d felt the same loss of his wartime companions when he’d sold out and returned to England. It was part of the reason he’d insisted Franklin come along with him to Warwickshire.

“I can’t take the place of your sisters, Abby-heart, but I do occasionally go to London for business. While I’d not object if you wanted to stay at Meriden Park, honestly I think I’d prefer if you came with me, though the trips are usually short and you wouldn’t have more than a few days at a time. Meriden House in London is rented out, though—there’s never been a need to open it up for just me. Even with you beside me, I can’t imagine being in London enough to justify evicting its tenants. So I’ll have to think about that before Rutherford’s next summons, which I would estimate to be in January. I assume you’ll want us to attend the wedding—do you think your mother will be properly horrified when you’re on my arm?” He cleared his throat. “I had thought perhaps your parents would end up at Aston Manor someday, but now that I’ve heard about your brother, I can’t imagine any of you would wish to live there.”

“No, I can’t imagine—well, Genevieve doesn’t remember, but the rest of us wouldn’t consider it,” Abigail agreed. A small smile lit her face. “And I would like to go to London with you, I think. If nothing else, Aunt Betsy lives there permanently and I’m going to have to replace whatever items of my wardrobe you’ve ripped apart.”

“Don’t wear them to bed or have them on when I drag you off to bed, and you won’t lose anything,” Charles said evenly.

“You do realise, Charles,” Abigail said, colouring up prettily, “that one of these nights I won’t be fit to sleep with, and nakedness will be impossible. Unless you’re planning to make a baby the very first month?”

Charles glanced at her, and tipped her face up to him. He scowled briefly, loving that she didn’t draw back or look in the least bit frightened of him. Still, she had a point. He was being somewhat impractical on the nudity issue. “I wouldn’t mind,” he murmured, “if you were already pregnant, although, of course, that’s impossible. But I hadn’t asked how you felt about the possibility.”

Abigail shrugged. “I supposed the likelihood came with marriage. I didn’t realise until today that it was possible to prevent it, and that was only because of Betsy’s frank discussion during breakfast, and then again at lunch.”

“Really?” Charles was intrigued. “Was she providing advice, or imparting her wisdom?”

“Both.” Abigail laughed.

“Are you going to share?” he asked pointedly.

“Not unless you want to know what I learnt about my Uncle Richard’s habits in the bedroom, his mistresses and all the situations I’m told will convince you that we shouldn’t sleep in the same bed.” Abigail’s words were pert, but she tugged her chin out of his hand and leant back against his chest again.

Laughing, Charles kissed the top of her head. “Do tell,” he invited. “One at a time, though, so I’m not overwhelmed.”

“Apparently Uncle Richard kept illustrated manuals on, um,
conjugal relations
in his bedroom so Aunt Betsy could read them. Unfortunately, it was nothing more helpful than a book of interesting illustrations, as the entire thing was published in some language of India.”

Charles choked on his laughter. “Sanskrit,” he managed after a moment. “At least, I imagine it is.”

Abigail held up a hand. “Pray, do not tell me,” she murmured. “In any event, they always conjugated, or whatever the formal word is, in her bed. She seems to think that is the proper way, at least after the first blush of marriage has passed.”

“Nonsense,” he murmured. “First of all, a couple has
intercourse.
When I’m in your thrall, I might also use the word
fucking
, but if and when the topic comes up with the good doctor, he’ll say intercourse, because I’ve entered you, of course.”

Abigail frowned. “That’s a bad pun, I know it.”

“As to the sleeping arrangements, I’ll not say it again. You sleep in
our bed
every night. I don’t give a damn what other couples do, or what’s expected. The only expectations you need to concern yourself with are mine. I fully understand that there will come a time when my children will be born in our bed, or that before and after I’ll have to carry you to your boudoir for a change of scenery during the day or up to the nursery before you climb stairs. You said once that you’d already had scarlet fever and measles. I’ve had my share of childhood diseases as well, and, if our children have to survive such battles, I’m as likely to be found in the nursery with them and you as anywhere else.”

“You’d go to the
nursery
when the children were ill?” Abigail straightened and looked at him, disbelieving.

“I expect we had very different childhoods, Abby,” he said, looking at her curiously. He couldn’t imagine not wanting to see his little tots, or to hear them as they played upstairs and in the gardens. Actually, he couldn’t wait to play with them, lying down in the grass so they could climb on him or settling them in front of him in the saddle and introducing them to the thrill of speed. “My parents and my grandparents were always happy to have me about, even before I left the nursery. Papa and Grandfather took me everywhere, and as long as I could mind my manners, I was welcome to join them for almost any outing.” He gave a little grin, letting his anticipation show. “And I can’t help but be delighted by the mental picture I have of you with a tiny redheaded boy’s hands fisted in your skirts as he toddles along beside you.”