The Viscount Returns (3 page)

"Not the welcoming I had expected, but trust me, this will all change soon.” Grinding with a click in his jaw, his words were spoken through clenched teeth. The master was home and things were about to be restored. Looking around the foyer, there were no bright flowers as he remembered from his mother’s own detail to the rooms, nor much furniture to hold a vase if there had been. It seemed to be bare of decoration and people.

“Jefferson!” he called out, but was answered only by his own echo. “Jefferson! Come out here and explain yourself!” Still nothing.

Tossing his saddlebag on the floor where there had once been a settee that guests had once been encouraged to relax upon as they waited for admittance to his father’s study. Robert looked around for any sign of life and was greeted with the barking of an aged familiar voice.

“Who is it that keeps shouting all to hell? I swear if you are another collector I will tie that man up in the noose of your own liking…” A tall woman with a well worn day dress matched with a cook’s apron and dusted from head to toe in flour marched into the foyer. Eyes darting from one to the other, she finally focused on Robert with a tight squint before her face relaxed and she wiped her hands off on her apron. In him Ruth saw the boy she had once known. “You are a bleeding ghost, you are,” she declared in disbelief and reached a hand out to touch Robert’s sleeve. To her amazement he was as solid as life. “As I live and breathe.” She exhaled.

“Hiya, Ruth!” Robert wrapped his arms around her. A curse to formality, he was desperate for some human kindness and his Ruth had always been one to care for Robert since he was a boy. “My God, it is good to see you. I had begun to fear I had wandered onto the wrong estate or ridden into some nightmare.” His boorish American accent suddenly sounded like a stranger’s voice. After being away for so long the familiarity he found in Ruth awakened his heart with a desperation to know the home he had once lived in, but never truly appreciated.

“My Lord! I never imagined…you sound so…” She held him tight, patting his back and rocking him with enthusiastic cheer. “My, you have grown. It was not long ago you were running about here much like our little Sprout…” She came to a halt and pulled herself free of him.

“Sarah’s boy? We met him earlier. He is a spirited lad. I must say, though, I am surprised. He could be no more than six and I do not remember Sarah having any prospects when I left?”

“He is seven and he is not Sarah’s.” She corrected him.

“What is it, Ruth, I can’t ignore that something has happened here. Where is Jefferson? And why did I just find my wife dressed in labor clothes? And why does it look like not only has this place fallen to ruin, but that we have been robbed?”

“All very good questions and nothing I am at liberty to answer, my Lord. It is her Ladyship you need to address.”

“Fine, fine.” He dismissed her formality. “This is Sir Raven.” Averting his eyes from Ruth’s questioning look between them, Robert was suddenly stricken with the unwanted feeling of shame in bringing Allen into Fiona’s domain. “And he is to stay the night under my hospitality. Can you find someone to attend to him and show him to the blue room so that he may freshen up before supper while I find where Jefferson has hidden himself? Or has that room also gone missing along with everything else that used to stand in this room?”

“No, the blue room is in fine repair and is freshly aired from guests who left just this morning.” Ruth stepped forward and took the men’s saddlebags before leading the way to the stairs.

“Ruth? What are you doing?” Robert stepped forward to stop her. He had come home to find his world tossed into a sea of insanity. “I meant for you to send a maid to escort him, or do you no longer command the kitchen?”

“I fear I am the only one available as of this moment, but not to fear about supper, I will have it ready for the two of you after you have had a chance to freshen up and brush the dust of the road out of your hair.”

Robert paused for a moment and was sickened by what he was finding to be his welcome home.

“Never mind, never mind, I will take care of my guest myself. You have enough to handle.” He swung Allen’s bag over his shoulder, piling it over his own. Passing Ruth on the marble steps, Robert guided the way.

*  *  *

“Did you see him? What did he say?” Fiona hid in the kitchen, wiping her brow clean from the dirt of the day’s labor and the perspiration from the ride and haste she made toward the servant’s entrance.

“I cannot say he was glad to find his home as it is.” Ruth passed her by and picked up a knife to attend to the half chopped vegetables. “How long do you plan of letting him go on ignorant of everything that has happened?”

“I cannot be bothered with those things for right now.”

“Then at least allow me to help draw you a bath. A man deserves to see his wife looking like a proper lady when he returns home after eight years.”

“I have already started to heat my own water and the screen is in place down here. That way I can help you with the added meal.”

“Nonsense!” She slammed her knife down on the block. “You have worked your hands to the bone for that man’s estate and I will not have you brought down to my status for the sake of my convenience.”

“Do not bother yourself. I enjoy the company and besides, who will we get to carry the water up?” She shrugged at the lack of reply. “That is settled. I will take my bath down here and we can send Sprout up with some wash water for them.”

“And that is another thing!” Ruth tossed down her knife again. “Why is it he thinks his own son is silly Sarah’s boy?”

Forcing a calm to her voice, Fiona hoped that she would persuade a bit of understanding from Ruth. “I cannot answer you to his confusion, but there was no time earlier to set him straight. I could not confess something so important to him in the mill with the others looking on, and Sprout at my side to see his unpredicted response. Allow me to do it in my own time.”

“Which had best be tonight and not a moment later,” she warned the distraught lady.

“You’ll see it will be just how I have always dreamed it.” Nodding to her with an amused tone. “Though over the years Sprout’s size has changed a bit.” Her eyes glistened as she looked off into her dream. “He will be awaiting me in the parlor with a brandy in hand. Dressed all in black as he did the day we were wed. His hair will be slicked back with that one stubborn curl above his right ear. I will be elegant all in red.”

“Red!” The older woman's shock forced a chuckle from Fiona’s lips.

“It’s my dream, not yours.” Fiona felt like the girl she had once been, planning what she would wear and what she would feel when she was first introduced to her betrothed, and it felt refreshing. “And yes,” she answered Ruth’s questioning face with a stubborn, upturned chin. “I will be wearing red.” She read out the plan for the night by heart. It had been scripted in her mind for some time and at the darkest moments over the years it had been the only thing that kept her going with the hope that things would one day be better. “Sprout will be holding my hand, dressed in Roberts’s childhood best as a link from one generation to the next. When Robert sees me standing in the doorway he will be struck dumb and then when his eyes fall onto Sprout, he will realize who he is before I even say anything. Dropping to his knees he will take my hand in one of his and Sprout’s in his other, kissing them both. Then I will say, Sprout, this is your father and, Robert, this is your heir.” Closing her eyes, she watched her dream play out. “Then he will lift Sprout with one arm and take me in the other before kissing me home.”

Eyes damp with the emotion she’d held back for eight years, Ruth tried to give the lady the encouraging warmth that Fiona needed, but Ruth could not. She had seen the young man who had returned with Robert and had been present to help nurse the Lady these past eight years through the heavy cloak of her despair. She feared what would be left of her if he fled again.

“The danger in dreams is that they can crush us when they are detoured,” Ruth warned her and prayed that Fiona would pay heed to her words, but unlike Fiona, Ruth was too practical to depend on dreams and fantasies and instead she knew her place was to be the backbone for the lost souls that she now saw in her charge.

“Tell me, boy, how is your mother?” Scooping up water in a dish, Robert tried to wash away the frustrations and fears of the past few hours in the warm hip bath. The hot water felt good on his raw hands after so many hours of riding, but the disturbing reaction he had had to his wife and their first encounter in eight years left a knot in his gut that wouldn’t leave him in peace. “It has been so many years since I have seen her.”

He could not ignore the ill-fitting in the boy’s clothes or his ragged appearance. He was tall for his age, but no doubt this shirt once belonged to a grown man and his trousers were patched in several places. Perhaps pieces all left over from his father’s youth. Whoever that man may be. One of the local farmers? He thought to himself. Or a local tradesman in one of the new village stores that he had ridden past earlier this day?

“My mother, sir?” The boy looked up at him from the door, holding an empty bucket in his hand and the door handle in his other. “Why did you not ask her yourself today when you saw her?”

He was distracted from hearing young Sprout’s question when a knock came at the bed chamber door. He called out for whomever it was to enter. Water sloshed when he saw Allen enter washed and refreshed. He had felt disquieted since his return and hoped that Allen could vanquish those unwanted feelings.

“Well, hello there, Sprout. Nice to see you again.” Ruffling the boy’s head, Allen advanced cautiously into the room. Wise to the ways of the world, he did not risk Robert’s reputation to the tattling of servants’ tongues by showing too much ease in his friend’s naked presence.

A bit on edge and hesitated to meet his friend’s eyes, Robert could not miss Allen’s uneasiness. Turning to Sprout to help remedy his concern by eliminating it completely, instead Allen turned shy eyes from Robert’s naked body emerging from the water.

“Young Sprout, might you run off and tell the lady of the house that we will be down shortly to dine?”

“Of course, sir.” The boy nodded his head and ran from the room, eager to perform the slightest request by the master.

“Oh, and Sprout,” Robert called out, stopping the boy at the doorway. “Take this.” He tossed the boy a few shiny coins from his saddle bag. “And ask your mother to purchase some decent clothes. No house boy of mine should be dressed in such a way.” He looked at the boy with pride. Now that he had returned things would be handled differently and he would begin with that young man’s education with employing him as a Tiger and perhaps one day as a valet. “Now off you go.”

Pausing for a moment’s confusion, the boy looked at the bright coins. He was clearly not accustomed to being rewarded with coins and in his excitement he forgot everything else that he had been told and ran for his mother’s chamber.

“Well.” Closing the door behind Sprout, Robert held the bathing sheet loose to his naked body. Much of his closet had appeared intact upon inspection, though in need of airing after so many years in mothballs, but as wild men of the western plains he had performed much more uncivilized acts. He turned his attention to Allen, who was now standing at one of the windows, watching the descending sunset.

Feeling Roberts’s lips kiss the back of his neck, Allen leaned back into him. It only ever took one touch and he was lost to Robert’s desires.

“We should probably restrain ourselves out of respect of your wife?” Allen’s heart beat with a rage that echoed in Robert’s ears. He rolled his neck to avoid Robert’s touch he, but it would take more than that to keep the Lord of the Manor from what he craved. “Are you not afraid of what she would think if someone came in and found us?”

“Her feelings in the matter leave little interest to me.” Robert saw the pained look in Allen’s eyes and knew his friend was not fooled by his words. Robert was torn between his need for Allen to help him escape for just a moment all the dark realities he had just arrived to and the loyalty he felt for his Lady wife, but what Allen did not know was the abnormal desire he felt for the woman who’d enraged him.

Pulling him around, Robert held him firm by the shoulders, looking into his dilated eyes. Sexual tension pulsed between them like an electric current. Releasing one hand from Allen’s shoulder, Robert’s fingers trailed up the strong shoulders and thick neck, staking a claim with his sensual touch. His needs had increased upon the entrance of his friend and now that Sprout had vacated his chamber, Robert’s body was demanding his release.

Stepping between Allen’s feet, he pressed his hard body against his lover’s heaving chest. The bath sheet did little to conceal his arousal and a moan escaped Allen’s trembling lips when Robert leaned forward to kiss his quickening pulse. Devouring his lips in hungry need, Robert kissed, licked and nuzzled Allen’s lips, cheek, ear, and neck, building a fire between them that Allen could not resist.

Groping his friend’s firm backside, Robert smiled when Allen closed his eyes and rolled his head back, willingly submitting to Robert’s touch. He was an addict to Robert’s desire and would willingly fall to his knees to service him upon request. He felt one of Robert’s questing hands stroke the crease of his britches between his cheeks, while the other eagerly pulled the front of his shirt free from the waistband to give his hand access to his chest. The tingling touch of Robert’s fingers titillating and pinching his nipples drove him to near madness. Wrapping an arm around Robert’s back, he held the back of his head with the other. Allen’s resistance was crumbling and he surrendered, pulling Robert to him and crushing his lips in a kiss.

“Let this be our goodbye,” Allen whispered and led his friend to the bed.

Heavy breath and flesh against flesh was all they heard. Perhaps it was their undoing or perhaps it was a welcome invasion for Robert since he did not think to close the chamber door.  Did he expect the house to remain silent? Did he expect all within these walls to keep to their own lives? Did he?

*  *  *

Floating over the cold hardwood floor, Fiona’s footsteps made not a sound. Bare, sore and never desiring the weight of footwear after a day of labor, she often moved about the house with naked feet. She was now clean and refreshed, hoping to cast out the sour memories from the unexpected reunion that day.

Why had he returned after all this time?

Why had he not returned after only a year as he had promised?

Why not when she had needed him the most many years ago when she was left to face motherhood alone and abandoned?

These questions were going to push her over a cliff.

Wrapped tightly in her dressing gown and her hair rolled up in linen, Fiona made her way quietly to her chamber. The house was silent as always, despite the interruption of her husband and his guest. His intrusion that day was unwelcome and with hope, short lived. Would he leave quickly, not to reemerge after another eight years? His abandonment stung deeper than she allowed herself to admit and despite what she had already known of her husband, Fiona had felt the pain of rejection when he had arrived with the lover she knew he had.

Passing by his chamber door, Fiona reached out to click the door properly shut, but a flash of white linen got her attention. All propriety pushed aside, she skulked in the hallway and leaned in close to the gap between the door and the door frame and witnessed what no lady should be privy to under her own roof, but despite her position and title she could not remove herself from the sexual display.

Lying wrapped in the arms of another man, Fiona watched as her husband fell apart in the embrace of a man. Entwined so tightly it was hard to tell where her husband’s limbs ended and his companion’s began. They rolled as one over the stuffed bedding. The sounds of the bed matched their own heated groans.

Placing a hand on the doorframe, Fiona leaned in for a better look. She knew that she should have been filled with rage, but there was something in their embrace that excited a heat in her belly. Licking her hungry lips, she followed the motion of her husband’s hand as he ran his fingers over the man’s round and firm backside. His touch was not gentle but firm. There was nothing feminine in what they shared. They were all men.

Reaching out for the door, Fiona silently sealed the chamber and left the lovers in peace.

Walking the last few steps to her chamber, Fiona suddenly felt more alone than she had over the last eight years. Life always seemed livable alone, since there was no one else, but now realizingthat the man who had once promised to love and cherish her would rather take another to bed tha
n
greet her with less than a smile after so many years apart saddened her. Had he hoped that she would not have been here waiting? She envied that man Allen for what he shared with her husband. Having only shared his bed once, she knew the fire he could ignite and had spent the last eight years resenting him for giving her a taste of what she had craved every day since.

Retreating into her chamber, Fiona walked through the sitting room quickly, passing the connecting door to her husband’s. Falling into her vanity seat, she looked into the face of a woman aged before her time. There were freckles and a copper tint to her face where she had once been an ivory beauty. All these years of isolation she never looked to see what her labors had taken from her. Suddenly she was no longer a woman or the Lady of the Manor, she was Fiona plain and simple.

Images flashed back at her from the mirror, of two bodies writhing together in ecstasy and pleasure. All these years she had longed for such a connection from someone. Since her wedding night Fiona had longed to understand and have the life that her husband now shared in the next room.

Catching her tears in her hands, Fiona held her face and her sorrows. This would not do, but there was no stopping it. Her heart was broken, but not for the man, only for the life she would never have.  Defeated and pained, she tried to wipe her eyes clean, but it would not do.

There was still time, dinner was another hour away. Opening the drawer to her right, she pulled the blessed bottle out. Perhaps it was not right to think that her salvation was held in a bottle, but she was in so much pain she had to take something to kill it.

Licking the bitter syrup from her lips, she replaced the cork and crossed to her bed for just a moment to gain her thoughts and let the medicine take its effect.

Chapter 4

“Perhaps we should wait for the Lady of the house.” Allen paused by his chair, correcting his friend who took no pains in taking his seat awaiting his homecoming feast.

“She is probably still washing away all of that dirt from her daily activates, or she is trying to choose which pants from my wardrobe she should wear?” Reaching for his wine, Robert paused when he could sense his friend’s displeasure. Pushing his glass away from him gave his anger a moment to simmer before slamming his hand on the table, ringing the place settings. “Damn it! Why should I not relax and enjoy a feast in my own home? It is my hard work of the years that has paid to bring this dinner here. And on that point, why shouldn’t I expect my wife to be waiting in the drawing room sitting at easy with needle point or whatever it might be that a Lady might do. Instead, I find my home and lands left to ruin and my wife dressed and acting as a laborer and my steward nowhere to be seen to answer to any of this!”

“Perhaps it would be best if we waited in the parlor for now and I get a few drinks in you until you can once again speak with a bit of logic and sense?” Allen questioned. “I think that after all these years it would not be a fitting reunion if you take your wife in hand and beat her with the other?”

Robert did not listen to his friend’s reason. Instead, he was bewildered by the entrance of little Sprout, who had decided to make his appearance. The curly top boy’s face was washed and dried and his clothes were a bit more fitting to be worn in this house. So much so, that he remembered wearing those same clothes when he was a youth.

Sprout bade them both welcome and took his seat at the head of the table. He sat straight and held his head up with a grace beyond his years. Watching the boy, Robert could not help ignore a stabbing curiosity. Now that he got a good look at him he noticed that little Sprout had no resemblance to sweet Sarah. The hair, eyes, and mouth where all wrong, but he did remind him of someone.

Allen was the first to approach. “Master Sprout, how good of you to join us.” Taking a seat to the boy’s right, he struggled for the words.

“Please excuse my tardiness, my mother required my help.”

“Ah! So at last I get to meet this lovely Sarah I keep hearing about?” Allen leaned back, smiling to his friend and but did not have Robert’s attention. “But surly that is not customary here? After all, isn’t she—” He was silenced by his friend’s suddenly white washed face.

Feeling all the life drain from his body, as color washed away from his face, Robert staggered to Sprout’s seat. Kneeling besides the boy’s seat—his seat—he looked the boy eye to eye.

“Sprout?” His voice was cautious.

“Yes, sir?” With arched eyebrows, the boy held as still as he could.

“If I ask you a question I need you to swear to your honesty.”

“Of course, sir.”

Clearing his throat, he tried to find the strength to find what he needed to know. Reaching for the boy, he wrapped his hand around the boy’s neck, trying to feel some connection to the youthful stranger. His thumb brushed a wayward curl that stuck out over the boy’s ear. The perfect match to his own.