Page 53 of Indecently Employed
He blinked several times. “She used to bring me here, just the two of us, every summer. Sometimes, someone else might visit, but we had the place to ourselves, mostly. I can still recall theday I learned she’d passed. Tiberius brought the news to me at school.”
Susanna sought out his hand and squeezed it gently.
“Tiberius has always regarded me with a put-upon indifference…” His face hardened. “His son—my nephew—on the other hand, was a right miserable bastard. I hated the man. Was glad to hear of his death; I believe I bought several rounds for the club that evening.” He frowned even deeper, his brows knit in guilt. “Of course now, seeing Charlotte, that is, I can’t reconcile with my actions. For his daughter—my niece—Harmonia… I properly abandoned her after her father died. Just as I abandoned Nancy, and therefore Charlotte, just when they most needed me. And what was I up to? Rutting with some admiral’s wife, I suppose. Gamboling with the likes of Wilkie Clogg, God help me.” He sneered with disgust.
“Hush,” Susanna sat up, reaching for him, wanting so badly to caress the dismay from his face, even as she wondered who Wilkie Clogg might be and what made him so distasteful.
Instead, he gathered her up, clutching her against him as if they’d just had a brush with death, as if he intended to never let go of her. Time passed, and eventually his hold slackened, his breathing deepened. He pulled her into his lap and kissed her, long and slow.
“I am sorry, though,” he said in between kisses, his normal, playful tone returning, “to drag you back to the Sedley madhouse.” He broke away, his eyes searching for the clock. “In six hours’ time.”
Susanna smiled. A warmth spread throughout her chest, happiness and relief intertwined. And something else, something new—a fond regard for his characteristic gallows humor, which no longer confused or flustered her.
“I believe I shall manage.”
It had been a harrowing day, as they’d missed their first train due to Charlotte’s demands that she bring nearly her entire bedroom with her to Elverton Bridge.
Ajax had maintained a cool aloofness throughout it all, but as their later train pulled into the station in Surrey, his composure began to slip. His eyes sought Susanna’s far more than was appropriate, desperate for her steadiness and warmth. Charlotte, meanwhile, was deeply engrossed in some dreadful history of the Lamplughs she’d unearthed from the library.
When their carriage reached the drive to the hideous Elverton Bridge, his dread of revisiting the place hit him in a nauseating wave. Nearly the only purpose the family home had ever served for him was to remind him of his old, decrepit father and his infrequent visits to Ajax in the nursery, the purposes of which were seemingly only to terrify the young boy. And how his fear would then anger the man, who would shout and tip over furniture like a child himself.
But it also reminded him of his mother. She was simple, helpless to stand up to her stepsons once she was widowed, and their lives were a turmoil from the day Ajax’s father passed, but still, Ajax loved her, and he preferred their lives that way. They were together, without his horrifying father.
Until one day when they weren’t, and would never be again. The image of Tiberius standing in the headmaster’s office returned to him. He clenched his fist, hidden alongside him in the seat of the carriage and out of sight.
“Goodness,” Susanna exclaimed, cutting through his thoughts. She did her best to remain professionally nonchalant, but her eyes were wide and trained on something outside the window.
Charlotte snapped her book shut and leaned over her, nearly smashing her face against the glass.
“Comportment, Miss Sedley, comportment.”
Charlotte sat back in defeat, but her lips twitched as the garish mansion came into view. It was a hideous clash of several styles—not the result of successive generations’ additions and flourishes over time, but rather just a complete lack of taste and good sense on the part of his father.
Ajax gritted his teeth at the sight. How he loathed it.
“It’s appalling,” Charlotte said. “I love it.”
“Miss Sedley,” Susanna warned, her eyes darting anxiously to Ajax.
“I meant it as a good thing,” Charlotte added, sounding somewhat chastened.
Ajax laughed despite himself. “Yield, Miss Abbotts. We’re under no pretenses here. Charlotte is correct. Itisappalling, and then some.”
Charlotte didn’t smile, not exactly, but she gave him a small, satisfied glance. Ajax decided that he could tough it out and do this miserable thing—to say goodbye to the only real paternal figure he’d ever had, distant though his brother had been at thirty-five years his elder. If only for Charlotte’s sake, and the sake of Harmonia and Marcus, the other two odds and ends of this cursed family. Ajax grimaced; he would be the patriarch soon. The thought was galling.
Charlotte alighted from the carriage, followed by Susanna, who surreptitiously reached back to squeeze his hand, even as she kept her eyes trained straight ahead. For a moment he considered stuffing everyone back in the carriage and making a dash back to Yorkshire. But he could not. He had to be there for his family, to make a stand against the version of himself he had been trying to shed. He had to become something that never in a million years would he have ever considered possible, that he would never have wagered on, not for any odds.
And foolish though the thought was, whatever it was that had been building between him and Miss Abbotts was back to giving him hope. She thought he was good and noble, and he could not disappoint her. Not yet, at any rate.
Exiting the carriage last, Ajax registered the presence of his nephew, Marcus Hartley, waiting for them at the front door. He looked slightly perturbed, as was his usual way. He and Charlotte exchanged stilted pleasantries, neither one yet familiar enough with the other for more than that. After introducing himself to Susanna, Marcus immediately looked to Ajax, his eyes narrowing suspiciously.
“Uncle.” He nodded in greeting, his tone a touch rough.
Ajax responded in kind, masking his surprise at the cool reception. It smarted, and Ajax wondered at it. Truthfully, he’d done little to nothing to cultivate a relationship with any Sedley in his either generation or the next, but he’d spent more time with Marcus than the rest of the lot. They were more of an age than Ajax had been with his own brothers, though when he tried to recall exactly how old Marcus was, all he turned up was that ever-present shame.
It wasn’t until the housekeeper had herded Charlotte and Miss Abbotts away that his nephew divulged the reason for his prickliness.
“Haven’t seen hide nor hair of you, uncle, not since Harmonia’s wedding.” He walked through the east hall with purpose, hands clasped behind his back, and Ajax followed, assuming he was being led to the billiard room. “After just a couple dinners, you thought there was no reason for concern, that this mysterious fellow who showed up on our doorstep with dubious credentials was absolutely trustworthy? That you could hand Harmonia over to him without so much as a second thought?” Marcus spoke as if listing the mounting evidence of whatever charge he meant to lay at Ajax’s feet. As if theywere sparring in the corridors of Westminster. Ajax was only surprised the lad wasn’t counting the points off on his fingers.
