Page 19 of Her Beautiful Bastard
She snorted, arranging herself more comfortably amongst the pillows. “I would rather share my bed with a viper.”
“It is only natural for you to prefer entertaining one of your own species,” he fired back almost without thinking.
Regret did not settle in until after he’d realized what he had said, and by then, it was too late to take it back. It was always too late. Yet again, he found himself despising the man she’d turned him into. He had not always been so brooding, so angry or sarcastic. It seemed that with each passing year, his worst qualities rose to the surface, and he had no real notion who he was any longer.
“I do care, Dru,” he said, his voice low as he averted his gaze across the room. Looking at her hurt too much, the reminder that she wasn’t the girl he’d fallen in love with anymore always the most acute. “For Henry’s sake, most of all. I hardly wish for him to have to endure the death of his mother. I know all too well how painful that can be.”
She did not reply for a moment, and he began to think she would not. She likely did not believe him—perhaps thought that he wished for her to die so that he did not have to live with her any longer. In truth, he could not settle on one emotion in particular. Perhaps death would free them both, but it would also trap him in a life with a boy who mourned his lost mother. Another part of him, the young boy who still loved the memory of who he’d thought Drucilla was, only wanted the passion of his youth back. It was a heady, torrential mixture, one that sat in his belly with all the weight of a boulder.
“Henry seems happy with his new governess,” Drucilla said finally, landing on the one topic that did not inevitably hurtle them toward yet another row. “I think this one will last.”
“Yes,” he agreed. “I met with Miss Darling this morning. She seems well-qualified. So much so that I increased her salary.”
He went on avoiding looking at Drucilla, who—for all her faults—knew him better than anyone. It was an uncanny ability of hers, ferreting out someone’s secrets with nothing more than a glance, figuring out what made a person tick.
“They are not all like you, you know,” she said. “Some of them are aware of their place, and do not have the audacity to think they can ever be anything more than what they are.”
He snorted, shaking his head. “I had a bit of help working up the audacity to think myself above the manner of my birth, did I not?”
Silence stretched between them again, stifling and heavy. When had him being a bastard begun to matter to Drucilla? Perhaps after the allure of being with someone unsuitable, someone beneath her, had lost its thrill.
“Miss Darling is different,” Drucilla went on. “Her brother married the sister of a marquis, and the Darlings own quite a bit of land in Norfolk.”
He raised his eyebrows at that, his curiosity piqued by this revelation. It became even odder now, finding Lydia here after all this time. She’d been at a ball in the home of a member of theton, and now, he knew that her presence had been due to family connections. With such wealth and a familial tie to a marquis, what had driven her to seek work as a governess? Perhaps the Darlings had fallen onto hard times. Or, maybe …
“She might have fallen from grace or some such thing,” Drucilla said, echoing his own thoughts. “Not uncommon for a genteel woman to seek employment after becoming ineligible for marriage. Whatever the case, I suppose we ought to be grateful she is here.”
Sinclair could not find the words to respond, not when his head had begun to spin with so many thoughts tumbling over and about one another. What could have happened to send Lydia running to Hertfordshire? What—or who—was she hiding from? Had some young buck taken advantage of her during her first Season and deflowered her, sending her back to her family a fallen woman? He thought of the young lady he had held and kissed in the garden four years ago. She had been an innocent, sweet and pure, untouched. The thought of any other man tasting her lips made him feel ill. Wondering if she’d been hurt, forced to spread her legs for someone who cared not whether she refused, made his blood boil, his hands clenching into fists in his lap.
“Sin?”
Drucilla’s questioning voice drew him out of his reverie. He blinked, giving his head a little shake to clear it. He found his wife watching him with her eyebrows drawn together, gaze sharp and assessing as always.
Damn it all to Hell. The last thing he needed was for her to discover that he’d carried a torch for their governess for the past four years. He didn’t even want to consider what she might do to exploit such information.
“I am exhausted,” he declared, rising quickly to his feet. “The ride from Essex was long. Good night, Dru.”
“Good night,” she replied to his back.
He was halfway to the door, his mind having already flown across the house to where he knew Lydia slept, one floor below them. Worry for her twisted in his gut, along with a need to help make things right if he could. For reasons he did not understand, he felt responsible for her, as if he might have had some hand in her fate. That he was paying her several times more than a governess might be worth was not enough. He had to know what had happened to her, and he also needed her to understand the truth of their first meeting. He needed to find a way to express to her what he’d failed to that afternoon in the stable.
After he stripped off his dressing gown and fell into bed, sleep eluded him despite his exhaustion. As she always did when he was alone in his bed, Lydia overwhelmed his thoughts, leaving room for little else.
The next morning, Sinclair entered the dining room to find it already occupied. As he did every morning, Charles Welby sat enjoying coffee and biscuits before starting his day’s work. Sinclair often teased the steward by asking if he might not have coffee at his own home. Charles would merely laugh and tell him that the quality of it was better here. And because he enjoyed talking over the upcoming day of work with his friend before the morning truly begun, Sinclair had instructed the cook to make sure the coffee and biscuits were available each morning.
Seated across from Charles was Lydia, her head lowered over a plate filled with offerings from the sideboard. He paused in the doorway for a moment, stunned into stillness at the sight of her. It was going to take some getting used to—entering various rooms of his home and finding her there. In the years that had passed since their first meeting, he’d often daydreamed about having her at Buckton. Wondering how she would look with the morning sun shining on her through the floor-to-ceiling windows lining one wall of the dining room couldn’t have prepared him for this. Her golden hair gleamed like wheat, the soft yet simple chignon and loose strands at her temples creating a picture both alluring and demure. She wore a rather plain day gown of cream in a simple design—a far cry from the finery she’d worn on the night they had met, yet she was all the more compelling because of it.
He soaked in everything: the slope of her neck, the line of her jaw, even the parting of her lips as she raised her cup to drink tea. He smirked at the sight of her plate, filled more substantially than that of any lady he’d ever seen. A country girl, he remembered, she would be used to meat and eggs each morning as opposed to simple toast and tea. He supposed it must be responsible for the lush frame pressing at the confines of her gown, the soft curves that had filled his hands when he’d held her. Difficult to avoid comparing her to Drucilla, who had always possessed a long, downright willowy frame.
“Good morning, Sin,” Charles called out.
Lydia stiffened, her teacup held halfway to her lips at the mention of his name. Now that he’d been found out, he could not go on staring at her from the doorway. So, he entered the room, hands clasped behind his back.
“Good morning, Charles,” he replied, trying to keep his tone light and his eyes off Lydia. “Miss Darling.”
She paused in cutting into a slice of ham, casting a swift glance up at him. “Mr. Clayton.”
The clipped tone with which her voice cradled his name stung like a razor across his skin. When thinking of their brief moments together, their kiss, he’d always wondered how much better the experience could have been with her whispering his name. Just the thought of her whimpering or moaning his name, the sound slipping out between mewls of ecstasy as he kissed his way down her body, made his blood run hot.
