“So leave me alone,” he growled. “You shouldn’t be in here, in the middle of the night.”
“You’re not going to seduce me, are you?” she said. “Because I’m nothing more than a wee, frail female and I might be overcome by the sight of your belly.”
“God damn—” But he was retching again.
As soon as he was done she took his arm again. “Come on,” she said bracingly. “Just down the hallway.” She got him down the hall and into her room, though he protested every inch of the way. Then she went into the bathroom and turned on the faucets.
“Isn’t this wonderful?” she said, watching as the hot water poured into the tub.
“I—” Rafe grunted. “Oh God—”
“Pail’s in the other room,” Imogen said. She had decided that the last thing Rafe needed was sympathy.
He wavered in the door of the bathroom a moment later, looking about to faint. She grabbed his arm. “I’m not taking a bath with you in here,” he said, but his voice was losing strength.
“Nonsense,” she said. “You’ll do just as I please.” She pushed him down into the bath, taking some pleasure in the fact that a man who topped six feet and was a good many stones heavier than she was would collapse at the press of her hand. His white towel billowed a little as he settled into the water, but it still covered his privates.
He didn’t even look to see if he were decent, just leaned his head against the back of the tub with a groan.
“God almighty!” he said. It didn’t sound like a prayer.
Imogen perched on the side of the tub. He was white as a sheet and sweating unattractively. But he couldn’t be more than thirty-five, for all he’d turned himself into a dissipated brandy bottle. “So did you start drinking when your brother died?” she asked, just to make conversation.
He rolled his head against the marble. “What if I have to vomit?”
“Here’s the basin,” Imogen said. “When did your brother die?”
“Six years ago now,” he said. “Six years.”
“What was he like?”
“Argumentative,” Rafe said, not opening his eyes. “He would argue till the sun came up and back down again. He had a born lawyer’s tongue. He would talk me into circles and then talk himself into such a state that neither of us knew what the point was anymore.” He smiled faintly.
“Did he have a degree?”
“No. Our father didn’t think it was appropriate for the future Duke of Holbrook to go to university. Peter…” His voice trailed off and he started to look a bit green again.
Imogen perched on the edge of the bathtub and threw a little water over his chest. It was broad and muscled, for all that he did little more than drink. It must be because when he wasn’t drunk, he was down at the stables. “Was your brother’s name Peter?” she asked. She was thinking that he needed to be distracted. It couldn’t be good to be so sick, so many times.
But he threw up again anyway, into the basin she held under his chin.
“I can’t believe you’re doing this,” he said weakly, leaning back. “Quite the fastidious maiden, are you?”
“I’ve been married,” Imogen reminded him.
“More fool you,” he said.
Imogen narrowed her eyes. “Don’t speak ill of Draven.”
“I didn’t,” he pointed out. “I spoke ill of you.”
“You’ve no call to speak anything of me,” she said haughtily, rinsing out the basin in the sink.
“You were a fool to marry that puppy,” he said, still with his eyes closed.
Imogen filled up the basin with cold water and dumped it over his head.
“Argh!” He sat straight up and glared at her, water dripping down his face.
Imogen started laughing. All that messy, brown hair of his was dripping with cold water, hanging over his face. “You look like some sort of water monster,” she said, gurgling with laughter. “Green and weedy. You could frighten children.”
“Shut up and give me the basin again,” he snapped.
Afterward she rinsed out the bowl, and he opened one eye. “Don’t throw any more water on me.”
“Warm this time,” she said. She emptied it over his head and then poured a handful of liquid soap into her hand.
“What are you doing now?” he asked suspiciously.
“Making you smell like lemons rather than vomit,” she said. She slapped it on top of his head and then started to massage it about.
“You can’t do that,” he said, sounding really shocked. “It’s entirely too intimate.”
“What? And holding a basin to your mouth isn’t intimate?” She laughed at him. “Just think of me as your old nanny come to nurse you through an illness.”
“My nanny never wore a nightgown that turned transparent in the light,” he said.
Imogen looked down at her white nightgown. “Really?”
He nodded. “Every time you walk in front of a candle, I can see everything you have to offer.”
“That’s extremely coarse,” she said. “Not that it matters because you don’t care what I have to offer, and I certainly don’t care about your offerings, if you have any—”
He growled, a deep masculine sound that almost made her giggle nervously, but instead she just kept rubbing the soap around his head. She had never washed anyone’s hair. He had a beautifully shaped head with ears set back against his scalp. Bone-deep beauty. And his hair was long and surprisingly silky for a man. She wouldn’t have thought men’s hair felt soft.
Which made her think about Draven. Had his hair been soft? Draven had fine blond hair that he wore sleeked back in a style that accentuated his high cheekbones.
“What are you thinking about?” he demanded.
“Draven.”
“What about him?”
“His hair.” Then she added, “He had very soft hair.”
“He was going to lose it,” Rafe said dispassionately. “All those fair-headed men do. In a few years, he would have looked like one of those marble balls you find at the bottom of staircases.”
“Whereas you will just get hairier and hairier,” she said, sliding her fingers over his scalp again and again.
“God, that feels good,” he said, leaning into her hands. “Did you do this for Draven?”
She and Draven had never been so intimate. He was bathed by his manservant, and she by her maid, and they only met under the covers. “Of course,” she said without hesitation. “Draven loved the way I bathed him.”
“Well, damned if there isn’t something about which I agree with that blighter.” Rafe sighed. “Did he bathe you as well?”
“Naturally,” Imogen said, turning her mind away from the awkward couplings that she and Draven had shared.
“Lucky man,” Rafe said, sounding almost drowsy. “I suppose this is why you’re so quick to talk about privy matters. Maybe I should get married. This is the part of marriage that you never hear about.”
Because this part doesn’t exist, Imogen thought to herself. In her experience, husbands and wives didn’t find themselves alone in palatial marble bathrooms lit by candles. At least she and Draven hadn’t. The thought made her irritated, and she didn’t pour quite as warm water as she might have into the basin.
“Oof,” Rafe said, shaking his head like a dog coming out of a lake.
Imogen stood over him, grinning as he ran his hands back through his hair. Then she noticed.
His towel had come undone and was floating on the surface of the water. He certainly had a little gut, but his legs were strong and muscular—the riding, she would guess.
And there between his legs—
She turned away to get more water and poured it over his head. He was looking less green. His eyes were closed. She peeked again.
He was definitely much larger than Draven had been.
Interesting.
11
Neighbors May Well Be the Nearest…But Not the Dearest
October 1, 1817
/> Ardmore Castle, Scotland
The Countess of Ardmore was not pleased. “Every time I look at Crogan, I think about how he wished to plaster me with molasses and feathers,” she told her husband. “How could you invite him for supper?”
Ewan tucked his wife closer under his arm. “The Crogans have always had a meal with us after the harvest fest; ’twould be paramount to a declaration of war to change the tradition. The Crogans and the Ardmores have marched along beside each other these hundred years now. And the present Crogan’s grandda actually managed to feather my grandmother, if you remember.”
“I can hardly believe it,” Annabel said, thinking of Ewan’s fierce grandmother. “Are there any other unpleasant family traditions I should know about?”
“Well, there is the one,” Ewan said, rubbing his wife’s stomach thoughtfully.
“She’s kicking, can you feel it?” Annabel whispered, leaning into his shoulder.
“How could I not?” He laughed out loud. “For all you think this is a girl, darling, I think those thumps bespeak a son.”
“Nonsense,” Annabel said. “She’s a high-spirited Scotswoman, that’s all. And what is this other tradition I should know about?”
“Well, there is an ancient agreement between the Crogans and ourselves that when a daughter of this house marries a son of that house, a particularly large amount of gold travels to the Crogan household.”
“My goodness, you should be happy that I married you. Your blood has likely been weakened by that little arrangement.” Annabel’s eyes widened. “If you think that a daughter of mine would ever—”
Ewan bent over and dropped a kiss on her tummy. “The arrangement is of long standing, but to this date, no Crogan has managed to talk a woman of this house into marrying him. Mind you, the Crogans have generally done some serious courting, so that is something our daughter will have to look forward to.”
“She will kick them into the next county,” Annabel said without hesitation.
Just then Josie entered the room and walked over to them.
“You look very lovely tonight,” Annabel said, smiling at her little sister. “That velvet makes your skin look utterly delectable.”
Josie smoothed the peach-blossom skirt of her dinner gown. “Imogen had this made for me last spring.” She made a face. “We had to let out the seams in the back so I could wear it tonight. I’ve started another reducing diet. I’m having cabbage for dinner.”
Annabel frowned at her. “I don’t think cabbage is particularly good for you. And look at you, Josie! Why should you go on a slimming diet? You’re one of the prettiest girls in the Highlands.”
“I agree with that,” Ewan said, smiling at his sister-in-law. “You’re a bonny lass, and I’m sure every man in Almack’s will agree with me next spring.”
“I doubt that,” Josie replied. “Item, two lips, indifferent red, item, two gray eyes, item, one face as round as a pumpkin.”
“You’re distorting Shakespeare,” Annabel said, but just then Ewan’s butler, Warsop, entered the room. “Mr. Crogan and Mr. Hew Crogan.”
“Oh joy, both of them,” Annabel moaned under her breath, as she allowed her husband to haul her from the couch.
One of the surprising things about the Crogans was that they seemed to feel not the slightest embarrassment at meeting her, the woman whom they had attempted to cover with molasses and feathers just before she married Ewan.
“We can see what you’ve been doing recently, Lady Ardmore,” said the elder Crogan with a veritable howl of laughter.
Annabel blinked at him.
“Stroking the sheets,” he said cheerfully. “Just as a countess ought. Nice breeding stock, you are.” He pulled his younger brother over to them. “Now think on this, young Crogan. Lady Ardmore has been married almost no time a-tall, and she’s telling the world that she’s the one to produce an heir. It’s good breeding stock we see here. Good breeding stock.”
Annabel was so dumbfounded by Crogan’s deplorable freedom of conversation that she might have just stood there with her mouth open if Ewan hadn’t caught the end of Crogan’s speech and intervened. “I am a fortunate man,” he said, smiling at them with a touch of steel in his eyes.
“I’m thinking to the future,” Crogan said. “I’ve no doubt but what your lovely wife will give you a brace of bonny lasses, and you know that there’s long been a wish to create closer bonds between our households. I’ve got four young lads growing up at home, you know. And if it weren’t for the fact that the youngest is all of a week old, my wife would be here to offer her congratulations as well. Our son, your daughter: ’tis a perfect match.”
“I’ll have your guts for garters first” didn’t seem a ladylike thing to say, so Annabel pleaded an aching back and fell into a chair.
“And who is this lovely young woman?” Crogan said, his eyes wandering to Josie in a manner that was just on this side of acceptable.
Ewan explained while Josie curtsied to the Crogans. “This is my youngest sister-in-law, Miss Josephine Essex. Her father was Charles Essex, the Viscount Brydone.”
“Ah, and if he didn’t take me for a Johnny flat by selling me a horse that was out at the knees,” Crogan shouted. But he didn’t seem to have taken an insult at it, but instead stood beaming at Josie.
“Was that True Confession?” she asked.
“Indeed it was!”
“I remember her,” Josie said, nodding. “She was not only out at the knees, but she had a droopy eye as well, didn’t she?”
“Right you are, young lady,” Crogan said, looking rather less cheerful. “I’d forgotten that detail.” He shrugged. “Ah, well, and I gave her as payment for a loan that I never meant to repay anyway, so it comes to the same thing, doesn’t it?”
The two Crogans looked almost identical: beefy, red-haired, and red-necked. As if they routinely pinched ladies in any area of her physique they could lay hands on.
“Now if I’d picked a mare who looked like yourself,” Crogan said, “things could have been different.” He reached around and plucked his little brother closer. “Did you meet the young Crogan here, by the name of Hew?”
Josie curtsied again. Young Crogan had, if anything, a larger lower jaw than his brother. It was a miracle that his teeth met in order to chew his meat.
“This is Miss Essex,” Crogan bawled at his brother. “She’s the youngest of Viscount Brydone. Remember him? Now, Miss Essex, who has your father’s stables these days?”
“My father’s estate was inherited by his cousin,” Josie said.
“Right you are. And I agree with that. Don’t like the idea of property passing to a woman, and I reckon your father agreed with me. Your face can be your fortune, lass!” Crogan roared with laughter.
Josie looked at Annabel rather desperately, but her sister appeared to be taking a short sleep. From what Josie could see, a woman might as well stay in bed through pregnancy, given the way Annabel napped even in the midst of company.
Luckily, Ewan came to her rescue. “Josie’s fortune is far more than her face,” he said to Crogan. “Not only did her father leave her a prime piece of bloodstock as a dowry, but her sisters’ husbands—myself included—have given her a dowry that any young woman can be proud of.”
Josie smiled up at him rather grimly. It had been manifestly obvious to her, ever since she was told of this dowry, that her sisters had come up with the scheme simply because she was too large to make a success of it on the market. After all, Annabel went through the season last year without Tess’ husband putting a ha’penny toward her dowry. No man would need a bribe to consider taking Annabel to wife.
Crogan stiffened all over, like a hound scenting a trail. “So, your lordship, would you say that Miss Essex is a daughter of your house?” he demanded. There was a challenge in his voice that Josie didn’t understand.
But Ewan just smiled. “She is indeed a daughter of my house,” he said, turning away and bringing Josie with him. “Now look at this
, my lamentable wife has deserted her hostessing duties once again.”
Behind them she could hear Crogan saying something urgent to his brother in an undertone.
“Precisely what was that about?” Josie asked.
“Nothing important,” Ewan said. “I’ll take Annabel upstairs and she can have supper in her chambers when she wakes.”
Josie didn’t have time to agree; Ewan already had his arms around Annabel and was lifting her from the chair. It was amazing to watch, given that Annabel had to have gained two stone while carrying the child. And yet Ewan carried her like a feather.
She turned to find the elder Crogan grinning at her, his hand clenched on his younger brother’s arm. “Tell us about yourself, lass,” he said ingratiatingly. “We’ll wile the time away while Ardmore takes his wife upstairs for a bit of rest. My wife was just the same, I assure you. The nights I’ve carried her to her bed!”
Josie felt a moment of companionship with his younger brother as they both stared at Crogan in disbelief.
“So precisely what horse did your father leave to you, Miss Essex?” Crogan asked.
“Her name is Fancied Lady,” Josie answered. “My guardian, the Duke of Holbrook, is breeding her this season, I believe.” She couldn’t figure out where Crogan’s interest lay. Ewan came back into the room just as she was explaining that the terms of her father’s will did not allow her to sell the horse he left her.
She discovered the answer to Crogan’s interest later in the evening. She had run out the side door to check on the progress of a mare with a nasty boil on her hock, and was coming back down the path when she heard the Crogan brothers arguing loudly. It sounded as if they were walking toward her. They must have decided to fetch their own horses from the stables, rather than wait for a groomsman to bring them.
The moon was shining brightly, and the woods were almost clear as day, so Josie didn’t hesitate a moment. She slipped to a large oak by the side of the road and pressed herself against the far edge. Only a very foolish woman would risk encountering two Crogans, each of whom had undoubtedly imbibed a fair amount of whiskey after the meal. A kiss would be the least of it—and more the fool she, for having left her maid at home while she nipped down the path to the stables. Not but what she did that every night, but it wasn’t a wise thing to do with the Crogans on Ardmore ground.