"Forgive the indelicate question, but are they house-broken? I have to sleep in that bed."
"Beatrice cleans up after them," Chloe informed him serenely.
"Oh, how very reassuring." Laughter swelled from some deep well in his chest, and he realized that the desperate tension of his brandy craving had left him. His hands were steady, his stomach at peace.
Chloe looked up from her intent concentration on the board and laughed happily as she examined his face. "You're better?"
He looked sharply at her. "Yes, how do you know?"
"I can feel it when people are hurting," she said. "Just as I can feel it when the pain goes away. Will you ever be able to drink again, do you think?"
The question surprised him. He hadn't expected someone with so little experience of the world to understand his agony so completely. She was regarding him intently, the mischievously seductive playmate transformed into a solemn, caring companion.
"I don't know, I'll have to wait and see," he answered as seriously as if she were of his own generation. "But I'm not stupid enough to put it to the test yet awhile. It's too damn difficult to resist at the moment."
"I'll help you." Reaching over, she laid her hand over his and it startled him more than any of her previous intimacies. It was a simple human gesture of support and friendship.
"You already have," he answered quietly.
The silence in the room grew to enclose them, and he felt as if he were slipping into the deep blue depths of her eyes. Then, with a supreme effort of will, he hauled himself out of enhancement and broke the spell.
"Come on, it's time you went back to bed." He scooped the draftsmen up and put them in the box. "You've done what you came to do, and I'm very grateful, but now I'd like my own room back. How are you going to transport that litter?"
"I'll fetch the hat box." She moved the nest of kittens from her lap and slipped off the bed, hiding her disappointment. Struggling with the unwieldy folds of the robe, she went to get the box. When she returned, Hugo had cleared away the board and pieces, shooed Dante off the bed, and was staring somewhat nonplussed at Beatrice, who lay fast asleep, unimpressed by the busyness around her.
"She looks as if she's settled for the duration," he said as Chloe put the box on the bed.
"She'll follow the kittens." She picked them up and put them in the box. "I can't cany them without tripping over your robe, so if you don't mind, I'll take it off." She shrugged out of it, laying it over the foot of the bed. "Good night." Her voice was flat.
"Chloe?"
"Yes?" She paused at the door.
He came up behind her, turned her, and gently kissed
her brow. "Thank you. You were a great help." She quivered under his hands, her rounded shoulder warm in his palm beneath the thin nightgown, but she said nothing, and he released her. She left, Beatrice and Dante streaking ahead of her down the corridor.
Hugo lay down fully dressed on his bed, wrinkling his nose at the faint lingering smell of warm animal.
Something had to be done before the situation became completely out of hand. He would have to send her away somewhere. But where? Where would she be safe from Jasper if he himself wasn't there to protect her? One thing he knew with absolute certainty: The three of them couldn't go on living together in this dangerous intimacy. Each day he drew closer to breaking faith with Elizabeth. If he yielded, he would ruin a sweet-faced innocent who didn't understand the consequences of what she was offering-and such a prospect belonged amid the depravities of the crypt.
Down the corridor, Chloe lay in bed, unaware that her thoughts were in one respect an echo of Hugo's. Something had to be done. But in her case, she searched for a way to bring her plan to a swift conclusion. She was a prey to such tormenting fires and dreams and only one thing would quench the one and fulfill the other. She sensed it needed one firm push to propel Hugo over the edge of restraint. But what form should the push take? She'd tried gentle maneuvering and soft insinuations, hoping he'd pick up on the initiative. Perhaps it was time to do something utterly outrageous. But what7
She yawned and closed her eyes as a wave of sleepiness washed over her. The opportunity would present itself if she was on the lookout for it.
Chapter 14
"Where's the lass this morning?" Hugo came into the kitchen, yawning, rubbing his flat
palms over his face. His clothes were more than usually rumpled.
"She 'ad breakfast about an hour ago. Said she was goin' t' put nag to grass in the orchard." Samuel cast a sharp look at his employer. It was mid-morning, unusually late for Sir Hugo to rise unless he'd been drinking heavily. But apart from looking as if he'd slept in his clothes, he seemed clear-eyed and refreshed.
Samuel poured coffee. "We need supplies, so if ye've got a few pennies, I'll take the cart."
Hugo grimaced. "How much is a few pennies, Samuel?"
Samuel shrugged. "A couple o' guineas'll prob'ly do for a bit o' flour an' coffee an' the like. But the pig'll 'ave to be stuck soon if there's to be bacon for the winter, and Colin likes 'is money on the dot. An' there's the farrier to pay."
"Won't Colin take payment in kind? A side of bacon?"
"Aye, 'e might. Things is 'ard for 'im at the moment. 'Ard for everyone, what wi' wages bein' cut at the mill."
"Maun." Hugo drank coffee. "And there'll be no reform meetings for a while. Henry Hunt's been sentenced to two years in prison."
"Just makes 'em more riled. They'd see the magistrates swing soon as look at 'em." Samuel set a plate of ham in front of Hugo. "That do ye?"
"Amply, thanks." Hugo cut into the meat. "Take what
you need for the supplies from the strongbox in the library."
He remembered with a guilty pang the three gold sovereigns he'd given Betsy… not to mention the two he'd lavished on the turnip seller for Rosinante- more than enough to pay the farrier and the pig sticker and keep them in flour and coffee for a month. Chloe had insisted it was her money he was spending, but he couldn't see himself recouping the outlay from his ward's pin money.
"I could do with a bath, Samuel," he said, diverting his thoughts to a more easily remediable situation.
"I'll set it up for ye in 'ere," Samuel said. "like I did for the lass. Ye'll be wantin' to use the screen, I reckon."
"Yes, I'd better," Hugo said. Until Chloe's advent, he'd been accustomed to bathing without such niceties, usually under the pump in the courtyard, in clement weather. But they were no longer an all-male household.
Half an hour later, he was ensconced in the hip bath before the range and behind the fire screen, luxuriating in the hot water that steamed gently around him. Toward dawn, he'd finally fallen into a deep sleep and he was now rilled with a sense of physical well-being. He had fought his addiction last night and won, and the sense of achievement was sweet. Chloe's part in the victory had to be acknowledged and he contemplated what he could do to please her that wouldn't involve him in vast expense. Another trip to Manchester… and perhaps he'd bite his tongue when she demanded some hideous monstrosity and let her enjoy her purchase. But then again, remembering what tended to appeal to her, perhaps not. He closed his eyes, flexing his toes over the edge of the bath, idly slurping water over his chest.
The water was cooling slightly, and he thought he
heard Samuel in the kitchen. "Before you go, Samuel, bring me another jug of hot water."
Chloe stood in the open doorway, looking around the deserted kitchen. She was about to tell the disembodied voice of her guardian that Samuel wasn't in the room, when a hot tide of excitement washed over her, sending a jolt to the pit of her stomach that made her knees weak. Here was the opportunity… and a golden one at that.