The Hunt Club Chronicles Bundle (10 page)

Chapter Eleven

Nathan stepped from the carriage first and glanced at his home. Servants lined the stairs of the sprawling manor house in respectful silence awaiting his every command. He wanted them gone. He wanted to be alone with Henry instead, but he had to behave as he had always done. The servants lined up by seniority, the butler, the valet, flowing down to the lowest pot boy.

He was glad to be back but hated this part.

Considering abandoning the practice, Nathan turned to speak to his butler, but then dismissed the idea. As far as he knew they might enjoy the pomp—he’d ask Henry first to gauge the reaction. He glanced back at the carriage as Henry stepped from the dark confines. Someone in the line of servants sighed a hearty relief.

Nathan couldn’t agree more. Now everything in his life would run smoothly. Henry glanced about him, nodded to the butler but didn’t move past Nathan. The formality between them was an irritant that had to be borne. Turning back to the house, Nathan had a brief moment of warning before he was enveloped in a swathe of feminine-scented muslin.

The duchess’ soft limbs locked around his neck and she hugged him tight. Shocked to the core, Nathan peeled his wife from his arms and thrust her away.

“Oh, Your Grace, I’ve been so concerned about your absence. You were gone ever so long.”

Nathan couldn’t decide what he hated more—Sybil’s public display of affection or the fact that it was false. “Nonsense, I’m sure you didn’t miss me at all.”

Why pretend anymore? She’d taken lovers from among the servants as if they were her due. The thought sickened him.

Sybil gripped his hands and held them tight. “It felt like forever.”

Henry stepped around them, and headed up the stairs.

“Await me in my study, Mr. Stackpool,” Nathan called, tingeing his words with a harsh bite of irritation. He wasn’t irritated—just determined not to lose sight of his lover for too long.

Sybil’s large eyes grew glassy. “But, I thought you would at least take tea with me?”

Nathan wasn’t fooled by that once endearing expression. He’d learned his lesson. “You know I can’t abide tea. I have business to discuss and then I want to see the children.”

“They are receiving instruction from their new tutor.”

“Another one? What happened to
Bridgewater
?”

Sybil twitched her sleeve and didn’t look him in the eye. “He was impertinent and I dismissed him.” She glanced up and battered her eyelashes.

More than likely she’d failed to seduce another servant and he’d fled.

“Damn it.” Nathan grasped Sybil’s arm and hauled her up the stairs. The servants remained in place until they crossed the threshold and then Nathan heard them whispering behind his back. He took his wife into the drawing room and closed the door. “What has come over you?”

Sybil sidled up to him and pressed her hands to his chest. “Am I not allowed to miss my husband?”

Nathan blinked. His wife was flirting with him. Flirting? The woman hadn’t done that since their third child had been conceived. “What did Mr. Bridgewater do?”

“He was too familiar with the children.”

“Oh, in what way?”

“He spoke with too much familiarity. He forgot his place.”

Nathan relaxed. It was inevitable that a tutor would occasionally slip and drop the use of his son’s rank during speech. It didn’t bother him overmuch. Nathan’s own tutors had done the same from time to time. It had never affected the strength of their teaching skills. Mr. Bridgewater was an excellent educator. He would have Henry entice him back if he was able.

Thinking of his lover reminded him that Henry might be disturbed by his wife’s affectionate greeting. She’d never been one given to amorous displays outside the bedroom, and her greeting on the steps was unprecedented. Nathan moved out of her reach and further into the room.

A seductive smile played across Sybil’s lips as she followed, playing with the edge of her gown. “Come, my love, it has been far too long since we have spent any length of time together. Wouldn’t you like to spend a little time in my bower?”

Hearing Sybil speak as if the past separation hadn’t occurred unnerved him until a thought slipped into his mind. She was all soft, womanly curves—her face full as if she had eaten more than she should. But Nathan didn’t think that could be the case.

Sybil had always been particular about keeping her figure. Even from the time they had first married, she had employed reducing regimes frequently. He feared she had another reason for her pursuit—one that would require his participation to mask.

Instead of anger, he found her predicament amusing.

Perhaps sensing he was softening, she approached him again. Hiding his humor, Nathan ran his hands over her body, cupped her breasts and then slipped his hands over her belly. He couldn’t be sure he felt a new life growing there, but the look on her face, arrested and wary, told him all he needed to know.

She
was
breeding—and the child certainly wasn’t his.

Nathan stepped back. He wouldn’t touch his wife again. Sybil had felt all wrong against him. Foreign. “I think I shall go find the children.”

Nathan left the drawing room. He didn’t glance back but was certain Sybil would be furious. Taking the stairs two at a time, Nathan found the nursery and his children.

Sun-kissed curls greeted him, postures straight as a new ploughed field. James, Pierce and even little Cecily leaned over slates, writing with all the care they could muster. Nathan stayed quiet, observing his adorable children. Despite having Henry, he’d felt the tug of guilt knowing he’d been away from them.

Showing affection for ones offspring wasn’t popular among his set, but he didn’t care. They were made in his image. They all had his bright green eyes and his nose.

The new man teaching them looked far too young for the position and far too handsome. He was almost pretty and Nathan wondered where Sybil had hired him.

Nathan propped himself against the door frame. “And what mischief have you all gotten into in my absence?”

Excited eyes turned his way, but the children didn’t leave their desks. Puzzled, Nathan turned to the tutor and he hurried to untie them from their chairs.

Nathan’s blood boiled, but he hesitated to react in front of the children. They didn’t need to see this altercation.

When they were free, they ran into his arms and hugged him tight. Pushing aside his rage, he returned each embrace and then set them aside. “Children, who might this
person
be?”

The children didn’t get a chance to reply because the man approached and held out his hand. Nathan looked at it, but didn’t take it. “I am Mr. Plumpton, Your Grace. Nephew to your valet.”

Ah, that explained the vague sense of familiarity about his features. “Children, there is a present waiting for you in my study. James, please be sure to share the cause of my delay when you get there. I’ll join you all as soon as I can.”

James straightened, scowled at the tutor and whisked his younger siblings out the door.

“Now then, Mr. Plumpton we need to discuss your employment and continuing good health.” Nathan closed the door and shut away the rest of the house.

~ * ~

Light footsteps rushed into the study and then the happy squeals of his employer’s children assaulted Henry’s ears. They didn’t give him time to rise from the chair. Cecily burrowed her way past her elder brothers and crawled into Henry’s lap. James the elder slapped his shoulder a few times, but the middle boy latched around his neck like a barnacle and wouldn’t let go.

“Hello children. Pierce, I do need to breathe.”

“Come on, Pierce, let him go,” James said, tugging on his brother.

The younger boy stepped back, but his eyes were huge. He was afraid. Henry checked the doorway for their father, but the space was empty.

“I’m glad you’re back, Henry. It’s been dreadfully, frightfully dull without you here,” Cecily whispered against his collar. Well, against her father’s collar. Henry was still wearing the borrowed suit of clothes.

“Well, I am here now but I have much to do. Hadn’t you better get back to the nursery? Mr. Bridgewater will be missing you.”

“Mr. Bridgewater is
gone
. Mama dismissed him,” Cecily whispered, clinging tighter to his chest. Henry glanced among the children, but each face agreed.

He had often wondered if
Bridgewater
had been comfortable here at
Grantley
Park
. Donning the guise of a subservient was foreign to Terrance Bridgewater. But this was where they’d agreed to build new lives after the nightmare of the Hunt Club. But Henry wished his friend had been given the chance to say goodbye before he’d departed the estate.

Not knowing what to say, Henry patted Cecily’s back and glanced about. Any minute now he expected the duchess to sweep into the room, or at least Nathan to return. But given the way the duchess had thrown herself at her husband, he would no doubt be delayed. The thought gnawed at his insides.

Lifting Cecily, he dropped her to her feet and circled the large desk. There was a wealth of business awaiting his attention. “Either way, you had better return.”

“Oh, no, Henry, Papa sent us here to entertain you. He wished to speak to the new tutor.”

As relief made him giddy, Henry tried not to sway into the table. At least Nathan had visited his children before succumbing to his wife’s blatant demands for attention and that consideration was sweet music to his soul. To cover his jubilation, Henry picked up the mail, shuffling the invitations that had stacked up: a ball, a dinner, a shooting party, all events that would take Nathan away and exclude Henry.

Shaking off his sudden black mood, he resolved to make the most of his time with Nathan. Be it in bed or out, every second was worth experiencing.

“I see the children found their present.” Nate strode across the room, eyes fixed somewhat lower than they should be.

Shuddering as Nate’s obvious desire aroused him, Henry bent to pick up an envelope to hide his physical reaction. That kind of thing had to remain hidden—particularly from the children. They could incriminate them both with an unthinking observation and have them both swinging within a week.

Henry glanced at the children. They deserved a much better treat than him. “A present? They do deserve a treat, don’t they?”

Nate looked perplexed but the children beamed. They almost bounced in their spots until Henry started counting. When he reached three they took position and at one they darted off, searching the room high and low for the candy treats he’d already hidden. Cecily cried out first, and then stuffed the toffee in her mouth. James hollered and hurried to show his father. Pierce was slower, he always was: drawing out the finding so he would have a greater excuse to linger.

Nate frowned. “Henry?”

Henry grinned and touched the side of his nose.

When Pierce swooped on a spot he’d already passed three times, and held up his present for all to see, Nate cheered and hurried to him. It was wonderful to see Nate smile—he did it so rarely.

“Is this how Mr. Stackpool has tricked you into behaving?” Nate laughed. “Hiding my own toffees for a grubby lot of urchins to gobble up? That’s outright bribery?”

Nate turned, amusement lighting his green eyes to brilliance, but a distraction at the door dimmed Henry’s response. The duchess had arrived.