Trenton Lord of Loss (Lonely Lords) (42 page)

“Trenton, I am so sorry.” 

“Thomas Benning explained some of the why of it to me just today,” Trent said, gathering her close and needing to say the words, to her, if not to anyone else. “Tye Benning preyed intimately on his younger siblings. Paula escaped by going to boarding school, then marrying me. She feared her brother might someday visit his attentions on our children, but she couldn’t confide her past in me.” 

“You don’t have to tell me this. She’s at peace now, Trent.” 

“Maybe now she is,” Trent said softly. “Thomas has a letter from her, sent immediately before her death. She charged Thomas to give the letter to me if Tye ever attempted to have contact with the children, and that letter details Tye’s perversion.” 

“Thomas kept this letter?” 

“I told him to burn it. Thomas is a wreck. He suspected Tye had turned his attentions to their younger sister, but Thomas went to his mother about it, who told him he mustn’t get his brother in trouble over silly schoolboy peccadilloes, and that was the end of it. I’ve my suspicions about the mother, as, I think, does Trevisham.”

“So much sadness,” Ellie murmured. “Your father knew Paula was fragile, didn’t he?” 

“He knew exactly what she’d been through. Tye would snicker to him about it when in his cups. Wilton bet I’d never get children on her, but Paula was stronger than Wilton guessed. Just not strong enough.” 

“You blame yourself,” Ellie concluded, levering up to hug him close. Her belly came between them, a soft, wondrous swelling of new life incongruous with the events of the morning. 

Trent nuzzled her neck, loving the scent of her. “Paula needed to escape a life at the Grange, where sooner or later, her brother could have got her with child. She did what she could, and she protected her children as best she could. In a sense, it’s a relief to know much of what plagued her wasn’t personal to me.” 

Ellie subsided against him, no doubt hearing what he wasn’t saying: Much was not personal to him, leaving some that was. 

“We will talk more about this,” she said. “How’s Darius?” 

“He disappeared on his horse for most of the morning, which is probably for the best. Hazlit’s keeping an eye on him. In his own way, Dare is as innocent as Emily. He still thinks in terms of right and wrong, black and white, and in his world, parents shouldn’t try to kill their children.” 

“In any world,” Ellie said sternly. “Could you put Ford on a dangerous pony?” “God, no. Never.” 

“It’s a new list of nevers, Trenton, and you are not your father. One wonders if Wilton was your father in truth.” 

What a merciful, cheering thought. “One does, though I’ve his height and his coloring.” 

“England boasts many tall, dark-haired men.” 

“It’s something to think about,” Trent agreed, though his mind was turning to a sluggish mixture of fatigue, shock, and regret. “Ellie, I’ve a favor to ask.” 

“Name it.” She cuddled against him, her weight and proportions an even greater consolation than her voice in his ear. 

“Never call me by the title,” Trent said, his voice low and fierce. “No matter how you might want to, for whatever reason, I don’t ever want to be Wilton to you.” 

“Of course not.” Without hesitation, as if she’d anticipated his request. “Is that the only favor you’d ask?” 

“No.” 

He arched up, got his mouth on hers, his one hand on her breast, the other planted over her derrière, and held on. “Let me love you.” 

She did not
let
him love her, she went on a campaign of tenderness, arousal, and intimate caring that enveloped Trent and held him captive. She took him prisoner and sheltered him from the grief, worry, regret, and despair trying to drag him into darkness. Ellie was light and love to him, his safe harbor, his friend, the guardian of any pretensions he yet held to decency and honor. 

Before she was done with him, he was silently crying, and coming, and holding on, while Ellie clung, and loved him, and crooned meaningless comforts as the love and the relief—the profound, soul-deep relief—took him under. 

Chapter Twenty-Two

The funeral was small enough to confirm that Wilton was not at all well regarded, but large enough that the Lindsey family knew their neighbors felt for them. From the family parlor at Wilton Acres, Lady Warne presided over the whole business with the unsentimental competence of the hale elderly. Imogenie Henly had the good sense not to show her face, but was seen later putting flowers on the grave, a quiet Hiram Haines lending her escort. 

Thomas Benning did not attend either, but took his father up to Melton for a few weeks of hunting over some of the best fixtures known to man, hound, or fox, while Lady Trevisham kept to her quarters, attended by three shifts of nurse companions. 

Tye Benning was found guilty as an accessory after the fact to attempted murder and assault. He was given transportation and seven years. If he survived the close quarters of the outbound voyage, a life of decent nutrition and basic good health suggested he might survive the sentence as well. 

Darius Lindsey took himself off to London, where, he told Trent, he had a christening to attend.

Emily Lindsey had a few quiet, subdued days, but responded well to Mr. Benton’s continued insistence that she ride out with him and enjoy the last of the temperate fall weather. 

Lady Warne agreed to stay as chaperone for as long as needed, though Trent considered it might be in everybody’s best interests if Emily spent some of the requisite period of mourning with him and the children at Crossbridge. 

In the midst of all the comings and goings, Ellie Hampton quietly departed with Hazlit for Surrey, and Trent had no choice but to let her go. 

“I will one day marry your sister.” Benton passed Trent a glass holding two fingers of brandy, bringing to mind other occasions when they’d shared a drink in the library. “I know her come out will be delayed because of Wilton’s mourning.” 

“Does Emily consent to this?” For Wilton’s passing should not interfere with the happiness of the vilest rat in the vilest sewer of the lowliest slum. 

“She would,” Benton said carefully. “Were I free to ask it of her.” 

“You’ve spoken to her?” 

“I have.” Benton looked a little abashed, and a lot determined. “The timing is wrong, my prospects are modest, particularly if my uncle’s new wife should bear children. Emily’s above my touch. I know that.” 

True love made loquacious, honorable fools of all men. “If she’s determined to have you, then there’s little enough I can say to it. Emily wasn’t looking forward to a Season, anyway. Em wants children and a man she can depend on. If you can give her that, you have my blessing. Leah can present her in a couple of years if need be.” 

“So she wasn’t making that up?” Benton said, some of the fight leaving him. “About being disenchanted with all the spotty boys?” 

“She’s honest,” Trent said, feeling more than a little sympathy for his steward. “Be warned. I think she’d like it here. She hasn’t the memories of the place her older siblings do.” 

Benton tugged at his cravat. “She has enough bad memories here.” 

“So get her over them. Put your suite in the east wing, build a dower house to live in. Set it up however you need to for Em to be happy. You’ve turned Wilton Acres into a profitable enterprise. You should enjoy the fruits of your labors.” 

“You’d let us stay here?” 

“She’s my
sister
.”
His baby sister, and Wilton had held a blade to her throat. Trent knocked back a slug of brandy. “I want her happy, plain and simple. God knows I don’t want to live here, but you’ll have to put up with Ford from time to time. He’s the heir, God help him.” 

“I love children. Especially boys.” 

“You are doomed. Utterly doomed.” 

“When can we marry?” The question was painfully full of hope. 

“That’s up to you and Emily. If you become engaged, you might consider having the nuptials at Belle Maison. Your family needs to know you’re marrying well, and I’m sure Nick and Leah will want to put their imprimatur on the match.” 

“Bellefonte will claim he knew we’d suit.” 

“He will probably be telling the truth. Lady Warne can stay here for the nonce, and she can help Emily plan the details.”

That Emily’s life, at least, was falling into place was some satisfaction. Not enough, but some. 

“What about you?”

Benton was a canny soul. He hadn’t used Trenton’s title, but he couldn’t exactly address his employer by name, either, could he? 

Trent endured a pang of longing for Ellie, like the first sharp shaft of autumn light slants through a forest still lush with summer greenery. Piercingly sweet, but tinged with loss. 

“What about me?” 

“You’ll toddle off to Crossbridge and let the widow slip through your fingers?” 

Trent held up his empty hands. “She has slipped. Lady Rammel is a good friend. She brought the reinforcements that arguably saved my life and Emily’s, but she’s gone, Aaron. When all is said and done, Ellie’s gone, and I’m not sure what that means.”

Because Ellie had provided such generous, intimate comfort before she’d left, Trent would always be in her debt. Could a woman love like that and simply walk away? 

“Did you invite her to stay?” 

“For a suicide’s farce of a funeral?” Trent took another tot of his drink. “I did not.” 

“What else was she to do?” 

Trent sighed mightily, wishing canny Aaron would go make calf eyes at Emily. “My father killed himself; my wife killed herself; and for most of my tenure in Lady Rammel’s life, my father had people trying to kill me as well. Ellie is entitled to reconsider our situation.” 

To put distance between them, God help him. Was this what he’d left her to feel? Anxious, hopeful, helpless? Though Trent wasn’t giving up. Falling back to regroup, taking a repairing lease from his repairing lease, but not giving up. 

“Elegy Hampton would have you,” Aaron said, expression serious. “She made me promise I’d see that you ate. I was to note when you went to bed and what you had for breakfast. I was to make sure you kept your nightly tryst with Arthur and not for the sake of the beast, because he hardly notices who tosses him his hay. I was to write to her if you seemed to be going into a decline. For God’s sake, man, she’s at least six months pregnant and can’t be tarrying wherever she pleases.” 

She had been the embodiment of feminine abundance in his arms. Lush, warm, generous…though more than a bit
round
. Trent mentally started counting months.

“She didn’t want to leave?” 

“I heard Heathgate lecture her. His marchioness has had some difficulty in her confinements, and he grew very stern with Lady Rammel about her duty to the title and her own life, and what an unpleasant death a complicated childbed can engender. He out-gunned her, though it took some heavy artillery.” 

“I would have liked to have heard this discussion.”

Though Heathgate had the right of it. A woman heavy with child should be propping her feet up before her own hearth. 

“Lady Rammel did not want to leave your side,” Benton said emphatically. “Heathgate put the fear of miscarriage in her, and God knows what else he said.” 

Trent set his drink down, feeling the first rekindling of forward momentum since his father’s death. 

“I’ll find my sister and wish her well, then take myself off at first light. Mind my first niece or nephew isn’t a six-months child, Benton.” 

“A six-months…? Oh, right.” Benton’s ears colored nicely. “No chance of that. Yet.”

Trent left at first light, as intended, but he took his time, seeing the countryside clothed in the pleasant attire of early autumn. The temperature remained comfortable for traveling, the roads dry. The journey had become familiar enough that he hardly had to remind Arthur which lanes and turnpikes led where.

When Arthur turned up the lane to Deerhaven, darkness had already fallen. Trent caught the horse in his unsanctioned suggestion, though, and kneed him right along until they reached the Crossbridge turn-off. At the foot of his own drive, Trent dismounted and walked Arthur into the trees, letting the gelding pick his way by moonlight to the bridle path leading to the back of Ellie’s property. 

“You were right, old son.” Trent patted Arthur’s neck. “My apologies.” 

They stood for a long time, Arthur likely glad to rest, Trent glad to see the light burning in Ellie’s window. He wasn’t about to intrude again uninvited, but he could wish in the dark, and hope the woman who’d told him good-bye so convincingly, then braved distance, darkness, and worse to save his life might still entertain a fondness for him.

A passionate fondness, though what woman facing impending motherhood should have to fend off a randy widower? 

“I’m tired, Arthur.” Trent’s horse flicked an ear in agreement. “I want my own bed, and I want to see my children asleep in theirs. Cato’s leaving us, you know? But we’re to have his cousin Kevin.” 

Rather than wake his help, Trent intended to put Arthur up himself. He didn’t light a lantern, the moonlight in the stable yard illumination enough for loosening a girth.

“Trenton Lindsey?” 

From a bench under a tree in the stable yard, Ellie’s voice rang out, full of curiosity, and something else—relief?