Louise Allen - A Candlelit Regency Christmas

‘The baby’s name is Daisy, my lord.’

‘Thank you, Mrs Ellery. I am aware that babies are people, too.’ She coloured up. Annoyance, he supposed. That made two of them. ‘So we have acquired another stray, have we? I suppose I must be thankful that the baby is already with us or I have no doubt I would be expected to house oxen and a donkey in my stables come Christmastide.’

Tess drew in a deep breath through her nose and narrowed her eyes at him. ‘I suspect that verges on blasphemy, my lord. Dorcas is very well qualified as a lady’s maid.’

‘And comes with excellent references, no doubt?’ It came out sharply and Tess’s chin jutted. So she didn’t like his tone? There was still an ache in his chest that he didn’t understand, memories of childhood he thought he had locked away in his head. His tight, small, bachelor household had become full of women, virtually a crèche. He was entitled to snap—he was amazed he wasn’t shouting.

‘Might we have a word, my lord?’ Tess enquired with a sweet, false smile. ‘Upstairs?’

He held the door for her and followed her stiff back along to the study. Tess did not wait for him to get behind the barrier of his desk and sit down before she attacked. ‘No, Dorcas White does not have references. A man who forces himself on a servant and then tells his wife that the slut flaunted herself at him when he’d had a few drinks, that she’d been asking for it , is not someone who writes a reference for his victim.’

‘Are you certain?’ Even as he said it he felt ashamed of himself. Those thin, desperate hands, those wounded eyes, the way she had held her child... No, that was not some little hussy who had taken advantage of Tess’s good nature. ‘Yes, of course you are, and I can see you are right,’ he said before the angry rebuttal was out of her mouth. ‘What does she need for the child? Buy it for her, whatever it is.’

If he had been looking for a reward, which he hadn’t, he told himself, he would have got it in the smile that transformed Tess’s face.

‘Who is the father?’ He suppressed his own answering smile. This was not a laughing matter.

‘I have no idea. I didn’t ask her. Why?’

‘Because he needs dealing with,’ Alex said, startling himself. What was he, some knight errant, dispensing justice for wronged damsels? ‘Still, I suppose you’ll never get the name out of her and I don’t want her worried that the swine will find out where she is.’

‘Oh, thank you,’ Tess said and clutched his hand. ‘Thank you for understanding. I knew you were Sir Lancelot really, however much you grumbled about Noel and things.’

Her hand was small and warm and strong in his and he closed his fingers around it, even as he said, in tones of loathing, ‘ Sir Lancelot? Do I look like some confounded idiot clanking around in armour? And besides, he was a decidedly dubious type—making love to his king’s wife like that.’

‘I thought when you hit that sailor that you were a storybook knight and then you were grumpy with me so I changed my mind. But it is all a front, the grumpiness, isn’t it?’ Her eyes were dancing; it seemed she was as amused by her nonsense as he was.

His meek little nun was teasing him, he realised, and this time could not suppress the answering smile. Alarm bells were ringing even as he lifted her hand and pressed the back of it against his cheek, her pulse rioting under his fingers. Charm and sweetness. You cannot let yourself enjoy them, not for your sake and definitely not for hers.

‘Yes,’ Alex agreed. ‘It is all a front, but behind it is not your preux chevalier , there’s a real, live, flawed man with many masks and many, many faults.’ He moved her hand so he could nip lightly at her fingertips in warning and felt, more than heard, her shuddering indrawn breath. ‘A man who is hypocrite enough to despise the father of the child down there and yet who cannot forget the feel of your mouth under his, your body in his arms.’

Tess became still, her eyes wide and questioning. She’s an innocent , he told himself. Even if she can deal with illegitimate children and speak frankly about what has happened to Dorcas. She needs warning, scaring a little, even.

He loosened his grip on her fingers and her hand slid up to cup his cheek. She was not wary, not at all alarmed by him. The touch was not sexual, not even sensual. It was intended, he realised with something like shock, to comfort. When was the last time anyone had touched him like that?

‘You are very hard on yourself, aren’t you, Alex?’ Tess murmured. ‘You aren’t a saint, you certainly aren’t a monk, so why do you expect it of yourself?’

‘I am a gentleman,’ he said, his voice harsher than he’d intended. ‘The least I can do is try to behave like one around decent women.’

‘You are trying. Very hard, I think.’ She cocked her head to one side with that questioning look he was learning to beware of. ‘I may be a virgin, and that may have been my first kiss, but I am quite capable of recognising sensual attraction when I experience it. There is something between us, isn’t there?’

Alex found himself incapable of answering her as she wrestled so honestly with things no young lady was supposed to think about, let alone articulate.

‘I am quite capable of saying no , at least, I am when I haven’t been hit on the head and frightened half out of my wits,’ Tess said decisively. She lowered her hand and stepped away. ‘We got carried away, we both did. But the onus should not be all on you to be prudent.’

‘Prudent?’ Alex found he had to move away from her. If it was a retreat, he didn’t care, and the big desk was a reassuringly solid barrier. ‘Naturally it is down to me to behave properly.’

‘If I was the sort of young woman who has a hope of marrying, then of course it is,’ she agreed. Tess perched on the arm of a chair and he wondered if, for all her calmness, her legs were a bit shaky. ‘But I’m not, am I? So I need to make decisions based on different criteria, such as, do I want to be your mistress? What would make us happiest, while it lasted?’

‘Tess, stop this! You cannot discuss being my mistress, and happiness is the last thing we should be considering.’

‘Is it?’ She frowned at him, her brow wrinkled. ‘But what is the point of a...liaison if it doesn’t make people happy? What is the point of life, come to that?’

‘Frankly? I do not know about the meaning of life. I just get on with living it as best I can. But a liaison? It is about sex on one side and financial gain on the other,’ Alex snapped. He drove his fingers through his hair and tried to get his feet back on solid ground. This was like finding oneself knee-deep in fast-flowing water when one thought all one was doing was having a stroll beside a stream. ‘It is commerce. It is not something you should even think about.’

Her expression seemed to indicate that she was thinking about it, very carefully, very seriously.

Alex fought the urge to run his finger around a neckcloth that seemed far too tight. He coped with sophisticated ladies, wanton widows, expensive high-fliers, all without turning a hair. Why the devil was he finding it hard to deal with one outspoken innocent? ‘Look, Tess, men and women find themselves physically attracted all the time. We have to deal with it like everyone else does. You just pretend it isn’t happening.’

She nodded. ‘I can see that is usually best. But this isn’t making you happy, is it?’

‘It is making me damnably confused, if you must know.’ Did she think he expected sexual favours as a payment for giving her shelter? Did she think that in return for shelter she had a duty to make him happy , whatever she meant by that? She certainly wasn’t casting out lures or flirting, although he doubted she knew how. ‘But that is beside the point. You are a lovely young woman, Tess. I would have to be a plank of wood not to be attracted to you.’