Page 5 of A Rogue's Downfall
Whatever did he mean? Whatever had he planned? A repetition of last Valentine’s Day? She had beenhis valentine then, too, she supposed.
The baby was doing nothing to hide his displeasure at having been kept waiting a full fifteen minutes afterbecoming aware of hunger pangs.
The idea had come to him quite on the spur of the moment. If it could be called an idea. He had decidedto use the evening to try to establish some sort of easebetween them, to try to get to know her a little better,to try to reveal something of himself to her. He hadplanned to do the same tomorrow in the hope that atthe end of it there would be some sort of a relationship between them. Some small measure of friendshipand respect, perhaps.
The evening had been more of a success than he might have expected. They had talked through dinner,somehow filling in the silence with stories of theirlives. It had all been very strained, very self-conscious,but it was more than they had ever accomplished—oreven tried—before. He had suggested music in thedrawing room afterward because he did not think theycould keep the conversation going much longer. Andyet it was too early to go to bed. Besides, he hadalways admired her playing and had always been intrigued by the unexpectedly rich, low pitch of her singing voice.
He had stood behind her while she played and sang, so that he could watch her at his leisure. And he hadwondered what she would do if he followed instinctand bent to kiss the back of her neck as it arched overthe pianoforte. Or if he slid his hands beneath herarms to cup her full breasts—full with his son’s milk.He was jealous of his son. He had wondered, lookingat her wedding ring, if she always wore it, if she hadput it back on, perhaps, when she knew he was coming. It was something of a mockery.
And that was when the idea came to him. The impulse to erase all that was between them—except their son—and all that was not. The need to cancel the pastand start again. On Valentine’s Day, the day for lovers, the day when everything had gone wrong forthem. And so he took her ring, the symbol of a marriage that was really not a marriage at all, and putfrom his mind the thought that had been lingering allevening, the thought that perhaps he would go to herbed that night and try to win her with sexual expertise.
It seemed like a good plan to make her his valentine for the day. Except that Valentine’s Day to him hadalways meant only a more than ordinary excuse forphilandering. He knew nothing about wooing an innocent young girl. If he was to erase last year and allthat had happened since—except his son—then shewas an innocent young girl. She probably was anyway.He did not know quite how she had come to be at thatmasquerade ball, but he knew she was not supposed tobe there. And he knew she would not have acted asshe had if someone had not been busy plying her withgin.
He was up very early in the morning, after his usual almost sleepless night, down in the kitchen stealing arasher of bacon off the grill and having his fingersslapped for it by the cook while a maid gaped. Thecook had been in his employment and in his father’sbefore him for as long as he could remember. Hehad been stealing food from under her eye and beingslapped for it for as long as he could remember.
“How does one woo a young maiden on Valentine’s Day?” he asked.
“Sit down at the table like a proper gentleman,” she said, as she had been saying to him all his life,“and I’ll make you up a plate of bacon and eggs. Butdon’t pick with your fingers. You don’t need to bewooing no young virgins. You have a wife.”
“How does one woo a young wife on Valentine’s Day then?” He grinned at her and sat. Why did foodin the kitchen always taste more delicious than foodin the dining room? “Three eggs? Are you trying tofatten me up?”
“You be nice to her, that’s what,” the cook said. “Just a pretty little thing she is that comes trippingdown here every day to approve the menu, and neverthinks to set her fingers on any of my food, and saysthank you very much when I gives her a cake or atart what I have just baked. And as fond as you pleaseof Master James. He has the look of you. This timenext year I’ll have to have an eye to the currants andthe apples when he is around, like as not. You be niceto her.”
The gardener had come into the kitchen. A longtime employee, too, he looked not at all taken aback to see his master seated at the kitchen table digginginto an early breakfast. He rubbed his hands and heldthem out to the fire. “There be roses coming into budin the hothouse, m’lord,” he said with a grin.
“Are there, by Jove?” the earl said. “They are good for Valentine’s Day, Jenkins?”
“Magic,” the gardener said. “Better than di’monds, m’lord.”
Morse, standing in the doorway, dignified and immaculate despite the earliness of the hour, looked pained to see his master eating with such informality.But he said nothing. He would scold the cook later,though his words would do no more good than theyhad ever done, he supposed. Cook was a law untoherself.
“We are discussing Valentine’s Day, Morse,” the earl said, holding out his plate hopefully to the cook,who frowned and forked three more rashers of baconand two slices of toast onto it. “And how one woos ayoung wife for the occasion.”
“Music, my lord,” Morse said, bowing and spreading a snowy, freshly starched napkin over his master’s lap. He would remind Cook about that, too. “TheReverend Williams has his nephew staying at the rectory. He is an accomplished violinist. He has playedfor the Prince Regent.”
“And Miss Williams is still at home?” the earl asked. “She is an accomplished pianist.” Probablymore accomplished than his wife, he thoughtdisloyally.
The butler bowed.
“They play a treat, they do,” the cook said. “They played at church last Sunday. Miss Williams on theorgan, of course. He didn’t sound a bit like a cat, hedidn’t, on his violin. I never heard a violin beforewithout it didn’t sound like a cat. Yours included.”
“Yes,” the earl agreed. “My violin lessons did not last long, did they? It seemed to be mutually agreedby all concerned that I had no talent whatsoever.”
“Praise the Lord, we all said belowstairs,” the cooksaid, while Morse frowned at her and the gardenerchuckled and the maid gaped.
“Music,” the earl said, mopping up the last of the grease from his bacon with his toast. “And roses. Andcandlelight and dancing. I like it. Arrange it, will you,Morse?”
“A party?” the cook said, looking alarmed. “I can’t do it on such short notice. I won’t. What do you wantserved?”
“A party for two,” the earl said. “It will be far more romantic than a party for fifty. Would you not agree?”He fixed his eye on the gaping maid.
“Oh, yes, your lordship,” she said, blushing hotly and bobbing three curtsies in succession. “The firstman a girl sees on Valentine’s Day will be her husband, your lordship,” she added irrelevantly. Shebobbed again.
“That was why you was in the stables gawking at Roger almost before the cock had time to crow thismorning?” Jenkins said with a chuckle. “And he wasgawking back, too, Sal.”
Sal turned an even deeper shade of red.
“Take that greasy plate away,” the cook instructed her, “and wipe up the crumbs. Some people couldhave a plate as big as a house and still have crumbsdotted about it. Her ladyship already has a husband.Though sometimes one wonders.”
