Chapter 4
Alex’s worry that his sister-in-law and Amanda might become thick as thieves within minutes of meeting each other was proven correct over the next few days.
Emma had arrived in the afternoon the day after their conversation, and Alex had duly introduced the two women. After that initial visit, Emma had started to arrive shortly after breakfast, when Hawkwood was in the habit of spending the morning in his study with his secretary, and then the two ladies would disappear from the house together, Alex presumed to the shops in search of gowns and the necessary slippers and gloves to go with them. Certainly bills from haberdashers and seamstresses had started to arrive at the house for Alex to pay.
He had also noticed that slowly, and barely noticeably at first, his house was taking on some sort of order. Furniture was put in its proper place, vases of flowers appeared in the entrance hall and drawing room, fires were lit in the necessary rooms if it was a chilly evening.
As Alex had still not found the time to engage a butler, he could only assume this to be Amanda’s doing.
Irritating, but at the same time, it meant Alex didn’t have to deal with such mundane tasks himself, and it was certainly more comfortable within Wetherby House than prior to Amanda’s arrival.
Indeed, as there had been no further reason for Alex to spank Amanda, he could all too easily become accustomed to the comfort of having a woman in the house.
Which was the reason he had arranged to meet with Maria Dalrimple again this evening, for the first time since that ill-fated afternoon in Alex’s bedchamber. Her husband was being kept late in the house tonight to attend a vote, and as Alex’s own household now included his ward, he and Maria had arranged to meet at Dalrimple House during her husband’s absence.
And if Alex felt a slight discomfort at that fact after receiving a look of reproof from Amanda when he informed her he would not be home for dinner this evening, then he had no intention of allowing her to see it. No young chit was going to guilt him into foregoing an evening of release with such a willing partner as Maria Dalrimple. Bad enough he’d had to continue to resort to using his own hand for relief these past four days and nights.
“At what time might I expect you home, my lord?” his ward enquired evenly.
Alex narrowed his eyes at that lack of emotion in Amanda’s voice. “None of your damned business.” Good God, this was worse than having a parent keeping account of his comings and goings. Of which he had neither, both his mother and his father having died some years ago. He had been very fond of his mother and missed her dearly, but he did not regret the death of his father in the slightest.
Her brows rose. “I merely enquired so that I know how late I must stay up in order to let you back into the house.”
What the hell…? “Have one of the footmen do it.”
“That is hardly fair to either of them when they are already performing the task of butler, as well as their own duties, during the day.”
Bugger fair!
Alex was not going to crawl back into the house in the early hours of the morning, completely knackered from an excess of sex, only to find his disapproving ward waiting up for him.
“Just leave the door unlocked, and I will let myself in,” he dismissed as he straightened the cuff of his evening shirt to an appropriate length beneath the sleeve of his tailored jacket.
She gave a shake of her head. “That would leave the house vulnerable to the invasion of robbers and the like.”
Alex’s temper, rarely roused, was rising quickly to the surface in the face of Amanda’s reproofs, albeit delivered in that reasoning tone. He knew his ward really was not that innocent or averse to rebuking him for his behavior.
The two of them had lived together in an uneasy truce these past four days. Amanda unfailingly polite, Alex wary of what he already knew to be an uncharacteristic politeness.
“It’s my bloody house,” he now reminded her.
“But what of the other people who live here?” she reasoned. “They might be murdered in their beds.”
Alex glared at her. “In some cases, that might not be such a bad thing.”
Her eyes widened. “Are you referring to me?”
Bloody hell, was that hurt he could now see in those unusual turquoise-colored eyes? The glisten of unshed tears?
He closed his eyes briefly, willing himself to keep his temper under control. The last thing he wished to deal with was Amanda’s tears. “I will be back by midnight.” Dalrimple would surely be finished with the vote by then.
Dark lashes lowered demurely over those tear-wet eyes. “Very well, my lord.”
“Alex,” he snapped. “I have asked you repeatedly to call me Alex.”
Yes, he had, and Amanda had deliberately refrained from doing so. Because she knew how much it annoyed him. Because she enjoyed annoying Alex, in getting a reaction, any reaction, from him. Most especially so this evening, when it was so obvious he was going to see and be with his married mistress.
Amanda, once she was better acquainted with Emma Stirling, had questioned the other woman about Maria Dalrimple. She now knew that lady was indeed married, if unhappily.
If anything, Amanda’s attraction to and liking for her guardian had deepened over these past few days of living with him. She knew him to be a fair and kind employer, his sister-in-law adored him, and Emma’s arrogant husband, the Duke of Hawkwood, whom Amanda had now met several times, obviously held a great affection for his younger brother.
It seemed it was only Alex’s—yes, she did think of him in that way in her thoughts—choice of bedpartners which was questionable.
Hence Amanda’s show of disapproval for his evening’s choice of entertainment.
Along with, she freely admitted to herself, a strong dose of jealousy.
Amanda already knew her own evening was going to be one spent in a misery of that jealousy. That she would be unable to put thoughts of Alex and his mistress from her mind. Of the two of them in bed together, indulging in the same physical pleasure she had witnessed on the day she arrived here.
She raised her chin. “Yes, you have, but it does not seem fitting in view of our relationship.”
“What relationship is that?” he questioned sharply.
She shrugged. “We are not related, I am merely your ward, as you are my guardian. It is only fitting that I treat you with the respect and formality that title deserves.”
A respect Alex knew he had come very close to losing on the day Amanda arrived here so unexpectedly and found him in his bed fucking Maria. Or to be more accurate, Maria had been fucking him.
The thought of repeating that marathon of sex this evening, of sneaking about behind Dalrimple’s back in order to do it, suddenly lost its appeal.
What the hell was he doing?
Yes, Alex enjoyed regular sex as much as the next man, but his choice of bedpartners, in particular thinking of having sex in the home of, and with the wife of, the man he was cuckolding, was low, even for him. The truth was, whether he liked it or not, he was Amanda’s guardian, and how could he set an example or expect and deserve Amanda’s respect when she knew he behaved in such an unworthy manner in his private life?
Fuck it!
His appetite for sex or Maria Dalrimple as that sexual partner had just completely evaporated.
Which, respect be damned, was not to say Alex intended allowing Amanda to know she had succeeded in dissuading him from carrying out his original intention for the evening ahead. The last thing he wanted was for his ward to think she could lead him about by the nose. Or any other part of his anatomy.
He would call on Maria and tell her he would not be staying after all, after which he would dine at his club, perhaps go to Club Venus and play a hand or two of cards, rather than accept any of the attentions of the beautiful ladies there. He could still be home by midnight as he had said he would. Maria would not like it, of course, but as Alex also intended ending the association during their conversation, her displeasure would be of no further consequence.
Having decided that was what he would do this evening Alex now breathed a little easier. “If that is the case, then, out of respect for your guardian, I demand you go to bed at your usual time, and one of the footmen shall remain awake until I return at midnight,” he now answered Amanda firmly. “Tomorrow, I will engage a butler so that this situation does not arise again.”
Amanda had the feeling she had somehow lost the upper hand in the conversation, although she could not quite see how or why it had happened. Nor had she succeeded in affecting Alex’s intention of spending the evening with Maria Dalrimple, as she had intended doing.
Knowing the other woman was intimately involved with Alex was enough reason for Amanda to dislike her. Indeed, several times during the past four days, when Alex had disappeared after dinner without giving a reason for his absence, Amanda had wished the woman might fall under the wheels of a carriage. Not to cause Maria Dalrimple any permanent damage, just enough so that the other woman was unable to continue with their affair.
“As you wish, my lord.” Amanda gave a curtsey, her gaze lowered demurely so that he should not see the resentment blazing there. “I hope you enjoy your evening.”
He grinned. “I have no doubt I shall enjoy the company very much.”
There really was no answer Amanda could make to that comment without revealing her own feelings of resentment and jealousy. “I believe I will dine in my bedchamber,” she stated abruptly.
“An excellent idea,” Alex dismissed. “Oh, and Amanda…” he called out to her when she was halfway up the wide staircase. “Did Emma tell you we are all attending the Stamford ball together tomorrow evening, where I shall first present you to the Prince Regent in one of the private drawing-rooms?”
“She did, yes.” Emma had told her earlier in the week about the ball and meeting the Prince Regent, and until Amanda learned of Alex’s plans for this evening, she had been looking forward to attending her first formal ball tomorrow. Now all Amanda could think about was if Maria Dalrimple would be there tomorrow evening too. And if she was, whether Alex would sneak away to be with the other woman, as he apparently usually did at these events.
Emma, as well as becoming a close friend to Amanda, was also a font of knowledge in regard to her brother-in-law. Emma greatly enjoyed telling the story of the night she attended a masked ball and mistook Alex for his brother as Alex was committing an indecent act in one of the curtained alcoves, with yet another married woman.
If it had been about any other gentleman, Amanda might have found the story amusing. As it was about Alex, she’d had to pretend to be amused so as not to alert the astute Emma to Amanda’s own interest in her guardian.
“You might try to look and sound a little more enthusiastic.” He scowled up at her from the hallway. “It was not easy to arrange at such short notice.”
“Oh, I am very enthusiastic,” she assured him.
Whether Maria Dalrimple was there or not, Amanda intended to impress Alex with the elegance of her own appearance.
She and Emma had pored long and hard over swatches of material and the style of the gown now being made for the evening of the ball.
Another bonus was, as Amanda’s guardian, Alex would also have to dance with her at least once, and she had excelled in her dance classes at school. It would be a little different dancing with a gentleman rather than one of the other girls, she expected, but as long as she did not try to lead rather than follow, it would no doubt be a delicious experience to be swept about the ballroom by such a handsome gentleman as Alexander Stirling.
The thought of having Alex’s hands on her again tomorrow, even if only during a formal dance, was enough to make her feel less miserable about the long and lonely evening ahead of her. An evening she knew would be plagued by thoughts of Alex being intimate with Maria Dalrimple.
Amanda was attempting to read a book a couple of hours later, in order to take her mind off doing exactly that, when she heard a thump in the hallway outside her bedchamber, followed by the sound of something falling and crashing to the floor.
The sound was close enough to be the vase on the table directly outside her bedchamber.
Was that Alex, drunk and stumbling to his bedchamber farther down the hallway?
Amanda had dismissed the footman for the evening when he came to remove her dinner tray, intending to sit up and wait for Alex to return, despite what he might have decided otherwise. It was now only a little after eleven o’clock, and she had been keeping half a watch out the window at the front of the house in the expectation of Alex’s carriage arriving home soon.
Could she have somehow missed seeing it and him?
Another thump sounded on the wall outside her room, followed this time by what sounded like feet running away from the direction of Alex’s bedchamber.
And if it was Alex, what reason could he have for running in his own home?
Amanda placed her book carefully down on the side table beside the chair before rising to her feet and silently crossing the room to listen at the door for any further noise or movement outside.
There was neither.
But who else could it be but Alex?
And if it was him, he might even now be lying in the hallway, having knocked against the table, unbalancing the vase, before falling himself—explaining that second thump—and perhaps injuring himself on the broken pieces of that vase.
Dear God, he could even now be out there bleeding to death while she dithered in here deciding whether or not she should open her bedchamber door and investigate!
The thought of that was enough for Amanda to pick up the lit candle near her door and wrench it open before stepping out into the hallway.
The deserted hallway.
The vase did indeed lie shattered on the wooden floor next to the table it had stood on earlier, and it looked to be broken beyond repair.
But other than that, there was nothing out of the ordinary.
No Alex lying injured and bleeding.
No footman or any other servant wandering the hallways.
Nothing to disturb the peace of the house but the sound of the ticking of the grandfather clock down in the entrance hall below.
And that broken vase.