His eyes met hers, as he began to understand. “Something went wrong?”
“She was born too early, she was too little … ”
“Oh, Katie,” he gathered her back into his arms, and she sobbed freely now. He held her tight, and tried to offer her some comfort. “I wanted to stay, you know. I wanted to stay and hold your hand. And I could have — we were bombed in.”
“Nobody thought less of you for going. I was just a stranger to you, sir.”
“You needed me.”
They were holding hands tightly now.
His blue eyes were full of heartfelt apology. “I don’t know why I didn’t stay. Fear, embarrassment, I suppose. Never seen a woman give birth before. Plenty of horses, of course, but never a woman.”
“It doesn’t matter, Michael.”
“It does. I thought a lot about it afterwards, I wondered what had happened.”
“It was awful. You were better off out of it.”
“You were so scared — I could see the fear in your eyes. I ran away from it, and that was cowardly. I hated myself for it.”
“She was born about three hours after you left. And she lived only an hour more.”
“I wish I’d seen her.”
His words gutted her with their sincerity, and Katie lost her heart in the pain of the memory. Tears came fast now, tumbling down her cheeks. “She tried to open her eyes, Michael, she tried. She fell asleep in my arms. She looked like a little angel.”
Michael wrapped his arms around her, and held her tight. “I’m so sorry. I thought it was the
man
you grieved for, not the child. If only I could give you another little girl,” he said. He kissed her forehead and cradled her while she let out some of the grief she had held so close to her heart.
It was a few moments before it sunk in, what he had told her. She turned and looked up at him. “No kiddies, then, for you? No heir for all of this?”
“No.” His voice sounded empty and hollow.
“It seems so unfair, that you should lose that hope along with everything else.”
“Yes, it does,” he said. But she noticed, for the first time, that he spoke of this loss with no anger, no rage, and no bitterness. They held each other for a long time, listening to their collective breathing. Finally, Michael turned her face toward his, and his blue eyes were very intense. “If you wanted to, Katie, we could comfort each other.”
She didn’t answer straight away. She stared back into his clear blue eyes and felt as if she knew at last why she was here, and what had brought them together. “Perhaps we could,” she said. “I’ll do anything you want.”
He paused, gazing at her. In his eyes she saw hope, and longing, and tender compassion, but he didn’t move. Finally he spoke, as if it wasn’t easy to find the right words.
“You’ve been crying,” he said. “It would be wrong of me to take advantage of you now. Go to sleep, my darling. But tomorrow morning, when we wake, I’ll ask you again. If you still want to, we could try.”
She let out a breath and her tension began to ease. It seemed right that they should wait, and she nestled against him, enjoying his warmth. He knew everything about her and he still held her and kissed her hair. For the first time in ages, it seemed easy to set all her troubles aside and drift away into sleep.
Michael lay awake for a long time, wondering if he’d said the right thing. He heard the clock striking midnight, and then he thought he heard it strike one, and after that he must have dozed off. He awoke with a start when he heard a noise downstairs. Maybe it was a rat. He’d have to speak to Jessop about it tomorrow morning. He lay awake, listening keenly, until he heard another distant crash. Someone had knocked something over. Something metal.
It sounded like an intruder.
Katie was in a deep sleep beside him, so he didn’t wake her. He reached for his dressing gown and hauled it on, then maneuvered himself into his chair as quietly as he could, and went to investigate.
• • •
He wheeled himself quietly along the hall, becoming anxious when he saw the flicker of light under the kitchen door, until he heard the voices. Even before he pushed open the heavy oak door, he knew what he would find.
The children were in the kitchen. They had lighted two candles, which annoyed Michael, because candles were rationed, plus there was the danger of burning the house down. They were gathered around the table, tucking into bread and jam.
Michael flicked on the kitchen light and they all blinked at him in dismay. Alfie was standing on a stool over by the Aga, heating something in a small saucepan. He was so shocked to see Michael that he nearly lost his balance.
“What the dickens are you doing down here?” Michael shouted, hoping to put the fear of God into them. The twins practically jumped out of their skins.
Roy tried to be the spokesman for them all. “Having cocoa, Mister Lord. Want some?”
“No, I do not want cocoa at two o’clock in the morning. You can’t come down here and help yourself to food and beverages in the middle of the night.”
Bob started to cry, and by the looks of her, not for the first time.
George tried to intercede on behalf of his twin sister. “Don’t be angry, Mister. Bob got nightmares, and we went to look for Miss Rafferty because she knows how to make the nightmares go away. Only she’s gone, sir. Miss Rafferty’s gone.”
“She’s not gone,” Michael said with a bit of a hesitation. “She’s asleep.”
“She isn’t,” George told him, in tones of great anxiety. “She’s not in her room, and it don’t look like her bed’s been touched since yesterday.”
“We’ve searched the ’ole house, Mister Lord,” Bob told him. “Top to bottom.”
Michael glanced furtively at Alfie, to see if he had already worked it out.
Alfie was keeping very quiet, watching the milk boiling on the Aga, but when Michael caught his eye, he spoke. “George reckons she’s run off back to London,” he began cautiously, “but I thought we should wait and see if she turns up tomorrow.”
“She didn’t even say goodbye,” Bob wailed. “And now we’ve got nobody to look after us. Only horrid old Jessop and she hates us!”
Michael knew he had to confess. “Look, Bob, there’s no need for tears. Miss Rafferty hasn’t gone anywhere. She’s in my room.”
“I told ya!” Roy said. “Didn’t I say she was most likely warming up his bed?”
“Roy,” Michael said, in a warning tone, but the boy’s face was sullen and hostile.
“What? All night?” said George, incredulously. “She’s been warming it up all night?”
“She’s been giving him a bit of a cuddle, if you ask me,” Roy said.
“Roy!” Michael expostulated.
“But I want her to give
me
a cuddle,” Bob said, and burst into a fresh bout of wailing.
Alfie stared curiously at Michael. “What I can’t work out,” he began, “is why she’d even want to cuddle you, when you are so old and prickly.”
“There’s no accounting for taste,” Michael said in an acid tone, but then he softened. “Roberta, come here, poppet. Don’t cry.”
Bob came forward rather shyly and then climbed onto Michael’s lap, resting her tear-stained face on the satin lapel of his dressing gown.
Roy hadn’t finished, his surly face was red with anger and his voice as gruff as he could make it for twelve years old. “Mrs. Jessop says it’s a stupid girl that gets into the lord’s bed.”
“Does she indeed?” Michael said, experiencing a flare of anger at the thought of the old woman’s interference. The little girl clung to him like a limpet. Michael sighed. “It’s a bit different in my position, isn’t it?”
“What position is that?” Roy said, with an ugly look on his face.
“Wash your mouth out, young man. If I had dared to utter such insolence to my father, Roy, he would have given me a hiding.”
“Well, you ain’t me dad, you’re just some toff what fancies Rita Hayworth and Irish girls.”
“We’ve had quite enough discussion of my private life. You can’t come down here and crash around in the middle of the night, and you can’t help yourself to all sorts of things out of the pantry. It’s an outrageous abuse of my hospitality.”
At that moment, the milk boiled over, causing complete chaos. Roy swore like a sailor, while Alfie tried to rescue the last little bit. The whole kitchen smelled of burnt milk and George suddenly acquired the look of a boy who had wet his pajamas. From a vantage point on Michael’s lap, much too near to Michael’s ear drums, Bob kept up a cat’s chorus of hysterical wailing.
“Silence!” he roared. It was time to take control of this situation.
He sent Roy to bed, George to change, and Alfie was permitted to drink the last bit of boiled milk, cooled down with water. Then he was sent to bed as well.
Michael wheeled back up the hallway with Bob on his lap, promising her that nightmares would pass and Katie would make them all breakfast as usual tomorrow.
He hoped like hell that Katie would. This night wasn’t over yet.
Bob lifted her little dark head. “Hey, Mister? Why did you tell Roy to wash his mouth out?”
“Because he was very cheeky.”
“But, he didn’t say a swear word. I was listening all the time and he didn’t say one.”
“Never mind, poppet, you’ll understand when you’re older. Now if you promise to be very quiet, I’ll show you where Miss Rafferty is sleeping, and then you will know that she’s here and you can see her tomorrow. You have to be very quiet, though … ”
“I will be. Hey, Mister?”
“Yes?”
“I think Roy really likes Miss Rafferty, too.”
“I know,” Michael said, and wheeled off into the darkness. “And I have every sympathy with him, Bob. It’s no damn good when somebody pinches your girl. I’ll talk to him in the morning. I could offer him my picture of Rita Hayworth, of course, but it might only make things worse.”
• • •
He tried not to wake Katie as he eased himself back into bed. She looked so lovely in the half-light, the shape of her face, her shoulders, her arms, in the soft gray light that came in at the casement window.
So, everyone knew. And they thought the worst. Whatever the truth of it, Michael wanted her to wake up.
I’ll do anything you want, she had said. He’d like to hold her to that promise.
Katie woke up feeling warm and safe in Michael’s arms. She loved that. He had such strong, muscular arms. She turned to look at him, and saw that he was already awake, waiting for her. He knew all her secrets, and he still wanted her — wanted her more than ever, in fact. He stroked her cheek.
She blushed when she thought of how their conversation had ended last night He said nothing at all, but he took her hand and placed it where she would feel that he was hard and firm.
Katie’s voice shook when she spoke. “Would you like me to touch you?”
“Very much,” he said, with a raised eyebrow that sent a shiver down her spine.
She peeled back the bedclothes, and there where his silk dressing gown had slipped apart during the night was his long, firm erection. She curled her fingers around him. She felt very self-conscious, and he didn’t make it easy for her. He watched every move she made with a hint of a smile on his lips. She had no idea what he could feel. She touched him tentatively at first, as if she was afraid of hurting him.
He gave her a teasing grin. “It’s not made of porcelain, you know.”
She curled her hand around him, taking a good, firm hold, and did what she thought any man would enjoy.
“Am I doing it right, sir?” she said. “Can you feel it?”
Michael stroked the side of her face. He spoke in a sexy whisper. “Katie, given the degree of intimacy we’re enjoying, do you think you could try out my first name?”
“Michael,” she said, with a blush. It still sounded a bit submissive. “Michael. Michael,” she tried it out until it sounded as if she had a right to say it, and she began a steady rhythm with her right hand.
“That’s better,” he said.
She didn’t know which he liked — the way she said his name or the way she was touching him. Just now she was stroking the entire length of his erection and it grew even harder and firmer with every stroke. She couldn’t look him in the eye, but she managed to bury her sense of shame in her determination to give him pleasure. “Can you feel that?”
“Maybe,” he said in a teasing tone. “If you stroke a little faster, I might be able to tell you.”
She obeyed.
He gave a sort of shivery sigh. “Mmm … I love watching you doing that.”
“You’re very hard now, that’s for sure.”
He placed a hand on hers to stop her, and suddenly he seemed agitated. “Katie, I’d like to flip you onto your back and go at it like crazy. Love you so hard you’ll never want to love anyone else.” He bit his lip and glanced away. “But I can’t. I can’t do any of that.”
He composed himself and continued. “The only way we can do this is if you take the lead. Do you understand?”
“Yes, sir. I could try. If that’s what you want.”
“My name is Michael,” he reminded her, patiently. “And I want you very much. More than anything in the world.” He pulled her down onto his chest and stroked her hair. “I have come too far today to give up now.”
He lifted her head and gave her long deep kisses until she began aching for him. But she still didn’t “take the lead.” Not yet.
“Take that dreadful thing off, darling,” he said, in a low, suggestive, tone. He tugged at the front of her nightgown, daring her to take it off. “Looks like something they’d dish out in a Victorian workhouse.”
She sat up, grasped the garment with both hands, and pulled it over her head.
“Oh, sweetheart!” He traced his fingers languidly over the curve of one breast. He leaned forward and kissed it, carefully. He pushed her down and lay her back on his pillows, and then he went lower and lower, kissing her as he went, her breasts, her nipples, the curve just under her breasts, her smooth flat stomach. She could feel his breath on her skin as he went down until he found the place he really wanted to kiss. Somehow, she knew exactly what he would do, and how it would make her feel. She shivered with delight and fear.
“Michael,” she whispered, as he moved his tongue in warm wet circles, making her long for whatever he could give. Sweet sensations sent her wild with desire. She surrendered to the feel of his tongue laving against her body, arousing her, exciting her, pushing her on toward the possibility of delicious pleasure. But then he stopped.