The Rake and the Recluse REDUX (a time travel romance) (101 page)

“They’re in the last car, milord, and his men have the private berths at the end of the car before it. There’s no way to get to them.”

“Goddamnit, Morgan! I want that girl. I want her!” Hepplewort screeched. The door opened without a preemptive knock and his mother swept through.

“Keep your voice down, Fergus. You’ll draw attention to yourself. I heard you all the way down the hall.”

“Mother.”

Morgan stood and cast his eyes down.

“Sit. I don’t need you looming over me.”

He did.

Perry and Lilly watched from the platform as they uncoupled the car in Carlisle for the train to continue on the main line to Edinburgh. Eventually the branch line to Roxleighshire would make its way to Kelso, but they intended to reach the end of the line there, leave Gideon’s car for him, and continue on by carriage.

The mainline train whistled and moved on, and they waited for the track to clear so the branch line could couple with Gideon’s car.

“It really is a beautiful railcar,” Perry said. “Ours will require a few more features, however.”

Lilly turned to him. “Ours?”

“Oh yes, I’m not one to be outdone by my brother. I will need to make arrangements as soon as we return to London. Just think, by the time our car is finished, the line should move straight through to Kelso and on to Berwick-upon-Tweed. We’ll take your family to the sea.”

She stared at him. A private railcar. Their private railcar. “I’m not sure my family can change as much as you hope they can.”

“I’ll not ask them to. I will do as much for them as they will allow, as much as a son would be allowed to do for his parents. I will endeavor to not step on any toes.” Her eyes grew wide and he took her hand. “What is it?”

“Daniel.” She had completely forgotten him, but returning home, he was rather like one of the family. At least he had been. Well, he still was, he just— She sighed.

“Who... is Daniel?”

“A suitor.”

“A—what?” Perry felt his chest tighten. He had never considered that she would have had a suitor, another man, at home.

“We were to be married.” Her voice wavered, and he pulled her to a bench on the platform as a whistle blew and the other cars from the branch line started backing up toward their car.

“Tell me.” He sounded nervous. He didn’t like it.

“He is a simple man, sweet. His farm abuts my father’s. He works with him, takes care of the animals. He’s good with animals.” She smiled warmly, and his gut twisted.

“But not with you?”

“No, not after Hepplewort.”

“I don’t understand. You were to be married? Or are to be—”

“No! No, I would never have— I...no. He... Well, after—after, I suppose all he saw was what was done.” She fisted her hands in her skirts, and he put his over them, to steady her.

“I’m sorry.” He would kill him. Or thank him. He was rather torn at the moment, considering that she had been brutalized and the one person meant to take care of her beyond her family had effectively abandoned her because of it. Horrible.

“Please, don’t be. I know now that I could never have been happy with such a small life. You have shown me so much more...just more. I cannot imagine having less.”

“But Daniel...he lives close by?”

“Yes, and he is over for dinner often. He has always been simply part of the family.”

He didn’t understand why they still allowed for him. “Is he handsome?” Perry cringed, the shallow words out before he realized. Her face turned to his suddenly.

“Is he— Are you jealous?”

“Me? No. Not at all. He works the land, so he must be strapping, well built?”

“Perry, I—”

“And clever, I imagine, if your family loves him.”

“Perry, no, I— Actually, I don’t know how close they are at this point. He just stopped coming over after I was hurt, that’s why I left for Eildon.”

“Well, we will have to see about this chap.”

“What does that mean, we’ll see about him?”

Perry shook his head as a giant clash of metal on metal made her jump from her seat. He stood next to her and squeezed her hand. “It’s the train coupling,” he whispered. She leaned into him.

“You must understand. His issue with me after... It was the best possible thing to happen. Please don’t be angry with him, for if he hadn’t, there wouldn’t be you.”

“I understand. Actually I don’t, but I will endeavor to try. And I will be on my best behavior.”

Hepplewort watched from inside the station as they spoke on the platform, acting so familiar, inappropriately close. Too intimate. These damn Trumbull brothers have no idea how to handle a woman, how to behave like a gentleman, a peer of the realm. He grunted.

“Fergus, come away from there.”

“What exactly is your purpose in coming with me, Mother? You could have stayed in London.”

“You are my son. Where else should I be?”

“Not here, not now.”

“What is it you are planning?”

“None of your concern. Simply stay out of my way.”

“Where are we headed? Are we taking the next train?”

“No, Mother, Morgan is hiring a carriage.”

They arrived and settled relatively well with Lilly’s family. Her mother, ever the hard working respectful woman insisted they stay with them, and not at the inn. She even tried to insist Perry take the master bedroom, but he refused. So he was placed in Lilly’s old room, while she slept with Meggie.

He quite liked her family. They were real, honest, true. Every one of them worked hard, her father, her brothers, her mother and sister. It was a large, very close family and he certainly felt like an interloper.

Then there was Daniel.

Perry cut the bale of hay, then looked over his shoulder to see where he was. They’d worked their way down opposite sides of the stable row, mucking stalls, and now they were laying the bedding. He was currently one stall ahead because Daniel had stopped to remove his shirt. Perry turned back toward the entry to the stables and saw why; Lilly and Meggie were walking toward them with glasses of lemonade. It was then he wasn’t sure if he’d won the battle or lost the war. He grumbled.

Daniel was actually a decent man. He had been confused by Lilly’s injuries and her family had requested he stay away, to protect her. They had sheltered her so much that it eventually drove her from them. It wasn’t his fault at all, and it turned out that he didn’t blame them for it. Daniel said he held no grudge, he still felt part of the family, even if he and Lilly weren’t to be wed. Perry admired his strength of character, though he wondered if Lilly had returned with another working man, whether the situation would be the same.

The gauntlet thrown with a simple piece of linen tossed casually over a stall gate, Perry decided he needed to remove his shirt as well, perhaps with a bit more gusto.

“I canna believe you and Lord Trumbull. I’m just— I’m shocked. Poor Mama, I thought she would faint! And when you came and he just requested to speak with Papa? Oh dear, Lilly. Lilly! You have to tell me what happened!”

“I cannot, I mean— I can tell you that he helped me to heal. Meggie, I owe him my life. I was nothing when I left Eildon. I wanted to fade away and he brought me back. I am so terribly taken with him.”

“Do you pinch yourself to check if you’re dreaming?” Meggie reached out and pinched her sister.

“Meggie!” She pinched her back.

“Ow! Sorry, I just, I feel like this is a dream; and Daniel, what is with him and Daniel?”

“I believe he might be a bit jealous.”

Meggie stopped in her tracks. “Of...Daniel? But he is Daniel.”

Lilly laughed at the absurdity of it. They were nowhere near the same man, and it had little to do with the title. “Yes. Daniel.”

Meggie shook her head, then moved forward again. “And he keeps telling me to call him...by his name. Doesn’t he understand?”

Lilly laughed. “No, Megs, he does not. Believe me, I have tried to explain it, but he does not. He simply doesn’t see himself that way at all. It’s quite the same in his world. He simply believes I should be accepted without qualm. And here, at my family’s home, he wants to be seen as just a man. Nothing more.”

“But he isn’t.”

“I understand that, Meggie, but please just try.”

Meggie gave her a skeptical glance. “I don’t know if Mama and Papa will survive this. Or Daniel.”

“Daniel made his choice.”

“More like it was made for him.”

“We are all better for it, though,” Lilly said quietly. “He will find someone more suited to him.”

Meggie smiled.

“Has he already?” Lilly asked. Meggie shrugged.

“Is it wrong? When you left he needed a friend, he came to me. I was the closest to you. I do not know if we will...we are yet mere friends.”

“He has always been part of the family Meggie.”

Meggie shrugged and looked to the barn. “I’m surprised Lord Trumbull allows Daniel to stay here.”

“He hasn’t a choice, it is not his home.”

“Well, no, but he is who he is and he could just ask Papa to send him away.”

“He wouldn’t! It’s not like that, it’s only that I was to marry someone else.”

“He really loves you, doesn’t he?”

“Yes, he does, Megs.”

“But he was a rake, Lilly! Don’t you worry?” They approached the paddock and Lilly stopped.

“He was a rake. Which is one of the reasons we ended up...where we are. But Meggie, he is so very different from what everyone thinks.”

“Truly? I don’t need to worry?”

“No. You really don’t need to worry. You really don’t. I love him.”

“Do you now?” The rumble of his baritone caught them off guard as he marched across the paddock toward them, sweeping his shirt off over his head as he came.

Meggie blushed and started to curtsey, but Lilly grabbed her arm. She whispered, “Don’t, Megs, he’s your brother—or will be, hopefully, and he doesn’t want that here.”

“I don’t know how you can deal with this. He is still who he is,” she whispered back, casting her eyes down.

Perry flung his shirt—he’d decided with a great deal of gusto was appropriate—across the paddock rail, then jumped on the lower rung and leaned toward them, taking a glass of the cool lemonade. He stood tall, holding the rail with one hand as he downed the glass. It was quite a show, and it caused Lilly’s mouth to go dry. She looked at her sister, whose wide eyes were on his boots.

Lilly shook her head, then saw Daniel walk out from the stable behind him. She waved then nudged her sister. Meggie took the tray and walked over to Daniel to offer him a glass.

Perry’s throat stopped moving. He lowered the glass and swiped his bare forearm across his mouth as he looked at Lilly. She lifted the hem of her skirts and grabbed the rail, lifting herself to meet his eyes. He took her about the waist and drew her toward him. Their precarious balance forced him to chase her mouth a bit before he caught her and kissed her within an inch of salvation.

She grabbed him hard about the waist to steady herself and he threw a leg over the top rail, pulling her to sit across his lap.

“This is beautiful country.”