Hunting the Hero (The Wild Randalls 4)

Constantine craned his neck to get a better view of Willow’s efforts. The rough pencil strokes he remembered from previous visits had smoothed. It almost looked like a dog instead of a lump with sticks. “That’s coming along nicely.”

Willow held the picture out in front of her and eventually nodded. “It’s Mama’s horse. She had a black pony.”

“I’m sure she would have loved your picture,” he assured her.

Willow smiled and then she carefully slid the pencil across the desk toward him before looking toward the door, lower lip between her teeth.

He touched her hands and she jumped. “Shall we rejoin your sisters?”

As Willow nodded and clutched her drawing to her chest, it occurred to him that the girls had rarely been apart for any length of time. By necessity they were always together, but the surprising thing was he wouldn’t mind spending more time with them. He’d speak with Miss Clark before he went to bed and arrange another, longer, visit. Perhaps they could visit him while Poppy napped.

When they reached the nursery, Miss Clark was bent over the cot, singing softly to Poppy in an effort to lull her to sleep. Maisy watched from another bed, her dolly clutched tight in her arms. Miss Clark’s head lifted and she smiled at Willow’s picture before resuming her lullaby and patting Poppy’s back. Willow scrambled up beside Maisy on her bed and then she too only had eyes for their governess. Constantine could understand the fascination.

No matter how many times he found himself in Miss Clark’s presence, he always detected yet another feature, flaw, or behavior that contradicted what he thought he knew. If she had turned her talents to the stage, she’d have made an excellent actress. As it was, she merely performed for him. Constantine was utterly smitten despite the layers of misdirection.

He backed out the door as quietly as he could, amused by how easily Miss Clark had adjusted to his children’s life. There were few overt signs of the woman he’d first met. Anyone else looking at her now would never suspect her of being new at this career. She handled his children’s care as if she had spent her whole life around the young. It gave him hope that she would stay with them for a long time to come.

Perhaps forever.

Buoyed by an optimism he hadn’t experienced in quite some time, Constantine headed for his bedchamber. He’d go for a long ride while the weather held because very soon he might be housebound with a woman he wanted more and more each day. The long cold days of deepest winter had been more enjoyable when he’d had Augusta to share them with, and he wasn’t looking forward to spending another winter alone with his own company.

As he finished changing for the ride, he glanced at the connecting doorway. His wife’s room was exactly how she’d left it. He hadn’t had the heart to pack away her possessions after her death. Up until now, he’d shied from the idea. Yet as he walked to the door and stepped quickly inside before he lost his nerve, he didn’t have the same hesitation.

The room had a chilly, unlived-in air, yet he remembered how it had been when his wife had lived. He’d spent many an enjoyable hour on that bed, and only the bedding had been changed from the day of Poppy’s birth. A maid still tended the surfaces to free them of dust. Augusta could sweep in from her dressing room at any moment and not find anything amiss.

But she had died and he had to accept it. Let her go and look to the future. One day he had to marry. He still needed an heir. But that need was exactly the event that had led to Augusta’s death.

He breathed out slowly, letting his mind turn over those last terrible days. The pregnancy had not gone well from the beginning and Augusta had gone into labor in the dead of night. By late afternoon, the physician had suggested he pray. He’d done that, but it hadn’t been enough. As Poppy had opened her eyes upon the world, Augusta had slipped away, so quietly that he hadn’t realized she was gone until the doctor broke the news to him.

He should have been with her. He could have proved to her one last time that he’d loved her above all others. He’d been faithful from the day they’d met until recently and regretted nothing of their life together save that it had ended all too soon. Only with Calista had he found an echo of that same contentment, but now even that was denied him.

He thumped the post of the bed he’d loved and lost in. A ride was just what he needed. The cold air might blast his regrets into dust.

CHAPTER 15

MEREDITH LET THE nursery curtain fall back into place just as the sun set on a fulfilling day and Grayling’s horse thundered toward the Hall. She was rather impressed by how easily she’d made the transition from whore to governess. Each job held its own set of challenges, but she had to admit caring for three small girls far exceeded her expectations. She’d actually enjoyed an entire day for a change. That had rarely happened in her former career.

She smiled as she recounted the time when a day at the House had been pleasant. Grayling had been there, half-naked and smiling cheekily because he was planning something wicked to fill up the time they had together. If only she could have that too, then Meredith would have no cause to be unhappy. Yet Meredith had not had intimate relations in more days than she cared to think about. Celibacy, of any kind, was rather a foreign state for her to be in.

When she had taken Grayling’s daughters to see him, it had been as much for their benefit as her own. With careful questioning, she had d

iscovered from the other servants that daily visits between father and daughters had ceased some time ago. It seemed Grayling could go for days without remembering to come see them, so she’d made the decision to take them to him. She wouldn’t allow him to forget the three little girls needed him, too. With their mother gone, he was the only one who mattered.

Yet when she’d met him, looking so lost and lonely in his book-lined room, she’d forgiven his preoccupation with estate affairs, but only just. Men were not always ideally suited to raising young girls. They needed a push in the right direction to share their lives. The visit from his children had considerably altered his mood toward the one she knew best. She’d never seen him without the abundant confidence and vigor with which he had boldly introduced himself at the bawdy house. The change was rather marked and she’d missed the teasing light in his eyes when he’d spoken to her, his prim governess.

It was very easy to see Lady Grayling was sorely missed, not only by her husband and children but also by the entire staff of Stanton Harold Hall. She didn’t envy Grayling’s second wife, whoever she ended up being. Encouraging the staff to speak of the late countess with the children at her side had been remarkably easy. The servants’ obvious devotion to a woman dead these past two years would make any newcomer feel inferior without much effort. A timid soul would find it painful to be compared to a first wife, especially if she hoped to lay claim to Grayling’s heart.

Meredith quietly paced the room. Restlessness had settled into her bones in the past hour and she hoped additional exercise would exhaust her body before she attempted to sleep tonight. The sounds of Stanton Harold Hall at night were so different from what she was used to. Her bed was lumpy, the sheets scratched, and the snoring servant in the next chamber kept interrupting her rest several times a night. She even missed the sounds of ardent lovemaking, although she’d never consciously noticed them before.

It was probably because she slept alone. She hadn’t always wanted the touch of a man every moment of the night, but she had missed Grayling. In the dead of last night, she’d considered creeping from the nursery to find where he slept.

Meredith raised her face to the ceiling and silently cursed her impossible fantasy. That part of her life was over. She couldn’t go to Grayling to have sex with him just because she wanted to. He wasn’t hers. He never had been. He’d paid to inhabit her bed and nothing more. Even now, he paid her to make his life easier. Grayling was a man clinging to the past with a woman universally admired. The more Meredith learned, the more certain she became that she had imagined any deepening of affection on his part. His wife had been a saint and Meredith was so far from that it was laughable.

She took another silent turn about the room while she suppressed her growing sense of inadequacy. She hadn’t enquired after Lady Grayling’s character to be nosy. She’d asked because Grayling’s daughters were clearly so very lonely without their mother. She knew what it was like to lose a parent. Little things were forgotten so easily, and with them being so young, the only way to keep their mother’s memory alive was to have everyone begin to speak candidly of her again. It just didn’t help Meredith remain in a good mood.

“Ooh, Cook is in such a mood today,” Miss Cunningham exclaimed as she burst into the nursery without thought for the sleeping children. “Someone stole her best laying chickens right from under our noses and there’s not enough eggs for breakfast in the morning.”

Meredith quickly shushed the girl and took the tea tray from her hands. “Then we won’t all get eggs for breakfast. Now go back the way you’ve come and quietly. The ladies are still sleeping.”