Good girls don't go snooping where they don't belong.
But Lady Delia Scarborough never claimed to be a good girl.
Lady Delia Scarborough wants her sister back from the grave.
Since that can't happen, she'll settle for the next best thing...
Making...
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Kieran was seeing to business in Dorchester, the next town over from Brixby Hall, when he realized that in some strange way, Delia had ruined him for other women. Things had conspired to keep him in Dorchester far too late for him to sensibly go home, and he had ended up at the White Hart, a decent inn.
It was a cheerful enough place, with meat turning on the spit and an impressively good applejack at the tap, but Kieran couldn't find it in himself to enjoy it.
Neil had just sent him a message from London, asking where in the hell he was. The last few weeks after Parliament was done with and before the Season properly ended was always a prime time to carouse, to visit the gambling hells, and to see what new wonders the circuses, the theaters, and the brothels could dream up, but none of that sounded in the least enjoyable to Kieran.
Alice and Delia are certainly more fun than any company I could scare up in London.
He smiled at what a homebody he had become, and one of the barmaids, a buxom girl with hair the color of butter, thought that was meant for her. She smiled at him, a slow and sensual thing, and when she set down his tankard of applejack, she offered up a sweet smile and a view down her low-cut kirtle.
"Well, my lord?"
"Well, what, lass?"
"Well, I was thinking that if you were staying tonight, I could come up to your room. You understand, of course, that room service at this inn is not common, but exceptions can be made for a gentleman as fine as you."
For a moment, Kieran only stared at her, and then he laughed. He had been so occupied with thoughts of home that the girl's offer had confused him at first. She looked offended at his mirth, but a generous tip mollified her, and Kieran shook his head at his own mistake.
All right, either the mental ravages of age arrive far earlier than I thought they would, or finding out I am a father and inviting the world's most lovely governess into my home was enough to addle me. Somehow, I am going to assume that it is the later.
He drained the last of his drink and stood to go upstairs. There was really no point in staying up, and if he got up earlier, he would be home to see his two favorite girls all the sooner.
Before he could sleep that night, however, Kieran found himself tormented with less than pure visions of Delia. Delia smiling at him, Delia's mouth all red from kisses, Delia in her shift, Delia out of her shift. It could drive a man to distraction, and somehow, deep in his soul, he knew it was driving her to distraction as well.
Sometime in the small hours of the morning, he gave up on sleep and ended up at the window of his room, watching the sky lighten toward dawn. It occurred to him absently that the paleness of the sky, when it was pewter, before it was properly blue, reminded him of Delia's eyes.
This can't go on. I need to do something about this.
* * *
Kieran came home the next day, still pondering the issue. The worries and troubles that had seemed so very important while he was on the road dissolved to nothing when he entered the nursery in the middle of lunch and Alice sprang from her place at the table, pelting toward him with a cry of delight.
Just as she got to him, she tripped, and he swept her up in his arms.
"What a bright and brilliant girl! Did you miss me?"
Alice threw her arms around his neck, babbling happily, and Delia rose from the table by the window. Kieran started to smile at her, but then looked twice and put Alice down.
"I would love to see your drawings, darling. Will you put them in order for me while I have a word with Delia?"
As Alice scampered off, Kieran came to stand by Delia at the window. He wondered if she flinched a little from him, and he frowned. He touched her chin with his fingertip, urging her to look at him.
"What's the matter? You look pale. Are you getting sick?"
"No, I'm feeling fine. I suppose I have not been sleeping well lately."
Kieran thought for a moment, and then he pulled her close, ignoring her slight murmur of protest. There was a moment of surprise, and then she softened against him. He wanted nothing more than to pull her into his arms, but he remembered that he had had something else in mind before that.
He pressed his lips to her forehead, holding her still for a short moment, and then he let her go.
"You don't feel hot or feverish to me. Perhaps you have taken a bit of a chill and it has stopped you from sleeping. Shall I send for a doctor?"
She looked surprised at his words. "No, not at all. I tell you, I am fine."
Kieran smiled a little at her shock. "I should not want anything to happen to you. Just as you are taking care of my daughter, I must make sure that you are well taken care of as well."
"Is that what you want, to take care of me?"
Kieran thought for a moment, and it was as if someone had lit a candle in his mind, making way for all the things that he had never quite recognized before.
"Yes, I suppose that is something I want to do."
When he reached for her this time, she did not flinch, and instead of bringing her in for a passionate kiss, he simply held her for a moment. Somehow, it was so easy to forget how small Delia really was. Right now, she felt like a starved winter sparrow in his arms, all bones and skin.
Perhaps it would not be such a terrible thing to call for a doctor after all. Better safe than sorry.
Before he could press the matter again, however, Alice dashed back, her drawings arranged in careful order for his perusal. Glancing at Delia, Kieran took a seat at the window, allowing Alice to show him what she had been up to for the last little while.
They'd apparently kept quite busy with him gone, and Kieran thought again that it might be better to bring his business to him rather than chasing it across the country. He dutifully looked at pictures of Alice riding, of the meals she had shared with Delia, and then he stopped her at the last one.
"And who's in this picture?"
Alice grinned. "It's you, and me, and Delia!"
The blobs were barely recognizable as people, all enclosed in a box that Alice proudly called Brixby Hall, but Kieran found himself oddly touched by the fact that all three blobs were holding hands. Alice, smaller and topped with golden hair, stood in the middle.
"Alice, may I have this one?"
Alice said he could, and with a slightly sheepish smile, Kieran folded the picture and tucked it into his pocket.
"It's a curiously affecting work, wouldn't you say, Delia?"
For just a moment, the strangeness that had seemed to infect her since he'd returned dropped, and she smiled at him, warm and sweet as honey.
