Carnal Knowledge Ch 13 14

Dear Readers,

Thank you for your continued patience with me! I'm sorry it's taken so long for me to post - my writing computer went kablooey.

Since it's been a while, you may want to go back and read the preceding chapter if you're having trouble remembering what is going on. :)

I do appreciate all your comments and feedback.

Thank you!!

All my love,

Emmeline

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Chapter 13

Miles Barlow, the newly titled Lord Atherton, stared blankly at his man of affairs and scratched his head. "I beg your pardon?"

The diminutive man pursed his lips. "You have been ordered to remove yourself and your belongings from these lodgings here in London. It seems you haven't provided any coin thus far, and the owner is demanding immediate payment."

"Immediate payment?" Atherton blustered, running a hand through his already rumpled chestnut hair. "He can't demand anything from me. I'm a viscount!"

"Yes, well," Chavers said. "He can't force you to pay, but he can demand you leave the townhouse, my lord. And if I may speak so boldly, you may remember we have no funds available to make any payments."

"Of course, I bloody remember!" Atherton began to pace, gesturing wildly. "Damn it all to hell, it's that bastard Rockdale behind this. I know it! He's trying to ruin me!"

Chavers cleared his throat. "Perhaps, my lord, if something could be arranged with the young lady, Miss Caroline Stanley? If you could...acquire her dowry very soon?"

"She has not received my calls all week." Atherton ground his teeth. "I thought her father had all but formally given me his blessing, but now suddenly Lord Pelham is away from town. It's all Rockdale's doing!" He whirled around. "I'm a viscount for Christ sake! Can't we sell something?"

Chavers' mouth turned down into a moue of distaste. "I believe everything that is not entailed has been run through...ahem...that is...sold already, my lord."

"Pah," Atherton muttered.

"There is that dashing phaeton you insisted in purchasing last month..."

"Damn it! Not my phaeton!"

The other man rocked on his heels. "I should tell you that I have a meeting with Sir Godfrey Wallace tomorrow," Chavers announced quietly. "He is looking for a new steward for a small estate in Surrey."

Atherton clapped his open mouth shut with an audible snap. "But you work for me!"

Chavers tugged the sleeves of his jacket down over his wrists. "Not any longer, I'm afraid. You can't afford to pay me, my lord."

Atherton slammed both hands down on the table in front of Chavers, causing the smaller man to recoil. "Go ahead then, sell the damn phaeton! Pay yourself."

The vicount spun towards the door. "It's early yet, but I'm going to see if I can persuade my way into Lord Pelham's townhouse to work my wiles on his daughter."

"You'd better work more than your wiles, my lord. Or you will soon be residing in the ancestral pile in Dartmoor...and planting a garden to feed yourself."

***

Nicholas sighed.

Morosely, the young boy stared at the morning sun slanting through the nursery windows. Being stuck inside on a sunny day was almost as rotten as having to drink Nanny Goodson's special medicine for an upset stomach.

"Do you think Miss Lockhart will be back soon?" Nicholas asked his sister.

He swung his foot, beating the heel of his shoe against the chair leg. It made an annoying, repeated

thump, thump, thump,

which would have been far more satisfying to him had Nanny Goodson been paying attention and not dozing in her chair.

"I hope so," Anna answered without glancing up and turned a page in the book she was reading. "Stop doing that with your foot."

He put out his tongue at her. A sudden loud snore erupted from Nanny, and he watched with a certain fascination as her chin dipped lower into the ruffles of her dress. It almost looked as though the black cloth was sucking her face down and eating it.

"I'm bored," he said, kicking the chair a little harder.

"You're supposed to be writing your letters for practice. Perhaps then you wouldn't be bored," she advised with a definite edge to her voice.

"I don't want do letters. I want go outside."

"Nicky," Anna said. "Do you think Papa likes Miss Lockhart?" She pinned him with an intent gaze.

Nicholas blinked at this unexpected change of topic, and his foot missed the chair leg. "Well, o'course, he does," he replied at last, frowning. "She's a nice lady."

"Pretty, too," Anna said, her attention back on her book. The tone of her voice had implied something he didn't quite understand, and this irritated him.

"Everybody likes her," he said.

"Mrs. Biddleton doesn't."

Nicholas paused. He had no immediate reply for that one.

Anna stared past him with a dreamy look in her eyes. "Sometimes I wish Papa would fall in love with Miss Lockhart, and she would be our new mother."

"We already have a mother!"

"Shh, Nicky! You're going to wake Nanny up," Anna hissed. She sniffed and tossed her long braid in a way that made him want to yank it. "Mama is dead. You know that."

"She's still our mother!" he insisted, furious tears welling up in his eyes.

Anna propped her chin on her hand and gazed out the nursery window. "Miss Lockhart is only a governess anyway. I don't think Papa is allowed to marry a governess." She shrugged. "But, better Miss Lockhart than that prissy Miss Pratt."

"I don't want talk about this anymore," Nicholas said, dashing a hand across his eyes. "Let's go downstairs and get some of Cook's apple tarts."

Anna gestured at the sleeping Nanny Goodson. "She'll never let us go."

"We'll go down and be back before she wakes up." He flicked his fingers. "Quick as can be."

"Uh huh."

"You're scared," he taunted. "Scared, scared."

Her eyes narrowed. "Bet I can get down the stairs faster than you."

***

Simpson had been the butler at Verity Hall for eleven years. From the very first day, he had taken upmost pride in his position of head servant, confident knowing Lord Rockdale trusted him with the running of the manor house.

The job was his entire life, and this bothered him not a whit. After all, he had no fussing wife, no sniveling children to provide for, and no burdensome relatives. Lord Rockdale may been lord of the estate in name, but Simpson was the one who had been charged with its management.

It was no mean task to keep a grand house such as Verity Hall running smoothly, he often told himself. And today, something very like panic rose in his throat while regarding the assembly of footmen and stablemen before him, shuffling their feet and wringing their caps like a gaggle of naughty schoolboys.

Simpson took a deep breath and strove to keep his voice even. "How could this have happened? You do realize his lordship will be most displeased."

Most displeased, indeed, Simpson mused uneasily. Something like this could cost him his position. One never knew with the vagaries and whims of the nobility. But he had a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach that Lord Rockdale would be likely very unhappy to return and find his explicit orders violated.

Robbie's face was pinched tight as his tall, muscular form pushed to the front of the group. "Someone set a fire on purpose in the laundry to draw us away from the stables, and when Willie and Tom returned to their posts," he paused to glare at two of the younger men, who ducked their heads in apparent shame, "the door was unlocked and George was gone."

"This is unacceptable," Simpson ground out. He could feel beads of perspiration gathering on his forehead.

"Aye," Robbie agreed wearily, running a hand over his face.

"Get out there and look for the bastard. Find him and drag him back," the butler ordered.

"We've looked already—" Robbie started.

"Look harder!" Simpson snapped, cutting him off. "See if anyone saw anything, for God's sake."

Scowling, he turned his back on the group and yanked open the outside door to the kitchen. He had a strong suspicion of whom exactly had liberated George and vowed to get to the bottom of it.

And pin the blame for this debacle on someone else, he decided.

He strode through the kitchen toward the back stairway and saw his target standing before a linen closet.

"Biddleton," he bit out, "a word, if you will."

The housekeeper turned quickly to face him, her face impassive, but he noticed her hands clenched into fists.

"What do you want, Simpson?" she answered curtly. "I am far too busy to waste time with you."

His jaw tightened at her insolent tone. He had a mind to sack the housekeeper on the spot and allow her to be the scapegoat for George's escape, be she guilty or nay. But no, he told himself, he needed to investigate this matter fully. After all, he was acting in Lord Rockdale's stead as the authority figure in the house.

"Your other tasks can wait," he said. "Go to my parlor at once so that I may speak with you privately."

"Go to my parlor, he says," she mocked in falsetto. "Is that what you say to my housemaid Sally? Well, you can be certain I won't be slobbering on that shriveled knob in your breeches today or any other day," she jeered.

Shock froze him in his tracks. Surely the woman had not just said what he thought she had...

Mrs. Biddleton glanced back at him with scornful amusement. "What? You didn't realize everyone knows where you disappear to most afternoons?" She cackled. "Just keep poking it in her mouth and not her cunt, you randy arsehole. The last thing I need is an upstairs maid with a belly swelled up like she swallowed a melon."

Simpson's mouth opened and closed several times without any noise escaping.

"Shut your jaws, old man. You look like a bloated fish gapping at me that way." There was a hard gleam of malice in her eyes. "Are we finished here?"

Simpson pressed his lips together in a hard line and drew himself up to his full height. He could feel the tips of his ears turning red with temper and embarrassment. "Now, listen here, you hag," he growled.

"You better think really hard on anything you want to say to me," she shot back.

"You set that fire in the laundry and released George from the stables, didn't you? I know it was you!" he hissed.

Her chin tilted up. "That's a load of rubbish. How could I have done such a thing? I'm aught but an aging woman. Not that I didn't want to let my poor nephew out of that dark room, mind you. It was heartlessly cruel to have the boy beaten within an inch of his life and cast into that dirty hole!" She shook a finger at him. "Lady Rockdale would never have allowed such a terrible thing to happen here if she were still alive!"

Simpson rolled his eyes. "Don't start with your whining and whingeing about Lady Rockdale again. I'm wise to your contriving ways, and his lordship is going to get a full report of my suspicions on how you helped your nephew flee the stables, just you wait and see."

"Do you think the earl is going to listen to you?" the housekeeper demanded, her face gleamed with flush and sweat.

Simpson pursed his lips in distaste at the spittle collected at the corner of her lips.

She snorted. "He's too busy shoving his cock between the legs of that hussy disguised as a governess. Her vile lies about George are what got him into trouble with Rockdale, mark my words!"

"Shut your crude mouth, you old besom!"

"But I suppose George got off easy if you consider what the earl is capable of," Mrs. Biddleton lashed out, her chest heaving. "Look at what he did to my poor, sweet Lady Rockdale. Might as well have broken her neck himself! You know as well as I do that her blood is on Rockdale's hands!"

A loud gasp nearby interrupted Simpson's intended crushing reply. Turning swiftly, he saw to his horror the earl's children standing transfixed and wide-eyed on the stairs, sure to have heard at least the last portion of his conversation with the raving housekeeper.

"Oh, my God," Simpson whispered. "Children!" he thundered. "Where is Nanny Goodson?"

The children whirled around as though to escape back up the steps.

"Wait right there, you two!" he commanded, striding to intercept them.

The earl's daughter, Lady Anna, froze on the steps, but the young boy Nicholas never hesitated. He sprinted up the stairs and vanished from view within moments.

Simpson gnashed his teeth and bit back the profanity hovering on his lips. Every bit of this disaster was the housekeeper's fault, he fumed.

Taking the girl firmly by the arm, he turned to inform Biddleton their discussion was far from finished. To his surprise, the hallway was empty and the housekeeper no where to be seen.

Simpson grimaced in displeasure. He muttered under his breath while hustling Lady Anna up the stairs. Not only did he have an escaped footman on the loose, now he must track down the earl's son as well, he thought sourly.

Blast that woman!

***

"What do you remember of your mother?"

Eliza felt Rockdale stiffen at her question. They reclined side by side upon a spread blanket in the stone wall-enclosed gardens of the townhouse.

The afternoon sun trickled softly through the large trees shading the gardens, their leaves casting mottled shadows over Eliza and Rockdale from the slight breeze caressing the foliage into a gentle dance of movement.

A bird trilled brightly, and Eliza could almost imagine they lounged somewhere in the countryside, far away from London. And, now she considered it, the entire two weeks they had spent together in the cottage-like townhouse seemed rather dreamlike.

Rockdale tossed a bit of cheese into this mouth and chewed without answering her query for several moments. "Here, have another sandwich. You barely ate a bite of toast for breakfast," he chided.

"My appetite felt a little off this morning," she began then frowned. "Don't avoid my question."

He puffed out a long-suffering sigh and fell back on his elbows. "I was very young when my parents died. I hardly recall her at all."

Eliza picked up the proffered sandwich Rockdale had left perched on her knee. She was rather still hungry, she decided. "What can you remember, then?"

He looked away and over her shoulder. "She was pretty," he said at last, a bit grudgingly.

She nodded encouragingly and took a bite of the sandwich. "And?" she prompted after swallowing.

"She always seemed to be smiling." His gaze narrowed as though concentrating on elusive memories.

"How did they die?" she asked hesitantly.

Rockdale sat up and drained the last of the ale from the glass bottle he held. "Fever," he finally replied, jamming the cork stopper in the bottle. "We lived in a house here in London, my parents and I...and they had an infant daughter as well."

"Oh," Eliza said in surprise. "I didn't realize you had a sister."

"Yes, well, she was only a few months old. Nearly the half the household came down with the damned sickness." He avoided her gaze. "My mother died first, then the baby, then my father. My nursemaid, too." Clearing his throat, he brushed at his coat, though Eliza could see no lint or dirt. "I've been told I almost succumbed as well, but for some unfortunate reason I was spared."

His smile was tinged with bitterness. "Better my father would have lived. I was never an acceptable replacement in the old bastard's eyes—the previous earl," he clarified.

His paternal grandfather, she thought and laid a hand over his clenched fist. "What was your sister's name?"

A muscle ticked in his jaw. "Genevieve. She...would grab hold of my finger. I can remember leaning over her little bed."

Rockdale began roughly shoving the remains of their lunch into the basket Mrs. Crawley had provided. "I was the first one to become sick, you know. It's likely my fault they all came down with it."

"William..." she murmured. "You were only a young boy. You can't possibly blame yourself."

"They say I killed Isabelle as well, did you know that?" Rockdale rose up from the blanket in a surge of movement and glared down at her.

Startled by the sudden change of topic, Eliza tilted her head back to look at him. "Er...your wife? Who says?"

He gestured in the air. "My supposed friends, my staff, the bloody

ton

, everyone whispered it behind my back."

"But, wasn't it a carriage accident?"

"Yes," he bit out. "The wheel came entirely off. They say I must have sabotaged the vehicle." He rubbed the bridge of his nose and began to pace.

His head whipped around. "And I wished her dead that day, by God! I wished it! Her and dammed Miles Barlow, too."

"You didn't sabotage the carriage."

His hand fell to the side. "No, I didn't." He was silent a moment. "It was raining and muddy. She was determined to get away from me. We had argued terribly. The things we said..." He shook his head. "The carriage was traveling too fast for the condition of the road, they told me. It hit a deep rut...the wheel came off as they made a sharp turn. The vehicle overturned..."

She winced. "Oh, William. That is horrible. I'm so sorry."

Rockdale sighed and folded his long length back beside her on the blanket. "I can be ruthless, rude, and even heartless."

He met her upturned gaze and lifted a hand to trace the ivory silk ribbon threaded through the neckline of her new cerulean blue day dress. "And even though I despised the fact that Isabelle had bedded other men while married to me, I still would never have harmed her."

His low voice sent a shiver that raised the fine hairs on the exposed bit of her nape beneath her bonnet.

"Eliza," he murmured, his eyes almost hesitant as he met her gaze. "I apologize if my attentions have been too...aggressive at times. It was not well done of me, especially the first time I took you—" he broke off, frowning.

Her heart thumped faster, remembering how he had tied her arms and covered her body with his own, savagely asserting his power over her. The veil of her innocence and naivety had been ripped away. Never again could she be that simple country girl untouched by a man's fierce desire and single-minded possession.

His actions should have revolted her—and when she used her brain and logical senses—they did. And yet, deep down, some base, inexplicable female part of her being responded to his male domination...perhaps even, if she were being completely honest with herself,

yearned

for it. Even when she told herself that only some sort of demented female with a lack of dignity and self-respect would possibly enjoy such a thing.

How could this be normal behavior for a gently raised woman she wondered with a hint of desperation. How could it be that even knowing the manner in which he had coerced her and cornered her into such an intimate, erotic relationship, still she longed with every fiber of her being to turn her face into his hand that was cupping her neck...to close the small distance between them and press her cheek against his.

This man is not for you, she lectured herself sternly.

Then why does he feel like mine,

her heart wept.

Deliberately, she turned from his intent, searching gaze and watched a sparrow alight from its perch above them and fly away over the trees. In that moment she longed to be like that bird, free to soar and escape, free to live and go as it wished.

She swallowed, her throat tight, because unlike the little sparrow, Eliza was not free, not truly.

Though the Crawleys had seen that her every want was seen to during their time here, a comfortable cage remained yet a cage. She felt a rush of chagrin at how the quiet, domesticated arrangement had beguiled her, relaxed her, and lowered her defenses. She and William had spent most of the days and nights together—leisurely walks in the garden, lazy afternoons reading and talking, sometimes arguing and laughing.

At times, Rockdale would leave to see about his business and financial affairs, and she found herself contented to share a cup of tea with Mrs. Crawley by the cozy kitchen fire. The Crawleys' daughter Jane would pop in to visit on many afternoons, always with a humorous story or two to share.