Axel, page 33
part #3 of Jaded Gentlemen Series
“Doubtless looking for the safe and any evidence that would tie him to Gregory’s crimes,” Abigail said. “And like a fool, I ordered that Gregory’s balcony doors remain wide open. If Mr. Belmont hadn’t shown up—”
She wrapped her arms about her middle.
“You rang for your staff,” Axel said. “Ambers was unarmed, and my guess is, he was looking to get the poison and any evidence of smuggling off the premises before he took his leave in April. Perhaps the safe holds records, perhaps there’s also cash in there, but we need not discuss this now.”
“Come along, Mrs. Stoneleigh,” Hennessey said, offering Abigail her shawl. “You’ll catch your death in this corridor, and I’m sure Mrs. Jensen can have the kitchen make you up a posset.”
That should have been Axel’s cue to withdraw, to get back into his cold saddle and ride through the darkness to his own bed. He remained right where he was, close by Abigail’s side.
“Thank you, no, Hennessey,” she said. “You and Mrs. Jensen have my thanks, for your quick thinking and your bravery. For the present, Mr. Belmont and I have more to discuss. I’ll see you both in the morning.”
Discussion was encouraging. A fellow engaged in a discussion might slip in a small lecture about true love, dunderheaded tendencies, and undying devotion, with a passing mention of wild passion. Perhaps an entire digression on the topic of wild passion.
Mrs. Jensen sniffed and harrumphed some more, but Hennessey declared that she was in need of a posset, and got Mrs. Jensen by the elbow. Before those good ladies were halfway down the stairs, Abigail was in Axel’s arms.
And he could not think of one damned useful thing to say.
* * *
The goddamned rose bit Axel on his right index finger, which would pain him when next he took up his quill pen. Such injuries were to be expected when harvesting blooms from the Dragon.
“Perishing lot of thorns,” Axel muttered, wrapping his bouquet in chamois. The day was moderate, a foretaste of spring. The same temperature in October would have been brisk, in March it was reassuring.
Axel had spent half the morning bathing, changing his clothing, and searching out fresh blooms and fresh courage. A note from the Weasel confirmed that Ambers was under lock and key, and for once not criticizing the fare he’d been offered.
After cutting a profusion of roses, Axel climbed upon Ivan the Inconveniently Frisky and made for Stoneleigh Manor at a trot, flowers at the ready.
He had a key—thank God he’d thought to keep a key to the front door—but waited like an anxious suitor for Jeffries to admit him.
“Good morning, Mr. Belmont. Mrs. Stoneleigh was preparing to go out. Shall I see if she’s receiving?”
Go out? Abby was a grieving widow. Where would she go out to?
“I’ll await her,”—where?—“in the conservatory.”
“The conservatory is largely unused, sir.”
“Never trust a man with an unused conservatory. First rule of amateur botany. I’ll be in the conservatory.”
Rather than surrender his roses, Axel took them to the dusty, chilly cavern at the back of the house. The southern exposure and the morning hour made the place sunny, at least, and it had…potential.
The few ferns struggling by the door had noticed the lengthening days and weren’t struggling quite as miserably, though their air was neglected.
Axel took off a glove and tested the soil, finding it adequately moist for ferns.
“Professor? Have you come to inspect my plants?”
Abigail, in a fetching brown velvet riding habit, stood framed in the doorway. Not a typical half-mourning color, but subdued and dignified nonetheless. The color suited her complexion and hair nicely, and the cut…
Axel did not allow himself to admire how the cut of the outfit flattered the figure she sported now.
He thrust his bouquet at her. “These will need water.” The dozen or so blooms had made the journey well. “Be careful, for they’ve a devil of a lot of thorns. If the stems are trimmed under water, the blossoms seem to last longer.”
Abigail leaned in for a whiff. “Marvelous fragrance. Do they have names?”
“Abigail, I care not what names they have. I care what name you have.”
She took the roses, leather wrapping and all, and set them in a fern pot. “Have you a lecture to deliver, Professor? I had hoped to waken to one of your lectures, but once again, I found you’d stolen away in the night. I was on my way to Candlewick to deliver a lecture of my own.”
Contagious, then. Lecturing was contagious after all. “Doubtless, I had a lecture prepared when I left Candlewick, Abigail, though I’m so glad to see you I can’t recall a word of it. I went home to fetch you some flowers.”
For a moment Axel simply admired her, this woman who’d endured so much and who made love so generously. He’d fallen asleep rearranging supporting statements, sub-theses, propositions, and phrases.
And once again holding on to Abigail for dear life.
She stepped closer and, without touching him anywhere else, kissed him on the mouth.
“Does that aid your recall, sir? Perhaps you’d like to hear my lecture now.”
Axel’s heart did an odd hop. “I had best bumble onward first, lest your diatribe cause me to lose all heart and hope. I am at present a bit rootless, you see, in need of transplanting.”
“I don’t want your roses,” Abigail said, stepping back. “I would never take them from you. You need not retreat to the tower at Oxford to protect your roses, you daft man.”
Daft, well yes. “We are in agreement, then, because I find I don’t particularly want my roses either.”
“And yet, you came here this morning, bearing flowers. I was sending for you last night, you know. I’d realized that the second safe had to be immediately outside Gregory’s rooms. I was so pleased when he admired the last of the four paintings I’d chosen, that I asked if he’d like to hang it in his wing of the house. Nonetheless, I did not want to investigate further without your steadying presence.”
The safe had held the colonel’s opium, various records, and an appalling quantity of a sweetish, powdery concoction that had to be responsible for Abigail’s former decline.
Her words now fortified Axel against that recollection—a little.
“You were sending for me, and here I am, bearing roses, several of which were cut from the thorniest grafting stock in my glass house. I can put any puny specimen in the care of the Dragon, and the next season, the flowers are magnificent. The Dragon never refuses a graft either. The thorns are awful, though. He’s a right terror.”
And Axel was babbling.
Abby spared the roses a glance. “I’m more than passing fond of the only right terror I know.”
That peculiar hop, which Axel suspected might be hope, befell him again. “I thought I’d done it, you know—developed a rose without thorns. Damned little trickster was merely saving them up, but yesterday afternoon, when I realized I’d failed again, all I wanted was to tell you about it. To tell you I might have come a little closer, might have eliminated one more wrong turn. I wanted to show you the results, however the experiment turned out, wanted to discuss them with you.”
“You came close? Won’t the fellowship—?”
“Abigail, I’ve refused the fellowships, both of them. Professors can marry, deans can marry, and if Oxford offers me a deanship, I’ll discuss that with you too, though I suspect the thieving miscreants only want the contents of my library.”
She ran a finger over the petal of the palest rose in the bunch, another of the fragrant white flowers she’d so enjoyed in that same library.
“Deans can marry.” This fact inspired her to smile. “You turned down the fellowships, and I think you did this even before I’d left Candlewick. Was that wise, Professor?”
“I don’t care if it was wise. Remove the thorns and the result is somehow less of a rose. I can’t put it any better than that. Please marry me. My hands are frequently dirty, I forget what time it is when I’m in the glass house, I will pester you without ceasing in bed, and probably any place else with a door that locks, but please marry me, Abigail. The academics, the glass houses, the treatises… they are no substitute for your company, and I would trade them all to walk beside you, to dream beside you, to love you as I have these past few weeks.”
That was no sort of lecture, with the main thesis hidden in the undergrowth at the end, no care given to the rhetoric, not a pause for emphasis in the lot. Axel’s heart was hammering against his ribs, and he couldn’t get a decent breath either.
He snatched up the flowers and thrust them at her. “Please, Abigail.”
Gently, she cupped her hands around his, so they both held the bouquet, Axel’s grasp protecting her palms from stray thorns.
“I need transplanting too, Axel Belmont. I’ve aired out this house, beaten every rug, replaced every objectionable painting. I’ve made lists and schedules, for changing the draperies in this room, the carpets in that one. This will never be my home.”
Axel took a step closer, though that crowded the flowers between them. “This could be a handsome property, Abigail. The estate has thrived in your care.”
“This estate will never bear the scent of a one-of-a-kind bloom, Axel. All the airing in the world won’t change the fact that the library here was assembled to impress with appearances, while boring with its substance. All the—”
This time she snatched a kiss.
“Go on, Abigail.”
“I need to know you’re happy out in your glass house, while I peek at our collection of erotic books and plan our evening. I want a household where the footmen and the maids flirt madly, where family comes to visit uninvited, sure of a warm welcome. Where friends come for sanctuary and to flirt. Keep your roses, your treatises, your dreams and hopes, but keep me too, Axel Belmont. Please, keep me too.”
“All failures,” Axel said, kissing her cheek, the roses catching at his cravat. “All of it so much treasured failure without you, Abigail. Come bloom with me, and I shall bloom with you.”
The roses got the worst of that kiss, for Abigail grew enthusiastic, lecturing Axel with lips, embrace, hands…everything. The door to the conservatory did not lock, and thus after a frustratingly brief period of enjoying Abigail’s acceptance of his proposal, Axel allowed her to lead him into the house.
Axel’s bouquet soon graced Abigail’s bedroom, as did Axel.
In the years that followed, he graced the bedroom with her rather a lot, and the glass house, and a few follies, the occasional picnic blanket, the odd hammock—a renowned professor of botany might be expected to enjoy natural settings—but also the library, the stillroom, a parlor or two, and nearly every room at Candlewick.
Wherever Abigail transplanted him, Axel Belmont thrived, though he left pursuit of the thornless rose to those of more modest dreams and hopes than he enjoyed with his beloved Abigail.
For he’d scaled the tower, earned the love of the lady, and—thorns, roses, and all—earned the happily ever after reserved for only the most intrepid of damsels and bravest of botanists.
THE END
To my dear readers!
I hope you enjoyed Axel and Abigail’s story, the third in the Jaded Gentlemen trilogy (after Thomas and Matthew), and yes, I expect Sir Dewey will make somebody a lovely husband… I just haven’t figured out yet who the somebody should be.
While I ponder that challenge, if you're in the mood for more Regency romance, you can order Will’s True Wish (Feb. 2016). If you’ve already ordered your copy of the last of the True Gentlemen (Will Dorning told me to write that) then you can stay up to date on all my illustrious doin’s by signing up for my newsletter here. Next year will be busy but loads of fun, too!
And in case you haven’t heard… I’m undertaking a very special project in September 2016, which I’ve called Scotland With Grace. For ten days, I’ll tour various sights in Scotland with a small group of aspiring writers and avid romance readers. Details on that adventure are here, if you’d like to join us. No, you will not have to eat haggis, but yes, you will have a great time and learn a little something about how I write my romances.
As always, you can contact me through my website at graceburrowes.com, and I love to hear from my readers.
Happy reading!
Grace Burrowes (who’s included a little sneak peek from Will’s True Wish….)
Chapter One
“We were having a perfectly well-behaved outing,” Cam said, though Cam Dorning and perfect behavior enjoyed only a distant acquaintance. “Just another pleasant stroll in the pleasant park on a pleasant spring morning, until George pissed on her ladyship’s parasol.”
The culprit sat in the middle of the room, silent and stoic as mastiffs tended to be, tail thumping gently against the carpet.
“Georgette did not insult Lady Susannah’s parasol all on her own initiative,” Will Dorning retorted. “Somebody let her off the leash.” Somebody whom Will had warned repeatedly against allowing the dog to be loose in public unless Will was also present.
“Lady Susannah wasn’t on a leash,” Cam shot back. “She was taking the air with her sister and Viscount Effington, and his lordship was carrying the lady’s parasol—being gallant, or eccentric. I swear Georgette was sniffing the bushes one moment and aiming for Effington’s knee the next. Nearly got him too, which is probably what the man deserves for carrying a parasol in public.”
Across the earl of Casriel’s private study, Ash dissolved into whoops that became pantomimes of a dog raising her leg on various articles of furniture. Cam had to retaliate by shoving at his older brother, which of course necessitated reciprocal shoving from Ash, which caused the dog to whine fretfully.
“I should let Georgette use the pair of you as a canine convenience,” Will muttered, stroking her silky, brindle head. She was big, even for a mastiff, and prone to lifting her leg in the fashion of a male dog when annoyed or worried.
“I thought I’d let her gambol about a bit,” Cam said. “There I was, a devoted brother trying to be considerate of your dog, when the smallest mishap occurs, and you scowl at me as if I farted during grace.”
“You do fart during grace,” Ash observed. “During breakfast too. You’re a farting prodigy, Sycamore Dorning. Wellington could have used you at Waterloo, His Majesty’s one-man foul miasma, and the French would still be—”
“Enough,” Will muttered. Georgette’s tail went still, for the quieter Will became, the harder he was struggling not to kill his younger brothers, and Georgette was a perceptive creature. “Where is the parasol?”
“Left it in the mews,” Cam said. “A trifle damp and odiferous, if you know what I mean.”
“Stinking, like you,” Ash said, sashaying around the study with one hand on his hip and the other pinching his nose. “Perhaps we ought to get you a pretty parasol to distract from your many unfortunate shortcomings.”
Casriel would be back from his meeting with the solicitors by supper, and the last thing the earl needed was aggravation from the lower primates masquerading as his younger siblings.
More aggravation, for they’d been blighting the family escutcheon and the family exchequer since birth, the lot of them.
“Sycamore, you have two hours to draft a note of apology to the lady,” Will said. “I will review your epistle before you seal it. No blotting, no crossing out, no misspellings.”
“An apology!” Cam sputtered, seating himself on the earl’s desk. “I’m to apologize on behalf of your dog?! I didn’t piss on anybody.”
At seventeen years of age, Cam was still growing into his height, still a collection of long limbs and restless movement that hadn’t resolved into manly grace. He had the Dorning dark hair and the famous Dorning gentian eyes, though.
Also the Dorning penchant for mischief. Will snatched the leash from Cam’s hand and smacked Cam once, gently, for violence upset Georgette and was repellent to Will’s instincts as a trainer of dumb beasts.
“Neither of you will take Georgette to the park until further notice,” Will said. “If you want to attract the interest of the ladies, I suggest you either polish your limited stores of charm or take in a stray puppy.”
“A puppy?” Cam asked, opening a drawer into which he had no business poking his nose. “Puppies are very dear.”
Nature had intended that puppies of any species be very dear, for they were an endless bother. Ash, having attained his majority, occasionally impersonated a responsible adult. He ceased his dramatics and perched beside Cam on the desk.
“Shall you apologize to Lady Shakespeare or to Effington’s knees?” Ash asked. “At length, or go for the pithy, sincere approach? Headmaster says no blotting, no crossing out, no misspellings. I’m happy to write this apology on your behalf for a sum certain.”
Ash had an instinct for business—he had read law—but he lacked the cunning Cam had in abundance.
“Ash makes you a generous offer, Cam,” Will said, stowing the leash on the mantel and enduring Georgette’s But-I’ll-Die-If-We-Remain-Indoors look. “Alas, for your finances, Ash, you’ll be too busy procuring an exact replica of the lady’s abused accessory, from your own funds.”
“My own funds?”
Ash hadn’t any funds to speak of. What little money Casriel could spare his younger siblings, they spent on drink and other Town vices.
“An exact replica,” Will said. “Not a cheap imitation. I will expect your purchase to be complete by the time Cam has drafted an apology. Away with you both, for I must change into clothing suitable for a call upon an earl’s daughter.”
Into Town attire, a silly, frilly extravagance that on a man of Will’s proportions was a significant waste of fabric. He was a frustrated sheep farmer, not some dandy on the stroll, though he was also, for the present, the Earl of Casriel’s heir.
So into his finery he would go.
And upon Lady Susannah Haddonfield, of all ladies, he would call.
