“Yes. Bad weather bothers both my hip and my head. Do you mind if I remove my eye patch? The day is gloomy enough that I need not fret over the light.”
“Don’t stand on ceremony on my account, Colonel. Tell me about that manor house. The landscape looks like Surrey to me, or possibly Kent.”
“The ancestral home,” Colonel Goddard replied. “I let it out, but the lease is coming up for renewal, and I’m considering selling the place.”
“It’s not entailed?”
“My father broke the entail—with my consent as the heir—because we were in dire financial straits, and Papa was considering liquidating. Then Jeanette bagged her marquess, and disaster was averted for Papa and me, not so for Jeanette.”
The fire blazed merrily, but the dreary weather—a brooding, leaden overcast chased by a chill wind—made the room dark.
“Forgive me,” the colonel went on, stripping off his eye patch and tucking it into a pocket. “I ought not to burden you with ancient history.”
“Your sister’s first marriage was unhappy?”
“Utterly miserable, though I did not know that until I could do nothing for her. Papa bought me a commission with a portion of the largesse Jeanette had earned us, and off I went to play soldier. When I came home on my first winter leave, I realized I had made a serious mistake, but by then, the senior officers had decided my French antecedents were useful. Mustering out was not possible.”
Ann tried another sip of her drink, this taste going down more easily, as did the next and the next. Her immediate superior was overly fond of spirits, and had Ann limitless access to the colonel’s toddies, she might engage in the same folly.
Somebody had, in fact, nearly drained her glass.
“My aunt plagues me,” she said, apropos of nothing. “Wants me to become her companion, to take my place in polite society. She fails to realize that I’ve seen much of that society at the Coventry, many of them not at their best. I like what I do, I make a difference to those who work with me.”
The colonel set aside his drink. “No question of mustering out? Aren’t you ever lonely, Ann?”
“All the time.”
Had the colonel not used her name, she might have scrounged up a reply with pretensions to wit or charm. He’d spoken softly, though, and in his question lurked an admission that he was lonely, and had been for some time.
“I was an only child,” Ann went on, because with Orion Goddard, she saw no point in dissembling. “I did not realize that most children have playmates, siblings, schoolmates… until I was nine years old, and my grandmother took me to some village celebration. She told me to go play with a group of children kicking a ball around, but I could not ask them for permission to join the game because I knew none of them by name. They knew each other’s names, but I knew no other child in the whole shire by name. Watching them play, I realized my situation wasn’t normal.”
Colonel Goddard rose and took Ann’s mug from her hand. She had no idea what he was about, but when he scooped her into his arms and settled back into his wing chair, she did not protest.
“Go on,” he said, as if Ann weren’t curled against his chest like an oversized feline. “You were sent away to school, and surely you learned some names there.”
“How did you know?” And how did one conduct a conversation when cuddled up against so much male muscle and warmth?
“Settle, Ann. I harbor no untoward designs on your person.”
“And if I have designs on yours, Orion?”
“With a horde of banshees ready to interrupt at any moment, your designs are doomed to failure, alas for me. My friends call me Rye. Tell me about school.”
They were to be friends, then? Cuddling friends? Ann would ponder that mystery later, when she wasn’t so comfortably ensconced in such a sweet embrace.
“My grandmother died. I was dispatched to the Midlands, where all good girls go to learn how to gossip, flirt, and tipple. The other students were busy making sheep’s eyes at the drawing master, while I spent my free time in the kitchen. My classmates thought me odd, I thought them tedious, and if there’s one thing young ladies do not tolerate, it’s being considered tedious. You will put me to sleep if you keep that up, Colonel.”
He was rubbing her back in slow circles that spread a warmth as insidious as that offered by the toddy.
“Call me Rye. That’s a direct order. We’re drinking companions now, and we’ve made pear sauce together. How did you come to be apprenticed?”
“My father died. My aunt—the only person who might have dissuaded me—had married and was no longer in England. I wrote a letter purporting to be from her informing Headmaster I was to spend the summer with her friends in London. I had enough samples of her penmanship to copy her hand. I applied to every agency that placed apprentices until a situation arose that suited me. By the time my aunt’s next letter reached the headmaster months later, I had signed my articles and was delighting in my new profession.”
The colonel’s caresses moved to Ann’s neck and shoulders, the pleasure of his touch exquisite. “You had made your bed, and you were determined to lie in it as only the young and foolish can be determined.”
“That too. Aunt was a new wife. She and my uncle protested by letter, but they weren’t in a position to undo the damage, and besides, I was happy, after a fashion.”
“Pleased with yourself, you mean. Close your eyes, Ann. Rest. I’ll keep you safe from invading forces.”
He would keep her safe from designs on her person, too, drat the luck.
Ann could feel the colonel’s heartbeat beneath her cheek, while the fire was a steady warmth at her back. She could not in seven eternities have predicted that her call upon Orion Goddard would end up in this cozy embrace by the hearth, nor would she have said she was particularly fatigued if asked.
And yet, she was so very tired, now that he held her like this. As her eyes drifted closed and her breathing slowed, she gave in to an exhaustion of more than the body, and to the very great comfort to be had in Orion Goddard’s arms.
“So this is the most notoriously unassuming club in all of London?” Sycamore Dorning asked, glancing about at the Aurora’s wainscoted foyer. “Nobody even knows who the members are.”
“To learn who the members are,” Rye replied, “you’d merely have to lurk across the street and watch who comes and goes. Secret entrances are for those with something to hide.”
Dorning passed his greatcoat to the footman. “You doubtless did not join this august establishment until your scouts had monitored the comings and goings long enough that you knew the company to be had here.”
“My scouts are good,” Rye said, “but they don’t move in exalted circles freely enough to know a viscount from a vintner. I simply asked for a list of the members and gave my word the information would go no further. Here at least, my word is still good. Table for two, Tims, where we won’t be overheard.”
“Very good, Colonel. I’ll tell Lavellais, and he will find you in the lounge. Welcome to the Aurora, Mr. Dorning.”
Tims glided off, moving soundlessly across the parquet marble floor.