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Chapter 22
MADELEINE AND LIBBY were laughing even before Barnacle was out of the drawing room, and Barnacle knew it, bowing his shoulders and tottering even more.
When Barnacle and his back were out of sight, Thomas ignored the laughing women and said to his wife, “Lord Kipper is an old smuggler who was knighted by George way back in 1809 when he accidently managed to sink a French warship. He really believed it was a boat of English soldiers bent on taking him to Newgate.”
“You’re making that up,” Meggie said.
“Young lady, my son never makes anything up,” Madeleine said. “Lord Kipper is a very brave man, not like that wretched Lord Lancaster, who, thankfully, is finally six feet underground. Had I been there, I would not have worn mourning nor thrown a rose atop his casket. I would have spit.”
“Meggie’s father, the vicar of Glenclose-on-Rowan, gave the service. He surely wouldn’t have appreciated that, Mother.”
“My lord. Ladies.”
Meggie looked up to see a man stride into the drawing room. He was as tall as Thomas and twice his age. He was very possibly one of the most beautiful men Meggie had ever seen in her life. He looked like a fallen angel, fair and blond, but the compelling strength in his face, the planes and shadows of the bones, the blueness of his eyes, the way all of him fit together was incredible. She imagined that Uncle Douglas’s twin sons, James and Jason, would be as beautiful as Lord Kipper when they were his age, and that was saying something indeed since her dratted cousins had been so beautiful since early boyhood that her uncle Douglas and aunt Alex had been constantly bombarded with gifts from all the girls in the neighborhood, hoping to be noticed by the twins.
It was amazing, this male beauty. Lord Kipper looked toward her and smiled, an absolutely devastating smile, all white teeth and intimacy, and it made her toes curl in appreciation. Six maids with him in a locked bedchamber? Hmmm.
“I am Meggie Sherbrooke—”
“You are now a Malcombe. I am her husband, Niles.”
“And he’s an earl now, not just a mangy baron,” Barnacle said from just on the other side of the still-open drawing room doors.
Lord Kipper laughed. “I was always too big to walk Barnacle’s back,” he said, “and he’s never forgiven me.” In that moment Meggie knew to her toes that he was as outrageous and as charming as both of her uncles. She wondered what her uncle Ryder would have to say about the six maids in a locked bedchamber.
As Lord Kipper walked across the wide expanse of dismal drawing room, Meggie noticed that he limped. When he reached her, he gave her an intimate smile again, devastating it was, took her hand and slowly raised it to his lips, never looking away from her face. “Meggie. What a lovely name, my dear.”
“You will not try to seduce my wife, Niles,” Thomas said, just the barest hint of menace showing through the amusement in his voice. “Drop her hand this instant.”
Lord Kipper didn’t drop her hand, rather, he very gently lowered it until it was nearly touching her breast. Then he eased free, pressing her fingers lightly downward until she was touching herself. He smiled. Meggie was so shocked, so utterly mesmerized by what he’d done, that she just stood there like an idiot, gaping at him.
“You are such a tease,” Libby said, a wealth of knowledge and a touch of coyness in her voice, Meggie wasn’t mistaken about that. And a dollop of jealousy perhaps because Lord Kipper hadn’t done it to her?
“Do you have a wife, sir?” Meggie asked, pulling herself together by the simple act of taking three steps away from this dangerous man.
“Oh no, my dear. Well, there was Nell. She gave me my heir, then departed to her reward very shortly thereafter, bless her, and she did it quickly, with little fuss. Unfortunately my heir died at the age of six. I admit I worried about an heir for a while, but no longer. No, I decided I didn’t want another wife. Far too confining, you know. Since I am English and I have money, why, I much enjoy keeping a mistress now and again. My nephew is my heir, a good boy, at Oxford now, and so he isn’t around to sniff after them.”