Page 26 of Desperately Seeking Seduction

“Now let me tell you the story of this vintage. It was stored way at the back of the late duke’s private wine cellar, never to be touched. An area we were never allowed near while he was alive, I must add. Now that he’s gone, there is nothing beyond our reach.” He jerked his thumb toward the door. “My brother isn’t as much of a curmudgeon as our father was. In fact, and tell no one this, he’s my favorite brother. Practically raised me. You’d never know the kindness of his heart just by looking at him.”

“I’m glad. You have other brothers, too?”

“Yes, my other two brothers are a different matter altogether. I’m excessively fond of Jasper, he’s a bare year older than me, but should never be trusted around women who wish to keep their virtue,” he looked at her pointedly, “and my second-eldest brother, Nash, well…if he ever smiled, our society might never be the same again.”

“He is unhappy being second born?”

“I hardly think so. He worries to excess over everything, especially over Ravenswood’s health,” Lord Stratford confided. “The veritable old woman among us. Fuss, fuss, fuss.”

“I heard the maids talking earlier,” she said, studying the color of the wine. It was prettier in crystal than pewter. “They said Lord Nash is married and has children.”

Lord Stratford drained his glass. “Yes. He never sees them. Acts much like my father did with us.”

“Is his wife here? I’ve not heard her mentioned.”

“No, she isn’t here anymore,” he said, and it was clear it was not a topic he wished to discuss with her.

“Sometimes that is the way it should be,” she answered, thinking of how tense her family had been. Her own Sunday presentations to her father, before attending church with Mama standing between them, had been awkward affairs and necessarily brief. Winston had been in awe of her father as a child. She’d wanted to please him even to the point of wishing she had been born male all along.

She glanced at her employer, fearful he’d heard the wistful tone in her words, but he was staring into his cup, thinking she assumed. She picked up the second bottle and studied it a moment before setting her teeth to the cork and pulling it free. She poured a glass and topped up his.

Lord Stratford held the glass up between them. “I really do think this is the finest vintage of any I’ve drunk here at the palace, and believe me this is not the first night I’ve shared a glass or four with my valet.”

“Of course.”

“Do not turn agreeable on me now, Winston. You’ve turned my view of the world upside down and it’s not quite settled yet.” He gulped down his wine and then looked at her sideways before he waved his empty glass in her direction, ready for another top up.

Winston carefully filled it to the brim, deciding to get her employer good and drunk tonight so he might fall asleep sooner than later. “There you go, my lord.”

Her employer drew in a deep breath over the glass, inhaling the scent of the wine, and then sighed. “Win.”

“Yes, my lord?”

“Do you think you’ll ever marry?”

She tensed. “Why would you ask me that?”

He put one arm behind his head and wriggled into a seemingly more comfortable position, without spilling a drop of wine from his glass. “Cuthbert thought he might like to be a husband one day. My elder brother must marry, of course. My second-elder brother did marry, but didn’t care for it.” He shook his head. “Jasper swears there’s no reason for either one of us to ever take a bride. Now, with you masquerading as a fellow bachelor, I do wonder at your opinion, too. Surely you want something more than servitude all your days.”

“I expect not to marry,” she said slowly.

“Hmm, do you not find men at all attractive?”

Warmth crept up her cheeks and she struggled with how to answer him. She found him pleasant to look upon, especially naked, and was enjoying their conversation tonight, now he knew her secret. But marrying a man, any man, had never truly crossed her mind. To marry a woman, and keep up her charade, would be pointless. It could never be more than chaste companionship she shared with any bride.

To marry a man, however, would mean she’d have to change herself completely to please him. Wear dresses, mind her manners, become all the things she despised so much about her mother.

She was better off as she was. Living life on her own terms; keep moving about the countryside to new places of employment. Desire, attraction of the kind Lord Stratford wondered about, played no part in her plans.

She turned to tell him so, but he let out a loud snore.

Winston hurried to reach over and carefully took the glass slowly falling from his fingers without waking him, saving the bedding from a spill of red wine. She sat back, regarding the two glasses she held, and then drained both before considering the half-drunk bottle. It was a shame to waste the bottle, and there was that rule.

Winston shrugged and refilled her glass.

“Excellent vintage,” she told the sleeping young lord as she took a dainty sip.

In sleep, Lord Stratford seemed so carefree and attractive. He had a nice face…straight brows and thin, strong lips. Lips that had touched hers and set her senses on fire—at least for a moment today. She blushed again at the memory.