“We have much to do today.” He stood and found his reflection in the long looking glass, tucked in his shirt. Where were his braces? Ah, there. He snapped them on. “The upstairs room I’ve been working on is proving difficult.”
She disappeared behind a folding screen. “Mm. Yes. The rotted floor in one corner.” She poked her head around the side, wearing nothing but a grin. “But you are more than a match for those stubborn boards.”
He shrugged into a jacket. “I’m not terribly hungry. Do you mind if I head over to the house before you?” They usually broke their fast together with Alfie and his family. But nightmares like the one that had woken him this morning always built a fire beneath him to finish the work he’d promised to do.
After some rustling behind the screen, Clara stepped out, her gown sagging from her shoulders. “Will you tie me up first?”
He did, dropping a kiss to her neck when he’d finished. He did not have to. They need only pretend such affection when other eyes watched them closely. But the more days they spent working together, the more nights they spent in each other’s arms, the more he found himself unable to resist their quiet moments alone. The more he began to think he showed her affection not to prove the truth of a lie for others, but for Clara only. For her to store up or discard or return as she liked. No one need see. No one need guess.
Terrifying and impossible impulse to banish.
They left their bedchamber together and parted in the entry hall. Clara bounced up on her toes and pecked his cheek with a saucy grin. She whirled toward the dining room, and he caught her round the waist, pulled her tight against him, crashed his mouth to hers. What was this feeling? It made him want to forget the dower house, forget everything but her. It made the sins of his past seem bearable in a way no sunrise ever had.
Yet it pained him, too, clenched his heart so tight, he feared it might crumble to dust. How could something make him stronger and weaker at the same time? Braver yet terrified?
He released her, glorying for a moment in how red he’d made her cheeks, then he tweaked her nose and set his steps outside. “See you soon,” he called out with a wave.
“Yes.” A breathless response to make him hard.
A quick walk across the cold fields would fix that, and by the time he reached the dower house, he had control of himself once more. One night without sinking himself inside her, and he was hard and needy as a randy youth. He heaved himself up the stairs and slipped into the bedchamber where he’d worked the last few days, replacing rotted floorboards. He opened the window all the way, rummaged through his toolbox for the little wooden figure, and placed it on the sill, waiting and ready. Hefound a rhythm while he worked that stripped away time, and soon, a door downstairs opened and closed. Clara.
He heard the muffled thuds of heavy things being moved around. Then a bit of silence. Then she began to sing. A warbling off-tune ditty. Naughty. Sung with complete abandon. And, like every day, Atlas sang along, mumbling beneath his breath, setting the rhythm of his movements to the tune, letting the hours of work sink into his muscles.
The branches outside the window rustled and bowed, then Alfie slipped onto the windowsill, swinging his legs. He picked up the wooden figure, held him up for a good look. Atlas continued working. The boy had five figures now, carved by Atlas’s hands, delivered one at a time via windowsill as he worked. The figures would be the perfect size for the boats Alfie had surely acquired today. They were like little toy soldiers but without their regimental finery. Atlas had dressed them, instead, in waistcoats and top hats. They were the men the soldiers would have become had they returned to their homes, to their families.
His father had made similar toys for Atlas, men and women of all stripes—soldiers with bayonets and painters with brushes, bakers with trays of loaves and mothers with babies on their hips. Were they housed with the boats his mother had dug out today? Atlas’s happy childhood memories covered in dust. But what did dust matter when his father had taught him how to carve? That gift better than all the others, because now he could use it to put a smile on another young boy’s face. Atlas knew what it was like to lose a father, to love a man whose actions confused you, angered you. He wanted Alfie to have better memories than his own, and while he remained at Briarcliff, he could give the boy the best of his own memories without the shadows.
Alfie bounced as he considered the figure, grinned. “Pope. Bet you can’t use that word.”
Atlas lowered his tools, the world growing dim as a wave of words washed over him. He grasped a few of them, just right to make the boy laugh. “How’s this? There once was a stinky pope”—Alfie giggled, and Atlas tried not to—“Who never used any soap. He shunned all tubs and never did scrub as much as everyone did hope.”
Alfie collapsed with laughter against the windowsill, and Atlas lunged for him, steadied the boy’s precarious balance.
“Careful, my boy.” His heart settled back down into his chest, still beating fast. “Careful.”
Downstairs, a door opened once more, and Clara’s warbling stopped. Footsteps, then Clara appeared in the doorway. His wife wore a pair of loose-fitting breeches and a man’s shirt tucked into them. She wore a pair of old men’s boots, too, and something a bit like a spencer over the top of the shirt. She wore stays beneath. He felt that garment as he wrapped her up in an arm and kissed her softly on the forehead. He might never become accustomed to Clara in her work clothes. The sight knocked the breath right out of him every damn time. Clara in breeches should be illegal. Every curve a temptation.
Her face softened when her gaze landed on them.
“Look, Mama!” Alfie held up the figure. “Another one.”
“Most excellent,” Clara said. “Did you thank Lord Atlas?”
“He doesn’t have to,” Atlas grumbled.
But Alfie thanked him anyway and pocketed the figure. He scampered back down the tree, and Clara ran to the window, stood with Atlas there, watching the boy climb down.
“Where are you going?” she demanded. “Franny has come with a repast.”
“I know.” Alfie dropped his body below a branch, holding on with just his hands. “I know. That’s where I’m going.”
“You could use the door to the hallway!”
He dropped.
Clara yelped.
But the boy landed on his feet. “I’ll stump you, Atlas!” he called out from below.
