Page 18 of Pride of Arm
He raised an angry brow and returned a similarly annoyed gaze. “How easy de ye think these blasted stable stalls are to put together?” Her beloved, albeit stubborn, husband was on his knees on the floor of the nursery at Westmont Manor surrounded by piles of neatly cut and painted wood blocks. She’d bullied him all of the autumn to build a miniature stable identical to the full-sized one he’d built for the current Earl of Westfalia the previous year. Her nephew was about to turn four but was absolutely horse mad already.
Lucy had insisted on taking young Hugh’s nursing baby sister, Victoria, along with them to the Twelfth Night house party at Edgewood Estate hosted by their good friends, the Duke and Duchess of Montfort. Hugh Alexander Josiah Elliott, however, was staying home, because he was an adventurous, fast-moving, tiny devil who could not be trusted to play on his own without close supervision by his nurse, his parents, and the entire household.
After he’d given all of them the slip, there would be sounds of indignation, anger, outright terrified screams, and shouts throughout Westmont Manor followed by a thorough search of the new stables where the imp would always be found. He’d crawl into the stall of his favorite stallion and curl up in a corner, oblivious to the creature’s lethal hooves. One of the grooms would usually find him and deliver the angelic, sleeping boy to his frantic father.
Once after small Hugh had disappeared for over an hour, Lucy had asked Grace pitifully if there were any way to keep such a child safe. If punished, he inevitably fled to Cook who would cosset him with warm cookies and cocoa by the fire before she’d finally alert the rest of the household.
Grace had assured Lucy and Hugh that she and Duncan would not for a minute take their eyes off the wee devil. So far, they’d been successful in keeping him occupied, but his parents had left only the day before, on Boxing Day, after a long round of gift giving in the morning. The remaining days until January fifth yawned long and precarious ahead of them. She’d thought the stable and a set of hand-carved and painted horses would keep small Hugh busy enough to stay out of trouble. However, she hadn’t counted on how difficult putting the whole finished stable together would be.
She and Duncan had been working on the toys for months in the comfort and quiet of the small hunting lodge on the estate that Hugh had gifted them at the time of their wedding five years earlier. They’d been busy restoring the structure into a cozy home ever since.
She’d thought being married to an engineer would make the constructing of things much easier. But, somehow, all the many other projects Duncan had been involved in since that time had seemed to take priority, such as rebuilding the many failing structures around Westmont Manor, not to mention Grace andLucy’s pride and joy, the schoolhouse for the children of the workers and tenants of Westfalia Estate.
“Stop, Poppet,” Grace commanded, whilst young Hugh extended his arms and kicked out his legs, struggling to escape her lap.
Duncan turned and gave her a wicked smile. “Let that naughty boy go.”
“What?” Grace momentarily loosened her grip, and the child vaulted into the middle of the room, scattering the carefully organized piles of wooden pieces in a hundred different directions.
Duncan gripped him gently but firmly by the shoulders and pointed him in the direction of the mess he’d made. “Now that you’ve made a discombobulation of the blocks, Uncle Duncan needs you to stack those scattered wooden pieces into piles of equal sizes.”
Young Hugh gave his uncle an assessing look out of his father’s mocking blue eyes before squatting down on the nursery floor and immediately becoming absorbed in placing similar sizes together in neat piles.
Duncan quietly crawled to the settee where Grace still sat, mesmerized by the first calm endeavor she’d ever observed in the child. Her husband carefully stood, took a seat next to her, and snaked his arm around her shoulders, pulling her close. She breathed in the woodland spices that were Duncan’s alone and sighed. “How long do you think he’ll stay occupied over there?”
Duncan gave the boy a long look. He’d turned away from them in his absorption in putting piles of painted wood pieces together, and seemed not to notice they were there. Her husband turned back and pulled her in for a long kiss.
She pushed hard at his well-muscled shoulders. “Stop—. He’ll see us.”
“I don’t think so,” Hugh insisted, and brushed the pad of a finger over the swell of her breast. “I think that endlessly curious, annoying lad has the makings of an engineer.”
Grace grasped his hand and pushed it away. “What does that have to do with anything?”
“He’s not going to know we’re here for at least an hour.” With that assessment, he resumed his gentle but insistent brushing of the tops of her breasts.
She leaned back into his arms with a sigh and after long minutes of eyeing her nephew who seemed ignorant of anything, or anyone, around him, she had to agree. “And he’s doing all your work for you.”
“Um-hmm,” he whispered and took a long, licking nibble at one of her ears.
Grace suddenly whipped around and stared into his searing blue eyes. “You knew this would happen, didn’t you?” she accused.
“Um-hmm,” he repeated and kissed her throat at the indentation at the base of her neck before working his way a bit farther down with his tongue.
“Clever man.” She stretched her arms above her head and gave a bit of a purr, like one of the many six-toed cats now roaming Westmont Manor as well as Montcliffe Abbey. “I’m so glad I decided to marry you.”