When She Loved Me (Regency Rogues: Redemption Book 1)

by Rebecca Ruger

  Returned downstairs and to the steward’s office, she was heartily disgruntled to find Trevor there, exchanging seething glares with Ian. Mr. Adams had his nose pressed into an old ledger and seemed to pay no heed to the two men squaring off. She bade him a pleasant hello and turned to Trevor. “If you will excuse us, we are to have a private meeting.”

  “Assuming this meeting has something to do with the abbey, I think I’ll exercise my right as owner to sit in.” He met and held her gaze, his own no less annoyed than hers. Nonchalantly, he flopped into a chair slightly removed from the desk behind which Mr. Adams sat with the books.

  Truly, she had no idea why he had come. She didn’t even know if she had the stamina to delve into the possible reasons with him. She resented mightily that his simple presence had so quickly twisted her heart in knots. It wasn’t often that she lied to her inner self, so she had to acknowledge—if only to herself—that there might still exist a tiny spark of hope. She couldn’t seem to think of him without recalling his once-upon-a-time smiles for her, or without remembering the day he’d taken her to the picture gallery, how he’d walked alongside her with his hands folded behind his back while she’d chirped away. She needn’t call up a memory—it was a current condition—of his weakening effect upon her. If she dared to bring to mind the feel of him, touching her, kissing her, that undisputed joy that had spiraled through her, she would no doubt run directly to his arms, begging for more. Funny, how a person could neglect to recall all the horrid things about a person when faced with carnal attraction. Love truly is blind, she guessed. However, she was not about to make the same mistake twice. She’d given her heart once to Trevor and he had ill-used it to such a degree, she’d wallowed here at Lesser House for nigh on a year. Never again would she allow any man so much control over her very being, over the governance of her soul.

  So, Nicole simply pretended that he was not at all in the steward’s office, and then preceded to carry on with her meeting with Ian and Mr. Adams as she would any other business engagement that dealt with Lesser House and its tenants. And bless Mr. Adams, their nearest neighbor with holdings, for his invaluable input, and his perceived indifference to Trevor’s presence. She’d not bothered to introduce him—that should stick in Trevor’s craw—so the man paid him no mind. And dear Ian followed her lead, giving no indication, when the meeting had seriously begun, that Trevor even sat in the room, stewing at the both of them.

  Stewing did not begin to convey the exact extent of his boiling rage. Trevor sat sloppily in the chair, his body completely attuned to every move she made, every word she spoke. Admittedly, while she confessed to knowing little about their discussion topic—hence Mr. Adams’ input, it appeared—she asked intelligent questions and several of her supposed summaries of what the long-winded Mr. Adams was trying to get at seemed rather accurate to Trevor’s mind. Even that Ian fellow, bastard though he was, seemed firstly, to have a great desire for this incoming knowledge, and secondly, to pick it up as quickly as Nicki did.

  She moved, right now, in a specifically male world, one in which even Trevor was still fairly ignorant, but she moved well. She was not cowed by Mr. Adams greatness of knowledge, nor was she unable to grasp what, at times, appeared to Trevor to be a foreign language spewed from the man’s mouth. She weighed his wisdom and experience with her own instinct, and made firm decisions, always—annoyingly—in perfect agreement with Ian.

  They worked well as a team, Trevor concluded, with a bitter taste in his mouth. She was right. He hadn’t anyone to blame but himself. His choices were what had brought her to this very moment right now. She was debating several different types of thatch to use, where best to purchase it, and when best to replace the old all because of him. Under normal circumstances, this would not be her life. Trevor was horrified to realize that she was good at this, that she seemed happy doing this. She didn’t need him as he’d supposed she might.

  She was no longer the girl he’d left crying in the drive.

  It terrified him all of a sudden that he might have created a circumstance that he was unable to reverse. He’d spent the first few months after depositing her here, still angry that she’d betrayed him as she had. His meetings and discussions with the baron, prior to and after the wedding, aside from being extremely unfriendly—he’d expected nothing less, indeed had not balked when the baron insisted that he marry Nicole—had gained him only her modest dowry. True, it had put him in a better position than he’d hoped, but it had not solved all his problems. That was still a work in progress, having sold off two smaller holdings, both in Scotland, which had bought him more funds and then time to right the remainder of his finances. There was certainly some irony in the fact that with Nicole’s dowry and the sale of those properties and many other changes to the way the estates and remaining holdings of Leven were run, it appeared he might recover from what had seemed like, when he’d betrothed himself to Sabrina, imminent financial ruin. It would be a long time coming, getting his head above water, but he felt confident that he had a good grasp on the estate as a whole, and that time, and continued prudent management, would see him right, eventually.

  Around Christmas time, he’d thought of her often. It had come to him, that betrayal or no, his circumstance was all of his own doing. He’d been the pursuer, and the seducer. Until that last occasion, she had resisted stalwartly all his attempts, and rightly so. It was only his unmanageable desire for her that had caused him this harm. Her part in it, whatever that truly might have been, was inconsequential, when the matter was taken as a whole. And so, he’d begun to think of her more and more, had thought of sending for her, thinking she might come running. He laughed bitterly within right now—that apparently would not have happened. The truth was, however, he’d been afraid. Afraid of what he might find, or how he might be received, and so he’d dallied and dawdled until her grandmother had come to him, her objective clear and her arsenal loaded. That had been several weeks ago. He’d known that everything the dowager countess had said then was true, but it had still taken him almost another month to find the courage to come for her.

  And his fears had proven true. The thing he’d feared the most, the loss of her, the death of her affection, was reality after all.

  But had he lost her completely? The very idea sent a sudden ache through his chest. He could not let it be. He would exhaust every available means to have her back, to have her smile at him as she had done once.

  When the meeting seemed to be drawing to a close, long after the threesome seemed to have forgotten his very presence, Trevor sat a little straighter, and watched Nicki bid a polite farewell and thank you to Mr. Adams. Just as that man left, the odd and crooked butler, Franklin appeared, requesting Ian’s assistance in some matter, leaving Nicki looking about, as if she’d like to bolt as well.

  Trevor stood, drawing her gaze to him. “Walk with me.”

  “I beg your pardon,” she said, as if surprised that he spoke at all.

  “I said walk with me, take a stroll outside.” It was easy then to keep his tone level, when he considered all that he could lose if he screwed up again.

  “I haven’t time,” she resisted. “There is much to do yet. I’ve the pantry to inventory, and luncheon will be—“

  “Just walk with me,” he coaxed, still his voice was even.

  Damn her, but she shook her head, staring longingly at the door, and within the minute, she was through it, having escaped him. Trevor sighed audibly but considered her defiance his due. Patience, he thought, I only need to be patient.

  The day carried on, this household moved along without pause for his presence then. He thought to join her for luncheon but found her not at all in either of the two dining rooms, and not in the breakfast room. Thinking she might be taking her meal out of doors, he walked out upon the courtyard terrace, where he recalled his father had often liked to sit. She was not there. Wondering then how he might come about a meal for himself, he decided he hadn’t any choice but to find the
kitchens and request one.

  And there was Nicole, sitting at an old painted wooden table, the servant’s table, happily engaged in conversation with both Franklin and Abby, and that bothersome Ian, along with one other young maid, a slim, dark haired girl, and two young men. They turned as one as he pushed open the swinging door, staring at him as if no one had ever intruded upon their cozy little gathering before. Upon the table were empty dishes—apparently their own lunches—so that they only remained now, evidently, to keep company.

  After a long quiet moment in which everyone just stared at him, Abby finally pulled herself up from the table and begrudgingly offered him something to eat.

  Trevor accepted graciously and might have taken a seat at the table, but Abby said while she gathered items, “I’ll put your meal in the gold dining room.” To which, he might have replied that he would be happy to eat right here, but one by one, as they continued to regard him with wary eyes, people left the table, suddenly recalling chores to be done. The small unknown maid skittered by him without so much as a glance. Franklin clucked his tongue as if Trevor’s disagreeable presence had ruined a satisfying meal. Ian gave him another silent snarl, stating his unchanged opinion, as it were. And Nicki cast him only one short and tight-lipped glance, before she too left the room. The two very young footmen followed closely on her heels, though it was apparent they only followed suit and hadn’t offered any opinion of him upon their hasty departure.

  Bereft now of any company, Trevor sank onto the bench at the table, uncaring that Abby might have preferred him gone from her kitchen.

  Chapter Ten

  Nicole rose early the next morning, as she often did, and pulled on a dressing gown over her night rail. It was still dark in the house, the sun not yet risen. She slid her feet into her soft slippers and went downstairs. In the kitchen, she started the fires at both the large and smaller fireplaces, as she’d been taught to do. She filled a basin with water from the barrel tucked into one corner of the kitchen. There was a second barrel in the scullery and Ian was very good at keeping these filled for the household’s use from the well outside the kitchens. She set a huge kettle to boil over the larger fireplace, knowing this would take some time.

  Carefully, she returned to her room with her filled basin, at the opposite end of the hall than the master suites and closed the door by kicking it with her foot once she was through. She stripped herself of her robe and night rail and spent some time on her toilet, washing her face and arms and hands and cleaning her teeth. She dressed quickly in one of her muslin gowns, still wearing pastels as that was all she’d owned prior to her marriage. The silks she’d packed for what she thought was to be her wedding trip hung unused and useless in the wardrobe since her coming. She tied a kerchief around her head, knowing she hadn’t any planned outings or visitors today, and added her more serviceable walk-about slippers, as they were better suited to the daily chores of the household.

  With that, she left her room and skipped down to the first floor, where she found the kitchen still empty—Abby and Lorelei and Franklin wouldn’t rise for another hour or so—and grabbed up a bucket and rags from the scullery. The water from the kettle was only just warm now and she dumped half of this into the bucket, leaving the rest for breakfast needs and morning tea.

  She found the small wooden cart that Ian had made for her, with the pole handle and the four wheels and placed the bucket on this, using the handle to steer it out of the kitchen and down the corridor, across the entire length of the house to the library at the opposite end.

  This room was by far her favorite, but it was also the room most in need of attention. It was easily twice the size of what she had once imagined was a grand library at the Kent house in Mayfair. It sat on the northwest corner of the house and two entire walls were made up entirely of windows, from floor to impossibly high ceiling. The remaining two walls housed the manor’s complete library, in shelves that stretched from floor to ceiling—twenty-four shelves in each column and twenty-four columns upon those two walls. She’d started cleaning this room in January and had spent several hours, several days a week about this chore. She’d managed to clean the entire center of the room—the ornate and now gleaming wooden desk, the smaller free-standing book shelves, the fabulous Aubusson carpets, the many chaises, chairs, and settees, the beautiful and well-preserved hardwood floors all gleamed now as if they’d been regularly attended over the last decade. Now, she had only the built-in bookcases to address. She’d finished only two as of yet and Franklin had teased her that by the time she’d gotten through cleaning each and every book and shelf in this room, she would likely have to start over just to keep it up.

  She moved the library’s ladder to where she’d left off, sliding it along the rail near the top of the shelves, and climbed up with the bucket and rags in one hand, the other hand on each rung of the ladder as she ascended. At the top, she moved several books out of the way and set the bucket onto the shelf. She was by now, quite comfortable with this height, and working upon and around the ladder but still managed just now to accidentally drop a dusty tome to the ground.

  “There goes Voltaire,” she said to herself just now as it crashed with a loud thud on the floor directly below her.

  She began the tedious but rather mindless job of cleaning the cover of each book and scrubbing each shelf as she went. Previously, this monotony had allowed her to focus her mind on what other chores or business she had set for the day, but today she found that her mind could think of little else but Trevor. She had yet to think of him as her husband. While they’d been married almost a year, they had spent so few hours together, she might count them on one hand.

  But why had he come? And why, when he’d been received so poorly by every person under this roof, had he stayed? Abby had accosted her late yesterday wondering, “What’s to be done with ‘im, miss? He wants to stay the night!” Nicole had worried her bottom lip, hoping it was only for one night, and had instructed Abby to put him in the master’s chamber. She tried not to be bothered by this and knew her friends all understood when she chose instead to take her supper in her room, fearful of the earl finding his way once again to the kitchens and forcing himself upon their private meal. But that had been poorly done, she’d decided much later last night. She would henceforth not allow Trevor’s presence to upset any of her routine. He hadn’t that right. If he wanted to sit in on their daily luncheons or dinner, so be it. He’d find no great welcome, she knew, and thought it might actually assist in speeding along his departure.

  She hadn’t allowed him much explanation yesterday, being as she was so shocked by his presence, and then so rattled, but she hoped he was only here to be curious, as she’d suggested to Ian, and that he would leave soon and let them get back to their lives here at the abbey. What little he had shown her yesterday had been a great reminder of how unyielding and implacable he could be, trying to control her still.

  Obviously, she was still unsettled, she thought, as another book slipped from her hands.

  “Apologies to Mr. Pope,” she said, grabbing up the next volume.

  “You have no liking for Eloisa to Abelard?”

  Nicole started, having to grab at the ladder to keep herself from falling off it. She clutched her arm fully around the side rail and glanced down the twenty or so feet to where stood Trevor at the bottom, holding both fallen tomes in his hands, staring down at them as if he might discover the reasons for her tossing them about. He was dressed simply in fawn colored breeches and a white lawn shirt, his hair and eyes gleaming as he lifted his gaze to her.

  “It slipped,” she said softly and faced the shelves before her again, closing her eyes, praying for an equilibrium she certainly did not feel. When he said nothing else, she looked down again to where he stood but found him gone from the foot of the ladder and now settled behind the desk in the middle of the room. He’d placed upon the desk a newspaper—either brought with him or procured from the village sometime yesterday, as the abbey re
ceived no daily paper— and began to peruse it leisurely, much to Nicole’s annoyance.

  She might have insisted that he leave this room, make use of any of the other thirty-six rooms in this house, but held her tongue. She’d be damned if she would allow him to know how much his presence alone affected her. With an outward air of calmness, she continued with her chore, being now more careful to not let any more books tumble to the floor. She knew that he watched, or at the very least, stole glances at her. She could just feel his blue eyes upon her, tickling the hair at her neck.

  After several minutes, in which time she was able to resume her work with some degree of composure, his voice reached her again.

  “Are you familiar with a Louisa Cornell?”

  Nicole held onto the ladder, only slightly turning her head toward him. “Yes. We shared the same dance instructor and sometimes lessons as well.”

  “Hmm,” he said, peering at the paper before him. “Seems she ran off to Gretna Green last week and eloped with one John Rothwell.”

  Several things struck Nicole just then. First, that her friend, whom she’d liked quite well and had thought most sensible, had taken up with such a glorified dandy as Rothwell to the extent of actually running off with him, and secondly, but just as significant, Trevor’s casual attempt to...what? Simply make small talk with her? Offer a prelude to more serious conversation? Fill the quiet air with sound?

  “Is that so?” She asked, for lack of a better response. She attended once again the cleaning of the library shelves, deciding whatever his purpose, she’d not let it or him disturb her.

  After another minute or so, she heard, “This might interest you as well—‘On Thursday morning an engagement took place at Hyde Park between a Mr. F— of the city, and Lieutenant P— of the Navy, attended by their seconds; the first fire wasted; then they closed to six paces, and fired a second time. The ball of Lieutenant P—passed through the right thigh of Mr. F—. A surgeon was present, and by his care, we are happy to state that no danger is to be apprehended from the wound. The squabble between the parties arose on Monday last’.”