Not Quite a Lady

by Loretta Chase

  She was sweating. Why had she not thought to have a servant open the windows?

  “Nothing happened,” she said.

  “Something did happen,” he said. “I may be a blockhead but I do understand my duty.”

  He advanced and, to her horror, sank down on one knee.

  She retreated a pace. “No! Get up! You must get up.”

  “If I stand I won’t be abject enough,” he said. “By rights I ought to crawl on my belly.”

  “Mr. Carsington, really,” she said. “How can you be so medieval?”

  “Medieval?”

  “Yes. It was—it was nothing. Good heavens, I am twenty-seven years old. Really. You must get up. If you do not, I will not listen to you.” She edged around him and started toward the door.

  “You must,” he said. “I have been tormented like—like—well, I’m not sure what, but it’s deuced unpleasant and it’s either this or hit my head against the door, repeatedly, until I’m unconscious.”

  She stopped and turned and stared at him. “What on earth are you talking about?”

  “I’m here to apologize,” he said. “For my stupidity and ingratitude and—and close-mindedness. Instead of fussing about curtains and wall coverings, you undertook a project of economic value to Beechwood. A great many men would not have seen the potential of that pit of filth on my property. You did. I most humbly beg your pardon for my childish, ungentlemanly behavior. I should have gone on my knees to thank you, instead of mocking and spurning your work and care in my dairy.”

  A wave of relief and happiness flooded through her. It was even better than the happiness she’d felt yesterday when the servants left and she could stand back and simply enjoy the satisfaction of a job well done. She had felt so proud of herself…and so disappointed in his reaction.

  If only she’d had the good sense to walk out then, instead of trying to explain herself, trying to win an acknowledgment, a sign of approval.

  She’d learned her lesson, though. She would keep her distance from now on. “The dairy,” she said. “Oh.”

  He rose. “Yes, the dairy.” His golden eyes narrowed and focused, falconlike, on her. “What did you think I came to say?”

  What else but “Marry me”? To answer yes was out of the question. He’d find out she wasn’t the innocent he thought she was, and he’d hate her for deceiving him. Naturally she must say no…but oh, it was a great relief not to have to deal with that wretched business at all.

  “Nothing,” she said brightly. “Thank you. I accept your apology. I must be going.” She continued toward the door.

  He swiftly overtook her and blocked her exit. “You thought I was offering matrimony,” he said. “That was why you looked so frightened.”

  “I was not frightened,” she lied. “I was shocked. I could not believe that a man of your—of your progressive inclinations would believe it necessary to—to…propose marriage.” She swallowed. “Because of…a minor incident.”

  His eyebrows went up. “A minor incident like a kiss,” he said, his voice very low. “And an orgasm. But do you know,” he added meditatively, “marriage did not strike me as an appropriate course of action.”

  And why does this fail to surprise me? she thought. What rake would ever consider marriage appropriate?

  “Good,” she said. “Because it would be silly.” She remembered the right thing she’d found to say yesterday, the way to make him hate her.

  She lifted her chin and put her nose up and said, “I told you that the episode didn’t signify.”

  “The episode,” he said. “You mean when I put my tongue down your throat and lifted your skirts and put my hand on your pudenda in that hardly-worth-mentioning way.”

  “It would be good of you not to mention it,” she said.

  “I’m not good,” he said.

  “That much I have ascertained for myself,” she said. “And now if you would be so good—I mean to say, if you would refrain from blocking the door, I should like to take myself someplace where you are not.”

  He pulled the door fully open. She marched through it, her chin so high that her neck ached.

  “Just one thing,” he said.

  “Yes?” she said without turning around.

  “You won’t put the dirt back in the dairy?” he said.

  “Certainly not,” she said. “That would be childish. Good day, Mr. Carsington.”

  She sailed away in all her haughty state, back poker straight, nose aloft.

  “Look out!” a young voice called.

  Too late.

  She felt the bucket before she saw it. Her foot struck it at the same time she heard the warning, and the bucket toppled over, spilling water. She stopped short, but her thin-soled shoes slid on the wet floor. She tottered first one way then the other, trying to get her balance, but she couldn’t. One foot went out from under her, and she saw the floor coming up to meet her…

  Then strong arms lashed about her, pulling her up and back. She fell back against Mr. Carsington, her heart beating too fast, her breath coming too quick and shallow.

  It all happened quickly and could have ended quickly. As soon as she became aware of the strength and warmth of the body bracing hers, as soon as she realized she was sinking there, her brain softening, she started to pull away.

  Then she saw him.

  A boy looking up at her, eyes wide.

  He was saying something and Mr. Carsington was saying something but she couldn’t make out the words through the drumming in her ears. She saw the child, then she couldn’t see him because everything was blurry, suddenly.

  She drew in a long, unsteady breath and let it out. She closed her eyes and opened them again.

  He was still there and it wasn’t a dream. It wasn’t a fancy.

  Pale gold hair with a wayward curl and the world’s most obstinate cowlick.

  Her hair.

  But the eyes weren’t hers.

  One was blue, one hazel.

  Geordie’s eyes.

  Don’t faint, she told herself. Whatever you do, don’t faint.

  Chapter 8

  Darius expected Lady Charlotte to break away from him, with an elbow to his ribs for emphasis. Instead she went still, very still. In that strange stillness he became too aware of his hands on her waist and the scent of her and the smooth skin of her neck, inches from his mouth.

  His hands itched to move upward—and downward and sideways and everywhere. He could draw her back into the room and close the door and…

  Oh, yes, there was a brilliant idea.

  Let go. Now. And go away. Far away.

  Before he could do so, he felt a tremor go through her. Had she twisted her ankle when she tripped? Sprained it?

  “Are you all right?” he said.

  The boy spoke at the same time: “I’m so sorry, your ladyship. I saw that bucket when I came by the first time. I knew it oughtn’t to be left there.” He looked ready to cry.

  “Never mind, never mind—Pip, is it?” Darius said.

  The boy nodded, his worried gaze on Lady Charlotte. “It’s actually Philip, your ladyship. Philip Ogden. But everyone calls me Pip. I knew that bucket oughtn’t to be left there, but Mr. Tyler was shouting for me. I meant to come right back but I didn’t get here quick enough.”

  “No harm done,” Darius said. “Her ladyship isn’t hurt.” I hope. “Still, the floor is slippery, and someone else might take a tumble. Find a maid, as quick as you can, to mop it up.”

  “Yes, sir.” The boy was off like a shot.

  “Are you all right?” Darius asked her.

  “Yes, yes.”

  “You can stand on your own? You haven’t sprained an ankle?”

  “No.”

  He let go of her waist but as he moved to one side of her, she grasped his arm. He looked at her. Her face was as pale as death. His heart pumped harder. “What’s wrong?” he said. “You look as though you’ve seen a ghost. Did you see your life flash past you? I should have thought yo
u’d be accustomed to falling on your face. Really, you are the clumsiest woman I’ve ever met.”

  “I need some air,” she said.

  No flash of the blue eyes, no cutting answer. Truly alarmed now, he swept her up into his arms.

  She didn’t object. She did not beat on his shoulders or slap him or box his ears or even try to crush his vanity. She closed her eyes and rested her head on his shoulder. “I need some air,” she said.

  He carried her back into the room where he’d found her, crossed to the nearest window, and deposited her on the window seat. He flung open the window. She leaned on the sill, facing outward but with her eyes closed.

  He sat beside her, anxiously studying her face. By degrees, the color began to return.

  Finally, she opened her eyes, turned away from the window, and met his gaze. “How odd,” she said. “For a moment I felt quite lightheaded. Perhaps it was from poking about in that musty trunk. Though today is cool enough, I should have had the windows opened. Or perhaps the dizziness was a delayed reaction to the shocking sight of you on bended knee. And the shocking sound of you apologizing.”

  “You couldn’t be half as shocked as I was, having to do it,” he said. Her color was returning but all was not well. The tautness at the corners of her eyes bespoke pain. Her voice was thin and fragile.

  “I should have sent the lad for a glass of water,” he said. “Shall I summon a servant? It’s not as though we’ve a shortage of them.” He looked about the room. “Are the bellpulls working?”

  “I don’t need a glass of water,” she said. “It was nothing. A momentary dizziness. I’m quite recovered.”

  He didn’t think she was.

  He wasn’t, certainly. His gut was in knots.

  She had been very ill at one time, for a long time, he remembered. Had the ailment returned?

  “It must have been a combination of events,” he said. He had to concentrate to keep his tone light. “My shocking apology following all your hard work of emptying the trunk. I shall not ask why you didn’t let a maid do it while you sat here, supervising.”

  “You should not have to ask,” she said. “Can you not see how boring it is always to have someone else do everything, even the lightest tasks? Can you not understand how tiresome it is, always to be looking on, never to be doing? But you would not understand, because you are a man, and you do not have someone hovering over you constantly and doing for you and watching you as though you were completely helpless and brainless.”

  “You are out of sorts, I see,” he said. “Perhaps it is the menses.”

  She shot him one of her I-must-kill-you-now looks.

  A promising sign.

  “Many women become weakened during the menses because of the loss of blood,” he said. “That would account for your lightheadedness. The imbalance this loss of blood causes to the bodily system no doubt explains the irritability that is so often a symptom as well.”

  She gazed at him for a long moment. “Have you any idea,” she said, “how aggravating you are?”

  She was definitely recovering her spirits.

  A weight lifted from his. “I should like to know how I could fail to have an idea of it,” he said, “since everyone in my family tells me, repeatedly. My grandmother in particular. She says that of all the aggravating men in the family—and that includes Rupert, she always takes care to remind me—I am the most aggravating. That, according to her, is my most remarkable achievement.”

  Lady Charlotte looked away from him and out of the window. She folded her hands in her lap and gave a little sigh. Then she turned her gaze to the trunk.

  “You might soften your grandmother’s feelings if you gave her one of the fans,” she said. “They are splendid.”

  “Grandmother Hargate cannot be softened,” he said. “Melting granite would be easier. Still, she does like fripperies.”

  He left the window seat and went to the trunk. “What a curious conglomeration of artifacts,” he said, squatting to take up one of the masks. “Lady Lithby said you found it in the dairy, of all places.”

  He heard her light footsteps approaching. He didn’t look up. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the hem of her dress, and the thin-soled, soft kid shoes, tied with ribbons and water-spotted. He remembered putting his hands on her feet and following the rise of her instep. He remembered the feel of her legs under his hand and the whisper of her stockings. He remembered the miraculous softness between her legs…and the way she’d trembled under his touch.

  He felt a stab of something. Regret? Frustration? Who could say what it was? Feelings of some kind. Exactly what he didn’t need.

  Resolutely he gathered his wayward thoughts, shoved them into a distant recess of his mind, and planted his full attention on the chest’s contents.

  “I’ve no idea how it ended up there,” she said. “We found a great deal else that didn’t belong, but those were all discards: broken furniture and such. When the servants opened the trunk, I expected to find a nest of mice or a lot of decayed rubbish. But it was supremely well made, as you see. The lid fits snugly. The mice didn’t get in, and nothing seems the worse for damp.”

  “It looks like a seaman’s chest,” he said. “Made to withstand abuse and wet.”

  He noticed the letters. “More of Lady Margaret’s mad wills, do you think?” he said. “Or love letters?”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “There may be a story in that trunk. I shall leave you and your brilliant mind to get to the bottom of it.”

  The light footsteps moved away, the door closed, and when he looked up, she was gone.

  Don’t look for him, Charlotte told herself when the door closed behind her and she stood in the corridor.

  The bucket was gone and the floor was dry. A maid had come, done her work, and departed speedily.

  The maid the boy had run away to summon.

  Don’t look for him.

  How many fair-haired women did Great Britain hold? How many women had Geordie Blaine bedded and abandoned? How many bastards had he left behind? And what of his family? He had siblings, cousins. Any number of others, the most distant relations or no relation at all, might have those eyes. Others might have left their by-blows throughout the length and breadth of England—and Wales, Scotland, and Ireland besides. And who was to say the child was anybody’s bastard? For all one knew, one of the boy’s parents, properly wed to the other, had those eyes.

  The cowlick needn’t be Charlotte’s, either: the obstinate tuft at the back of her head, the bane of Molly’s existence. The boy’s cap could have made indentations that appeared to be curls and a cowlick.

  The boy needn’t be ten years, one month, and fifteen days old. He might be eight or nine or eleven or twelve. Some children looked younger than their age, some older. Eight was not too young for an apprentice. Boys went to sea at that age and younger.

  Don’t look for him.

  Put it out of your mind.

  Even if it is he…

  But it isn’t. Put it out of your mind.

  She looked down at her hands. They were shaking again.

  It had taken a supreme effort of will to keep from trembling all that long while she’d made herself stay in the room with Mr. Carsington. She’d made herself stay and speak calmly because she knew that if she didn’t take time, didn’t make herself calm, she would run out and look for the boy.

  She could not have trusted herself with anyone else. Anyone else she might have ignored.

  She couldn’t ignore Mr. Carsington. He called her mind away from the boy—at least a part of her mind—and he annoyed and worried her and kept her feet planted on the ground.

  He called her mind to the trunk and its odd assortment of mementoes. She couldn’t shake off the feeling that it meant something. She knew so little about Lady Margaret. She was one of the numerous daughters of the Earl of Wilmoth, who’d gambled away a great fortune. She’d married Sir William Andover, who came of an old and wealthy Cheshire family.
/>   Charlotte had tried to search her mind for more—fact or rumor—about mad Lady Margaret. She might have stayed and told Mr. Carsington what she knew. The two of them might have tried to piece together the puzzle.

  She couldn’t, not so soon after seeing the child. As strong as Charlotte’s self-control was, she doubted it was strong enough. In speculating about Lady Margaret’s secrets, she was too likely to give away her own.

  Mr. Carsington was a typically thickheaded male in so many typically male ways. In so many other ways, however, he was exceedingly quick and observant.

  She’d stayed with him only until she was sure she could trust herself not to hunt down the boy.

  Don’t look for him, she told herself. Nothing can come of it but grief.

  And so she continued down the hall and down the stairs, and in time, out of the house, looking nowhere for nobody.

  Though the trunk offered a glimpse into times long gone, it was not intriguing enough to take Darius’s mind off Lady Charlotte.

  The boy Pip and his worried look, however, nagged at Darius even more insistently.

  Any of scores of people might be responsible for a bucket forgotten in the corridor. Workmen crawled and climbed, scraped and hammered and carved and sawed throughout the house. Servants filled the remaining spaces. Any one of these hordes might have set a bucket of water down and forgotten it.

  And any one of them would be happy to blame someone else, like a young apprentice. Any intelligent young apprentice would look worried, too, in such a case, seeing a beating in his future.

  True, Darius had had his share of beatings and did not consider himself much the worse for it. He’d deserved his punishments, however. So far as he could determine, Pip did not. Yet the lad must have been beaten undeservedly or badly in the past to look so anxious.

  The concern was sufficient to make Darius abandon the trunk for the time being and seek the boy’s master.

  Since others were at work in the master bedroom, Darius summoned Tyler to his study and shamelessly adopted his father’s intimidating mode. He sat behind the desk, a letter in front of him, and looked up at the plasterer from under his eyebrows.