The Matchmaker

by Rexanne Becnel

  “Ach. Be careful,” Mrs. McCaffery cried. “Get back from that ugly beast.”

  A horse immediately cut between Sarah and the stiff-legged cur. Neville’s horse. For a moment she’d forgotten he was still here. Jolted to action, Olivia disembarked from the carriage, her emotions still in flux. “Where is everyone?” she demanded of no one in particular. “I sent word ahead.”

  Neville dismounted. “Old Hamilton is growing deaf.”

  “That shouldn’t affect his ability to read my note. He knew we were arriving tonight.”

  “The lantern on the post would seem to confirm that he expects you. I suspect he dozed off while waiting. But I’ll rouse him.”

  Olivia shook her head. “That’s not necessary. If you would show John to the stables, I can manage matters here at the house.”

  He dipped his head in assent, stroking Robin’s neck with one hand. “Hamilton may not have remembered to hire a girl to assist you.”

  “We can manage—if that dog will cease its infernal barking,” Olivia added in irritation. She reached into the carriage and rummaged around, then, finding a piece of cheese, she marched over to the dog, guarding its domain just at the edge of the lantern’s meager circle.

  “Come along, enough of that,” she cajoled, stooping down to look smaller and less threatening. She threw half the cheese at the mangy-looking creature. The animal jumped back in alarm, but within seconds it sniffed out the treat and gobbled it up. Another piece coaxed it nearer still, and the last portion the dog took from her outstretched palm.

  “There,” Olivia crooned. “You’re noisy enough to keep the job, I suppose. But it’s plain your loyalties are not to be trusted for very long.” When she stood the animal wagged its tail and looked up to her for more.

  “He’s awfully skinny,” Sarah said, sidling up to Olivia. “I think we should name him Bones.”

  “He probably has a name already.” Olivia turned back to Mrs. McCaffery who supervised the removal of their several trunks and bags from the coach. “Well, shall we go in?”

  “Aye. And just wait till I get my hands on that good-for-nothin’ old man,” the stout housekeeper vowed. “I remember him well enough. An old grouch in his prime. No doubt he’s an ancient stick by now.”

  She started toward the house with John and the guard behind her, loaded down with luggage. Sarah squatted down in the gravel and began to pet the now docile mutt. Olivia lingered in the open courtyard, however, and peered curiously around her. She felt a little better already. She’d brought the dog to heel; she could do the same with the house and servants—if there were any servants. Last autumn’s leaves still rotted in a corner near the door, she noticed, and a vine grew out of control across three of the downstairs windows and up the corner onto the slate roof. All tasks she could see to in time.

  “Do you linger outside for a reason?” Neville Hawke’s voice brought her back to the moment.

  “Yes. But not the one you were thinking,” she added, hoping her tart tone hid her sudden nervousness.

  “And which reason is that?” He shifted to stand in front of her. With the lantern behind him he became a tall dark shadow, the silhouette of a man made more dangerous to her by the night, the solitude, and their proximity. The fact that he seemed different here, wilder and in his element, started her already overwrought nerves thrumming with alarm—and anticipation.

  Not at all the reaction she wanted to have toward this particular man.

  “I linger here because … because I am overcome by a surprising mix of memories,” she said, deciding to be honest, or at least relatively so. “This was my home long ago, and now that I am here, I find myself beset by recollections I suppose have long been buried.”

  His eyes seemed to burn into hers. Then he blinked and looked around the barely lit forecourt. “Memories of your father? You know, I remember him too.” He went on without waiting for her response. “I met him several times.”

  “You did?”

  He raked a hand through his hair. “In Kelso once, and a time or two out tramping and shooting in the woods.”

  When he went silent, she pressed him further. “What was your impression of him?”

  He shrugged. “A man’s man. A hale and hearty fellow.”

  Olivia lifted her chin. “I suppose that means he was drunk.”

  Again he shrugged. “That was my impression.”

  Suddenly deflated, Olivia scraped the toe of her leather half-boots in the fine gravel. “Considering your crude behavior last night, it would behoove you to learn the lesson he could not, Lord Hawke. Were it not for his love for spirits, he would be here with us now.” Then knowing she’d said far more than she’d intended, she hurried into the house.

  Neville stood in the forecourt, Robin’s reins in his hand, and watched Olivia disappear. He had no ready reply to her low-pitched words. So she’d heard about his vile behavior last night, behavior he did not even remember. He’d had to ask Bart, and he cringed now to think of the damage he’d inflicted during his drunken dream. Acting out battles fought four years ago.

  Wearily he rubbed the back of his neck. That, at least, explained her coolness toward him today. Her father had been a drunk and she rightfully cast Neville in the same mode. Nor could he could blame her. Cameron Byrde had already been part of the barrier kept so high between them. What she’d heard about last night had only raised it higher. He would have to work even harder now to breach that barrier, and the only way to do that was to quit drinking for good. Not just in public, but for good.

  As hard as that would be, as painful, it was the only way to prove that he was nothing like her profligate father. And that was the only way to win her.

  He paused, staring up at the night sky. Why had it become so important to him to have Olivia? To marry her? This was all Bart’s fault. Bart, with his suggestion that the love of a good woman might be the answer he needed. Bart, who even now was probably being welcomed with open arms by Maisie and their several children.

  Neville let loose a heavy sigh. Whatever the reason, his initial fascination with Olivia had grown into a gnawing need. She was the woman he wanted. The only one. And after all, despite what Bart had said, it wasn’t as if he needed her to actually fall in love with him. He didn’t delude himself on that score. He was not worthy of her love, nor that of any other respectable woman. But lust … Lust would suffice, lust enough to compromise her and convince her that they ought to wed. If he kept her happy on that score, perhaps she would not care about the rest.

  “Would you know whose dog this is?” Sarah’s voice interrupted his somber thoughts. To his right in the yellow lamplight, the girl knelt beside the animal. It lay on its back now, tongue lolling with happiness as she rubbed its stomach. He squatted down beside the two of them.

  “I believe he is the yard dog here. He announces any visitors, keeps other animals away, and cleans up any kitchen scraps.”

  “A yard dog.” Her young face puckered in thought. “Since it’s Livvie’s yard, that would make him Livvie’s dog, wouldn’t it?”

  He grinned. “It would seem so.”

  She grinned back. “Good. I’m going to ask her if I can keep him.” Then her eyes narrowed. “You like her, don’t you?”

  Neville arched one brow. There was no doubt as to whom she referred. “Should I assume whatever answer I make will be delivered straightaway to her?”

  The girl gave him an indignant look. “I can keep a secret as well as anyone.” Then she brightened with an impudent smile that displayed her dimples. “You do like her, don’t you?”

  Neville rubbed the skinny dog belly between them. “The question should more rightly be, does she like me?”

  Sarah’s eyes sparkled with mischief. “Do you want me to find out?”

  He laughed out loud. “No. Don’t do that. She’s suspicious enough of my motives. I don’t need her thinking I’ve corrupted her younger sister.”

  The front door of the manor house opened and John and
the guard trudged out, then toward the stable. Olivia remained in the doorway. “Sarah. Come inside now.”

  “Can I bring Bones?”

  “No.”

  “But what if he leaves in the night?”

  “He won’t,” Neville said.

  “He won’t,” Olivia echoed. “Now come along. It’s late and we’re all very tired.”

  Sarah stood up and the dog did too, shaking himself vigorously, then circling her and beating his ropelike tail against her skirts. “Well, good night, Bones.” She looked up at Neville. “Good night, Lord Hawke. And don’t worry, your secret is safe with me.” Then she scampered off with old Bones trotting beside her.

  The door slammed in the animal’s face, however, and it sat down on the broad flagstone step and stared back at Neville as if bewildered. Neville picked up the lantern and turned toward the barn with Robin and Olivia’s two hired men trailing him. He felt just like that old dog. There were some doors that would always be closed to him, even if Olivia did agree to marry him.

  Olivia did not seek her bed until well after midnight, and even then she lay awake a very long time. They’d found Mr. Hamilton asleep in the kitchen, rattling the rafters with his snoring as he sat at the table, his head resting on his folded arms. A pot of soup kept warm on the banked fire and dishes laid out on a serving tray gave testament to some efforts at a welcome. But otherwise they’d been left to their own devices.

  Mrs. McCaffery had been in a fury, quite ready to knock the chair right out from under the hapless old fellow. But Olivia had sent her a stern look. “It appears he is all done in. We can certainly see to our own needs for one night.”

  Unfortunately, the entire upper story of the rambling stone house seemed not to have been touched in a decade or more. Cobwebs hung from the dark exposed ceiling beams, draping them with dreary gray. A thick layer of dust coated the wood plank floors and gathered in the corners like the filmy clouds of her memory, shrouding the rooms and everything that had ever happened in them. The furnishings, too, were shrouded in dust covers, very likely the same ones placed there when they’d moved to London fifteen years ago.

  As she’d trudged down the long upper hallway, Olivia had hardly known where to start, and on one level, she’d been a little afraid. She would uncover more than mahogany tables and rosewood settees in the days to come. But wasn’t this what she wanted?

  Even the bed linens had been musty. But that, at least, had provided her a starting point. While Sarah had fetched water from the kitchen, Mrs. McCaffery had wielded an old straw broom with a vengeance, and Olivia had located a trunk of fresh linens—fresh if you considered fifteen years of cedar and rosemary scenting fresh.

  It was two hours before they’d bedded down, Olivia in one of the guest chambers and Sarah and Mrs. McCaffery in her old nursery, and they’d all been utterly fagged out. Yet still her eyes remained stubbornly open.

  Tomorrow Mrs. McCaffery would see to the hiring of at least half a dozen house servants and begin a thorough top-to-bottom cleaning. Meanwhile she would play steward and check on the stables, the brew house, the animal pens, the fencing and well house …

  She yawned. There was also that rutted section of roadway that needed repair. And was the roof sound? And the gutters? There was so much to learn, and so much that required her attention, and less than a week to get ready.

  It started to rain, a gentle pelting against the leaded windowpanes. A familiar sound, from her childhood, she realized. When she snuggled into her pillow, her nose twitched at the decades-old scent of rosemary. The rain began a harder rhythm, a regular downpour that was nonetheless pleasant. Once more she yawned and felt the wonderful lassitude of sleep steal over her. She hoped Neville was not caught out in the rain …

  Across the river, less than a mile away as the crow flew, Neville stood in the open window of his, study, staring out into the rain. He held a pipe in his hand, though the bowl had gone cold. Still, the pleasant fragrance of tobacco smoke lingered in the air, a fragrance that would forever remind him of his father—and his mother. For it was she who had always brought the pipe and tobacco pouch to his father after dinner. An altogether unimportant detail of their lives until examined over the distance of too many years and too much loss. Would a woman ever perform such a simple loving task for him?

  Would Olivia Byrde do it?

  He stared out at the rain and let the steady tattoo of a thousand raindrops wash through his mind. It drowned out his fears and all his anxieties, and allowed him, for a few moments at least, the luxury of imagining a different sort of life for himself. Olivia greeting him with open arms and a warm kiss, as Maisie greeted Bart. Olivia dousing the evening lamps, then beckoning him up the stairs to the master’s chamber. Olivia letting her magnificent hair down while he unfastened the buttons of her gown.

  His fist trembled around the pipe as lust rose hot and hard to overtake him.

  God, yes, he could envision such a future for himself, making love to Olivia, to his wife, until dawn, then falling asleep with her in his arms.

  A crack of lightning lit the sky momentarily, then left the world even darker in its wake, and he frowned. Eventually he would fill his nights with Olivia. But for this night and the ones just ahead, nothing had changed. He must manage as he always had: hard work during the day; planning and reading at night; and now his father’s pipe.

  But no liquor. He’d made his decision and he meant to stick with it, no matter how difficult it proved to be. No ale or whisky or brandy or wine. Not anymore.

  He took a deep breath, then slowly exhaled and leaned out past the window into the weather that grew steadily worse. He’d better relight his pipe and pull out the account books, for it looked like a long night ahead for him. A long and lonely night.

  Chapter 17

  Come the morning, with the air washed clean by the overnight storm, the magnitude of the work ahead of them showed more clearly than ever. More depressingly. On the way downstairs Olivia peeked into the several other bedchambers, the ones she must prepare for next week’s houseguests. Even the master’s chamber, which she meant her mother to use, looked completely untouched since her childhood. Billowing ropes of dust, the faded damask window and bed draperies, and the telltale trail of mouse tracks painted a picture of neglect and, unaccountably, of sorrow.

  Olivia closed the door to the room that had been her parents’ private domain, then leaned for a moment back against the door. When she’d suggested this journey to the estate Left to her, she’d not anticipated this assault on her memories, nor upon her emotions.

  She stared down the hall. One part of her mind ticked off a list of tasks and weighed which to tackle first, then second, and so on. But another part of her examined the strange state of mind she found herself in of late. She’d been fine en route to Doncaster. Once there, however, once accosted by the drunken Lord Hawke, everything had begun to unravel.

  But that only proved what she already knew. He was a bad influence on her, and if she were wise, she would keep a healthy distance away from him. Not that she hadn’t known that from their very first encounter. But in Doncaster she’d allowed herself the luxury of baiting him—and being baited by him. An error, she now saw, caused by ego and pride and no small amount of righteous anger. But she was wiser now—notwithstanding those weak moments when she’d gazed upon him sleeping on the carriage seat opposite her.

  She straightened, then repositioned the pins of her apron and patted her hair, tightly drawn back from her brow and twisted into a bun. She had too much to do to waste time considering her unwise attraction to Neville Hawke. If she stayed busy—and stayed well away from him—she would manage just fine.

  A sharp voice and a sudden crash drew her head around. Mrs. McCaffery. Then another voice, an angry old man’s. Olivia started for the stairs. It was going to be a very long day.

  What she found was the grizzled Mr. Hamilton, awake now, with a pot raised in his hand, facing down a fiercely scowling Mrs. McCaffery. Two w
omen cowered behind the old fellow while Sarah peeked wide-eyed past the irate housekeeper.

  “… such a shoddy household as I’ve never seen! It’ll be you thrown out on your ear, you old goat!” Mrs. McCaffery shouted. “Get out of my way, and those pitiful charwomen behind you too!”

  Mr. Hamilton only raised the cast-iron pot higher. “I’m warnin’ you, Bertie McCaffery. Get away from here. You got no call to be givin’ orders in this household!”

  Bertie? Olivia’s alarm eased a bit. Mr. Hamilton knew the starchy Mrs. McCaffery as Bertie?

  “You’re the one as hasn’t got the right,” the steely-eyed woman shot right back at him.

  “Me? I’ve got ev’ry right!” he sputtered, turning red in the face. Then spying Olivia in the doorway, he drew himself up and with a smug smile at “Bertie” set the pot down with a clang. “Good mornin’ to you, Miss Livvie. ’Tis glad I am t’see you safely arrived.”

  “You slept right through her arrival,” Mrs. McCaffery said with a snort. “The bedrooms were a shambles. No water. Dust on everything.”

  “Please, Mrs. McCaffery.” Olivia held up one hand. “We’ve much to do, and casting blame will neither lighten our task nor speed its solution.”

  The housekeeper hiked up her chin, crossed her arms, and shifted her glare to Olivia. “Never tell me you’re going to ignore this shirker’s vast failings and allow him to—”

  “I’m no shirker, you old battle—”

  “I am in charge here!”

  Everyone drew back at Olivia’s unladylike bellow. That she stamped her foot and planted her fists on her hips for emphasis seemed to impress the four servants.

  From Sarah, however, it drew only a giggle, which she promptly smothered when Olivia fixed her with a sharp look. “You may begin your tasks by stripping the bed linens from all the beds, Sarah. All of them. Starting now,” she added when Sarah opened her mouth to object. Then Olivia turned on the servants.

  Mr. Hamilton made a hasty bow that looked painful in one so bent and gray. “Welcome back, Miss Livvie. ’Tis a bonnie lass you’ve become.”