Her intention had been unmistakable—and very much in accordance with his plans. And yet…
And yet, he’d drawn back from her, as sharply as Miss Hayes had drawn back from him that day under the yew tree.
It had annoyed Henrietta. And it had left Alex angry and confused—and more resolved than ever to avoid Laura Hayes.
She stood at the tall window near her brother’s desk, her slim hands clasped loosely in front of her. Her dress was clearly her Sunday best. It was dark blue silk, with unflounced skirts, wide sleeves, and a delicate velvet ribbon belt. A dated fashion, but it flattered her figure, brought out the blue of her eyes, and gave her fair skin a luminous glow. “Mr. Archer has come to Lower Hawley to court Henrietta Talbot,” she said.
Alex stiffened. More than anyone else in the village, Miss Hayes saw him for exactly what he was. A fortune hunter. A villain. Even so, something about her blunt statement rankled.
“Miss Laura?” the housekeeper’s voice sounded from the threshold. “Your aunt is asking for you.”
“Yes, Mrs. Crabtree. In a moment.” Miss Hayes looked to her brother. “Will you—”
“I’ll be fine.”
“Very well.” She cast Alex a brief glance as she passed. “If you’ll excuse me.”
He inclined his head. “Miss Hayes.”
No sooner had she gone than Teddy met Alex’s eyes, his brows lifted in enquiry. “Henrietta Talbot? Not my sister, then?”
Alex went still. He’d thought no one else could discern his burgeoning attraction, but—Good lord. How obvious was it? “Are you asking me if I’m courting your sister?”
“Are you?”
“I don’t have that honor, no.”
Teddy frowned. He had a sharp face, thinner than his sister’s but no less striking. “She’s not without protection, you know.”
“You?” Alex felt an unexpected pang of sympathy for the boy.
“And my Aunt Charlotte.”
“I see I shall have to watch my step.”
Teddy reached for some of the papers on his desk. They appeared to be half-finished sketches made with pen and ink. “I must thank you for looking after my aunt.”
“Not at all.”
“She has a dodgy heart. The doctor makes her take syrup of digitalis. It’s sufficient for now, but one day…” He shuffled his papers. “My sister doesn’t think I realize.”
“Your sister is the one who manages the household? Not your aunt?”
“Aunt Charlotte?” Teddy gave a short laugh. “No. It’s Laura who looks after us.”
Alex wasn’t entirely surprised. Of course Miss Hayes was the one shouldering all of the family burdens. Doubtless she’d been doing so since her father’s death. No wonder she was searching for a way to salvage the remnants of the family business. To recover her brother’s paltry inheritance from the clutches of their unscrupulous solicitor.
“You haven’t rescued me from anything,” she’d told him that day alongside the road. “No one can.”
A knot of helpless frustration settled in his midsection. There was nothing he could do to save Miss Hayes. Nothing that wouldn’t jeopardize his own plans. He was risking enough just being here. Henrietta Talbot was a jealous creature. When she learned that he’d driven Miss Hayes home, that he’d remained to visit her family, she’d suspect the worst. And then, God only knew how much it would set back his progress with her.
He should leave at once. Bid Miss Hayes and her brother good afternoon and return to the vicarage. It was the wisest course. The one best designed to keep him out of Miss Talbot’s black books.
But he didn’t leave.
Instead, he moved closer to Teddy’s desk. “Are those finches?”
“They nest outside my window. It’s difficult to capture them from this angle. I can’t seem to get it right.”
“You might see them better from outside.”
Teddy’s expression tightened. “I don’t go outside anymore.”
“Why not?”
“Isn’t it obvious? I’m confined to my chair.”
“Permanently?”
Teddy exhaled a frustrated breath. “If you’re asking whether or not I can move my legs, the answer is yes. They’re not without feeling. But they’re too weak to be of any use to me. I can’t climb the stairs, or leap in and out of a carriage. Up until this spring, our manservant was obliged to carry me up and down the stairs like a babe.”
“What happened?”
“His rheumatism became worse, that’s what happened. He doesn’t have the strength anymore.”
Alex picked up a sheet of paper, examining the delicate lines of the sketch. Teddy Hayes was talented. Gifted, even. He shouldn’t be shut up in his room, looking at birds through a poorly washed window. “Your aunt was very weak when we brought her back from the church,” he said casually. “I had to lift her onto her bed.”
Teddy’s gaze jerked up. “Did you?”
“Quite easily.” Alex paused. “I’ll help you down to the parlor, if you like.”
Teddy stared at him. “Now?” His Adam’s apple bobbed on a swallow. “But you’re leaving directly, aren’t you? How would I get back upstairs?”
Alex returned the sheet of paper to the desk. “I suppose I shall just have to stay awhile longer.”
“At the age of thirteen? Alone in Paris?” Teddy stared at Mr. Archer, the plate of mutton and potatoes in front of him quite forgotten. “How did you survive?”
“In great style,” Mr. Archer said.
Teddy and Aunt Charlotte burst into peals of laughter.
Laura managed a smile of her own as she sipped her glass of wine.
Mr. Archer had stayed for Sunday dinner.
She still couldn’t quite believe it. Even as she watched him banter with Teddy, it felt like a dream. An impossible one, at that.
Not only had he helped her brother downstairs, he’d promised to stay long enough to help him back to his room at the evening’s end.
It was an unexpected kindness. One for which Laura should have been grateful. And she was grateful. Just as grateful as she’d been when he helped Aunt Charlotte.
She was also vaguely suspicious.
After so many days of avoiding her, why had Mr. Archer decided to linger? To help Teddy, and to dine with them, entertaining them with stories from his life on the continent?
Was this more of him playing the chameleon? Or was this Mr. Archer at last being himself?
“But how?” Teddy asked.
“I’d been on holiday with my godfather in Alexandria,” Mr. Archer said. “He was detained on business, and sent me back to Marseilles ahead of him on the steamer. During the journey, I had the good fortune to meet a well-to-do traveler. He took me about France with him for a time. Told people I was his son.”
Teddy went off into another gale of laughter.
Aunt Charlotte, by contrast, was aghast. “Why in heaven would he tell people that? He wasn’t some sort of villain, was he?”
“The worst sort, Mrs. Bainbridge. Monsieur Giraud was a sharper.”
Aunt Charlotte’s wineglass froze halfway to her lips. “A what?”
“A professional gambler,” Laura said.
Mr. Archer looked at her—really looked at her—for the first time since they’d sat down to eat. There was a roguish glint in his gray eyes. It provoked a rather disconcerting frisson of warmth in her belly. “Precisely. He’d been driven out of France five years before, when the police shut down the public gaming houses in ’37.”
“Let me guess,” Teddy said. “He took on a new identity so that he could return. A well-to-do traveler—”
“With a son,” Mr. Archer finished for him. “That’s right.”
“But why?” Laura couldn’t help asking. “For what purpose? If the gaming houses were closed—�
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“Only the public gaming establishments were shut down, Miss Hayes. There were still plenty of private ones in operation. They did a steady business. A fellow like Giraud could make a great deal of money before the proprietors caught on.”
“Weren’t you afraid you’d be arrested?” Teddy asked.
Mr. Archer finished the remainder of his wine in one swallow. “I was thirteen. Evading the Sûreté was part of the fun.”
“My word,” Aunt Charlotte breathed. “What a thrilling life you’ve led, sir. It’s like something out of one of Mr. Dickens’s novels. I wonder that Baron Reynard permitted you to set out so young.”
“There are boys younger than thirteen in Her Majesty’s Navy,” Mr. Archer said.
“Not gentlemen’s sons, surely.”
Mr. Archer’s smile tightened. “No, indeed, ma’am.”
Teddy chose that moment to discreetly drop a scrap of meat under the table. There was a rustling sound as Magpie retrieved the morsel.
Laura shot her brother a warning glance.
“What?” he mouthed, all innocence.
Mr. Archer gave no indication that he noticed the exchange, or the cat begging under the table, but when Laura next looked in his direction, she could have sworn she saw a flash of laughter in his eyes.
“Your godfather must be a singular fellow,” Aunt Charlotte said. “I daresay he was relieved when you returned home unscathed. A boy of thirteen hasn’t the judgment to be traveling alone on the continent.”
“He wasn’t entirely alone, Aunt,” Teddy said. “He was with a notorious gambler. That’s rather like”—he waved his fork—“traveling about Greece and Italy with one’s classics tutor.”
Aunt Charlotte protested the characterization, but Teddy only laughed.
The clink of cutlery punctuated their conversation. Dinners at Bramble Cottage were informal affairs. The dining room was small, with exposed beams running lengthwise across the low ceiling, and no gas lighting to illuminate their meal. Instead, the room was lit with tallow candles, and in the absence of a footman, the hot serving dishes, and the carafe of watered wine, were left out for them to serve themselves.
Laura refilled Mr. Archer’s glass. “You must know all manner of card tricks.”
“Indeed not. Giraud guarded his secrets with his life. When we parted, I was none the wiser.”
She gave him a doubtful look. “But you do play, don’t you?”
“I do,” he said.
There was a wealth of meaning in those two words. Laura sensed it as surely as if he’d confessed to being a sharper himself.
“Then you must play with us after dinner, sir,” Aunt Charlotte pronounced. “We used to enjoy a lively game of whist before my brother passed away. The four of us played on every occasion I came to visit, didn’t we, Teddy?”
Teddy grimaced. “Aunt Charlotte could never be prevailed upon to play anything else.”
“My husband was a keen whist player,” Aunt Charlotte said. “God rest his soul. We often had card parties at our little house in Leicester.” She cut off a slice of her mutton. “He’d been gone less than a year when the wire came from Mrs. Crabtree telling me of the fever. By the time I arrived in Surrey, my poor brother was gone, and Teddy and Laura were as near to death as they could be.”
Teddy speared a piece of potato on his fork. “Aunt Charlotte stayed on to nurse us. She’s been here ever since.”
“Oh, we played a great many card games while you recovered, didn’t we, Teddy? We’ll see how much you remember of what I taught you.”
Laura eyed her aunt with concern. Her cheeks were flushed, just as they’d been at church. “You mustn’t overtax yourself.”
“There’s no question of that my dear. Not now I’ve had my tonic and a little rest.”
“Even so,” Laura said, “it’s better to err on the safe side, don’t you agree? We don’t want to end the evening by summoning Dr. Taylor.” She paused, adding, “And we mustn’t monopolize Mr. Archer. He’s a guest at the vicarage. They’ll be expecting him back by now.”
Mr. Archer didn’t dispute the fact. “Perhaps another time?”
Aunt Charlotte heaved a sigh. “Indeed.”
“You will come back, won’t you?” Teddy asked.
“I will,” Mr. Archer promised. “You have my word on it.”
Later, after he’d helped Teddy back upstairs and bid goodbye to her aunt, Laura walked Mr. Archer out. Yardley had fetched the vicar’s gig from the stable, and was waiting with it at the gate.
“You should put your brother on the ground floor,” Mr. Archer said. “It would be easier for him.”
Laura’s full skirts brushed against his leg. The path through their overgrown garden was almost as intimate as the wilderness walk at Edgington Park. “We’ve tried to move him countless times since Papa’s death. He’s always refused. He insists on keeping the view from his window.”
“Ask him again. He may feel differently now that your manservant isn’t able to assist him.”
“I will.” She stopped at the gate. The vicar’s gig was waiting on the other side of it, Yardley holding the horse’s head. It stamped its hooves with impatience. “Mr. Archer—”
“Alex.” He stood, gazing down at her. “Your brother and I are already on a first name basis. Surely the two of us needn’t stand on ceremony.”
She made no reply. Not because she couldn’t think of the words, but because there were too many of them. Too many things she wanted to tell him, too many things she wished to say.
His expression softened. “I’d like to call you Laura, if I may.”
Butterflies fluttered their wings in her stomach. She moistened her lips. “Very well.”
His mouth curved up at one corner. As if he were teasing her. But there was a warmth in his gaze that hadn’t been there before. “Thank you for dinner.”
“Thank you. You were awfully good with Teddy. I haven’t seen him talk so much in years.”
“He’s easy to talk with.”
“There aren’t many who find him so. I think you must have younger brothers.”
Something flickered at the back of his eyes, dark and troubled. “Not a one. But I remember what it was like to be his age.”
“He should be away at school,” she said. “My father attended Cambridge. I’d hoped that, one day, Teddy might be strong enough to do the same.”
“You could arrange for private tuition.”
“We can’t. Not at present. But if things go as planned with our new solicitor—”
His brows lifted. “You managed to borrow the money from Miss Talbot?”
“I did. She was very generous.” Laura didn’t mention the note she’d signed. And she certainly didn’t mention Henrietta’s strictures on the perils of borrowing money from friends: Neither a borrower, nor a lender be. It would all be worth it if Papa’s will could be resolved in Teddy’s favor. “Now we need only wait to hear if we have a case.”
“You must tell me if there’s anything I can do.”
“There isn’t. But I’m obliged to you for the offer. Your kindness is—”
He shook his head, frowning. “Not kindness.”
“Whatever it is—whatever prompted your consideration for my aunt and my brother—”
“I thought only of you.”
She stared up at him. Her heart thumped heavily. “You shouldn’t say such things.”
He looked steadily back at her. “Why not, if I mean them?”
Why not, indeed? It only set her pulse to racing and encouraged her to dream impossible dreams. Dreams were dangerous things. They made one dissatisfied with reality.
“It’s getting late.” Mr. Archer cast a glance at the gig. The horse tossed its head and gave another stamp of its hooves. “I should go. The vicar will be thinking the worst.”
“I expect you will.” He took her bare hand gently in his, but he didn’t shake it. He turned it palm down, and then, before she could comprehend what he was about, he drew it to his lips and pressed a kiss to her knuckles.
It was a courtly gesture. Not at all the sort of thing a modern gentleman might do. But it made her heartbeat quicken and the butterflies in her stomach soar to life.
“Good night, Laura,” he said.
She drew her hand away as soon as he released it, conscious of Yardley’s presence on the other side of the gate. “Good night.”
Monday morning, Alex and George arrived at Edgington Park on horseback in answer to a summons from Henrietta, only to find their young hostess in a temper fit. She stormed about the fashionable drawing room in a flurry of French silk, a crumpled note held in her hand.
“I sent for Laura to join us over an hour ago,” she said, “and have just received this message from her aunt. She says Laura is out all morning. That she won’t return until the afternoon. Out where, I ask you? What could possibly take all morning?”
“Maybe she’s gone to the village?” George suggested. “Or back to London to visit that solicitor of hers?”
Henrietta fumed. “I begin to regret lending her that money. If I knew the result would be her ruining my plans—”
George gave Henrietta a sharp look. “What money?”
“I don’t believe she’s gone to London,” Alex said before Henrietta could answer.
“Where is she, then?” Henrietta demanded.
“Does it matter?” George asked. “You’ll see her later, won’t you?”
“But I need her here now. I wanted to tell all of you about the excursion I have planned. I’ve put so much effort into arranging it.” Henrietta flounced down on the sofa. She looked very near tears.
Alex felt a flicker of annoyance. She was spoiled and pettish. A young lady used to getting her own way. It shouldn’t irritate him. He’d recognized what she was from the first day they’d met. Recognized it and accepted it. If he wanted Edgington Park, he was going to have to continue to accept it.
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