St. Leger 1: The Bride Finder

by Susan Carroll

  "I have never been that close to my family," Anatole said. "But I suppose I must introduce you to them."

  "Of course. It is only natural your family should wish to meet your wife."

  But there wasn't anything natural about any of this, Madeline thought. One might have imagined that these other St. Legers would have been present at their wedding. But Anatole hadn't even bothered to mention them. The question was why.

  Madeline tried to still these troubling thoughts. The important thing was that Anatole had told her now. It was the first indication he might be willing to share some part of his life with her besides a bed, and Madeline seized upon it with all the eagerness of a starving sparrow pecking at crumbs.

  "We should invite your family to Castle Leger at once," she said. "We could have a… a supper, a very informal one."

  "A supper?" Anatole looked as wary as if she'd suggested some bizarre ritual. "Do you know how to go about such a thing?"

  "Certainly. I arranged my mother's dinners and salons for her all the time." However, Madeline didn't add that after all the details had been taken care of, her mother had frequently begged her not to attend. Not that she could blame Mama, Madeline thought ruefully. She'd always been something of a social disaster, with a penchant for saying the wrong thing at the wrong time to the wrong person. But she could surely manage to mind her tongue for one evening.

  "Very well," Anatole conceded. "I shall see that my family is summoned to Castle Leger."

  "Invited, my lord," Madeline corrected gently.

  "What? Oh, er—yes."

  But after Madeline had bustled off, eager to begin laying her plans, all of Anatole's doubts returned in full force. Had he completely lost his mind?

  It had been years since he'd asked anyone but Fitzleger to cross the threshold of his home, even his own family. The last time St. Legers had gathered beneath this roof had been for his father's wake. And that day had proved a bloody damn nightmare, with himself nearly killing Roman, roaring at the rest of them to get the devil out and leave him alone with his grief.

  He had a vague recollection of bluff faces, kind eyes, hands that would have reached out to him in sympathy had he not turned away. But he'd sought his comfort where he'd always found it, wrapped in a mantle of solitude. Over the years he'd maintained that distance, except for chance encounters out riding on the moors, down on the beach, or at the local inn. Summoned or invited, perhaps this time his kin would tell him to go to the devil. And how would he explain that to Madeline?

  Damn Fitzleger and his interfering advice to hell.

  Anatole's misgivings only intensified as he wound his way upstairs. He approached the door of his own room when his extraordinary sense picked up another presence, one he was not familiar with beneath his roof.

  He frowned, focusing in. A young woman, one of those dratted females Madeline had recently engaged. The girl lingered just down the hall on the shadowy landing of the backstairs.

  Anatole liked neither being spied upon nor having servants who cowered away from his presence. Twisting in that direction, he commanded, "You there! Come out at once, girl."

  He heard a soft intake of breath, then the young woman stepped out of the doorway. At first he could see little more than a clean apron tied over a worn gray dress. Then she crept closer, her face emerging from the shadows. Wisps of strawberry-colored hair curled out from beneath a maid's white cap framing a countenance too hard and embittered for one so young.

  Anatole froze, staring into thin, sharp features he'd last glimpsed over Marie Kennack's grave, the girl's eyes reddened with her grief.

  You killed her. You cursed my mother with your demons touch, telling her she would die.

  Anatole had stood with bowed head, not trying to defend himself, filled with unreasoning guilt, unbearable regret. Sometimes he was unsure himself whether or not the girl had spoke true.

  He flinched back a pace as though even now Bess Kennack continued to hurl her accusations at him.

  "What are you doing here, girl?" he asked hoarsely.

  "I was but coming to collect the mistress's mending, sir."

  "I mean—what are you doing here at Castle Leger?"

  "I was told to come here because you were looking for maids, sir. And your good lady was kind enough to offer me a position. Unless—" Bess angled a glance at him that seemed equal parts fear and challenge. "Unless you don't want me working here."

  Anatole certainly did not. Bess's presence could prove naught but a constant reproach, a painful reminder of the darkness his strange abilities brought into people's lives. But somehow he could not bring himself to turn the girl away.

  "The selection of the female staff falls within my wife's province," he said with a stiff shrug. "But in future, girl, make yourself known and don't be hiding on the stairs."

  "Yes, sir." Bess dipped into a curtsy that seemed respectful enough. Did he only imagine the look of pure hatred burning in those pale blue eyes?

  Anatole watched uneasily as she vanished, a pale gray ghost slipping off down the servant's stair. Every instinct he possessed warned him that the girl was trouble, and God knows, he had enough of that looming in his life. He should dispatch her back to the village posthaste.

  But if there was any kindness he could offer Bess Kennack, he more than owed it to her. Fitzleger had obviously been the one to send her here. The old man would hardly have done so if he hadn't thought it would be all right.

  Perhaps Bess had finally forgiven Anatole for the part she believed he'd played in her mother's death. And if she had not? It scarce mattered, Anatole thought with a tired sigh.

  He'd grown accustomed to being haunted in his own home.

  Chapter 12

  The night was streaked black with roiling clouds, the stars extinguished like so many snuffed candles trailing smoke. A brisk wind set the tree branches to clawing against the windowpanes, and even the moon had hidden itself away.

  A perfect night, Anatole thought wryly as he upturned his face toward the sky, scenting another storm brewing. Restlessness, danger, and portents of disaster all blown in from the sea. Aye, a perfect night… for a gathering of St. Legers.

  Stiff and uncomfortable in his best black frock coat and knee breeches, Anatole paced along the top of the stone stairs sweeping down to the carriage drive. Ranger trailed anxiously at his heels as though Anatole's own sense of unease had communicated itself to the dog.

  The night wind threatened to wreak havoc with Anatole's neatly tied queue and cravat, but he was in no hurry to return inside the house. He took another puff from his pipe, a calming habit he'd learned from Fitzleger, but the night breeze had managed to extinguish that as well. Sighing ruefully, he tapped the tobacco out of the ivory-carved bowl and returned the pipe to his waistcoat pocket.

  The smoking had only been an excuse anyway to escape the last-minute bustle of preparations. He'd had nearly a week to resign himself to the notion of this blasted supper party, and he thought he'd managed to do so, giving Madeline free rein to plan the event as she chose, staying out of her way.

  But he hadn't counted on how strange it would seem, watching her open doors long closed. Lights blazed again from the chandeliers in the long gallery, and it gave him a queer tight feeling in his chest.

  A few steps closer along the portico, and he had a clear view through the tall latticed windows. Inside, candle shine illuminated the mint green Spitalsfleld silk that hung on the walls and the delicate sofa and chairs, the pattern on their cushions a potpourri of lavender and faded roses. The darkness had fallen back from the creamy expanse of carpet, the marble fireplace, and the cherry wood pianoforte.

  The drawing room had witnessed many St. Leger events over the generations, christening suppers, wedding feasts, betrothal balls, birthday fetes, glasses lifted to toast a new king, to celebrate a successful harvest or the vanquishing of a Mortmain.

  But the room had remained dark and silent for over a decade, the last person to have any use for t
he elegant chamber had been… his mother. Cecily St. Leger had played hostess to all manner of entertainments that had been the talk of the entire countryside, as though she'd been seeking in a desperate round of gaiety to banish the shadows that hung over her life.

  For a brief time she had succeeded, filling the long gallery with light and music, laughter and dancing.

  Not that he had ever experienced these marvels for himself, Anatole thought bitterly. Or at least not up close. Only from a distance those times he'd managed to escape from the care of his gentle tutor Fitzleger, from his room down at the gatehouse that Anatole regarded more as a banishment, a prison. Eluding the vicar's watchful eye, he'd fluttered through the night in his white shift like a small, pale moth drawn back to the great house. Drawn to the blaze of lights, the tinkling of crystal, the scrape of violins, the chorus of laughing voices.

  His mouth thinning, Anatole stared at the beckoning windows, and it was almost as if he could see the phantom boy he'd once been, creeping closer, crouching there behind the pillar trying to remain invisible while he peered inside.

  The brilliant scene had unfolded before his wondering eyes like some theatrical spectacle, the ladies in their gowns and jewels, the gentlemen in their stiff brocades and lace cuffs, all too beautiful and perfect to be real.

  But none had been more magnificent than the young couple by the pianoforte. Cecily St. Leger's graceful fingers had rippled over the keys of the pianoforte, her sweet soprano joined to his father's bold tenor, Lyndon St. Leger gazing at his wife with rapt adoration as they united in some tender ballad.

  Listening to them in the darkness, huddling his bare feet beneath his night shift, Anatole's young heart had swelled with longing and a humble sense of pride, that these magnificent beings were his own mother and father. That although it was never openly acknowledged, in some small way they belonged to him.

  All too soon the call to dinner would come, and the wonderful music ended. One by one, the couples had linked arms and vanished into the dining room beyond. Anatole had pressed his nose against the glass in a desperate effort to obtain one last glimpse of his mother before his father escorted her from the chamber. The double doors would close, leaving Anatole staring like an audience at an empty stage, feeling more alone and forgotten than before.

  Then a rage would sweep through him, an anger he scarce understood but so strong it made him long to shatter the glass windows. But Fitzleger had managed to teach him something of self-control.

  So he'd shrunk down beneath the sill, hugging his knees to his chest, allowing something to shatter inside himself instead…

  Ranger's cold nose nuzzled Anatole's hand, the hound's whine drawing him back to the present. Anatole blinked the images of the past away, startled to realize that in his musings, he'd drifted closer to the drawing room. The memory had been so strong, he half expected to see that trembling child huddled beneath the windows. But there was no child, only the grim-visaged man reflected eerily back to him in the glass.

  Muttering an oath, Anatole drew back into the shadows, ashamed that a mere childhood memory could still have such power over him, to haunt, to compel… to hurt. Damnation, he was no longer some grubby-faced boy to be skulking around out here in the dark. He was the dread lord of Castle Leger, the master of all these lands, these walls, every being who dwelled within them, including his new bride.

  Why then did he feel a need to remind himself of that?

  He leaned up against the house's stone facade, Ranger pressing close to him, pawing at his knee, the old hound as ever not understanding his master's dark moods, but eager to offer solace.

  Anatole rested his hand lightly on the dog's head, knowing an urge to kneel down the way he had used to as a lad and fling his arms about Ranger, burying his face in the familiar warm comfort of the dog's neck.

  He half started to bend when Ranger tensed, letting out a sharp bark, alerting Anatole that someone else had come out of the house. He straightened sharply, not having to turn around to see who it was.

  There was only one person at Castle Leger capable of catching him off guard this way. Madeline. In a whisper of silk and a cloud of rose-scented perfume, she glided toward him across the portico.

  Ranger ambled over to her, and she murmured a low greeting to the dog, before calling, "Anatole?"

  He clenched his teeth, wondering with dread how long she might have been watching him, how much of his recent folly she had observed.

  He turned slowly to face her with a stiff nod. "Madam."

  The night breeze caused her gown to billow out around her. Fashioned of brilliant green silk, the hem was caught up with rosettes to reveal a dauntingly feminine froth of petticoats. A lot of dress for one small woman, rustling and shimmering with her every movement as she came closer, her face a pale oval in the soft glow of the porch lantern.

  She cocked her head to one side in that curious puzzled gesture that had become so familiar to him over the past week.

  "Is anything wrong?" she asked hesitantly.

  Wrong? No, nothing much, except the woman had been flinging open too many damned doors since her arrival at Castle Leger. And not just ones leading to closed-off rooms, but to places deep inside of him until his heart felt like a rusty gate being forced open. An often painful sensation…

  "What the deuce should be wrong?" he forced himself to reply.

  "I don't know. It's just that I couldn't find you anywhere in the house, and I was worried."

  She'd remarked his absence and had been worried? Enough to have come in search of him? It was far more than his own parents had ever done. He scanned Madeline's face eagerly, but the hope that had flared within him died.

  The smile she offered him was her usual one, so cheerful, so sensible. Of course, she'd come to look for him. She'd have gone to look for anyone she thought might be missing and in distress, from simple Will Sparkins to the kitchen cat. Besides being the most practical of souls, Madeline was unfailingly kind. But it was not her kindness he wanted.

  "There was little to worry about," he said. "I merely decided to give Ranger a run before taking him down to the kennels. I assumed you'd want all the dogs out of the house tonight."

  "Yes, thank you, but not Ranger."

  Anatole's brows rose in astonishment, even more so when despite the danger to her fancy gown, Madeline bent down to stroke the old hound's dome-shaped head.

  So his lady harbored a soft spot for shaggy, scarred old beasts, did she? Then, perhaps there was some hope for him yet. She sifted her slender fingers through the animal's fur, and Anatole watched with an avid kind of hunger.

  Damn, a man had sunk to a low pass when he found himself envying his own dog. The candle shine from the house brought out the fiery highlights in her hair. Caught up in some elaborate topknot, it cascaded over one shoulder in a ripple of long curls, exposing the delicate nape of her neck. His fingers itched with the urge to caress, to test the silkiness of those tendrils, the soft warmth of her skin, but he knew one touch would never be enough, so he kept his hands in fists clenched tight at his side.

  He'd tried so hard to be a gentleman these past days, so much so that he scarce knew himself. Never raising his voice to a level of a bellow. Never approaching her when he still smelled of the stables. Never cursing in her presence, not even when he'd discovered that in her enthusiasm for cleaning, she'd tossed out his favorite old pair of hunting gloves.

  And above all else never touching her except to help her rise from her seat after dinner or to give her a chaste kiss when he bade her good night each evening. Determined to seek no more from her until she seemed willing to grant it. So respectful. So considerate. So civilized.

  It was damn near killing him. Did the woman even notice his clumsy efforts to woo and win her? The constant ache in his loins, the fire in his St. Leger blood berated him for a fool. Win her, be damned! She was his wife, blast it. It was his right to take her whenever and wherever he chose.

  And Madeline would submit
, cheerfully gritting her teeth like the most practical woman that she was. That thought was the greatest agony of all.

  With a final murmur to the dog, Madeline straightened, glancing up at the ominous sky with its shifting shadows.

  "I hope none of our guests get caught in a storm," she said. "The wind sounds so unusual, almost wild and mournful. It promises to be a passing strange night."

  Anatole grimaced. Possibly more strange than Madeline could even guess, but he would take great care to see that didn't happen.

  She shivered, rubbing her half-bared shoulders, a most innocent invitation for a man to wrap her in his arms, hold her fast until he warmed her blood.

  And his own. Spreading fire from his mouth to hers, melding what was soft in her to all that was hard in him. Until the next thing he'd be doing was stripping that elegant gown from her shoulders and taking her right here beneath the drawing room windows.

  Anatole shuddered, steeling his jaw, subduing the beast in him the only way he was able. By turning away.

  "We should get back to the house,” he muttered." Tis far too chilly out here for you."

  "Oh, no, I'm fine—" Madeline began, but Anatole was already striding toward the front door. She bit down on her lip, stifling the rest of her protest.

  She would have liked to linger, discover why he'd really been out here in the darkness. For a brief moment her formidable husband had appeared like some lost boy, alone and forgotten, waiting for someone to reach out to him, invite him inside.

  But whatever thoughts had tormented Anatole, they were destined to remain like so much else about the man. A mystery. Madeline felt the familiar tug of despair. She'd had such high hopes for tonight, unreasonable ones perhaps. Her marriage to Anatole had gotten off to a most strange beginning, but hosting a supper for one's new relatives was such a normal thing to do. Surely it would help to draw Anatole and her closer together. Perhaps he would learn to share more of his memories, his dreams, those troubling secrets that ever kept a barrier between them. But the more light she brought to the man's home, the deeper he seemed to retreat into the shadows.