by Amelia Grey
The wick caught fire but wouldn’t flame, adding only a faint yellow glow to the room. She could see just enough to know the earl was as imposing from the back as he was from the front. Straight, dark brown hair fell just past his nape. She saw muscles in his wide shoulders and back ripple beneath his collarless shirt as he fiddled with the lamp. His slim-legged trousers fit perfectly across lean hips, firm buttocks, and long, powerful looking legs.
Bapre!
What was she thinking? She shouldn’t be looking at the earl’s backside or anything else about him. What was wrong with her? Obviously the fever was back. What else could have her thinking such improper things, especially about a man she had just met?
The earl seemed to be having trouble making the light brighter. A silent half laugh passed her lips at his seeming ineptness. He was, indeed, a man of privilege if he didn’t even know how to turn up the flame on a wick. The earl obviously was not used to doing anything for himself—other than give orders. He was exceptional at that.
As she watched him, she wondered where all his servants were. She had been away from England for a long time, but surely things had not changed so much that an earl answered his own door, and inappropriately dressed at that, even if it was the middle of the night.
Lord Morgandale mumbled something that Arianna didn’t quite understand, but it sounded very much like he was damning the lamp. She smiled. She didn’t know why, but his struggles with the light amused her greatly, and tired and lethargic as she was, it felt good to have a reason to smile. There had been far too few of them recently.
Knowing she was at risk of his ire but unable to stop herself, she asked, “Do you need help with the lamp, my lord? I’ll be happy to show you—”
“No, Miss Sweet,” he said gruffly, cutting off her sentence as, suddenly, greater light filled the room. “I do not need your help with anything. If you must know, one of the servants trimmed the wick too blasted short.”
“That is exactly what I was thinking must be the problem,” she answered, unable to hide the humor in her voice.
“I’m beginning to believe you are a vixen rather than a waif, and something tells me you often rush in where fools dare to tread.”
His comment made it obvious that it hadn’t taken him very long to assess her. The earl turned and started back toward her, and she quickly averted her eyes.
“I can build a fire if you are chilled.”
“No, that won’t be necessary. I assure you I am fine, and contrary to my earlier mishap, I am not given to fits of the vapors.”
He walked closer to her, stopped and reached for the wet cape she held, and said, “Really?”
Arianna opened her mouth to speak as she held the cloak up to him, but once again her words were silenced when she stared into the earl’s magnificent eyes. They were the bluest eyes she had ever seen. When she looked at him, strange sensations curled in her stomach, tightened her chest, and did confounding things to the rhythm of her heart.
Now she understood why she had such a strong reaction to the earl. She was attracted to him the way a woman was to a man she wanted to pay her attention. That struck her as odd, considering the fact the man was an ill-tempered ogre. She had felt that way about a man only once before when, a couple of years ago, a young viscount visiting from England had caught her fancy, but never with such physical reactions that had her blushing like a schoolgirl putting on her first stays. And the feelings for the man had faded when he left Bombay.
The earl’s straight, dark hair fell attractively across his broad forehead. The bridge of his nose was narrow and his cheekbones high and angular, making him easily the most handsome man she’d ever seen. Not even the wrinkle of agitation that furrowed his broad brow took away from the fact that this man was devastatingly attractive. And judging by the way he stood and looked at her with arrogant self-confidence, she had no doubts that he knew just how handsome he was to her.
Arianna’s shoulders relaxed a little, even though looking at the earl made her breaths come short and choppy. “All right, I suppose I will have to agree that I might have fainted.”
His brows lifted. “You might have?”
The infuriating man wouldn’t give her an inch. “Oh, all right, just to please you I will say yes, I fainted.”
“About time you admitted it,” he said and hung her cloak over the back of a side chair that stood near the unlit fireplace. “No matter how grudgingly.”
Arianna huffed at his last remark. “I assure you I have never done anything like that in my life.”
“Then perhaps, Miss Sweet, as Lord Chesterfield once said: ‘There is always a first time for everything.’”
“I have never heard of Lord Chesterfield, but I believe that as well.”
The earl’s bright blue eyes searched her face, and a strange calm settled over her. She didn’t understand it, but just being in the same room with him made Arianna feel better, safe. Suddenly a contented peace like she hadn’t experienced since her father had died spread through her. She didn’t know why she felt all these different emotions, because Lord Morgandale was surely the most contrary and brusque man she had ever met.
He walked closer to her again and said, “You have never heard of Phillip Dormer Stanhope, the fourth Earl of Chesterfield?”
“No, I’ve been away from England for a number of years. I’m afraid I really don’t know very many people at all.”
He seemed to study over her words and said, “Hmm, someone who has never heard of Chesterfield. That’s refreshing.”
“Is he quite famous?”
“Not anymore. So tell me, you say you’ve been away. Where have you been?”
“India.”
“Good lord! That’s halfway around the world. What were you doing there?”
Arianna moistened her lips and carefully chose her words. “My pitaji was doing—”
“Your what?” he interrupted.
“I’m sorry. My father. Sometimes I forget and use words I learned in India. My father was doing research for the Royal Apothecary Scientific Academy for the Study of Herbs, Plants, and Spices in India in hopes of finding cures for a variety of different ailments.”
The earl grimaced. “And he allowed you to travel back to England alone?”
Not wanting to meet his blue gaze, Arianna looked down at her hands as a somber mood washed over her. “I’m not alone. My maid is with me.”
“Hardly a proper companion for someone as young as you, Miss Sweet.”
The last time Arianna saw her father flashed through her troubled mind, and she winced. It always caused a pain in her chest when she was reminded of that afternoon. She and her maid had returned home to find her father lying in a pool of blood with his Indian bhagidar standing over him. When she screamed, Mr. Rajaratnum quickly stuffed her father’s research journal into his pocket and fled. The British and Indian authorities had searched for him, but when she left Bombay, her father’s associate still had not been captured.
“I know it’s not what my father would have wished for me. I’m sorry to say I didn’t have much choice in the matter.” Arianna paused. She was going to say a few weeks ago but suddenly realized it had been much longer than that. Time had passed so quickly.
She inhaled deeply, looked at the earl’s searching eyes, and continued by saying in as strong a voice as she could muster, “My father died several months ago.”
For the first time since she’d arrived, Arianna saw a change in Lord Morgandale’s features. His brow relaxed, his eyes softened, and his mouth lost its tightness.
“That couldn’t have been easy for you. I’m sorry about your father.”
Arianna didn’t know why, but those few words meant the world to her. Their friends, associates, and servants in India had all offered their condolences, but none of their words meant as much to her as hearing the few words spoken from the earl.
She swallowed hard and then said, “Thank you, and no, it wasn’t.”
“You had n
o other family there?”
“Neither there nor anywhere, which was one of the reasons I stayed with my father in India when he very much wanted me to come back to England and live what he considered a normal life. I had many things to keep me busy during the first months of my mourning. I had to write letters about his death to his colleague and friend in London, Mr. Robert Warburton, and to the Royal Apothecary Scientific Academy. I had to pack and arrange the shipment to London of all of our personal possessions. I have some of his papers and books with me, but my father had a tremendous amount of research documents, vials and potions, notes and books, and other items. I packed most everything and sent them on to London so that I could sort through his private possessions when I get there.”
Suddenly Arianna realized she was rambling about things she was sure the earl had no interest in. “Sometimes I find it difficult to believe he’s been gone so long now.”
Lord Morgandale sat down in the chair opposite her. “I’m sure it is. And it doesn’t look to me as if you fared well on the voyage. You are pale as a ghost, and you have dark circles under your eyes. You look as if you haven’t slept well or eaten properly in days.”
Arianna’s hands flew to her hair, and she brushed it away from her face. She hadn’t looked in a mirror in months, as there wasn’t one available to her on the ship, but she had done the best she could to make herself presentable before she disembarked.
Obviously she hadn’t done enough.
“My apologies, my lord, I didn’t realize I looked so dreadful.”
His eyes narrowed, and he rubbed his temples with the tips of his fingers again. She remembered him saying something about his head pounding. Perhaps he wasn’t well either.
“Don’t put words in my mouth, Miss Sweet. I didn’t say you looked dreadful, and you don’t. I said you look as if you have been unwell for a long time. There is a difference.”
“You’re right,” she admitted, no longer feeling the need to hide the fact. “I have been sick, but I had never been sick a day in my life until I boarded the ship for England. There was a horrible fever going around the passengers and, unfortunately, I caught it. I’m afraid I was very ill for most of the journey. In fact, the captain forced those of us who were sick to disembark at port in Alexandria, Egypt, when we stopped for supplies.”
“Good Lord. That must have been a hellish time.”
You have no idea!
“My maid and I stayed there until I was well enough to continue the long journey, which was more than a month, I believe, and then it was a couple of weeks before we could book passage on another ship.”
Arianna couldn’t help but shiver as she finished her sentence, knowing she still had lingering effects of the fever she hadn’t been able to shake. She came down with the illness on the third day of the voyage, and the constant rocking of the ship was sheer torture for her. She couldn’t keep anything down. If it hadn’t been for the excellent care Beabe gave her and the medicinal potions her father had made that she brought with her, Arianna was certain she wouldn’t be alive today.
She watched Lord Morgandale’s brow crease again and his lips tighten in concern, so she quickly added, “But there is no need for you to worry that I have brought the fever to your house, my lord. I assure you I’m well now.”
“I’m not at all concerned about the fever, Miss Sweet, and I can see that you are so healthy that you fainted after you’d been on your feet for just a few minutes. Yes, I’d say that would make you completely fit.”
“You are being condescending, my lord.”
“And you can stretch the truth farther than anyone I know, and certainly much farther than I’m willing to believe. Now tell me, did you say you’ve only recently returned?”
She nodded.
“How recently?”
Arianna really didn’t want to answer that, but after his terse remark about her stretching the truth, she felt she had to be a little more forthcoming with him.
Finally she said, “Today. When the ship docked at Southampton, as soon as we disembarked, I hired a coach and came straight here.”
His blue eyes widened. “And it didn’t dawn on you that you might need a few days to rest before coming here?”
She shook her head. “Not at the time, no. I was in a hurry.”
“To see my grandmother?”
“Yes.”
His brow wrinkled again. “Why?”
Understandably, he was curious as to why she would step off the ship and immediately head for his grandmother’s home. She looked down at her hands. “I do have an impulsive steak, as my father called it. But I think perhaps it was just that I was so grateful to be back on English soil. Perhaps I was simply too exhausted to think clearly. I’m not sure what exactly I was thinking at the time. I only knew I had to get here.”
“So you came straight to Valleydale because you knew my grandmother?”
“Yes. No, I mean yes, I came straight here, but I didn’t know your grandmother personally. My father met her on several occasions when he came to visit his cousin. He always spoke very highly of her. I’m sorry she is no longer with you.”
“Thank you. Perhaps you should start at the beginning of your story, Miss Sweet, and tell me exactly why you wanted to see my grandmother.”
Arianna hesitated again. How much should she tell him? She was quite prepared to tell Lady Elder everything, but she wasn’t sure she wanted to tell the imposing grandson about her father’s murder and the stolen journal with the formula in it. The thought of telling him everything chilled her, and she knew she had to keep the whole truth from him.
“My father was a cousin of Lady Elder’s husband.”
“Which one? My grandmother had four husbands.”
Was that humor she finally saw lurking in the blue depths of his eyes? Was he, at last, turning from the scowling earl to a more approachable person? Just that small glimmer of friendliness lifted her spirits.
“Yes, of course, I do remember hearing that. Sir Walter Hennessy was his name. My father, Albert Sweet, was his first cousin.”
The earl nodded. “I remember Sir Walter. I was already a young lad by the time she married him. He is the man who gave my grandmother the legendary Talbot pearls, which now belong to my cousin.”
“I can tell I’ve been away from England for a long time. I’ve never heard of the Lord Chesterfield you mentioned, and I’m afraid I don’t know the significance of the Talbot pearls.”
“Both require long stories that I’m not prepared to go into tonight. So tell me exactly what were you going to ask my grandmother to do for you?”
A wave of dizziness struck Arianna again, but she fought it and said, “My father had always told me that if anything ever happened to him, I was to contact Lady Elder. He said because of our distant relationship to Lady Elder, that she would be willing to help me find an appropriate place to live in London and suitable companion who could help me reestablish a life in London. I don’t need monetary assistance. I’m far from destitute, and I don’t want you to think that. My father had his associate in London, Mr. Warburton whom I mentioned earlier, set up an account for me years ago. I have more than an adequate income from my father to sustain me.”
“I can look at you and your clothing and tell that, Miss Sweet.”
Arianna watched his gaze feather down her face, neck, and to her breasts, and then glide over to her hands and back up to her eyes. She knew without him saying a word that, even though she was disheveled from more than two months of traveling, she had found favor with him, and that same curling feeling of something wonderful that she had experienced earlier started flowing in the pit of her stomach again.
The only thing she could figure was that she was much too tired and weary to fight the fanciful notions that kept occurring. She cleared her throat and tried to focus on the discussion at hand.
“Even before he died, it was his desire for me to return to England, but I resisted.”
“That does not surp
rise me, but please go on.”
“He thought a gentle, older woman would help reintroduce me to Society and help fill me in on what I’ve missed these years I’ve been away. Of course, he also hoped that would lead to introductions of eligible gentlemen that I might allow to court me.”
“I see.”
Arianna cleared her throat once again. “I am well-schooled in world history, mathematics, and, of course, I’m quite proficient in the sciences. I believe I would be an excellent asset for someone who enjoys a lively discussion.”
“I can attest to that,” he said quietly.
“I’m sorry, my lord, I did not intend to burden you with my life’s story. I should have left immediately when I heard the news about Lady Elder. I’ll get my cape and be gone.” She started to rise, but the scowl that formed between his eyes made her quickly sit back down.
“Don’t be ridiculous, Miss Sweet. I will not allow you or your driver to go back out in this foul weather tonight.”
“But—”
“But this time for you, there is no but. You are staying here. My grandmother would roll over in her grave if I allowed you to leave at this hour of the night, and believe me, she has done enough of that already because of my cousins’ recent antics. Now tell me, when is the last time you had food?”
“This morning—” were the only words she managed to say as they both turned toward the drawing room door. Loud, hurried footsteps sounded on the stairs, and then down the corridor. An older man and woman hurried in, both holding a lamp and both impeccably dressed in clothing befitting servants of the manor.
“My lord,” the man said, “We heard voices and came at once. I see the guest you were expecting has arrived.”
“Should I light a fire in her room, my lord?” the woman said eagerly. “It’s such a nasty night, or perhaps she’d like a cup of tea?”
Lord Morgandale slowly rose and said, “No, she is not the lady I was expecting but someone else. This is Miss Sweet. Miss Sweet, my butler, Post, and his wife, Mrs. Post.”