by Lisa Kleypas
“If I study anything,” Leo drawled, “it will be the bottom of a good bottle of port. The Ramsay tenants have proven their ability to thrive on benign neglect—they clearly don’t need my involvement.”
A few guests tensed apprehensively at Leo’s insouciant speech, while others gave a few forced chuckles. Tension thickened the air.
If Leo was deliberately trying to make an enemy of Westcliff, he couldn’t have chosen a better way of doing it. Westcliff had a deep concern for those less fortunate than himself, and an active dislike for self-indulgent noblemen who failed to live up to their responsibilities.
“Drat,” Cam heard Lillian mutter beneath her breath, as her husband’s brows lowered over cold dark eyes.
But just as Westcliff parted his lips to deliver a withering speech to the insolent young viscount, one of the female guests gave an earsplitting shriek. Two other ladies jumped up from their chairs, along with several of the gentlemen, all of them staring in white-eyed horror at the center of the table.
All conversation had stopped. Following the guests’ collective gazes, Cam saw something—a lizard?—wriggling and slithering its way past sauceboats and salt cellars. Without hesitation he reached out and captured the small creature, cupping it in closed hands. The lizard squirmed furiously in the space between his closed palms.
“I’ve got it,” he said mildly.
The vicar’s wife half fainted, slumping back in her chair with a low moan.
“Don’t hurt him!” Beatrix Hathaway called out anxiously. “He’s a family pet!”
The assembled guests glanced from Cam’s closed hands to the Hathaway girl’s apologetic face.
“A pet?… What a relief,” Lady Westcliff said calmly, staring down the length of the table at her husband’s blank countenance. “I thought it was some new English delicacy we were serving.”
A swift wash of color darkened Westcliff’s face, and he looked away from her with fierce concentration. To anyone who knew him well, it was obvious he was struggling not to laugh.
“You brought Spot to supper?” Amelia asked her youngest sister in disbelief. “Bea, I told you to get rid of him yesterday!”
“I tried to,” came Beatrix’s contrite reply, “but after I left him in the woods, he followed me home.”
“Bea,” Amelia said sternly, “reptiles do not follow people home.”
“Spot is no ordinary lizard. He—”
“We’ll discuss it outside.” Amelia rose from her chair, obliging the gentlemen to hoist themselves out of their seats. She threw Westcliff an apologetic glance. “I beg your pardon, my lord. If you will excuse us…”
The earl gave a composed nod.
Another man … Christopher Frost … stared at Amelia with an intensity that raised Cam’s hackles. “May I help?” Frost asked. His voice was carefully devoid of urgency, but there was no doubt in Cam’s mind about how much the man wanted to go outside with her.
“No need,” Cam said smoothly. “As you can see, I have everything in hand. At your service, Miss Hathaway.” And, still holding the squirming reptile, he accompanied the sisters from the room.
Chapter Eight
Cam led them away from the dining hall, through a pair of French doors that opened to a conservatory. The outdoor room was sparsely furnished with cane-back chairs and a settee. White columns around the edge of the conservatory were interspersed with lush hanging plants. Clouds sulked across the humid sky, while torchlight sent a brisk dance of light across the ground.
As soon as the doors were closed, Amelia went to her sister with her hands raised. At first Cam thought she intended to shake her, but instead Amelia pulled Beatrix close, her shoulders trembling. She could barely breathe for laughing.
“Bea … you did it on purpose, didn’t you?… I couldn’t believe my eyes … that blasted lizard running along the table…”
“I had to do something,” the girl explained in a muffled voice. “Leo was behaving badly—I didn’t understand what he was saying, but I saw Lord Westcliff’s face—”
“Oh … oh…” Amelia choked with giggles. “Poor Westcliff … one moment he’s def-fending the local population from Leo’s tyranny, and then Spot comes s-slithering past the bread plates…”
“Where is Spot?” Twisting away from her sister, Beatrix approached Cam, who deposited the lizard in her outstretched palms. “Thank you, Mr. Rohan. You have very quick hands.”
“So I’ve been told.” He smiled at her. “The lizard is a lucky animal. Some people say it promotes prophetic dreaming.”
“Really?” Beatrix stared at him in fascination. “Come to think of it, I have been dreaming more often lately—”
“My sister needs no encouragement in that regard,” Amelia said. She gave Beatrix a meaningful look. “It’s time to say farewell to Spot, dear.”
“Yes, I know.” Beatrix heaved a sigh and peered inside the loose cage of her fingers at her erstwhile pet. “I’ll let him go now. I think Spot would rather live here than at the Ramsay estate.”
“Who wouldn’t? Go find a nice place for him, Bea. I’ll wait for you here.”
As her sister scampered off, Amelia turned and gazed at the dim verge of the house, its outline melding into an ironstone wall set along the bluff overlooking the river.
“What are you doing?” Cam asked, approaching her.
“I’m taking a good last look at Stony Cross Manor, since this is the last time I’ll ever see it.”
He grinned. “I doubt that. The Westcliffs have welcomed back guests who have done far worse.”
“Worse than setting wild creatures loose at the supper table? Dear heaven, they must be desperate for company.”
“They have a great tolerance for eccentricity.” He paused before adding, “What they don’t take well, I’m afraid, is callousness.”
The reference to her brother caused a delicate play of emotions on her face, humor fading to chagrin. “Leo was never callous before.” She wrapped her arms tightly across her chest, as if she wanted to tie herself into a self-protective bundle. “It’s only been in the past year that he’s become so intolerable. He’s not himself.”
“Because he inherited the title?”
“No, that has nothing to do with it. It’s because—” Looking away from him, she swallowed hard. He heard a nervous tapping from a foot half concealed beneath her skirts. “Leo lost someone,” she finally said. “The fever struck many people in the village, including a girl he … well, he was betrothed to her. Laura.” The name seemed to stick in her throat. “She was my best friend, and Win’s, too. A beautiful girl. She liked to draw and paint. She had a laugh that would make you laugh, too, just to hear it.”
Amelia was silent for a moment, lost in her memories. “Laura was one of the first to fall ill,” she said. “Leo stayed with her every possible moment. No one expected her to die … but it happened so quickly. After three days she was so feverish and weak you could barely feel her pulse. Finally she lost consciousness and died a few hours later in Leo’s arms. He came home and collapsed, and we realized he had caught the fever. And then Win had it, too.”
“But the rest of you didn’t?”
Amelia shook her head. “I had already sent Beatrix and Poppy away. And for some reason, neither I nor Merripen were susceptible. He helped me nurse them both through it. Without his help, they would both have died. Merripen made a syrup with some kind of toxic plant—”
“Deadly nightshade,” Cam said. “Not easy to find.”
“Yes.” She gave him a curious glance. “How did you know? You learned it from your grandmother, I suppose.”
He nodded. “The trick is to administer enough to counteract the poison in the blood, but not enough to kill the patient.”
“Well, both of them came through it, thank God. But Win is quite fragile, as you can probably see, and Leo … now he cares for nothing and no one. Not even himself.” Her foot resumed its nervous tapping. “I don’t know how to help him. I understand h
ow it feels to lose someone, but…” She shook her head helplessly.
“You’re referring to Mr. Frost,” he said.
Amelia gave him a sharp glance and flushed deeply. “How did you know? Did he say something? Was there gossip, or—”
“No, nothing like that. I saw it when you talked to him earlier.”
Shaking her head, Amelia raised her hand to her heat-infused cheeks. “Dear heaven. Am I that easy to read?”
“Perhaps I’m one of the Phuri Dae,” he said, smiling at her. “A mystical Gypsy. Were you in love with him?”
“That’s none of your concern,” she said, a bit too quickly.
He watched her closely. “Why did he leave you?”
“How did you—” She broke off and scowled as she understood what he was doing, throwing out provocative questions and gleaning the truth from her reactions. “Bother. All right, I’ll tell you. He left me for another woman. A prettier, younger woman who happened to be his employer’s daughter. It would have been a very advantageous marriage for him.”
“You’re wrong.”
Amelia gave him a perplexed glance. “I assure you, it would have been an enormously advantageous—”
“She couldn’t possibly have been prettier than you.”
Her eyes widened at the compliment. “Oh,” she whispered.
Approaching her, Cam touched her vibrating foot with his own. The tapping stopped.
“A bad habit,” Amelia said abashedly. “I can’t seem to rid myself of it.”
“A hummingbird will do that in spring. She hangs on the side of the nest and uses her other foot to tamp down the floor.”
Her gaze chased around as if she couldn’t decide where to look.
“Miss Hathaway.” Cam spoke gently, while she fidgeted before him. He wanted to take her in his arms and hold her until she quieted. “Do I make you nervous?”
She brought herself to look up at him, her eyes harboring the blue-black glitter of a moonlit lake. “No,” she said immediately. “No, of course you … yes. Yes, you do.”
The vehement honesty of her answer surprised both of them. The night deepened—one of the torches had burned out—and the conversation devolved into something halting and broken and delicious, like pieces of barley sugar melting on the tongue.
“I would never hurt you,” Cam said in a low voice.
“I know. It’s not that—”
“It’s because I kissed you, isn’t it?”
“You … you said you didn’t remember.”
“I remember.”
“Why did you do it?” she asked in a half-whisper.
“Impulse. Opportunity.” Aroused by her nearness, Cam tried to ignore the coursing readiness of his own body. “Surely you would have expected no less of a Roma. We take what we want. If a Roma desires a woman, he steals her for himself. Sometimes right out of her bed.” Even in the darkness he could see the rich renewal of her blush.
“You just said you would never hurt me.”
“If I carried you away with me…” The idea of it, her soft, struggling weight in his arms, sent his blood surging. He was caught by the primitive appeal of it, all reason crushed beneath the thumping heat of desire. “The last thing on my mind would be hurting you.”
“You would never do such a thing.” She was trying very hard to sound matter-of-fact. “We both know you’re too civilized.”
“Do we? Believe me, the issue of my civility is entirely open to question.”
“Mr. Rohan,” she asked unsteadily, “are you trying to make me nervous?”
“No.” As if the word required emphasis, he repeated softly, “No.”
Hell and damnation, he thought, wondering what he was doing. He was at a loss to comprehend why this woman, in her intelligent prickly innocence, should have captivated him so thoroughly. All he knew was a fierce longing to reach something in her, to strip away all the artificial trappings of stays and laces and shoes, the curtain of her gown, the little hooks of her hairpins.
Amelia took a deep breath. “What you didn’t mention, Mr. Rohan, was that if a Roma steals a woman from her bed according to tradition, it is with the purpose of marriage in mind. And the so-called stealing is prearranged and encouraged by the bride-to-be.”
Cam gave her a charming smile, deliberately dispelling the tension. “It lacks subtlety, but it hastens the proceedings considerably, doesn’t it? No asking for the father’s permission, no banns, no prolonged betrothal. Very efficient, a Romany courtship.”
Their conversation was checked by the reappearance of Beatrix. “Spot’s gone,” she reported. “He seemed quite happy to take up residence at Stony Cross Park.”
Seeming relieved by her sister’s return, Amelia went to her, brushed at the crumbs of soil on her sleeve, and straightened her hair bow. “Good luck to Spot. Are you ready to go back in to supper, dear?”
“No.”
“Oh, everything will be fine. Just remember to look chastened while I grimace in an authoritative manner, and I’m certain they’ll allow us to stay through dessert.”
“I don’t want to go back,” Beatrix moaned. “It’s so dreadfully dull, and I don’t like all that rich food, and I’ve been sitting beside the vicar who only wants to talk about his own religious writings. It’s so redundant to quote oneself, don’t you think?”
“It does bear a certain odor of immodesty,” Amelia agreed with a grin, smoothing her sister’s dark hair. “Poor Bea. You don’t have to go back, if you don’t wish it. I’m sure one of the servants can recommend a nice place for you to wait until supper is done. The library, perhaps.”
“Oh, thank you.” Beatrix heaved a sigh of relief. “But who will create another distraction if Leo starts being disagreeable again?”
“I will,” Cam assured her gravely. “I can be shocking at a moment’s notice.”
“I’m not surprised,” Amelia said. “In fact, I’m fairly certain you would enjoy it.”
Chapter Nine
The company at Westcliff’s table had been relieved by the news that Beatrix had elected to spend the rest of the evening alone in quiet contemplation. No doubt they feared another interruption by yet some other pocket-sized pet, but Amelia had assured them there would be no more unexpected visitors at the table.
Only Lady Westcliff had seemed genuinely perturbed by Beatrix’s absence. The countess excused herself sometime between the fourth and fifth courses and reappeared after a quarter hour. Amelia later learned that Lady Westcliff had sent for a supper tray to be brought to Beatrix in the library, and had visited her there.
“Lady Westcliff told me a few stories of when she was a girl, and how she and her younger sister used to misbehave,” Beatrix recounted the next day. “She said bringing a lizard to supper was nothing compared to the things they had done—in fact, she said they were both diabolical and rotten to the core. Isn’t that wonderful?”
“Wonderful,” Amelia said sincerely, reflecting on how much she liked the American woman, who seemed relaxed and fun-loving. Westcliff was another matter. The earl was more than a little intimidating. And after Leo’s callous dismissal of Westcliff’s concerns over the Ramsay tenants, it was doubtful the earl would be kindly disposed toward the Hathaways.
Thankfully Leo had managed to steer clear of further controversies during supper, mostly because he had been drawn into flirtation with the attractive woman beside him. Although women had always been beguiled by Leo, with his height and good looks and intelligence, he had never been as ardently pursued as he was now.
“I think it says something odd about women’s tastes,” Win told Amelia privately as they stood in the Ramsay House kitchen, “that Leo wasn’t chased by nearly as many women when he was nice. It seems the more odious he is, the more they like him.”
“They’re welcome to have him,” Amelia replied grumpily. “I fail to see the appeal of a man who goes through each day looking as if he’s either just gotten out of bed or is preparing to get back in it.” She wrap
ped her hair in a protective cloth and tucked the ends under turban-style.
They were preparing for another day of cleaning, and the ancient house dust had a tendency to cling obstinately to the skin and hair. Unfortunately the hired help was not wont to arrive in a timely manner, if at all. Since Leo was still abed after a night of heavy drinking, and probably wouldn’t arise until noon, Amelia was feeling particularly cross with him. It was Leo’s house and estate—the least he could do was help restore it. Or hire proper servants.
“His eyes have changed,” Win murmured. “Not merely the expression. The actual color. Have you noticed?”
Amelia went still. She took a long time to reply. “I thought it was my imagination.”
“No. They were always dark blue like yours. Now they’re mostly light gray. Like a pond after the sky has turned in winter.”
“I’m certain the color of some people’s eyes change as they mature.”
“You know it’s because of Laura.”
A dark heaviness pressed against Amelia from all sides as she thought about the friend she had lost and the brother she seemed to have lost along with her. But she couldn’t dwell on any of that now, there was too much to be done.
“I don’t think such a thing is possible. I’ve never heard of—” She broke off as she saw Win wrapping her long braids in a cloth identical to hers. “What are you doing?”
“I’m going to help today,” Win said. Although her tone was placid, her delicate jaw was set like a mule’s. “I’m feeling quite well and—”
“Oh, no you’re not! You’ll work yourself into a collapse, and then you’ll take days to recover. Find some place to sit, while the rest of us—”
“I’m tired of sitting. I’m tired of watching everyone else work. I can set my own limits, Amelia. Let me do as I wish.”
“No.” Incredulously Amelia watched as Win picked up a broom from the corner. “Win, put that down and stop being silly!” Annoyance whipped through her. “You’re not going to help anyone by expending all your reserves on menial tasks.”