by Sara Lindsey
“I do believe there’s hope for you yet, my lord.”
It was the wrong thing to say. She knew it as soon as the words left her lips. He stiffened and drew away, physically and emotionally.
“No.” He shook his head. “I am past hope. Or perhaps hope is past me. Either way, we would both do well to remember it.”
“You are too young to have such a dismal view of the future,” Olivia protested.
“Experience has made me old.”
“In spirit, perhaps, but it will not make the years fly by any faster. You have a long life ahead of you.”
“If there is one thing I have learned, Miss Weston, it is that none of us knows how much time we have been given on this earth.”
Livvy knew he was thinking of his wife.
“All the more reason to spend every day full of hope and wonder for life’s possibilities,” she countered.
“You are young. I am afraid you will come to find that expectation leads to disappointment.”
“I am not so young as I look. I am very nearly nineteen. I should have come out this past spring, but my sister needed me. I shouldn’t mind putting it off another year, but one doesn’t want to run the risk of being thought an old maid.”
“An old maid at twenty.” He shook his head. “And I have nearly ten years on you. By your calculations I must be ancient.”
“Men are not held to the same standards. You are in the very prime of life. But you are a marquess and so would be thought a good catch even if you had one foot in the grave.”
“Pursued for my title.” He heaved a sigh. “And all these years I thought it was my sunny disposition.”
Olivia choked on a laugh. “If ever I were to pursue you, my lord, it would certainly be for that.”
“And if I were to pursue you, Miss Weston?”
Livvy’s heart jumped. “I beg your pardon?”
“If I were to pursue you, what would be your great attraction?”
“My dowry, likely.”
“I have no need of funds.”
“My connections, then. My father is a viscount, and my grandfather on my mother’s side was a duke. My brother-in-law is the Earl of Dunston.”
He shrugged. “Good breeding is important, but as you pointed out, I am a marquess. I don’t particularly need to cultivate aristocratic connections.”
“I tell very good bedtime stories.”
The corner of his mouth twitched in amusement. “I am not a child.”
“No, but you have one.”
“You speak of your maternal abilities. A good try, Miss Weston, but a nursemaid serves the same purpose.”
Olivia folded her arms across her chest. “Then apparently I hold no attraction for you, my lord, and you will not be pursuing me. I must hold I am greatly relieved.”
He shook a finger at her. “I didn’t take you for a liar, Miss Weston.”
“You plan to pursue me, my lord?” Olivia smiled sweetly.
“No. On that count you were correct. You are not, however, greatly relieved to hear it. That was your lie. All women wish to be pursued.”
She braced her hands on her hips. “Why should I, or any female for that matter, wish to be pursued by someone for whom I hold not the slightest attraction?”
“Ah, but I never said you held no attraction for me. You came to that conclusion on your own.”
“You made it quite clear—”
“As it happens, you failed to mention your greatest attraction.”
“Oh?” She regarded him suspiciously. “And what might that be?”
“Why, your equally sunny disposition to be sure, though I’ve not discounted your apparent gift for, er, organization. Tell me, does this talent extend to all rooms, or is it particular to the library?”
Livvy took a deep breath and counted to ten. Then to fifty. It didn’t calm her in the slightest. First the man had tried to kill her by ordering his dog to attack her, and then he’d had the temerity to be ungrateful about all her hard work on his library. And now he had the gall to criticize her personality, which was charming most of the time . . . just not around him.
This was not to be borne!
“You can forget that apology, my lord,” she hissed.
The low, gravelly sound of his amused chuckle rang in her ears. He leaned forward to chuck her under the chin. “Charmed,” he whispered, his breath hot against her cheek.
Before she did something she would regret, Olivia turned and hurried into her chamber. She resisted slamming the door, but only because she was certain the action would further amuse the wretch next door. When Aunt Kate had spoken of the changes in her stepson, Livvy had imagined a quiet, sorrowful recluse. She would coax him into the holiday spirit, gently remind him of the pleasure to be had in good company, and perhaps permit a kiss beneath the mistletoe. . . . This was not the sort of adventure she had reckoned on!
But then, that was the problem with adventures. You could organize and plan and make lists all you liked, but you were never prepared for the actual setbacks, all of the unforeseen problems and pitfalls. By then it was usually too late and, for better or for worse, there was no turning back. Not that she was thinking of turning back.
She reached down absentmindedly for the familiar lump of the brooch, and then realized she had hidden it away for the night. The marquess was unlike what she had expected, to be sure, but he was still—or he had been—the tender, passionate father and husband depicted in his wife’s diary. She had not come this far to give up at the first sign of adversity. She fetched the book she was reading—or purporting to read—off the writing table where she had abandoned it earlier. She flipped through the pages . . . There!
She removed the loose paper and moved to the window. Standing in the silvery moonlight, she whispered the words, weaving them into a healing prayer.
Livvy had to concede his rhyming of “cleric” and “esoteric” was clever, and it had taken her no little amount of time to puzzle out that her next clue was hidden in the castle’s priest hole, but as far as poetry was concerned, Lord Sheldon was past saving. But, she assured herself as she hid the paper back inside the book, the rest of him was not. A man who had written poetry for his wife—however grating and unmelodic his verse—was not past redemption. He could be saved. No, he would be saved, and she, the ordinary (and ordinarily charming) Olivia Jane Weston, would be the one to do it.
Chapter 4
“Is there no respect of place, persons, nor time in you?”
Twelfth Night, Act II, Scene 3
As his housekeeper was scrambling to do the work normally delegated to the chambermaids, and as his stepmother planned to spend her morning attending to the matter of procuring new ones, Jason was informed over breakfast that the task of escorting Miss Weston on a tour of the castle fell to him. The situation was undesirable, to be sure, but he resolved to make the best of it. With any luck an hour or so in Miss Weston’s company would dissolve any warmer feelings that might have arisen the previous evening.
God knew something else had arisen and he’d had a devil of a time getting to sleep. What little slumber he had managed was restless, spent drowning in a sea of lustful dreams wherein he and Miss Weston had engaged in libidinous acts amidst towering stacks of books. He would never again think of libraries in quite the same light. Fortunately he seemed to have recovered his control this morning, and if he chose to ignore the fact that his control seemed proportionate to the amount of flesh exposed by Miss Weston’s gowns, that was his business. And if he decided the library need not be part of this morning’s excursion, then that was his business as well. The damned room ought to be locked anyway, but Gower’s hearing was increasingly selective with regard to Jason’s orders as of late.
“Miss Weston, if you have had your fill of chocolate . . .” He rose, beckoning her to follow him. “We’ll start in the Great Hall, as that’s the oldest part of the castle, though it has been improved upon over the past five hundred years or so.”
The dining room had three doors; one led to the New Tower, which, on this level, housed the library. They were most definitely not going through that door. The door on the southern wall of the room led to apartments, and he had no intention of giving Miss Weston a tour of the castle’s bedchambers. He was not going there. Not physically. Not mentally. Not nohow.
The door he guided Miss Weston through led into the solar, where, he supposed, some ancient relation dressed in a tunic and hose had sought solitude from the clatter and chaos of the Great Hall. Some other, not quite as ancient relation in a slashed doublet and codpiece had covered the walls with oak paneling and added an oriel window, which flooded the small chamber with light. The quiet nature of the room had not changed with the passage of time, but its purpose was less obvious now all of Arlyss was cloaked in a mantle of silence, rather like the castle in the story of the sleeping princess.
“Oh, what a lovely room!” Miss Weston exclaimed, flitting about to examine the carved paneling. She traced her fingers over the carved wood panels before gazing up at the plaster frieze, which continued all the way around the room. She circled the room twice, pondering the figures, before conceding defeat. “I’m afraid I can’t make out the subject,” she admitted. “It’s not a battle scene, which I would never attempt to identify, but neither does it seem to be biblical or mythological. Is it peculiar to your family?”
Jason gave a curt nod. “Peculiar is a very apt description. One of my more fanciful ancestors, the third marquess, believed he was visited by the ghost of one of the castle’s earliest residents, the ill-fated Rhoslynn Rhys. He commissioned this depiction of her star-crossed romance to commemorate his brush with the spirit world.”
Miss Weston’s eyes were alive with excitement. “I had hoped to see the White Lady during my stay, but with the window broken in the Old Tower—”
“There is no ghost, Miss Weston.” He spoke forcefully, and in the small room his words were almost a shout. “The White Lady is naught but a legend passed down, embellished and elaborated upon by each successive generation. Whatever tale Katherine told you—”
“Aunt Kate only remembered bits and pieces,” Miss Weston broke in. “Won’t you tell me about her?”
He shook his head. “If everyone remembers only bits and pieces, the story will eventually be forgotten, and then maybe the maids will stop leaving.”
She gave him an appraising look. “Do you really believe the maids leave because of an old ghost story?”
Jason shrugged. “Gower did suggest the dogs might scare them.”
“They are somewhat intimidating, I grant you, but I doubt a dog would frighten a maid into giving up a post in a good household with decent wages.”
He sensed she was trying to lead him to some answer, but he wasn’t following. “There is no need to beat about the bush, Miss Weston. Tell me, why are the maids leaving if the fault lies with neither the ghost nor the dogs?”
She hesitated, plucking at the folds of her skirts. “You truly wish to know?”
He frowned. “Of course.”
“Very well.” She swallowed and turned her gaze back to the frieze. “If I tell you why the maids are leaving, will you tell me about the White—about Rhoslynn?”
Jason was torn. He hated talking about his ancestress, not because her legend scared off the maids, but because people—usually women—always sighed and sniffed into their handkerchiefs and murmured how the tale was so romantic when it was nothing of the sort. On the other hand, he hadn’t particularly enjoyed waking up to cold ashes in the grate and the lingering stench of the piss-pot.
“I will tell you the story as I was told it,” he agreed, “since I imagine you’ll pester everyone in the castle until you hear it.”
“Probably.” She grinned, revealing a dimple in her left cheek. “Tenacity is one of my strengths.”
“Then I should hate to learn your weaknesses,” he muttered.
“I heard that, my lord, but I shall let it pass. My weaknesses are not the issue at hand.”
His brows rose. “And mine are?”
“Presuming one counts a choleric temperament as a weakness. I have only been under your roof for a day, but if you are always snapping and bellowing in this manner, I would guess you are to blame for terrifying the maids.”
He laughed because the notion was so utterly ridiculous. Perhaps he had been a bit short with a few of the maids, and he had lost his temper with the maid who’d brought his son icy bathwater, claiming it would strengthen his constitution, but he could hardly be faulted for that. Or for dismissing the occasional maid who decided to offer more, ah, personal services. And the silly girls he’d berated for idle gossip clearly had flighty dispositions; they wouldn’t have lasted long in any case. . . .
Christ, was it possible he was the reason the maids had left?
Miss Weston came forward and patted his arm. “I don’t think they all left because of you. The castle is somewhat isolated and likely quieter than one might expect in a nobleman’s household. I daresay some of the maids wanted a bit more excitement, and I’ve no doubt a number of them grew weary of pining for their master—” She clapped her free hand over her mouth, then brought it up to cover her eyes. “Oh, dear, I can’t believe I said that aloud.”
Jason chuckled, watching in wonder while her skin changed from creamy white to the color of strawberries.
“Pray, do not be embarrassed. That was the nicest compliment I have received in quite some time. You wouldn’t think it, but Gower is unbelievably stingy with his praise.”
He wasn’t sure why, but he felt compelled to relieve her distress. And when she lowered her hand from her face and he saw that dimple again, he felt like he’d been given the moon and the stars.
A fragment of conversation surfaced in his mind, a shard from a vessel once shaped like a heart. Like his heart.
“Marry me, Laura. I’ll give you everything. Jewels, gowns—the moon and stars if you want them.”
“I don’t want any of that, my love. I only want your heart.”
His heart.
She’d wanted his heart, and he had given it to her.
And then she’d had to go and break it.
“What are you thinking of?”
Miss Weston’s gently voiced question drew Jason out of his reverie.
“Broken hearts,” he answered truthfully.
“Rhoslynn’s? Or were you trying to count the number of maids you’ve left brokenhearted over the years?” she teased.
His wife’s shadow had chased away the lightness that had briefly surfaced within him. “Neither,” he responded coldly. “The broken heart in question is my own. Now, may we proceed on our tour?”
Olivia trailed Lord Sheldon out of the solar, silently cursing her stupid, wayward mouth. How could she have been so unfeeling, so thoughtless as to jest about broken hearts with this particular man? She berated herself all the way downstairs, and then she forgot everything as he led her into the castle’s chapel.
The room was long and narrow, but light flooded in through the large stained-glass windows that ran along one of the walls. Colored patches, like scattered pieces of a rainbow, danced over the stone floor, carved oak pews, and whitewashed walls. The timbered ceiling was painted with a scene of God in heaven, so that one felt there was nothing overhead but a blue sky with a choir of angels. The space was simple, but divine; old- fashioned, but entirely fresh. Livvy knew she had never been in the chapel before, and yet it was somehow familiar. It took her a few minutes to realize why.
“This is just how I pictured the chapel in The Shades of Hartsbane Hall,” she told Lord Sheldon.
“I beg your pardon?”
“It’s a wonderful novel. There’s a governess—Emmaline—who discovers a priest hole in a chapel just like this one. The master of the house, Lord Maxwell, is the dark, brooding sort”—Olivia gave the dark, brooding marquess a sideways look—“but he falls in love with Emmaline and rescues her after the evil housekeeper t
raps her in the priest hole.”
“I’m sorry to say I must have missed that one,” he said, sounding not at all sorry. “An evil housekeeper, you say? Perhaps I should order it for Mrs. Maddoc.”
“Oh, no.” Livvy shook her head. “I am certain she would much prefer The Bride of Moongate Manor. That’s the one where Emmiliana, an impoverished Italian contessa, disguises herself and becomes the housekeeper of Prince Maximilliano—”
He leaned back against the side of one of the pews and crossed his arms over his chest. “Let me guess, he’s the dark, brooding sort as well?”
She nodded.
“And they fall in love, this prince and his housekeeper?”
“But she’s really a countess—”
“Yes, well, as Mrs. Maddoc’s family has been in service to the Trahernes for some years, I am quite sure she is not an aristocrat in disguise. Nor do I see myself falling in love with anything other than her tea cakes. I think it would be unkind to give her false hope.”
“Go ahead and poke fun, my lord,” Livvy sniffed. “You are obviously unaware of the great pleasure to be had from such novels.”
He made a sound of disgust. “Nonsensical stories written for nonsensical women.”
“I believe many men enjoy reading them as well,” she replied stiffly.
“I take leave to doubt that.”
She raised her brows in silent question.
“Men are logical beings,” he explained. “These novels, though I doubt they deserve so lofty a title, clearly defy rational thought.”
“I see,” she said through clenched teeth. “And if men are logical beings, then women are. . . ?”
He didn’t hesitate for a second. “Women are illogical, irrational, flighty creatures prone to ridiculous notions of love and romance.”
Olivia wasn’t sure whether she was more startled by his words or the utter conviction with which he spoke them. She gave an uneasy laugh. “Anyone would think you hate women, my lord.”