by Sara Bennett
Again he didn’t return her smile. “I’m sure a donation can be arranged, if only to improve the vicar’s bad temper.”
“Oh no, I didn’t mean…” she began, horrified that he might think she was begging.
But, as if the subject was closed, he’d turned to find his hat and place it on his head. Arrogant, she thought, and dismissive. He hadn’t changed one bit, and she was relieved to discover she still found him just as irritating.
“It will be necessary for me to spend time in my uncle’s house over the next few days at least, possibly longer. We brought a number of servants with us, but I will need more, on a temporary basis, to help with sorting out the mess. Some of the rooms look as if they haven’t been cleaned in decades, simply shut up and forgotten. I doubt any of the family will want to live in it. I certainly won’t, but the structure seems sound enough. Can you assist me with that, Miss Willoughby?”
“With the structure of the house?” she asked him, bemused.
“With some temporary servants. Well, anyone will do really, but they need to be strong and willing to work hard. As I said, the place is an appalling mess.”
“Of course,” she said, adopting his brisk and business-like manner. “Should I send them directly to the house, or do you intend to interview them first?”
“Good God, no,” he said with feeling. “I have no time for that. Whoever you think suitable is good enough for me.”
“Oh.” His trust in her was another little shock, although why she wasn’t sure. Perhaps her father’s lack of confidence in her was beginning to erode her self-confidence.
“Margaret?”
Startled, she met his piercing look.
He reached out and, shockingly, brushed his thumb over her lower lip. His touch was light, but she felt it keenly. “You’re doing it again,” he said.
“Oh. I’m sorry.”
Now he smiled. “Don’t be sorry.” His voice had dropped and there was something husky in it. Something that set butterflies free in her stomach. “I like it. I like thinking about putting my mouth on you there. I think…” He hesitated, as though reconsidering whether he should go on, and then doing so anyway. “I think about sucking your lip into my mouth.”
She knew she was staring. There was really nothing she could say in response. There was an ache inside her, a burning sort of ache. He was still looking at her mouth and when she imagined him sucking her lip … no, there was really nothing she could say.
He seemed to know it, because he suddenly became all brisk again, as if the moment had never been. “Goodbye, Miss Willoughby. I look forward to our next meeting.” Then he bowed and, opening the door himself, strode out into the inclement weather without looking back.
Automatically, Margaret closed the door behind him. She was still attempting to gather her wildly scattered thoughts and turn them into something more coherent. Instead she kept seeing his face and the way he looked at her, and what he had said. It was only a short step to begin picturing his mouth on hers, his arms around her …
What he’d said couldn’t be true. Could it? Was he flirting with her?
Dominic Frampton, the Earl of Monkstead, was here in Denwick. The man she had always told herself she disliked and yet could never forget, the man she must learn to forget if she was to make a future with Louis. Had he really decided to start a flirtation with her?
Immediately her common sense swept in and knocked the thought down. No, that couldn’t be so. He had come here to see his great uncle and now he was staying to bury his great uncle. She was just a distraction for him, that was all, and she needed to be on her guard. She might be a useful way for Monkstead to pass the time, but he would forget her as soon as he left Denwick for London.
5
Lady Sibylla was seated by the fire in the private parlour they had taken in the inn, which was called the White Boar. The flames crackled as she held her hands to them and groaned aloud. “I thought I would never be warm again,” she announced dramatically when her brother entered the room.
Her voice was a little thick, her nose red from her cold, and now and again she gave a shiver. Dominic had had the doctor to see her. The man seemed competent enough dealing with common illnesses, and had declared her fit and strong, needing only warmth and rest to recover.
“You’re warmer than Great Uncle Cecil,” he retorted.
She rolled her eyes at him. “That wouldn’t be difficult. It’s rather uncomfortable thinking about him laid out in the cellar.” She shuddered. The cellar of the White Boar was where bodies were kept before burial, being the coldest place available in the village.
“Where have you been?” Sibylla asked.
“To the vicarage, as you well know.”
“Did you see your Margaret?” she teased, barely holding back a smile.
He flung himself down into the chair opposite and stretched out his boots onto the hearth. The room was probably too warm, but after the freezing air outside he didn’t complain.
“Yes, I did see Miss Willoughby and her appalling father. As for her being mine I think you misjudge the matter, Sib. If her father hadn’t been there she would have given me a good telling off for interfering in other peoples’ lives. Just like old times,” he muttered, frowning into the flames.
Sibylla appeared deep in thought. “Perhaps that’s why you’re so taken with her, Nic. She stands up to you and doesn’t let your consequence stop her from telling you how she feels. You don’t have many women like that in your life.”
“I have you,” he retorted. “And who says I am taken with her? We were paying a Christmas visit to Great Uncle Cecil and it is a complete coincidence that Margaret Willoughby lives nearby.”
She snorted a laugh. “Dominic, my dear brother, this is me you’re talking to.”
He closed his eyes. Sibylla was right. He’d been playing a game with himself and Margaret, but after the words he had spoken to her just now, she must know how he felt. He’d declared himself to her. He’d told her exactly what he wanted to do to her and she could be in no doubt about his desire. Even if she didn’t understand how deep his need went.
The next step was hers. If she rejected him utterly then it would be over, but he hoped that she wouldn’t. Her expression when she’d first seen him in her father’s study, the happiness and joy in her eyes, as if she’d been longing for him to appear. He refused to believe he could have been mistaken. The way she had looked at him had told him everything he needed to know. Margaret was over the moon at the sight of him.
Yes, he’d seen how she felt on seeing him, but at the same time he’d been shaken to realise how frail and wane she was. Not quite a withered husk, as her cousin Olivia had foretold, but well on the way. He hadn’t liked seeing his Margaret like that. But when he’d told her about the marriages he’d presided over in Mockingbird Square, the sparkle had returned to her eyes. Until her father quenched it.
“I asked Margaret to organize some help to clean out Great Uncle Cecil’s house, while I’m busy sorting out his affairs. You don’t want to stay here roughing it any longer than you have to, I imagine? Once you’re well enough we can leave.” He gave her a narrow look.
She wrinkled her nose. “You may not realise this, Nic, but I have spent time in far more precarious places than this. Hiding in attics while the bailiffs were after us, running off after dark to avoid paying bills. Exciting times.”
“Surely you don’t miss them?” he demanded. Then, meaning her disreputable husband, “You don’t miss him?”
His sister shrugged, a very bad habit their mother would have deplored. A pity neither of them had ever listened to her. “Well I’m sorry to disappoint you, but I do miss him. Not the bailiffs and the running off, but I miss being able to turn to him and share our combined memories, good and bad. He was a part of me, Nic, a part of my life. And now he’s gone.”
“You’ll find someone else,” he said with certainty, though it was not a nice thing to say. But then his sister didn’t exp
ect him to be polite. She expected him to be honest.
She raised an eyebrow at him. “Please don’t tell me you have someone in mind, because you know it would never work. You may think you are good at arranging marriages and happy endings, but on this matter I agree with Margaret. Speaking of Margaret—”
He frowned. “Margaret is my business, Sib.” He ignored her soft laughter, letting the heat from the fire soak into his body, trying to forget about what horrors, known and unknown, awaited him in Sir Cecil’s house.
“What are you going to do with the house?” she asked. “You can hardly leave it standing empty, can you?”
“No, it needs to be put to some use, I suppose. I will turn my mind to it.”
The silence went on for so long that he thought her asleep until she spoke again, her voice soft and dreamy.
“Margaret’s father was appalling, was he? I did hear from the inn keeper, Mr Black, that he wasn’t well liked.”
“Yes, he was appalling,” Dominic said bluntly. “I would go so far as to say he was the most appalling man I have ever met.”
He had met men like Margaret’s father before. Vain, selfish men who believed they were more important than they really were. They seemed to thrive on lording over others, especially those in their power. Dominic couldn’t believe Margaret would allow herself to be bullied, but he could also see how over a length of time one would become used to being treated like a doormat.
His dash into the north had always been with the intention of rescuing Margaret, but on the way he had begun to wonder if perhaps things wouldn’t be as bad as he believed. That Margaret would be content, happy, and instead of his ridiculous plan to play the hero, he would end up turning around and going home again.
Now he knew that matters were that bad, and Margaret truly would shrivel up and die if she remained under her father’s thumb. He had to do something. It would be so much easier if he were free to do as he pleased. The vicar would jump at the chance of an earl as his son in law. He could whisk Margaret away and give her everything she deserved. But he wasn’t free. To save her he would have to ruin her—her reputation and her good name.
It was a terrible scheme, and yet he couldn’t be sorry for it. He had been alone for so long, and although there were women who had been part of his life, there was always a distance he never allowed them to breach. He’d told himself that was because he had a past that held him back when it came to giving himself over completely, but now he wondered if it was just that he hadn’t found the right woman. A mistress to visit when his physical need was strong was all very well, but he had wanted more than that. He’d wanted a companion who could make him listen and think, who he could talk to without having to watch his words, and who would make him smile. More importantly he’d wanted someone to love.
His own happy ending.
Margaret opened her eyes and stared at the ceiling of her bed chamber. It was the second night since her encounter with Monkstead and the second night she hadn’t been able to fall asleep without thinking about it. Or him.
It didn’t help that she’d been up with her mother, who kept believing it was time to rise and called for help getting dressed. Margaret had finally settled her an hour ago, but she still couldn’t sleep.
Another of the reasons for her disquiet was her father’s meeting with the dean. The vicar had come marching upstairs to his wife’s room, where Margaret was trying to tempt her with some toast and tea, and informed them that he was going to be moved south to a more lucrative living. Not, he was quick to assure them, among the nasty, smelly coal mines, but in a nice rural area where the farmers and land owners held sway.
Margaret knew he had been trying for many years to secure himself a parish he considered more deserving of his abilities. Denwick had never been a wealthy area, and apart from the farmers who struggled to grow their crops and feed their stock on the moorland, its major employer was a foundry that made equipment for soldiers. The defeat of Napoleon and the end of the war had meant demand had plummeted and jobs lost, and now the parish was even more depressed.
“It seems I impressed at least one important gentleman,” he had said with a triumphant smile, “and when the living became vacant he thought of me.”
His wife smiled vacantly, but Margaret was already wondering if that meant Louis Scott would take over the parish of Denwick. Living here without her father’s beady eye on them would be vastly different to being at his constant beck and call.
“That—that is very good news,” she said, realizing she had been silent too long. Luckily her father was too full of his news to notice.
“Yes, it is. But don’t concern yourself about being left behind, Margaret, because I have already asked that Louis accompany me. As his future wife, you will accompany him.” He gave her a toothy smile.
“Oh. Well … what a relief.”
He didn’t seem to detect the lie, or if he did he ignored it, as he did all things that did not fit in with his view of the world.
“What does Lady Strangeways think about you leaving?” she asked, knowing the woman wouldn’t be pleased to have her favourite vicar abandon her. Surely her father did not mean to bring her ladyship with them too?
He frowned, as if the reminder of this particular hurdle wasn’t to his liking. “We won’t tell anyone about this until it is official. I do not want to jeopardize my chances, do you hear?”
Margaret and her mother had been quick to promise complete and utter silence.
Now Margaret stared at the ceiling some more, wondering how she would manage in a new place with her mother’s health failing and her father’s demands, and poor Louis run ragged. Even ridding them of Lady Strangeways barely tipped the balance. As there seemed no answer to this problem, she turned to her other worry, which was a much more confusing and yet strangely enjoyable conundrum.
Monkstead.
She mulled over the words he had spoken to her. It didn’t seem to matter how often she repeated them, she still didn’t know what to make of them. Or him. She only knew that when she thought about that brief moment they were alone together she knew she had experienced feelings she had never felt before. Well, not since she’d seen him last in Mockingbird Square. Her heart had sped up to a quick march, and then a warm tingling sensation had enveloped her lips as she imagined his mouth on hers. The warmth had spread from there, and down into her breasts and even her belly.
This needy feeling only became apparent when she was with the earl. She never found herself thinking about any other man in such a way, and the fact it was this man confused and vexed her. Like most girls, she did dream about love and someone who would be with her until death, but that someone had always been faceless. She read romances and smiled to herself, mostly thinking how silly the characters were, and how they could so easily solve their problems with a little common sense.
In that she was rather like the earl, she supposed, only he liked to take a hands-on approach.
Then there was her cousin Olivia and the passionate love she had for her husband Rory. Once, after an argument, Margaret had seen them clasped together and kissing wildly. Yes, she admitted, she did want that. She wanted a man to love her, to be with her, to make her happy. And at the same time she knew that dream was impossible.
She’d told herself the earl’s words were not to be taken seriously, that he was using her as a distraction, but the more she pondered it, the more she accepted he was not a man who would do that to her. He would not play with her feelings like that. He could be charming, he could be amusing, and he could definitely be annoying and self-important, but he was not frivolous. He was not thoughtless.
The way he had looked at her … I want to suck your lip into my mouth. She gave a shiver. There had been times during their encounters in London when she had wondered if he wasn’t considering seducing her, but the idea of a man like Monkstead thinking of her in such a way had seemed so preposterous. She’d dismissed it.
Now the idea was no longer
preposterous and the question was: What was she going to do about it?
Restlessly she turned on her side. She was too inexperienced to know how to counter his moves. Monkstead was a man of the world, a married man of the world, although strangely his married state was not something that had concerned her as much as it should. It did now, and she reminded herself that giving in to him was quite, quite impossible, and she must not even begin to imagine taking that path.
And like a disobedient child, her head immediately did just that. She pictured herself saying ‘yes’ and him pressing his lips to hers, and declaring all sorts of unlikely things. Her arms were wrapped around his broad shoulders, and she could smell his shaving lotion—she hadn’t even known she recognized it by heart until now. A moment later he lifted her onto his horse and, when she was tucked in against him, held safe in his arms, rode away with her to some as yet undisclosed utopia. A utopia where leaving all of her responsibilities behind her and running off with a married man was not such a bad thing after all.
Shocked by how far her wayward thoughts had taken her, she pulled back.
When next she saw him she must speak to him bluntly. Whatever strange bee he had in his brain concerning her needed to be squashed flat before it could take flight.
No flirting, no staring at her in a way that made her body turn to warm syrup, and definitely no kissing.
Telling herself she was pleased with her final decision, Margaret lay awake for the rest of the night, staring into the darkness.
6
True to her word, Margaret had sent a dozen strong and reliable local residents to help with Great Uncle Cecil’s house. While they did the heavy lifting, under instruction from the footmen he had brought with him, Dominic had set his valet to work. The man was sorting through Cecil’s wardrobe, searching for anything that could be handed over to the church to distribute among the needy. Not that the valet enjoyed it. This was beyond what he considered his province and his face was so twisted with disgust it was as if there was a permanent bad smell under his nose.