by Louise Allen
There were moments when she felt something like a stab of fear at how easy it was to slip into the fiction that she really was a housekeeper, that she would be working here, not for weeks, but for years. When she was seeing Ross at a distance it was tempting to simply enjoy being near him, to probe the bittersweet ache of desire as one might a sore tooth. But when she had to act the housekeeper to his face, take his orders, behave as a servant, she could not deceive herself that this was anything but a painful charade. He did not want her as a housekeeper, she did not want him as an employer, in any capacity.
She was here for one thing only, she reminded herself: to earn enough to find Bella and Lina. Ross had promised to do something about an enquiry agent for her, and she tried to be patient about that, so now at night she drew the curtains tight across her window and read until she was too tired to lie drowsily, wishing for a big warm man to take up three-quarters of her chaste bed. If Ross went out at night poaching in his own coverts, she did not know.
On the morning of her fifth day at the Court Meg made a discovery in the shadowy recesses of a long corridor on the second floor. It was the portrait of a young man, a youth, and at first she did not recognise him, for he was smiling, the humour and the life simply shining out of his dark eyes.
Ross? Meg stared at it. ‘Damaris, come and help me lift this down and carry it into the light.’
‘Lifts your spirits just looking at that smile, doesn’t it, Mrs Halgate?’ They propped it on a window seat with the sun full on it. ‘Who do you think it is?’ She flicked her feather duster at the heavy frame.
To Meg the subject was quite plain—it was Ross at perhaps sixteen, long limbed, rangy, his hair over his eyes, his nose and chin too dominant in his young face. Where has all that joy gone? she wondered. Had his brother’s accident killed every trace of it?
‘It is his lordship.’ What it would it feel like to have those eyes smiling at her? ‘Come along, Damaris, we are going to take this downstairs.’
‘Hell’s teeth.’
The maids had finished their work in the study and departed, leaving Meg to hang the last of the charming amateur watercolours of the estate that she had found in the attic. At the sound of the voice behind her she jumped, bit her tongue and swung round, aware of a certain degree of apprehension. She was moving into Ross’s own rooms now and she was not at all sure how tolerant of interference he would prove to be in practice, whatever he said about change.
It was sunny enough to make energetic polishing warm work and Meg had pushed up the full-length windows on the west side of the study. Ross had entered simply by stepping over the sill from the terrace. He stood there, hands on hips, rifle slung over one shoulder, looking round.
The inner set of curtains had been removed from the windows to let in as much light as possible; the dark etchings had gone, replaced by the watercolours; a big vase of greenery stood on the hearthstone and old roses, dark red and crumpled like velvet, stood between reading lamp and standish on the desk.
It was the first time since the day she had arrived here, Meg realised, that she had been completely alone with Ross without the formal pretext of her reading to him and it felt as though all the air had been sucked out of the room, leaving her breathless and light-headed. ‘You no longer look like a soldier,’ she said without thinking.
‘No?’ He frowned at, her but she found she was unsure whether it was displeasure or puzzlement.
‘No. You look like a country gentleman.’
‘That is what I am pretending to be.’
‘I do not think you are pretending,’ she said, making herself be bold. ‘This is your roots, where you belong. The things that went wrong when you were a young man, the things that made you unhappy, those do not change the fact that this is your destiny.’
‘Hmm.’ His mouth twisted into a sneer that was as much for himself, as for her, she suspected. ‘My destiny to be unhappy? Thank you, Meg.’
‘You can be happy if you let yourself be. I was happy, most of the time with James—there is always something to be happy about.’
As soon as the words left her mouth she realised how betraying they were. And so did he—she could see the questions in his eyes as she averted her head. After a moment, when she feared he would ask something she was not prepared to answer, he turned away and continued to scan the room.
Meg had left his brother’s portrait in place and Ross stopped, staring at it for a long time. ‘I wish I had been here when he died,’ he said eventually. ‘I wish I had been able to say goodbye. Did he think I had deserted him, I wonder?’
It seemed to be a rhetorical question, Meg thought, relieved that she did not have to answer that painful doubt. Now she waited with bated breath while Ross turned slowly to face the wall where his father’s portrait had hung. ‘What have you done with it?’ he asked at length.
‘I hung it where yours was.’ It had been gratifying to consign that arrogant face to the shadows of an obscure corridor. ‘I will bring it back if you wish, naturally, my lord.’ Remember your place, before you both forget it.
‘Don’t “my lord” me while we are alone, Meg.’ He was still staring at his own portrait. ‘Was I ever that young?’
‘Perhaps you still are, somewhere inside,’ she ventured, coming to stand beside him.
‘Ever the optimist, Meg?’ He turned and looked down at her and she smiled, shaking her head, trying not to show how his closeness affected her. He had been riding and he smelt of fresh air and green things and horse and leather. The strain had gone from around his eyes and she had to fight the urge to go up on tiptoe and kiss the tender spot at his temple where the blue veins showed under the skin and the soft hair feathered over the tanned skin.
To touch him would be to be overwhelmed by her feelings, the sensual longings that simply thinking about him evoked. And she must not give way to them—there was no future for a scandalously bigamous camp-follower and a baron except for a financial arrangement that took her independence and allowed Ross to have what he wanted without ever engaging his emotions. She wanted more from him than his lovemaking, and that, once she became his mistress, was all she would ever have.
‘You have a knack for making a house seem like a home,’ he said, just as the tension became unbearable.
‘I hope I am not making it feminine.’ His praise glowed warm inside her. Meg knew she should move away from him, but stayed anyway. Ross was so solid, so still. James had always fidgeted, always wanted to be moving, talking, finding something new. She had never felt entirely secure with her husband, yet for all her fears about Ross he was like a rock to cling to. ‘You must tell me if anything is not to your taste. But, of course, there will soon be all of your things around to give it your personality.’
‘I don’t think I have things, Meg. You know soldiers—we live out of a pack. One trunk if we’re lucky.’
‘Oh, yes.’ She looked at the desk with its tidy piles of ledgers and papers. It looked joyless, somehow. A task to be done, a duty carried out. ‘You will find things. A shell from the beach, a favourite little carving your fingers stray to when you are thinking, a book of poetry you browse through when you heart is heavy.’
‘Have you things?’ he asked, moving closer.
‘No. I lost them all with the baggage train at Toulouse.’ The tears welled up and she blinked them away hard. Ross made a wordless sound deep in his throat and she shook her head, defying him to weaken her further with sympathy. ‘Foolish things. A needle case Bella had worked, a tiny peg doll of Lina’s. A pressed leaf from a willow tree across the lane from the vicarage. A book of verse of my mother’s.’
‘Nothing of James’s? You do not wear a wedding ring.’
‘I pawned it.’ It had been easy, when it came to it, to barter that symbol of the marriage that had never been. She had to move away from this; it was too personal, it hurt too much. ‘Have you been riding around the estate again?’
‘Yes.’ He moved to prop the rifle up by the
window and came back to her side, apparently accepting her reluctance to confide. ‘What seemed to a boy to be simple countryside filled with streams and cliffs and coves and trees to climb now consists of nothing but problems and decisions. Do we put this field down to hay? Should that barn be replaced? Are the cattle thriving? What do I do about the fact that my father left the tenants’ cottages to rot?’
‘Why, repair them, of course. Or build new ones.’
‘There—more decisions to make.’ And then he smiled at her properly for the first time.
Meg felt her legs go weak with the realisation that this was the man inside, the real man, who was smiling at her. Not the one who was hurt, brooding, angry. She had desired that man, cared about him, worried for him. But this one…this one was different, this was the youth in the portrait grown to manhood. This man she felt something else for, something she had no word for, but which dizzied her mind.
All that power and strength and intelligence—and now charm. It was so unfair when all her hard-earned caution and common sense seemed to be at war with the old, romantic Meg who was stirring within her, telling her the world was well lost for… For what? Something must have shown in her eyes, for his own darkened, became questioning. Ross lifted one hand almost to her cheek, but he did not touch; he had given his word, after all, Meg thought, shaken, as she looked into the depths of that gaze.
‘How is your leg?’ She turned abruptly and the mood, and his smile, shattered. ‘Are you riding too much? What does your doctor say?’
Doctor Greenaway had called the day before. He was invited into the study for half an hour and had then left. Ross had not chosen to confide the doctor’s opinion to her.
‘That it is healing well and that I must have had a good surgeon. He rebandaged it, before you ask,’ he added, forestalling her question. ‘And I refused to be bled. I left far too much blood in France to want to shed any more just yet.’
‘And the riding? I will wager you did not ask him about that.’
‘Then you would lose. In moderation, leaving it to my own good sense.’ His mouth quirked. ‘Was that a snort, Meg?’
‘Ladies,’ she said repressively, ‘do not snort.’
‘Oh, Meg,’ He was very close now. So close. All she had to do was put out her hand. She wanted to touch him, to believe that she meant something more than a commercial exchange of sexual favours to him, that her foolish heart was not utterly misguided. ‘I promised, Meg, but I haven’t changed,’ he murmured. ‘I still—’
‘Harrumph.’ Heneage clearing his throat was magisterial. Meg just managed not to move away guiltily as the butler came into the room. She had not heard him knock, but then, upper servants in great houses did not knock, she had read once. Something else to look up in her reference book. ‘Lady Pennare, Miss Pennare and Miss Elizabeth Pennare have called. Not knowing whether you are at home to visitors, my lord, I took the liberty of seating them in the Chinese Salon.’
‘Tell them I’m out.’
‘My lord, your neighbours will all call soon, and keep calling until they find you at home. Would it not be better to deal with them sooner rather than later?’ Meg withstood the full force of angry dark eyes. One of them had to be practical and sensible; she was so tired of it being her. ‘I will go and offer them refreshments while you change.’
‘Why the devil should I change?’ he demanded. ‘They invited themselves, they can take me as they find me.’
‘They have called at a perfectly reasonable hour for social calls. And you smell of horse,’ Meg said frankly. She was aware that the butler had become glassy-eyed. Presumably no one ever spoke to his late lordship like that. Not and remained employed for very long.
‘Mrs Halgate, you are depressingly commonsensical.’
‘I strive to be, my lord. I hope I know what is right,’ she added, holding his gaze and saw he knew she had answered his unfinished sentence.
Chapter Ten
‘Good afternoon, my lady. Miss Pennare, Miss Elizabeth. I am Mrs Halgate, the housekeeper. Lord Brandon will be down directly. May I bring you refreshments? Tea, perhaps?’
Meg stood respectfully just inside the door and withstood the concerted scrutiny of three pairs of very blue eyes. The Pennare womenfolk were individually attractive; all together they were a vision of blonde curls, periwinkle eyes and exquisite dressmaking. She tried not to feel plain, brown and freckled and could only be thankful for the good quality of her gown and the starched perfection of her cap.
‘Tea, thank you, Mrs Halgate.’ Lady Pennare nodded graciously. ‘Where is Mrs Fogarty?’
‘She has retired, Lady Pennare. And moved to Truro, I understand.’
‘I see.’
Meg hoped profoundly that she did not. ‘I will bring your tea, ladies.’
As she crossed the hall Ross came down the stairs looking respectable in a corbeau-blue tail coat and cream pantaloons with Hessian boots. When he reached the bottom step she saw the fit was hardly tailor-made.
‘Well?’ he enquired, one brow lifting in sardonic acknowledgement of her scrutiny.
‘That coat does not fit very well.’ The pantaloons fitted rather too well.
‘Young Perrott is beside himself. If his lordship had listened to his advice, his lordship would not be receiving ladies in his father’s clothing. He flatters himself that the shine on the boots—which pinch like the devil, incidentally—does him justice, but he begs his lordship to visit the best tailor Truro can offer at the earliest opportunity.’ The imitation of Perrott’s reproachful voice was wickedly accurate, made funnier by Ross’s completely straight face. Meg struggled for some composure.
‘I am fetching a tea tray.’
‘What are they like?’ Ross eyed the door to the Chinese Salon as though expecting it to conceal French artillery, not three attractive women.
‘Very pretty,’ Meg said primly and left him to make his entrance.
By the time Meg returned with a footman and the tea things Ross was feeling decidedly harassed. Lady Pennare, an elegant matron in her early forties, quite obviously expected him to admire her daughters who were, he had to admit, a credit to their mama. They were pretty, beautifully turned out and well mannered. Unfortunately he could detect not the slightest hint of personality in either of them.
Miss Pennare, just eighteen, and Miss Elizabeth, seventeen, had not had a London Season this year, their mother confided, owing to the uncertain health of their paternal grandmother. ‘But they will enjoy their London débuts next year, if they have not already contracted eligible alliances,’ she added.
So you expect the old lady to depart well before then, Ross thought cynically. Lady Pennare surveyed the room with approval, leaving Ross with the decided impression that she had valued every item in it, including himself. Her daughters made determined conversation.
‘Will you be holding a party soon, Lord Brandon?’ Miss Pennare asked.
‘I had not thought to,’ he said as Meg began to pass cups of tea, a simple figure in plain blue amidst the feminine furbelows. It seemed to him that of the four women in the room, she was the only one whose true nature shone through.
‘Oh.’ Miss Elizabeth pouted. ‘But we had heard that there is a huge reception room here. It seems such a pity to waste it. It might even be big enough for a ball,’ she added, widening her blue eyes at him.
She will flutter her lashes in a moment, Ross thought. There, I knew it. Little peahen. ‘I do not dance, Miss Elizabeth.’ It was a lie, he danced perfectly competently, as most officers could. From informal dances to full-scale balls, Wellington had encouraged the social life of the English forces in the Peninsula.
‘Your wound. Of course,’ she said soulfully, gazing at him with admiration in her remarkable eyes.
Ross blinked, suddenly aware of a danger he had not even considered. Far from being a tiresome social call, this was a hunting expedition. He was a titled bachelor and therefore fair game for every matchmaking mama and single young lady in the d
istrict.
‘I never dance,’ he repeated, injecting as much chill as he could into the statement. Her smile turned into a pout at the tone and whatever she saw in his face and she put down her tea cup with a little clatter. He was not the handsome and charming young man she had hoped to find, of course. She hadn’t the nerve that Meg did, he reflected. Meg had never flinched, however frightened she was of him. Except for that terrified reaction when she had woken to find herself in bed with him looming over her, he reminded himself, crossing his legs.
‘Then we ladies must try that much harder to introduce you into our social circle, Lord Brandon.’ Lady Pennare was made of sterner stuff than her younger daughter. ‘An eligible gentleman must expect invitations to every event, you know,’ she added in rallying tones.
Half an hour later, after one cup of tea and one tiny lemon-drop biscuit each, they fluttered out.
‘Hell and damnation,’ Ross exploded as the carriage rolled away down the drive. ‘That’s the first of the flood, I suppose. I am obviously naïve, but I was not braced for matchmaking mamas.’ He was the baron now, he should marry, father an heir. He had not even thought about that before. Now it was staring him in the face, his fundamental duty to his name.
‘What did you expect, my lord?’ Meg had come back to supervise the clearing of the tea things and now stood, hands neatly clasped at her waist, her lips twitching with what he strongly suspected was an almost irresistible desire to laugh at him. ‘You are an eligible bachelor, therefore you must be in want of a wife.’
Ross reached out a hand and palmed the door closed with a thud that sent the smaller pieces of jade shaking on their stands. Her smile vanished. ‘What I am in want of,’ he said harshly, ‘is you in my bed. As you can no doubt see,’ he added with deliberate crudeness, almost as he might have picked up one of the jade bowls and thrown it into the hearth to assuage his temper.
He was aching with arousal and it had not been the pretty feminine tricks of the three Pennare ladies that had caused that. It had been Meg’s closeness in the study and then the startling contrast between her reality and the other women’s artificiality. And those young women and their like were the ones it would be suitable for him to court and to marry.