by Evie Dunmore
“I’ve never met the man, but my secretary reads his proposals,” he said. “I sponsor some of his expeditions. Perhaps you have heard of the Royal Society.”
“But of course. I just wasn’t aware that you were a benefactor.”
“My family was one of the founding members.”
She gave him a thoroughly appreciative look, and he nearly preened. Ridiculous.
“Thanks to you, then, Professor Jenkins will begin a project in the Peloponnese in April,” she said.
“To do what?”
“They have located a battleship on the bottom of Pylos Bay, and will lift parts of it to study them.”
She had become increasingly animated while talking about it, her body vibrating with suppressed passion, and damned if that didn’t affect him, urging his mind down wholly unacademic paths—
“Is he good to you, Jenkins?” he asked, pretending to study one of the thermostats on a tree trunk.
“Oh yes,” she said cheerfully. “He works me hard, but he helped me get my place at Oxford. I’m very grateful to him.”
For some reason, he didn’t like the sound of that overly much. “Helped you how?”
“He was my late father’s correspondent,” she said. “After my father passed, I sorted his correspondence and found a half-written reply to Jenkins. I finished the letter, and well, he wrote back again. For years.”
“And he never expressed reservations about discussing academic matters with a woman?”
He could tell the question annoyed her a little.
“No. My father had taught me well, it turned out. And . . .”
“. . . and?”
“It may not have been clear from my signature, A. Archer, that I was, in fact, a woman.”
Her raised chin was daring him to take umbrage at her little subterfuge.
He very nearly smiled. “When did you tell him the truth?”
“When I knew I needed his help to secure a place at Oxford. He took no offense, none at all. I’m grateful,” she repeated.
She shouldn’t have to be grateful. She had proven herself capable; she should have her chance.
The large terrarium by the wall drew her attention entirely for the next minute.
“What are those?” She pointed a slender finger at a neat row of green pods that clung to a branch behind the glass.
“Chrysalides. Butterfly cocoons.”
She glanced back at him over her shoulder. “You keep butterflies, Your Grace?”
“They were my brother’s idea. After I vetoed his suggestion to introduce a troop of monkeys here.”
She laughed. A small burst of genuine laughter, showing pretty teeth and a flash of pink tongue, and it hit his blood dizzying like a gulp of sugar water. Want. He wanted to frame her laughing face in his hands and kiss it, anywhere, forehead, cheeks, nose. He wanted to feel her against his mouth. The hell . . .
She had already turned back to the display, bending forward.
“I think I see a caterpillar,” she breathed. “How fascinating.”
“Very.”
There was a pale inch of skin exposed between her collar and her nape. A stray curl nestled there, wound tight in the damp air. So tempting, to try and wind this silkiness around his finger . . . to touch the delicate softness of her neck with his lips.
Her shoulders went rigid, as if he had said it all out loud, and he realized he had begun to lean over her, hunting for her scent.
Good God.
He straightened, head spinning. The heavy air was clearly muddling his brain.
She turned, a wary expression in her eyes. “I didn’t think butterflies thrived in a terrarium.”
“They are released when they are ready.” His voice was hoarse. “You can open the lid”—he demonstrated it—“and anything with wings can leave.”
She didn’t smile.
She wasn’t an innocent, he understood. He saw the same awareness in her eyes now that she doubtlessly saw in his—that they were a man and a woman, alone in a secluded place throbbing with heat, and that some invisible rope kept tugging at him to step into her space, to slide his fingers into her collar and pull her against him. And as he watched her, her mouth softened, softened as if it would welcome . . .
A bird of paradise squawked and flapped and landed on the terrarium with a thunk.
She jumped.
“Ah, Peregrin,” he said, annoyed. “He feeds them. They think you will feed them when you stand here.”
Two hectic red flags were burning on her cheeks, not the kind of blush he liked to inspire in a woman. She stepped sideways, straight out of his reach. He gave the bird an evil stare.
“Your Grace, I had been meaning to discuss my departure with you.”
A bucket of cold water would have had the same effect on his head.
It took him a moment to formulate a response. “I assume you want to ignore the doctor’s orders and leave posthaste.”
She nodded.
“You said there was no one to look after you.”
“I have relations in Kent, and they are expecting me.”
The cousin with the dilapidated house. More sleep deprivation and malnourishment.
“The doctor was clear,” he said. “Seven days. And you are welcome at Claremont.”
Determination flickered in her eyes. “Thank you, Your Grace, but I have matters to attend to.”
“Matters more urgent than your health?”
She looked away. “I’m well now.”
She wasn’t; she was suffering from severe stubbornness.
Sweat slid down his back, because God help him, he stood in a greenhouse in his bloody winter coat.
“You are free to leave anytime,” he said, “but have a care for my conscience, since I will be called upon to abet your demise by supplying a coach.”
That seemed to give her pause.
Ah. So she had a care for others, if not for herself.
“And your friends,” he added. “They were worried about you and it would undo all their good work at your bedside if you relapsed.”
The look in her eyes said she knew exactly what he was doing, that it was working, and that she resented him for it. So be it. If she were his, they wouldn’t even be having this discussion, she’d be upstairs in bed, snug and warm.
“Well,” she said reluctantly, “I suppose it would be more sensible to stay.”
Disconcerting, how much he liked hearing that. “Until Christmas.”
She gave a hesitant nod. “Until Christmas.”
On the way back to the house, she was silent. Her profile was drawn and too pale. The outing had taken its toll on her. What would it take, for her to allow, no, to expect, someone to take care of her? She was twenty-and-five. Too young for the self-possession she displayed. Too old to still be unmarried. But that had to be by choice, unless every man in Kent was deaf and blind. His report said she had disappeared from her father’s home for two years and returned only after her father’s passing. There was hardly ever a good reason for a young woman to leave home for two years. What price have you paid for your independence, Annabelle?
“Would you accompany me on a walk through the stables tomorrow morning?” he asked.
She gave him an opaque look.
“The stables are warm,” he said. “And the horses are some of the finest in England.”
She was silent for a long moment. “It will depend on the state of my health.”
And even more so on the state of her mood, presumably.
He offered her his arm to ascend the steps to the terrace. With some hesitation, she placed her hand on him. What had happened in the greenhouse had unsettled her.
What had happened in the greenhouse?
Nothing had happened. Wanting was a perfectly normal reaction w
hen a man looked at a beautiful woman, wasn’t it?
Chapter 13
It had been an unusually pleasant morning: clear skies and a good yield of birds. Sebastian hadn’t expected to get a good shot after spending half the night at his desk outmaneuvering unruly party members. His contentment spiked when he saw a slender figure approaching the stables from the direction of the house.
“You seem improved, miss,” he said, greeting her over the whining beagles swarming round his feet.
Her eyes swept first over him, then over Stevens, who was wearing the pheasants they had shot on strings around his neck.
“It occurred to me I owe your horse a treat,” she said, and opened her right hand, revealing a small apple in her palm. “For carrying a double burden the other day.”
The other day, when he had had to all but drag her back to Claremont. He could almost feel her weight in his arms, the softness of her hair against his face.
“That horse is working with McMahon in the paddock, miss,” Stevens said.
Sebastian handed him his rifle. “Meet us at the paddock, then.”
Her shoulders relaxed, and he knew he had guessed correctly—she preferred not to be alone with him today. And yet she had come.
They walked the first minute in silence. It was easy, walking with her, as she had naturally fallen into the long stride of a country woman. Because she is a country woman. He studied her even profile and wondered how much of her French blood was blue. His report said her maternal ancestors had come over from France with a count during the Terror, and the French had a reputation for fathering bastards on their staff.
“Do you enjoy hunting, Your Grace?” She sounded polite. Conversational.
“Yes,” he replied. “It’s one of the few pleasures of being a landowner.” There. That was almost as if he hadn’t been inches from kissing her beautiful neck just yesterday.
“What are the other pleasures of owning land?” she asked, a trace of irony in her voice.
“To put the right management practices into place. To know that the land will yield sustainably and profitably rather than go to waste.”
Her gaze locked with his for the first time this morning. “I thought that was the stewards’ responsibility.”
“They report to me,” he said. “Ultimately, the responsibility is mine.” For all one hundred twenty thousand acres. The first week after his father’s sudden demise, when he had locked himself in the study to scour stacks of ledgers and letters and contracts, he had been at an utter loss as to how his father could have been drinking, gambling, and spending time with his mistress while tens of thousand of acres lay ravaged by poor management. Another week and countless cigarettes later, he had concluded that his father had taken to drink and cards because of the estates—coupled with the poor liquidity and a few dismal investment decisions, their houses had become bottomless pits. Across Britain, more land holdings than not had steadily turned into white elephants since the industrial revolution. And he couldn’t expect Annabelle Archer, clever as she was, to know such a thing; after all, the aristocracy itself pretended not to know that its names rested on feet of clay.
The paddock was busy; a few of the retired horses were on the far end, grooming each other. His horse was cantering circles on a lunge line around McMahon, the sunlight gleaming off the powerful muscles working beneath the white coat.
Annabelle curled her hands around the banister, her eyes riveted on the stallion. “He’s magnificent,” she said, “so strong, and yet so graceful.”
“He was bred to be so,” he said. “The Andalusian horse is a cross of European warmbloods and the Arabian thoroughbred, the best of both worlds.”
That made her smile, one of those small smiles that left him wondering.
“What’s his name?” she asked.
He rattled off the official, very long, very Spanish name that was recorded on the stallion’s papers.
“Goodness,” she said, “and what do you call him?”
“I don’t,” he said, and when he saw her bemused face, he added, “It’s a horse.” A man might name a dog, but a horse?
The cogs were still visibly spinning behind her eyes.
“Out with it, miss,” he said. “I can tell you have named him already.”
She looked back at the horse, shielding her eyes against the glare of the sun with her hand. “He looks like an Apollo.”
The Greek god of light. Why not? It actually suited him.
One of the retired horses came trotting over, his ears twitching back and forth with interest.
“And who are you?” Annabelle crooned at the animal, and he couldn’t help the stab of awareness that her tone was considerably warmer now than when she was speaking to him. The gelding nuzzled at her palm, nostrils flaring as he picked up the scent of the apple.
She glanced up at him, worry creasing her brow. “Why is his coat so patchy? Is he ill?”
“No. He’s old, nearing thirty.”
She patted the eager gray muzzle. “Isn’t he too frail to work, then?”
“He’s not working anymore, he is retired.”
She stilled. “You keep retired horses?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because they served me well and there is no need to turn them into soap before their time.”
She was silent for a beat. Then she resumed stroking the horse and murmured something that sounded like “but it would be so much more efficient.” The words could have annoyed him, but her tone was as tender as when she had greeted the decrepit horse. Something in his chest responded, a sudden bloom of warmth in the cold. He swallowed. He hadn’t drunk in near two decades, but this was not unlike the heated sensation of Scotch burning down his throat. Could one become drunk on the presence of a woman?
She peered up at him from the corner of her eye, and whatever it was in her gaze made his head spin.
Yes. Yes, apparently, one could get drunk on a woman. Damn the obedient Stevens for putting an end to their cozy twosome.
* * *
“Annabelle, you must give me your measurements before I leave today,” said Hattie.
Annabelle raised her eyes from her correspondence.
The gray light of the afternoon filled the parlor. Hattie was lounging on the settee like an empress, a bowl of grapes on the low-legged table before her.
“And why is that, Miss Greenfield?”
“Because I have a feeling that you will be invited to Montgomery’s New Year’s Eve party, so you will need a ball gown.”
“That’s hardly likely.”
“You’re going to Lady Lingham’s Christmas dinner.”
“Because I’ll still be stuck at Claremont when that takes place.”
“Very well. Just imagine another unlikely situation occurs that leads to an invitation to the biggest house party of the year, and you have to decline because you have nothing to wear.”
“Imagine I ordered a ball gown and wasn’t invited to the party.”
Hattie popped another grape into her mouth. “Then you would have a ball gown, which is never, ever a bad thing.”
Annabelle sighed. “Catriona, say something.”
Catriona, curled up in a large armchair, obligingly looked up from her notebook. “I’d stay away from any ball I could, but since my father insists I go, I’d rather we all go together.”
Annabelle narrowed her gaze at her. “You’re not helping, dear.”
“Celeste has a new emerald silk in store,” Hattie said. “My sister told me.” She waved at a letter next to the fruit bowl. “You would look splendid in emerald.”
Celeste. The Bond Street seamstress who was so famous, she could afford to go simply by Celeste, and people like Annabelle only knew her from the high-end fashion magazines Hattie smuggled into their college’s common room. Her s
ilks flow like water . . . her creations do for a lady what a gold setting does for a diamond . . .
Annabelle glanced down at her letter to Gilbert, where she claimed that she was convalescing in Catriona’s Oxford residence at St. John’s College. If she announced that she was spending Christmas with the Duke of Montgomery and was discussing silks by Celeste, they’d suspect her mind had derailed after a mere three months in higher education, and she’d be ordered back to Chorleywood quicker than she could say Merry Christmas.
She lowered the pen back onto the paper.
“You won’t even think about it?” Hattie sounded disappointed.
“I cannot afford a ball gown.”
A delicate little pause ensued.
“I was wondering what to get you for Christmas.”
She fixed her friend with an incredulous look. “Hattie. I am not your noble cause.”
At least the girl had the decency to look contrite—for a moment. Then a sly look entered her eyes. “But of course not,” she said. “It’ll cost you handsomely. Five hours a week sitting as Helen of Troy.”
Helen of Troy again?
“Emerald silk,” Hattie singsonged, “champagne, waltzing, eligible bachelors. And—”
Annabelle threw up her hands. “All right, all right. You will get my measurements, and Helen of Troy.”
Hattie’s face lit up like the enormous Christmas tree in Claremont’s main sitting room. “Fabulous!”
In the corner, the pendulum clock bonged, once, twice.
“Do excuse me,” Hattie said, “Aunty will be waking from her nap.”
Catriona looked on in awe as the door fell shut behind their friend. “She has just talked you into sitting for a painting you don’t want to sit for in order to get a gown you don’t want.”
Annabelle gave a shrug. “It is of no consequence. I won’t be invited.”
“I think Hattie is not entirely wrong,” Catriona said, her expression pensive.
Annabelle frowned. “What do you mean?”
“It’s just a feeling.”
That was suspect. Catriona never just had feelings; there was usually a long list of facts underpinning the things she said.