Fine, mayhap tonight was a bit too soon, but assuredly next week was permissible.
A few peaceful minutes later, Eden guided the cart down a narrow, rutty lane, foot-high grass covering the center between the grooved tracks.
Chestnut feathered chickens dozed in the sun or pecked the ground for insects on one side of the pathway just wide enough for the cart to pass through, and a small, well-tended orchard lay beyond the poultry yard. A half dozen woven conical bee skeps rested on low platforms amongst the fruit trees.
An aged man limped near what must be the barn—if the sagging excuse for a building could be called that. Upon spying Eden, the elderly chap raised a hand in greeting, and Eden gave a cheery wave in return.
“That’s Old Ronald. He once worked at the big house but grew too old to tend the gardens by himself. He lives here now, doing what he can to help. He has a room in the back of the barn but takes his meals with us. I don’t know what I’d do without him. He knows how to care for every type of plant, tree, and shrub.”
What she didn’t say was her brother had likely sacked Old Ronald when he became too decrepit to complete the work her miserly brother assigned him.
It wouldn’t surprise Chester if she didn’t take in every stray or needy creature around.
A decent sized greenhouse took up the rest of the yard, along with a flowerbed, three rows of rose bushes, and a vegetable patch. No small amount of work to be done at Briar Knoll, and Chester would be bound, given her slightly brown hands, Eden labored in the gardens herself.
On the lane’s other side, a quaint white cottage glistened in the morning sun. Yellow window boxes overflowing with colorful blooms graced the two front windows on either side of the faded black arched door.
“I trust you are none the worse for your dip into the stream yesterday?”
Took him long enough to get around to that, hadn’t it?
Stark fear seized him when she’d toppled into Black Beck, and the strong current dragged her farther and farther from him. Even now, the memory caused his heartbeat to quicken and his mouth to go dry.
“Except for a few bruises, I’m quite recovered.” Face a shade paler, she gave a delicate shudder. “But until that bridge is repaired and has a rail added, I’m never crossing it again.”
“I intend to speak to Father and our bailiff this very afternoon about the matter, and I’ve already sent men to block off the bridge so no other traveler meets the same fate.”
Chester dropped his feet to the floorboard and smothered another yawn. Sleep had evaded him most of the night for numerous reasons, not the least of which was the remarkable woman perched beside him. Each time he closed his eyelids, her lively eyes and petal pink mouth invaded his musings.
She drove Peony to the ramshackle outbuilding, and Old Ronald shuffled from the barn.
“Here we are, your lordship. Briar Knoll Cottage.”
As was her habit, probably because there weren’t often men about to offer their assistance, she jumped to the ground without waiting for Chester to help her.
He followed, then bent to scratch Mr. Wiggles’s back.
The dog gazed at him adoringly for half a second before seeking his mistress with his trusting eyes.
“Miss Eden, I have a surprise for you.” Old Ronald hobbled to the wagon, his lopsided smile matching his irregular gait. Not a hint of censure about her irregular homecoming, but rather fatherly affection warmed his kind, weathered face.
“You do?” Joy bloomed across her features, once again transforming her.
So, Miss Eglantina Haverden liked surprises, did she?
“What is it?” She drew back, suddenly wary, giving him a gimlet eye. “Please tell me, not another two-headed chick.” She turned that acute regard on Chester. “They only lived six days. It was awful, poor things.”
“No, nothing like that, miss. Look.” He pointed an arthritic finger to a trio of sturdy rose bushes situated behind a hospitable wrought iron bench. “The roses have buds.”
Eden tossed him an incredulous look as she hurried closer.
“Truly? It’s the first time that I can recall, though Mama swears they bloomed years ago.”
“My mother also grew roses.” Chester ventured nearer as well. “What kind are they? I wonder if we’ve any at Perygrim?”
“I myself planted a start there many years ago, sir. Before . . .”
Old Ronald cleared his throat and dropped his gaze whilst hitching up his trousers.
“They are Blue Damask, a very rare rose, indeed,” Eden offered in answer as she gingerly lifted a stem laden with five small buds. “I was prepared to give up on them this year and have the plants removed to make room for gooseberry bushes.”
Probably so she could sell the fruit.
Old Ronald laughed and slapped his hip with one hand while tugging his raggedy brimmed straw hat lower on his head with the other. “Legend says the blooming of the Blue Damask rose is a good omen.”
“I’ve never heard any such thing.” The smile she bestowed upon the hunched servant held genuine affection. “What’s this omen? We certainly could use a bit of luck.”
She released the heavy stem and stretched her spine, then pressed a hand to her forehead and rubbed gently.
Had her headache worsened?
A tinge of pain lingered in her eyes. Weariness too.
Old Ronald’s rheumy gaze grew serious, and his attention flitted to Chester then back to Eden. He pulled on his earlobe, his sudden unease palpable.
“Ronald? Aren’t you going to tell us the omen?”
At last he muttered while toeing a pebble, “When the Blue Damask blooms, enemies become . . . lovers.”
Chester’s gaze locked with Eden’s, and though the fat bees kept buzzing about, the birds continued to sing, and the chickens clucked and cackled, the world narrowed to a tiny prism where they gazed into the other’s souls—at once discomfiting and exhilarating.
About that midnight picnic . . .
“Eden . . .?”
“Auntie Eg. Auntie Eg.”
Two ruddy-cheeked boys, their hair a shade lighter than their aunt’s, skipped from the barn.
Enveloping them in her embrace, she kissed the tops of their dark blond heads.
“Oh, my goodness. What are you doing here, my darlings? Did you sneak away from your tutor again? Your mama and papa will not be pleased. Though I am so happy to see you.”
She kissed them each again.
Eglantina Eden Haverden liked children.
Chester did too.
He’d always hoped to find a wife who actually enjoyed bed sport and who wouldn’t object to several offspring rather than the required heir and spare.
Ridiculously pleased at another similarity between them, he propped an elbow on the cart and enjoyed Eden doting on her nephews.
“We were looking at the chicks. I saw one hatch all by itself! Old Ronald said we might.” This from the smaller chap with eyes the same lavender blue shade as his aunt’s. He ran the sleeve covering his forearm across his drippy nose. A dirt smudge remained above his left brow.
The older fellow, a trifle more reticent than his exuberant brother, cocked his head. “He said we might have one of the chicks as our own? Is it true? Might we truly?”
Eden laughed, and Chester stood stalk still, spellbound by her sheer loveliness. None of this made any sense. His immediate and powerful attraction to someone who everyone from his father to le beau monde would deem unsuitable.
A misalliance if there ever were one.
Precisely what made Eden Haverden perfect. For him.
She was so wholly unexpected. Completely unique. A wisp of fresh air in a stale and fusty room.
“Yes, you may each pick one chick as your very own pet. You must name it too.” She kissed each of their heads a final time.
“Eglantina! Explain yourself. What are you doing in the company of this man?”
A shutter closed over the contours of Eden’s delicate fe
atures as surely if she’d slammed stout wooden panels across a window as she faced Simon Andrews, protectively encircling her nephews with her slender arms.
Chester came ’round the dog cart, the urge to shield her from the furious man stalking toward them so overwhelming that he angled his body, intending to step in front of Eden and block Andrews’s progress.
“Don’t,” she whispered, sliding Chester a sideways glance, her eyes all but pleading with him. “Don’t say anything, I beg you. Let me handle this.”
Chester indicated his acquiescence with the merest narrowing of his eyes and an infinitesimal nod.
She canted her head toward the cart. “Ronald, please tend to Peony.”
“Yes, miss.” Ronald grasped the horse’s halter, but before leading her away, speared Andrews a reproachful look.
Hands on his hips, Andrews glowered at his sons. “How many times must I tell you not to address her as Auntie Egg? She’s Miss Eglantina to you.” He made a shooing motion. “Go home. Now. And await me in the nursery. While you are there, consider what punishment is appropriate for defying me.”
“Yes, Father,” the eldest said, his repentant gaze cast to the ground.
Andrews speared Eden a reproachful glance. “I wonder how often this occurs behind my back?”
Her pretty mouth pinched before she again kissed the boys atop their heads. “Go along now. Do as your father says. You may visit the chicks later.”
After sliding their aunt an apologetic glance, the boys lowered their towheads and, holding hands, marched up the path wending past the orchard like well-trained miniature soldiers.
Sweet little lads.
A wonder they were the product of Andrews’s loins. Chester would’ve expected pointed teeth, clawed-fingered, snarling, horned demons.
“I am waiting, Eglantina! I said explain yourself.”
Wrath rendering Andrews’s contorted features almost comical, he folded his arms and regarded her with the same distaste as one would fresh cow manure on the dining table.
Eden raised her chin and met his angry glare straight on.
Bravo!
If Andrews had thought to subjugate her, he’d failed. Chester wanted to applaud her courage.
And plant Andrews a facer.
However, that was not the way to end this feud. Calmness and reason must triumph. He wasn’t his father or late brother. They were the temperamental ones, given to spewing their ire with no thought or care about whom their foul tempers might harm or the lasting damage their outbursts might cause. He was the one who possessed calm reason as well as a long-suffering temperament.
No, he was the one who displayed cool reason. For the same wrath that tormented his sire and dead brother also rose up within him, but he’d learned to tame the beast. Usually.
But, damn his eyes; he so longed to cork the seething cur standing opposite.
Eden gathered her hair and pulled it over one shoulder to dangle across her chest.
Chester forbade his hungry gaze from resting on the same gentle slopes as the lucky curls.
“Lord Sterling’s horse went lame in Newbury, Simon. Since we’re his closest neighbors, I simply gave him a ride from The Fox and Falcon yesterday. And—”
“Where were you all of last night? Your mother was so frantic when you didn’t return home, she sent word to the big house.” Simon leveled a bitter scowl at the cottage. “Though that she thinks she can prevail upon me to assist her is beyond the pale. I was to have gone to town this morning. Which is why my sons thought they could sneak away to see you, I’ll be bound.”
There was the man Chester remembered. As arrogant as his father and resentful of being inconvenienced by a worried mother and begrudging his sons a visit with their aunt.
A beleaguered frown creased Eden’s brow, and Chester didn’t miss her balling the folds of her cloak in her hand or the pursing of her flawless mouth
“But a note was to be delivered, explaining that I’d fallen into the brook and was at Perygrim Park.” She glanced up at Chester, something close to accusation darkening her regard.
“Did the message not get sent?”
Curse it. Chester ought to have anticipated the duke’s interference. Just the sort of thing his malevolent father would do.
He raised an apologetic brow and rubbed his chin. “I regret to say it’s not impossible that my father may have had his man intercept the missive. I should’ve considered that possibility.”
“Poor Mama. She must’ve been so distraught when I didn’t come home.” Eden swept her hair behind her as she flung an apprehensive glance toward the cottage. “I must reassure her all is well.”
Andrew’s face flushed a ruddy shade, somewhere between radish and cod. Not becoming in the least, especially considering the foppish raspberry colored suit he wore. He rather resembled an oversized, cooked lobster.
“Do you mean to say, you spent the night at Perygrim unchaperoned? With this man in residence? Have you taken complete leave of your senses? Of your scruples, Eglantina?”
A Rose for a Rogue
Collette Cameron
Accustomed to Simon’s long-winded rants, Eden nevertheless clamped her teeth and fisted her hands. She would not lose her temper in front of his lordship.
“I was chaperoned the entire time. A maid stayed in my chamber, and I didn’t even venture below to eat, but instead had a tray brought to my chamber.”
“A maid? A maid?’ Simon scoffed. “Who will believe such a farce? Servants can be bribed to say anything.”
Clearly, he preferred to think the worst of her.
“Now, see here. I daresay you’ve completely misunderstood the situation.”
Lord Sterling stepped forward, his expression so outraged, she truly believed he might attempt to throttle Simon. His hunter green cutaway edged in black velvet made his eyes appear almost bottle green in his anger.
“You’d do well to tend to your own business, Sterling.”
“I’ve made Miss Eden my business.”
Such command of presence and such vehemence accompanied his declaration, Eden blinked in astonishment.
Simon’s eyebrows vaulted skyward at that assertion, but before he could object, Lord Sterling said, “Your sister was soaked and freezing from having fallen into Black Beth last evening when the bridge gave way. I feared she’d catch lung fever.”
“It’s true, Simon. I almost drowned, and his lordship saved me.”
Her brother’s scathing look suggested he’d have preferred that she perished.
It had always been so, no matter how hard she tried to befriend him.
Lord Sterling scratched his head, his severe regard raking over Simon. “Would you have her sent home wet and bedraggled in the midst of last night’s storm? Risk her health or take a chance of another mishap along the way?”
“Yes, if it meant preserving her reputation and not staining mine in the process.” Simon snarled—actually snarled—and Mr. Wiggles whimpered, cowering closer to Eden’s feet.
No surprise there; Simon always thought of himself first.
“Be reasonable, Simon—”
He cut her off with a curt, dismissive gesture. “I don’t want to hear your contrived excuses. They matter naught.” He stabbed a finger toward Eden. “You’ve been compromised. You should’ve thought of the consequence before climbing into a bed at Perygrim. You’re of the same ilk as your drab of a mother. A lowborn trollop.”
Eden recoiled as if slapped. But only for a flash, before she jutted her pert chin out and glared at him.
“How dare you?” she said, barely able to cobble together a rational response through the red-hot haze of wrath engulfing her.
The spring sun might’ve burned away the morning’s chill, but the hatred emanating from him sent an icy shiver scuttling down her spine. His objection had less to do with her poor choice to stay at Perygrim and much more to do with his hostility because she even existed.
Brother or not, if she were a man, she
’d call him out.
Head elevated in his customary haughty fashion, one leg cocked and a hand on his hip, he taunted, “Best watch yourself, Sterling, lest she try to entrap you as her conniving mother did my father.”
Eden’s breath caught on a gasp, and Mr. Wiggles pushed against her ankles in concern.
“That’s a foul lie, as you know full well. You despicable knave!”
A brusque sound of contempt rattled in his lordship’s throat, and he went rigid, his posture menacing.
“You overstep the mark, Andrews. Have a care, for I shan’t permit you to insult Miss Eden again without consequence.”
She abhorred violence, but she was feminine enough to appreciate a man defending her honor. For the very first time in her life, a male championed her. The foreign sensation bumping around her chest was secondary to the pulse raging at the base of her throat, however.
So much for the past years mellowing anyone’s tempers.
Having reached the end of her endurance, she strode to her half-brother. Petite like her mother, hands propped on her hips, she glowered up at him.
“Simon, you may say whatever you like about me, for I don’t give a snap for your opinion. But you will not defame my mother. Neither do I care if you believe me. Just because you do not doesn’t mean that I’m deceitful.”
Though he towered above her, she pulled herself to her full height and poked his chest.
He looked so startled and offended, she poked him again, just for good measure. Then, voice lowered and trembling with outrage, she delivered the coup de grâce.
“Lest you need reminding, Mama didn’t come willingly to your father’s bed, and though he later dismissed all the servants who knew the truth, the proof was irrefutable. He should’ve had charges brought against him, and one can only speculate why he did not.” She swept her hand toward the humble cottage. “That’s why we live here and why you pay us a pitifully small monthly stipend.”
Familiar mortification washed over Eden, but she refused to be cowed or hang her head in shame. The truth was the truth, no matter how sordid or distasteful. Although she’d far prefer Lord Sterling hadn’t learned the ugly details.
She’d been nauseated for a week upon accidentally discovering those unsavory particulars in Mama’s forgotten journal eight years ago. Even the documents drawn up by Mama’s brother, a solicitor, contained several incriminating lines. Uncle Frederick had died five years ago, and there was no one else to substantiate the claim now.
Rogues to Lovers: Legend of the Blue Rose Page 48