“How well do you know land, Mr. Bradwell? Can you only assess its value to your building, or are you familiar with agricultural matters?”
“I know a bit about the latter.”
“Then I will ask your advice about something.”
They passed out a rear garden gate and she led him across a field of grass and weeds. It had probably been a pasture in better times. A place for her family’s horses to graze.
She strode up a rise in the land until they reached the crest of a hill. A handsome prospect waited there, giving a view of the rolling countryside. The roofs of farmhouses dotted the closest acreage. Her tenants, no doubt. He sized up the holding very quickly. In the far distance he could make out the buildings of Oxford, maybe twenty miles away.
“Have you ever thought of selling it?” he asked.
“It is not mine to sell. A man like you has written to inquire about that, however. Perhaps you know him. Mr. Harrison.”
“I know him. The proximity of this property to Oxford would appeal to him.”
“He spoke of a handsome offer, but there was no point in encouraging him. This is our family home, and it belongs to my brother, not to me. It will never be sold if I have a say.”
They walked down the hill and entered a field of perhaps five acres. The remnants of a harvest littered its dark furrows.
“This is part of one of the farms,” she explained. “The tenant is leaving. He told me two months ago.”
Not because of the scandal, then. If she depended on the rents, losing a tenant would be disheartening.
“Another will take his place.”
“Perhaps not.” She toed at the dirt beneath her half-boot. “He said his harvest had been poor and that it has been getting worse every year. He said the soil has gotten weak. If that is true, there may not be another. Even if there is, the rent cannot be the same.”
He crouched and filled his hand with the soil. “In your memory, has this field ever lain fallow?”
“I do not recall that it has ever been left unworked.” She bent over his shoulder to see what he was doing. Since he was not really doing anything, he was aware of her hovering face and body. Too aware.
He dug his fingers down further, bringing up earth. He scooped a good amount of it into his hat. Jordan would not be amused. “I know a man in town who conducts experiments to see if soil is worn out. I will bring him this soil and find out if the problem is in the land itself. If not, perhaps your tenant was just a bad farmer.”
He stood. She had moved close to watch, and on his rising her body was no more than six inches from his. She startled as if he had suddenly appeared out of thin air.
Her femininity flowed to him and around him, conjuring up memories of that crude embrace the night of the auction. The hat filled with dirt, even the landscape itself, ceased to exist while he looked down on her lovely face. Details from those stolen dreams entered his head.
She gazed back with a wariness that made her appear very young. She did not seem afraid or insulted, just curious. And expectant, as if she assumed he would step back to a more proper distance.
His inclinations were to do the opposite. Her eyes were incredibly expressive. He wondered if she knew how much they revealed. The sorrow that she carried today showed in them, and her worry about this land, and the loneliness that she now endured. There was something else too. A frankness. An acknowledgment of the intimacy forged between them on a night that had permitted no dissembling.
She turned her head, blushing, to break their connected gaze. He reached out and ran two fingers down the side of her unbearably soft cheek until he cupped her chin. He turned her face back to his.
Her pride dissolved while they looked at each other. They were back in the moonlight on the lane at Norbury’s house, only now it was day and the bright sun revealed her reactions more clearly. Caution. Surprise. Confusion. They mesmerized him as much as her beauty did, and only fed the pulse pounding through him and into the hand’s length of space that separated them.
He barely touched her, but he felt her subtle tremble anyway.
She is not for the likes of you, boy.
Undoubtedly true. He kissed her anyway.
It was a very brief kiss, although he wanted much more. So much that he did not trust himself. The softness of her lips, their pliable, accepting warmth, reminded him of his first kiss many years ago.
She flushed. She stepped away awkwardly, seeking some distance.
She leveled a direct gaze at him and this time there was no confusion. It was almost sad, just how knowing her eyes were.
“You told me that you had no expectations of that kind.”
“I told you that I had no illusions regarding your favors because of that night. You are a beautiful woman, and I would not be a man if I did not notice.”
Her resurrected poise visibly wobbled. “Under my current circumstances, being noticed in that way carries some insult now. I will always wonder if my admirer is wondering if I am what that scandal says I am.”
“I am the one man in England who will not wonder, because he knows everything. But to spare you from wondering whether I wonder, and from feeling any insult, I will try to be indifferent to your beauty. I doubt that I will succeed.”
She laughed at his wordplay, or maybe at herself. She turned toward her house. She gestured to his hat while she began walking. “It is so kind of you to help me, again. I fear your hat will be ruined.”
“The hat is of no account.”
Bearing his dirt, he fell into step beside her. She strode back to her house with purpose. Her expression grew a little vexed due to whatever she contemplated.
Once in her garden she paused under the branches of the apple tree. He guessed that she was hesitant to let him back in the house now. She was not an innocent, and she had seen and sensed what was in him back there in the field.
“What is your given name, Mr. Bradwell? If a man has stolen a kiss, I think that I should know.”
He had stolen nothing, and she knew it. “Kyle.”
“Kyle. I like that name. Lord Norbury said that you were from the pits of Durham. What did he mean?”
“He meant that I was born into a collier’s family in a mining village up north.”
“And now you are an architect on occasion, and an estate agent on occasion, and you have a professional interest in buildings and land. It is an unusual history.”
“I received the attention of a benefactor, and was educated. He sent me to France to study engineering and architecture.”
“France! Your history is even more unusual than I thought. I trust this benefactor is pleased with his investment in you. The evidence is that the education was quite complete.”
She glanced over him, taking in the results of those years of improvement. She meant her assessment as a flattery, so he accepted it in that spirit.
“I like to think that he is pleased. His good opinion is important to me.”
Her smile changed. She offered it now in reassurance, which made it patronizing. The warmth in her eyes dazzled him so he did not care very much about that. She had been subdued today. The smile brought some vitality back to her.
“I will go now, Miss Longworth. Thank you for the pie, and for the tour of your property.” He held up his hat. “I will let you know what I learn about the soil on your farms.”
He found his way to the garden’s side gate. One of its hinges was broken so he had to kick it aside to get through. He walked around to his horse and calculated how to carry the hat full of dirt while he sat in the saddle.
He did not want to lose that soil. It was his excuse to see Miss Longworth again.
CHAPTER
FIVE
You do not need to wait. I am not going to do anything now. By week’s end, perhaps I can find time.”
Jean Pierre spoke distractedly, dismissing Kyle with a shooing gesture. His attention remained on the array of tubes and beakers that formed a city of glass on a long table
between them.
He crouched down and peered at a contraption distilling liquid. The bulbous vessel magnified Kyle’s view of Jean Pierre’s fine-boned, heavy-lidded face, distorting the French countenance that so easily made fools out of sensible women.
Miss Longworth’s soil, now in a small wooden box, rested on Jean Pierre’s worktable in this cluttered, garret study, waiting to be analyzed when the young chemist deigned to give it his time.
Kyle knew the various matters that might delay that experiment. Jean Pierre Lacroix had been taught his science by some of France’s great minds, and he dropped their names freely. Those references brought him enough employment in London to support his research and his sins.
Kyle walked around the table and sat on a chair where he would get in Jean Pierre’s way.
“I do not want to wait for week’s end. You will forget about it entirely by then. The flower whom you currently cultivate is sure to get plucked in a day or so, and there will be no experiments for a fortnight.”
Jean Pierre tisked his tongue in exasperation. He stretched past Kyle to reach a dish holding some green grains of metal. Kyle shifted enough to interfere.
“Mon dieu, you are the nuisance. Go away.”
Kyle gestured to the wooden box. “The soil. Now.”
“The soil, the soil—what do you care about soil? You do not till dirt. You move it to build.”
“It is for a friend of mine. A lady.”
“A lady. This is not a word you English use lightly. This is the soil of that woman who showed no discretion when we gamed last week, no? She drinks hard spirits, mon ami, and that is most unpleasant. And if she bores you with her worries about soil—” He shrugged.
Kyle knew that shrug. Ever since he met Jean Pierre when they were students in Paris, that casual movement had meant this Frenchman had much more to say but assumed he would be wasting his breath.
“It is not the bold, foxed, gambling lady, but another.”
A merry gleam entered Jean Pierre’s eyes. He adjusted the flame below his distillation, then gave Kyle his attention.
“Another?”
“Another.”
“I feared that you did not understand your good fortune these last weeks, but eh, c’est bon, you are not so blind. I am like an old uncle, thinking you are too bourgeois to appreciate the opportunities in these big scandals you English make over little things.” He smiled slyly and wagged his finger. “I should have known that you are too smart to miss the bonne chance and—”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“This soil lady. Other ladies, and many more who are less than ladies. So many women look for you now. They want to know about this man who paid a fortune to protect a whore. All my feminine friends ask what you are like.” He sighed. “Their questions are a burden, I will tell you.”
“I have not dined on this scandal, but it sounds as if you have been well fed.”
“They hear I know you, and like flies they stick to me. True, there are some who think you were a stupid fool or a self-righteous peasant, but many others have fallen in love, as you surely know.”
Jean Pierre had assumed the role of the knight’s squire. No wonder he was so busy today. He probably had not been at this chemist’s table in days.
Jean Pierre peered at him. “You appear so blank. So…English. Do not tell me that you have squandered this scandal. Do not say that you have refused the invitations that come your way. I will throw you out and never drink wine with you again.”
Jean Pierre’s exhortations were often like this one, urging Kyle to cut a wide swath through available women while he was still young, rich, and free.
Kyle ignored the lessons. He managed that part of his life his own way. He was not a monk, but to Jean Pierre’s dismay he was not a rake, either. There had indeed been many invitations to dine of late. He simply was not interested in any dinners that might come his way because of that night, whether they were offered at a table or in a bed.
Unless Miss Longworth served the meal.
“The soil,” he said, pointing. “If you have had your pleasure due to my fame, you can deal with it at once.”
Jean Pierre rolled his eyes. He grabbed the box and slammed it down. He began collecting little vials of liquids. “Do not tell me that you are buying land now to work. Do not tell me that you have decided to become a good, dull English farmer.”
“You have a long list of things that I cannot say and cannot tell you. So long that I am left without words. I will just sit here and watch.”
“Do that.” Jean Pierre scooped little bits of soil into a series of long glass tubes. He began dripping liquids from the vials on top. “This is only a theory, you understand? A good one, though, and I think it is correct. We know what chemicals the soil must hold in order to grow plants. Now we try to see if it lacks those things.”
The last of the liquid dribbled into its tube. Jean Pierre corked each one and shook it, then set it in a rack.
“Now we wait.” He opened a cupboard, grabbed a wine bottle and two glasses, and led the way to a table at a window overlooking the Cheapside street below his chambers.
The December sky hung low and gray. A pleasant fire crackled nearby. The wrought-iron chairs were similar to those found on terraces and balconies in France. Jean Pierre had reconstructed a bit of his homeland at this window, one that always evoked Kyle’s memories of his years there.
The education at the École had been rigorous and illuminating, but other lessons had been learned in Paris as well. There had been a sexual curriculum, of course. Jean Pierre had seen to that. More interesting had been witnessing a changing view of society. Napoleon was dead, the Revolution was long over, and a king reigned again, but a generation of cries of égalité had altered the French perspective forever.
Not completely, of course. Even in France, when it came to marriage blood was blood. The difference was that the entire country did not accept that blood should rule every area of life.
Was that why Cottington had sent him there? The earl was no radical. More likely he had chosen France because of Norbury, who had begun to chafe back then at his father’s continuing role of benefactor.
“I am thinking of getting married.” Kyle stretched out his legs and tried to get comfortable. He was much taller than Jean Pierre, and the iron chairs, while picturesque, left something to be desired. “I have not decided whether to offer, but I am considering it.”
“The soil lady?”
“Yes.”
“Is she truly a lady?”
“Yes, but like your mam’selle Janette that first year I knew you.”
“Ah, oui. High birth, corrupt relatives, no money.” Jean Pierre raised his glass. “And, from the looks of those tubes over there, weak soil. Congratulations.”
“You do not approve.”
“She will remind you every day of your life that you are not good enough for her. You will empty your purse in the vain attempt to make her happy. Your own children will see you as their inferior. No, I do not approve.”
He could always count on Jean Pierre to be blunt. He knew from his experience with French that subtlety was the last thing learned in a new language, and often never achieved.
So there it was, a damned good reason to decline Easterbrook’s grand plan. The marquess might see this as a minor concern, but since he lived at the top of the heap he would not comprehend just how big an objection it could be.
“Who is this lady?” Jean Pierre’s eyes narrowed on him.
“Miss Longworth.”
“I wondered if not. It is so like you English.” He sat forward with his arms on the table. “Because of your chivalry you now feel responsible. She is beautiful and flatters you with her gratitude. So now you feel obligated to save her from the rest.”
Jean Pierre was filling in the marquess’s play quite nicely, and touching on more truths than Kyle wanted to admit.
“Let me tell you how it really was with those dam
sels in peril, mon ami. We have the old songs and romans still in my country, so we know the truth. The knight saved the lovely lady, who was very grateful. Then he took her into the field beside the road, stripped her, fucked her good, then got back on his horse and rode away.”
Kyle had to laugh. “That is damned close to a dream I had last night.”
“Your dreams know that you do not have to marry her if you are sympathetic and want her. She will be glad for anything now. Why would you marry such a woman, about whom your whole country talks?”
Why indeed? Mostly because he did want her, and he liked to think himself better than those vultures like Norbury. Maybe because fate had created the rare situation in which she might actually accept.
That was not to say that he had not considered the alternative. She had been seduced once, and his visit had convinced him that she could probably be seduced again. Especially by the knight.
“There would be a settlement,” he said.
“From whom? It is said that her brother fled due to his debts. Another thing that will stand between you.”
“Not from her family. Someone else has offered one.”
“Then it will not be big enough, this settlement. Good-hearted souls are never generous with their purses. They would rather say masses for you and promise a reward in heaven.”
“Actually, it is a handsome settlement.”
“Vraiment? Handsome even for you?”
“Even for me.”
Jean Pierre was impressed. He poured more wine. “Why did you not say so? That changes everything, of course.”
Roselyn strode up the hill past the field behind her home. She did not care about the raw, overcast day or the wind biting her face. She did not notice the dead leaves flying around her legs. In her mind she walked in sunshine and warmth through a world blooming with flowers that never die.
She pulled her cloak around her and sat on the hill. She set her back to the wind and faced the direction that allowed her to see the farthest. She slipped two letters from under her cloak. Each in its own way promised a reprieve from her relentless loneliness.
Secrets of Surrender Page 6