Desire Becomes Her

by Shirlee Busbee

  The words had hardly left his mouth before the stout oak door was opened and Silas’s butler, Meacham, poked his head out. Seeing Luc at the reins and spying the swathe of material wrapped around his employer, his eyes widened.

  Rushing outside, Meacham cried, “Master! What has happened?”

  “Nothing that a visit from the bone-setter won’t take care of,” Silas said. “Now don’t just stand there gawking at me like I’m a freak at a fair. Help me down.”

  Since Meacham was of Silas’s generation and not much larger than his employer, Luc interceded and said, “Allow me, sir.”

  Not giving Silas a chance to reply, in one easy motion, Luc lifted the old man down from the vehicle and gently deposited him on his feet.

  “Much obliged to you, lad,” Silas said. “Don’t like to think how long I would have lain there if you hadn’t happened along. Indebted to you. Won’t forget it.”

  “Think nothing of it, sir,” Luc replied. Offering his arm, he said, “Let’s get you inside and out of this chill weather.”

  After a sleepy footman was sent to bring the physician posthaste and a pair of stable boys had led the chestnuts away, with Silas leaning heavily on his arm and Meacham following anxiously on their heels, Luc escorted the old gentleman upstairs to his rooms.

  Aided by Meacham and Silas’s valet, Brownell, Luc’s cravat was carefully removed. There was no hope of saving Silas’s upper garments, and the sleeves of his greatcoat and jacket had to be cut open to free him from his clothes. Despite their gentleness, by the time the ordeal was over, his face white and drawn, Silas was slumped exhausted in a dark green damask chair by the fire in his room. His broken arm was once again secured against his body, this time by a wide strip of clean cloth provided by Meacham.

  Not liking Silas’s color, Luc quietly ordered Meacham to bring them some brandy. Within minutes Meacham returned with a decanter of brandy and a pair of snifters on a silver tray: an envelope lay to one side of the tray. After Silas had taken a few sips of the brandy, Luc was satisfied to see some color return to the old man’s face. Feeling superfluous now that the immediate crisis was over, he set down his own snifter and murmured, “Well, sir, now that you are safely settled here at home, I shall be on my way.”

  Silas nodded. “I cannot thank you enough, lad. If you hadn’t come along ...”

  “You would have managed,” Luc returned lightly. “As you said, your arm was broken, not your leg.”

  Silas gave a bark of laughter. “If I’d been thirty years younger, perhaps. If not for you, I suspect it would have been morning before some farmer discovered me lying cold and shivering in that ditch.” His expression grew somber. “It’s a bitter night out there. I might have died.”

  To distract him, Luc indicated the envelope on the tray. “Is that a letter for you?” he asked.

  Noting the envelope for the first time, Silas scowled. “Probably from that rascally nephew of mine—wanting me to pull him from the River Tick again.”

  Luc knew all about Stanley Ordway, and he agreed with Silas’s assessment. The younger Ordway was on friendly terms with Jeffery Townsend and appeared to be of the same ilk.

  Luc picked up the envelope and, noting the feminine handwriting, grinned. “Perhaps not. Perhaps it is from the so charming Widow Dobson, who pursued you so assiduously in London.”

  Silas snorted. “Spare me that. I’ve escaped the parson’s mousetrap this long; I ain’t about to let a silly pea goose like Kitty Dobson leg-shackle me. Hand it here.”

  Luc handed him the envelope, noting the expression of pleasure that crossed Silas’s face as he recognized the handwriting. “It’s from m’niece, Gillian, and she’s a far different kettle of fish than Stanley,” he said, glancing at Luc. Opening the envelope, Silas extracted the single sheet of paper and quickly read the contents. A smile spread across his face.

  “Good news, sir?” Luc asked.

  Silas put the note and envelope down on the table beside him and nodded. A sly expression crossed his wrinkled features. “Just what I’ve been hoping for.”

  Chapter 2

  Arriving at Windmere, Luc left his horse at the stables and walked swiftly to the Dower House, where he had been living off and on these past months. Approaching the impressive house, he sighed. Living at the Dower House had been an acceptable solution when he had arrived in England within days of Emily and Barnaby’s marriage, penniless and barely alive in the bargain. Presently, however, he was fully recovered from his infected wound, gained while escaping from a French prison, and with help from Lady Luck and some gentlemen who should have known better, no longer penniless—far from it.

  When he had returned from London at the end of the Season in late June and suggested to Barnaby that he take a pair of rooms at Mrs. Gilbert’s inn, The Crown, both Barnaby and Emily had been hurt and adamantly opposed to the very idea.

  His black eyes glittering like chips of obsidian, Barnaby growled, “You’re my brother! I have a bloody house sitting empty... .” He’d paused and muttered, “God’s wounds! I have a half-dozen houses at my disposal, and you want to live in rented rooms at an inn?” His harshly handsome face annoyed, he demanded, “Are you deliberately insulting me, or is it just that your wits have gone wandering?”

  The two half brothers bore little resemblance to each other. Their height and black hair were the most obvious paternal traits they shared. Barnaby took after his mother, his swarthy skin and black eyes coming down to him from the Cherokee ancestry in her background. Ironically, Luc, the illegitimate brother, looked like the Joslyns, having been blessed with the azure eyes and patrician features of his father’s family. While Barnaby looked like a tough brawler, with the size and muscle to match, Luc appeared every inch the aristocrat, from his elegant lean form to the haughty nose and beautifully chiseled mouth. Barnaby was generally reputed to be the steadfast one, while Luc lived a reckless, vagabond life, earning his keep at the gaming tables—much to Barnaby’s irritation. Barnaby had attempted to share their father’s estate with Luc, but Luc had inherited the stiff-necked pride of the Joslyns and would have none of it. As he had snarled at Barnaby, “If our sire didn’t see fit to name me in his will, I sure as the devil don’t intend to take your charity!” It was an old argument between them, and the years had not lessened the intensity of it.

  Luc would have dug his heels in about removing to The Crown if Emily, her lovely face anxious at the discord between the two brothers, hadn’t stepped in. “Please, Luc,” she said, “won’t you allow your brother to share some of his good fortune with you? Windmere, the title, none of it comes directly from your father.” She grimaced. “Well, I suppose it could be argued that if not for your father being who he was, Barnaby wouldn’t have inherited the title and Windmere, but my point is that he didn’t inherit it from your father. He inherited from his great-uncle.” She smiled warmly at him and asked gently, “How would you feel if positions were reversed? Won’t you allow him to help you just a little ... or is your pride too great?”

  Luc looked down at her, thinking idly that pregnancy agreed with her. The baby wasn’t due until late December, early January, and there was a certain roundness to her figure and the unmistakable glow that pregnant women exuded. At this moment, he wished he didn’t like her so much or that she wasn’t such a clever minx. She’d put forth the one argument that left him with no defense.

  Giving in gracefully, he’d flashed her that grin known to cause many a woman the most delightful heart palpitations and murmured, “To please you, Lady Joslyn, I will accept your husband’s kind offer.”

  She’d grinned back at him. “Emily, if you please. Every time someone calls me Lady Joslyn, I find myself looking about for the viscountess, forgetting that I am the viscountess.”

  “And a very pretty viscountess you are at that,” said Barnaby, the love he felt for her open and obvious. She smiled at him, her gray eyes reflecting back her deep love for him.

  The matter had been settled, but as
he slipped into the Dower House this October night, he knew that wounding Barnaby’s or Emily’s feelings or not, he was going to have to find his own place. Gliding up the curving staircase to his bedroom, he sighed again. The Dower House was simply too big, too grand for someone like him.

  At least, he thought with a smile, he had managed to rid himself of all the servants Barnaby had thought were necessary for his comfort. Walker, Mrs. Spalding, Jane and Sally, once Emily’s staff at The Birches, all now worked at Windmere for Barnaby and Emily. Walker had replaced the nefarious butler, Peckham, who had been hand-in-glove with Nolles, and Mrs. Spalding had taken over the duties of her sister, Mrs. Eason, the cook, after Mrs. Eason had decided, with a generous pension from Barnaby, to retire near her daughter in Brighton. Of the original servants he’d started out with only Alice, once a scullery maid, but now cook and housekeeper, and young Hinton, ably filling in as valet and butler, remained. Despite the size of the residence, since Luc only used a few rooms in the house, the three of them muddled along together just fine.

  Reaching his suite of rooms, he noted with approval that Hinton had left a pair of candles burning for him on the mantle of the brick fireplace. A small fire glowed on the hearth and kept the October chill from the room. In the flickering light of the fire and candles, Luc quickly undressed.

  After blowing out the candles, naked as the day he was born, he slid under the pile of blankets and quilts, sighing with pleasure when his feet touched the warmed brick Alice had provided for him. Used to being on his own, except when at home in Virginia at the family plantation, Green Hill, he’d grown accustomed to the niceties provided by Alice and Hinton. He’d decided several weeks ago that when he left the Dower House, he would take them with him. Thanks to the foolishness of several gentlemen, some well-known peers amongst them, his pockets were full and he’d even invested a handsome amount in the funds. He grinned. Nom de nom! He was almost respectable.

  Though the hour was late, sleep eluded him, and in the faint light provided by the dying fire, Luc stared at the shadows sliding around lazily overhead in the canopy. It had been an interesting night. Young Harlan would wake up with an aching head and no doubt befuddlement at his luck. His mouth twisted. Making an enemy of Jeffery Townsend hadn’t been wise, but he didn’t much give a damn about how Emily’s cousin felt about him.

  Silas’s injury troubled him, and if he could discover who had ditched the old man, he’d enjoy having a word with whoever had forced his friend into the ditch and left him lying there injured without a backward glance. Inquiries in the village might give him a clue.

  Luc frowned, thinking about the note from Silas’s niece. Until tonight he hadn’t been aware that Silas had a niece, but if she was anything like the old man’s nephew, her note didn’t bode well for Silas. Silas had never so much as mentioned a niece before now, so it was obvious the woman took little interest in her uncle. So why was she writing him now? He hoped that Silas’s initial pleasure in hearing from her didn’t cause the old man heartache down the road.

  A yawn overtook him. Have to talk to Emily and Cornelia, he thought as he drifted off to sleep. They will know something of this mysterious niece.

  Striding into the breakfast room at Windmere the next morning, Luc was pleased that he had caught Emily and Cornelia there lingering over their coffee. Both ladies were delighted to see him, and after helping himself to a plate of rare sirloin, coddled eggs, a small bowl of applesauce rich with cinnamon and several yeasty, raisin-studded warm rolls, he joined the ladies.

  Though it was still two months or better before the baby was expected, Emily’s pregnancy was advancing nicely, her rounded belly and fuller breasts now very evident. This rainy, cool morning, her silvery-fair hair was caught up in a chignon at the back of her head, and wearing a blue woolen gown, she looked very appealing as she smiled up at him. Barnaby, Luc thought affectionately and with no envy, was a lucky man. And so was he, he reminded himself, to have him for a brother.

  Seated across from Emily, sending him a smile as welcoming as a spring day, sat Cornelia. Cornelia, he decided, looked particularly fetching today in a rosebud-pink gown embellished with cream lace. Emily’s great-aunt had celebrated her ninetieth birthday in August, but the lively sparkle in the hazel eyes belied her age, and except for a few curls near her cheeks and a fringe across her brow, she wore her gray hair swept back. The style revealed the elegant bones that had made her a stunningly attractive woman in her youth, and the chiseled cheeks and jaw still served her well, as did those large, penetrating eyes. Tall for a woman of her generation, her spine was as ramrod straight as a maid of twenty; Cornelia’s one concession to age was her carved walnut walking stick. Luc grinned. She could, when necessary, wield that cane with great skill.

  Seating himself next to Cornelia, Luc asked, “And where is my brother this morning?” Smiling from one woman to the other, he murmured, “His obvious desertion of two such winsome ladies makes me wonder if we are even related.”

  Cornelia chuckled and tapped him smartly on the arm. “Doing it up too brown, you young scamp. My mirror doesn’t lie, and I haven’t been winsome for fifty years or more.”

  Luc lifted the wrinkled hand that rested on his arm. Dropping a kiss on the back of it, he said, “I beg to differ, Madame—your mirror does lie, and if not for the scandal it would cause, I would steal you away from Windmere in a heartbeat.”

  Looking pleased, Cornelia said, “Now if I were fifty years younger, I might just let you do it.”

  Grinning at her, Luc replied, “Madame, you could not stop me.”

  Emily cleared her throat. Sending Luc a mocking glance, she said, “If you’re through trying to seduce my aunt, perhaps you would like to know where your brother has gone.”

  “Ah, oui, I did ask after him, didn’t I?”

  “He has gone with Worley to inspect one of the old barns on the farm leased by Farmer Calkin,” Emily said. “According to Calkin, that storm we had last week damaged the roof so badly that only an entirely new roof will make it weather-tight. Since Calkin is known to be a complainer, Barnaby decided to see for himself just how badly damaged the roof is before he approves the expenditure. It could merely need patching.”

  Luc glanced outside at the rain pelting the windows. “Not a day I would have chosen to go out riding with my bailiff.”

  “Barnaby is not a man to be put off by a little wet weather—or a task that needs doing,” she said with a smile.

  Luc agreed with her. Barnaby took his duties as landowner seriously, whether it was overseeing a vast estate like Windmere or the plantation in Virginia. For a moment Luc wondered if he’d be as good an overlord, then shrugged the idea away. Far better that he be footloose and unhampered by responsibilities or dependents. He told himself he liked his life the way it was and wasn’t cut out to be a landowner—great or small.

  Yet the thought nagged that he might not do too badly. From the age of twelve, when he’d arrived at Green Hill in Virginia, he’d helped work the land and in his aimless wanderings, when the cards had failed him, he’d hired himself out as a simple laborer or whatever job he could find to keep his belly full. He didn’t envy Barnaby his lands or fortune or wife, but it occurred to him that sinking down roots and owning his own land and house might not be the prison he had always viewed it. Was it possible that he was mellowing with age? Zut! He hoped not.

  Frowning, he picked at his sirloin, and noting his expression, Emily asked, “Is something wrong? Has something happened?”

  Luc shook his head. “Non. I am fine.” Plunging right into his story, he added, “Unfortunately, I cannot say the same for my friend Ordway. Someone ran his phaeton off the road last night and left him lying in a ditch with a broken arm.”

  Both ladies were horrified, full of queries about Mr. Ordway, and Luc said hastily, “Do not be anxious! I came along not long after the accident occurred and was able to get him safely to High Tower. I stayed until after his arm was set and he was comfortably s
ettled in his bed and had swallowed a dose of laudanum.”

  “Thank goodness you found him when you did,” Emily said warmly.

  Cornelia said with her usual tartness, “Perhaps there is something to be said for your late nights.”

  Luc laughed. “In this case, yes. But tell me, if you please, what do you know of Silas’s niece?”

  The two women exchanged glances.

  “Which one?” asked Cornelia. “He has two, Mrs. Easley and Mrs. Dashwood.”

  “I do not know her surname, but I believe her given name is ‘Gillian.’”

  “That would be Gillian Dashwood, his younger niece. Mrs. Easley is the older one,” Cornelia said. Looking carefully at Luc, she asked, “Why do you want to know about Mrs. Dashwood?”

  Luc had not missed the exchange of glances or the hint of disapproval in Cornelia’s voice. “Why do I have the impression that you do not approve of this Mrs. Gillian Dashwood?”

  Cornelia made a face. “There is no way to wrap it in clean linen: her husband, Charles Dashwood, was murdered two years ago this past August and there is the strong suspicion that she did it.”

  Emily leaned forward, saying quickly, “It is all gossip, you understand. She was never arrested by the authorities, but many people think she murdered him.”

  “She wasn’t arrested only because they could not find the weapon that had been used to stab her husband to death,” Cornelia added grimly. Looking at Luc, she added, “She was found sitting beside his body, bleeding from her temple. It’s generally believed that she and her husband had a vicious fight and that Dashwood struck her just before she stabbed him. Caused a terrible scandal.” An expression of distaste crossed Cornelia’s face. “Happened at the Duke of Welbourne’s hunting lodge in Hampshire—at one of his notorious romps. Aside from being suspected of her husband’s death, it certainly makes one wonder about Mrs. Dashwood’s morals that she was even attending such a disgraceful affair. The parties hosted by Welbourne at his lodge are legendary for their depravity and disgraceful antics—no respectable woman, or at least none who care about their reputations, would dare be found in the vicinity of that sort of gathering.”