Her Lord and Protector (formerly titled On Silent Wings)

by Pam Roller

She opened her eyes and shoved away the feeling. He’d only tried to make her life miserable.

  Pursing her lips in thought, she regarded his papers. Then, curiously, she leaned forward and spread open one of his ledgers.

  “Oh, Lady Katherine! Oh, my!” Millie muffled through her hand.

  Katherine stood and waved Millie toward the door.

  She asked with wide eyes, “D’ye wish me t’leave?”

  At Katherine’s nod, Millie, with a wounded glance, went out.

  Now, Katherine would see how Lord Drayton kept his books.

  Sliding her finger along the poorly written numbers, she stopped in consternation about halfway down. The subtraction was wrong. He’d forgotten to add a zero back in and his total was off by at least three hundred pounds.

  She closed this book and selected another, titled Estate—Sheep Count. This one should be accurate. How difficult could it be to count the smelly things, anyway? But it, too, was off by fifty-seven sheep. He’d skipped two lines and continued down the column.

  Could the man not add and subtract?

  Thoroughly engrossed, she examined two other ledgers, one on crops and the other on household goods—candles and rushlights were listed regularly—and both contained errors that were costing him a great deal of money.

  And his correspondence! She tossed the ledgers aside and picked up one of his letters, and squinted as she held the paper near her face. How could anyone make sense of his terrible handwriting?

  He needed help. Taking care of her father’s estate books had honed her lightning-quick addition and subtraction.

  Pulling a ledger back toward her, she uncapped the inkwell and set to work.

  Minutes later, her quill scratching rapidly down the column, Katherine vaguely heard a door open and then shut. When she heard voices speaking—one older and feminine, the other childlike—she jerked up her head and slammed the ledger closed. Someone had entered from the hall to the withdrawing room next to the study.

  She shot to her feet, cursing her forgetfulness when the chair scraped on the wood floor.

  Holding her hands to her skirts to keep them from swishing, she trotted to the door leading to the corridor, and opened it. As she stepped from the room, however, a large, shadowy form entered the corridor from the Hall and headed her way.

  Lord Drayton!

  Katherine ducked back into the room. The people in the withdrawing room would see her if she went out through the connecting door. Where would she go from there?

  There was no place to hide. And he would see the neat stacks she’d made on his table, and then turn and see her....

  She dashed to the table and swept the papers to and fro in an attempt to make the surface look undisturbed. Then, as the booted footsteps echoed closer, she raced to the wall beside the door hinges and pressed herself against it.

  The door flew open, almost hitting her. Heart pounding so hard she feared it would burst, she watched Lord Drayton stride in. His presence filled the room.

  An intense, ragged cough threatened to burst forth. She clamped both hands to her mouth and fought the spasms in her chest and throat.

  He strode across the room and paused at his desk. Oh, mercy. Would he sit?

  He did not, but rather lifted the candle on his desk—the candle she’d brought with her—and then opened the door to his withdrawing room. He stepped through, pulling the door closed behind him. But it didn’t latch.

  “Come here,” she heard him say. “No need to cower in the corner.”

  Now was her chance to escape. Yet she listened, the cough feeling finally subsiding. Someone was in the next room, cowering from him in the corner. What had happened?

  Alex studied the skinny, shivering boy—not yet seven years old, and clearly frightened. He looked like he hadn’t eaten a decent meal in days.

  The child drew near, his lower lip trembling. Tears stood on the brink of spilling down his filthy face. He wrapped his thin arms around himself.

  “What has befallen you, Stephen?”

  “I have stolen a cloak from town, m’lord.” The child fixed his gaze to the floor. “I been hidin’ in your keep to get away from the merchants, but Mama needed my help on the farm.”

  From the looks of him, he badly needed a cloak. But his family should have money to buy needed items. Why had he stolen it?

  “What should I do with you?” Alex asked, towering over him with his hands on his hips. It would not do to show warmth toward his serfs. “Do you suppose a thrashing would cure your stealing tendencies?”

  “Y-yes sir,” the boy faltered. “As you wish, m’lord.” Tears escaped his eyes and made cleansing tracks through the dirt on his bony cheeks.

  Alex kept his expression pitiless. He knew Stephen’s father had died recently, but had no idea the widow and her son had fallen to such despair. His mind raced. Hadn’t he set aside a penance for them? Was it something his former steward had overlooked? “Your mother, does she know of your crime?”

  He heard a sound near the door that led to the hall. A woman tottered up from a chair in the dark corner and waddled toward him, hair matted and skin dark with dirt. From the looks of her swollen belly, her babe would come forth very soon.

  “M’lord, I beg yer kindness,” she said. “Please, if y’would but take the rod to my back and spare his. He’s a sickly lad, and a whippin’ such as ye’d give might be the death of him.”

  “No, Mama!” the boy cried in horror as he spun toward her. “No. ’Twas my wrong and I’ll pay for it.” He swung to Alex and raised himself to his full, small height. “I am ready.” He knelt.

  After a moment of gazing at the mop of dull, tangled black curls crowning Stephen’s head, Alex thought of his little used rod hanging from the hook in his study. He could flog the child and perhaps the mother—simply dole out justice as Robert did so freely with his whip—and send them both on their way, bruised and bleeding, with a severe warning.

  “Stand,” he ordered the boy.

  Immediately Stephen did so, and his emaciated body tensed. He shut his eyes, bowed his head, and pressed his lips together to stifle a moan as he waited, clearly expecting Alex to strike him. A tear splashed onto the worn planks of the floor.

  Although a part of Alex yearned to draw back into his comforting waters of detachment, he pulled several coins from his waistcoat pocket. Lifting the boy’s filthy hand, he placed them onto his palm. Stephen opened his eyes at his mother’s gasp and stared at the coins.

  “This money will buy you food and clothing,” Alex said as he turned to the mother. “Why have you not asked me for help, Clara?”

  Clara bowed her head. “My husband died o’ the pox. ’Twas after I became great with child. He went to Patsy’s brothel.”

  It was widely considered a man’s right to satisfy his needs in any way he wished, but Alex didn’t share this view. Nor did he voice it to Clara. “You have no cause for shame,” he said. “’Tis not your fault he caught the disease.”

  “I’m a God-fearin’ woman, m’lord,” Clara said with a sob. “I must have sinned greatly for such terrible judgment. Me and Stephen, we’re bein’ punished for some wrongdoin’, I know.”

  Stephen approached Clara and wrapped his arms as far around her girth as he could. “Do not cry, Mama,” he murmured, his cheek pressed to her rounded belly. “Pray don’t cry.”

  Alex attributed the tightening in his throat to impatience with the woman and child. He had no time for this emotional blather. “You may leave now. Stephen can let me know when the babe’s time comes, and I will send for a midwife. In the meantime, do not hesitate to ask me for help.” He walked to the door leading to the corridor and opened it. “No one on my land should suffer cold and hunger. You will be fed and clothed as long as you remain.”

  The woman gave a cry and clutched her lower belly, and Alex had a moment of terror that she would give birth right there in his withdrawing room.

  But she was crying for joy, and he wanted them gone. As the bo
y passed him on his way out the door, Alex ruffled his hair. Stephen looked up at him with shining dark eyes full of hope and admiration.

  This was too much. Alex cleared his throat and wheeled toward his study. And stopped abruptly.

  One bright eye stared at him through the partly open door. The eye widened, then vanished.

  “What the bloody hell,” he muttered. He strode to the door and shoved it open with a thump of his hand.

  The room was empty. But the door that led to the hall was wide open. Running footsteps—and the sound of a familiar cough—receded down the dim corridor, drowned out by Clara’s heavy tread and Stephen’s excited chatter.

  Katherine. What cause would she have to invade his study?

  Unless she had looked for the marriage contract, which he had drawn up and planned to take to Wiltshire in Chiswick before nightfall. He started after her, and then turned back to his desk.

  Dropping into his chair he searched for it—sweeping, flipping, tossing, until he was sure he’d seen every document on his desk. Scratching his chin, he’d set his attention to his table when he saw Sam in the open doorway.

  “Do you need assistance, m’lord?”

  “I must take the marriage contract to town for Wiltshire to look over,” Alex said. “I cannot find the blasted thing, and I think I know why.” The contract wasn’t her concern, wasn’t hers to look over and change. She had no cause to take it unless she wanted to stay here, and he couldn’t imagine why she would want that.

  “Would you like me to help you?”

  “Yes. He is waiting for me. At this rate I will not get back out there until dark.”

  “Where is he?”

  “Lobb’s Inn.”

  “Do you really want to go so late in the day? I can send a servant to let him know you will be there tomorrow.”

  “I need to,” Alex said. “He is waiting.”

  “Yes, you’ve told me that.”

  Alex straightened and fixed a glower on Sam. “What are you getting at, old man?”

  “I rarely see you rush at anything. You must be in a hurry to get her from your life.”

  “Yes? So?”

  Sam’s craggy face lit up in a smile. “You are smitten with her.”

  Alex stared at him a moment, then flipped through the papers on his table. “I do not have time for your lovelorn tittle-tattle,” he growled. “Be useful and help me.”

  As he rummaged, the faintest scent of lavender reached his nose, and abruptly Alex stilled his hands over the documents. In his mind flashed an image of Katherine lying naked upon his own bed, her loose hair spread over the pillow.

  Alex felt his jaw grow slack.

  Yes. Her eyes would be half closed in desire, her lips parted in her charming smile. Her arms, folded leisurely above her head, would lift and reach out for him.

  The image of the rest of her supple curves fogged his mind, and he swallowed twice and rubbed damp hands on his hips.

  What was he looking for?

  “Alex?”

  “The marriage contract.” Alex gave up on the table and turned back to his desk. He hadn’t checked the drawers. “’Tisn’t as if she possesses a complicated dowry,” he muttered, yanking open the first one. “The old toad probably just cannot remember the details.”

  Sam moved each document methodically from one side of the table to the other. “What were you thinking just now?”

  “Nothing.” Only her smile, her ability to say so much with her eyes and hands. Her loveliness and grace. Even that endearing, defiant way she raised her chin. “He will be fortunate to have her,” he murmured.

  “As would you, lad.”

  Alex scoffed. “Not me.”

  “What’s this?” Sam lifted a folded piece of paper to his nose. “Smells like a woman.”

  “Let me see it.” Alex took the paper, unfolded it, and read it silently. A sinking sensation weighted his heart. “’Tis from Katherine,” he said, keeping his voice casual. This was the reason she had been in his study. “She wishes for another guardian.”

  “Oh. Does she say why?”

  “She says my treatment of her is intolerable. It seems I have frightened her with punishment and banned her to her bedchamber to eat.”

  “Well, that you have,” Sam said with a frown. “You say you want to keep her safe, and then you threaten to whip her. No wonder she is frightened of you.”

  Alex shrugged. “I never meant anything by it. And you saw those two merchants. They were trying to stare through her gown.”

  “Then you need to tell her you meant nothing. What else did she write?”

  Alex glanced over the last words and gave a derisive snort. “She wants to choose her own husband. Now that will not happen. She will want to wait until she falls in love with one of them, and I will never be rid of her.”

  “Since you will be honoring her request for a new guardian, you will not have to worry about being rid of her,” Sam said.

  Alex folded the note with clenched jaw. Sam always had a way of bringing the point home. On the night Roundheads attacked and took the castle, Sam had hidden him deep among the maze of passageways under the fortress. Alex had cried out for his parents and tried to run back outside to where their bodies lay. They’re dead, lad, Sam had whispered fiercely, his hand clamped over Alex’s mouth. Dead. Now be quiet, or you’ll be dead, too.

  Feeling a bit sobered by Sam’s statement, Alex opened the third drawer, and there it was. The contract faced him with its written proof of his declaration to Katherine on the day she’d arrived.

  He sat back, pushing aside the strange reluctance that crept over him. “I found it.”

  “You are sure of your intentions?”

  Alex snatched up the contract and stood. “I said I’d find her a husband, and I have. No more to be said.” He trudged out, ignoring Sam’s skepticism.

  Chapter Eleven

  Katherine held her hand to her chest in an attempt to calm her racing heart. Lord Drayton had seen her. Any second now, he’d pound on her door. But the minutes ticked by and he didn’t appear.

  She parted the curtains a little and opened the window, relishing the warm breeze wafting into her bedchamber.

  His kindness toward the boy and his mother entranced her. No one, not even her own father, would have treated his workers with such generosity. How could this compassionate man have assisted his deranged wife out the window to her death?

  “Greetings, m’lady!”

  The source of the high, thin voice belonged to the dark-eyed boy who’d cried and trembled in Lord Drayton’s study. Now he looked up at Katherine with a wide grin on his dirty face. He stood with his thin right arm stretched taut, his small hands clutching the reins of a calm but mighty gray stallion.

  Charmed, Katherine smiled and waved to the child. With a bath and a haircut, he could be quite a handsome boy.

  Then, Lord Drayton strode into her line of vision. He pivoted, seemingly immobilized, and stared up at her with eyes transformed to sapphires in the slanting late afternoon sun.

  The look of horror on his face made her own eyes widen.

  “Get away from the window, Katherine!”

  She cocked her head and turned up her palms at the strange request.

  He spoke with controlled calm, yet it seemed his entire body, tense and hard, lambasted her. “Now.”

  Shaken, she drew back and watched him visibly relax. But of course he would be nervous seeing her in the window from where his wife had fallen—assuming he’d had no hand in the matter. Otherwise, it was guilt that haunted him.

  She peeked back out and saw him tuck a folded document into his front breast pocket. Her letter, perhaps? Yes, he’d found it, and in his impatience to get her out of his house, was rushing off to make the necessary arrangements with a new guardian.

  Katherine clutched the damask drapes. She hadn’t thought he would act so promptly on her request.

  Truly, she had assumed he wouldn’t act on it at all.

/>   Long after dark, the drum of hooves reached Katherine’s ears. Heart in her throat, she leaped out of bed to peek from her window. Lord Drayton came into view and then rode on around the corner of the castle. Would she be gone by morning?

  He said nothing to her at breakfast—didn’t even look at her, in fact. Elizabeth, also quiet, darted occasional anxious glances toward him.

  At one point, Katherine scribbled a short note on the paper near her and then slid it over to him. He seemed blind to it as he sat hunched over his plate wolfing down bread slathered with almond butter.

  Lips pressed together in irritation, Katherine picked up her pewter spoon and struck her plate with it three times, in rapid succession.

  It worked. She had his attention. Lord Drayton froze in the act of gulping down a cup of watered ale. His gaze slid to her, and his brows rose as if he considered her no better than a speck of dust. “Yes?”

  She let out a long impatient breath and pointed to the note.

  He ran his eyes over her two questions. “Yes. I read your letter. No. I will not procure a new guardian for you.”

  He must have seen her relief because something changed in his eyes, something subtle and melting. In the next instant, derision replaced the softer look. “You do not need a guardian,” he said. “You need a husband, and I have chosen one for you.”

  Katherine waved her hands in short, jerky movements. She took up her quill and wrote, Who is he?

  “A baron,” Lord Drayton answered. “Thomas Bliss, Lord Wiltshire. Your future will be secure, and I can go on with my life.” He slid back his chair. “Who knows, mayhap you will fall in love with his lordship.”

  Katherine, her temper flaring, glared at him, then scribbled two words on another sheet of paper.

  “But Lord Wiltshire is...” began Elizabeth, then stopped as bright color rose to her cheeks.

  Lord Drayton apparently picked up on her meaning. “Yes, he is. But he desires—”

  Katherine thrust her paper toward him. Pompous ass!

  A slight flaring of Lord Drayton’s nostrils gave evidence of his growing irritation. “To whom are you referring, my lady? Lord Wiltshire or myself?”