"The conservatory, I believe." "You'll see Miss—it is Miss?" I nodded, feeling weak but determined.
"See Miss Rushdon to the conservatory, Reggie. I've a client about to give birth. You will excuse me, my dear?
Wyndham whirled, causing his mantle to billow around his knees. Throwing open the door, he was nr, replaced by air smelling of ice and rain. I pulled my cloak more tightly round my shoulders and followed the butler obediently, if not reluctantly, own one long, dark hallway after another. They smelled old and musty. Floors of uneven brick were covered by tattered carpets that at one time must have been beautiful and expensive. An occasional oriel offered the only light. Meager though it was, it was enough to brighten the ancient portraits that decorated the wainscotted walls. Pale, oval faces of Lady this and Lady that stared down at me, unblinking and, for the most part, unsmiling. I felt empty inside just looking at them,
I had almost convinced myself that this plan of dear Jerome's was folly, and was on the verge of begging the butler's pardon and escaping when we rounded a corner. Sudden light glowed before us as softly as a candle flame, and again I found myself struggling lo calm my racing heart. Pulling the hood up over my head, I pressed my hair back into it. My courage was failing. Dear God, my courage had fled!
I stopped, crumpling the paper in my hand. Foolish girl with your airy ideas, I scorned myself. This would never work. Never, What if the rumors proved to be false? How would he react if he recognized me? Angry? Certainly, for he would know instantly why I had come. Violent? Possibly. The folk in Keighley had warned me—
"This way, madam."
As Reginald motioned toward the room I forced my legs to move, one foot in front of the other. There was still time , . .
"My lord, you’ve a guest," Reginald announced.
I cautiously entered the room, preparing myself for the possibility—the inevitability—of his reaction should the rumors prove false. I prepared myself for the shock of seeing him again.
Nicholas Wyndham stood among great green plants, a trowel in one hand and a watering can in the other. He stared at a yellowing specimen, and his shoulders, though as broad-—if not broader—than I remembered, slumped slightly within his white linen shirt.
"Damn," he muttered. "They're dying again, Reggie. The damnable things are dying again."
"I'm so sorry, sir."
"It's this blasted weather. Never any sun. They're accustomed to sun, you know."
"Yes, sir."
He tossed the trowel into a flowerpot, placed the spouted can on the floor, then slapped his hands together. Mesmerized no less than before by the broad muscles of his back as they moved beneath the cloth, I watched the shirt where it bloused slightly at the waist of his tight, fawn-colored pantaloons . . . and I thought of running. Far and fast. But I couldn't. Not until I got what I came for.
“Sir," Reginald repeated, "you have a guest." His head turned slowly
He appeared disturbed by the intrusion. Thick brows as black as raven wings hooded his gray eyes in a frown; the corner of his mouth turned down slightly in contemplation. I took a step backward, unprepared after all.
"A guest?" he asked quietly. "I have a guest?"
"A Miss Rushdon, sir."
With some effort, it seemed, he shifted his eyes beyond Reginald's stoic face to mine. "Rushdon?" He relaxed and turned to face me fully.
The blow from his eyes was something I had not counted on. Their intensity I could have hardly forgotten. But their impact—how could I have forgotten their impact? I felt my face color beneath his steely scrutiny, and my heart became a wild thing that ran away with my breath, leaving me weak and trembling and uncertain. "My lord," I managed unevenly.
He stared, and with as much force as I could muster, I met his gaze. It was now or never, I reasoned. Yet as he watched me in that moment, unblinking, I knew that the rumors, twisted or otherwise, had not proven false. He did not know me. But though I should have heralded the truth, I could not do it. I had lost him, it seemed, as surely as I had the first time—as if I had ever truly had him. Naught but one question hounded me now. Why?
Nicholas closed his eyes. My presence had obviously caused him some distress, and with growing trepidation I sensed that he was struggling with his memory. One half of my heart cried, Fight, fight, damn you, and prove all the wagging tongues in Yorkshire wrong. Yet part of me prayed that the idiocy that had turned his past to nothingness would remain.
Pressing his fingers to his temple, the spell appearing to have left him, he again focused on my face. He had the almost excessive good looks of a god, tall and slender but not overly. His hair, now as in the past, looked wind-whipped, giving him a less austere appearance than that of his brother. His skin, like that of all Englishmen, was fair, but had acquired a darkness that was the result of weather rather than sun. The whiteness of his shirt accentuated the aged-oak color and made him look like a shepherd's son.
"Rushdon?" he asked.
"Here about the notice, sir," Reginald said.
He tried to smile, though I sensed it pained him to do so, "The notice," he repeated. "You mean the one in a wad in your hand?" He watched as I took my lower lip between my teeth, and, as if finding amusement in my discomfiture, he smiled a little broader,
"One and the same," I responded, feeling braver.
"Well, I'm afraid, Miss Rushdon, that you have not caught me at my best. Not that I am ever at my best, you understand, but I'm unprepared for an interview."
His voice had not changed. The tone, like gentle thunder, seemed to vibrate inside me.
Standing straighter, he said, "Reggie, will you see Miss Rushdon to the ..." His thoughts appeared to wander,
"To the library, sir?"
"Ah! Yes, the library. Of course. While I change."
He threw me an apologetic glance. "I won't be long," he assured me.
I had just taken my place in a wing chair when Nicholas entered the room. I was startled by his sudden appearance; in truth, a little disappointed. I needed time to sort out my feelings. Ever since I had made plans to return to Malham, I had wondered if Jerome's dying concession would prove to be true. "Lord Malham will! not remember you," he had wheezed into his blood-soaked kerchief. "He's ill. Desperately ill."
And he is, I thought with heart-twisting despair. The vacant eyes were hardly those that had mesmerized my thoughts those many hopeless months; hardly the eyes I had fantasized over since that moment ten years before when he had walked with his rapier grace into my uncle's tavern. I had only been a child then, and he no more than twenty.
He walked swiftly to the desk before me, his stride as graceful—thank God—and with purpose. "Have you been waiting long?" he asked over his shoulder.
I stared at my hands, dying.
"Not long," Reginald responded in a soft voice.
Nicholas appeared ill at ease behind the highly polished mahogany desk. He wore a jacket he had pulled on in haste over his white shirt. The cuffs of his sleeves were soiled and damp. His collar was unbuttoned. Biting back my tears, I looked at his fingers, long, sensuous, and slender, tapping at the tabletop; they were coated with dirt. Hesitantly I looked up.
He offered me a wayward smile, his dark eyes beating into mine. Then, curling his fingers into his palms, he tucked them into his jacket pockets. "Damn, I've frightened you already," he said. "You see, I have this nasty habit of digging in dirt, of late, I can't seem to help myself, for what little good it does me. Everything I touch dies."
The confession appeared to jar him. He rammed his fists harder into his pockets, and the look on his face became angry.
Reginald stepped forward. "Perhaps you would like a sherry, milord." Without waiting for a response Reginald turned for the door.
"Don't forget our guest," Nick replied, his voice edged still with that tone of anger.
"I wouldn't care for sherry," I responded. "Perhaps tea, if you have it?"
Nick eased down into his chair. "Ah, tea. Of course. What woul
d aristocracy be without tea? I am waiting for the day all our blue blood dilutes to the color of urine. Bring the young lady some tea, my good man." He looked back at me. "So, you've come about the notice."
I lifted my chin.
"Take off your cape," he ordered. When I hesitated he added, "It's an old custom: One approves of the merchandise before he makes the purchase."
"I hardly think you are 'purchasing' me, sir. Only my services."
"They are one and the same in this instance. lake off your cape."
Dare I?.
He sat back in his chair. "Come now. Are you frightened of me? Perhaps you've spoken to the oilier young ladies?"
"Others?"
Something, perhaps concern, must have shown in my face. Satisfaction crossed his features and I sensed that he was toying with me on purpose.
"You aren't the first young lady to see me. Did you think you were? I might warn you, Miss Rushdon, that the others fled the house in a mild state of hysteria."
"And I might warn you, sir, that I don't frighten easily/'
He briefly pressed his fingers to his temple again, then wagged his finger in my direction.
I fumbled a moment with the braided frog at my throat, aware that my nervousness was obvious. Too obvious. Without my cloak to shield me, there was always the possibility that he could remember. "My face colored with the realization that I hoped he would remember.
Standing, I slowly removed the hood from my head; it dropped to my shoulders, again releasing my hair. The black tresses cascaded in wild curls around my face and over my breasts, and tumbled in disarrayed coils nearly to my waist. The gray eyes assessing me narrowed for an instant, turned as dark as the ashes resting damp and dead within the stone hearth of the fireplace.
"Go on," he said quietly.
The cloak dropped to the floor. I watched the muscles in his face tense, the firm, wide mouth twist, as if he'd experienced a momentary stab of pain. His face grew suddenly pale, paler even than it had been in the conservatory. There were smudges of purple beneath his eyes.
Noticing my distress, he sank farther in his chair, those lips curling sardonically. "Ready to bolt, little girl?" he asked.
I felt as if the stiff, high collar of my woolen dress was choking me. Indeed, I was ready to bolt. But not for the reasons he believed. The feelings I thought I'd hardened my heart against were alive in my bosom, as strong and discomforting as they had been two years before. Throughout the last months I'd struggled to replace the ache with hatred. But how could I hate him? I had known what I was doing then, had entered that room with far less doubts than I harbored now.
"Well?" he prompted.
His look was taunting, daring me to flee. Lifting my chin, I responded, "I think, sir, that perhaps you enjoy frightening people. And," I added, a good deal too forcefully, "I am not a little girl."
Nick's gaze moved over me slowly, from the crown of my lush black hair to my green eyes, to my pale throat and then to my breasts. He stared a long moment, and it was all I could do not to flinch from those intense eyes. There was an aura of carefully restrained power, of forcefulness that emanated from him that I had not experienced before. Then I realized that the moments I'd spent watching Nicholas Wyndham, lord of Walthamstow Manor, Earl of Malham, had been mostly from a distance: from behind doors, fences, McBain's Wall.
He saw the smile start. The slight tucking up of my lips, the lowering of my lashes brought a spark of color to the curve of my cheeks. "Most becoming," he said softly. '"I envy your memories, Miss Rushdon. I trust they are pleasant?"
"Not always," I answered truthfully.
"Even bad memories must be better than no memory at all."
I stared at him again, curious.
"You're a very beautiful young woman," he went on. His voice, husky now, was filled with longing. "However, if I decide to accept you for this position you will not be wearing such as that." He pointed to my drab gray attire. "The color doesn't suit you," he added.
This time I flushed with anger. I'd had little choice in my attire.
"Your sherry, milord," came Reginald's monotone behind me.
The servant placed the glass of amber liquid on the desktop, then turned with tea in hand. I took the opportunity to ask Lord Malham sharply, "Have you done with your rather critical inspection, milord, or would you perhaps care to see my teeth as well?"
"I don't paint teeth." Lifting the glass to his mouth, Nicholas arched one black brow at me and smiled.
Reginald closed the door behind me, leaving us alone again. Nicholas studied me as I eased back down in my chair. Balancing the bone china cup and saucer on my knee, I looked down into the steaming brew, concentrated on my heartbeats and thought the air in the room had grown intolerably heavy,
"Who are you?" he asked so suddenly I sloshed tea onto the saucer. "Where do you come from?"
"I am Ariel Rushdon from Keighley. I am unmarried—"
"So I presumed. Curious for a woman of ... ?"
"Twenty-three."
"You should be married with brats."
Brats. The word disturbed me. I sipped my tea, burning my tongue.
"Are you willing to peel out of those atrocious clothes for the sum of say, three shillings a week, plus room and board, of course?"
"Are you willing to discontinue your insults?" I asked dryly. "Are you willing to swear that your only purpose for hiring me is to pose for your portraits?"
"No."
I blinked and managed a look of total surprise.
"Should I decide to dress you in frills and fripperies and escort you to the opera in London I will expect you to smile and pretend that you have no idea what they are saying behind their feathered little fans. Because they will talk. They talk constantly, behind my back and to my face. They will gape at you as if you were Marie Antoinette prancing about the decks of the guillotine. You will hear stories that will undoubtedly distress you. For example . . ."
He left his chair, hands again jammed into his jacket pockets. I stared at his empty sherry glass, then at his back as he walked to the leaded window and looked out over Walthamstow's gardens. Very slowly the long arms went up. Bracing his hands along the windowsill, he continued.
"I'm a widower, you see. Some will tell you that it's the grief that has driven me into seclusion. Those are the understanding souls, or blind. Everyone in this county knew I loathed my deceased wife." His head partially turned. "Does that surprise you, Miss Rushdon?"
"Yours would not be the first loveless marriage, milord," I responded, knowing it to be the truth.
"Ah, let's hear it for tact."
"Continue," I said.
He took a breath. "Some believe I killed her."
He looked out the window again. The knuckles of his fists were white. "I am hopelessly insane, I am told. Prone to bouts of uncontrollable rage and depression. My dearest brother Trevor therefore has devised these hobbies to keep my hands occupied, so I don't strangle the servants or my sister or do away with myself. Actually, painting has become a fond pastime, but apples bore me. So do vases filled with roses."
He turned suddenly, catching me unprepared. "Ah, Miss Rushdon, you're too kind. Save the tears for one who deserves them. I've not been reduced to Bedlam yet and, perhaps with a little of your consideration, I may be saved the penance of straitjackets."
I turned my face away, chagrined by my emotionalism, embarrassed that he had caught me weeping.
"Do you want the position?" he asked me quietly. There was hope there. I could hear it despite his droll tone of implied indifference. "Should you accept you must be forewarned. The mood to paint may hit me anytime, day or night. Mostly night. The nights are so damnably long, you see, and I—do you want the position?"
I closed my eyes. "Aye. I want it."
There was silence. When I opened my eyes again he was before me. His head, with its thick black hair spilling over his brow, was angled over mine. His eyes, the color of old, old pewter, gazed sleepily at my mou
th. I could feel the warmth of his body on mine, so closely was he standing; I could detect the stirring scent of his maleness. It coiled, warm and arousing, in my stomach and breast.
His hand came up to hover about my cheek, and the smell of dirt on his fingers filled my nostrils. Yet he did not touch me; no matter how I willed it, he did not touch me.
"Foolish girl," he whispered. "Foolish, foolish girl."
Chapter 2
Jerome had warned me, after all. The door beyond us was flung open, allowing a child's wail to pour into the room. I spun and was faced by a woman whose countenance was severe and emotionless as she announced, "Milord, there's been an accident with Master Kevin."
"Accident." The word sounded dry in his throat.
The cry again. It clutched at my heart like a claw.
Nicholas swept by me in a rush. I followed, holding the weight of my woolen skirts in my hands. I allowed the stranger only a glance as I ran out the door, noting with a flicker of curiosity that her severity had not altered in the least. She was stone-faced, and not in the least upset,
My stride could not match Wyndham's; he'd broken into a run. He flashed in and out of the shadows before me, moving easily through the halls. He cut sharply to his right, and 1 followed, down a longer hallway that was immeasurably darker. Only a sconce here and there alleviated total blackness.
He paused in a puddle of yellow light that spilled out a doorway at the end of the hall, then he disappeared into a room.
Voices came, sounding like a gaggle of goslings frantic with fright* I hurried to the door, squinting against the sudden intrusion of light. The cry was earsplitting now. Yet I could not be certain which jarred me more: that wail or the fear that swallowed me the moment I saw the blood.
"Milord, t'was only an accident. He fell. He only fell!"
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