The Perfect Kiss

by Anne Gracie

  He fascinated Grace. She purely loved the way those cold, yellow wolf’s eyes darkened to gold and lit with a purposeful gleam that both thrilled and alarmed her. There was no mercy in that gleam. It declared his intention to hunt her down. Her mouth curved at the thought. She would be no tame prey of his. She was Grace Merridew—wolf tamer!

  She descended the stairs, placing her feet in the hollows made by his ancestors, and thought about his response to the idea that Wolfestone could be made nice and homey. It was a most peculiar reaction. So strong. As if he loathed the very idea of a home . . .

  How could anyone think like that?

  Grace had never truly had a home of her own. Dereham Court, where she’d spent the first ten years of her life, had been Grandpapa’s territory, and she’d never thought of it as home. Home was a place you felt safe in. Grace had never felt safe at Dereham Court.

  And since then Grace had either lived with Great-Uncle Oswald and Aunt Gussie, or with one of her married sisters, or else she’d been at school. And while she’d felt safe and happy in all those places, they weren’t hers, not really.

  After she’d been to Egypt and seen the pyramids and the Sphinx, she planned to make a home, one that was her very own, that she would arrange entirely to her own liking.

  She bit her lip. That’s what she’d been doing here, she realized. Playing house, as she had when she was a little girl. He had a right to be annoyed. It wasn’t her house to play with.

  But it was a house built for dreaming, with its fantastical combination of styles, with its fairy-tale turret, its arched Gothic windows, its carved oak paneling and its gargoyle . . .

  She glanced up and saw the gargoyle looking down at her, with his wise expression. He was one of the first things she’d had cleaned. He was dust and cobweb free and had been given a coat of oil, which had soaked into the ancient, thirsty wood.

  She smiled up at him, suddenly surer of herself. “I don’t care if he wants this place to be a home or not—you do, don’t you, Mr. Gargoyle? And the house does.” She nodded. “For you, then, we’ll make this place as nice as human hands can make it. Then it will truly be a place made for dreaming . . .”

  DOMINIC TOOK THE SHORTCUT THROUGH THE WOODS, HEADING FOR the Ludlow road. He was enjoying the shade; the open road would be dusty and hot, he knew.

  He was in a reverie when a dog shot across the path in front of him. A white dog with liver-colored speckles. Sheba.

  He’d left her back at Wolfestone, in the charge of young Billy Finn, who was supposed to be giving her a bath.

  Dominic frowned. What the devil was Sheba doing out? Who knows what mischief she might do—killing chickens or chasing sheep. A dog was not supposed to run free in farming country.

  He came to the place where he’d seen her cross. A faint, narrow track wound through the trees. He called her a couple of times. Nothing. He whistled. Nothing. He walked his horse a short way down the track. A couple of moments later the trees thinned and he saw the edge of the lake, and a boy and his dog. The dog was covered in mud.

  “What the devil are you doing—”

  Billy Finn turned, blanched dramatically, dropped what he was holding, and bolted. Sheba began to follow the boy but a word from Dominic stopped her.

  “Stop, Billy! Wait—” Dominic began but the boy had fled. The child looked to be in fear of his life. Movement beside the lake caught Dominic’s eye and he went to see what the boy had dropped.

  A fish. A line and hook lay beside a clump of reeds.

  He looked at the fish and then at the path the boy had taken. The look on the child’s face had shocked him. Stark fear.

  He pulled his watch out and flipped it open. Plenty of time to investigate this little mystery and still get to Ludlow. He picked up the fish and the line, whistled to Sheba, and remounted. “Fetch Billy,” he told her, and pointed the way the boy had run. Tail waving like a plume, Sheba trotted confidently down the path. Dominic followed on horseback.

  It wasn’t long before he came to a tumbledown shack set in a clearing. Sheba bounded joyfully ahead—she’d clearly been here before. Dominic surveyed the building thoughtfully as he dismounted and tied his horse to a tree. He had seen it marked on an estate map as a ruin. But this ruin was inhabited. A thin coil of smoke rose from the chimney and lines of washing were strung between the trees.

  He knocked on the door. A worn-looking woman opened it, a toddler clinging to her skirts. Several more young children peered at him, ranging from perhaps eight years old down to four or five.

  “Is Billy Finn here?” he asked her.

  Her eyes widened. “Billy?” she repeated warily. Her eyes flickered sideways and she thrust the toddler back into the cottage. “No, Billy’s not here.” She was lying, Dominic was sure.

  “He ran down this way.”

  She shook her head and shrugged. Dominic looked at her more closely. Billy had this woman’s eyes.

  “You’re his mother,” he said with flat certainty.

  She chewed her lip uncomfortably, then nodded, a tense look on her face.

  “He dropped this,” Dominic said and produced the fish.

  It had a dramatic effect. The woman moaned, and looked as if she was about to faint. She rallied, clutched the door frame tightly and said, “No, no, no, that fish doesn’t belong to my Billy. He never touched it, I promise ye, sir. He wouldn’t. He’s up at the castle, now. The lord, he gave him work.” The woman was gabbling.

  “I am Lord D’Acre,” Dominic told her and she moaned again. Her face was parchment pale under its tan.

  “Oh, please, m’lord, don’t take him. He’s a good boy, my Billy. Oh, please, please, don’t take him . . .” To Dominic’s horror she threw herself on the ground before him, clutching his feet and weeping. “Please m’lord, have mercy, I beg ye. Don’t take my Billy.”

  Dominic stepped back. “My good woman, I have no intention of taking him anywhere!”

  She lay slumped in front of him, weeping and mumbling, “Not my Billy, not my boy.”

  Dominic was appalled. He glanced at the children watching their mother fearfully. “You there, come out here and help your mother,” he instructed them. They took one look at him and ran away, screaming.

  Dominic ran his fingers through his hair. Were they all touched in the upper works? Was Billy the only sane one of his family?

  She peered up at him through tangled hair and a desperate look came over her face. She knelt, licking her lips, and smoothing her hair. “I’ll do whatever ye want, my lord,” she told him, “only don’t take my Billy.” Good God, the woman was offering herself to him!

  “I have no intention of taking the wretched boy anywhere!” Dominic snapped. “Now, for heaven’s sake, get up, woman!”

  Fearfully she clambered to her feet and stood facing him, her eyes downcast and tears rolling down her cheeks. Her hands twisted her apron convulsively.

  “Calm yourself!” he ordered her. She gulped and an unnatural look of calm settled over her features. The woman was still terrified.

  Dominic sighed. He forced himself to say in a slow, calm voice, “Nobody is taking anyone anywhere. I have no idea what you think I’m going to do to Billy, but whatever it is, it’s wrong. Now, go inside and make yourself a cup of tea or something.”

  She fearfully took a step toward the cottage. “And here, take this blasted fish,” he said and thrust it at her.

  “No!” she gasped, suddenly defiant. “You’ll not plant no evidence on us!”

  “Evidence?” Dominic stared. It suddenly fell into place. “You think I’m after Billy for poaching?”

  “He’s not a poacher!” she flashed at him.

  “Calm yourself, woman. I never said he was, and in any case he’s a child, for heaven’s sake.”

  She stared at him with painful intensity. “So . . . you’re not going to have him taken up and transported?”

  “Of course not!”

  “You mean it, m’lord?” She read the truth in his f
ace. Tears poured down her cheeks again and she was about to fling herself at his feet in thanks, but he managed to grab her by the arms and fend her off.

  “You leave my mam alone!” A small towheaded fury hurtled from the undergrowth and butted Dominic in the stomach. Fists flailing, young Billy Finn hammered into Dominic, yelling, “It’s me you want, not my mam!”

  Undernourished ten-year-olds were fairly easy to vanquish. Dominic caught the flailing fists and held the boy off so he was out of range of the kicking feet.

  “Stand still,” Dominic roared. Billy stilled. All the fight drained out of him.

  Dominic released the child’s fists. Billy gave his mother an anguished look, straightened, looked Dominic in the eye, and said, “It’s me ye want, not my mam. Take me, but don’t hurt Mam or the little ’uns.”

  “I have no intention of hurting anyone!” Dominic said evenly. “I was merely curious as to why when I called to you, you dropped your fish and bolted like the devil was after you.”

  Billy braced himself. “Aye, I took the fish from the lake. Mam never knew I did it.”

  “I’m not after a confession, you young idiot!” Dominic said, exasperated. “So stop acting as if I’m about to have you dragged off in chains!”

  Billy Finn gave him a sullen look of flat disbelief, an adult look far beyond his age. “The old lord had my pa taken fer a fish—and in chains, so why would you be any different?”

  His mother caught his arm. “Don’t talk like that to his lordship, Billy.” She gave Dominic a fearful look. “He doesn’t mean to be insolent, m’lord.”

  Dominic frowned at Billy. “Your father was imprisoned for a fish?”

  “Aye. He weren’t hanged, though. Transported ’im, they did. New South Wales. Other side o’ the world.”

  “For fish? Was he selling them?”

  Billy looked indignant. “A’course not. He wouldn’t do that!”

  His mother said hastily, “No, two years ago, it was, m’lord. We were—it was a bad year, and Will, he had no work and the little ’uns were hungry. My Will, he can’t stand the sound o’ wee ones weepin’ for hunger . . .”

  “Will, that’s me da’s name,” Billy explained. “So Da went fishing. And Mr. Eades he caught ’im, and that’s the last we saw o’ Da.” He straightened, a child shouldering a man’s responsibility. “I take care o’ Mam and the little ’un’s now.”

  And he did, too, Dominic realized. It explained why little Billy Finn seemed to be everywhere, getting underfoot, taking any job he could get. “Well, you have a proper job now, so there’s no danger of anyone going hungry.”

  Billy’s head came up? “A proper job?”

  “Yes, um . . .” He groped for a suitable-sounding position. “General factotum up at the castle. And um, assistant supervisor of fisheries.” He handed the fish over to Billy’s mother and wiped his hands on a handkerchief. “That position means you are entitled to take—for your own use—fish from any lakes and rivers on the estate.”

  Billy’s mother surged forward, weeping again, and Dominic hastily stepped back before she could fling herself at his boots a third time. “Now, you clean that fish for your mother, young Billy, and then take Sheba back to the castle. I want to see her gleaming by the time I get back from Ludlow.” He turned to go.

  Billy and his mother followed. “General what?” Billy asked.

  “Factotum. It means you’ll do all sorts of different jobs.” He mounted his horse. “Like a footman, only more . . . far ranging.”

  A grin split Billy’s face. “Better’an a footman, eh? And will I have a uniform?” His eyes were so excited, so hopeful, Dominic simply didn’t have it in him to crush the wretched brat.

  “Yes, there will be a uniform.” So much for not getting involved with the blasted estate.

  “And will I—”

  “Don’t bother his lordship with questions, Billy,” his mother interrupted the flow of questions, much to Dominic’s gratitude. She clutched his boot—what was it about this woman and boots?—and said, “Thank you, your lordship. I do beg your pardon if I offended you before, m’lord. I should’ve known the Lady would bring us good fortune.” She gave him a beatific smile. “Saw her the other morning, I did. She has the bonniest smile. Like dawn after a dark night, it was. Nothing but good could come o’ a smile like that.” Tears dripped onto his boots.

  “Yes, yes, I’m sure,” Dominic muttered and edged his horse away. “I must get going. An appointment in Ludlow.”

  He rode off and they both started shouting but he wasn’t going to be stopped to be thanked again. His boots were quite wet enough as it was!

  He’d gone a good mile and had slowed to ford a stream when a splashing beside him alerted him to the fact that Sheba had followed him. He swore. That’s what the Finns had been shouting about. Oh well, it was too late to take Sheba home.

  “You will have to run all the way,” he told her severely. “For there is no way I am taking a disgustingly wet and muddy creature up on the saddle in front of me!”

  Sheba gave him an adoring look. Her tail wagged gently. Her ribs heaved and her tongue lolled.

  Dominic sighed and scooped her up in front of him. With any luck the mud would dry before he reached Ludlow and he could brush it off him.

  “I WANT EADES CAUGHT!” DOMINIC FORCED HIMSELF TO SIT calmly in the chair opposite his lawyer’s desk. Sheba dozed in the corner. “I want the finest runners Bow Street can offer. The bastard has got to be punished for what he has done!”

  The lawyer, Podmore, nodded his grizzled head. “So it was as you had suspected, then. Tsk, tsk, it’s shocking! Two sets of books—I can hardly credit it. And you say that there was no staff at the castle at all? And yet wages were drawn for them.” He made a note. “Embezzlement on that scale—he’ll surely hang. Transportation at the very least!”

  Dominic shook his head. “I have a strong dislike of being robbed, but that’s not the worst of Eades’s crimes. All the time he was creaming off the profits of the estate, he was driving hardworking tenant farmers to ruin—I’ve seen it everywhere. He overcharged on the rent and forced good, solid men off land they had farmed profitably for generations. He pocketed salaries for nonexistent staff and for nonexistent repairs on the tenants’ cottages! And you should see the disgraceful state of some of the cottages—cottages for which I must take the blame.”

  Podmore gave him an odd look. “You actually visited cottages?”

  One cottage only, but Dominic wasn’t going to admit that. Dominic shot him a look from under his brows. “They’re my cottages,” he said brusquely. “Why shouldn’t I visit them?”

  “Why not indeed?” Podmore agreed.

  “Do you know what else Eades did?” He fixed Podmore with a freezing glare, “He had a man transported! For poaching fish!”

  Podmore gave an approving nod. “At least he was not blind to all his responsibilities, then.”

  “The poacher was the father of five hungry children, for Christ’s sake! And they’re in even more desperate straits now he’s rotting in a penal colony in New South Wales!”

  Podmore’s brow knotted in confusion. “But what else could Eades do? Poaching is a crime, and transportation a common punishment.”

  Dominic stared.

  “The fish belong to you, my lord.”

  Dominic clenched his fists. “An entire family ruined for the sake of a few bloody fish?”

  “I know it sounds harsh, but it is the only way to prevent crime. And lawlessness is increasing everywhere.”

  Dominic shook his head. “Letting children starve is the crime. The way to prevent increasing lawlessness is to ensure men have jobs so that they can feed and protect their women and children.”

  Podmore looked shocked. “My lord, never say you are a radical!”

  Dominic shrugged. “I was once a lot like that boy. I know what starvation feels like.”

  There was a long silence. The elderly lawyer looked deeply troubled. “Was it truly s
o bad, my lord?”

  Dominic nodded. “There were times when my mother and I didn’t know where the next meal might come from. I did whatever I could to survive—stealing, and worse. And I’d do it again in a heartbeat, if my family was starving. A man is not a man if he does not protect those he loves.” Aware he’d shocked the lawyer with his outburst, he moved to the window and looked out. He noticed nothing. He was back in Naples, a skinny, desperate boy, roaming the back alleys and the docks . . .

  After a short silence, the elderly lawyer said in a husky voice, “I can sympathize, my boy. I knew your mother, too, recall. A very sweet and lovely lady . . . What happened was a tragedy.”

  “Not a tragedy—an outrage!” Dominic said with quiet savagery. The lawyer didn’t know the half of it. He mastered himself and when he turned back, he’d assumed his usual cold expression.

  “I want Eades brought to justice.”

  Podmore said in a soothing tone, “Bow Street will hunt him down, my lord, never fear.” He gave Dominic a shrewd look. “Do I gather you’ve had a reversal of sentiment about Wolfestone since you came here?”

  At the question, Dominic jerked his head up. “A reversal of sentiment? Of course not. I despise the place as much as ever!”

  Podmore said in a level lawyerly tone, “Forgive me, of course not. It was merely that you sound a little more . . . involved than before.” He began to set out papers on the table in front of him. “So you don’t intend to repair any of the tenants’ cottages?”

  Dominic considered the matter. “I’ll have to,” he said after a moment. “I can’t have people living in such disgraceful conditions for something that while not my fault, is nevertheless my responsibility.”

  “Quite so, my lord. Though I take leave to remind you that if you break up the estate and sell it, the new owner might wish to evict the tenants and demolish the cottages anyway. Modern farming techniques require a larger scale of operation, I understand.”

  Dominic glanced out of the window, into the busy inn yard. Dammit, he did not want to think about the consequences—he just wanted to be rid of the place. “The new owner might not,” he said eventually. “The repairs must be completed before winter. Some of those damned roofs leak!”