Strength enough to push a full barrel of beer off a wagon and into her path. Her stomach tensed, as she realised she’d let him lull her into forgetting.
Why did the man who wanted her death have to cause her heart to flutter? There was obviously something wrong with her. She was turning into one of those desperate spinsters who flung themselves into the arms of any man who showed them the least bit of attention. Good or bad.
Her throat dried. Her insides quaked with the knowledge that, in his case, the attention was all bad.
She stiffened. Held herself as aloof as possible in such an awkward position. And was still aware of the steady rhythm of his heart against her ribs and the warmth of his lithe body.
He glanced down at her briefly, his expression one of regret, heaved a sigh and shifted his grip, holding her a little less close. ‘Better, Miss Wilding?’
Clearly he’d sensed her discomfort.
‘Much,’ she said quietly, because it actually wasn’t better at all. Not really.
And when his long rapid stride brought them to the drawing room she could not help her pang of disappointment when he gently put her down on the sofa. She fought the insidious longing to be wrapped in this man’s strong arms.
She had learned that such longings led only to misery.
Jeffrey handed her a glass of sherry. ‘Feeling better, Miss Wilding?’ he asked with a charming smile.
Her heart was fluttering, her stomach in knots, yet she managed a small smile. ‘Yes, thank you.’
Mrs Hampton gave her a cool nod. ‘I am glad to hear it, Miss Wilding. You gave us quite a scare.’
She had given them a scare? What did the woman think, that she had deliberately sat down in front of the barrel?
‘Look what I found,’ Gerald crowed, racing into the drawing room. He bowled into the centre of the group surrounding Mary, pushing, of all things, an odd-looking three-wheeled chair. ‘Grandfather’s bath chair. He bought it the year he went to take the waters for his gout. He never used it. It was kicking about at the back of the stables. It will be perfect for wheeling Miss Wilding about. Come on, Miss Wilding, give it a try.’
Such enthusiasm was hard to squash, Mary thought, warily looking at the contraption.
‘She doesn’t want to be pushed about in that,’ Jeffrey said with a grimace. ‘All she needs is one of us fellows to carry her to the table. I can do it.’
The earl’s gaze narrowed.
Gerald’s face fell, the triumph of moments before dashed down by disappointment. It was almost painful to watch.
‘I think it is a fine idea,’ she said. ‘Much better than being carried.’
The earl gave her a humourless smile. ‘As the one who has so far done the carrying, I suppose I must also express my appreciation.’ Far from sounding please, there was a note of disapproval in his voice. Did he think she could use the wheeled chair to escape him? She looked at it with renewed interest.
‘It might work in the main part of the house,’ Mrs Hampton said with her habitual sniff. ‘But many of the passageways are narrow. And who on earth would carry it and Miss Wilding up and down the stairs? That is why my father didn’t use it, you know.’
The woman had a point. ‘Perhaps it would be better if I stayed in my chamber until I can use a cane,’ Mary said. ‘I really don’t want to put people to all of this trouble.’
‘Dinner is served, my lord,’ Manners intoned from the doorway.
‘No trouble at all,’ the earl said and she was airborne again. ‘You can use the chair when there are no beefy fellows to cart you about.’ He cast a very pointed look at Jeffrey.
Once more she was deposited on a chair. This time the earl placed her beside him at the head of the table where Mrs Hampton usually sat.
The other woman eyed her askance for a moment, then took Mary’s usual place.
Mary did her best to eat her dinner, but her ankle had begun to throb abominably. It must be the way she was sitting. Or because the effects of the willow-bark tea had worn off.
During the second remove the earl leaned closer. ‘If it is not an insult to say so, Miss Wilding, you are looking quite pulled. You have been moving that piece of fish around on your plate for the past five minutes. Have you had enough?’
‘Yes. I find I have eaten my fill.’
‘I wasn’t talking about food,’ he said. ‘I meant this.’ His glance took in the group around the table. ‘Would you feel more comfortable in the library? Sitting with your feet up on the sofa by the fire and reading your book until it is time to retire?’
The way he described it, he made it sound heavenly. The thought of putting up her foot was almost too tempting for words. ‘I should probably go to bed.’
‘No, I insist.’ He raised his voice. ‘I am sure Gerald would jump at the chance to push you along to the library.’
Gerald’s enthusiastic expression agreed.
The earl gave her a conspiratorial smile. Had he guessed she would not hurt the young man’s feelings by refusing? She had the feeling she was somehow playing into the earl’s hands by agreeing to his plan. Nonsense. What could happen to her in the library? Besides, she was tired of the four walls of her chamber. A change of scene would do her good. ‘Very well.’
Gerald wheeled the chair close. ‘Hop in, Miss Wilding.’
Hop being a most appropriate word.
The earl didn’t allow it. He stood and lifted her in. Once more that strange languid sensation weakened her limbs and her heart picked up speed. Oh, the man was attractive all right, but what did that matter when he meant her nothing but harm.
No matter how alluring he might be, she must remain on her guard.
* * *
As promised, the library was cosy, the fire blazing and the candles all lit.
Gerald came to a halt beside a chaise longue that had not been beside the hearth earlier. If she remembered correctly, it had been near the window. It seemed the earl had indeed planned this. But why? Now she wished she had insisted on going straight to her room.
‘You should return to your meal,’ she said to Gerald, manoeuvring out of the chair and on to the sofa.
He strolled along the bookshelves, his face moody. ‘Such dullness. I was supposed to make my bows at court in the spring. We won’t be going now that we are in mourning again.’ The petulance was back. His moods seemed too volatile for such a young man.
‘I know it will seem like for ever, but there is always next season,’ she said in a matter-of-fact voice. She did not believe in encouraging the histrionics of young girls and felt the same must apply to boys equally. ‘The year will pass before you know it.’
He stopped, pulled out a book and rifled absently through the pages. ‘No doubt there will be some other reason not to go. Something concocted by Mama, yet again.’
‘Oh, you are in the dumps,’ she said, smiling.
He put the book back with a sigh. He didn’t look quite so angelic in this mood.
‘Do you like to read?’ she asked, thinking to turn the conversation to pleasanter topics.
‘I used to. I was quite sickly for a time. It was my only company.’
The memories seemed less than happy.
He swung about, his face alight once more. ‘I forgot. I promised Jeff I would play billiards after dinner. You don’t mind, do you? If I go?’
‘Not at all.’ She rather thought she’d be glad of it. Keeping up with his mercurial moods wasn’t at all entertaining.
He grinned charmingly. ‘Miss Wilding, I don’t care what the earl says, you really are a brick.’
What the earl says? ‘What—?’
Too late, he was already on his way out of the door.
What would the earl have said? That she was an antidote of a schoolmistress. Or that she was here on sufferance? Or he wished her to Jericho? While mortifying to think that he might have said any of those things, it wasn’t difficult to imagine him saying them in that biting tone of his. That he would have said them to his
cousin, though, that hurt. It hurt behind her ribs in a way she hadn’t felt hurt in a very long time.
Because no matter how she tried not to, she had the feeling that, had circumstances been different, she might have liked him.
Oh, now that was pure foolishness. The man was pleasant to look at. He was strong. He was tall. And he was intelligent. He was in all ways...perfect.
For someone else.
He didn’t want her any more than she wanted him.
Nice as it would be to live in a house like this, to have a real family, she didn’t fit. She belonged with her girls. Educating them about things their families would never teach them: geography, mathematics, philosophy. Let someone else teach them deportment and drawing-room accomplishments. She wanted to expand their minds to the world.
Not that she would ever see much of it. But they might. And she could read about it.
Oh, bother. She had left her book in her chamber. Now this really was torture. Surrounded by the most magnificent selection of books she had ever seen in her life and nothing to read. Could anything else go wrong?
Really? Was she just going to sit here and bemoan her fate? She rose, standing on her uninjured foot and grasping the handles of the bath chair, hopped her way across to the shelves. Where there was a will, there was always a way.
What to choose?
She ran her eye along the titles in gold leaf on the spines of the books at eye level. Sermons. Well, she didn’t mind a sermon occasionally, but tonight she needed something lighter, something to sweep her into another world. To help her forget the throbbing in her ankle and the fears lurking at the forefront of her mind. The fears that kept getting tangled up with ridiculous hopes.
The next shelf up held Shakespeare. His tales were wonderful, but difficult to read. Higher up? Novels. Some she had read. Mysteries of Udolpho. Tom Jones. A bit risqué to be sure, but fun. A slim volume, and much shorter than the others, jammed between them, caught her eye. ‘A history of Beresford Abbey’. Now surely that was in the wrong place?
She reached up, but it was beyond her fingertips. She could touch the shelf, but not the book, no matter how she stretched. Ah, here was the answer. A rolling ladder tucked in the corner.
With a clever bit of work with her rolling support, heretofore known as a bath chair, she managed to get the ladder in place. She only needed to go up one step.
Tentatively she put her injured foot on the ground, gripping on to the sides of the ladder for support. Just one step up.
Her ankle gave a protesting throb. Jehosophat, that still hurt, but she was up and the book was within her grasp. It was jammed in tightly. She pulled. The ladder shifted. She grabbed at the shelf.
‘Miss Wilding. What in the devil’s name do you think you are doing?’
She started, then gave a little cry of alarm as the ladder moved sideways.
The next moment, the earl’s large capable hands were around her waist and he was lifting her down as if she weighed nothing. Again. Making her stomach flutter and her heart bang against her ribs. Again.
And now he was glaring down at her as he held her at arm’s length, making her feel no bigger than a pea.
‘Well?’ he said.
‘I was trying to reach a book.’
He raised his eyes to the ceiling for a second. A plea for help, or a plea for patience? ‘There are hundreds of books you can reach without climbing a ladder.’
‘Not one I wanted.’ Oh dear, she sounded as sullen as Gerald.
He huffed out a breath. Looked at the shelves. ‘Which one did you want?’
‘The one I was just about to take down when you scared me half to death.’ She pointed at the blue leather-bound book jutting outward from its fellows. ‘Stop sneaking up on me.’ Her heart couldn’t stand it.
‘I was not sneaking.’ He reached up and took the book down. Before she realised what he was about, he put an arm around her waist. He couldn’t possibly...
But he had. With one arm. The man had the strength of ten. It left her feeling completely in his power. A good way to let her know she could not win with him. Not a feeling she liked.
He deposited her on the chaise with a small grunt. So he didn’t find her as quite light as he made out. Showing off, no doubt, though to what purpose she could not imagine. Unless to serve as a warning of his superior strength.
A strong mind was a match for a strong arm any day of the week.
She held out her hand for the book.
He was staring at the words on the cover. ‘This is what you wanted? A history book?’
‘I like history. I thought I might find out a little more about the house.’
He raised his gaze and his rare smile made an appearance. ‘I am glad you are starting to feel at home, Miss Wilding.’
The warmth of that smile sent butterflies dancing in her stomach. She repressed them with a frown. ‘There is no sense in going somewhere and leaving again without finding out something about it.’ She sighed. ‘And besides, it caught my eye because it was out of place, pushed in there with the novels.’
His smile broadened. His grey eyes danced with amusement. ‘Did you ever hear the saying, curiosity killed the cat?’
Now he was teasing her. ‘Without curiosity we would be no better than the beasts of the field, my lord.’
He laughed out loud. ‘Then I hope you find this worth another fall.’
‘The first fall was hardly my fault.’ Perhaps he was thinking that if she hadn’t fallen and been whisked out of the way by Mr Trelawny she might already be out of his way. The lightness she’d been feeling dissipated in a rush.
Sensing the change of mood, he huffed out a sigh. ‘The rest of them went to play billiards. Even Mrs Hampton. I came to see if you wanted to join them. To be truthful, I had thought they would come here after dinner.’ He sounded disgruntled, as if they had spoiled his plan. What, had he expected them all to gather in the library, like some sort of close-knit family? The kind of family she had always dreamed of having. Or had dreamed of once, a long time ago. Now, she only wanted her job back. Her classes to teach. Her girls.
He handed her the book and wandered around the room, looking at titles, poking around in cupboards. He looked large and restless, as if he couldn’t breathe in the confines of the room. How could she possibly read with him pacing around like a caged lion? To be truthful, with his dark looks, he reminded her more of a panther than a lion. But just as dangerous.
Perhaps he was eager to play billiards and felt obligated to see to her welfare. In which case, it would be easy to set him free. A little stab of disappointment caught her by surprise. What, did she want him to stay? Surely not?
‘I am quite happy to sit here and read,’ she said, tacitly giving him permission to depart. She glanced down at the little book and flipped through the pages. It was not a printed book. It was handwritten and there were sketches of the abbey looking very different to how it looked today. The paper was old and yellowed. Parchment? At the back of it were what looked like maps. She quickly turned to the middle of the book. She wanted to look at those maps, but not in the presence of the earl.
‘Do you consider yourself a blue-stocking, Miss Wilding?’ he asked idly, riffling through the pages of a volume he had pulled from the shelves. He held it up. ‘A Mary Wollstonecraft acolyte? You have read her work, I am sure.’
‘A Vindication Of The Rights Of Woman? I think it astonishingly far-sighted.’
He looked at her for a long moment and she had the feeling he was considering his options. ‘You agree with her, then?’
‘On many counts.’ She swung her legs to the floor to face him. Her hands clasped tightly in her lap. ‘Why should girls not receive the same education as their brothers? Not everyone is destined to be a wife or a mother. And even in those roles, surely an educated woman is a valuable addition to any family.’
‘You are passionate in your beliefs, I see.’
And she had exposed herself to his mockery by the
intensity of her response. She stiffened against her desire to back down, to please him. ‘Why should I not be, since it is of importance to me as a person?’
‘And it is your opinion that a woman need not, by definition of her sex, suffer from an excess of sensibility. You would not consider romantic love as a requirement for a contented marriage?’
Was this a proposal? Her heart gave a painful lurch. ‘It is a sound principal from which to begin.’ A painful flush rushed to her cheeks, because it was only partly the truth. Whatever she believed in her rationale mind, her heart wanted more than mere friendship or affection.
In her youth, it had yearned for love.
Yet she was not the sort of woman men fell in love with. She had accepted that. And now he was stirring up all those old emotions, those longings. Resentment rose against his probing into old wounds.
‘And what of yourself, my lord?’ she countered. ‘What are your thoughts? You must marry, produce an heir.’
An emotion she could not read flickered across his face. Not a happy one though, of that she was certain. ‘My business affairs leave little time for wooing. Besides, I have an heir.’
‘Jeffrey.’
He nodded.
She remembered his vow that the Beresford line would end with him. ‘So he is, after all, to provide the next generation of Beresfords? Your grandfather would be pleased.’ It was an unfair jab, but she could not help but defend herself.
‘It won’t happen.’
He spoke with such surety, she stared at him in surprise. ‘You cannot be sure he will not marry and have children. He is a young man.’ Unless he planned to do away with him, too? The idea filled her with sick horror. First that she had even thought of the idea and second that she even thought it plausible. ‘It is a rare man who does not marry,’ she finished weakly.
He gave her a sharp look. ‘You do not then eschew marriage?’
‘I do not seek it for myself. But I do not eschew it for others.’
‘You believe in choice, then.’ A heaviness weighted his words. As if they held an underlying significance.
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