Any other woman, except for her sisters, would need help, but she disdained it. Even now, at the end of a tiring evening, more from concentrating on her work and forcing dreamy visions out of her mind than from physical work.
She glanced up at the house. Had she seen the glimmer of a light up there? She shook her head. Of course not. The flash of starlight or even a bird could have created that momentary flash of light colour. She or her father would have sensed the presence of someone up there. Nobody watched them.
Wheeling her horse, she cantered away, following the swish of the tail on her father’s mount.
From his stance high on the cliffs Edmund watched the last two people leave the scene. His shielding had held, although the man had swept the area several times with his senses. Edmund was rather proud of himself.
He turned his head to find his valet at his elbow. Unused to having any servant share his innermost secrets, he underwent a shot of shock before he recovered his senses. He’d had to concentrate on hiding his presence for too long.
“So now we know why Sir Mortimer is held in awe around here.”
“Indeed, sir.”
“It makes my ownership of this house more interesting.”
“Indeed, sir.”
He frowned. “Do you think you could say something other than ‘indeed, sir’?”
“If you wish me to, sir. I’m yours to command.”
“Why?”
Lightfoot raised his slender brows and turned a questioning look on to Edmund. “I fail to understand your meaning, sir.”
“Why are you mine to command? You have skills of your own, and strength. I can’t deny it’s comfortable having an immortal for a servant, but you do not have to do this. The duchesse didn’t command you, did she?”
“No, sir, she did not, although she requested it as a favour. Anyone who has met her grace knows how difficult it is to withstand her requests.”
Edmund smiled. “I do know. That was one reason I needed to get away to think. Only to plunge into a new adventure, it appears.”
Lightfoot nodded. “I understand, your grace. Sir,” he amended. “I have known Madame la Duchesse for some time. Fortunately she considers me no threat to her and she has no hold on me. Satyrs have their own defences.”
Edmund found that interesting. Satyrs were a strange race, even by immortal standards, but he appreciated having met this one. Lightfoot had made Edmund’s journey so much more comfortable. He was aware that they had their wild side. He couldn’t entirely trust Lightfoot’s ability to stay with him, for example. While the satyr would wish him well, he might take another task upon himself, and then Edmund would lose him.
“Did you make enquiries about this place?”
Lightfoot nodded. “Do you still wish to buy it?”
“I told you so, did I not? Did you find anywhere more suitable as close to the manor where she lives?” He doubted it, since he’d made a few enquiries of his own.
Regretfully, Lightfoot shook his head. “I’m afraid I did not, sir. There is another twenty miles away.”
Edmund raised a cynical brow. “While I’m quite capable of travelling such a distance, it would be difficult to explain it to the household or the neighbours.” He gestured to the house. “It’s a good building. I like it. The wildness of its position meant someone built a strong edifice. It’s old, isn’t it?”
“At least sixteenth century, sir. It has a timber frame that has been seasoned, strengthened and maintained by its previous owners. It has good bones.” Lightfoot glanced at the house. On this side, nearest to the cliffs, the roof had caved in and bits of tile littered the ground at their feet where they had slid off a roof no longer able to support them. “It will take some time to restore.”
Edmund smiled. “Not so. I will employ every man for miles around to repair it, and then have someone transform the inside for me. I have those articles in storage that I bought abroad. Now they will come in useful.”
Edmund’s ostensible excuse for travelling abroad had been the Grand Tour, a belated one, but one he had never taken, and so he’d collected a number of objects on his travels. On his ostensible travels. While he was with the duchesse, Lightfoot had undertaken some on his behalf, since she had told him she wanted to conceal his presence in her house for so long. Never one to disappoint a lady, Edmund had complied and given the deliriously happy Lightfoot enough money to indulge his taste for fine living and beautiful objects.
He frowned. “We must maintain an air of innocence, Lightfoot. I fear the old man may suspect I know his true nature. He may suspect mine. I need to discover his identity.” He paused. He hated to do it, but he could see no other way. “I will flirt with her and gentle her to let me into her mind. I can discover more from her than I can the others, because she’s already disposed towards me. Prepare my arrows, Lightfoot. I want one that will fade after a few months.”
He ignored the bad taste in his mouth. This didn’t sit well with him, but needs must. The situation with his mother could come to a head at any time, and he had to work from a position of strength. That house was perfect, but he needed to know what manner of immortals he had happened upon. Quickly, before he committed himself.
“You wish to seduce her, sir?”
Edmund paused. “I won’t leave her ruined. I’ll ensure she comes to no harm. The dispersal of the Ancients was a crime. Murder, to be precise. Nothing can stand in the way of discovering who was responsible and punishing them.”
He tried not to be bitter, but since he’d discovered the shocking truth the emotion had taken hold of his heart. His mother, his own mother, could be one of the Titans who had helped to murder innumerable Olympians and their attendants.
He didn’t intend to leave innocent victims littering his wake. If she was guilty, then he would ensure her punishment, but otherwise he wouldn’t hold her to blame. Most likely, if anyone was part of the plot, it was her father. He could only hope so. He’d found Portia sweetly responsive, and she’d enchanted him so he hadn’t exposed her as he’d first planned.
“I will do as you wish, sir, but I may make errors with the items. It will be my first time.”
Edmund shrugged. “They’re only the instruments. They’re nothing without my power.” His man bowed acknowledgement. “I had thought to travel to London,” he said, “I have heard of nothing untoward happening there recently. My mother should never have left Scotland, but I can hardly order her around like a—”
“Servant, sir?” Lightfoot finished for him.
Edmund dug his hands in his pockets and turned around, preparing for the trudge back to where they’d left the carriage, five miles away. “Exactly, Lightfoot.”
The door to the schoolroom burst open and Lady Seaton hurried in. “Girls, we have a visitor! Make yourselves decent and join me in the drawing room!”
Without pausing to tell them who had arrived, she lifted her skirts and ran out again.
Millicent, Anthea and Portia exchanged surprised looks. “Aren’t we decent?” Portia said. She was wearing her dark green gown and to her mind she appeared perfectly respectable, which was all that a surprise visitor could reasonably expect. Her hair was neatly tucked away under her white linen cap with its modest frill of lace, and although she wasn’t wearing lace at her elbows, her linen ruffles were well pressed and would serve.
“Do you think we should change?” Anthea asked anxiously.
Millicent shook her head. “It would be more impolite to keep whoever it is waiting. It is most likely old Mrs. Cresswell. She is lonely now her husband has died.”
A widow of six months’ standing, Mrs. Cresswell had yet to settle into widowhood. Although while her husband was alive she often complained of his neglect and his recklessness, now he had gone her life had shrunk. She could not expect the visitors she had entertained before, especially since her children, all girls, ha
d married and left home.
While the probability remained that Mrs. Cresswell had called, their mother’s flustered command remained with Portia, suggesting another possibility. She dare not even articulate it to herself in case she was wrong. What if—what if Mr. Welles had decided to follow up his promises? In her experience, men rarely did that, but she had limited experience and she was perfectly prepared to believe one man at least meant what he said.
She had never visited a man in his room before, never trusted anyone that far, and thinking back, she had no idea how she could have done it that time. Had he bewitched her? She had read nothing untoward in him, seen nothing to indicate he was any other than a man whom she’d trusted not to overwhelm her.
Not that he could have.
She hurried downstairs in Millicent’s wake, not as precipitately as her mother’s pace, but more rapidly than she was used to. Her heart drummed a tattoo in her breast as they neared the drawing room.
While not as gracious as some hereabouts, their drawing room was generally considered a gem. They could have afforded something much grander, but her family kept the information to itself. Her father said they should not live the high life all the time, and he liked the restraints of a smaller neighbourhood. Whatever the reason, the girls had sometimes chafed against being mere gentry when they could have claimed something grander.
The drawing room was their mother’s small rebellion, and she spent most of her days there. Delicate china, fashionable French furniture and fine rose-coloured silk defined the essentially feminine room. Where the rest of the house sported typical dark furniture and the practical colours usual in the well-to-do houses hereabouts, Lady Seaton’s drawing room bore the appearance of a fashionable London salon. Or what Portia imagined it to be, because she’d never yet set foot in one.
When she opened the door, the scent of roses assailed her. The thin stream of smoke emanating from the pottery basket on the mantelpiece informed her that her mother had lit one of the pastilles supposed to eliminate foul odours and add the scent of an English garden in the summertime. An English garden on fire, she’d always considered it, because the tang of the smoke tainted the back of her throat if she got too close.
She only had time for a short glance before her attention went to the man sitting in the wide chair before the window. He rose as they entered, and exchanged a warm glance with her before sweeping into a low, elegant bow. “Ladies, my apologies for discommoding you in such a way. My only excuse is that I was so eager to reintroduce myself in my new capacity I quite forgot that not everybody is at home to visitors on Tuesday afternoons.”
Edmund took a step forward, enough to be able to bow over Millicent’s hand in the gesture of the kiss. Of course his lips didn’t actually touch her skin. That would have been improper.
He smiled and passed on to Anthea, bowing over her hand in the same way. Then Portia. She did her best to smile, but she found the task difficult. Her breathing had become erratic and her heart was threatening to break out of her chest, so fast was it throbbing.
He didn’t appear to notice. “My mother was used to have her visiting afternoon then, and all my life once I attained a reasonable age she expected me to attend her that day.”
“Your presence is a pleasure,” Portia’s mother assured him. “Do take a seat, Mr. Welles.”
Before he straightened, his lips touched her skin. As if by accident, he mistimed his position and dipped a little too low. She suspected he would not generally show such clumsiness. A man of his address would take account of the miniscule ruck in the carpet and not stumble as he straightened.
The bare touch did more than his kiss had the other night, sending shivers of startled awareness through her. Their flirtation had become a secret they shared. If he touched her like that more often, people would guess. The danger thrilled her when it should have appalled her, but she couldn’t help her instant reaction.
He took his seat and turned his attention to her mother while Portia found a place next to Millicent on the sofa. Anthea sat on her other side. “May I enquire what you meant by your new capacity?” her mother asked.
The door opened to admit the maid. Jane had taken the time to change her apron for her fancy afternoon one and the matching cap with a frill of lace. In truth she was grander than Portia now. Jane settled the tray on the table without a quiver, bobbed a curtsey, shot a mischievous smile at Mr. Welles and left the room. Lady Seaton flicked back her lace ruffles and opened her tea caddy, spooning the precious tea into the pot.
Mr. Welles—Edmund—answered Portia’s mother’s question. “I have ventured to purchase a house close to yours. Thorncroft Grange. You know it?”
“Of course, sir. We were well acquainted with the late owner of the Grange. Sadly, Mr. Thorncroft died five years ago, and his heirs were not interested in continuing the family’s long association with the house.” Lady Seaton raised a brow. “I understood the house was in a sad state of repair and it would take a great deal of time and money to bring it into order.”
Edmund smiled. “The reports of its ruination have, fortunately for me, been greatly exaggerated.”
Anthea nudged Portia, but she didn’t respond. How could she when his news had stunned her into temporary immobility? “You will be living there?”
He turned his attention fully on to her. Their eyes met, and fathoms of meaning passed between them that had nothing to do with her abilities and everything with her emotions. “Indeed, ma’am, I am already there. It was to inform you of the circumstance that I ventured to visit.”
“We are delighted to see the Grange occupied again and by so personable a gentleman,” her mother said. She had her society manners well in hand. The tidings must have come as a shock.
Edmund bowed his head. “You flatter me, my lady. Immediately after I stepped ashore I was taken by Dover. A charming town surrounded by delightful countryside. My initial impression was only confirmed when I ventured to explore further.”
He didn’t look at her, but he didn’t need to. A ripple shivered over her skin, as if he was touching her. She swallowed and kept her expression of polite interest firmly in place. She could not afford to allow anyone to know how much that information had affected her.
His flirtation might still be just that. He could be speaking the simple truth when he said he liked the district, and wanted to settle there.
“I don’t scruple to tell you, my lady, that a few years ago, when my father sadly passed away, he left me a considerable legacy and very little in the way of property. After my travels abroad I decided on purchasing a modest estate and settling down.”
His words sounded as if he was a merchant, or trade. Portia cared nothing what he did, but her parents might. Social position was of vital importance here in the close-knit society of this part of Kent. Even more so than in the larger metropolis of London. There, wealth could outpace certain other considerations, as long as it was of enough abundance. Here, everyone would know and comment. Her heart bled for him.
He flicked a glance at her, his smile warming for a fraction of a moment before he turned his attention to Millicent. “My father was a relative of a duke. Our estate went to another on his death, as it was part of the entail of the main estate, but his fortune was his own, inherited from his mother and his wife, my mama, who is, fortunately, still with us.”
“Do you not wish to live with her?”
The smile flickered and then died. “My mother and I get on best when we are apart.”
Plain speaking indeed. Had a rift with his surviving parent caused Edmund to look elsewhere for a house?
Her mother beckoned impatiently to the sofa, and before her sisters could rise to obey her command, Portia sprang to her feet, eager, for once, to help with the tea. Her mother gave her a delicate china dish almost buried in its deep saucer. She took it with barely a trembling clink to their guest.
&n
bsp; His scent, the overwhelming masculine presence suffused her with heat and pleasure. Just that one reminder of his nearness had her on edge, shaking with the need to touch him. She could not. Society dictated she couldn’t do it.
In the bare moment of mutual privacy, they exchanged a glance that told her all she wanted to know. Not that she dared believe it. That burning glance could be anything. He could be toying with her or using her in an elaborate game of some kind. Her father suspected he was an immortal. Maybe he was a mortal with a gift. Many had it. They called it other things—spiritual knowledge, intuition, but it was usually the way immortals had of communicating mentally.
She handed out the rest of the tea-dishes and took her place back on the sofa, not daring to speak to him.
“You’re very frank about your circumstances, sir,” Millicent observed, with an arch smile. Did she want him too? She’d been a widow for two years, and she was only four years older than Portia. She had a tidy fortune, thanks to her husband’s will, and she was considered a charming woman.
His gaze skittered over the three girls, lingering a fraction longer than necessary on Portia. “I merely wish to introduce myself, ma’am.” He flicked back the lace at his cuffs, fine Brussels lace that put her plain dress to shame, but strangely, she didn’t feel dowdy or underdressed. “I have a dislike of gossip, so I venture to put matters in the right light for myself. Since I intend to remain here for a time, I would appreciate a full understanding of my origins. I know how important such matters are to members of society.”
She dared to skim his mind, but she found nothing a mortal wouldn’t have. It seemed perfectly normal, the patterns perfectly aligned, a morass of thoughts and memories blurring together.
Immortals’ minds were more ordered. They kept their private thoughts hidden behind a barrier they learned how to construct in their early years. They only allowed the thoughts they would share in the public part. Difficult to describe, easy to attain. At any rate, Edmund’s mind seemed as confused as most mortals’.
Arrows of Desire: Even Gods Fall in Love, Book 3 Page 5