“Do as you will.” Miss Hollister stalked off in the direction of her daughter.
That was not quite clear permission to address her by her Christian name, which was, of course, what he had been angling for. She did call Heathgate, Greymoor, and even Fairly—Astrid Alexander’s brother, and thus no relation to Miss Hollister at all—by their Christian names, and she had insisted she and Douglas travel to Sussex as relations.
“Mama!” Rose’s scream pierced the afternoon quiet, a scream conveying fear and pain. “Maaaaaaamaaaaaa!” The screaming continued as Douglas sprang off the bench and vaulted hedges and walls to get to the child.
“Rose!” Douglas bellowed. “Hold still. Stop thrashing this instant!” Then in a more civil voice, he called out, “She’s all right.” And she more or less was, though Douglas’s heart pounded with both exertion and the mortal dread her screams had inspired.
“I am not all right!” Rose screeched. “Ouch!”
“I misspoke,” Douglas conceded. “If you will hold still, I will extricate you from those bushes, and all will be well.”
“All will not be well,” Rose spat back. “I saw a snake and he scared me and then the rose bushes grabbed me and they are using their thorns to bite at me.”
“What shameful manners,” Douglas observed as he separated Rose’s clothing from the offending bushes. “Tonight their mamas will make them draw pictures of what dire fates can befall rose bushes that bite innocent little girls.”
“I’ll have the gardeners rip them out,” Rose said. “I’ll put poison on their roots. I’ll plant daisies here that don’t have any old thorns. I’ll let the bugs eat up all the roses, and leaf spot, and beetles, and all manner of awful things.”
Douglas disentangled Rose from her tormentors, grabbed her elbows, and hoisted her straight up, then swung her out of the flower bed over to the grass.
“Mama! There was a snake and he scared me and the roses bit me and their mamas must punish them. Cousin Douglas said.”
She hurled herself against her mother’s skirts; Miss Hollister knelt and brushed dark locks back from Rose’s forehead.
“Sweetheart?”
That particular tone of voice was one Douglas had not heard from the lady before—gentle, coaxing, soft, and reassuring. He felt her tone of voice as much as heard it.
“Yes, Mama?”
“Was there really, truly a snake?”
Rose looked away, her bashful expression reminding Douglas of her mother’s similar fleeting bouts of shyness.
“There was,” Rose decided indignantly. “It was an awful, mean old snake, like in the Bible.”
“Perhaps you could describe this ferocious serpent?” Douglas suggested.
Rose thought for a moment, her imagination no doubt warming to the subject. “He was huge and he had mean eyes and he waved his tongue at me.” She demonstrated dramatically. “He was miles long and he hissed steam out his nose and he was green, with great ugly black spots.”
And of course, this horrible monster was male.
“A terrifying prospect,” said Douglas, finding it needful to study the pink roses flourishing nearby. “I believe I am familiar with the species. It particularly delights in flinging little girls into rose bushes when they feel a great falsehood coming on.”
“Let’s go, Mama,” Rose said, tugging on her mother’s hand and shooting Douglas a puzzled look. “I don’t want the snake to come back. Come, Cousin Douglas, or that snake might gobble you up.”
“I am atremble with trepidation,” he replied, taking the hand Rose proffered. Before he’d escorted the ladies back to the terrace, Rose was off once more, chasing a butterfly.
While Miss Hollister regarded Douglas with the faintest hint of… a smile. “You are quite the athlete, my lord.”
“I had never considered what excitement raising a child entails. It is nerve-wracking, is it not? Hornets, snakes, thorns… I’ve known Rose only two days, and she has enlivened my existence considerably.”
Which was nothing less than the honest and surprising truth.
“And you hers,” Miss Hollister said, smiling more broadly. Rose was making a complete circuit of the garden at a dead run. “She’s going to fall.” Sure enough, on a tight corner, Rose slid in the grass, got right up, and pelted off.
“Nerve-wracking. May I call you Guinevere?” Because every occasion when he called her Miss Hollister, he felt a bit uncomfortable for her.
Put like that, a simple request humbly made, and she was again looking bashful. Douglas wondered how long it had been since a man had asked for the privilege of familiar address with her. Such intimacy was a family member’s privilege, a close friend’s, or… a fiancé’s. “I do not mean to be forward, Miss Hollister, it just seems that under the—”
She put a finger on his lips then, a light, fleeting touch, accompanied by a shake of her head.
“Gwen. And I shall call you Douglas.”
“Just so. You shall call me Douglas.”
They fell into another silence, this one different from any of the previous gaps in their conversations. For Douglas, the quiet had a sweetness, a stirring of benevolence toward his hostess and her noisy, happy, nerve-wracking child.
They walked together to the stables and agreed Douglas would borrow the gelding and return the following day.
“I’ll be off then,” Douglas said as they ambled down the barn aisle. “If I make another day of it with you here, then spend through Wednesday in Town, we can be on our way early Thursday. Has Rose a pony?”
“This one.” Miss Hollister—Guinevere—gestured to a stall where a petite and venerable white mare lipped at some hay. “If I thought Daisy would make the journey, I’d bring her along, but it would be asking too much. And I’m sure any property Andrew owns will have decent riding horses.”
Miss—Guinevere—accompanied Douglas to the stable yard where he checked his gelding’s girth one last time, then swung up without benefit of a mounting block and turned the horse down the drive.
“My thanks, Guinevere, for an informative day.” He touched his crop to his hat brim. “Until tomorrow.”
As the gelding’s hoofbeats faded, Gwen mused on the form of address her departing guest had chosen: Guinevere. Andrew teasingly called her Gwennie; Gareth and David, Lord Fairly, stuck to plain Gwen. The help and the locals called her Miss Hollister or ma’am. And now this from Lord Amery.
Rose’s father had had many sweet little names for Gwen, words now stricken from her vocabulary that she hoped and prayed she’d never hear applied to her person.
But to Douglas she was simply Guinevere.
Despite herself, she liked it. From him, she did like it.
Three
The peace and quiet, ah, the peace and quiet.
Gwen spent the first morning of travel as wound up as Rose, gaze riveted to the scenery outside the window. Six long, long years had passed since she’d left the environs of Enfield for more than a day, and she hadn’t realized how hungry for variety she had become.
Even while the whole idea of it had frightened her into near banishment.
But here she was, having the coach to herself, and allowing her daughter to go cantering off up before Amery as if he really were their cousin.
He treated her and Rose with nothing but deference and courtesy, more than her true cousins showed her. Lady Heathgate had sent word she’d be joining them in Sussex, citing the social obligations of the Little Season. Andrew and Gareth had both endorsed this trip heartily, assuring Gwen she could not have a more conscientious escort than Douglas Allen.
And Amery was “practically family.” The wretches had smirked while they’d made that pronouncement, probably knowing exactly how ill-suited Gwen was to Amery’s brand of company.
Gwen was half-asleep, mentally listing things to inspect at Linden, when the c
oach pulled into a noisy yard. She was glad, not for the first time, to have Douglas shouting orders, directing traffic, and taking charge in a way she could not. A cheerful maid showed them to the best rooms in the house, a sort of suite including a private sitting room connecting two bedrooms.
“These rooms are acceptable to you?” Amery—Douglas—stripped off his gloves, and Gwen had to force her gaze from the sight of his hands. Why she’d be preoccupied with such a common human appendage was unfathomable, except she’d touched one of those hands, almost held it for an instant or two.
“The rooms are lovely. Thank you for taking Rose up with you this afternoon. She’ll dine out on that adventure for days.”
“And where is Rose?” Am—Douglas asked, slapping his gloves against his thigh.
“She’s putting away her things, reading a story to Mr. Bear, drawing a picture of the prettiest thing she saw today. She is a busy young lady.” And this sketch was to be a gift for “dear Cousin Douglas.”
“She comes by her industry honestly. I am having a tray sent up, the common appearing noisy and crowded. Will you be wanting a bath?” Douglas’s tone was all business—as usual.
“Not for me, but Rose will need a bath, if it can be brought to our bedroom after supper.”
“I did wonder,” Douglas said as he reached for the door latch, “how you keep her smelling so delightfully sweet.”
He was out the door, leaving Gwen to wonder at him and his curious compliment. After hours in the saddle, Douglas yet bore a particular scent, clean and a little spicy, with cedar or sage or something of the out-of-doors. His fragrance was one of a few things she liked about him.
Another was his sense of responsibility. He would see to their dinner, order Rose’s bath, get them safely on their way tomorrow, and generally execute the duties of an escort without prompting or flaw. He seemed to need responsibility, much as Gwen did. For his sake, she hoped the property in Sussex was suited to his goals. With any luck, he’d be able to make a go of it on sheer determination.
“Dinner is on the way,” Douglas informed her when he returned to their sitting room. “And you look like you should enjoy it then climb immediately into your bed. Your eyes are shadowed.”
Such an observant fellow was Lord Amery. “I usually read for an hour prior to blowing out the candles, though I am a bit fatigued,” Gwen admitted from a comfortable chair by the hearth. “Travel has the ability to be both boring and wearying.”
Though at some point, she’d lost the ability to apply those descriptors to present company.
“You were bored today?”
“I have been in that coach, hour after hour, with that child, and the same books, the same games, the same incessant demands for snacks, the necessary, and so forth,” Gwen pointed out. “So yes, I will admit to a certain boredom.”
Douglas stretched his long legs out before him as he settled on the raised hearth—without seeking Gwen’s permission. “Why didn’t you ask me to take Rose for a time here and there? I impressed her into the cavalry for the past few miles only because her whining was nigh making Regis ill.”
Gwen was saved from a reply by a knock on the door and a procession of servants bringing in the dinner trays.
Rose scampered out from the ladies’ bedroom and began her recitation of the day’s adventures. “And here,” she added with a huge smile, “is my drawing of the best thing.”
“What was your best thing today?” Gwen asked as she fixed her daughter a plate.
“It’s me, Cousin Douglas, and Sir Regis—you are in the coach, Mama, but the coach is too far back to be in the picture. We cantered and cantered and cantered. Sir Regis is not old, like Daisy, and he likes to canter. Someday, when I’m older—”
“May I?” Douglas interrupted, reaching for the picture. “I see you caught Sir Regis’s smile. He must appreciate that you knighted him today.”
“He’s brave, kind, and ever so handsome,” Rose answered as she scrambled onto Douglas’s lap. “And he likes to go charging forth.”
“All necessary attributes to a knight errant,” Douglas said, looking somewhat taken aback as Rose settled like a nesting partridge on his knees.
“What’s a night errand?” she asked, putting her picture aside and curling up against Douglas’s chest.
“A knight errant,” he explained, wrapping an arm gingerly around Rose’s back, “is a fellow who gallops about the kingdom, rescuing damsels in distress, vanquishing evil, and being a good sport. He must have a trusty steed like Sir Regis, who is interested in the same pursuits.”
“I am going to be a knight errant when I grow up,” Rose pronounced, popping a thumb into her mouth and snuggling closer to her fellow cavalryman. “Daisy can be my trusty steed, though she will have to get better at cantering.”
“A sound plan,” Douglas allowed.
He was sitting carefully. As if Rose were fragile or a half-tame cat who would leap away at the slightest provocation. But Rose looked blissfully content as she curled against Douglas, her thumb in her mouth, her eyes closed. The tableau was soothing, but also… disquieting. Douglas had risked his life for the child, but did Rose have to trust the man so easily? So completely?
“I think the fair damsel is falling asleep,” Douglas said.
“I am not,” Rose retorted around her thumb, her eyes flying open.
“Then get down from yonder knight,” Gwen said, “so you can eat your dinner.” Rose scrambled down and took her place beside Gwen, while yonder knight looked relieved.
The roasted chicken, mashed potatoes, bread, and buttered peas were good, and fortunately they appealed to Rose’s somewhat finicky palate. Before the pudding had been consumed, another tap on the door heralded the arrival of the bath and bucket upon bucket of steaming water.
Rose sat up indignantly. “Mama! You didn’t tell me I would have to take a bath tonight. That is not fair. I did not even touch the dirt today, I am not dirty…”
“Miss Rose,” Douglas interrupted, “you will want to take that bath, because Sir Regis is particularly fond of little girls who smell as little girls should, of soap and sunshine rather than of tantrums and disrespect.”
“Tantrums do not smell,” Rose informed him with regal dignity before getting down from the table and disappearing into the bedroom.
Fifteen minutes later, Gwen dried off a clean and sweet-smelling Rose, bundled the child off to bed, and eyed the still-hot, lavender-scented water. When would Rose learn that a bath was a luxury to be savored?
Gwen heard no movement from the other side of the door, suggesting the day’s travel had worn Douglas out too. The bathwater was still hot, the soap a luscious rose-scented hard-milled French bar, and the temptation to soak for even a few minutes too great to resist. Gwen disrobed and slipped into the water quietly, lest she wake Rose.
“Guinevere?” Douglas poked his head around the door just as Gwen came up from dousing her hair. “Dear God, I beg your pardon.”
He yanked the door shut before Gwen had a chance to even sputter her indignation. As she hastily finished her bath and dried off, she assured herself the bedroom was dimly lit, and she had been largely submerged when Douglas had peeked around the door.
She threw her flannel nightgown over her head, belted a dressing gown over that, and slipped her feet into mules before leaving the bedroom. Her only thought was to confront his snooping lordship and deliver the blistering set-down such a maneuver deserved. She threw open the door, prepared to storm across to Douglas’s room, then caught sight of him sitting in near darkness on the sofa, staring into the fire.
He rose as soon as Gwen entered the room, and in the flickering shadows, particularly without his jacket and cravat, he was too tall, too masculine, and entirely too… underdressed.
“I most humbly beg your pardon,” he said, bowing formally. “I did not want to knock loudly for fea
r of waking the child, and it did not occur to me you might change your mind about the bath.”
She studied the gravity of his expression, the absolute absence of teasing or disrespect in his eyes. Perhaps he had knocked, albeit softly, and she’d not heard him. She had refused a bath, and if his knocking had awoken Rose, Gwen would have resented it.
“No harm done.” She did not want to withdraw, lest he know she was overcome by self-consciousness, but the thought of sitting beside him was equally untenable.
“Guinevere, my intrusion was not intentional, and as to that, the room was quite dark and your modesty well preserved, I promise you.”
Dry stick that he was, Douglas seemed as embarrassed as Gwen, and that… that helped. She’d never once seen Rose’s father embarrassed, but it occurred to her now that the man should have been mortified at his own misdeeds. She tucked that revelation aside to savor later and at length. “What was it you wanted to talk to me about?”
“Do you accept my apology?”
She didn’t want to. She wanted to stay in high dudgeon with him over something, though the sentiment was unfair and unbecoming. “I accept your apology.”
“Thank you. Are you sure you wouldn’t rather leave any discussion until tomorrow?”
“Let me get my hairbrush.”
She wasn’t going to let her hair dry all willy-nilly, even if that meant she had to brush it out in Douglas’s company. Her hair was thick and naturally curly, and it would be nothing short of a fright if she didn’t see to it before going to sleep.
Douglas gestured to the sofa. “Please, make yourself comfortable.” He remained standing while Gwen took up a corner of the sofa, sitting sideways so her back was against the arm and her feet were tucked up under her.
“For pity’s sake, Douglas, you needn’t loom over there as if I’m going to snarl and snap. I’ve accepted your apology, and travel will result in enforced proximity between even strangers. What is it you wanted to talk about?”
He sank down at the far end of the sofa, gaze on Gwen’s slippers peeking from beneath her hem. “There is a woman who resides in the neighborhood of Linden.”
Douglas: Lord of Heartache (The Lonely Lords) Page 5