“But I wish to see what’s here.”
“And you shall. On the morrow, when we both are rested, I shall arrange for you to begin a tour of each section of the house.” He bit back his inclination to offer to take the boy about himself while he investigated Moorsea Manor. The boy would be a constant intrusion on his own explorations.
“Arranged tour?” David set himself on his feet, crossed his slender arms across his chest, and glowered. “That’s no fun!”
“It will be interesting, I am certain.” He glanced at the mummy case. “I have seen only a few rooms of this house so far, and all of them have contained surprises.”
“You haven’t seen my room,” he grumbled.
“No, I haven’t. Is something wrong with it?”
David crossed his arms in front of him again. “I’m not an infant! I don’t need a room connected to Aunt Valeria’s. In London, I had my own rooms.”
“Which allowed you to come and go as you pleased.”
“I’m eight years old!”
“So I understand. What you must understand is that the arrangements for you and your aunt are only temporary. One of the reasons I had hoped to arrange a tour is for you to select other, more convenient arrangements.” Far from my private space.
“Isn’t that kind of Lorenzo, David?” asked a strained voice from behind him.
Seeing Valeria walking toward him, Lorenzo almost choked when he tried to keep a groan from reaching his lips. Was there no end to the disruptions tonight?
“David?” prompted his aunt again as she emerged from the shadows into the dim light of the single candle.
That light was enough, for even its dim glow danced in her lustrous hair as if each strand were on fire. Although she was frowning at her nephew, relief was easing the lines on her brow. A tingle cut through his fingers as he imagined smoothing away the last of her worry. Then that wondrous hair would brush him with its flame that might burn right to the quick.
Why was he acting like a complete chucklehead? He stepped back as Valeria walked past him to where David stood with his head hanging. Instead of admiring her glorious hair, he should be chiding her for not keeping her nephew in his bed where he belonged.
“I would appreciate,” Lorenzo said, “if you would, in the future, maintain some control over this child.”
Her hands curled into fists at her sides as she replied, “I’m sorry that you’ve been disturbed, Lorenzo. Apologize please, David.”
“For what?”
“For disturbing Lord Moorsea.” She scowled not at the boy, Lorenzo noted, but at him.
“I was just looking about.”
“You shouldn’t look about in here without permission.”
David gave a longing look at the mummy case, then squared his narrow shoulders. “You don’t have to fret about that, Aunt Valeria. I shan’t again.”
Lorenzo was astonished when Valeria took the boy at his word. He suspected David intended to return to pry open the mummy case and peek inside at the first opportunity. Dash it! That would mean the lad might snoop into Lorenzo’s private writings as well. Carrying the whole of them about with him all the time was not a pleasing prospect.
“Will you accept his apology, Lorenzo?” Valeria asked.
“I believe I have not heard one as yet.”
“He has said he will not bother you again.”
Lorenzo met the boy’s eyes and was surprised when David did not look away. Then he noted how the boy’s chin jutted out like a bruiser looking to be knocked down in the boxing ring.
“I believe, Valeria, he said he would not enter my rooms again without permission. Quite the different matter.”
She lowered her voice. “This is not the time to discuss this. He needs his sleep.”
“As we all do. As we all could be doing, if he had stayed in his bed where he belonged.”
“Lorenzo, please. Let you and I discuss this on the morrow.” She glanced over her shoulder at David who was wearing his defiance openly. “Please.”
His answer slipped out of his head as her hand slipped onto his arm. The motion was meant to be no more than companionable. Of that, he was certain, but the glorious fire sweeping through her hair flowed within him. His fingers covered hers before he realized what he was doing. At that instant, the flames converged in her wide eyes. Her lips parted with a soft breath of astonishment, and it was as if they were alone again in the library. Alone in the world, for even the sound of the crackling fire was diminished by the throb of his heartbeat that matched her pulse beneath his touch.
The lush color of her eyes was unquestionably violet, for the shade was too rich to be called an ordinary blue. Hotter than the center of a fire, they possessed the ethereal purple at the very edge of a perfect rainbow. And what treasure would be waiting for him if he dared to follow that arc to its very end?
“Can I leave now?” asked David in a vexed tone.
Lorenzo hastily released Valeria’s hand. This woman infected his mind with hey-go-mad humors in an effort to bend him to her will. As she hurried to stand next to her nephew, he took a deep breath and let it go more slowly than he had her hand.
“I believe,” she said, “we are all of one mind.”
“Do you?” Lorenzo asked, wondering if her mind were as betwattled as his.
“We shall meet at breakfast, and you can share with David and me your plans to take a tour of the house with us.”
“Us?” David asked, wide-eyed.
“Us,” she replied in a tone that brooked no argument, and Lorenzo was amazed when she received none from the boy who looked at his feet.
“I said nothing of the sort.” Lorenzo would not be bullied in his own house by either an eight-year-old boy’s misbehavior or by his aunt’s beguiling touch. He wanted to find a haven for doing his work, not to entertain them. This was his house, not Valeria Fanning’s, and most certainly not young David Blair’s.
“Of course you did, Lorenzo. I heard it quite clearly.”
“I believe you are mistaken.”
“Am I?” She smiled. “I heard you tell David you would arrange a tour for him. What difference does it make for one more?”
“No difference, of course, but—”
She smiled. “Then it’s settled. We shall meet for breakfast, and then we shall spend the day exploring the manor house.” Putting her arm around David’s shoulders, she added, “You must not think of this as a chance to find more places to scurry off to, giving us another fright.”
“I just wanted to see the house.” His shoulders sagged, and he yawned. All resistance faded from the boy as he leaned his head against her arm, abruptly looking younger than his few years.
“Of course you did, and now you shall thanks to Lord Moorsea.” She steered him to the door. “Good night, Lorenzo. See you at breakfast.”
Lorenzo muttered something under his breath which he would have been embarrassed to have her hear. It had not been a good night, and he suspected the morrow would be even worse.
Four
Valeria hummed to herself as she came down the broad staircase. The sun shone through the stained glass windows, banishing the tribulations of last night. She could do this. Somehow, she could make living in this dreary old house less dreary. Her late husband had often told her that no one could make the best of a sorry situation better than she did. After all, she had been able to introduce the Marquis de la Cour to the ton and then hold a party to celebrate the man’s utter disappearance only a short while later when he left Town to continue his work.
She smiled. The latest of the marquis’s books of poetry had been published only a fortnight ago, and her dear bosom-bow Emily had made sure Valeria had one of the first copies available. Emily had been curious why Valeria had sold her London town house and was leaving for the wilds of Exmoor, but she never probed. Emily was like that, good at knowing when one needed to talk and when one needed to keep one’s counsel.
Her smile dimmed. It might be a long time befo
re she saw Emily and her sister again. This house was in no condition to host even the most rustic country weekend. However, Mrs. Ditwiller seemed to be a most capable housekeeper. Mayhap she would be able to train the staff in short order to have the house ready for a gathering.
The very thought brought a smile back to her so she could continue humming as she entered the room that was serving as the breakfast-parlor. She doubted if its beginnings had been that grand, for the floor was stone and so uneven that narrow strips of wood had been set beneath three legs of the table. It could have been a stillroom or a dairy that had been connected to the house years ago. A single window let morning sunshine surge into the room, but that only made the cobwebs clinging to the corners and the simple lamp overhead even more obvious. She hoped nothing with lots of legs would fall into her breakfast.
One of the first tasks should be to have the walls of all the rooms they intended to use regularly repainted or decorated with wall coverings. She would speak with Mrs. Ditwiller about it this very day. Then she would … Again her smile wavered. This was not her house. She was welcome here only as a petitioner, dependent on a stranger’s goodwill for her food and the roof over her head. If she had had any idea that her erstwhile guardian had been put to bed with a shovel, she would have remained in London. Emily or one of her other friends would have helped her find a way to make a new life.
No! She would not beg for a home among her bosom-bows. Yet, she reminded herself, would that have been worse than living in this musty, dirty stack of stone with a man as odd as Lorenzo Wolfe? She had made her decision. Now she must live with it.
“Good morning,” she called, trying to sound cheerful. She need not have bothered, for the room was overflowing with an obvious silence. Lorenzo and David were sitting as far apart as possible at the round oak table.
Lorenzo looked over the top of his newspaper and nodded. “Good morning,” he replied before ducking back to read.
She gave David a kiss on the cheek and was pleased that he no longer shied away as he had when he first came to live with her. Now he just wiped his cheek with the back of his hand. Her grin widened as she took a seat exactly between David and Lorenzo.
“David, I’m glad to see you have chosen old clothes to wear. I’m sure the seldom used rooms of this house will be very dusty.” She spooned eggs from a bowl in the middle of the table onto the plate in front of her. Dear me, she was going to have to inform Mrs. Ditwiller that this was something else to change. Breakfast should be served from a sideboard, not the table.
A door opened, and the housekeeper rushed in. “Is everything as good as can be expected?”
Lorenzo drew down the newspaper far enough so he could ask, “Are you having problems with the staff, Mrs. Ditwiller?”
“Nothing I cannot put to rights in no time at all, my lord.”
“I’m glad to hear that.” He returned to his reading again.
Valeria gave Mrs. Ditwiller a sympathetic smile. “I would be glad to speak with the cook and the butler with you later, Mrs. Ditwiller.”
“Thank you, my lady.” Relief lightened her face as she went back through the door, and Valeria knew that the staff of Moorsea Manor had not taken well to having a new housekeeper put in charge of them.
She glanced at Lorenzo, or, more truthfully, at the back pages of the newspaper. She could not believe he was so oblivious to what took place below stairs. Then she recalled that he never had been in a position to oversee a household. She would have to speak to him of these matters posthaste as well.
David asked, “Where are we going first?”
“You have seen more of the house than I have,” she replied. “What do you suggest?”
“There’s an old section of wall that I saw from my room. If we climbed up it and—”
Lorenzo said without lowering the paper, “Let us confine our explorations today to the interior of the house.”
“But this looks so interesting!”
“Mayhap.”
“And I saw what looked like a door. The wall might have rooms in it.” David forgot his manners enough to lean both elbows on the table. “Who knows what we might find!”
“Exactly.”
“So we’ll go there first?”
Lorenzo still did not look at David. “We shall go there last. I don’t fancy the idea of having something falling down on my head today.”
“But—”
“It will have to wait.”
Valeria put her hand on David’s arm as he sank back against his chair, a pout on his lips and bright tears of disappointment in his eyes. He shook off her hand and, crossing his arms in front of him, scowled across the table.
She wanted to scold both of them. If Lorenzo chose to hide behind his paper and David brooded all day, it would not be a good beginning for their time here. They needed to learn, if nothing more, to tolerate one another.
“Lorenzo? David?”
“Yes?” asked Lorenzo.
David just grunted.
Before she could respond to either of them, the clatter of wooden heels came toward the breakfast room. She put down her fork. All of her appetite had fled, and she doubted if it would return now as Nina Urquhart appeared in the doorway.
Valeria had no idea why anyone would consider the turquoise gown the old woman wore as anything but a horrible fashion mistake. Rolls of lace dropped at every possible angle over the skirt that was nearly wide enough for being presented at court. Beads had been sewn on in some pattern that she could not discern. As Miss Urquhart entered the breakfast-parlor, two fell off and rolled into a corner to mingle with the dust. She leaned on her gold-topped cane as she walked with careful steps in shoes whose heels must be more than four inches high.
“Good morning!” chirped Miss Urquhart as she sat right next to Lorenzo and reached for the bowl in the middle of the table. “How studious you are this morning, my boy! In every way, you remind me of your dear, departed uncle Francis. It is too bad he could not be here to see this.” She chuckled. “Of course, if he were still here, you would have no reason to be at Moorsea Manor, would you?”
“I suppose not,” he said from behind his newspaper which he raised even higher.
Valeria wished she could say something to let Lorenzo know how she sympathized with him for having to deal with his uncle’s eccentric ex-mistress. She said nothing, for she did not want to irritate the old woman more.
“Your uncle used to read the paper at breakfast and lunch,” Miss Urquhart continued. She reached up with her cane and pressed the pages down toward the table. As Lorenzo stared at her, shocked, she said, “I warned him that it was an intolerable habit, and I shall say the same to you.”
“Miss Urquhart, I—”
“Bother! Do not ply me with your excuses. I have heard them all from Francis.” She plucked the paper away.
“Say now!”
Valeria could not keep from staring. Lorenzo had not been reading the newspaper but a book. A novel, she noted. One of Jane Austen’s. Her eyes narrowed as she read the title. Mansfield Park. She had not read that one yet.
“Lorenzo,” she began.
She did not have a chance to ask him if she might read it once he was finished, because Miss Urquhart scolded, “Shame on you! ’Tis bad enough that you are reading at the table, but you need not lay claim to the newspaper and not read it when others of us might wish to enjoy it during breakfast.” She snatched up the newspaper and snapped it open so sharply that it tore halfway down in the middle. Ignoring that, she held up the paper and began reading aloud an article about road construction in Exmoor.
Valeria put a hand on David’s arm before he could protest. She did not blame the boy for being distressed. Either this old woman had been on the wrong side of the hedge when heaven handed out brains or else she had taken a knock in her cradle. Whichever it was, her mind must be quite addled to be acting this way.
“Forgive me, Miss Urquhart,” Lorenzo said, startling Valeria. “You are correct. I was
being rude. My sole excuse was that I could not wait to finish this chapter.”
Miss Urquhart lowered the paper only far enough so she could peer over it. “That doesn’t explain why you had the newspaper as well.”
“I thought it would appear less ill-mannered if I did not prop a book between me and young David.”
“A waste of a perfectly good newspaper, because it was clear from the unhappy expression on his face when I came in that young David was just as glad not to have to look at you.” Miss Urquhart laughed when Valeria gasped. “Never be afraid of the truth, young lady. It will serve you well. That is a lesson your family should learn.”
“Pardon me?” she asked, again astonished. “What do you mean?”
Miss Urquhart raised the newspaper again instead of answering.
Valeria looked at Lorenzo, who shrugged, then at David who was staring at all of them, obviously growing bored by the adult conversation because he was shifting in his seat.
“Can we go?” he asked. “The day’s nearly half over.”
“It is early still,” she said with a smile.
It was no use. He would not be placated. Slumping in his seat, he frowned. His face contorted, and she realized he was trying to hide a yawn. She wondered how much he had managed to sleep last night.
No one spoke again during breakfast. Valeria began to comprehend why David was so anxious to begin exploring the house. He had been sitting here in this quiet since before she arrived. Her few attempts to initiate a conversation were drowned out by the silence.
Finally, having tolerated all the hush she could, she pushed back her chair and motioned to David to do the same. When Lorenzo looked up from his book, he wore a startled expression.
“Done with breakfast already?” he asked.
Miss Urquhart tapped one corner of his plate with the newspaper. “Look there, my boy. You have but a bite or two left yourself.”
“So I do.”
Valeria saw David roll his eyes, and she almost laughed. The situation, however comical, was exasperating as well. If this was the pattern every morning meal would take, she might ask Mrs. Ditwiller if she could have her breakfast in her room. That would work for breakfast, but for luncheon and the evening meal … She did not want to think about it. She would go deaf in this silence.
The Convenient Arrangement Page 5