“I am sure if someone were to investigate properly, the name would be evident. However, Binkley was in no position to question Lady Devere.”
The short silence indicated Jenny’s disapproval of such lackadaisical handling of important affairs.
“I confess that I haven’t had too much interest in what was happening beyond my chamber’s four walls, as you know. Until quite recently.”
Glancing down at her, he was rewarded with her upturned face and a sweet smile. She understood. What’s more, Jenny seemed to hold him in no less regard for his failings. Her kindness and her trust in him bolstered his resolve to recover wholeheartedly and to improve. Every day. If only he could sleep without the cursed dreams.
Within minutes, they were at Jonling Hall.
Feeling her hesitancy in the way her arm tugged at his, he teased her, “Come, Miss Blackwood. You are accompanying an earl on his rounds. There can be no lagging behind.”
She blinked. “I am well aware of social niceties. Unfortunately, I feel that neither my cousin nor the hall’s inhabitants displayed proper decorum last time I was here. Since Ned should have known better, I cannot blame the servants of the mysterious owner. However, it seemed that the mention of your name increased their agitation and their resistance to speaking with us.”
“Thus, coming back with the dreaded earl himself doesn’t seem like such a good idea in your mind?”
“Precisely.”
He shrugged. “I have never felt threatened here. But if I were, rest assured, I am rather good with my fists.” Bringing her back firmly to his side, they approached the door. At the last moment, after raising the knocker, he leaned down and whispered, “Moreover, I have a knife in my boot.”
She gasped just as the door swung open. A pretty maid in a striped pinafore curtsied low, then stood at attention. “May I help you?”
Simon shared a glance with Jenny who looked perplexed. Obviously, this servant wasn’t one she’d encountered before, nor was this the same reception.
“I am Simon Devere, Lord Lindsey. Is your master at home?”
“No, my lord.”
“Is there a mistress of this household?”
She hesitated. “No, my lord.”
“Is there a butler or housekeeper here at present?”
“No, my lord.”
This was getting tedious. He needed to ask a question that would change her response. “There are only lower-level staff residing here?”
Without hesitation, the maid responded, “Yes, my lord.”
Apparently, Jenny couldn’t stand it anymore either, for she interrupted with a question of her own. “When is your master coming here and where is he now?”
Good girl! Two in one, and she’d made yes or no responses impossible.
This time the maid frowned. “I could not say.”
“You could not say what?” Simon asked.
“I don’t know when my master is coming nor where he is.” He believed her on both counts.
“Very well. But you must know this. What is his name?”
The maid’s face paled. “I … I could not say, my lord.”
“This time, I think you are lying to me. You can say. You choose not to. Why?”
She took a step back. “We have all been given strict instructions to speak with no one about our master.”
“Why?”
“I could not say, my lord.”
“Have you worked for him long?”
“No, my lord.”
“Would you like to work for me instead?”
He saw Jenny glance at him. How far would he go to learn the secrets of Jonling Hall? Stealing another man’s servants was frowned upon.
The maid’s face grew even whiter. It looked as if her eyes had teared up. He had put her in a terrible situation. Display disloyalty to her master or risk insulting a peer of the realm who stood before her? Admittedly, he was curious what she would say.
Looking about as miserable as one could look without actually sobbing, the girl said, “No, my lord.” Her voice barely above a whisper. Then as if recalling something, she added in a loud, unnatural voice, “No, my lord. I have no wish to leave my master’s employ.”
The maid had gumption. He would give her that.
“Very well. We will leave you to your dusting.” Drawing a card from his coat pocket, Simon handed it to her. “Please let your master know that I called upon him.”
The girl stared down at the embossed, cream-colored calling card.
“Yes, my lord.” She offered another low curtsey and started to close the door.
“A moment,” Jenny asked, her tones quick and clipped. “Who told you not to speak of your master?”
“Lady Devere,” the girl said, then broke off, clearly wondering if she ought not to have said the name. Apparently realizing she shouldn’t have, her eyes teared up again. In another instant, the maid had closed the door firmly.
Simon took Jenny’s arm once more, and they strolled back the way they’d come.
When back on the road, Simon asked, “How did you know her master wasn’t the one who’d instructed her not to speak of him?”
Jenny shrugged slightly. “She seemed like quite a precise girl. She said she’d been told not to, not that he had told her not to. I assumed someone else was involved.”
“You assumed correctly. Well done. Yet what a strange development.”
“Yes, Lady Devere! I thought she didn’t know who bought the house.”
“So she said.” Simon steered them off the lane and into the adjoining meadow toward the large oak he’d climbed as a lad.
“What will you do? I fear it will be quite awkward to confront the lady under your own roof. I advise you not to say or do anything while the children are near. Not only might it frighten them if their mother gets upset, but she is more likely to become defensive, like a mother hen, and then who knows where the discussion will lead.”
Jenny paused, looking around her, then at him. “What on earth are we doing here?”
Simon chuckled, having enjoyed listening to her prattle while she seemed oblivious to where he was taking her.
“I thought I’d show you my favorite climbing tree when I was a child.”
They circled the oak, the trunk of which was easily five feet across.
“I liked nothing more than to climb as high as I could and disappear into the green-tinged light up at the top of the tree. No one could find me.”
Jenny smiled. “We called it the ‘four hundred tree’ because my father said it was easily four-hundred-years old.
Simon stopped and stared at her. “You’ve been here before, to my tree?”
“Your tree?” She raised her eyebrows at him. “Well, we didn’t know it was yours, of course. You forget that we weren’t always in London. We spent many summers here, particularly before Eleanor was born. In fact, I have a confession to make.”
“Really?” He leaned against the tree and crossed his arms. “Do tell.”
Watching her run a slim-gloved hand down the tree’s deeply grooved trunk, he imagined her caressing his chest or his thigh—or parts in between—causing an immediate stirring.
“I remember you,” she said, turning to look into his eyes, “from Christmas gatherings that your father held. You are older than I am and probably don’t remember a girl who was nearly too shy to speak. You greeted me kindly every year.”
Simon considered her, searching the now familiar face and wondering if he could remember her as a child. His father’s parties and more informal gatherings were attended by hundreds over the course of the Christmas and New Year festivities. He’d always enjoyed the commotion. Such a lively contrast to the starkness of only his father and himself for Stir It Up Sunday, with all the servants making Christmas puddings, everyone stirring in large bowls on every surface.
By St. Nicholas’s Day, they held the first large party. After that, people were in his house, it seemed, every weekend through Twelfth Night and its c
ulminating ball of hundreds.
“There were many guests,” he apologized.
“I usually held an abacus.”
He barked out a laugh. “You didn’t, did you?”
“No.” Jenny smiled broadly at him, and her face was beyond beautiful. “I am joking. I can see no reason you would recall a plain, brown-haired girl in a—”
“A blue and green tartan!”
Her eyes widened. “Good God! You do remember.”
“I do! It’s just come to me. That could only have been you. You wore it more than one year. That’s why you stood out.”
She blushed. “I did. It was too big at first, then I grew into it and then out of it. I loved that dress. Perfectly warm at the coldest time of year.”
“The second year I saw you in it, I thought to myself, I remember that little girl in a striking tartan last year. And the following year, I looked for you. Sure enough, in you came with your plaid dress and a little sister in tow.”
She covered her face with both hands. “It never occurred to me anyone would notice.”
“Why should it matter? You, Miss Practicality, were warm and happy.” He took hold of her wrists and pulled her arms down. “Weren’t you?”
“I was. My childhood was a very happy one. Was yours?”
His thoughts jumped to his mother, and he could see the instant Jenny realized that. His mother was not in even his earliest memories, as she’d passed before his third birthday.
“I’m sorry. I should not have asked you such. I know you lost Lady Devere when you were very young. I never saw her when I visited your home.”
“I was three. And you can ask me anything. I am not nursing any deep sadness over my mother. Except to futilely wish I could have known her. Sadder for my father who loved her beyond anything.”
This discussion was not going in the direction he wanted. Pressing Jenny against the tree suddenly, he imprisoned her with a hand on either side of her.
“And, no, before you ask, I am not overly traumatized by my father’s death either. Yes, I wish to God I’d been here, but I know it wasn’t my fault that I was not by his side. Besides, I spoke with Binkley about it after you and I talked. He said my father went so quickly as not to suffer. We can ask for no more than that, any of us.”
“True enough,” she murmured, looking delightfully distracted by the position he had her in.
“You and I are here now. That is all we can control at the moment.”
“I can’t say that I feel I can control anything since you have caged me at the four hundred tree. Why?”
“Can you guess?”
Chapter Sixteen
Jenny felt her cheeks rouge over instantly, and then saw his answering devilish grin.
Simon lowered his head, keeping eye contact until the last moment when her lids drifted closed precisely as his lips claimed hers.
“Mm,” she murmured against his lips. How she loved kissing this man! The delectable feelings that pulsed through her entire body when his mouth contacted hers were a marvelous sensation. Why, she could be happy for hours simply standing in his embrace and kissing him. As long as no spiders or other creepy crawlies descended the tree to investigate.
She shuddered, causing him to lift his head.
“Are you cold?”
“No.” She licked her lips, watching his glance dart to her mouth, following her movements. “I was thinking of bugs.”
His lovely blue eyes rounded. “Pardon me?”
She giggled at his deflated look. “Oh no, my lord, the kiss was beyond delightful. It’s only that I can easily envision what lives in this tree.”
He swore under his breath. “Then this is the wrong place. For I would like to have your whole attention.”
Before she could protest, he had taken her hand and was moving along at a quick pace back toward Belton’s gate.
“Simon, are you cross with me?”
He glanced down at her but didn’t slow his pace. “No, far from it. I merely want you to be comfortable. Let’s go back to the garden where we were interrupted before. Lightning, as they say, rarely strikes twice, and I’m sure we will have it to ourselves.”
Almost as soon as they passed through one of the arbors and ended up under overhanging boughs of a willow, he swept her into an embrace, lowered his mouth to hers, and soundly kissed her once again.
At his warm lips and firm thrusting tongue, not to mention his deft hands that seemed to be wandering her body, halting only to grasp her waist or—goodness!—grab her derriere, she shivered as before.
“Cold or insects?” he teased.
“Neither.”
“Comfortable?” he asked.
“Extremely.” Except that every nerve in her body seemed to be sizzling. She had to calm her mind and slow her heartbeat. What better way than with facts. “And they’re not insects. I don’t mind insects. You know, grasshoppers and butterflies, and the like. I just don’t like spiders and other arachnids.”
Simon was staring at her mouth but she didn’t think he was listening to her. “May I kiss you again?”
“I think that’s the first time you’ve asked my permission.”
“Then I have been a rogue of the first order.” His tone indicated he didn’t care if he had been rather roguish.
“You may.”
After another long kiss in which Jenny thought the world had entirely fallen away and left them on an intimate island of sensation, he raised his head again. She swayed toward him before she caught herself, opened her eyes, and regarded his face.
A thoughtful look, one she could not interpret, crossed Simon’s features.
“Jenny?”
His tone sounded serious and she matched it. “Yes?”
“I would like you to accompany me to my various holdings and get to the bottom of the income depletion.”
She couldn’t help taking a step back and out of his embrace. In fact, his unexpected words caused her feet to start walking again as if to escape such lunacy. He fell into step beside her as they wandered the garden path.
“First, that is impossible,” she told him when she could find her words. “Second, why would you ask me of all people?”
He sighed, then ignoring her first point, he asked, “Who better than you?”
“Obviously a trained bookkeeper, a male one, or perhaps someone from London’s detective force.”
He chuckled. “I hardly think a detective is needed, and why would I need another bookkeeper? I have you, and you are entirely capable of sussing out whatever is amiss. We would be on the road a week. At the most, ten days.”
Jenny stopped in her tracks. The earl had gone too far! Had he no care whatsoever for her reputation? Or did he think her so loose at this point for having let him kiss her, that he thought she would let him do even more when they were away from the civility of their genteel country life?
“I could not possibly do such a thing, and you have leaped the boundaries of decency to ask it of me. You must go with Mr. Binkley.”
Simon gave a short bark of a laugh. “So he can fetch my tea and port? Taking Binkley is pointless. He can’t do what you can do. No one can. Not even me. I wouldn’t have noticed or understood those errors if you hadn’t explained them to me.”
Aghast, Jenny persisted in dissuading him. “Since I did explain them to you, you can go to your estates and decide for yourself.”
“I agree that I should go, accompanied by my overseer.”
She breathed again. He was seeing sense. “Yes, precisely.”
“That’s settled, then.” Simon sounded agreeable. “You shall be my overseer.”
“What? No! I shall be looked upon as a freak—as a masculine female. An abhorrent creature at best.”
The earl gave her a quick glance up and down that lingered upon her bosom and eventually settled upon her lips. “I can attest that you’re a very feminine female.”
She could see he was teasing her. Perhaps this whole notion of his was m
erely a jest.
“You know it is not possible. Not without a companion.” She shouldn’t have said that. It was still an outrageous idea. “Even then …”
“Would Binkley do as your companion?” Simon asked.
Jenny felt like screaming. “Of course not. That’s even worse, my setting out on a trip with two men! Even with a female companion, it is absurd to go traipsing about the countryside as your overseer. And you know it.”
“Why?” he asked, though the smile playing about his attractive mouth showed her he knew exactly why. Clearly, he wanted her to blush. And blush she did.
“Improper beyond belief,” she muttered and continued walking again until they came to the center of the fairy garden. There were tall larkspur in every shade of blue and purple with richly scented geraniums in large clusters, and everywhere grew beds of brilliantly colored pink phlox like rich floral carpets. The aroma of wisteria, which clung to trellises, perfumed the air. The entire effect was, indeed, as magical as a fairy.
Simon stood close. For a moment, they were both silent. She could see he was thinking, considering, hopefully coming to his senses.
“I do not wish to bring any shame upon you or embarrassment to your family,” he said at last.
“Agreed.” Jenny relaxed. Perhaps this had merely been a prank on his part.
Against all expectations, however, the Earl of Lindsey, suddenly dropped to his knees in front of her.
All the air instantly seemed to dissipate from Jenny’s lungs, leaving her with no ability to take in more. If Simon didn’t at that very instant start hunting for some lost article, perhaps his pocket watch, then she would know what he was about.
She could not be correct!
He took both her hands in his. Jenny gasped.
“I am quick to decide and quick to act. I know what is important in life, now more than ever. I have learned the hardest lesson on earth—that there is very little I can control. I lost my freedom and, more importantly, I lost people I loved.”
Sounding thick with emotion, he paused before continuing, “I could do nothing. Neither for Tobias, nor for my father. I now know people are all that matter in one’s life. Truly.” He squeezed her hands gently. “We should live with people who make us happy and bring them happiness in return. You make me exceedingly happy.”
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