A Lord Apart

by Jane Ashford

  “Which things would those be?”

  Of course she wasn’t going to make it easy for him. She never did. Daniel realized that, oddly, this was one of the things he liked most about her. Which didn’t help him come up with an answer. “Those that implied that I have any right to dictate—”

  “We completed our task,” she interrupted.

  “Task?”

  “We found the information we were looking for,” she said.

  “Information?” Yes, just keep repeating a word from her sentences like a dashed parrot, Daniel thought. That made a fine impression.

  “About Rose Cottage, why it was left to me. That was the reason we began. And we have succeeded.”

  “So now that you know, you’re abandoning me?”

  “Abandoning?”

  He’d gotten her doing it. She looked incredulous. But all that Daniel could think was that she was going to leave him. He had to stop her. “You said you’d help me set the estate records in order. You promised.”

  “‘Promise’ is rather an overstatement.”

  “And the bathing chamber. You said you’d supervise.”

  “I can consult with Carson from here.”

  “You like to see each step of the process for yourself. You said so.” He had to find the right argument to keep her. There had to be one.

  “I think it’s not wise for me to be at Frithgerd. You as much as said so yourself.”

  “But I’m an idiot.” His thoughts were muddled by the attraction she exerted—like the swift current of a river about to hurtle over a precipice. They were alone in the house. She could run to his arms, demand more of those intoxicating kisses. He would never be able to refuse her again.

  To his everlasting relief, she laughed. “You do know that you should hire an estate agent,” she said. “A really competent one since organization is not your forte.”

  “Forte,” he repeated before he could stop himself. He loved the way she spoke.

  “Not one of your natural skills.”

  “I know what the word means.” It wasn’t the vocabulary. It was the style.

  She nodded. “There’s no shame in admitting that one’s particular talents do not lie in…certain directions.”

  For some reason, this innocuous phrase filled the room with heat. Daniel’s thoughts went in the direction of lusciously fulfilled desire, and he was certain that hers did as well. But they mustn’t talk about that, or she would withdraw again. “Fortunately your talents do.”

  She blinked. He’d made it worse. “I need you,” Daniel blurted out. And clamped his teeth on the last of the phrase. He hadn’t meant to say that. All at once, he felt exposed. People hurt you the most when you admitted this.

  Penelope felt a pang. Her guest sounded wounded. There was no mistaking the set of his lips, the flicker in his brown eyes. The desire to comfort him was nearly overpowering. “You must see that I cannot—”

  “Cannot?”

  She very nearly said, “Spend more time with you when I can’t have you.” The words jostled in her brain, tangled on her tongue.

  Whitfield stepped closer.

  She would have so enjoyed setting that mass of paper in order. Sorting it had been a deeply satisfying process. But Frithgerd was none of her business. Lord Whitfield’s engrained, rather endearing inefficiency was not her affair. The longer she held on, the harder it would be when all was ended by, for example, the arrival of a lovely new viscountess in those chambers she’d frequented. But the concern in his eyes—and something that looked very like tenderness—was too much. “All right,” she heard herself say.

  He leaned closer. “All right?”

  “I did say I would help you. With the records.”

  The relief flooding his expression was nearly palpable. “You did.”

  “So I…I will.”

  He smiled. “Splendid. Wonderful.”

  He looked so very glad, as if her agreement had filled him with joy. Elation flooded Penelope. She couldn’t help it. Perhaps a fleeting pleasure was better than none at all?

  “But I mustn’t—”

  Whitfield was interrupted by a chorus of barking behind the cottage, followed by shouts and then a metallic clatter. Penelope turned automatically toward the window, but she couldn’t see the barn from where she stood.

  “What the deuce?” her guest said.

  She needed to ask him what it was he mustn’t do. But the barking intensified. So did the shouting. He started toward the door, and she followed.

  They found Jip and Jum poised before the entrance to the barn, hackles raised, voicing defiance. A few feet away, Kitty was toe-to-toe with a boy, trying to wrest a large stick from his hands. An overturned basket spilled eggs at their feet.

  After a moment, Penelope recognized the boy as the goatherd Sam Jensen. Which was a puzzle. She’d thought the goat problem was solved. The flock had returned several times after the dogs’ arrival and been chased away. It was some time since they’d appeared. So what was Sam doing here?

  Whitfield went over and took hold of the stick, pulling it away from them. “What is all this?” he said.

  “He was going to hit Jip and Jum,” replied Kitty indignantly.

  “I come to get the goat they stole away.”

  “Stole?” said Penelope and her visitor at the same moment.

  Penelope turned to the hounds and said, “Quiet!” Heeding the voice of authority, the dogs stopped barking. They continued to eye Sam Jensen balefully, however. “Sit,” said Penelope. They did so.

  “We don’t come in your garden no more,” the goatherd said. “Nor on your property at all. But we have to pass by sometimes.” He sounded aggrieved.

  “Don’t see why,” said Kitty.

  “There ain’t no other way to go,” replied Sam. “And your dogs got no call to give me the evil eye. When I got back to the farm yesterday and found I was a goat short, I knew they’d took it.”

  “More likely you lost it,” said Kitty.

  “I looked everywhere!”

  “Couldn’t have.”

  “I did! All the places we went. And why are they so keen to keep me out of the barn?”

  “Because they’re good watchdogs,” said Kitty. “They don’t let anybody skulk about.”

  “I wasn’t skulking!”

  Penelope looked at Jip and Jum. Had they eaten a goat? That would not do. It would, in fact, be a serious problem. “Wait here,” she said.

  Whitfield set the stick down and followed. The light was dim inside the barn, but when she peered into the stall where Jip and Jum slept, Penelope glimpsed a patch of white. Heart sinking, she went closer. A small spotted goat, perhaps four months old, gazed placidly up at her. When she stepped nearer, it stood and came to meet her, sniffing at her outstretched fingers. Whitfield’s horse looked on from the next stall, benignly curious.

  Penelope ran her hands over the little animal and found no hurt.

  “What is it doing in here?” asked Whitfield.

  “I have no idea.” She picked up the goat and carried it out into the yard.

  “I told you,” cried Sam as soon as she appeared.

  Jip and Jum jumped up and came to push at her legs, as if to herd her back into the barn. As an experiment, Penelope set the goat down. Immediately, the hounds’ attention turned to the little creature, pushing at it to go inside. The goat butted playfully at them in return as it complied.

  With Whitfield once again at her heels, Penelope followed the three into the barn and watched Jip and Jum chivy the goat into the stall and resettle it. They then lay down on either side, tongues lolling, looking quite pleased with themselves. She turned to find that Kitty and Sam had joined them. “What’re they about?” asked Sam.

  “They seem to have adopted a goat,” replied Whitfield.

&nbs
p; The boy gaped up at him. “Adopted?”

  “Like a stray pup you find in the street?” asked Kitty.

  Sam shook his head. “I never heerd of such a thing in all my born days.”

  “Neither have I,” answered Whitfield. “But I believe the evidence is before us.”

  They all gazed at the three animals.

  “They can’t keep it,” said Sam. “I got to get it away from them.” He stepped closer, eliciting a deep growl from Jip.

  Penelope put out a hand to stop the boy. “Wait.”

  “They stole it,” he protested.

  “I wonder if there’s some strain of collie or sheepdog in their bloodlines,” said the viscount.

  Penelope met his gaze. His eyes were dancing. She was also suppressing a laugh.

  “Them are foxhounds,” said Sam. “They ain’t supposed to do no herding. And I’ll be in trouble over that goat. I got to have it back.” He moved toward the stall. Both dogs rose and growled.

  “Perhaps your master would sell it to me instead,” said Penelope. She ignored a choking sound from Whitfield. “He does sell goats sometimes, doesn’t he?”

  “Now and then.” Sam couldn’t seem to tear his eyes from the stall. “But you’re saying you’ll buy a goat for your dogs? That’s daft.” He ducked his head. “Begging your pardon, miss.”

  “When you put it that way, it does sound odd,” Whitfield said.

  “So let’s not put it that way,” replied Penelope. “Just ask your master what price he wants, will you, Sam?”

  After a bit more staring, Sam went off to inquire. “You wouldn’t think Jip and Jum would like those devil eyes,” said Kitty. “What are they going to do with a goat?”

  “My question exactly,” said Whitfield, his voice brimming with humor.

  “I wonder, rather, why they added the creature to the things that they guard,” replied Penelope, contemplating the new member of her household. The goat’s eyes were indeed very different from the steady brown regard of the dogs.

  “They recognized it as their own,” said her guest.

  Shaken by the intensity of his tone, Penelope made the mistake of meeting his gaze. And then she couldn’t look away. Breathing suddenly seemed far more difficult.

  “Because they all have black and brown spots on their backs?” asked Kitty. She squinted. “Huh, the shapes are alike.”

  “Perhaps that’s it,” said Penelope when she could find her voice.

  “There’s a brindled cat over at the farm,” Kitty added. “I wonder if they’d take to her, too?”

  Whitfield laughed. The sound—deep and warm and easy—seemed to shiver across Penelope’s skin. It drew a grin from Kitty, who showed no sign of going about her duties.

  The sound of hooves heralded a vehicle approaching the barn—Foyle returning, no doubt. Half an hour ago, she’d been noting her lack of staff, Penelope thought. Now there seemed to be all too many of them. She led the way outside and found her conclusion correct. Foyle had returned. Moreover, Mrs. Hart sat beside him in the gig.

  Kitty went to crouch over her fallen basket, exclaiming over one broken egg. “But I couldn’t let Sam hit Jip, could I?”

  Foyle drew up in front of them. He scowled at Lord Whitfield. “What are you all doing out here?”

  “Jip and Jum have a-dopted a goat,” Kitty told the newcomers.

  Foyle turned his glare on her. “What sort of nonsense are you spouting now, girl?”

  As Kitty related events, Foyle climbed down and turned to help Mrs. Hart. “And so we’re buying the goat,” the girl finished.

  Foyle frowned at Penelope. She shrugged and nodded. The man shook his head as if he thought himself surrounded by lunatics.

  Mrs. Hart reached into the gig for a bundle set behind the seat. “I’ve brought the chicken,” she said. “Mr. Foyle passed me walking and kindly offered me a lift.” When Penelope said nothing, she added, “You wanted to learn how to pluck fowls, miss.”

  “The deuce you did!” exclaimed Lord Whitfield.

  Mrs. Hart’s interested gaze shifted to him. “I’ve said over and over that I’m happy to do it myself, my lord.”

  “I’m sure you have.”

  Foyle turned his scowl back on the visitor. Kitty, too, seemed to be waiting for some intriguing new twist in their ridiculous saga.

  “I should be on my way,” Whitfield said.

  Under the current circumstances, Penelope had to agree. As she watched him ride away, she was acutely aware that she hadn’t found out what he mustn’t do. But she vowed that she would.

  Fifteen

  Daniel took a roundabout route back to Frithgerd, enjoying the idea that he would soon be seeing the enchanting Miss Pendleton again. And again. Even now, after just a few minutes, he was craving the company of this indomitable young lady. Who else would buy a goat for her dogs? As he rode up the drive to his home, Daniel smiled at the memory of the scene he’d just witnessed. Leaving his horse at the stable, he wondered if she would come tomorrow. Surely she would.

  Inside, he was greeted by the news that two strangers had arrived and were talking with Macklin in the drawing room. Joining them, Daniel discovered that the answer to Macklin’s inquiry at the Foreign Office had come more rapidly than either of them had expected.

  The two very serious gentlemen flanking his houseguest looked more like war-hardened military officers than Foreign Office functionaries, but they bore a letter of introduction from Castlereagh himself, along with a request to give them all assistance. The document did not mention their names.

  As soon as Daniel had looked the letter over, one of the men said, “We’ve come to take charge of the materials mentioned in Lord Macklin’s message.”

  “Take charge?” Daniel didn’t care for his tone. The fellow sounded like a supervisor addressing a bumbling subordinate.

  “Take them away, you mean?” asked Macklin.

  He received only a brisk nod in reply.

  “They were written by my mother,” said Daniel.

  “In order to produce reports for the Foreign Office, to which they now belong.”

  Once again, the man spoke as if the two noblemen were servants and he an impatient master. His companion put a hand on his arm, but the gesture had no effect that Daniel could see. Still, he had to ask. “She did travel for His Majesty’s government then? To gather information.”

  The man hesitated, then offered another nod. It seemed as if giving out any information at all pained him.

  Daniel blinked. He realized that he hadn’t fully believed in this fantastic story until now, despite all the evidence.

  “You will hand them over to us, along with every scrap of notes, at once.” The man held out an imperious hand. His eyes were hard, his mouth set.

  Anger surged through Daniel. He felt himself squaring up, as if he’d stepped into a boxing ring for a bout.

  The second gentleman from the Foreign Office stepped between them. “Your mother’s reports were a marvel,” he said. “Detailed, meticulous, and invariably proved accurate whenever we had an opportunity to test them with other sources. We didn’t know how she remembered it all. I can’t tell you how much she was admired.”

  A thread of something like pride, or perhaps amazement, tempered Daniel’s rage. Here again was a glimpse of a very different parent than the one he remembered. Here was a reason for her many absences, if not an excuse. He found he didn’t want to relinquish all evidence of her exploits before he’d had a chance to adjust to these revelations. “If you have the reports, I don’t see why you need her notebooks.”

  The first man snorted as if he couldn’t believe his ears. “Because they contain information that must remain secret,” he said.

  “Not only facts, but when and how they were discovered,” added his companion solemnly. “That could have serious diplomat
ic consequences.”

  “Nothing that can be understood without the key.” Daniel started to say that he would give them that, but he found that he remained reluctant. These strangers were asking for the sole link he had into his parents’ hidden life. He wanted some time to explore it. “I’ll consider your request.”

  His unpleasant visitor took a step toward him. “It isn’t a request. It’s a demand from your sovereign’s government. You have no right to withhold these documents.”

  Daniel felt a strong desire to punch the fellow. “If this is the Foreign Office’s idea of diplomacy, no wonder we’ve had years of war.”

  “What would a pampered aristocrat like you know of war?” the man replied.

  His companion pulled him aside, even as Macklin laid a hand on Daniel’s shoulder. Daniel struggled with his temper as the second Foreign Office representative remonstrated quietly with the first.

  His efforts were shaken off. “This matter has been bungled from start to finish,” said the first man. “Dawson ought to have found these things after the woman’s death as he was sent here to do.”

  It took Daniel a moment to absorb the implications of this remark. “You searched my home?” He hadn’t really heeded Miss Pendleton when she suggested that the trunks had been rifled. But she’d seen the truth.

  The second man made a placating gesture. “When a…person in your mother’s position dies unexpectedly, it’s customary to make certain nothing sensitive is left behind,” he said.

  “And rather than asking me—”

  “We try to keep such information from wagging tongues,” interrupted the first man. “As should be blindingly obvious.”

  Here was the attitude that had caused his parents to hide any hint of their activities from him, Daniel thought. “Get out,” he said. “Get out of my house.”

  “Not without what we came for.”

  The second man spoke before Daniel could consign him to perdition. “Please think about what we’ve said. This is a matter of great importance. We’ll come back tomorrow.” He gripped the other visitor’s arm and pulled him from the room.