“What would you prefer I call you? Master?”
As their gazes met, some infinitesimal shift in his expression gave her reason to regret those mocking words. A dangerous ember smoldered deep in those cool gray eyes of his, threatening to make her staunch moral character go up in a poof of smoke. “My Christian name is Maximillian.”
Trying not to imagine how satisfying the name would sound rolling off her tongue, she blinked innocently at him. “Very good, my lord.”
“Do you have a Christian name? Or is Mrs. your Christian name?”
“Anne. My name is Anne.” Even though his face revealed nothing, it wasn’t difficult to imagine what he was thinking—a plain name for a plain woman. “Do watch your step on the stairs, my lord,” she cautioned. “Yet another reason for you to stay clear of this place. The stairs are crumbling and could be quite dangerous to anyone not familiar with them. Why, you might have fallen and—”
“Broken my neck?” he volunteered helpfully.
“Turned your ankle,” she said stiffly.
He pondered her warning for a minute, then stepped aside. This time there was no mistaking the challenge in his mocking smile as he graciously extended a hand toward the stairs. “After you, Mrs. Spencer.”
LATE THAT NIGHT MAX found himself once again standing before Angelica’s portrait. He lifted his candle higher, bathing the portrait in its loving light. He might never know the woman she would have become, but his trip to the tower had enabled him to steal a glimpse of the girl she had been.
He leaned closer to the portrait. He’d been too busy mooning over Angelica’s winsome face to pay any heed to the signature scrawled in the corner of the canvas. So this was the man whose merest touch had set her heart to “beating like the wings of a captive bird” in her breast. Max’s eyes narrowed. He was certainly no stranger to the gnawing pangs of jealousy; he just hadn’t expected to suffer them over a woman who had died a decade ago.
Committing the artist’s name to memory, he straightened. Now that he’d read Angelica’s diary, he was even more curious about what exactly had happened on the night the portrait was unveiled. Perhaps he had been looking for answers in the wrong places. Tomorrow he would send Dickon to the village with a dispatch for London. If answers were available within the annals of London society gossip, he knew just the man to find them.
ANNE WOVE HER WAY through the market, paying little heed to the cacophony of voices and noise drifting around her. She’d already nabbed a handsome goose, freshly plucked, and a new skein of yarn for Nana from one of the traveling vendors who set up rickety wooden stalls along the main street of the village each Friday morning. She always kept a large store of supplies at the manor, but before she made the long walk home that afternoon, the basket hooked over her arm would be laden with any extras they would require for the week to come.
As she passed the fox-faced magistrate, she spared him a cool nod. She could feel his beady little eyes following her as she moved on to the next stall. Once, such scrutiny might have tempted her to tug the brim of her homely black bonnet a few inches lower in the hope its shadow might hide her face. But now she held her head high, having learned that most people in the world saw only what they expected to see. And what they expected to see when she strolled by was the plain and pious visage of Cadgwyck Manor’s housekeeper.
The brisk autumn air was redolent with the aroma of roasted chestnuts. Unable to resist the enticing scent, Anne stopped at the next stall to purchase a bag for Dickon from her own pin money.
“Nearly shot the poor fellow dead, he did. That’s what me cousin Molly heard. Had to flee London before they arrested him for duelin’.”
As Anne moved on to the next booth, toying with some pretty silk ribbons she knew Pippa would adore, she paid little heed to the nasal tones of Mrs. Beedle, the village laundress. The woman was a notorious busybody. Anne had little patience for such gossip herself, having discovered firsthand just how much havoc it could wreak on a life.
“I thought he had the look of a rogue about him—marchin’ into my Ollie’s tavern, tossin’ ’round purses of gold in that high-handed manner o’ his and orderin’ everyone about as if he owned the place.”
Anne jerked up her head, a lavender ribbon slipping through her fingers. There could be no mistaking the braying voice of Avigail Penberthy, the innkeeper’s buxom missus. Nor could there be any mistaking the identity of the high-handed rogue who went marching about as if he owned every inch of land beneath his shiny leather boots.
Unable to resist the temptation, Anne sidled closer to the two women, adding eavesdropping to her burgeoning catalog of sins.
Mrs. Beedle lowered her voice. “Molly heard he was the perfect gent till his fiancée threw him over. Jilted him at the altar and ran off to marry another just as they was about to say their I do’s!”
As both women sighed in chorus, their sympathies shifting, Anne felt a stab of empathy in the vicinity of her own heart. She could only imagine what a terrible blow such a slight must have been to a man of Dravenwood’s unyielding pride. Now she understood why he had arrived at Cadgwyck looking as if he were haunted by his own ghosts. He must have loved his fiancée very much for her abandonment to have cut him so deeply.
“I didn’t think he’d last a night at the manor, much less more than a fortnight. He must have made a deal with the devil hisself to survive livin’ in that tomb,” Mrs. Penberthy suggested, a shudder rippling through her voice.
“The devil?” Mrs. Beedle whispered. “Or the devil’s mistress?”
Normally Anne would have been thrilled to hear evidence that Angelica’s legend was growing, but on this day, the women’s nonsense was grating on her nerves. Refusing to listen to another word of it, she brushed past them, giving Mrs. Penberthy’s ample bottom a hearty bump with her basket as she did so. “Pardon me,” she murmured.
Both women started, then exchanged a guilty glance. “Why, Mrs. Spencer, we didn’t see you there!”
“No, I gather you didn’t.” Anne fixed the laundress with an icy stare. “Mrs. Beedle, I expect we’ll be seeing you at the manor next week?”
The laundress gave her a lukewarm smile. “Aye, Mrs. Spencer. I’ll be there.”
Leaving them with a cool nod, Anne continued on her way, feeling their eyes follow her all the way to the end of the street.
“MY LORD?” ANNE TENTATIVELY poked her head around the door frame of the library later that afternoon to find her employer reclining in a leather wing chair, his long, lean legs in their skintight trousers propped on an ottoman and crossed at the ankles.
“Hmmm?” he said absently, turning a page of the book he was perusing.
Anne barely resisted the urge to roll her eyes when she saw it was An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith. She allowed herself a moment to covertly study the clean, masculine lines of his profile, the inky sweep of his lashes, the hint of beard darkening his jaw, even though he’d shaved only that morning. Remembering the gossip she’d heard in the village, she could not help but wonder what sort of woman could break the heart of such a man.
“I checked the post while I was in the village today. This was waiting for you.” Crossing to him, she dutifully held out the missive.
Laying aside the book, he sat up and eagerly took the square of folded vellum from her hand. But it was apparently not the piece of correspondence he had been hoping for. He made a sound beneath his breath that sounded suspiciously like a harrumph before sliding his thumb beneath the wax seal. As he unfolded the vellum and began to read the letter, his face went pale beneath his tan.
“What is it?” Anne asked, her heart stuttering with alarm. The last letter that had arrived at Cadgwyck Manor had delivered him to her doorstep.
As he slowly lifted his head, his expression dazed, she drew closer to him without realizing it. The letter slipped through his long, aristocratic fingers and floated to the floor. “It’s my brother.”
Anne f
elt a pang of dread in her own heart at his words. “Is it ill tidings? Has something terrible happened to him?”
“No. Something terrible has happened to me.” Dravenwood raised his stricken eyes to her face. “He’s coming here. With his family.”
Chapter Nineteen
ANNE FOUGHT TO SWALLOW back her own dismay. The last thing she needed was more meddlesome Burkes running around the manor, snapping out orders and poking their handsome aristocratic noses into matters that were none of their concern. “I suppose we can make ready some more rooms,” she said reluctantly.
The earl shot to his feet, forcing her to take a stumbling step backward. Raking a hand through his unruly hair, he began to pace back and forth across the room like a caged tiger. “You don’t understand. We have to write him back immediately. We have to stop them.”
“And just how do you propose to do that?”
“I don’t care how we do it. We’ll tell them the manor isn’t fit for habitation. We’ll tell them there’s a daft butler. And a surly footman. And a ghost. And an incontinent dog!”
Anne took advantage of his frenzied pacing to rescue the letter from the floor. As she scanned the remainder of it, she almost wished she had left it there. Hoping to soften the blow, she gently said, “I’m afraid it’s too late for that, my lord. As we learned when we received word that you were scheduled to arrive at the manor, the post is notoriously slow in getting to Cadgwyck. According to this letter, your brother and his family left Dryden Hall nearly a week ago. They’re scheduled to arrive here in less than two days.”
Dravenwood groaned. “Two days?” He abruptly changed direction, forcing her to quickly nudge the ottoman out of his path before he fell over it. “Damn him,” he muttered through clenched teeth. “Damn them both.”
“I take it you don’t welcome their arrival?” she ventured cautiously.
“Of course I do,” he drawled with scathing sarcasm. “The same way I would welcome taking afternoon tea with Attila the Hun. Or a recurrence of the Black Plague.” He began to mutter again, more to himself than to her. “It’s just like him, isn’t it? Believing he can come here and somehow charm his way back into my good graces.” Dravenwood stopped in his tracks, as if struck by a new thought. “He may very well be coming here to kill me.”
“Have you done something that warrants killing?”
He gave her a sharp look. “You don’t look as if that would surprise you very much.”
Anne kept her face carefully blank. “What would you have me do, my lord?”
Rubbing the back of his neck, he sighed. “Your job, I suppose. Make ready their chambers,” he ordered, his dismay hardening into grim resignation. “As much as I’d like to, we can’t very well turn them away. I wouldn’t give him that much satisfaction.” His face brightened. “Perhaps if we feed them some of that slop you feed me, they won’t linger very long. But whatever you do”—he gave her such a threatening look she took an involuntary step backward—“do not give them any of your bread.”
ANNE HESITATED OUTSIDE THE closed study door. She had been dreading this moment all day, but there was no longer any way to put it off. She dried her damp palms on her apron before giving the door a gentle rap.
“Enter.”
Obeying the clipped command, she eased open the door and slipped into the room. Lord Dravenwood was seated behind the massive cherrywood desk. The ledgers containing the household accounts, both past and present, were no longer scattered haphazardly across the desk but had been organized into neat stacks. One of them lay open on the leather blotter. As she watched, he dipped his pen into a bottle of ink, turned the page, and began to make a fresh notation.
She had never before seen him look quite so composed. One would have sworn he’d been dressed and groomed by the most competent valet in London. His jaw was freshly shaven, his silver-and-gray-striped waistcoat buttoned beneath his coat, his snowy-white cravat neatly tied. His hair was the only thing that had resisted taming, its sooty ends still curling in open rebellion around his starched collar. Anne sensed that this was her first glimpse of the real Maximillian Burke, the cool and contained man who had ruled his own private empire for years from behind a desk much like this one.
When the tip of his pen continued to scratch its way across the page, she cleared her throat awkwardly. “I’m sorry to disturb you, my lord, but Dickon has spotted a private conveyance crossing the moor. I believe it can only be your brother.”
He glanced up, giving her a look so mildly pleasant it made her stomach curdle with alarm. She would have much preferred one of his ferocious scowls. “And just what would you have me do about it?”
“Aren’t you going to come greet them?” she asked tentatively.
“I shall leave that to you.” He returned his attention to the ledger, dipping his pen in the inkwell once more. “As I recall, you rose to the task with admirable aplomb the night I arrived at Cadgwyck Manor.”
“But, my lord, he’s your brother.” As both her bewilderment and her dismay deepened, Anne sought comfort by tracing the familiar shape of the locket beneath her bodice. “If you haven’t seen each other for a time, I thought you might want to—”
“I don’t pay you to think, Mrs. Spencer,” Dravenwood said without looking up.
Anne stiffened as if he had slapped her. “No, my lord,” she replied, her tone edged with frost. “I don’t suppose you do.”
Refusing to give him the satisfaction of asking if she could be dismissed, she turned on her heel and started for the door.
“Mrs. Spencer?”
She turned back, eyeing him warily.
“Once they arrive, my brother will doubtlessly want to see me. You may send him in after he and his family have dined. Alone.”
“As you wish, my lord.”
Anne left him there with his ledgers, forcing herself to gently draw the door shut behind her when all she wanted to do was slam it hard enough to rattle both the door frame and him.
ANNE STOOD UNDER THE portico at the top of the crumbling stairs, watching the coach jolt its way up the rutted drive. This was a private coach, not a rented conveyance, with a handsome team of six matched grays, four liveried outriders, and a scarlet-and-gold ducal crest emblazoned on its shiny lacquered door. For the first time, she stopped to wonder why her employer—the current Earl of Dravenwood and future Duke of Dryden—hadn’t arrived in such regal splendor.
Dickon waited beside the drive in his own ragged livery, but no wig, playing the roles of both footman and groom. The afternoon wasn’t exactly fair, but nor was it as damp and chill as recent days had been. The balmy wind threatened to tease a few stray tendrils of hair from Anne’s chignon.
As the coach rolled to a halt, Dickon shot her an uncertain look over his shoulder. She made a subtle shooing motion. He hurried over to the coach to whisk open the door.
Anne had no idea what to expect, but the man who descended from the coach was as fair as their master was dark. He was the same height as Dravenwood and had equally broad shoulders, but he was slightly leaner. His caramel-colored hair was straight and cropped close to his head.
His boots had barely hit the ground when he was forced to spin around and catch a flaxen-haired toddler before she went tumbling out of the coach headfirst like an exuberant puppy.
“Whoa, there, Charlotte!” he called out, a dazzling grin splitting his sun-bronzed face. “You do love to keep Papa’s reflexes honed, don’t you, sweetheart?”
Holding the squirming little girl in the crook of his arm, he offered a hand to his wife. Tucking her gloved hand in his, a woman emerged from the coach, all but the graceful curve of one cheek hidden beneath the shadow of her beribboned hat brim.
Dickon directed the coachman and outriders toward the tumbledown stables as the trio started up the broad stone stairs. The adorable moppet tucked a thumb in her little pink rosebud of a mouth and laid her head on her father’s breast, suddenly overcome with shyness. She had been dressed with all the care
of one of the dolls in the tower, but a smudge of dirt darkened the knee of one ivory stocking, and sugary biscuit crumbs were scattered across the bib of her pinafore.
As Lord Dravenwood’s brother reached the top of the stairs, Anne pasted a dutiful smile on her lips just as she had done on the night her new master had arrived. “I’m Mrs. Spencer, the housekeeper of this establishment. Welcome to Cadgwyck Manor, my lord.”
The man’s brow furrowed in a mock scowl that was an impeccable imitation of his brother’s real one. “Mr. Burke or sir will do, Mrs. Spencer. Didn’t Max warn you?” He leaned down, lowering his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “I’m one of those ill-mannered commoners he so disdains.”
Anne had to bite back a genuine smile. The man’s lazy grin and the mischievous sparkle dancing in his amber eyes were nearly irresistible. Those eyes crinkled when he smiled, as if he had spent much of his life squinting into the bright sun.
A rich ripple of laughter escaped his wife. “Don’t let my husband fool you, Mrs. Spencer. There’s nothing common about Ashton Burke. He’s as unconventional as they come.”
As Mrs. Burke tipped back her head to reveal one of the most beautiful faces Anne had ever seen, Anne felt a curious twinge in the region of her heart. She had never felt so plain or so envied another woman her potions and powders and curling tongs.
The icy edges of the woman’s Nordic blondness were softened by the irresistible warmth of her smile. Her green eyes were tilted upward at their outer corners like the eyes of some exotic cat.
She surprised Anne by taking her hand. “Thank you so very much for your hospitality, Mrs. Spencer. It was rather impulsive of us to come here. I do hope we haven’t put your staff to any extra trouble.”
“None whatsoever,” Anne lied. She’d had the maids working nearly around the clock ever since she had learned of their impending visit. Even a grumbling Pippa had pitched in. For some unfathomable reason, Anne didn’t want Dravenwood’s brother to find him living in a pigsty.