“No eggs,” said the countess bitterly. “Can you believe it?”
No eggs, to be certain—but rashers and potatoes and sausages, O divinities! And those plates—he’d felt certain that Beauregard had stolen and sold them weeks ago.
“This took more than two hours from the time I rang for it,” the countess continued, seating herself opposite. “Can you imagine? What was Cook doing down there? I’ll wager you that he had no food whatsoever, and had to send the scullery maids out to buy it all.”
He sank into his chair, then nodded gratefully as she lifted a silver pot.
The coffee was steaming hot. “You are invited to harass the cook whenever you like,” he said. He hadn’t known old Beauregard had it in him to lay a proper table. Toast and oatmeal, he’d thought, were the whole of it.
“Thank you, I will.” She sipped her own coffee, then wrinkled her nose and reached for the cream. “Now, as for the question of hiring replacements—”
“I’m afraid I can’t let any of the men go,” Liam said. “But if you wish to reassign them to positions that better suit their strengths, by all means, do so.”
She stared. Some trick of the slanting morning light lit the tips of her long red lashes, and illuminated her eyes so they glowed like peridots.
With a jolt, he realized she was not staring but glaring, and quickly made an apologetic grimace.
Christ, he had no idea what face to show her. He was doing his best here to play the affable boy she’d known, but he would slip up; it already felt like a parody somehow. “Forgive me,” he said. “I know it’s inconvenient. But when you come back—say, in the autumn—”
“Oh no, it’s a fine idea.” She took a measured sip of her coffee. “Do tell me, what positions here best suit incompetence and drunkenness?”
He stopped a sigh. Those were the least of the men’s sins. The thieving, gambling, and brawling were at least commonplace flaws. But Hanks, left to his own devices, often dissolved into tears, and refused to leave his bed till dusk. Henneage went into rages: he had broken several chairs a week ago after one of the maids had called him a lazy toad.
He had done it only after the maid left, though, which Wilkins had argued was in his favor. Wilkins was forever speaking up for others, but had no ability to defend himself. Indeed, Liam had once caught him drawing in the flesh of his own arm with a razor, but after a severe discussion, Wilkins had not done it again.
These would look like vices to her. But they were not. They were the relics of survival. At the height of it, Elland had held ninety prisoners. Forty, besides Liam, had survived to the end. Six had died of injuries before leaving Australia, and four more had perished of the cholera in Singapore. Twelve had dropped off later, in ports that welcomed newcomers with vague histories. Of the twenty who had reached England, twelve had returned to their former lives, and the remaining eight, lacking family or resources, lived here—where, as long as they limited their deviancies to those things that harmed nobody else, they were free to remain.
His wife, of course, would not understand any of this. His wife, being a piece of sheltered innocence bred on privilege and swaddled in money, had every reason to expect perfection—in her staff, in her surroundings, in her husband.
“I’ve an idea,” he said pleasantly. “Separate households. Quite fashionable now, actually. The duchess of Buckminster—”
Her teacup slammed into its saucer without a drop being shed. “How free you are with money. One might almost think it were in limitless supply.”
It very nearly was, in her case. But he did not think she would appreciate the observation. “Then hire your own staff,” he said, his voice only slightly frayed by his effort to remain charming, charming, blandly charming: young Lord Lockwood had been a bright-eyed optimist, after all, for whom the whole world had seemed a grand adventure.
“A shadow staff, like the shadow ministries?” Her laughter was sharp. “What a ridiculous idea.”
Young Lord Lockwood, that naïve and rosy-cheeked idiot, would never have pointed out to his wife that her presence here was her own doing, and if she did not like it, she could leave. Nor would he have observed that their marriage made her money into his, and if Scottish laws wanted to protest, then English courts would crush them.
Young Lord Lockwood had been a fool. He had rested on his laurels, imagining the future would only bring more of them. He had extended endless olive branches to Stephen, mindful of his cousin’s pride, sympathetic to the difficulties of Stephen’s inferior position. He had believed that best intentions would triumph, always.
That callow, idealistic idiot had probably deserved what was coming to him.
“How long do you intend to stay, then?” Liam asked.
“I haven’t yet decided. I have business to settle here—the MacCauleys, idiots, leased the beach that my islanders use to access Rawsey. I offered to buy it outright, but the railway company that leased it . . . oh, it’s complicated. At any rate, I’ve no idea how long it will take to settle the matter. It may go to court.”
“I’m sorry to hear so.” Her skin remained as smooth and creamy as the day he’d first seen her, but her freckles had multiplied. Her freckles had always fascinated him. He had tried to count them once, but she’d been wearing too many clothes.
The memory hit like a fist in his gut.
He found himself staring at her, abruptly transfixed. Transformed, brain evacuated by a fierce, full-bodied, singular pulse of hunger.
Christ. He had forgotten what desire felt like. He’d imagined his appetite permanently blunted by hunger—pain—and now, Colthurst’s toxins.
He’d been wrong.
His senses expanded. He could feel her skin beneath his fingertips, a memory made tactile. He could smell her from across the table: soap, skin, the musk of her. He wanted.
“Lockwood?” She tipped her head. “Are you . . . all right? You look rather . . .”
He clamped his hands on the edge of the table, pressed his fingertips into the embroidered linen. Coffee was what he smelled. Rashers, sausage. He would not touch her. He could not.
“Certainly,” he said. “A bit tired, perhaps.”
Without remark, she refilled his empty cup.
“The men I have hired.” His voice sounded hoarse. God save her—she thought the staff rude, rough, and unkempt? His body would make a lesson for her. But she would never see it. “I will keep those men. I’m afraid I must insist on it. If you choose to add to their number, that’s your own affair.”
Her cheek hollowed, as though she were biting the interior to stem her protest. “Fine,” she said at last, very curtly.
One freckle sat directly between the peaks of her upper lip. That freckle was a taunt.
He lifted his coffee, bent his face into the cup. Bitter, dark, hot. Breathe.
How many times had young Lord Lockwood passed up the opportunity to touch her? He had imagined himself honorable for waiting. He’d believed there would be endless time to explore her. He had forgone the chance to kiss her once more, to stroke the curve of her waist, to trace the vein that wound down her chest and disappeared beneath the neckline of her lavender gown, to rip that gown apart and bare her body, to suck the peaks of her nipples and then pull her into a dark corner and lift her skirts and take her.
Honor had demanded that he wait.
Liam bolted the remainder of his coffee.
He would have reached back in time and throttled that other man, if only he were able.
“I may insist on removing them from public roles,” she said.
“Of course.” He laid down his cup, not knowing or caring to what he’d just agreed.
“As for the business of your estates,” she said, “I hope you have reviewed the improvements I made. While you were on holiday, I undertook a catalog . . .”
He watched her mouth as her voice faded from his ears. It had not all been a waste. He had not been entirely monkish. He remembered:
The heat of her,
the hot wet depths of her mouth, the heavy weight of her breasts, her nipples peaking as her plump soft thighs yielded—
“Where are you going?” she asked.
He had risen from his chair. She looked surprised, but not shocked. She would look shocked in truth if he came to her tonight.
No, not shock. When he bared his body, she would be horrified. He could imagine that look. He held it fixed in his mind, for it killed his desire quicker than any drug.
“Out,” he said as he turned for the door.
“Were you always so charming?” came her sharp voice. “Four years—heaven knows I can’t remember what I saw in you.”
He closed the door with effortful care, then leaned against it, taking a deep breath of air unscented by her.
If she truly did not remember, then how fortunate she was.
CHAPTER THREE
Four years earlier
“They say he was sent down from Oxford for wenching,” said her cousin Moira.
“I heard it was gambling—and the man he fleeced was a don!”
“He set a fire in the Bodleian.” This from Helen Selkirk. “They lost dozens of books, and expelled him. He disappeared for a year afterward; even his own father didn’t know where he’d gone.”
Anna had been listening with half an ear, her attention on the dance floor. She liked a reel, the stomp and spring of it, but this orchestra had clearly been given orders to the contrary. The hostess, Mrs. Cameron, was determined to bring her daughter’s suitor up to snuff, and apparently believed that four waltzes in a row would do the trick.
“Anna, he was asking after you, you know.”
Anna glanced over. Helen Selkirk was a terrible gossip, but also a discerning one; she did not carry tales that turned out to be false. “Who said so?”
“I heard him myself, speaking with your auntie May. Imagine it—she said you didn’t like to dance!”
The other girls groaned. Anna glanced to the far corner, where Aunt May was whispering furiously into her son Daniel’s ear. Daniel looked miserable, his broad, handsome face contorting into grimaces as he furiously shook his head.
Poor Daniel. He was a sweet, decent fellow, who thought of her as a sister, and who loved a girl from Glasgow whose father was a clerk. His parents wanted more for him. They wanted him to wed Anna, to be precise.
They were not alone in that effort. All the aunts had plans for Anna. During her childhood, they had passed her around more quickly than a hot potato, despairing of her as an ungainly, graceless tomboy. But now she was grown, every one of them had a son or nephew that they knew would make a perfect match for her.
Happily, ungainly tomboys did not grow up to be easy marks.
“Poor Lord Lockwood,” purred Moira. “How downcast he must feel, to think you don’t wish to dance with him.”
“Fortune hunter,” Anna said dismissively.
“Oh, Anna!” This from Fiona Shaw. “He’s very handsome. And quite popular in London, I believe. If he only wanted a fortune—”
“I don’t wish to be introduced.”
The others gasped, their fans fluttering harder. “What? You can’t mean it,” said Moira.
“But I do.” Anna did stand in need of a husband. Otherwise, she would never have consented to an entire spring of incessant house parties up and down the country. She would much rather be on the island, for spring was very beautiful on Rawsey, the waves feisty and sparkling, the light strong and clear.
But to have the island, she must first acquire a husband.
He would not be an Englishman, though. An Englishman would, quite reasonably, expect his wife to spend time in England. Anna had no interest in that. She had refused all encouragement to make her debut in London. What was the point? To make a life in Scotland, she required a Scot.
Moira still looked aghast. “You mean to say that if he approached to ask your hand, you’d refuse him?”
“Precisely,” said Anna. “I congratulate you on your keen wit, Moira.”
“He’s the Earl of Lockwood, coz! You can’t cut him!”
Anna shrugged. “English titles don’t impress me.”
“He owns eighty thousand acres!”
“In England,” said Anna.
“All of it gone to seed,” Helen put in slyly.
Moira bridled. “Is he to blame for that? He only just came into the title.”
Anna smiled. “It rather sounds as though you fancy him.”
“Who wouldn’t?” Moira blushed. “Have you seen him?”
Anna had seen him. Any woman with a pulse had noticed him. He was tall, broad shouldered, with a warm laugh that traveled the length of a room. He had a strong, chiseled face and he waltzed like an athlete. Those long, flying strides had been wasted on his other dance partners tonight, but Anna could have matched him turn for turn.
Alas. “I’ve no interest in jackanapes,” she said.
“Oh ho!” Moira’s voice was growing heated. “And here I thought you were looking for a man with spirit.”
“I’ve no objection to spirit—or gambling, as you say, or wenching, either, as long as the wench is willing. But a man who sets fire to a library?” Anna snorted. “That’s base idiocy at best, wanton malice at worst.”
“Base idiocy,” came a smooth, low voice from behind her. Moira gasped. Anna, looking into her cousin’s reddening face, was left with no doubt as to who owned that voice—which matched his laugh, intriguingly warm and husky, despite the clipped vowels that marred it.
She fanned herself, and did not turn. She did not speak to eavesdroppers. “Fiona, is that genuine ratafia, or did the Davis boys manage to slip in some spice?”
Fiona glanced helplessly from the eavesdropper to her cup. “I—” She cleared her throat, then continued primly, “I’m sure I couldn’t say.”
Anna rolled her eyes. The moment an English title came sniffing about, her friends began to posture like nuns. “I’ll go find out.” She pushed through the others, cutting across the dance floor for the refreshment room.
It did not entirely surprise her to realize that he was following her. From the corner of her vision, she caught Aunt May’s concerned frown: that was her first clue. The second, rather more blunt, was when he caught her elbow in the hall.
As she swung to face him, she stepped backward, freeing herself of his grip and causing her white muslin skirts to bell wide, which in turn left him no choice but to quickly back away from her circumference.
“You’re as rude as a potboy,” she said—rather less crisply than she would have liked, for she was startled to find him laughing at her, his hands raised in mock surrender.
“True,” he said. “What else can one expect from an idiot who sets a library on fire?”
To follow her bespoke a confidence born of arrogance. But to mock himself suggested the opposite quality. The intention to put him in his place briefly wavered. He was very handsome, which counted against him. On the other hand, he could laugh at himself, a rare quality.
“You really did set the Bodleian on fire?”
He gave a rueful tug of his mouth. “If I told you the truth, it would seem like a lie to save face. So I’ll own the sin, and ask you only to believe that if I’d truly intended to burn a book, I would have positioned myself in the Latinate stacks, rather than chemistry.”
Struck, she opened her mouth—then closed it, suspicious. A fortune hunter, indeed. He had done his research on her. “I suppose,” she said dryly, “that you have a passionate interest in the sciences.”
“Not passion, but genuine interest, yes—unsupported by any discipline.” He smiled again. “There: I have confessed my greatest failing.”
He had a dimple in his left cheek, and amber-colored eyes that seemed more alive than other men’s. She found herself avoiding them, lest she surrender to the impulse to stare.
He stepped closer. “I wished to make your acquaintance,” he said. “I suppose you’ve heard so already.”
He was a few inche
s taller than her. She was not accustomed to being overshadowed, but the temptation to step backward felt too much like retreat. He wore cologne, a rather womanish affectation—but no woman would have chosen such a woodsy, clean scent. She caught herself inhaling, and expelled the breath in annoyance.
“Yes,” she said, “but I barely remarked it. Any number of men ask to make my acquaintance, particularly once they have learned how well I might enrich them.”
His eyes opened wide, and then he laughed again, an open-throated sound of true amusement. “Touché.” He raked a long-fingered hand through his brown hair, leaving the sun-lightened tips standing astray. No pomade—his countrymen would judge him. “You are, indeed, a plainspoken woman.”
“Yes. Worse yet, Lord Lockwood, I speak not only plainly, but as often as I like.”
He nodded. “Professor Arbuthnot had told me so, but only now do I perceive it was a warning.”
She blinked. “Professor . . .” She could not have heard right. Professor Arbuthnot would waste no time on book burners. “I beg your pardon,” she said coolly. “A warning?”
“A warning to buffle-headed young men. I will have to use my brain in this conversation, and I confess, I may be out of practice at it.”
She stared, uncertain if she had been complimented or insulted. “How do you know Professor Arbuthnot?”
“I studied with him at Oxford.”
“Before or after you burned down the library?”
“A dozen books,” he said evenly. “But the professor was quite disappointed in me. And I, in turn, was distraught to have lost his confidence. You’ll understand, then, when I tell you what a compliment it was to be entrusted with your manuscript.”
Her breath caught. “What?”
“He has reviewed it quite thoroughly, he says, and scribbled all through the margins. I did not read it,” he added quickly, again lifting his hands in a sign of truce. She noticed calluses on his palms, not a typical sight in an English gentleman. “But I did promise to ferry it to you, since he knew my path led me north for the spring.”
A queer buzzing filled her ears as she compassed how deeply she had misjudged this situation. “I see.” She cleared her throat, then, to her horror, felt her lips twitch. “I . . .” She needed to apologize. But suddenly, with him marveling at her, it struck her as absurdly amusing. “I’m sorry,” she managed through a sudden irrepressible giggle. “How dreadfully rude of me—but I thought—”