Jo Beverley (10 page)

“The idea of broken male hearts distresses you? I thought ladies loved that sort of thing.”

“I mean your providing for her.”

“Wasn't that our arrangement?”

“I meant only that you give her a suitable home. . . .”

“But then we'd have her on our hands forever.” He took any offense out of it with a smile. “Anyway, I quite look forward to seeing my friends make cakes of themselves over her.”

Remembering Sir Arthur, Meg felt a stab of alarm. “She's only fifteen!”

“That won't stop them. And next year, if you approve, she can make her curtsy and begin to wreak true havoc.”

“I don't know. . . .” But making her curtsy sounded decorous and safe, besides implying . . .

“Presentation at Court?” she whispered, staring at him. “Surely not.”

“Surely yes. You must be presented as my wife, and soon. That's essential. And your brothers and sisters in due course.”

“Oh . . .” Meg felt stuffed on sugar and cream, a not entirely pleasant sensation. It was all too much. And yet, she wasn't strong enough to deny her siblings these advantages.

Somehow, the earl had come closer, and now he took her hands. Startling contact, skin to skin. “Don't worry so much, my dear. I'm sure it's been a hard time, but now you can toss your burdens onto me. They will be feathers, particularly as I'll toss them onto Owain. Give him a complete list of your debts, and he'll settle them. Do you have other matters fretting you?”

If only she could rely on him always being this earl, and never being the wild one.

“I don't think so, my lord. Oh, we do need to collect our possessions from the house. In fact, we owe rent! I forgot because Sir Arthur said we need not pay.”

“Sir Arthur?”

She almost spilled out the whole truth, but thank heavens she managed to control herself. She couldn't imagine what the earl would do if he knew the truth, but it would doubtless be something extreme. “Sir Arthur Jakes. He was a friend of my father's and rented my parents the house.”

“And he, too, extended your credit. Good of him. Certainly he should be paid.”

Meg wanted him paid to make sure there was no lingering connection, absolutely no danger to Laura.

“Now,” he said, leaping up and pulling her to her feet, “come and inspect your rooms.”

Meg went with him up the stairs—he gave her little choice—but halfway up the gleaming, elegant curve, she froze. Rooms surely included bedrooms.

When he looked at her in surprise, she said, “We need to go back to our house
soon.
To collect our clothes and such.”

“We'll go shortly.” He tugged her onward, and down a lushly carpeted corridor hung carelessly with art.

He flung open a door and guided her into a handsome room—a boudoir. Not, thank heavens, the bedroom. It was a somewhat heavy chamber, paneled in dark wood and furnished in greens and browns. Of course, it was warmed by a roaring fire.

“It's decades out of style.” He strode to tug the bellpull. “Will you need a cart, or will a carriage do?” He gestured around. “What do you think?”

After a moment, Meg realized he was asking about the room, not the transportation. Feeling like a whirligig in a gale, she answered with a trite, “It's lovely.”

“No, it's not.” He flicked the faded olive brocade hangings. “This color is positively bilious. But it'll do until you refurbish it.”

“That's not necessary—”

A footman entered.

“Clarence. Arrange for carriages to take us all to Lady Saxonhurst's home to collect belongings.”

“Certainly, milord. Us? And how many carriages, milord?”

“Myself, Mr. Chancellor, my new family, and as many servants as necessary. Work it out.” He waved the man
off, and Meg noticed that the man dragged a twisted right foot as he went.

“Shouldn't the poor man be allowed to rest?”

“It's permanent. Carriage rolled over him years ago.” He swept her into another room, and this time it was the bedchamber, ruled by a grand tester swathed in more olive-green brocade draperies with gold plumed finials on top of every post.

“Oh my.”

“It's a heavy sort of style, but I assure you it's all dusted and aired out. Do you know how many carriages or carts'll be needed for your belongings?”

Meg tried to follow his gadfly mind. “I've never thought about how much we have. I feel as if we have little, but we've lived there nearly ten years—”

“Owain will know.” He opened the door to the corridor and shouted, “Clarence! Check with Mr. Chancellor!” Then he went to open a door in the side wall. “Dressing and bathing room.” Heaving back the solid top on a huge wooden box, he revealed a flower-decorated tub big enough to lie in.

“Oh!” Meg leaned over it, marveling at the interior. She'd never bathed in anything so wonderful. The best they'd had was a tin tub before the kitchen fire.

He turned her face to his and kissed her. “Enjoy.” He made a bath sound like the most wicked indulgence in the world. Then he added softly, fingers still resting on her cheek, “I'll have to give Susie a bonus.”

Meg could easily be distracted into positive dreaminess by the flickering warmth in his golden eyes, by the warm pressure of his fingers against her skin. Or perhaps it was just a sense of him, like the heat in a warm room on a midwinter day. . . .

“Susie is getting an inn, isn't she?” she managed. Perhaps that had only been a joke.

“She deserves more. This is turning out to be a wonderful idea.” Suddenly he swept her up into his arms and twirled about the room.

Over her shriek, he said, “Imagine, I could even now be here with Cordelia Cathcart, witness to her gloating, aware of her horrible family all attaching themselves to
me like barnacles. And feeling I would have to grovel forever to the chit for obliging me.”

Clutching him for fear of falling, she said, “Put me down. Please, my lord!”

He kissed her. “Instead, I am in the delightful situation of benefactor, and very pleased with myself.” He stilled to kiss her again, a little more lingeringly this time. “Very pleased . . .”

Meg surrendered to the play of soft lips against hers, to a closeness more intimate than anything she had ever known. . . .

But then she recognized the moves in his hunting game. Especially when he backed out of the dressing room with her still in his arms, and the plumed bed loomed over his shoulder like a threatening cloud.

“Our things, my lord,” she said urgently.

“Things?” He grinned, making her words suddenly wicked.

“Clothes!”

“We have them on.”

“All our clothes.”

“You want them off?”

“No! From Mallett Street. Books. Toys. Pots and pans . . .”

“Intriguing,” he murmured, still backing toward the bed.

She couldn't imagine how he knew where he was, but he suddenly whirled and tossed her into the middle of the brocade-covered mattress. Meg sprawled there, feeling just like a cornered rabbit eyeing the fox.

Though she was sure no rabbit ever felt this way about its hunter.

“Mmmmm.” Using a hand on a post as anchor, he leaned toward her, sounding just like the twins faced with a sticky cake. But after a hovering moment—hawk, she thought—he swung back. “I'll tell the others we're off to pillage your old home.”

He left, and Meg lay there stunned, trying to gather the strength in her limbs to move, and the power of her wits to think. What an extraordinary man!

The past few hours had undoubtedly been the most tumultuous of her life. She didn't really know what to
think, though she did hope that occasionally her husband would have a peaceful moment. It was perhaps as well that there seemed no work for her to do here. She'd be exhausted just trying to keep up with him.

There was something about him though.

Something almost magical . . .

Then she came to her senses and wondered what he was up to. Feeling rather as she had when left in sole charge of the Ramillys' free-spirited, three-year-old son, she scrambled out of the dip and off the bed and tracked voices up to the next floor.

She found the earl on the floor of a schoolroom with the twins, rolling a miniature carriage backward and forward. He looked up with an open smile, and lifted the toy. “Isn't it grand? It's an exact copy of the town coach my parents had.”

Though a bit battered, it was almost a work of art, painted blue with gilt touches and a crest on the door. Inside, it seemed perfectly fitted out with brocade squabs. It was, she realized, a replica of the carriage she'd ridden in today, and yet it must date back to his childhood or farther. Was that part of the aristocratic tradition, to keep things always the same? She'd noted that most of the furnishings in this house went back through the centuries.

“It used to have horses,” he said, giving it to Richard and rising to his feet. “And figures to sit inside and out.”

“Like this, sir?” Rachel dug in a wooden box and produced one carved figure, minus most of one arm.

“John Coachman!” The earl hunkered down again and placed the figure gently on the seat. He had to prop it against one of the side supports to make it stay. He looked into the box, clearly hoping for others, but then shrugged. “We'll have new made. Now,” he said to the twins, rising with that strong, fluid grace that made Meg think of predators, “it's time for you to take me to explore your old home and show me your toys.”

The twins each seized an arm and virtually dragged him out and down the stairs, chattering. Feeling almost weepy with dazedness and happiness, Meg followed with Laura and Jeremy.

“He seems very pleasant,” Laura said, but cautiously.

“He is,” Meg agreed, though pleasant wasn't quite the word. She only wished she didn't fear a turn of mood.

What, after all, if he decided she or one of her family was an enemy like his grandmother?

“Will I be able to continue my studies with Dr. Pierce?” Jeremy asked.

Meg almost said that they'd have to ask the earl, but then decided that if she was married to a wealthy earl—for better or worse—she was allowed to make such decisions. “Yes, of course. And we can buy you those Greek texts you wanted. New.”

They all piled into two carriages, though this time the earl made no objection to the twins traveling with him and Meg. Since the twins were capable of incessant talking, it relieved Meg of any need to make conversation.

As they approached their old home, she smiled at their commentary.

“That's Ned,” Richard said, “the rag-and-bone man.”

“He looks rough, sir,” Rachel contributed, “but he's all right. And there's Mrs. Pickett with her dog.”

“He bites, sir. You need to be careful of him. That's the haberdashery. Dull stuff.”

“ 'Tis not! They have ever such pretty ribbons. And buckles and buttons. All kinds of things. That's the bookshop. And the milliners.”

“Hats!”

“Lord Saxonhurst's wearing a hat, so there!”

“But he gets his from a hatter. Don't you, sir?”

“I'm afraid I do. Though why there's a difference, I don't know.”

“Because we wouldn't want flowers on our hats, would we, sir?”

As the twins squabbled over whether men's hats were sillier than women's, the earl looked at Meg's new hat. “Next time, it will definitely have to have flowers.”

Instinctively, she reached up to touch her lovely velvet beret. “Perhaps I prefer a plainer style.”

“But I sometimes like the effect of a frivolous, flowery bonnet.”

Part of Meg longed for such an item, part of her resisted. Part wanted to please this man, and part of her wanted to fight.

“Oh look,” Richard called, “there's our house, sir!
The one with the blue door just beyond the Nag's Head Inn.”

Looking at the place with a stranger's eye, Meg was ashamed of its simplicity, but fiercely glad that it was respectable. At least they wouldn't look the complete charity cases that they were. She supposed she had to give Sir Arthur credit for that. As a landlord, he had been responsible.

She hadn't thought until now about leaving her home, and felt a pang. She'd left the house this morning, thinking for some reason to return with all their problems solved. Now they must take away their possessions so that some other family could move in.

The two handsome carriages were creating a small sensation, with strollers stopping to look, and neighbors popping out to see what was happening. Since the twins were pressed to the window, most of the watchers soon realized who was coming, and as they waved or smiled, doubtless wondered even more about things.

Meg, who'd never been comfortable with having her business known to all, found the circus horribly embarrassing. She thanked heaven that no one was likely to guess the truth.

It was as if the earl could read minds. When the carriage drew to a halt, he said quietly, “No need, I assume, to tell the whole story.”

“I hope not.”

The twins were totally engaged in waving to friends and waiting impatiently for the steps to be let down.

“What did you tell your family?”

She blushed for her lie. “That we'd met at the Ramillys'—the family where I was governess.”

“And we fell madly in love?”

“Of course not. That would be absurd.”

His brows rose. “You think love absurd?”

“No. But between you and me . . .” She felt silenced by the look in his eyes. “I mean, love at first sight. It's impossible.”

“You live in a very rational universe.”

“So,” said Meg hurriedly, “you discovered I was in need. As you needed a wife, you suggested this arrangement.”

“How delightfully cool blooded and practical. We'll stick to that. And I suggest handling further enquiries with a touch of aristocratic hauteur.” He climbed out of the coach and turned to hand her down.

“Alas, sir, I have none.”

“Then practice, my dear countess. Practice!”

Meg couldn't help but smile as she dug in her bag for the key. But then the door opened, and Sir Arthur appeared.

Meg's breath caught. She'd entirely forgotten that today was the day upon which their week ran out. Frozen, she might have created an embarrassment, but the twins ran at him, eager to tell their news.

His chilly eyes swept over Meg and Laura. “Is this true?”

Meg forced a bright smile. “Isn't it wonderful, Sir Arthur? And how pleased you must be not to have to worry about us anymore.”

Because of the rage in his eyes, she might not have been able to approach the door, to confront him, if the earl hadn't steered her that way. For a moment, she feared that Sir Arthur would try to block their way, but then he retreated into the hall, pale, but finding a smile. “If you have found support for your family, of course all your friends must be pleased.” But his eyes flickered toward Laura, and Meg at least recognized the thwarted hunger there.

He controlled himself almost at once. “You have come to show your groom the family home?”

“The countess has come,” the earl said, “to collect her family's personal possessions.” To Meg's surprise, the quizzing glass had appeared again. “I must thank you for your kindness to her, sir. And of course, you must submit an account for any sums owing to my secretary.”

With that lesson in aristocratic hauteur, he guided Meg past Sir Arthur. “Show me around, my dear. I am very interested in the places where you played as a child.”

Meg went, wickedly gleeful to see Sir Arthur treated like an upper servant. Hauteur definitely had its uses.

She gave the guided tour of their modest home,
hearing the younger ones doing the same in other directions for the infinitely obliging Mr. Chancellor. It would be pleasant to have someone like . . .

She turned to the earl. “May I employ a secretary?”

“Employ anyone you wish. A female secretary might be more suitable, however. A kind of companion.” They were in a corridor, and Meg had just opened a cupboard to sort good bedding from worn out. “My dear,” he said, taking a yellowed pillowcase from her and tossing it back in, “we don't need more linens. Leave 'em, unless they have sentimental importance.”

Meg thought of the weary hours of darning and gladly closed the door.

“Make her pretty, pure, and ethereal.”

She blinked at him. “Who?”

“Your secretary.”

“Why?”

“Owain's taste runs in that lamentable direction.”

“Lamentable?”

“My dear, pretty is all very well, but pure is a dead bore.”

Meg bristled. “I am pure.”

“I don't think so.”

“My lord!”

He smiled, unmoved by her outrage. “I'm not suggesting a wicked past, Minerva. But if you weren't so aware of base desires, you wouldn't be so nervous of me, would you?”

He let his gaze wander over her. It wasn't offensive exactly. His expression was too warm, too appreciative to really give offense. But it definitely made her nervous. It promised . . . things. Things she knew about without really knowing. Things that made her cheeks heat and her breathing falter.

“You see?” he said softly.

She turned sharply away. “You must have the same effect on every woman.”

“I try, Minerva. I try.”

So she turned back, chin up. “And if I say that I expect you to be faithful to me?”

And that knocked him on his heels a bit, she saw with
satisfaction. “Then I'd say that you will have to make yourself very available to me.”

“Or perhaps you could restrain your lust.”

His brows rose. “And what do you know of lust?”

“You reek of it!” Meg swung away, hands to burning cheeks. “How do you make me say such things? We shouldn't be speaking so!”

His hand circled the back of her neck, not violently, but causing her to freeze. “Certainly not here,” he murmured, one finger stroking. “Later, however, such talk could be delightful.”

The hand moved to her shoulder, and lips brushed her nape. “You have a charmingly vulnerable nape. A very seductive, slender nape . . .”

Then he stepped away. “I think I hear my servants clattering in.” He captured her hand and tugged her down the corridor. “Come on. We'd best go through the rooms with them. You don't want them taking items that aren't yours. Or leaving anything behind.”

Meg went, feeling she was leaving common sense and control behind forever.

Soon servants were carrying down whatever she wished. Aware of Sir Arthur checking each item, she was conservative. With some of the older bits and pieces she didn't know if they had come with the house or been purchased by her parents, and she didn't want to risk any unpleasantness. Anyway, as the earl said, there was no point in taking kitchen pots and worn-out furnishings.

It wasn't until she was pointing out the few items in her parents' room that she thought of the
sheelagh-ma-gig.
She could hardly see it in its bag that matched the swathed draperies, but she was aware of it as if it glowed.

How could she possibly order it taken down and removed? It must raise all kinds of questions just from being up there. And how could she explain wanting to take an old stone statue of a rudely naked woman? How could she explain to her new husband the fact that she'd have to keep it by her, but never let people touch it?

She imagined having to tell him that she'd used pagan magic to trap him in this bizarre marriage, and was
appalled—as much at the fact that she
had
done that, as at the awkwardness of having to confess it.

She'd forced him into this horribly unequal match. He was being gracious, but she had
nothing
to offer him. He must certainly never suspect the truth!

Almost shaking with panic, she tried to evade him. If she were alone, she could climb up and retrieve it, then think of a way to smuggle it out of the house. Put it in a bandbox, perhaps, or stuff it in a pillow and insist on carrying it.

No, insist on Laura carrying it. She couldn't risk the effects of being that close.

But the earl wouldn't leave her side, and Sir Arthur was inspecting everything as if he thought they would steal.

She realized in the end that she
was
going to steal the
sheelagh.
Not that it would really be stealing. But she was going to have to sneak back and take the
sheelagh
secretly. She could hardly believe it.

She was staring at her parents' bed in numb frustration, when he said, “Sad memories?”

As if summoned, they came.

She hadn't thought this house particularly important to her, but now she was leaving, a kind of grief washed over her.

Of course. It was grief, grief for her parents. She'd been so caught up in managing that she'd hardly had time to be sad, but this was the final parting. The end of all the family life she had known.

Her father had died in this bed. Her mother had been found beside him. Her father's death had not been a mystery, for he'd been in ill health for many months, suffering unexplained pain and bleeding, and infections he could not fight. In the doctor's opinion, it was a miracle he'd lived as long as he did.

But the doctor had been puzzled by her mother's death. She had been healthy apart from the exhaustion of nursing. Seeming a bit ashamed of the diagnosis, Dr. Hardy had decided she'd died of grief and despair.

Meg could believe that. Her parents had been so deeply devoted.

How they would have hated to see her make a
marriage of convenience, but they'd left her little choice. They'd been so wrapped up in each other that they'd not thought to provide properly for the future.

“Minerva?”

A moment later, she felt his touch and he turned her.

“Oh my dear,” he said, and drew her into his arms.

She didn't say anything, for she couldn't speak of her pain to a stranger, even if he was a husband. She wouldn't cry before a stranger, either. But she welcomed the strong embrace.

“Minerva, it would be better to cry than fight it.”

“I'm all right,” she said, stepping free of him, chin firm.

He looked at her somewhat wryly, but didn't argue. “Very well. We need to go. I've sent the others on ahead, but Sir Arthur is waiting for you to surrender the keys.”

She took a deep breath. “I'm sorry—”

He put his fingers over her lips. “Do stop saying that. If we can't comfort each other now and then, what is marriage for?” He looked around the room. “Do you want to take this bed? I noticed how sorry you seemed to leave it.” He made an impatient gesture. “Plague take it, my dear, I'll buy the whole house for you if—”

“No.” Meg found herself laughing, and deeply touched. “No, but thank you, Saxonhurst.”

It was only as she went downstairs that Meg wondered if she'd just rejected a solution. If he'd bought the bed . . .