Lois Greiman (5 page)

It made her feel strangely squeamish. She pulled her gaze upward and pinned it to his face. “How comfortable you plannin’ on gettin’?”

For a moment his teeth flashed. Were they as ungodly white as they seemed, or was it simply the contrast against his skin, or the candlelight, or the proximity.

“As comfortable as possible,” he said, and tugged the shirt over his head.

She didn’t mean to step back, but he was now half-naked, and for a gentleman of leisure, he was packed as tight as a damned pig sausage. His chest was mounded with lean muscle and not an ounce of fat showed around the waistband of his low-slung trousers.

“Go to bed,” he said.

She stared. “What?”

A crescent of teeth shown again. “To bed.”

“Oh.” She nodded, goose-stepped to the mattress, and crawled on. But what the devil was she supposed to do now? They were still all of two feet apart. She lay down, stiff as a soup ladle, and pulled the covers up to her chin.

He kicked off his boots and in a moment his hands were on his trouser ties. The strings loosened. His fingers paused, and she realized with a slight start that she was holding her breath.

He shuffled his feet, stilling his fingers.

She yanked her gaze to his.

“The good news,” he began, “is that you don’t have to watch.”

“Oh,” she said again, then realized she was still staring and turned with a jerk toward the wall.

She heard him open the trunk, recognized the sigh of fabric against flesh, and imagined the garment dropping over the taut muscles of his chest. Why would a viscount be so fit? If she were going to be abducted, at least it could be by someone she could outrun in a footrace. But judging by his muscle tone, she’d be caught before she launched from the mattress. And if it came to a test of strength, she’d have little chance. Therefore, she’d best think of another way to escape. But at that very moment she heard the trunk slide across the floor to the door.

Damn. She may have to wrestle him for her freedom after
all, she thought, and fell asleep with that disturbing image dancing in her head.

Nicol steadied the wooden tray and closed the door with his shoulder.

She opened her eyes immediately, but sat up more slowly. “Where am I?” she asked, her voice still husky with sleep. God’s balls, he envied that.

“I brought breakfast,” he said.

“Yeah?” she asked, and propped her back against the wall behind her.

Sometime during the night she had taken the pins out of her hair. It lay spread across her shoulders, and though it desperately needed washing, it softened her face a mite. Maybe his gut instincts were right. Maybe she was the woman he had met on that sunny Teleerian evening. Maybe not. But whatever the case, it was too late to turn back now, for he had made a promise to a princess.

“Yes,” he said.

She reached eagerly for the tray. The skin around her left eye had turned an arresting shade of green. He gritted his teeth and pulled the tray toward his chest.

“A few rules,” he said. “You do not say, yeah. You say yes.”

“Oh, yeah. Sure.” She reached again.

He scowled. The maid in Teleere had been rough, true, but there had been something about her, an intelligence, a wit. He had been certain from the first moment that she could perform the task set before them. But her accent had not been so heavy, her hair so greasy, her cheek so
green
. Perhaps he was losing his mind.

“Y’ going to give me that food or not?” she asked.

“Not,” he said, “until you say the word ‘yes.’”

She repeated the word clearly enough, so he handed her the
tray and took a seat on the trunk. He had moved it back against the wall once they’d pulled anchor and had spent a good deal of time there since. He hated the damned thing already.

Breakfast consisted of pasty gruel and rancid cider. The girl ate it as if it were mince pie and heather wine, or as if she couldn’t tell the difference. He watched in amazement.

She glanced up, still spooning in porridge. “’Ow come you don’t sleep?”

“How.” Watching her eat made him feel tired. “
How
come I don’t sleep?”

“Don’t ask me,” she said, speaking around a mouthful of well-congealed gruel. “I sleep like a baby.”

“You sleep like a road mender. A snoring road mender.”

“I don’t snore.” She looked affronted even as she wiped her mouth with the back of her hand.

“And you talk in your sleep. You will quit both. In a few short weeks you will learn to be cultured, elegant, and refined.”

She shrugged. “Yeah. Sure.”

He snatched the cup out of her hand, causing her to stare at him open mouthed.

“Yes, my lord,” he instructed.

So she repeated his words.

“And never…” He managed to resist beating his head against the wall. What the hell had he been thinking? Yes, he had been inebriated when he’d first met her, but he hadn’t been deranged. Had he? “Never say ‘yeah.’”

“’Ow come?” she asked, and he tightened a fist and knuckled down.

T
he carriage jolted along, bearing them due north. Megan was careful to note the direction. Since she’d had no chance to escape during the voyage, and since the viscount hadn’t left her alone for a moment on the noisy wharves, she’d damned well better make good use of her time now. She stifled a scowl.

“’Ow long does it take to get to your ’ouse?”

He pulled his gaze back to her, his expression dark, as though he’d been thinking things that did nothing to lighten his mood. Or maybe he was about to strangle her. He really didn’t like it when she dropped her aitches. Mum’s speech had been quite proper, but it had done her little good in the long run.

“Several hours,” he said. “Go to sleep.”

“Sleep,” she scoffed. “I ’ad me enough sleep to last me a month of nevers.” She hadn’t actually slept all that well. During the days on the ship he had drilled her endlessly about proper speech and etiquette. Apparently ladies were not supposed to curse or get soup in their hair or spit or take stairs two
at a time, or do a hundred other perfectly normal things. The list of rules had kept the days busy. She had spent the nights planning. Once they’d set sail, he had ceased worrying about her escape. Perhaps he knew she had never learned to swim. Perhaps he knew much more than she realized. Or maybe he was only guessing. Guessing and doubting his suppositions. Surely he must think her as thick as muddy water by now, because no matter how many times he corrected her, she always dropped her aitches. She nearly smiled at the thought, especially when she noticed the dark hollows under his eyes.

“Got yourself a big ’ouse do y’?” she asked.

He glanced at her. His arms were crossed against his chest. He wore the brown woolen shirt again and the same faded trousers. Although he hadn’t donned the leather apron, he’d pulled the hat low over his face when they’d been at the docks. Why? Perhaps he wasn’t a nobleman at all. Perhaps, he was a criminal of some sort. Which brought her back to the original question. What did he want with her?

His mouth was pulled into a hard line, but he didn’t correct her speech. He couldn’t be giving up already, could he?

“Newburn Hall is large by some standards.” He glanced out the window again.

“Got servants and all I suspect.”

He turned slowly back to her. “I’m offering you a chance to better yourself.” He paused. Outside the rattling carriage, the wheels grated noisily against the hard-packed earth. The horses’ cadenced hoofbeats could barely be heard above the rumble. His driver had met them at the docks with his carriage. She had hoped for a moment to appeal to him for help, but he had flicked the door open and whisked away a moment later. She hadn’t even caught a glimpse of his face. “Why do you refuse to take it?”

She blinked owlishly. She’d been perfecting that, too, and hoped it looked as daft as it felt. He’d taken her woolen gown
and given her a pink muslin to replace it. It was a simple garment with elemental lines and a high bodice, but it was still a far cry from the sheer ugliness of the woolen. And that put her at a disadvantage. Luckily, she’d had no opportunity to wash her hair yet. “I ain’t refusin’—”

He gritted his teeth at her phrasing, then relaxed against the upholstered seat and watched her. “Would you rather I turn you over to Teleerian authorities. Tell them you robbed me?”

She made her eyes go big and round. “I didn’t rob you, Govner. I swear it. I never laid eyes on you before the other night.”

Was there a flicker of doubt in his eyes? If so, this was surely the time to fan the flames of uncertainty.

“But you come sneakin’ into me room, grabbin’ me.” She made a jerky motion as if to seize him. “Sayin’ I took things I never took. Scared me ’alf-witted, you did. But then you says you want to take care of me, to feed me three squares and teach me stuff…” She shrugged as if she were wounded but forgiving. “I goes along with it. Does me best to—”

His expression darkened. Interesting. She hadn’t actually thought it was possible.

“I does me best,” she repeated, letting her voice warble a little for effect. “But nothin’s good enough.”

“Are you saying you are incapable of saying ‘how’?”

“I can say ‘ ’ow’ good as the next person.”

For a moment she thought he might reach across the carriage and throttle her. But finally he chuckled. “Damnation,” he said, and rubbed his forehead with slow, firm strokes.

“You got a ’eadache?” she asked.

He didn’t respond.

“Probably cuz you don’t get no sleep. ’Ow come is that? You got yourself a guilty conscience or somethin’ cuz I knew a fella once. Name was George. ’E worked in the mill. ’E used to sleep like a babe, then one day, on ’is way ’ome ’e
finds a purse alongside the road. ’E picks it up and inside there’s a bundle of money.” She nodded, eyes wide. “Someone musta lost it whilst walkin’ along. So George, well ’e keeps it. Couldn’t do much else seein’s as ’ow ’e doesn’t know whose it is nor nothin’. But ever since that day ’e doesn’t sleep a—”

“I’ll pay you.”

She stopped talking. “What’s that?”

“I’ll give you a sentron if you can speak to my satisfaction by the end of the week.”

“A sentron? Just to talk good?” Her mind buzzed along. If she agreed, he would surely be more likely to trust her, and there was no reason she couldn’t simply disappear if things took a turn for the worse. And if he wanted to pay her to talk, she was willing to take his money as long as he offered it.

“You got yourself a deal, Govner,” she said. “I’ll try even ’arder than I ’ave been.”

His eyebrow twitched, but he kept his arms crossed against his torso and his gaze steady. “And you’ll not try to escape?”

She considered acting shocked, but maybe they had a bit too much history for him to believe that act, so she blew out a careful breath and slowly shook her head.

“Listen, I don’t mean to ’urt your feelings, cuz maybe your intentions is honorable, but I don’t want to go makin’ no vow what I’ll ’ave to be breakin’.”

“And why would you have to break it?”

She raised a brow and pointed to her eye. She’d seen it in the tiny mirror that hung above the berth in the barque. The skin had taken on a sickish green color that spread well past her cheekbone. She rather liked it. “I didn’t get this from no natural catastrophe,” she said. “I got it from a fella I’d not met before. Now I’d like to believe you’re different, Govner, but I’s been around a while, and I—”

“I’ll not raise a hand to you, and I’ll feed you well. You needn’t pocket your crackers.”

So he had seen that, had he? They’d served some sort of dry wafer aboard ship and since she’d been full enough after a meal of barley soup and dark bread, she’d stowed the crackers in her pocket with her weighted dice and the piece of colored glass she’d found at the wharves. “Well.” She hadn’t meant for him to recognize her propensity for hoarding and wondered if he was watching her even more closely than she knew. “A girl never knows when she might get peckish.”

“Do you promise?” he asked.

“Very well then, Govner, you got yourself a deal,” she vowed just as the carriage began to slow. She glanced out the window. “What’s ’appening?” she asked, but he ignored her as he rose to his feet, head bent to accommodate the low ceiling.

The door opened as if on its own, and he stepped down, reaching for her hand.

She came forward with a scowl, noticing the driver had already disappeared. “I thought you said it took some time to reach your ’ouse. We ain’t been travelin’ for more than an hour. And—”

“We’re not going to Newburn.”

“Why not?” He gave her hand a little tug as she stepped down, turning her gaze from side to side. “Where’s the city?”

“There isn’t one.”

“How ’bout a village.”

“None of those either.” Was there laughter in his voice? Was he laughing at her?

She narrowed her eyes a little, squinting against the sun on the fresh-fallen snow and not quite seeing the creature that ambled up until it had nuzzled her leg. She jerked back a step, crowding against the carriage.

“What’s that?” she asked.

He scowled down at the thing. “That seems to be a pig.”

“What’s it doing here?” she asked, but she knew what it was doing. It was rutting around under her skirts, smacking her bare skin. “Holy damn!” she swore, and leapt back onto the carriage step, but at that moment she found that he was laughing at her.

“You won’t think it’s so all-fired funny when he ruins the fancy clothes you give me.”

“I can get you another gown, lass,” he said, still chuckling as he glanced to his left. She followed his gaze.

A boy of ten or twelve years was racing across the snow toward them, his battered coat flapping with his speed, but he skidded to a halt not five feet away, breathing hard and gazing up at them as if they’d just arrived from the moon.

“Is this your pig?” Nicol asked.

The lad nodded, then bent and snatched up the animal. It squealed as if bitten and scrambled wildly, but he pulled it to his chest with it squirming like an eel.

“What’s your name, lad?”

“Brady,” he said. “Master Brady Barnes.” He cut his round eyes toward Megan, and she gave him a smile. There was something about his unruly cowlick and smudged cheeks that made him look impishly innocent.

“Well, Brady, perhaps you should inform your mother that we have arrived,” Nicol said.

The boy nodded once, backed away a few steps, and sped for the house. Megan watched him go, craning her neck to see past the carriage, over the livestock fences, and on to the house beyond. It was an old wattle-and-daub cottage, boasting a thatched roof and square-paned windows. Megan slid her gaze away, over the snow-white hills and barren trees to the horizon. She licked her lips and remained calm. “What are we doing ’ere?” she asked.

“I didn’t think we needed the distractions of Newburn Hall
just now. We will begin your lessons here where we’ll have more privacy.”

Damn right they’d have privacy. Privacy for him to perform all kinds of atrocities if he had a mind to. She’d just have to keep an open mind about that escaping idea, but she shrugged, not sharing her thoughts. “I ain’t never been on a farm before.”

She thought he would correct her grammar, but he didn’t. Instead, he had a word with the nearly invisible driver, then ushered her toward the house. The door opened long before they reached it, and a woman emerged. She was plump, middle-aged, and homey.

“My lord,” she greeted, reddened hands busy drying in her apron. “Welcome to Woodlea.”

They stepped onto the single stone stair and through the arched doorway. Kitchen smells tickled Megan’s nostrils. Roast goose and sugared yams. No. Wait. There was a tangy scent to the air. She closed her eyes to ascertain the source, but there were too many evocative smells to sort them all out. Her taste buds ached.

“You must be Mistress Barnes,” the viscount said, and Megan dragged her attention back to the woman. Her round cheeks were dimpled and nearly as red as her hands.

“I am that, my lord, and this…” She motioned to the left and a young woman sidled shyly up to her side. “This is me daughter Deirdre.” The girl was not more than sixteen years of age, dark of hair, clear of eye, and as bonny as a spring morning. Megan almost smiled. If this girl couldn’t distract the viscount, no one could. “She’ll be helping her ladyship with her hair and all.”

It took a moment for Megan to realize the woman was referring to herself, a moment longer to understand that she was still rambling off names and duties.

“And me wee lad is round about somewheres,” she added, glancing over their heads. “He’ll be fetchin’ your firewood and helpin’ out where he can. Come in now,” she said, and waved a dimpled hand as she led the way into the house’s interior.

Megan glanced about. She had seen bigger houses in Portshaven. In fact, she had been in a few—mostly at night and generally uninvited. But what this house lacked in size, it more than made up for in mouthwatering aromas. Through a narrow doorway, a bright fire crackled above a stone hearth, and from her left she heard children giggling together.

“Shall I send Brady to fetch your trunks, my lord?”

“That won’t be necessary,” he said, ushering Megan up the bare wooden steps. “My driver will bring them after he sees to the horses.”

“He’ll be needing a place to sleep then?”

“No. That won’t be necessary.”

“Very well then, my lord,” she agreed uncertainly.

“We don’t mean to be a bother, Mistress.”

“Don’t be silly,” she said, and, glancing up at him, blushed lightly and giggled like a schoolgirl. Megan watched with sheer pleasure. By the looks of things,
she
might be the one to distract the viscount. Or at least she might hope to be. Megan almost giggled herself. A full sentron, a few hearty meals, and the viscount occupied elsewhere. “Lord Landow hasn’t been here since his wife and baby died. Poor things.” She shook her head and clucked. “It’ll be good for us to have someone to look after. Keeps us in our slippers so to speak,” she said, and swung open a heavy-paneled door. The room was tidy, but it was more. It was cozy and snug and inviting. “This is to be your bedchamber, my lord, if it suits.”

He barely glanced inside. “It suits very well,” he assured her.

Her blush deepened, and she scurried away, as if too flustered to stay in one place for long. “And your ladyship…” she began, then stopped before the next door. “My apolo
gies,” she said, glancing at Megan. “Lord Landow didn’t give me your name.”

Megan opened her mouth, but Nicol spoke first. “Elizabeth,” he said.

“Lady Elizabeth.” She bobbed agreement, then swung the door open. Megan scanned the room. Two long, narrow windows graced the chamber, but neither of them could be opened. “If you need anything, you’ve but to ring the bell near your bed. We’ll hear it in our quarters downstairs and come up straightaway. The same with you of course, my lord.”

“Thank you, Mistress.”

“Might you have any questions or requests before I go about my business?”

“Is there a bathing room, Mistress?” he asked.

“Silly me. Of course,” she said, and ambled quickly down the hall, pointing to rooms farther down as she went. “My lord’s sitting room. The nursery. His lady’s study. She was a scientist of sorts.”