My Dearest Enemy (37 page)

She blinked rapidly, fighting the threatened onset of tears. He looked up and saw the single escapee fall from a lower lash. He jerked forward, one involuntary step, before his jaw locked and his gaze went abruptly blank.

"Send word to the inn when they come back," he said. "I'll stay until his return and then I'll come and see him."

She bit down hard on her lips, nodding her understanding.

"Lil—"

She looked down, unable to look at him, so controlled—men always had control—accepting that which threatened to rend her life apart. Oh, he was undoubtedly very sorry for what had occurred and yes, he'd warned her even last night that this morning would bring recriminations. But he hadn't told her they'd tear her apart, that he'd survive and she—

She would not… she would not give in to it. She would be as strong as he.

"Yes," she said. "I will tell him."

When she looked up, he'd gone.

Mill House's drawing room and antechambers were empty, its hallways hollow. A messenger had arrived with a letter from Evelyn stating her intention to remain in Cleave Cross with Bernard and Polly Makepeace through the weekend.

With Lily's appetite destroyed and no one else to cook for, Mrs. Kettle had abandoned the kitchen. The only other occupants of the huge old house, Merry and Kathy, settled into Teresa's room to coo over babies and compare bellies. They treated Lily with kindly contempt, a society of expectant motherhood from which she was excluded.

Harrowed by memory, counting down each hour to her last in Mill House, Lily fell to cleaning. She spent hours rubbing brass and scrubbing marble mantles, polishing windows and buffing woodwork until even the fragrance of Francesca's sweet-scented sachets faded. Only the scent of Avery's tobacco clung to the library curtains. Lily avoided the place, as she avoided the third floor of the house, and the sitting room, the mill pond, and—

It was just as well she had lost Mill House. In just the space of three weeks he had made it his. The house which over the course of five years had become her home was suddenly a prison, sleep an exhaustion, memory a torment.

With the house as vacant and pristine as a waiting sarcophagus, she then started putting her guardianship in order. She began in the early morning and was still at it by late afternoon. She'd seen to the maids' futures by writing letters of recommendation and character references, noting names of people who would help them find employment, and organizations that might see them placed. Finally, she'd begun writing a note to Avery, pleading with him to keep her horses. For her sake, she knew he would.

She'd almost finished when Kathy appeared, panting and wide-eyed. "Gentleman to see you, Miss Bede."

Avery
? She half rose and caught herself. No. Kathy would have said as much. Indeed, had it been Avery, he'd have appeared without announcement, probably carrying Kathy. "If it's a tradesman, Kathy, tell him I've no need for him."

"Ain't a tradesman. A gentleman, I said and a gentleman I meant. And a foreign gentleman, at that."

"Foreign?"

"Aye. Dark, slim chap with a great hat and an odd way of speech and what's more he come to see you specific like. 'Miss Bede, please,' he says. So, I put him in the sitting room."

"Very well," Lily said dully and setting her pen down beside her letter, followed Kathy to the sitting room.

A slender young man rose as she entered, his tall, oddly shaped hat clenched in one dark fist. A huge grin split his darkly tanned face. He swept forward in a deep, courtly bow and when he rose his brown eyes sparkled.

"Lillian Bede!" He eyed her with evident gratification. "I am delighted, positively delighted, to make your acquaintance."

Why, the fellow was an American. "I'm afraid you have the advantage of me, sir," she said.

He laughed, a deep rumbling sound. "Forgive me, Miss Bede. You'll think me a mannerless cur, indeed. Allow me to introduce myself, I'm John Neigl."

Seeing the name offered no illumination, he went on. "I had the honor, well,
sometimes
it was an honor." His kind eyes sparkled even brighter, inviting her to share his amusement. "Sometimes it was just dam—er, darned fortunate, and on occasion a right ordeal, to be Avery Thorne's companion for most of the last five years."

Avery's companion? She thought. Of course, he'd written about the American leader of their expedition who'd contracted malaria and later joined them on other ventures. Impulsively, she held out her hand, smiling warmly. He stepped forward and took it, pumping it up and down enthusiastically.

"I arrived in England two days ago and I made immediately here. I simply had to meet the redoubtable, the one, the only Miss Lillian Bede."

Her smile faded and her brow puckered. Had the malaria affected the fellow's mind? "I'm afraid I don't know what you mean exactly," she said.

She indicated the seat from which he'd risen. "Please. Won't you be seated and Kathy," she said sending a sharp look at the maid, who was fussing about with a feather duster in a patently ineffectual manner, "if you could get Mr. Neigl and me tea?"

Kathy sent her a sour look, and with a little huff of annoyance flounced out of the room.

"Avery tried to tell us you were a scarecrow with a mustache and an eye that could fry an egg, but I knew better. You're exactly as I pictured," John said, taking his seat and balancing his ten gallon hat on his knee. "I knew you'd be a beauty from your letters."

Her brows climbed even higher. "My letters?"

"Avery didn't tell you?" Again the unaffected laughter. "Just like him. He used to read us your letters, ma'am. Not every one of them, of course, but bits from here and there. He kept them, all of them, through every journey and every adventure. Sometimes when things got a mite rough"—his eyes flickered away and she knew that the roughness had been more than a "mite"—"Avery would read something you'd written, to sort of bolster us up."

She stared at him in shocked silence, unable to believe what she heard. Avery had kept all her letters? She'd kept his of course, but that was for Bernard—or so she'd told herself. She bit the inner lining of her cheek. She would not fall apart. John Neigl prattled happily on, unaware of the effect of his words.

"Why, I remember once, in Brazil, when the guides had been run off by some hostiles and we were left to flounder about on our own for, oh Lord, at least a month." The memory brought a flash of teeth. "I don't mind admitting that we were pretty despondent, but Avery used your words to cheer us.

" 'Here now, chaps,' he said, 'If Miss Bede does not worry about our welfare, why should you?' At which someone, probably myself, asked why you were so stingy with your concern and to which Avery replied, 'Why, and I quote Miss Bede, God takes care of fools and children thus, being men, you are double safeguarded against misadventure.' "

Lily's face flamed. John chuckled.

"Another time we were in Turkey as guests of this nomadic prince. One of the chap's sisters, an authentic princess mind you, developed a tendre for Avery. Actually wanted him to marry her. Surprised the hell out of us." John grinned hugely.

Lily in the process of feeling jealousy set torch to her heart, blinked at the man. "Why is that?"

He blinked back, just as perplexed. "Come now," he said. "In spite of his claims to be the picture of gentlemanly graces no one would ever mistake Old

Avery for Oscar Wilde, would they? I mean, he's witty as all hel—witty as can be but—"

"He has very nice manners," Lily cut in.

"He has no manners at all!" John guffawed without a trace of malice. "Brusque, intolerant, as subtle as a club on the old noggin, that's Avery Thorne."

She had no answer for this monumental piece of disloyalty and could only frown.

"Anyway," John went on, thoroughly unconcerned with Lily's frown, "Avery would have none of the girl and when the prince asked him why, Avery said, 'I am unsuitable husband material. I am childish and immature and irresponsible. I have it on the best authority, that being Miss Lillian Bede of Devon, England, that what I have defrauded the reading public into believing is an exploration of the world's last unknown corners is in actuality nothing but a quest to find the world's largest primate and then challenge him to a chest thumping contest.' "

John burst into an unfettered laughter that lasted a full five minutes and finally ended with him wiping tears from his eyes. "You should have seen the prince's face."

"Confused?" Lily asked coolly.

"No!" John burst out. "That's what's so funny. He understood perfectly! He nodded very sagely, sighed, and said you sounded like his wife!"

"I'm glad my words afforded so many so much amusement."

"Oh, they did. I assure you, they did!" He smiled brightly through tears of amusement. "It's no wonder Avery loved your letters."

She froze.

Kathy chose that moment to reappear, huffing under the weight of an elaborate silver tea service. John jumped up, took the heavy platter, and set it down on the table.

"I can't begin to tell you how much we anticipated the next salvo in your correspondence," John said blithely. "I don't know who was more eager for your letters, Avery or the rest of us."

"I'm sure—" she began, darting a glance at Kathy.

"I am, too. Avery was." His smile went from one of amusement to admiration. "It pleased us."

"You can leave, Kathy," Lily said.

"I'll just open the windows here, it bein' such a fine day—"

"
Leave, Kathy
."

With another flounce, Kathy disappeared out of the door. As soon as she left, Lily stood up. "Mr. Neigl, I'm afraid you've made—"

"I'm sorry. I guess I'm not much better housebro-ken than Avery, am I?" he asked in chagrin. "Barreling in here and making free with your history and all, but I just feel I know you so well, like a member of the family. I owe Avery more than I can ever repay and more than that, I really
like
the big son-of-a—the big guy."

"I'd say that Avery Thorne is like my brother, but that would be a lie," he continued, his tone for the first time sobering. "Avery Thorne is my leader. He has been from the start though I was the one who put the original party together. If I were one of your Scotsmen he'd be my laird. If I were an Indian, he'd be my chief. There's no man I would rather be caught with in a rough patch; no man I'd sooner trust my life with and I have," he assured her gravely, "a dozen times over. He never failed once. Though he thinks he did."