Nearly a Lady (6 page)

W
innefred stood in front of a fallen fence rail, Claire the goat at her side, a hammer clenched in her hand, and aggravation etched clearly on her face. After conceding to Lilly’s demand of a London season, she’d gone straight from the house to the tool bag stored in the stable, and from there, straight to the nearest broken patch of fence. Never mind it was a part of a pasture they rarely used, she was absolutely determined to pound on something.

Given her current mood, there was a high probability that she would pound that something into tiny slivers. Realizing as much, she tossed the hammer down with an annoyed grunt. She wasn’t in the habit of destroying things in a fit of temper. Nor did she indulge in tantrums when something failed to go quite the way she liked.

“Grown men and women, parading about like a flock of peacocks,” she grumbled.

She
detested
peacocks. She’d visited a grand manor with her father once, during one of the rare house parties where children had been allowed—not encouraged, mind you, but allowed—to attend. There’d been six peacocks there, and each one more determined than the last to out-screech, out-plume, and out-bully anyone unfortunate enough to blunder into its territory.

She imagined behavior amongst the ton wasn’t too dissimilar.

“Goats are better,” she announced to Claire. “Smart, loyal, entertaining—practical animals to have about. Don’t you think?”

Claire trotted over to nose the hammer, then, apparently coming to the conclusion that it was inedible, trotted back to lie down.

“Smarter than peacocks, anyway,” Winnefred murmured.

She leaned down to pat the goat on the head, then stood and turned her face into the soft wind. She breathed in the warm air, closed her eyes, and remembered the long-ago trip that first brought her and Lilly to Scotland. She’d been a girl of thirteen, grieving, afraid, and wondering what manner of cold welcome waited for her at the end of the journey. That there might be a warm welcome waiting hadn’t occurred to her.

No one was ever particularly pleased to see Winnefred Blythe.

Her father, during his infrequent visits between hunting trips to whatever run-down residence they were currently letting, had always greeted her with an air of puzzlement and disappointment, as if he couldn’t quite fathom how he had come to shoulder the expense of a small girl.

Her governesses had eyed her with impatience. Lord Engsly had met her with open hostility, and Lady Engsly with false smiles when others were present and unconcealed contempt when they were alone. Even Lilly had been initially—and understandably—overwhelmed with the sudden weight of a new charge.

How would the master and mistress of Murdoch House see her? As a burden? An intruder? Something to be endured or forgotten? Of the opinion that despised was worse than forgotten, she’d hoped for the last.

And, in a way, had been granted her wish.

There’d been no one to meet them when they arrived. Nothing had awaited them but fields that had gone fallow, outbuildings that had gone neglected, and a quiet stone house that had been stripped of most its furnishings.

Lilly had searched from room to room in a daze, as if she expected someone to leap out from behind dusty curtains at any moment and admit to it all being a grand joke.

But Winnefred had stood outside in the dying afternoon light and heard what Lilly did not.

The welcome in the silence. The silent plea for life. What was a farm without livestock and crops? A house without light, and sound, and voices?

She’d been a child yet, still in possession of that unique ability of the very young to seamlessly blend fantasy and reality, and she had imagined she heard Murdoch House whispering to her in the wind.

They had, and though they’d had no real choice in the matter, and surviving on a farm with virtually no funds or experience proved a great deal more difficult than she’d expected, Winnefred had never wished for a chance to leave. She was proud of what they had accomplished, excited by what they could do now.

They had come so very far. They had made a home. And now Lilly had set her heart on leaving it behind in favor of a house in the city and a woman who may or may not welcome them in.

 

G
ideon walked the Murdoch House property, working his weak leg and contemplating the intricacies of promises.

He had heard men make all manner of solemn oaths in the heat and gore of battle. Some attempted to make pacts with God. They vowed, in exchange for their lives, to let off drinking and gambling, to attend church every Sunday, to treat better their wives or mistresses—or in the case of several officers, their wives
and
mistresses.

Some had made promises to themselves. He recalled a conversation he had heard between two of his men during battle. Christopher Weathers and Ian McClay, thick as thieves they’d been and always ready with a laugh. They’d shouted to each other over the whistle of shot, the boom of cannon, and the screams of men.

“If we survive, Ian, and make it to port, I’m going to buy the prettiest whore I can afford! Get stinking drunk with what’s left over!”

“Are you daft, man?! Get drunk first and buy a cheap lass! I promise, you’ll never know the difference!”

In the end, McClay had drank and whored for the both of them.

Gideon had made one promise and one promise only.

Never again would he be responsible for the well-being of another person.

In the two years since he’d left the
Perseverance
, he’d managed well enough. He’d sworn off marriage, bucked tradition and eschewed the services of a valet. He’d even refused to have live-in staff at his town house, preferring to eat at his club and relying on a maid to come during the day.

He wasn’t a hermit. On the contrary, he sought out and enjoyed the company of others. But at the end of the day, he had only himself to look after.

So how the bleeding hell had he gotten himself saddled with a pair of young women for three weeks?

And what the devil was he supposed to do with them?

It took him a few minutes of worry and frustration, but eventually he decided he wasn’t going to do anything with them at all—he was going to hire someone else to do something with them. In fact, he was going to hire a great many someone elses. He was going to cram Murdoch House so full of staff, provisions, diversions—more than two women could ever think of needing—that his presence there would be superfluous. Then he was going to hide himself away in a room and pretend he’d never thought to play hero in Scotland. It was illogical, cowardly, childish, and absolutely necessary for the retention of his sanity.

Feeling better about the current state of affairs, he turned from his path along a small pond and followed a fence line separating what appeared to be an unused pasture from an unplowed field. He topped a small rise and saw Winnefred standing with her back turned not thirty yards away.

Her hair, which he noticed earlier had begun to fall, was once again in a long braid. The gold streaks, brightened by the midday sun, wove in and out of the darker tresses like ribbons. She was doing something with the fence and talking to what appeared to be a rough-coated, black-and-white dog.

“I’ll talk her out of it. There must be something else she’d like. I’ve responsibilities here, don’t I? The animals need to be cared for, don’t they? The garden has to be tended, wood gathered and chopped for winter. There are more rails like these, ready to fall with the slightest provocation. What if we forget and put Lucien here? Where will we put the new calves . . . ?”

Gideon stopped listening when she bent to inspect a fallen rail. Trousers, it suddenly occurred to him, should be required attire for every young woman. Why hadn’t men—lords and masters that they were—not yet insisted upon it? They left a little less to the imagination, it was true, but imagination could only take one so far.

Then again, sometimes it took one a bit too far. Erotic images danced gleefully in his head. Standing perfectly still, he saw himself step up behind her quietly and run a hand down her strong back. He heard her gasp of surprise and purr of pleasure, saw the answering spark of heat in her eyes as she turned her head. He bent her over further, his for the taking, for the having. A quick work of buttons, a pull at trousers, and . . .

And devil take it, what was
wrong
with him?

After years at sea, he was no stranger to unbidden dreams of very pretty women doing very wicked things. But never before had those fantasies included an innocent who—no matter how far he attempted to remove himself from the idea—was essentially under his care.

This
was the very reason he should never be given the responsibility of another’s well-being—he couldn’t be trusted with it.

Calling himself a dozen different kinds of cad, he stood where he was, near to praying she wouldn’t turn around, and concentrated on making himself presentable. It took several long, steadying breaths, and one singularly un-arousing image of the last time he’d seen the Prince Regent—half naked and pawing at his current mistress—to manage the task, but manage it he did.

Feeling in control of himself once again, he moved toward Winnefred and the odd-looking dog. Upon closer inspection, Gideon could see the animal had a boxy head, floppy ears, and a short, pointy tail. A goat. An enormous goat looking very un-goatlike, in Gideon’s opinion, as it sat serenely in the grass, watching Winnefred and listening sympathetically to her complaints. Or it could just be begging for something in her pocket, he supposed.

“Do goats beg?” he called out to her.

Winnefred glanced over her shoulder briefly before hefting the rail that had been on the ground onto her knee, which certainly made a strong
practical
argument for the trousers.

Before he could reach her, she’d used her leg and both arms to lift the rail between two crossbeams. Stubborn, he thought, or so used to doing for herself she wouldn’t think to ask for help. She reached in her pocket and pulled out a napkin full of scraps.

“Claire does,” she told him, tossing the food at the goat, who gobbled it down greedily before turning slavish eyes to her mistress once more.

He propped his cane against the fence and leaned a hip against the wood. “You did a very kind thing for your friend this morning,” he told her, mostly because she looked as if she needed to hear it.

She kicked at a rock and frowned as it went tumbling through the grass. “I didn’t do it very graciously.”

“Not graciously, no, but you accomplished it all the same.” He bent his head in an effort to catch her eye. “Will it be so very terrible to spend a few months in London?”

“Yes.”

The absolute conviction in her voice had him straightening. “Have you ever been to London?”

She leaned back against the fence next to him. “Isn’t there anything you know you wouldn’t want to do without ever having done it before?”

“Dying comes to mind.”

One corner of her mouth hitched up. “That isn’t exactly what I meant, though I suppose the principle is the same.”

He tilted his head back in thought. “I shouldn’t care to inherit the marquessate,” he decided. “And not simply because I’m fond of my brother and his demise would be a prerequisite for the event. I just don’t want the burden.”

“Would it be so very terrible, being a marquess?” she echoed.

“Yes,” he replied, chuckling. “Without question,
yes
. The land, the people, the politics—each and every one demanding one’s time and undivided attention. I could name a few things I’d like less—like the aforementioned dying—but it would be a decidedly brief list.”

She nodded in understanding, and he considered the rarity of that amongst the ladies of his acquaintance. Women of society generally considered a title one of life’s greatest trophies, and obtaining one, one of the greatest accomplishments. Hoping to avoid one, he supposed, would be considered one of the greatest stupidities.

They stood in comfortable silence for a time—until, apparently bored, Claire uprooted herself from her spot on the grass to press her nose against Gideon’s leg and huff loudly.

“Don’t mind Claire,” Winnefred told him absently. “She does that to everyone she likes. Though to be honest, that distinction seems to be made fairly randomly.”

“I see.” He frowned down at the goat, a little concerned she might try to communicate her sudden affection for him with a solid bite. “Interesting name for a goat, Claire.”

“Hmm. The vicar has a nasty wife named Clarisse.”

“Ah.” He shook his leg a little in an attempt to dislodge his new friend. “And the Lucien I heard you mention?”

Perhaps it was coincidence that his brother’s name was also Lucien, but he doubted it.

A half smile curved her lips. “Our calf—our neighbor’s really as he’s already paid for him.”

He thought of the enjoyment he’d have informing his brother, the marquess, of his namesake. “Creative.”

“Not very,” she admitted. “We’ve only one calf a year, and it always goes to our neighbor Mr. McGregor. We name all the males Lucien—to keep from becoming attached, you understand.”

“Perfectly. I don’t suppose any of them manage to avoid becoming steers?”

“Not one.”

“As I said, creative.” He looked around the fields. “Is there a Gideon somewhere about I should be aware of?”

This time when she answered, it was with a bright grin that lit up her face and a mischievous sparkle in her amber eyes. “We’ve a cow named Giddy. She has the most enormous teats you’ve ever—”

She broke off at his laugh and tilted her head at him. “You cringe at the thought of being a marquess but appreciate having a cow named after you. I’m not certain if I find that commendable or absurd.”