Regency 09 - Redemption (28 page)

Oh, the things one could learn when
in the presence of gossipy ladies who saw servants as inanimate
objects rather than fellow humans!

Verena ignored him. Her mouth
opened to release a string of rough cant that Bri had taught her,
words she barely understood that felt strange to her
tongue.

Lord Connor chuckled. “As much as I
would love to see that, my dear, I would advise against it. He is a
lord and would take great pleasure in seeing you hanged for
attacking him.” Hard blue eyes bored into Steyne. “Although, he
does deserve it, from all that I hear about him. Mayhap if I were
to simply challenge him to a duel and run him through myself, would
that satisfy your thirst for blood?”

Lord Steyne paled dramatically.
Verena watched the man as he backed away, his bearing as straight
as any duke. His fear seemed oddly out of proportion to the threat
of a simple duel. She wondered at it.

“Not necessary,” he bit
out.

Verena continued to stare at
Steyne, very tense and unwilling to sheathe her blade until she was
absolutely sure she faced no threat…from either man.

Lord Connor reached out to her. “My
dear girl, he will not hurt you.” He waited, his hand
outstretched.

Verena finally met his gaze,
startled by the kindness in his cerulean eyes. There was something
so familiar about him but she knew the first time she’d ever seen
him was at the posting house.

Blinking, Verena dropped her hand,
hiding her knife among the folds of her gown. Her other hand moved
forward to clasp his, an action Verena was shocked to witness. What
was it about this man that made her feel safe?

A warm, pleasant sensation worked
its way up her arm. A little panicked, Verena attempted to retract
her hand. Lord Connor held fast with a firmness that was startling.
It should have frightened her. And yet…it didn’t.

“You will cease to annoy this maid,
Steyne, or you will answer to me.”

Verena shivered at the threat in
his voice, uneasy that he seemed to so easily intimidate others.
Surely, this was a man she should fear?

“Very well,” the viscount said as
he brushed off his jacket. “If I had known you had the prior claim
to her…affections, I would never had favored her with my suit.” He
stalked off down the hall, visibly annoyed.

“Now I shall have to acquire a new
position,” Verena heard herself murmur. She tugged on her hand,
relieved when he released her. The vague sense of loss she felt
confused her.

Lord Connor looked at her, his
sharp gaze missing little. She silently cursed her loose tongue.
She knew how important it was for her to remain hidden, yet this
man seemed to get past her guard—and she barely knew
him.

“Do not worry about that. I’ll
speak to Feldspar as well. He likes me a good deal better than the
bloody viscount.” He said it without the faintest trace of
boasting, merely stating a truth. Then, the faintest tinge of pink
mounted his high cheekbones, his eyes widening just the slightest
bit at his vulgar language. “Beg pardon.”

She smiled in response to his
apology. Gentlemen were not so careful with their tongues when
servants were about and if they did notice, they did not bother to
apologize. “Thank you, milord,” she added so softly she wasn’t sure
if she spoke or merely allowed the thought to enter into her mind.
“That man has been bothering me since I came on here.”

“I have no doubt,” murmured his
lordship. “You are very beautiful.”

As much as Verena seemed to
instinctively trust this man, she could not prevent a tensing in
her chest at his simple compliment.

“Do not distress yourself over the
viscount, my dear,” he said soothingly. “I won’t let him frighten
you again. Meanwhile, you look as though you could use a
friend.”

She looked at him in shock. She
couldn’t believe what she was hearing. This man was offering to be
her friend? Only her friend? Or would he exact payment from her
later in a way she dreaded to even think about? A slight shudder
racked her frame.

Looking up into his kind blue eyes,
she felt that odd pulsing of trust that made little sense. She of
all people knew just how misleading appearance could be. Wasn’t her
father a prime example of that?

She found herself saying yes to
Lord Connor before she had really thought it through.

“Splendid! Let us start this
friendship off on the right foot. Allow me to introduce myself. I
am Lord Connor Northwicke. My friends, of which you are now one,
call me Con.” He swept her a highly exaggerated bow and she felt a
smile threaten.

Instead, she curtsied in quite the
same exaggerated fashion and said, “I am Doll Rendel,
milord.”

“Well, Miss Doll, where are you
bound this glorious afternoon? And I must insist that you address
me as Con or Connor if you prefer.”

Verena paused. “It would be most
improper to be on such familiar terms with you, milord. Indeed,
your own wife wouldn’t dare to address you so. I would lose my
position for certain were someone to hear.”

Her companion’s eyes narrowed and
he released an impatient sound. “Very well. If anyone is within
hearing, call me whatever you feel is appropriate. But in private,
I will brook no arguments.” He looked away, his stance casual but
something in his manner most revealing. “I have no wife so one
cannot say how she would address me.”

Verena had no response to that, nor
an explanation for the sudden lightening she felt in her whole
body.

“Now,” Lord Connor asked, “what are
your duties for the day?”

Should she reveal her next task? He
would probably follow her whether she told him or not. “I am to
dust the upper guest chambers,” she said as she cast her glance
back the way he had come. “Your room is one of them.”

As she met his eyes again, she
attempted to feel as nonchalant as her tone suggested.

Lord Connor adopted a bantering
tone and said, “I am ashamed to admit I have never dusted before.
Mayhap you will teach me?”

His expression was sufficiently
cajoling. She smiled very faintly and walked toward his
room.

For the next hour, Lord Connor was
tutored in the fine art of housewifery. Verena could tell he didn’t
enjoy the work itself but he seemed to delight in making her smile
or laugh. It was obvious to the veriest lackwit that he bungled his
attempts at cleaning on purpose.

“Why do you never wear a
hat?”

Lord Connor glanced up from his
position on the floor before the empty fireplace. “Excuse
me?”

Verena glanced down, her cheeks
coloring at the forwardness of her query. “A hat. You never wear
one.”

He chuckled. “I am in doors. Nobody
wears a hat in doors.”

She glanced down as him as he
polished the grate with a mixture of blacking, small beer, and
soap. The muscles in his back and shoulders rippled beneath the
thin shirt he wore, having discarded his jacket and waistcoat when
she’d informed him of “his” duties. He smiled as he worked, then
started chatting about something, she knew not what. She was too
distracted by him to pay attention to what he was
saying.

The sun streaming through the
window played over his golden hair, giving him an unearthly halo
like glow. She experienced a distinct sense of familiarity at the
sight, almost as if she’d seen him thus once before. Shaking away
the silly thought, she persisted in her previous line of
questioning.

“I know gentlemen do not wear hats
in doors. Why do you never wear one while out?”

Her voice rudely cut through
whatever he’d been saying.

He stopped again, swiveling on his
heels and giving her his full attention. Blue eyes twinkling
merrily up at her, he replied, “The Corn Laws do not interest
you?”

“Indeed they do,” she protested,
turning away to hide her pink cheeks. She only partially lied.
“They are unfair and unwise.” She picked up a small Dresden
shepherdess and stared at it, wishing she’d never voiced such a
personal question in the first place.

It was a pattern of sorts for their
time together. He would settle in with whatever humiliating task
she gave him—she’d even gone so far as to set him to scrubbing out
the chamberpots—and she would proceed to try to embarrass him with
impertinent questions, all in an unsubtle attempt to drive him
away.

But even after daily mistreatment
at her hands, he still sought her out, still chose to spend
glorious days like the ones they were currently enjoying helping
her with menial work. She was running out of humiliating tasks and
he still stayed, working as though he received wages and showing no
knowledge of her motives. He had to know how unconventional it was
for him to do what he was doing!

“I hate them.”

Startled, she nearly dropped the
priceless figure in her hands. “The Corn Laws?” she offered,
carefully wiping the knick-knack and returning it to the relative
safety of its mantel perch.

Tipping her head to gaze down at
him, she couldn’t help but smile at the amusement filling his
eyes.

“No,” he laughed. “Well, yes, of
course I do but I was answering your impertinent question. I hate
hats.”

“That’s as good a reason as any,”
she told him, her own chuckles sounding a little strange to her
ears.

Laughter hadn’t been the norm in
her father’s house. After joining Feldspar’s household, she’d
laughed more with Bri, despite the ofttimes hard work, than she’d
ever laughed in her life. Yet another indication that where she was
now was where she should be.

Still chuckling, albeit a trifle
edged with sorrow, Verena gave the mantelpiece one last swipe with
her feather duster, returning only to brush a trembling finger over
the frilly gown of the shepherdess. Such a frivolous little
trinket, one of many scattered throughout the great manor house.
Funny, how such unimportant baubles brought such joy to the easily
pleased Lady Feldspar.

“My mother had a little glass
horse. I believe she loved it as much as Lady Feldspar loves each
and every one of her trinkets. My father let me keep it after she
died.” Tears threatened at the bittersweet memory, one of the very
few times her father had shown her any kindness.

“Your father?”

Every muscle froze at the casual
inquiry. “My father?”

“Indeed, yes. This is the first
time you’ve mentioned him.”

Verena glanced down at her
companion and quickly away. She couldn’t quite meet Lord Connor’s
penetrating gaze, too aware that he’d read the wariness in her own.
He was too careful around her for her not to realize that he sensed
her unease.

What a silly, stupid mistake! “My
father was a poor farmer, of course. He died.” Did her words sound
as stiff and defensive to him as they did to her?

She didn’t dare look at him.
Instead, she concentrated all her effort on the already spotless
mantelpiece.

She was all too aware, however,
that Lord Connor still crouched at her feet, unmoving, his eyes
boring into her. Why, oh why, did she feel his presence so
strongly?

“I believe this is done,” commented
the nobleman. He rose, stepping back to allow her a closer
look.

Thankful for the subject change,
Verena inspected his work, smiling to herself as he glared at his
blackened hands. “Indeed, milord, you are a natural. Are you sure
you’re really the son of a duke?”

“Connor,” he said in a tone that
suggested it was an argument they’d had often.

Frowning, she turned away, but
Connor refused to let her dismiss him so easily. He captured her
hand, his warm fingers enclosing her suddenly cold ones.

“Is it really so much to ask,
Doll?”

Weeks had passed since Verena had
adopted her new identity. Her name was a fanciful variation of her
second name, Idalia. Doll had been her mother’s pet name for her
and, until now, only two other people had ever used it, her brother
and her best friend. Slightly distracted, her fingers rose to her
bodice, to the simple pendant that nestled there, safe from view
beneath layers of black fabric. The necklace her best friend had
given her, long ago, always reminded her that no matter how bad
things became, goodness still existed in the world.

“I don’t understand your
determination that I do so,” she told Lord Connor, forcing her mind
away from bittersweet memories. “It is of no consequence what I
call you, surely.”

He drew her closer. “It matters to
me. Are we not friends enough that you can humor me in this one
matter?”

“Friends? You amuse yourself,
nothing more.” She jerked her hand free, anger rising so quickly
she could barely breathe. “When you leave here with your cynical
friend, you will no more think of me than you’ll think of the
peacocks who grace the lawns. I am something different in your idle
life, a new conquest, a challenge. I am nothing to you, you spoiled
dilettante!”

His face tightened, lips thinning
and eyes narrowing. “You have a very low opinion of me.”