Suzanne Robinson (34 page)

“I’m s-sorry I slapped you. Do you hate me?”

“Never, my love.”

He stroked her hair and smiled. That was his Liza, a termagant on the surface, and a noodle beneath. He cradled her in his arms while she wept, then held her while she fell asleep. She was exhausted, but he felt sure she would be more reasonable now that she’d learned the limits of his patience. She would listen to him, now, and he wouldn’t have to reveal his fear of losing her.

The night passed quickly for him. He spent it beside Liza, not having bothered to return to his own room to change. The next morning she was still asleep when he woke. Not wanting to disturb her, he went to his own rooms. He washed and dressed, and had breakfast.

Eager to see Liza, but unwilling to interfere with
her rest, he decided to collect Nick and go for a long ride about the estate. Nick was willing, since he’d just purchased a new Thoroughbred and was eager to test the animal. They galloped across meadows and jumped ditches until they came to Jocelin’s favorite path through his preserve of woodland. By late afternoon they were riding through a coppice of hornbeam, alder, hazel, and chestnuts.

Nick pulled alongside him and patted the neck of his roan stallion. “You’re in a much better humor. Yesterday you looked like Oberon after a fight with Titania.”

“Oh, God, you’ve been reading
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
.”

Nick grinned devilishly at him, put a hand to his breast, and recited as they rode beneath the branches of a hornbeam.

Jocelin clapped a hand over one ear, but Nick pulled it away and raised his voice to declaim with fervid drama:

Jocelin rolled his eyes. “Are you finished?”

“What’s the matter, old love, your Titania giving you a hard chase?”

“Oh, we had a little quarrel, you might say, but it’s over now.”

“You apologized, did you, old chap? It’s the only way with women.”

“Of course I didn’t apologize. She did.”

Nick raised his brows and pulled up on his reins so that his mount halted. “Liza? Liza apologized? What for?”

“Oh, for losing her temper and quarreling with me.” Jocelin gave his friend a placid smile. “It’s over though. She said she hates quarreling with me, so I expect she’ll be more amenable to handing Pennant’s over to a manager now and not working herself so hard. I was quite firm, so she understood how it’s to be between us.”

“She did, did she? This is Liza Elliot that we’re talking about?”

“What do you mean?”

Nick propped his forearms on his saddle and shook his head at Jocelin. “She’s just going to abandon Pennant’s completely? You’re not describing the Liza I know.”

“Perhaps not completely, but she’s changed. She loves me.”

“How do you know she’s changed?”

“I told you. Last night when I went to unlock her door, she threw herself into my arms and told me how sorry she was.”

“Let me understand this, old dear. You locked Liza Elliot in her room like a naughty tyke. You told her not to bother with her beloved Pennant’s and lectured her on how much smarter you are than she.
And she let you? And she begged pardon for her naughtiness?”

Jocelin frowned and stroked his hunter’s mane. “Now that you say it like that, she never really said she would do as I asked.”

“Damned cert, old love.”

“She never has before, given in easily, that is.”

“You know what,” Nick said as he contemplated a spray of violets nearby. “I’d be worried if I were you.”

“I’m starting to be.”

They stared at the violets in silence.

“Nick.”

“Yes, dear Oberon.”

“I think I’ll go home.”

“Good plan.”

Jocelin wheeled his horse about, and Nick followed. They galloped most of the way. Careening across the lawn, Jocelin nearly climbed the front steps with his hunter. Dismounting before the animal came to a complete stop, he threw his reins at Nick and dashed inside. He ran into Loveday on the stairs. The valet handed him an envelope.

“I just found this lying upon our silk neckties, my lord.” Loveday exited swiftly.

As Nick clattered up the stairs to stand beside him, Jocelin tore open the envelope and read the enclosed note.

Jocelin crumpled the note in his fist and stared through Nick without seeing him. Nick took the note, read it, and whistled.

“Now, that’s Liza.”

“Bloody hell,” Jocelin said.

“Where is she?”

“Gone. Don’t bother to look for her.” Jocelin looked down at the crumpled note. “She disappeared on me once before. She’s good at it.”

“What are you going to do?”

Jocelin gave Nick a pained smile. “Find her, of course.”

“How?”

“I don’t know, Nick old man, because this time she’ll be much more careful than the last.”

L
iza set the last boot next to its mate on the shelf and stored the polish and cloths away in a wooden box. She wished she could put away her unhappiness as easily. Standing, she pressed the small of her back and rubbed polish on the tip of her nose with her forefinger. Damn, no time to wash, for she had to clean the front steps and then finish the hearth in Lord Winthrop’s study before he came downstairs this morning.

Gathering her rags and buckets, Liza scurried upstairs, into the foyer, and onto the threshold. It had rained yesterday, and the sill, steps, and boot scraper all wore jackets of mud. As she scraped clumps into a bucket, Liza chewed her lip and tried not to think
about Jocelin. Why did he have to be so unbending? No—no use in treading that well-worn footpath.

She had fled Reverie because he left her no choice. She could no more give up her principles than she could spend her life standing on her head, which was what Jocelin wanted her to do. So she’d left, taken refuge with Toby’s Betty, and grieved. Leaving Jocelin had cost her. At first she felt as if she didn’t want to live. Each night she stayed awake as long as she could so she’d be too exhausted to dream of him.

She vacillated between hating him and wishing he would come after her. When she was in her office, she imagined him bursting in on her again, all glowering male fury. He was so enthralling when aroused. Then she would remember how he discounted her beliefs and her principles, and got angry all over again. Then she plunged into work to forget.

After a few days, however, she needed better distraction. There was still the matter of William Edward’s murder. She’d never given up searching for an answer to that mystery. Despondent but resolute, she had taken a place in Arthur Thurston-Coombes’s house. An excellent start, for she soon found that the young man had been with his mistress at the time William Edward died.

This news allowed her to move on to Lord Winthrop’s household at the height of the season. June was new when she took a place there in her disguise as a maid of all work. Winthrop was a surprise. Although the owner of a large income, he kept a sparse staff and watched every expense, down to the number of coals in each fireplace. He also had a disturbing fondness for watching her do chores. Not making beds or dusting, but the dirtiest chores, such as cleaning the stoop or the hearths.

She was wiping the steps with a cloth after washing them when a carriage pulled up. Hurrying to finish, she picked up her rags and brushes and tossed them into an empty bucket. She spied a stray dust pan on the top step, reached across, and retrieved it as two pairs of polished boots ascended the stairs. She drew back, then paused as she heard a clipped, military order given to the coachman. Jocelin! She was kneeling on the front steps, and Jocelin had come to call.

Her hair was concealed beneath a frizzy brown wig, but it wouldn’t be enough if he got a good look at her. Liza picked up her brushes and buckets, held them high so that they hid her face, and curtsied as the two men entered the house. Turning, she went down the steps, but she didn’t breathe until the footman closed the door.

“The coffee!”

She scurried around to the tradesmen’s entrance and discarded her cleaning materials. Rushing to a sink, she cleaned face and hands while the cook and scullery rushed to prepare refreshments for his lordship’s callers. Liza bounded up three flights of stairs before she could be ordered to perform more tasks. In her room she applied a fresh coat of paste that darkened her skin, drew her eyebrows heavier, and tightened her corset. She had padded herself at her chest and hips so that she appeared to have a figure of Venusian proportions.

Racing back to the kitchen, she was just in time to carry the tray of coffee and scones up to his lordship’s study. Praying that her disguise would deceive Jocelin, she went in and deposited the tray on a table. Asher Fox, Jocelin, and Winthrop were engaged in a discussion regarding the lingering war in the Crimea and took no notice of her entrance.

Keeping her face averted from her husband, she prayed that Winthrop would act as host rather than make her hand the cups and saucers around. He did, and she stood near the door awaiting a dismissal. Jocelin’s back was to her, that wide-shouldered, parade ground posture revealing no clue as to whether he’d recognized her. As Winthrop handed around scones, she slipped out of the room.

A little over an hour later the butler found her in the scullery and ordered her to resume cleaning the hearths in the study and parlor. Liza closed her eyes and said a quick prayer. Jocelin and Asher must have left.

She gathered her brushes and pans and the coal scuttle and went to the study. She opened the door, but Winthrop was still there.

“Oh, don’t go away,” he said from his perch behind his desk. “Clean, girl, clean.”

While he wrote a letter, she began scooping ashes. Her nose tickled, and she rubbed it.

“Now there’s a spot on your nose, my dear.”

Liza turned to find Lord Winthrop standing beside her. She patted her nose. Winthrop stuck out his boot and examined it.

“I seem to have a bit of dust on my boot. Please use your rag on it.”

She brushed nonexistent dust from the shoe and started when Winthrop bent and touched her arm. She’d rolled up her sleeves before beginning the dirty job. He rubbed a spot on her wrist where ashes had fallen.

“Here you are,” he said as though savoring a pastry. “Here you are, all in your dirt, come to serve me so humbly.”

Liza pulled her wrist away, but Winthrop was on her, slobbering a wet kiss on her neck.

“Quit that!”

She shoved at him, but he buried his face in her false bosom. Disgusted, Liza grabbed a handful of hair and yanked. Winthrop squawked and fell back on his semiroyal bottom. Liza picked up her dust pan and crashed it down on his head. As she hit him, someone chuckled, and it wasn’t Winthrop. His lordship yelped, and Liza hopped to her feet as Jocelin crossed the study threshold.

He kept coming, and she took refuge behind Winthrop’s desk. While Winthrop groaned, Jocelin stalked her.

She tried courtesy. “Good morning, my lord.”

“I’ve been looking for you.” He lunged for her, missed, and circled the desk when she did.

“Really?”

“I sent inquiry agents to Pennant’s. I threatened Toby. I had him followed.”

Liza dodged an armchair and skipped around the desk again as Jocelin came at her.

“There’s no need for this,” she said.

“She’s a trollop!” Winthrop had regained his senses, what there was of them.

“Shut up,” Jocelin said. “This is my wife.”

Winthrop goggled at them, but Liza came to an abrupt stop.

“Jocelin, don’t!”

“Whyever not? You don’t seem to care about your reputation, your station as my wife, your own safety.” He leaped at her, snagged her arm, and lifted her in the air.

“You’ve told him who I am, damn you.” Liza pounded once at his chest.

“Your wife?” Winthrop had risen and was massaging his head. “What’s your wife doing masquerading as a maid of all work? I’ve never heard of such conduct.”

Jocelin headed for the door with Liza in his arms. “Oh, don’t worry about it. She’s says that the officers in our old regiment are being killed off. She may be right, but I’ll not have her trying to prove it in this manner. And by the way, old dear, if you ever touch her again, I’ll drown you in your own royal blood.”

Liza squirmed and twisted, furious at her inability to free herself. As she was carried out of the house, her wig came askew, then fell off her head onto the front steps. Jocelin kicked it out of the way and tossed her into the carriage. Liza landed on someone, who picked her up and set her beside Jocelin.