The Beautiful One (5 page)

Drawing and painting lessons were part of the Rosewood curriculum, so surely she would have some skills in this area. If the painting were something his wife had wanted, might it not please him if her niece completed it?

It wasn't much, but it could be a start. And with any luck, Lizzie would have all sorts of talents. Perhaps she sang like a bird or played the piano like an angel.

They would practice drawing first so she could gauge Lizzie's skill, she thought as she walked over to gaze out the large window.

The vast grounds were misty with morning dew, the sun barely having risen, but she could see a dark figure striding out away from the manor. The regal stiffness of his posture left her in no doubt as to who he was. Why was the viscount alone here at Stillwell, roaming about dressed as a farmer, and not in town, charming the ladies? Handsome and wealthy as he was, if he made even the smallest effort at civility, he would doubtless cause every female he met to swoon.

A maid arrived with a warm smile and a tray, along with the news that Miss Tarryton was breakfasting in her chamber as well. The tray held a cup of rich, steaming cocoa, two boiled eggs, and nice bread, and Anna tucked into it with relish while reflecting that at least Lord Grandville's household knew the importance of a well-buttered roll, for which she was grateful.

After eating, she put on her brown gown, which was all she had besides yesterday's blue one, and ignored the observation that it was the color of a dead leaf.

She'd never bothered much about clothes, but once her father died, there hadn't been money to replace things, and she'd had to be careful to keep a gown or two in respectable shape for teaching. When she'd fled home, she'd taken her worst gowns with her, thinking they would make her so unremarkable she'd pass unnoticed, and she had—until last night. Lord Grandville must have been
very
lonely to have made that indecent proposal to her.

Before leaving her room, she penned a note for Miss Brickle, telling her that Lord Grandville required her services for Miss Tarryton and she would thus not be returning to Rosewood, and gave it to a maid. Then she stopped by the schoolroom to see what supplies she might find.

When Anna knocked on Lizzie's door some minutes later, the girl opened it promptly, as if grateful for human contact. She wore a pristine white muslin gown embroidered with a dainty dot pattern, and her beautiful gold-red hair was dressed simply in a high knot with a few curled strands floating about her ears. Anna had merely scrabbled her own hair into its customary unruly knot, and she thought she saw Lizzie shudder as her eyes took in the sight.

“Well,” Anna said. “I spoke with your guardian last night after you retired, and I am to be your companion here at Stillwell. For a month, that is.”

“You are? For a whole month?” There was no mistaking the look of relief in Lizzie's angel-blue eyes.

“Yes. His lordship and I have agreed that you'll need a governess of sorts while he determines what will be best for your future.” She paused, thinking Lizzie might wonder at a seamstress being promoted to governess. “I…have taught before.”

But Lizzie apparently wasn't concerned about Anna's qualifications, and the edges of her mouth were already tightening. “He'll send me away after a month, won't he?”

“Let's not worry about the future just now.” Anna smiled encouragingly. “I thought we might go outside and do some drawing.”

“But Grandville—”

“Has gone out. The maid said he is generally from home during the day, seeing to some cottages being built for his tenants. Now, I've had a maid bring some sketchbooks and pencils out to the terrace. Shall we?”

The sun was shining brightly as they seated themselves at the edge of the terrace, near some tall ornamental grasses. A soft breeze teased the hair at the edges of their bonnets and gently rustled the branches of a stately weeping willow that stood nearby.

After what seemed like only minutes of work, Lizzie sighed and dropped her pencil onto her paper and stretched her arms out behind her comfortably.

“I never was any good at drawing,” she said, not sounding especially dismayed.

Anna slid over to look at Lizzie's work. There was little there. “But this line is very true,” she said, pointing to one of the fronds of grass Lizzie had drawn. “Just try to really look, and follow the lines with your pencil.”

“But grass is so dull. Who could want to look at it?” Lizzie glanced at Anna's sketch and gasped. “Lawks, you're really good!”

“
Lawks
? Lizzie, you must know that's coarse, and I've heard ‘the devil' slip past your lips as well. Such words are not pleasing in a young lady.”

Anna knew she was hardly the most appropriate person to be giving advice about deportment, but it wasn't as though she hadn't been taught by the occasional governess; she'd simply ignored their guidance when it suited her.

But as Lord Grandville's ward, Lizzie would be known to polite society, and she must acquit herself well. “Where did you hear such words?”

Lizzie made a knot in a blade of grass. “I suppose at the harbor in Malta. I used to watch the sailors.”

“Your father didn't mind?” It seemed they had something in common.

“It never mattered until he married my stepmother.” Lizzie reached forward and tugged hard on a long blade of grass, breaking it. “If only he hadn't married her, none of this would have happened,” she said with a hint of bitterness. “How could he have let her send me away?”

“I don't know,” Anna said gently. “People disappoint us at times.”

After a minute, Lizzie said, “What did you used to teach? Drawing?”

Anna's heart skipped a beat, though it seemed impossible Lizzie could know that Anna Black was really Anna Bristol, drawing teacher. “Why do you say that?”

“Because you have loads of talent, of course,” Lizzie said, abandoning the grass and looking up.

Anna relaxed and gave her a skeptical look. “If I draw well, it's because I've developed my skill. Actually, I had thought you might surprise and delight his lordship with some drawings.”

“Oh.” Lizzie looked dismayed. “Well, I want to do anything that he might like.”

“Are you accomplished at the pianoforte?”

“Not
accomplished
…but I do sew quite nicely.”

“Ah, very good,” Anna said with a sinking feeling.

“I do think,” Lizzie said with an earnest look, “that I might be more inspired to draw if I were sketching something pretty.”

If only Lord Grandville could appreciate some of Lizzie's charms, for she certainly had them, and no ward could have wished to please him more. Anna shaded her eyes against the late-morning light and looked about. “I suppose there might be some lilies of the valley in the shade of those trees,” she said, gesturing to a small wood perhaps a hundred paces off.

They took their things and went over to the trees, where they scanned the ground for the little white flowers. Lizzie soon uttered a cry.

“What can it be?” she said, bending to look at something on the ground.

A puff of white fluff rested not three inches from Lizzie's slipper-clad toes. Anna knelt next to it, peering closer, though she already knew by its heart-shaped face what it was.

“A baby barn owl,” she said, not touching it. She'd once spent an entire month sketching an injured baby owl her father had found and brought to their home to heal. Lizzie knelt beside her and peered closer.

The owlet was young, perhaps five or six weeks old, and in addition to its fluff, feathers were starting to appear. It lay in the shade of the tree, not moving.

“Is it dead?” Lizzie breathed.

Anna looked around and saw telltale white droppings in profusion around a hollow in the tree directly over them. The hole was perhaps a dozen feet up, but there were several good branches below it.

“I hope not,” she said, and gently slid her fingertips under the small, downy body. She felt the rapid beating of its heart and smiled, lifting it into her hands. “It's only pretending.”

Lizzie gently stroked the creature with a fingertip. “It's darling. I've never seen an owlet before.” She looked up at the tree. “Is that its nest?”

“Yes. It must have been trying to fly and fallen.” She looked around. “Usually a parent will be nearby, but it may be away just now.”

“Can't it fly back?”

“It's too young. And its parents won't feed it on the ground.”

Lizzie looked stricken at this, and Anna discarded any lingering concerns she might have had about the character of Lizzie Tarryton. “But we can't leave it here to die or be eaten or stepped on! I could make a little home for it, in—in a hatbox. I should be happy to!”

“No,” Anna said gently, “it must be returned to the nest. The parents will feed it there.” She looked up at the branches above her. “If I climbed up onto that branch, could you hand the owlet up to me?”

“Is that a good idea? It sounds so unladylike.”

Anna chuckled. “And this from the terror of Rosewood School.”

“I'm sure
I
don't care,” Lizzie said, “but what if Grandville sees you?”

“There's nobody about, and I'll be quick.”

She carefully transferred the still-motionless owlet onto Lizzie's open palms and grasped a low branch, then swung a leg up and over it.

“Miss Brickle would be horrified,” Lizzie pointed out cheerfully. “Your ankles are on full display.”

Anna grinned and climbed onto the next highest branch, managing to get both feet on it. The nest was right above her, issuing a potent smell of owl. She grabbed hold of the tree trunk and called to Lizzie, who was obscured now by the leaves, “Hand him up when I reach down.”

Will was at work on the roof of the last cottage, careless of the increasing warmth of the late-morning sun against his back. As he laid another S-shaped tile against the roof batten, he decided that after he whitewashed the interior of the cottage, he'd go back and do one more coat on the insides of all the other homes. And they needed fencing, he thought with a surge of relief. A stone wall would give him plenty to do.

He wasn't ready for the cottage work to be completed. It had been his only solace since he'd dismissed the builders months ago and taken up finishing the work himself.

From his position on the roof, he could see out across the estate's vast grounds, over the fields and the various blocks of homes where his tenants were now living. There would not, of course, be anywhere near enough of the new cottages to house them all, and he was sorry about that.

This first batch of cottages had been meant to be a trial run, a model that would be replicated over the rest of Stillwell. He and Ginger had shared the hope that the homes might serve as inspiration for other estate owners, to encourage more action to better the lives of workers. But now he couldn't get his mind around all those plans and dreams. To start all that again would be a tangle, requiring meetings with architects, and commitments, and future thinking.

He leaned forward to reach a new stack of tiles as the memory of his fingers working on a knotted ribbon below a pretty, shell-like ear danced in his mind. She'd shivered at his nearness.

“
You
simply
wish
to
assuage
your
conscience
,” she'd said after he'd offered to buy her a new hat. But remorse hadn't been the only thing that had drawn his fingers to those tangled ribbons. He'd wanted to touch her in the library when he'd made that contemptible offer, and that desire hadn't gone away.

He thought of her pink saucepot's mouth and how tart she'd been when his order had succeeded in freeing their coach from the ditch. He'd deserved everything she'd said to him.

The unaccustomed sound of his own chuckle startled him, and the next moment he heard the crash of the ladder as it fell away from the roof and onto a stack of tiles below. He'd kicked it without realizing it.

Damn. An hour earlier he'd smashed his thumb while hammering. What the devil was he doing, thinking so much about Anna Black? Though his body responded to her, his mind knew the wrongness of wanting her. Even if she hadn't been a governess and under his protection, it would be wrong. He couldn't become entangled with a woman—any woman. He would have nothing to give her, and he could want nothing from her but the satisfaction of his body's needs.

He would quit for the day before he did any more damage. There were accounts to review, and he'd been meaning to write to his brother, Tommy. He knew he should also write to his cousin Louie, who was like a brother to him, but he suspected that, after a year of hearing nothing from him, Louie would take a letter as an invitation to visit Stillwell. The last thing he needed was more guests.

He moved to the edge of the roof, dangled his long frame, and dropped the last six feet to the ground.

Rounding the edge of the wood at the back of Stillwell, he was startled to see his ward standing about. She was looking up at a tree in which, from the movement of its leaves and branches, some large creature seemed to be thrashing. A crow?

As he drew nearer to the oblivious Lizzie, he was almost certain he heard a woman's voice coming from among the leaves. Lizzie stepped closer to the tree and lifted her hands upward, and he saw that on a thick branch perhaps six feet off the ground were perched two feet in past-their-prime dark ankle boots, and above them, he was treated to a view he could not regret of trim calves. The surrounding leaves and branches mostly obscured the rest of his recently hired governess. In the instant before Lizzie became aware of Will, he saw that she held in her cupped hands a fluffy white ball.

Lizzie turned and saw him, her mouth forming into an
O
as a voice called from above, “Lizzie? I'm ready for the owlet.”

“Er,” said Lizzie, looking at him. In the clear sunlight, he noticed that her eyes were a different color blue than Ginger's had been. But the shape was Ginger's, as were the eyebrows. Not her fault, but he couldn't go the route of compassion. It would only muddy what had to be. He looked past her and lifted a hand to rub his eyes.

“Miss Black,” he said, knowing he could not avoid asking, “what on earth are you doing?”

There was a pause as she absorbed his arrival and a shifting of the feet on the branch near his forehead as they drew together, perhaps in an attempt at modesty.

“Ah, my lord,” she said from above him. “Good afternoon. Lizzie and I are engaged in returning a fallen owlet to its nest. It was her idea. She is very caring toward animals.”

He could feel Lizzie's big blue eyes on him though his own were still covered by his hand. He had no doubt as to whose idea it had been to climb the tree. He hadn't truly expected Anna Black to be a typical sort of governess, had he?

“Come down at once.”

“If you will wait just a moment, my lord,” she said breezily, “I shall be down directly. Lizzie, the owlet.”

Lizzie cleared her throat. “Here.”

He tapped her on the shoulder before she could lift her arms farther. “Give me that creature, please.”

She looked uncertain, but she clearly didn't want to displease him, and she handed over the motionless owl. He took it carefully from her and did not return her tentative smile. He could feel her eagerness for him to acknowledge her, but he let it flow past him.

The leaves and branches above them shook as Anna Black crouched down and extended her hand for the animal. Her bonnet, the same horrible blue one, had fallen on its strings around her neck again, and her hair, apparently loosened by her climb, curled crazily about her face as if she were some unkempt urchin, accentuating her pert nose and reminding him of her jack-in-the-box appearance from the coach.

Her pink lips pressed outward at the sight of him; doubtless she was annoyed by his arrival, but her expression didn't draw an answering wave of annoyance from him. Instead, her lips were making him wonder, unaccountably, what it might feel like to be kissed all over by pink butterflies.

“The owlet, please,” she fairly ordered him.

“Don't be ridiculous. Get down this instant before you fall. I will return the owlet.”

“I am already positioned to do so. If you will just give it to me, I can put it back and then receive your displeasure properly on the ground.”

He grunted. Why did he keep finding himself in out-of-his-control conversations with this maddening woman?

In his palm the owlet's heart beat with a rapid, stressed flutter. He reached up his hand, and she gently took the animal and disappeared into the foliage.

From above came a few rustling noises, then the angry screech of what had to be an adult owl and a yelp. Fearing Miss Black would fall, he stepped forward to catch her, but at that same moment she jumped neatly down, so that she landed right in front of him.

He grabbed her arms, a reflex to steady her. She didn't need his help, but their eyes locked, and for a moment he read vulnerability there before it was replaced with the hard glint of independence. She smelled like sunshine and crushed leaves, and he felt the slim softness of her arms and his body's yearning to hug her close.

She stepped away from him. It had all happened in the space of a few moments.

But as he watched her brush some leaves from her skirts with her head down, that vulnerability he'd glimpsed tugged at him. Who was this woman? Where had she come from? She was clearly educated and intelligent, and though she was too forthright and she dressed terribly, she was not rough, merely unusual.

That life-on-the-edge-of-propriety quality he'd observed in her the night before had suggested that she'd known some hardship or that she had some burden she might trade for money. And yet today, in the company of his ward, she looked at ease, even if her eyes seemed to be hiding something.

Had a good night's sleep and a good breakfast solved her troubles? He was certain not. Something about her niggled him, but only trouble would come of interesting himself in her and whatever her story might be. He must leave her to her own obviously capable, if unorthodox, devices.

He cleared his throat meaningfully. She looked up briskly, as though little of note had occurred. “I didn't think the parent was in the nest,” she said. “Though I might have paid more attention had I not been distracted.”

There was a husky note mingled with the hint of irritation in her voice, and it satisfied a part of him he shouldn't be listening to, even as he was pierced by the thought that Ginger would have liked Anna Black.

“Anna,” Lizzie said, staring at them quizzically, “what about the owlet?”

“He's safely reunited with his family.”

Lizzie's eyes widened prettily, a look that Will supposed was meant to draw attention to her blue eyes and long lashes. Doubtless it generally had quite an effect on males.

It occurred to him then that his niece would likely be thinking of marriage soon. If only he had an appropriate female relative to help her. That person should have been his stepmother, Judith, but that would be wrong. He didn't trust Judith, nor did he respect her. Lizzie didn't deserve such a fate.

Though neither did he imagine how he would bring a young lady out in society. Definitely something he wasn't prepared to think about.

“It was fortunate that Grandville was here to save you, Anna, wasn't it?” Lizzie said. “You might have been badly hurt.”

“Yes,” Miss Black replied without much enthusiasm, turning slightly in his direction, as if just then recalling he was there.
Ha.
As if either of them could have forgotten what had just passed between them.

Lizzie looked surprised at her governess's tone and gave her a discreet, somewhat admonishing shake of her head. Miss Black turned fully toward him, the mutinous look just disappearing from her brow as she adopted a pleasant tone.

“Perhaps, my lord, after Lizzie and I have tidied up, you will join us for luncheon?”

Probably one of the most insincerely extended invitations he'd ever received, and he knew exactly why she was offering it when what she wanted was his head on a platter. Anna Black did her duty—or what she perceived it to be.

His ward smiled earnestly at him, trying far too hard to catch his eye. Will ignored her and settled his gaze on the base of the tree.

“I cannot, though I thank you,” he said.

“Disappointing,” Miss Black said. “Then we shall look forward to seeing you at dinner. And I should like to discuss some new supplies for the schoolroom. The atlas alone is from 1740.”

“I'm sorry, but I shall be otherwise engaged for dinner. I do ask, though, that should you come upon any other homeless wildlife—a hapless porcupine, perhaps a wayward cobra—you will allow nature to fend for itself. Good day.”

* * *

Lizzie turned to Anna, despair pinching her beautiful features. “He won't even look at me,” she said in a husky voice. “He doesn't like me at all. He really doesn't.”

“I think it's more the case that his lordship is accustomed to keeping to himself. Try not to take his behavior as a personal slight,” Anna said, even as she willed her pulse to stop racing. Standing so near him had made her remember him undoing her bonnet ribbons. Considering how she'd felt about being made into the Beautiful One, she would have thought she'd hate a man touching her or even being near. But that wasn't how she'd felt at all.

She told herself that she'd been the only one who'd found the ribbon-untangling a sensual experience, that he'd merely been performing a service out of remorse. But she knew that wasn't true. She'd seen attraction in his eyes from the first moments of their meeting on the road.

She thought of what she'd seen in his eyes the night before—the pain, the anger, the remorse. And the barest wisp of playfulness, though he gave it little indulgence. But it was there, and it hinted at something deep down that was decent. She felt certain now that under his hardness was a kinder man he didn't want to let out. Far better for her that he didn't.

“But everybody likes me,” Lizzie burst out.

Anna arched an eyebrow at her, and Lizzie's eyes lofted upward in exasperation. “Well, I mean that gentlemen always do.”

Lizzie knew her worth in the eyes of men, but that was hardly a recipe for happiness. “You know, my dear, it's not a good idea to have all your connections with people be based solely on your appearance.”

Lizzie crossed her arms, her fair, elegant eyebrows crimping tensely. “I wish I could just go back to Malta. Can't you convince him to send me back? He doesn't want me here anyway.”

“Malta won't be the same,” Anna said gently. “You know that.”

“But we had family friends there, and I know they would take me in.” She frowned and tugged a loose strand of her Botticelli hair into her mouth. Anna gave her a governess-ish look and Lizzie pulled it out again.

“Grandville won't let me stay beyond the month, will he?” she said. There was no whine in her voice, as might have been expected of a thwarted, pampered young lady, but rather the awful calm of someone who'd already faced too many hard truths. “He's going to send me away at the end of the month.”

“Lizzie, I know he hasn't been welcoming. But maybe if you just be yourself, he might come around in his own fashion.”

“He's my only remaining connection to my father,” she said in a voice tinged with huskiness, “and I'm certain he was once a good man.” Her lips pressed together unhappily. “But I don't understand him.”