The Charmer (22 page)

His words were spoken in jest,
but they cut her to the bone.

"Stop it," she snapped.
"Please." She wrapped her arms around herself, but it was too late.
Her 'mere gardener' had got under her skin and there he'd set up camp.

"Ah, so it bothers you,
eh?" His eyes still sparkled, damn him. "Is that because I mean more
to you than you wish to admit even to yourself? Me...a servant?"

The stark, bald truth of his
words hit her hard. He
did
mean more to her than simply someone to keep
her warm at night, yet it could not be so.
Should
not be so. Their
passion would one day need to be set aside and Orlando would have to leave.

The light in his eyes suddenly went
out. It was as if he'd just remembered something horrible, something he'd tried
very hard to forget. "This is foolishness," he snarled and stalked
off ahead of her. "I'm coming inside with you."

A groom appeared from around the
side of the house. He ran to them, breathless. "Sorry, m'lady, I heard
your arrival, but I was needed in the stables. I'll take Silver around for
you?"

"Thank you, Warren. Oh, and
one other thing." She glanced at Orlando's broad back. He was waiting for
her on the bottom step but he had not turned around. "Is Mr. Monk in the
house?"

"No, m'lady."

She told Bessie and Hendricks to
take themselves off to the kitchen then went after Orlando.

"He's not here," she
said, curt. "There'll probably be warm soup for you in the kitchen if you
want some. I'll be perfectly safe with Jeffrey, alone, as I've always
been."

She climbed the steps, passing
him, and was met at the door by Jeffrey's house steward. He greeted her with a
deep bow. When she turned around again, Orlando was gone. He had not made a
sound.

CHAPTER 11

The large study on the first
floor of Sutton Hall hadn't changed much since Phillip's time. The wood
paneling was not covered by tapestries or portraits to soften its masculinity
and coffers of varying sizes squatted on the rushes near the wide desk. One of
the coffers was triple padlocked as it had been when Phillip was alive. The
only difference Susanna could see was the man behind the desk and the torn
pieces of paper scattered across its surface and on the floor.

Jeffrey set his pen down in its
stand and gathered up the pieces. "I don't have any more timber."

And good afternoon to you too,
Cousin.
"I
don't want more timber. I simply wanted to thank you for what you've given me
already. Your man, Monk, is a good worker."

"Is he?" he said
absently.

"He's strong and efficient,
much like Mr. Holt."

"Your thanks are welcome but
unnecessary." He screwed up the bits of parchment into a wad and threw it
onto the desk. It rolled off and fell to the rushes where it broke apart. "Is
there something else?"

She sat down even though he
hadn't asked her to sit. "Yes. I want to know more about your man, Monk.
You tell me he's trustworthy—"

"Then what else do you need
to know?" He rubbed his forehead and sighed heavily.

Infuriating man
. "I need to know why he's
been wandering into my outbuildings for no reason. I have not directed him to
do so, yet he's been seen exiting the brewery and the bakehouse, and he spent longer
than necessary in the stables too. Can you be sure he's not up to something?"

The look Jeffrey gave her was one
of strained patience and exhaustion. She'd never seen him look so wretched. "Susanna,
I understand that your feminine nerves make you worry excessively and that you
cannot help that, but—"

"Oh good lord, Jeffrey, this
is nothing to do with my femininity or my nerves. It is a simple question
regarding a man in your employ. Anyone would be equally cautious under the same
circumstances."

"Anyone would not be equally
cautious. Any
man
would accept his help and let him roam where he wanted
to. He and I are both doing you a favor, are we not? I can't see what harm there
is in letting him take a look at your outbuildings. Perhaps he is observing
their construction. Have you asked him?"

"No. Nor have I asked him
why there is a letter in his pack from Lord Whipple."

His gaze flickered down to the
scrunched up pieces of paper on the floor and back again. It was such a rapid
move that if she hadn't been looking for any sign of recognition, she wouldn't
have noticed it. "A letter?"

"Yes. A letter of
introduction addressed to you, as it happens."

"Ah. Of course." He leaned
back in the chair and stretched his legs under the desk. "Susanna, I'm
appalled at your behavior. Why were you reading a private letter not meant for
your eyes?" He shook his head. "You really have lost your way these
past few months, haven't you?"

"Lost my way?" she
spluttered. "Jeffrey, I have a right to know everything about the people I
allow onto my estate."

"Your father's estate."

"While Father is unwell, I
am both master and mistress of Stoneleigh, and as such, you should show me some
respect."

"I am!"

"No, Jeffrey, you are not.
Everything about this conversation is condescending." Walking out now
would achieve nothing. Yet staying was proving just as futile and far more
frustrating.

"You came to me," he petulantly
pointed out.

"Yes. I did. Now, I will say
this clearly since you seem to be having trouble understanding me. Lord Whipple
addressed you in the letter, which means you must have an acquaintance with
him."

"A passing acquaintance
only." He leaned forward and slid a piece of parchment over the top of the
letter he'd been writing. He rested his elbows on it and steepled his fingers.
"He thought Mr. Monk may be of use to me, hence the introduction. Except
it wasn't really an introduction. I knew Monk already. He used to live near me,
although we didn't associate." This last he said with a wrinkle of his
nose.

"And for what reason did
Whipple recommend him to you?"

"That's private, Susanna."

Another block. Her only
consolation was that Jeffrey seemed to be enjoying the interrogation as little
as her. Despite the coolness of the room, sweat trickled from his temple, and
he had not once maintained eye contact with her. A sure sign he was lying or,
at the very least, holding back something important.

"Is there anything
else?" he asked. "I'm very busy as you can see."

Busy being a toad. "Nothing
else for now. Perhaps I'll get a better response from your man instead."

"Monk?" He shook his
head. "I would advise you not to ask Mr. Monk too many questions about his
past. I suspect he doesn't like talking about it."

"Who does? But if he wants
to work at Stoneleigh then he must understand he cannot wander about until I am
assured he is trustworthy. We may not have much worth stealing, but that is
beside the point."

He heaved in another heavy sigh.
"Susanna, you are a determined female. Were you this way with
Phillip?"

"Only once." And he had
made her pay for her determination in the most damning way.

She could see the thoughts
ticking through Jeffrey's mind, wondering what she was talking about. She
didn't care. He had his secrets, and she had hers.

Sometimes she wondered what would
have happened if she had become more upset over Phillip's straying ways and his
forbidding her friendships. Would he have hit her again? She doubted it. That
incident seemed to shake him to the core. She probably could have asked him for
anything after that and he would have given it to her out of guilt.

But she didn't have the heart to
make him pay. She simply no longer cared for Phillip. It was like he'd stopped
existing, except for the times he came to her bed to try and get her with child
again. Even then she'd neither spoken to him nor looked at him. She'd simply
spread her legs and closed her eyes until he was finished.

"Good day, Jeffrey. No,
don't get up. I can see myself out." She glanced at the pieces of torn
parchment still on the floor and left them behind with some regret. Jeffrey
didn't want her to see them, and that meant the pieces could be important.

She made her way downstairs to
the kitchen and gathered up her two servants. Orlando was in the stables where
she found him helping out with the horses. He had his back to the entrance as
he inspected a hoof, but he must have heard their approach on the gravel.

"If you're hoping Lord
Lynden will pay you," she said, "then you're out of luck. He'll argue
that he didn't formally employ you, and you're not entitled to anything."

"I don't expect pay,"
he said. "This poor animal was in pain, and the only man who seems to know
what to do is out riding with the land steward."

Warren the stable lad nodded.
"The head groom," he said for Susanna's benefit then, for some reason
she couldn't fathom, he blushed to the roots of his hair.

Orlando lowered the hoof and
rubbed the beast's back. "All better now, girl," he said softly.
"Treat her with care, Warren, and make sure your master gets some of that
paste I described. The wise woman in the village should be able to make it up
for you."

"Aye, Mr. Holt." Warren
led the horse away.

Orlando waited until she was back
in her stall and then he strode right past Susanna. She followed him out of the
stables to where Silver grazed on a feed bag and watched as he hitched her to
the cart.

"Still in a bad temper I
see," she murmured as he removed the bag and set it aside.

The look he gave her would have
frozen hot water in an instant. "Find anything useful?"

"In a way." She didn't
say any more because Hendricks had climbed up onto the cart and Orlando was
helping Bessie to the seat. Susanna sat beside her.

It wasn't until they were back at
Stoneleigh and alone in the stables that she finally spoke to him again.
"Are you still angry with me?"

He lengthened his strokes as he
brushed Silver's neck. "You need to be more careful."

"I
was
careful. I was
also perfectly safe. And if you think Jeffrey would have allowed you to
accompany me into his study, you don't know him. He would have turned you away
without a second thought as to whether he'd hurt your feelings."

He stopped brushing. "You
think that's what this is about? You think I care about getting my feelings
hurt by your turd of a cousin-in-law?"

She gasped. He closed his mouth
over hers, smothering her protest. It was a hard kiss, urgent and hungry. His
fingers curled into her cloak at her back, holding her in place against him.

But the hardness quickly melted
away. His mouth turned soft, his kisses slow yet somehow still urgent,
possessive. The change made her body tingle as if she'd been plunged from a hot
pool to a cold one and back again.

He broke the kiss and gave his
attention to Silver once more. His strokes increased their rhythm. "I'm
sorry," he muttered.

"Don't be." She drew in
a deep breath to steady her nerves. "You're angry, but I don't think it
has anything to do with your position here at Stoneleigh or my safety."

He said nothing, just kept
brushing Silver with long, regular strokes.

"Do you know," Susanna
said quietly, "that I know as little about you as I do about Mr. Monk?"

He paused mid-stroke. "Sometimes
you don't need to have background details to truly know a person. Sometimes
being intimate is enough."

"I wish that were so, but I
would be a fool to believe it." She had thought she'd understood both her
husbands after making love to them the first time but discovered too late that
she did not. "At least I've seen a letter of recommendation for Mr. Monk.
I've not seen one for you." He didn't answer her and switched his
attention to Silver's tangled mane. "I know nothing of your family, your
childhood, or why you like to roam across the country in search of work."

"I told you all you need to make
up your mind about me," he said, without turning around. "I've
mentioned my sister to you and that my father was a gardener as well. I told
you where I came from. As to why I like to roam...I simply don't like being in
one place for long. I grow restless."

And yet that still told her
nothing. Why did he become restless? Something must have led him to want to
leave his family.

As to the rest, the more she
thought about it, the less it made sense. He was an articulate, clever man who
could read, and yet he wanted her to believe his father was a gardener? Orlando
possessed no gardening gloves, little plant knowledge, and no letter of
recommendation from his previous employer. That alone made her doubt him.

"If you don't want me
here," he said, patting Silver's neck, "you can ask me to
leave."

Not going to him and wrapping her
arms around his waist was the hardest thing. Yet she refrained. She also
managed to speak with a clear, strong voice. "I don't want you to
leave."

His fingers flexed around the
brush. He nodded once, curt, and started brushing again. "What did you
learn from Lynden?"

The tension dispersed a little
but didn't disappear entirely. "He's hiding something. There was a letter
he'd torn to pieces that he didn't want me to see. He was also writing
something that he hid from my gaze. I tried to think of a diversion to get him
out of the study, but I doubt he would have fallen for anything. He seemed
quite distressed, and a man in that state doesn't suddenly forget that he's
protecting a letter from prying eyes and then leave it exposed."