The Marquess (49 page)

She scowled as the study door opened after a single knock.
Turning to give the butler a scathing set-down, her gaze locked with a somber
green one. O’Toole’s eyes were never somber. Of course, on the
other hand, O’Toole never knocked. Maybe this was just a ghost of
O’Toole.

He shut the door behind him and scanned the papers scattered
over the desk. To Dillian’s surprise, she saw anger tighten his jaw and
thin his mouth. She’d never seen the blithe O’Toole angry. She
stared at him in wordless astonishment, waiting for him to explain his presence
here.

“If I’d thought you the same corkbrained
sapscull as your father, I would never have given you those wretched deeds,”
he announced coldly, proceeding into the room as if he owned it. He leaned his
palms against the desk and glared at her.

“Thank you very much, sir. And just what would you
have done with them, since they are signed by my father and belong rightfully
to me?”

Michael grabbed one of the deeds and whirled off with it. “Do
you have any idea how easy it is to forge a name? How simple it is to copy this
antiquated script Winfrey uses? I could have done anything I pleased with them.”
He swung around and glared at her. “But I gave them to you. And you sit
on them like a hen hatching eggs.”

“What would you have me do with them?” she asked
in bewilderment. “After that statement, I can’t even be certain
they are really mine. Are you sure you didn’t just forge them for your
own amusement? My father never had enough money in his life to buy this much
land.”

Some of the anger left his face as he regarded her with a
little more interest. “Are you telling me that you’ve left Gavin
going out of his mind tracing these deeds while you’re trying to figure
out if they’re legitimate? Or if they’re ill-gotten gains? Between
the two of you, you don’t have a good pound of sense. I’ve been
telling Gavin for the past year to just plow the wretched fields and dare the
owner to show up. He could have had a crop in already. And now you’re
wasting another year by mooning over right and wrong. The two of you belong
together because you sure as certain don’t belong anywhere else in this
world.”

Dillian heard little of this tirade beyond the mention of
Gavin. Trying not to show her eagerness, she asked, “He’s looking
for the deeds? Why?”

“Stupid question,” Michael replied in a good
imitation of Gavin’s growl. He slapped the deed he held back on the desk.
“I have it on good authority that your father bought these quite legally
from the late marquess. They were schoolboy chums or some such, and when the
marquess found himself in financial straits at a time that your father wished
to invest some of his gains—ill-gotten or not, I can’t
say—they came to a convenient arrangement.

“I’m sure the marquess fully meant to buy those
lands back. Unfortunately, he died rather unexpectedly before he could recoup
his fortunes. I suspect the lands were not exchanged at fair value so much as
for whatever your father had in his pockets at the time. The late marquess
would have known Whitnell had no intention of farming them. Your father simply
acted as a cent-per-center, probably with much better interest rates than the
usual usurers.”

“You’re lying,” Dillian said bluntly.

Michael grinned. “Prove it.”

She stared in bewilderment at the assortment of deeds in
front of her. She could prove nothing except that her father had in his
possession the deeds to extensive acreage— around Arinmede?

She had seen the journals and the translations. They had
mentioned the deeds. They hadn’t specified their location or from whom he
had obtained them. Michael hadn’t made up the entire story out of whole
cloth.

Her father had left her an inheritance.
He’d
just forgotten to tell her that the deeds weren’t with his other papers
but in Winfrey’s possession. And she hadn’t known to introduce
herself to Winfrey as Whitnell instead of Reynolds, until it was too late,
until he was too busy blackmailing Dismouth with her father’s journals.

She was far more interested in Gavin than the land.

“What did you expect me to do with these deeds?”
she asked.

Michael narrowed his eyes. “I expected you to use your
common sense, but it’s obvious you have as little as Gavin. If you
don’t tell him you have them, then I shall. He promised those villagers
he would put the lands into production, and they’re expecting him to follow
through. I’ll not see him suffer because of your stubbornness.”

Dillian ran her fingers through her already disheveled
curls. “What am I supposed to do? Offer to sell them to him? Even should
he have the money to buy them, he’ll not have enough for plows and seeds
and repairs and whatever. He’d go in debt over his head to put those
lands into production. You know that.”

He shook his head in disbelief. “You really are going
to play the innocent for all it’s worth, aren’t you?”

He propped his shoulder against the window overlooking the
estate lawns. “He can’t ask for you when he has no means of
supporting you or a family. He’s made some clever investments from his
years in shipping. But he can’t support a family by continuing to gamble
everything he owns. He needs a steady income. Those lands would provide it. You
hold his future as well as your own in your hands.”

Dillian huddled against the tall back of the desk chair,
wrapping her arms around herself in an age-old gesture of protection. “I’d
willingly trade myself for those lands, but I don’t want to tie him down
for a lifetime he might regret,” she said in little more than a whisper.

Michael threw her a look over his shoulder, then returned to
studying the landscape. “You’re the only chance of happiness
he’ll ever have. Without you, he’ll rot away inside that moldering
ruin, never coming out, eventually giving up and becoming a ghost to join the
others. You returned him to life. Don’t banish him to an early grave
again.”

Almost too casually, he asked, “Where is Lady Blanche
today?”

Dillian stared thoughtfully at his back. “She’s
visiting one of the tenants. She asks after you frequently, but I have nothing
to tell her.”

He ran an ungloved hand over the window ledge. “There
is nothing to say. Have she and the duke announced the date yet?”

Her own aching heart went out to him, but Dillian could only
shake her head. “Neville will have to wait until she makes up her mind.
Blanche has the heart of an angel, but she knows nothing of being a woman. She
has all the time in the world to choose the man right for her.”

Michael turned and gave her a wry smile. “If I were
Neville, I’m not certain I would trust you to give that guidance. Once
the scars heal, she’ll have her choice of any man she wants. She could do
worse than Anglesey.”

“She could do better,” Dillian declared. “They’re
first cousins. I don’t approve of the match at all. But, then, I’m
not her guardian.” Dillian stacked the sheets of paper in front of her
into a neat pile. “I don’t think the scars will ever quite heal,”
she said quietly.

“I wouldn’t see her suffer the hell that Gavin
went through,” Michael answered. “There should be someone in this
world who can appreciate her beauty and goodness, someone who deserves a woman
like her.”

“And I suppose you mean to find this paragon?”
Dillian asked dryly, rising from her chair. “And you call me a sapscull.
She’s too inexperienced to know her mind yet, but she’s learning.
She’ll want to see you. Ask Jenkins for her direction. You’ll find
her easily enough.”

Understanding he’d just been dismissed, Michael gave
the window one last lingering look, and sent Dillian a hard stare before he
departed. “Lady Blanche is far above the likes of me, but if Gavin
doesn’t know about those deeds within the week, I’m telling him.”

Dillian thought to say that a marquess of Effingham was far
above the likes of her, but he was gone before she could get the words out of
her mouth. She wasn’t certain she believed them anymore, in any case.
Perhaps wealth and titles did not make one person better than another.

* * * *

Gavin Lawrence, eighth Marquess of Effingham, wiped the
sweat from his eyes and gazed in frustration at the section of stone fence that
represented a good day’s work. He was wasting sums he couldn’t
afford in clearing up this crumbling ruin he called home just so he could keep
his promises to the villagers. In the past month, they’d almost made the
place appear habitable. Almost.

He glanced over his shoulder to the house behind him. Dark
was descending and lights flickered in various windows, including those on the
second floor. Now that people no longer believed he was a monster, he’d
hired women willing to begin the chore of sweeping out decades of dust and
spiders in the upper stories. He just didn’t know what he would do with the
empty chambers after they were cleaned. He’d had hopes, but they were
dimming quickly.

Picking up the shirt he’d discarded earlier, Gavin
strode back toward the house. He’d hoped the day’s physical
exertion would have exhausted the turmoil in his soul, but it was no more
effective than a cold bath on his rebellious loins. His mind kept wandering
down the road to the Grange and a tumble of chestnut curls and saucy grin.

He hadn’t heard from Dillian since he’d left
London, but he hadn’t expected to. A lady didn’t write to a
gentleman not her husband. She couldn’t very well just drop in,
uninvited, for a visit. He’d known that. He’d deliberately counted
on it.

If he kept her at a distance long enough, she would find
someone who could keep her far more comfortably than he could. She’d had
enough of hand-to-mouth existence. She deserved a real home and a family, not a
crumbling ruin and a scarred beast who couldn’t control his lust. What
they’d shared had been just that. Lust would dissipate with time.

Only it wasn’t dissipating yet. Remembering how
Dillian had looked when he’d first revealed himself to her, how
she’d defied him, laughed at him, done anything but turn from him in
horror, Gavin entered the study in hopes of dispelling the memory.

The maids had torn down the fragile old drapery and scrubbed
the windows until they sparkled in his study. They’d stacked the old
ledgers and books into some semblance of order on the shelves and dusted every
inch of remaining space. Candles illuminated the desk, and a small wood fire
burned in the grate. He would have to order the chimney cleaned before autumn.

Rubbing his perspiring chest idly with his shirt, Gavin
finally noticed the vase at the edge of the candlelight. A single red rosebud
nodded over the crystal lip. A flicker of firelight created prisms in the cut
crystal. Hit with a strong yearning, Gavin closed his eyes and clenched his
hands into fists.

He wanted Dillian here. He needed her laughing eyes on the
other side of that desk. He wanted her spinning in the chair, swirling the
globe behind her, insulting him for his stupidity in wanting what he
couldn’t have. Then he wanted to haul her across the desk and strip the
clothes off her and feel her clinging eagerly to his embrace. He wanted her to
come to him of her own accord, not because he forced her to it.

He might as well wish for a rainbow.

Plucking the rose from its vase, wondering which of the
maids had developed the notion to place one there, Gavin blew out the candles
and headed up the stairs, shirt and rose in hand. He couldn’t make
himself stay in the master chamber. Every time he entered he heard her voice,
saw her drifting through with sword upraised, saw her as she stripped herself
bare for him. He regretted that moment as much as he reveled in it. He was
rapidly becoming a madman.

As he passed by the closed master chamber, a light flickered
behind the door. No one should be in there at this hour. The servants all went
to their own homes at dusk. He had the house practically to himself.

Gavin crossed the hall and threw open the door. A blaze of
light stunned his eyes, and he blinked and stepped back before he could
properly take in the phenomenon. Once his eyes adjusted, he could see candles
and lamps illuminating every corner of the room. A fire danced in the
fireplace, and moonlight streamed through the undraped windows. His gaze swept
to the enormous bed at the far end of the chamber.

Dillian sat there cross-legged, clad in diaphanous white
silk, her chestnut curls bent over an assortment of old papers scattered across
the covers. Gavin’s heart rose in his throat at the same time as his
stomach danced a nervous jig. What in hell was she doing here looking like
that? And why was she studying yellowed old papers instead of looking for him?

He thought to yell those questions at her, but he
couldn’t get the words past the lump in his throat. Instead, he dropped
his shirt and approached the bed with the rose in his hand. When she looked up,
Gavin dropped the rose on the papers in front of her.

“You’ve come to tell me there’s a child,”
he said with more hope than he thought possible. If she carried his child, he
was duty bound to marry her.

She smiled brilliantly. “No.”

Hope shattered, he looked at her with wariness. “You’ve
run away from home?”

She scooped up the papers around her and patted the bed. “No.”

Gingerly, he took the place cleared beside her. He could
smell the rose now when he couldn’t before. Or perhaps he just smelled
the scent of her.

“Do you mean to tell me why you’re here?”
he asked with more than curiosity. At the same time he decided it wasn’t
just lust driving him. He wanted to ramble around inside her head for a while,
a lifetime or so, perhaps. He didn’t think forever would be long enough.

Dillian held up the stack of papers in her hand, presenting
them to him. Gavin couldn’t tear his gaze away from the pink tint of her
cheeks and the warmth of her eyes. He read things there he didn’t dare
believe.