Charlotte Louise Dolan (21 page)

Like as not, Daws would discover by the light of day that the stone had been used to batter and break the wheel. It was not beyond the bounds of possibility that the stone had even been brought along in the carriage expressly for that purpose.

But these machinations would avail the travelers little. Mrs. Pierce-Smythe, as she called herself, would find it truly amazing how rapidly a wheel could be transported to Tavistock, and how ready the wheelwright would be to drop whatever he was doing to see to the needs of the Marquess of Wylington, ten years old though he might be.

Breakfast would have to be provided here for the two stranded wayfarers, but they would find themselves back in town in ample time to partake of the midday repast provided for hungry travelers at the Red Stag, or several of the employees at Wylington Manor would be looking for other jobs.

“Oh, thank you, my lord. I shall just instruct my servants to bring in our luggage, for if we are to be cast upon your hospitality, I know you would want us to be comfortable.” She arched her eyebrows up in what was obviously intended to be a significant manner.

Having taken part in this melodrama three times previously, Bronson was familiar enough with the script to know his lines by heart, but sheer obstinacy and the knowledge that Miss Hemsworth was waiting for him in the library kept him from playing the genial host and politely ushering the pair of females into an anteroom where they could wait in comfort. Instead, he stood impassively in the hallway and watched while an impressive number of trunks, portmanteaus, and bandboxes were dragged in by four liveried grooms, their efforts directed by a lady’s maid who spoke French with the most appalling Cockney accent.

Equally impressive was the flood of small talk that bombarded him. Although the young chit seemed to have as much conversation as a dressmaker’s dummy, the older woman had an apparently inexhaustible supply of meaningless chatter, and he could fully understand why her husband might have found the grave a more restful place. For indeed, by the time Mrs. Plimtree arrived to show them to their rooms, the mother had confirmed that she was indeed a widow—from Yorkshire, but, she was quick to point out, originally from Lincolnshire, and related in some way Bronson could not quite grasp, to various minor gentry in that county, of whose existence he had until this evening been totally unaware.

He was hard put not to show his boredom with her continued explanations of the various and assorted ramifications of her purported pedigree, but he managed to stand his ground and murmur, “Just so,” at the appropriate places. It was with great relief that he finally saw the backs of his uninvited guests vanish up the stairs in the wake of Mrs. Plimtree.

The library, when he finally returned to it, was empty. At some time during his absence, Miss Hemsworth had apparently exhausted her patience. Not that he blamed her—he knew exactly who to blame for the disruption of what should have been a very pleasant evening.

The curses that he then called down upon the heads of Mrs. and Miss Pierce-Smythe, he had picked up from an Egyptian camel driver, and they would have shocked even Daws, had he been in the room to hear them and had he understood Arabic.

Then putting the intruders completely out of his mind, Bronson poured himself a measure of brandy, threw himself down in the chair so recently occupied by the intriguing Miss Hemsworth, and let his thoughts drift back to the delightful kiss they had shared.

He had early on convinced himself that his reaction the first time he had kissed her had been induced by a combination of many things, beginning with his travel fatigue, adding the frustration of searching all over Tavistock for the elusive governess, then his unconscionable behavior when he met Martha Miller, and culminating in the discovery that he had been guilty of leaping to certain unfounded conclusions about the new governess.

As attractive as Miss Hemsworth was, he had found it easier to believe that it had been these extraneous events that had weakened his resistance to that point that a simple kiss—the mere touching of lips—had seemed to him to be more than it actually was. More than it could be, in fact.

In that he had erred. The kiss this evening had engendered in him an even stronger reaction—a burning desire to possess this woman. Until now, he had always felt that such intensity of emotion was nothing more than a flight of imagination on the part of poets, novelists, and callow youths.

It would appear that he still had something to learn about life—or at least about women.

* * * *

Mrs. Pierce-Smythe dropped her genial manner as soon as the bedroom door was shut behind her. “Zizette, you will discover immediately which room belongs to Mr. Trussell.”

“But ma’am, ‘tis—”

“Zizette! I did not hire you to speak English.”

“
Pardonez-moi, madame.
Eet ees
tr
è
s
late, and perhaps the monsieur is already
dans son lit
—in hees bed.”

There was a dead silence in the room, and the widow merely stared at her maid with a cold eye. Like a dead fish, was the way Zizette had once described that look to her sister Maggie, who was employed in a milliner’s shop.

“
Tr
è
s bien, madame
,
I shall try to discover where Monsieur Trussell sleeps.”

“And be discreet about it, Zizette. I do not wish to find myself thrown out in the cold after I have gone to so much effort to gain admittance to this house.”

* * * *

Anne stood just outside the circle of light emanating from the library windows and watched Lord Leatham sip his brandy. Drat the man! Unable to go through the hallway to reach the safety of her room, she had dashed out of the house in a panic, lest Lord Leatham take it into his head to usher her cousins into the library.

Unfortunately, although she had made two complete circuits around the manor, she had not found a single door that Chorley, in his newly sober and conscientious pursuit of his duties, had failed to secure tightly. The only way into the house was back through the French doors leading into the library.

But that option was also not viable, because Lord Leatham seemed determined to spend the night sitting in front of the fireplace in the library sipping brandy.

If he had not kissed her, she could simply go back into the library now with some excuse about having wanted to look at the starry heavens again.

But he had kissed her, and if she rejoined him, she had not the slightest doubt but that he would kiss her once more ... or perhaps twice more ... or thrice more ....

Summer though it was, the night air was on the cool side, and if she stood out here very long without so much as a scarf around her shoulders, she would likely catch a chill and die, and it would all be the baron’s fault, because he had taken advantage of her.

She shivered and hugged her arms, which helped, but not enough. She could not keep from remembering how warm Lord Leatham’s arms had been when he had wrapped them around her. “My lord,” she murmured to herself, “if you do not take yourself off to bed soon, you will likely find me frozen solid by morning, because no matter how cold I become out here, I am going to resist the temptation, which I freely admit is tantalizing, to curl up on your lap.”

As if he had heard her, Lord Leatham drained the last drops of brandy from his glass, stood up, stretched, and approached the windows.

Although she was sure she could not be seen from inside the room, Anne instinctively took several steps backward. Then she heard the distinctive click of a bolt being shot home, and she took an involuntary step forward.

Oh, no, he could not have done this to her! He could not have locked her out!

Even as she watched, all the candles but one were extinguished, and that one was picked up by Lord Leatham, who exited the room without a backward glance.

* * * *

On the morrow, Bronson thought while climbing the stairs, he would first rid himself of his unwelcome guests, then pursue the matter of why Miss Hemsworth’s kisses were so very potent—but he was forgetting the boys.

Perhaps he had best send the effusive Mrs. Pierce-Smythe and daughter cum baggage and servants on their way, then foist the twins off for an hour or two on some unsuspecting servant....

No, none of the servants were that naive.

An interesting project, that was what he needed. Something to occupy the twins while he, Bronson, was occupied with Miss Hemsworth. Surely he could think of something intriguing enough. He must also have inherited an adequate measure of the ingenuity that had been allotted in such abundance to his young relatives.

On the other hand, if he failed to come up with a suitable idea, perhaps Daws could be persuaded—coerced?—into minding the twins. A bribe might be useful in that respect....

* * * *

Anne was ready to kick in one of the panes of glass in the French doors. It was not really a hopeless situation, of course. She could always pound on the kitchen door until she awakened one of the servants. Assuming, of course, that she was willing to make a spectacle of herself.

Which she was not about to do.

Abandoning her attempts to pick the lock on the French doors, she strode briskly around the house to the back and stared up at the window of her room. So near and yet so far. She could, of course, easily climb the ivy to her little balcony, where she would doubtless also be unable to pick the lock, since she had carefully secured it days ago, immediately after the abortive attempt by Trussell to climb into her bed.

To the best of her knowledge, he had never made the least effort to scale the heights of her balcony, so the only one she had locked out was herself.

Curses on all men! Aunt Sidonia was correct when she said all men were useless encumbrances.

But even if there were no unlocked doors, there must be an unlatched window somewhere in this mammoth pile of stones— there had to be.

Aha! Above her room and to the right, a curtain fluttered through an open window. Without further ado, Anne tore a strip off her petticoat, then used it to tie her skirt up out of the way, the way Aunt Sidonia had instructed her when teaching her the various methods for escaping from a burning building.

Of course, Aunt Sidonia had never anticipated that she, Anne, would need to climb into a building to escape from a man’s burning kisses. In fact, now that Anne thought about it, Aunt Sidonia had been strangely reticent on the entire subject of kissing.

* * * *

“Pssst! Drew!” Anthony slid out of bed and scurried across the floor to his brother’s bed. “Wake up, Drew!”

“Wha ... ?”

Anthony laid his hand over his brother’s mouth. “Don’t make any noise,” he hissed. “Someone’s climbing up the wall outside our room.”

“You’re dreaming.” Andrew muttered, rolling over on his side and pulling the covers up over his head.

Anthony jerked the blankets back down again. “No, no, I’m not dreaming. Look!” He pointed at the floor, where a gigantic shadow appeared in the moonlight, a misshapen shadow that grew even larger while they watched.

The thing was so fearsome that Anthony, who was not normally a coward, quickly dived under the covers beside his brother.

His curiosity proved stronger than his anxiety, however, and when he heard footsteps beside the bed, he had to take the risk of peeking out.

“Anne?”

There was a muffled gasp, then a low laugh.

“Anne!” Andrew elbowed his brother in the face when he sat up. “What are you doing here, Anne? Tony said you were a monster.”

Anne looked down at the two faces staring up at her. She should have known that the only ones in the house not afraid of the miasmas in the night air, the only ones daring enough to leave their windows open would be the twins.

She started to fob them off with a blithe answer about having locked herself out of the house, when something compelled her to take them into her confidence. Lord knows, she was going to need some help on the morrow if she was to avoid Dear Aunt Rosemary and Dear Cousin Rosabelle.

Seating herself on the bed beside the boys, she began her explanation. “Do you remember that I told you my real name is Lady Gloriana? And that when I was a little younger than you two, I went to live with some relatives who only cared about me because I had a title?”

“We remember,” one shadowy figure beside her said.

“Well, they are here now. In this house.”

“Oh.”

“Yes, oh. And if they discover I am employed here as the governess, I am afraid certain people are going to be unhappy that I kept my identity a secret.”

“You did not keep it a secret from us. And after all, you are our governess, not Uncle Bronson’s.”

“But he is my employer.” For a moment Anne remembered what Lord Leatham had said about being a very lenient employer, but she suspected even that leniency might be strained to the limit, were he to discover she was not precisely who she claimed to be.

“As I see it,” one of the boys said very seriously, “the only thing to do is keep you out of their sight for a few hours tomorrow.”

“A few hours? I think you fail to understand. She is undoubtedly planning an extended visit. She brought along enough luggage for a trip to the moon.”

Beside her a twin giggled, but the other one said quite calmly, “Oh, but Uncle Bronson never lets them stay long.”

“They have come here before? Why did you not mention it earlier?”

“No, no, not these specific females. Others. You know, Anne—”

“The mamas with their silly daughters—”

“Pretending their carriages have broken down—’

“Even when everyone knows that the lane leading to Wylington Manor doesn’t go anywhere but here.”

“You know.”

“Yes,” she sighed, “I know well the stratagems used to trap a man into marriage.”

“Yes, but Uncle Bronson is too clever.”

“He has a special arrangement with Thomas Curry—”

“The wheelwright in Tavistock.”

“And your cousins will be all fixed up and on the road again before noon.”

“And we can hide you until noon.”