Forbidden (3 page)

As she strode to the imposing oak door, she
tried not to think of what a pity that was.

Mariah knocked and tapped her foot
impatiently waiting for someone to answer the door.

A quick glance around showed that the groom
had jumped up on the gig and driven it around the back of the
house.

So he had understood her instructions, thank
goodness. She didn't fancy having to search out the horse when she
was ready to leave.

The door opened and a ramrod straight man
with snow white hair stood in the opening, along with the footman
who had opened it.

A full staff then. Unusual, since the family
weren't here but again, Mariah didn't know how they did things in
London.

"Good morning," she said a little nervously.
The white-haired man was very imposing. "I am Mariah Bolton. Mrs.
Yates sent me about the library?" she phrased it like a question,
suddenly feeling as though she were standing in front of a stern
tutor and she'd gotten her sums wrong.

"But you're a woman."

The answer wasn't what Mariah had been
expecting and she felt a ridiculous urge to apologise for the
fact.

"Er—"she replied because really, what was one
to say to that?

"You were not supposed to be a woman," the
man stated, his voice incredulous.

Mariah frowned.

"Well, I'm terribly sorry," she said
mischievously, "But I've been a woman for years now. I don't think
there's much I can do to change the fact."

Her response seemed to snap the butler out of
his probably uncharacteristic confusion and he immediately bowed
and stepped back.

"I apologise, madam. Please do come in."

Mariah stepped through into the grand
entrance hall and tried not to let her jaw drop.

The house definitely had an air of neglect
about it, but it was still incredibly beautiful.

The paper-hangings were a dull gold and the
marble floor beneath her feet shone a gleaming white. It had
obviously been cleaned recently.

The staircase that dominated the hallway and
split into the balcony above her, was a dark walnut and that too
gleamed with recent attention.

Mariah tried not to look as though she were a
fish out of water in such luxurious surrounding.

"Once again, I must offer my apologies
madam," the butler was saying. "We had been led to believe that a
young man would be arriving to look after the library."

"Will it be a problem?" Mariah asked in
confusion and felt a moment's trepidation at the butler's flash of
uncertainty before he smiled politely.

"No indeed madam. My name is Fernshaw. I am
the butler of the house. I shall take you directly to the library
and have refreshments brought. Should you require anything, simply
ring and I shall attend you myself."

Mariah was relieved at the sudden turnaround
in the man's behaviour. He seemed polite and efficient now that
he'd recovered from her being a female.

"Thank you, Fernshaw. I must admit I look
forward to getting started. Books are a great passion of mine."

She followed Fernshaw down the large hallway,
with doors closed on either side until finally they reached the
last door on the left.

"Here we are, madam."

The butler opened the door and Mariah stepped
through.

Her eyes widened and she could not help the
gasp that slipped through her lips.

"Oh, my goodness," she whispered in awe.

The room was, without doubt, the most
beautiful place she had ever been.

It was huge for starters, the vaulted
ceilings so high up she could barely see the roof. And the books!
There was shelf upon shelf of glorious books. And more yet in piles
on the tables scattered round the room.

At the far wall there was a large oak desk
and two accompanying stuffed chairs, and Mariah noted to some
satisfaction, there were plenty of sofas dotted round the room for
leisurely reading.

She thought she had died and gone to
heaven.

A niggling voice in the back of her head
tried to make her feel anxious about the volume of work involved in
such a task but she ruthlessly pushed it away.

Yes, it was a lot of work but Mariah felt
excited at the treasures she was sure to uncover here.

"Will you require any assistance, madam?" the
butler asked now, sounding a little doubtful about Mariah's ability
to complete the task.

She didn't blame him. But she would not show
fear.

"Some paper and ink, if you please, so that I
may keep records of what I find. And those refreshments you
mentioned," she added with a smile.

Fernshaw bowed and exited with the assurance
that he would send a maid immediately with what she required,
taking her discarded cloak, bonnet, and gloves with him.

Mariah stood for a moment, not quite sure
where to begin. The room was rather cool, but the huge fireplace at
the other end of the desk held an impressive blaze and she was sure
that she would warm up soon.

With a decisive nod, Mariah rolled up the
sleeves of her simple dimity gown and set to work.

She cleared the contents of the desk — mostly
books — so that she would have somewhere to keep her notes. Next
she set about searching for any records that the previous owner
might have kept about his collection.

Mariah was soon engrossed in page after page
of diaries, household expense records but, as of yet, no book
records.

She heard the door creak open and, without
looking up, called out to the maid.

"Thank you. You can set the tray down on the
desk here if you please, and I shall drink whilst working, for
there is a lot to be done. Did you remember to bring stationary for
my notes?"

"No, I bloody well did not. Who the hell are
you and why do you think you can order me around my own house?"

Mariah yelped in fright at the sound of a
very deep, very male voice bellowing at her from across the
room.

Looking up she was astonished to see the
groom from that morning standing glowering at her, his hands fisted
on those hips she'd so admired earlier.

She was about to ring a peal over his head
for frightening her when his words sank in.

Did he just say—?

"Your house?" she questioned with a dawning
realisation of what she'd done this morning.

"Yes," he said through gritted teeth. He had
lovely teeth, she thought, then berated herself. Now was not the
time. "My house."

Mariah thought back to their encounter this
morning.

She'd bossed him around. She'd thrown the
reigns at him and demanded that he care for the horse.

She'd – oh good lord – she'd
patted him on
the head.

The heat of mortification stained her
cheeks.

"Your house," she said again. Just so that
she could be one hundred percent sure that when she got thrown out
on her backside, it would be by Mr. Haverton.

"Would you like me to write it down?" he
asked sarcastically.

Mariah felt her temper flare. She'd been
accidentally rude. He bloody well knew what he was doing.

"My apologies, sir. I did not realise who you
were."

"Evidently," he snapped. "But I ask again.
Who in damnation are you?"

Well, there was no need for such language,
thought Mariah.

"I am Mariah Bolton," she said crisply. "The
lady you employed to take care of the library."

Not satisfied with that however, she
continued.

"And to be frank, I am not accustomed to
being spoken to in such a manner."

She watched with apprehension as anger flared
in his eyes and his jaw, his very strong jaw, dropped in shock.

"But you're a woman," he said now in an
accusatory tone.

It was amazing, thought Mariah. She'd never
before had anyone point out her obvious femininity in her life, and
here she was having it happen twice in the space of an hour.

"Guilty as charged" she said
sarcastically.

His eyes narrowed and she swallowed.

"Why are you a woman?"

Well how in God's name was she to answer
that?

"I believe you'll have to address that
question to our Creator, Mr. Haverton. I had very little to do with
it."

He seemed to realise how ridiculous his
question had been and he looked momentarily abashed. Which was very
endearing.

And that was very inconvenient,
mid-battle.

"What I mean is, we had been led to believe
that you would be a man."

"Yes, so I believe. But, well, I'm not."

"I can bloody well see that," he grumbled,
his eyes raking her and making her feel suddenly far too hot.

"If you do not approve, sir—"

"Oh, I approve alright," he said hoarsely,
killing the words in her throat.

She had meant to say that if he did not
approve of having a woman do the job, she would leave. But he had
stopped her in her tracks with that statement, so all that came out
was a sort of whimper.

Clearing her throat, she tried again.

"I am sure that nobody realised you would
have such a problem with hiring a woman for the task. Mr. Haverton.
If you wish, I will leave immediately. But I warn you," she
continued, her face heating with her growing ire, "you will not
find anyone between this village and the next who knows more about
books than I. And you certainly won't find anyone who could take on
this task so close to Christmas with as much dedication as I
can."

He glared at her in silence for what seemed
like an age before finally huffing out a frustrated breath and
snapping, "Very well. You will continue."

Mariah allowed her indignation to show in the
arching of her brows.

Do not say anything,
she warned
herself.

"Please," she said quietly even though she
had just warned herself to keep her big mouth shut.

"Please, what?" he asked frowning.

"I was just finishing your sentence for you,"
she said raising her chin a little, "since you seemed to have
forgotten the word."

His jaw dropped once again, and he spluttered
and mumbled incoherently for a second or two.

Finally, without another word, he spun on his
heel and marched from the room, slamming the door shut on his way
out.

Well, Mariah thought a little shakily, she
would no longer have to worry about impure thoughts around him.

From now on, the only fantasies she would
harbour about Brandon Haverton would involve violence and, most
probably, murder.

Mariah cautiously stuck
her
head out of the library door, checking that the coast
was clear before she entered the hallway.

She did not want another run-in with Mr.
Sunshine.

The day had gone very quickly and she'd
enjoyed every second of it. Seeing him now would only ruin it for
her.

At luncheon, a timid maid had knocked and
brought a tray for her and then afterwards she had kept her promise
to herself and tramped around the grounds, albeit in the shadow of
the trees lest her employer appear.

Mariah would have preferred to have eaten
with the staff in the kitchens than all by herself but she realised
that she was in the unusual position of not being quite staff and
not being a guest. So she had eaten a solitary meal by the fire,
enjoying one of the books she was cataloguing before taking some
air outside.

The wind had been bitter and Mariah had
walked briskly, hoping to warm up from the exercise.

She hadn't done. And as a result she had
taken herself off to the other end of the room where the fire still
blazed having been seen to by a maid not long before she left the
room.

It was as she was sitting there, making a
proper list out of the illegible scrawls she'd made on her way
round the room that morning, that the door opened and Mr. Haverton
entered, looking immediately toward the desk she'd been sitting at
that morning.

Mariah had long since thought herself a
mature, respectable and imminently sensible young woman, due in no
small part to the fact that anyone would seem mature, respectable
and imminently sensible compared to the other females in her
family.

However, at that moment she learned that as
it turned out, she was only mature, respectable and imminently
sensible when not faced with speaking with the man whose head she
had patted that morning.

She had a choice; alert him to her presence
at this end of the room, or hide like a small child.

She hid like a small child.

Ducking behind the tall back of the chair
before he turned her way, she curled herself into a ball and prayed
to the Almighty that he would assume she had gone off somewhere and
not coming looking for her.

If he came down here and found her in a ball
she would have to feign some malady or other. She couldn't let him
know that she was hiding from him, after all.

Mercifully after a moment she heard his
retreating footsteps but she did not move until she heard the door
closing softly behind him.

Letting out a sigh of relief, she resolved
then and there to work even harder and quicker so that she could be
out of here sooner than originally planned.

And so that was how she found herself moving
stealthily down the corridor, tiptoeing like a thief in the night
and heading to the stables before anyone saw her.

"Pardon me, madam."

Mariah shrieked and whipped around at the
sound of the voice and as she did, she heard an answering roar of
fright from poor, innocent Fernshaw who had only been trying to get
her attention.

"Oh, Mr. Fernshaw I am sorry but you gave me
such a fright."

"My sincere apologies, madam. I did not mean
to startle you."

"That's quite alright," Mariah assured him
before taking in his pallor and the fact that he seemed to be
pressing a hand to his heart.