Lord Deverill's Heir (8 page)

“Yes. If Arabella had known that there was an heir to the earldom, she would have been distressed.”

“An understatement.”

“Yes, her father thought and thought and worried. I remember him telling me that he couldn’t allow her to feel dispossessed.”

“Well, now it’s over. We will see what happens. Oh, Justin, what do you think of your new home?”

He laughed. “I feel daunted by such magnificence. I have never before in my life had more servants than I had relatives. Only this evening I noticed the truly vast number of gables and chimney stacks.” Lady Ann chuckled as a memory rose in her mind. “You must ask Arabella the exact number of gables. When she was only eight years old she came rushing into the library and proudly announced to her father that there were exactly forty gables on Evesham Abbey. She was such a sturdy little girl, her hair always a tumbled mess and her knees invariably scratched.

Oh, I don’t know but even then she was so full of life, so inquisitive.

Do forgive me, Justin. I do not mean to bore you. I cannot imagine why I thought of this. It was a long time ago.” The earl said brusquely, “That doesn’t matter. Anything you could tell me about Arabella could doubtless be of assistance. I do not believe that this marriage business is going to be an easy thing.”

“You are right about that. Now, if you really wish to hear this, very well. Back to Arabella’s forty gables. A short time later, her father sent her to Cornwall to visit her great-aunt Grenhilde. No sooner had she left than he commissioned carpenters and bricklayers to add another gable to the abbey. When Arabella returned and bounded into his arms, he held her away and said in the most stern voice you could imagine, ‘Well, my fine daughter, it seems that I will have to hire a special mathematics tutor for you! Forty gables indeed. You have disappointed me gravely, Arabella.’ She said not a word, slipped out of his arms, and was not to be seen for two hours. Her father was beginning to grow quite anxious, nearly to the point of berating himself, when the little scamp comes running in to him, completely filthy and utterly frazzled. She stood right in front of him, her little legs planted firmly apart, grubby hands on her hips, frowning, and said in the most scathing voice, ‘How dare you serve me such a trick, Father? I forbid you to deny it. I have brought your bricklayer to be my witness that before there were indeed forty gables.’ As I remember, from that day on the earl ceased to pine about not having a son. He kept Arabella with him constantly. Even in the hunt, he bundled her in front of him on his huge black stallion, and they would go tearing off at a speed that made my hair stand on end.” The earl grinned, then threw back his head and roared with laughter. “So are there forty or forty-one gables, Ann?”

“Under Arabella’s instructions, the earl had the forty-first gable removed. Such a little commander she was. Actually, she still is. It is part of her, Justin. It is something you will have to become accustomed to.”

The earl rose, stretched, and leaned against the mantelpiece, hands thrust into his pockets. “You’re right. I wonder if I will let her order me about? I never knew my mother, for she died birthing me, so there has never been a woman to order me to do this and that. I don’t believe I would allow her to do it, Ann. But we will see.” Lady Ann turned in her chair, her black silk skirts rustling softly.

“This forthright side of her—I believe it part of her charm. Poor George Brammersley, though, I fear her treatment of him sent the poor man to his room with a fierce headache.”

“Yes, well, just think of the shock to her, hearing her father’s conditions in his will.” He thought about his first meeting with Arabella earlier that morning, but said nothing of it. Perhaps that had been the greater shock.

“Well, this is progress indeed, Justin. Already you defend her high spirits.”

“High spirits, you say? Too pallid a description for your daughter’s dramatics. No, I should say rather that she has energy and resolution and, in addition, the sensibilities of a deaf goat.” What was there to say to that?

Arabella came down the great front stairs of Evesham Abbey the following morning feeling flattened. It wasn’t something she was used to. She hated it. Her situation, which she’d thought about it from every angle she could dredge up during the hours since she’d awakened at dawn, wasn’t enviable. She either had to leave Evesham Abbey or marry the new earl.

And, naturally, it was really quite simple. She knew in the deepest part of her that she could not leave her home. As for the new earl, she didn’t like him, didn’t want him around, didn’t want to speak to him, actually, didn’t even want him to exist, but she knew she would have to marry him.

So be it.

She walked through the large entrance hall, under the great arch, to a narrow corridor that led to the small breakfast parlor. Only she and her father ever breakfasted so early, and she looked forward now to being alone with her favorite strawberry jam and toast.

“Lady Arabella.”

Arabella turned, her hand on the doorknob of the breakfast parlor, to see Mrs. Tucker balancing a large pot of coffee near one dimpled elbow and a rack of toast near the other.

“Good morning, Mrs. Tucker. You are looking well. I am glad you’ve prepared my breakfast as usual. Please don’t forget the strawberry jam.

It will be a lovely day, don’t you agree?”

“Yes, yes, of course, Lady Arabella, I am quite well and lovely. Well, the day will be lovely, that is.” Mrs. Tucker’s two chins wobbled a bit above her ruched white collar. She twitched her nose to keep her spectacles from sliding off. “You are feeling better this morning? I must say that I don’t like those scratches on your poor little cheek. The cheek on your face, naturally. As for your dear little chin, it is scuffed up like your knees were when you were a little girl, but naturally it is still a dear chin.”

“I’m fine, Mrs. Tucker, truly, chin and all.” She smiled at the housekeeper. She couldn’t help it. Mrs. Tucker had been in her mother’s life before Arabella had even come into the world. She was also used to the way she spoke. The local vicar, however, was not. His eyes glazed over when Mrs. Tucker managed to corner him.

Arabella pushed the door open and stepped aside to allow Mrs. Tucker into the breakfast parlor first. She didn’t want her to spill that coffee or drop that toast. Arabella would kill for some coffee.

She turned to follow her through the open doorway, looked up, and froze where she stood, so surprised her normally agile tongue was lead in her mouth. The new earl sat at the head of the table, in her father’s chair, platters of scrambled eggs, bacon, and a haunch of rare beef arrayed in front of him and on both sides of him, his eyes upon a London newspaper.

He glanced up at the sound of a sharp intake of breath, saw that Arabella had turned into a stone at the unwelcome sight of him and rose. He said politely, “Thank you, Mrs. Tucker, that will be all for now. Please compliment Cook on the beef. It is cooked—or rather left uncooked—to perfection.”

“Yes, my lord.” Mrs. Tucker achieved a fairly creditable curtsy, fluttered her sausage fingers about her netted cap, and retreated from the room, patting Arabella’s shoulder as she passed her. Arabella called after her, “Please don’t forget my strawberry jam.”

“Will you join me, Lady Arabella? May I call you that yet?”

“No.”

“Very well, ma’am. Would you care to sit here?” He pulled out a chair beside his own at the table. “No, from the look on your face, I daresay you would rather take your breakfast and eat in the stable. Anywhere but near me. However, I would appreciate it if you remained. I believe there are some subjects that are of immediate interest to both of us, as loathsome as these subjects might be to you.” She sat down. She had no choice. She wanted to be churlish, but there wasn’t any benefit in it, as far as she could see. She would have to marry him.

She might as well speak to him. She would have to sooner or later. “Do you always eat breakfast so early? It is very early, you know, earlier than most people would even deem early. Perhaps you usually eat later in the morning? Perhaps this is just a very special day that sees you up and about so very early?”

“Sorry, ma’am, but I am always early. Do sit down. My beef is getting cold.” He grinned, noting her riding habit, and said, “Not only do I eat early, I always like to ride early as well. Just after my breakfast. It would seem, ma’am, that you are in the same habit. Does that, perhaps, presage good things for the future? For us, I mean.” No way around it. “Probably so,” she said. She accepted his assistance into her chair and began to dish eggs and bacon onto her plate before he had again eased back into his place. Her strawberry jam sat beside her plate. But how did Mrs. Tucker know where she would be sitting? Ah, he’d told her, naturally. She began to spread the jam on her toast.

“Don’t you think it would be a mite more polite if you were to contain your enthusiasm for eating until your host was seated?” Her hand tightened involuntarily about the handle of her spreading knife.

Host? Surely the fork would slide easily into his heart. No, he didn’t deserve for her to kill him for that bit of gloating. No, stabbing him in the arm would be the appropriate thing. “You really aren’t the host, sir,” she said finally. “You just happen to be the lucky male who was born of the right parents at the right time. Nothing more, nothing less.”

“As were you, ma’am.”

“But I don’t claim to be the hostess. I am merely the poor sacrifice, tossed onto the marital altar by my own esteemed father.” He was, he supposed, pleased to hear some wit from her rather than curses rained down upon his head. “In that case,” he said, seeing her fork halfway between her plate and her mouth, “wait a moment while I take a bite of my toast. There, now continue with your eggs. Ah, you do like that jam, don’t you? Is it special?”

“Very. Cook began making it when I was a child. I used to sneak into the kitchen and she would spread it on scones, on cucumber biscuits, on anything in sight.”

He ate a thick slice of the rare beef, picked up his paper, and lowered his head.

“Would you please pass the coffee?”

The earl looked up from the newspaper.

“If, of course, a host does such things.”

“Certainly, ma’am. I begin to believe that a host does everything to keep the ship afloat. Now, I wonder if you will also consider me the master?

Here you are.”

The master? Curse his gray eyes, that were also her gray eyes. She said,

“Ah, and a page or two of the newspaper, if you please.”

“Of course, ma’am. I understand that it isn’t really the done thing for ladies to read newspapers, other than the court pages and the society pages, but, after all, you are Lady Arabella of Evesham Abbey. As your gracious host, it would be impolite of me to give you guidance. Is there any particular page you would prefer?”

“Since I would not wish to deprive you, you may give me a page that you have already read.”

“Here you are, ma’am.” As she twitched the pages from his outstretched hand, he noticed angry scratches on the back of her left hand. And there was that scruffed-up chin of hers and the long scratches on her cheek. He wondered what other damage there was beneath her clothes. And there was a thought. He could easily imagine that her breasts were really quite lovely, and a handful. His hand cupped around his coffee cup inadvertently. As for the rest of her, he swallowed his coffee and choked. She just stared at him with vague disinterest until he stopped coughing.

“If you had turned blue in the face, I promise I would have done something,” she said, her voice as bland as the yellow draperies on the windows.

“Thank you. I am fine now. I was just thinking rather disconcerting thoughts. I hope you are feeling better this morning? Here, have some more eggs. You need to gain flesh.”

“My papa always said that a woman should never gain flesh. He said it was displeasing.”

“Displeasing to whom?”

“Why, to gentlemen, I would think.”

“And should gentlemen gain flesh?”

“I believe,” she said very clearly, “that gentlemen can do whatever pleases them without fear of much or any retribution. What lady, after all, is going to tell her husband that she dislikes his heavy jowls or his paunch when he is the one who doles out the money?”

“That is an excellent point. However, I will allow it. You may eat. Then, if you’ve eaten enough in my estimation, I will give you your allowance.” She gave it up, tossed up her newspaper and let it fall to the carpet.

“Yes, I’m relieved you appear quite recovered this morning, but not surprised. Dr. Branyon assured me last evening that you would be restored to your usual self today. Since that made all present roll their eyes, I imagined that your usual self is something of a treat for everyone.”

“I’m not a treat—no, no, you meant that as a trial and I’m not a trial to anyone. Well, maybe to you, but surely that’s understandable. I don’t like you. I wish you weren’t here. Rather, I know you have to be here since you’re the new earl, but I don’t have to like it. Damn you.” Her fork trembled in her hand, but she quickly raised it to her mouth.

“You said a lot there. Much of which I would say myself about you, but I am a gentleman. I am polite. I am the host. I must be polite. Would you care to ride with me, ma’am? After you’ve finished your breakfast, of course. I am nearly done myself. I would appreciate a tour of the property. If you can bring yourself to do it.” She wanted to refuse him. She wanted him to ride out and get lost and maybe have his horse toss him into the fishpond, but it didn’t make any sense since the fishpond was only a couple of feet deep. “I will take you about,” she said. “I am not illogical.” He raised a black eyebrow to that, in just the same fashion that she did, as her father had done. Her father. She felt her throat close. Damnable pain. She welcomed it but she hated it, too, because it stripped her and laid her raw.

He saw it, knew she would hate it if she knew he’d seen it, and said,

“Excellent. Which horse do you ride, ma’am? I shall send word to the stables.”

“The earl’s horse,” she said without thought, still sunk in misery.