Mastering the Marquess (10 page)

“Thank you, Miss Burnley,” he said after a minute. “I know how difficult it must have been for you to tell me. You may be certain I will preserve both your and your sister's privacy.” His serious expression lightened with an easy smile. “And now I suggest we join the children, who must surely be wondering why we have dallied.”

Meredith gratefully let the subject drop. As they strolled down the path to the dairy, she peeked at him from under her lashes. He had listened to her gruesome story so calmly—sympathetic, but without any uncomfortable expressions of pity or distaste. In fact, she was amazed by his casual acceptance of her family's lurid history. Meredith hated telling people how her father had died. Most were shocked and strangely fascinated, and all too curious to know details that were incredibly painful to relate.

But Silverton had just listened, and that simple act had somehow made the burden that Meredith carried all these years seem lighter. She decided to let go the memories of the past, at least for now, and try to savor the beauty of the warm afternoon.

As they approached the dairy, Meredith couldn't help but think how odd it was to encounter a working farm so close to St. James's Palace. She was fast realizing that her limited experience of life had left her woefully unprepared for the eccentric complexities of London and, most particularly, of its upper class inhabitants.

As a child, she had always longed to visit the city. Now that she was finally here, she couldn't wait to return home to the country. Her response surprised and frustrated her, especially since Annabel had embraced their new life with courage and enthusiasm.

Meredith knew her reaction was unfair, since they had barely begun to sample the delights of London, or the diversions of the Season. Unfortunately, thinking about the balls, routs, and musicales they would soon be attending only depressed her. She knew she had little chance of success among the glittering sophisticates of London's elite and shrank at the thought of making her debut. All of her hopes were for Annabel. The sooner her sister found an eligible suitor, the sooner Meredith could return to Swallow Hill, where she belonged.

“Why so quiet, Miss Burnley? I sincerely hope you do not find my company tiresome, although I am afraid your heartfelt sigh sadly indicates just that.”

Meredith gave a guilty start. What a peagoose she was to forget herself in Silverton's presence. She had been completely distracted by her gloomy reverie, one that he had obviously been too polite to disturb.

“Oh, no, my lord, how can you think it? I was simply trying to fathom the purpose of an ornamental dairy and farm in the middle of London. It is yet another aspect of the city I find most amazing and difficult to explain.”

His eyes widened in mock astonishment. “Do you mean to tell me that you do not understand the function of a decorative farm in the middle of London? Why, Miss Burnley, surely you know that Green Park is our own Petit Trianon!”

He made a sweeping gesture to draw her attention to the royal palace at the other end of the park.

“In the days when our unfortunate king was in residence, the ladies of the Court used to toddle over to the farm to watch the cows being milked. In fact, some of the fair ladies even delighted in playing dairymaids themselves. It has been said that Beau Brummell first met the Prince of Wales when His Royal Highness escorted the Marchioness of Salisbury on a visit to the dairy.”

His lips curled in a sardonic smile. “O happy day for the Prince.”

Meredith blinked, thunderstruck by the bizarre image of members of the royal family trotting off to a farmyard to milk a cow. She caught his sly smile as he anticipated her reaction. Her own lips twitched in response as she struggled to contain a laugh.

“Isn't that just the sort of thing that cost the Queen of France her head?” she asked dryly as she observed the absurdly bucolic scene before her.

Silverton burst into laughter. “Fortunately, Miss Burnley, the English peasantry seem to be much more enlightened than their continental counterparts.”

His intensely blue eyes gleamed with amusement as he grinned at her. Meredith's heart skipped a beat, and she suddenly felt as if her lungs had ceased to function. She forced herself to breathe out as she followed Annabel and the Stantons toward the dairy.

“Of course,” Silverton mused, “if Prinny had been their king, one could hardly blame them for wanting to chop off his head.”

Meredith gasped at the seditious remark.

“I've shocked you, haven't I?” He looked like an unrepentant schoolboy caught in the midst of a prank.

Meredith wondered how many women had lost
their
heads when confronted with the devastating sensuality of his charming smile. It suddenly made her quite cross to think of him flirting with other women.

“I assure you,” he continued, obviously unaware of the tumult in her brain, “when you meet the Prince and, indeed, most of the members of the Royal Family, you will understand exactly what I mean.”

Meredith frowned at his easy assumption that she would be presented at Court as part of Lady Stanton's plan to bring her out. The unwelcome reminder was like a slap in the face with a cold cloth.

“I very much doubt, my lord, that I will have the opportunity to meet the Prince or any other member of the Royal Family,” she said in a clipped voice. “I will, however, be both happy and grateful to see Annabel presented at Court one day. That will be satisfaction enough for me, I assure you.”

His handsome face suddenly looked shuttered and remote. Compared to the way he had grinned at her just a few moments ago, it was like the sun had moved behind a cloud.

“I stand corrected, Miss Burnley,” he drawled in what she had come to think of as his bored voice. “Shall we join the children now?”

“As you wish, my lord.”

Silverton's affected and haughty manner never failed to irritate her, but she was really angry with herself. He had been nothing but kind, and she had responded by biting off his nose. For the life of her, Meredith did not understand why he often made her feel so defensive and argumentative.

Since she had no answer for that, she allowed him to lead her into the dairy, silently castigating herself for failing to control her lamentably unguarded tongue once again.

Silverton wanted to curse. He had made a mull of things with her, once again. Every time he managed to convince Meredith to confide in him, he invariably said something that put her back up and prompted her to retreat behind a prickly exterior. In so many ways the blasted woman plagued him, and he wondered why he simply couldn't leave her alone.

But as he glanced down at her elegant profile, framed by her untrimmed poke bonnet, he recalled her steadfast courage in the face of her father's appalling death and Annabel's illness. He had wanted to do more than just listen while she related the awful series of events, but sensed that any overt expression of sympathy would make her uncomfortable. Instead, he was forced to resist an unfamiliar and powerful surge of protectiveness that made him want to wrap her in velvet and silk and never let anything hurt her again.

It wasn't, however, just her defiant vulnerability that appealed to him. She also made him laugh. Meredith's reaction to the history of Green Park had been all that he hoped for. Her quicksilver eyes had glimmered with intelligence and amusement, while her beautiful, laughing face had made his whole body tighten with a heavy desire.

Which was an entirely different reaction from the one he experienced in Annabel's company.

Silverton admitted to himself that his little cousin was sweet, lively, and very pretty. But she was young, so young that he felt a vague sense of distaste at the thought of her in his bed. Of course, men his age married very young girls all the time. He just knew with a depressing certainty that he didn't want to be one of them.

Suppressing an irritated sigh, he glanced at the woman whose slim fingers rested so lightly on his arm. She was fast becoming a puzzle that he felt compelled to decipher.

Meredith's resistance to Aunt Georgina's plans surprised him. He suspected she was shamed by her common birth, and now he also knew that she longed for her old life in the country. Even so, most girls would leap at the chance for a Season sponsored by one of the most powerful women in the ton. Meredith obviously didn't want it, and that was just one of the things that made her completely different from any other woman he had ever known.

She was a beauty, too, and that disturbed his peace of mind more than anything else. Her cherry red velvet spencer shaped her generous breasts and framed her hips to perfection. He wanted to stroke her all over, run his fingers through her glossy black hair, over her womanly curves, all the way down to her elegantly shaped feet encased in sensible half boots.

Clearly, it was time to get a grip on his wayward imagination. He had promised his aunt that he would seriously consider courting Annabel, and he meant to do just that.

Silverton ushered her through the double barn doors into the ridiculously pretty and tidy dairy. Robert sat in a stall, straddling a low stool as he attempted to milk an obviously unhappy and uncooperative cow. Annabel and Sophia were doubled over, clutching their sides as they shook with helpless laughter. A long-suffering dairymaid stood at the cow's head, patiently trying to explain the proper technique for extracting milk without harming either the animal or the man.

“No, sir, do not yank on the teat like you was trying to rein in a horse!” she exclaimed, nervously eyeing the cow as it stamped its very large back hooves.

“Well, I say! If the silly beast would just stay still for a moment then I wouldn't have to keep trying to grab hold of the blasted thing every time it slips out of my hands!” Robert declared loudly.

His frustration set the two girls off into more peals of laughter, and Silverton could see the dairymaid was reaching the end of her tether. More to the point, it was clear that the cow's patience was waning also, and Robert was in imminent danger of a nasty kick.

“Robert, do stop torturing that unfortunate animal,” Silverton ordered. “If you continue on as you are, we will be taking you home on a stretcher!”

Robert looked up, gratitude and relief evident in every line of his face and body.

“Well, you two certainly took your time getting here,” he grumbled, leaping up from the stool and away from the cow. “I've been left alone to amuse these two horrible girls, and they both insisted I try to milk the silly beast, because everyone knows how easy it is to milk a cow!”

“Annabel, how perfectly awful of you,” cried Meredith, although Silverton could see that she was trying not to laugh. “You know how difficult it is to milk a cow.”

“You do?” Robert stared at Annabel with a stunned look on his face. “Well, I say, Miss Annabel, you could have said so before Sophia insisted I make a complete cake of myself.”

“Oh, but it is easy,” Annabel giggled at him. “Look, I'll show you.”

She sank gracefully down onto the stool, looking as comfortable as if she had been sitting in her own drawing room.

“Are you sure you want to have a go at this, miss?” the dairymaid asked doubtfully.

“Oh, yes. I know exactly what I am doing.”

She murmured quietly to the restless animal, petting it soothingly before placing her hands under its belly. In a moment, she was quickly and efficiently drawing milk from its teats into a large copper pail. The cow lowed contentedly, swished its tail, and leaned gently into Annabel's shoulder as she continued to milk.

“Well done, miss!” cried the dairymaid, releasing the cow's head and coming around to watch.

Robert's eyes popped out of his head, and Sophia laughed again, clapping her hands in appreciation for Annabel's skill.

“I say, Miss Annabel,” Robert exclaimed, “I'm beginning to think there isn't anything you can't do!”

Silverton had to laugh. If Sophia had bested her brother in the milking competition, the boy would have been mortified. “Your sister is a constant revelation to me, Miss Burnley,” he said. “She does seem to act in the most unexpected ways for such a shy and retiring girl.”

Meredith nodded as she watched her sister with a strangely wistful expression on her face. “Swallow Hill is a small but very self-sufficient estate. My stepmother was very proud of her dairy and home farm, and Annabel and I were allowed to spend a great deal of time there when we were children.”

She looked at him, her eyes soft as mist as they reflected the memories of those clearly happy times.

“Annabel loves all living creatures. She was constantly bringing home sick animals to nurse back to health—baby birds that had fallen from the nest, injured rabbits, stray dogs. And they never tried to bite or escape, either. I have even seen her put her hand down on wasps and never get stung. It's almost as if they know how much she loves them.”

Meredith inclined her head toward him, speaking softly so that only he could hear her.

“Now that you know her a little, perhaps you can understand why I worry so about her. Annabel is an extraordinarily sweet and sensitive girl, and I would do anything to protect her.”

Silverton nodded thoughtfully as he looked from Meredith's earnest face to the petite, unaffected girl sitting on the stool. He believed her, having already seen the lengths that Meredith would go to in order to guard her little sister. He was also coming to realize he would probably do almost anything to help her achieve that goal.

This urgent protectiveness he felt toward Meredith and her sister startled him, unused as he was to feeling such powerful emotions, even toward his own family. Then again, he had never before been forced to worry about the safety of anyone he cared for.

Silverton couldn't imagine how someone as young and sheltered as Meredith had carried on for so long—and all alone, too. Well, he thought grimly, that was going to change. He would convince her that she and Annabel were no longer alone, and that he and his aunt would do everything in their power to help them.

He turned his back to the others, wishing no one but Meredith to hear him.

“Yes, I do understand why you worry. And I swear to you, Miss Burnley, you and your sister are safe. I will not allow any harm to come to you, and neither will my aunt.”

Her eyes flew to his face.

“I swear it,” he repeated in a quiet but firm voice.

A rush of pink sped over her cheekbones, and she closed her eyes against a sudden sparkle of tears. She took a deep breath and opened her eyes. It was like daylight breaking free of the smoky mists of a winter morning.

“I believe you, my lord,” she whispered in a husky voice. “And thank you most gratefully for your friendship to us both.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Silverton noticed that Sophia was studying them, her expressive face signaling surprise and curiosity. Annabel had finished milking the cow and now chatted merrily to the dairymaid. Robert stood next to her, staring at her with what Silverton suspected was a burgeoning affection.

It was obviously time to go.

“Robert, if you are finished playing Farmer George, perhaps you could compensate the dairymaid for her patience and we can be on our way.”

Robert extracted a few coins from his tailcoat. “Capital idea, old fellow. If I never see another cow again, it won't be a moment too soon.”

Silverton offered his arm once again to Meredith, although he knew he should take Annabel by his side instead. He appeased his guilty conscience by swearing to himself that he would take his young cousin for a drive in Hyde Park very soon.

“Now, Miss Burnley,” he said as he led the party from the building, “I thought you and Miss Annabel might like to visit Sir Thomas Lawrence's studio on Bond Street. I understand he is currently working on an interesting portrait of the Prince Regent. You can see for yourself if I exaggerate the Royal defects.”

“Oh, yes, my lord! I have read about Sir Thomas's studio and have always longed to visit. You are much too kind, sir, to both of us.”

Her eyes were alight with enthusiastic approval and warmth. It was a look he found himself growing addicted to, despite knowing that he played with fire by encouraging her innocent admiration.

Silverton knew he was being selfish, but right now he wanted to be her knight in shining armor. He would worry about the future later.

“No, Miss Burnley,” he murmured in reply, leading her down the gravel path toward Piccadilly. “I am anything but kind.”