The Arrangement (4 page)

I said, “Was that the earl’s coach you arrived in yesterday. Grove?”

“It was not,” he replied emphatically. “You don’t think his lordship would own such an old-fashioned rig as that?”

I shrugged and said noncommittally, “One never knows.”

It had been quite a few years since the old-time coach had been replaced by the lower-slung, more comfortable chaise. Chaises were not driven by coachmen, either, but by postillions, who directed the horses by riding them.

Grove obviously felt it was incumbent upon him to explain to me how the fashionable Earl of Savile had come to be riding in so dated a carriage. “We started out in his lordship’s chaise, but we had not gone above two miles from Devane Hall when a linchpin broke,” he said. “We knew the snow was coming, ye see, and his lordship decided to take Lord Devane’s old coach rather than wait to have his own vehicle repaired.”

I took off my wool hat and ran my fingers through my short hair, fluffing it up. “I take it, then, that you are not employed as his lordship’s coachman?”

Grove lifted his chin with pride. “I’m his groom, my lady, as I was his father’s groom before him. Taught his lordship to ride his first pony, I did.”

I could find nothing satisfactory to reply to this momentous information, and silence fell.

I broke it at last by saying gloomily, “The snow doesn’t show any signs of letting up, does it?”

“Afraid not, Mrs. Saunders. From the looks of it, we’re going to be laid up here for another day at least.”

With difficulty I refrained from groaning. I sighed instead and stood up. “Ordinarily I have a lad come from the village to muck out the stalls in the morning, but I strongly doubt we will see him today. That leaves us to do the job, Grove. If you will take care of your horses, I will take care of mine.”

“Not a bit of it!” he said emphatically. “I will see to all the horses, Mrs. Saunders. You get yourself back into the house and have your breakfast.”

“I’ve already had my breakfast,” I said.

Once more the stable door opened, and this time it was my son who came in. “Good morning, Mama,” he said. “Good morning, Mr. Grove.”

“Good morning, sweetheart,” I replied cheerfully. “Did you sleep well?”

“Yes.”

Nicky always slept well, and once more I swore to myself that I was going to make very certain that nothing would happen to change that.

“I don’t think Tim is going to get to Deepcote this morning,” Nicky continued. “You and I had better do the stalls ourselves, Mama.”

“I was just saying the same thing to Grove,” I said. “There is only room to put two horses in the aisle at once, so why don’t you and I work on our horses, and Grove can do his lordship’s.”

“All right,” Nicky said cheerfully. “I’ll get the pitchforks and the wheelbarrows, Mama.”

Grove protested once more that he would do all the stalls, but again I refused.

There was no way on this earth that I was going to be beholden to the Earl of Savile.

* * * *

By the time the horses had been fed and watered and the stalls had been cleaned and bedded with fresh straw, it was almost nine o’clock. We returned to the house and were removing our outerwear in the front hall when his lordship came down the stairs. He was impeccably dressed in a morning coat and pantaloons, with a fresh shirt and a new snowy-white neckcloth tied around his throat. His dark gold hair was brushed and tidy. His Hessian boots gleamed. He looked at us in surprise.

“The horses have been seen to, my lord,” Grove said cheerfully. “Mrs. Saunders feeds almost the same grain we do at home, I’m glad to say, so we shouldna have problems with their digestions.”

I picked a piece of straw off my coat and said woodenly, “If you will go into the dining room, my lord, I will ask Mr. Macintosh to cook you some breakfast.”

“Have you been down to the stable already, Mrs. Saunders?” Savile asked in amazement.

“Yes,” I said.

Nicky elaborated on my reply. “We got all the horses mucked out, sir. Mama says that if the wind lets up later we can put them out in the paddock for a half an hour or so, just so they don’t go mad from confinement.”

The earl’s golden eyes were on me. “Don’t you have a man to see to your horses, Mrs. Saunders?”

“Someone usually comes from the village to help, but he couldn’t make it in this snow,” I said shortly. “It’s nothing new for Nicky and me to do stalls, my lord, I assure you of that. Now if you’ll excuse me, I must go and change my shoes.”

Mrs. Macintosh came into the hall. “I have a fire going in the dining room, lassie,” she said to me. “Macintosh will have breakfast for you and his lordship in a trice.”

“I have already had breakfast, Mrs. Macintosh,” I said.

“A bowl of oatmeal three hours ago is not a full breakfast, lassie,” Mrs. Macintosh said firmly. “Now go wash your hands and come and eat a proper meal as you always do.”

“What about me, Mrs. Macintosh?” Nicky asked. “I only had a bowl of oatmeal too.”

“The three of us will eat in the dining room,” I said quickly.

Mrs. Macintosh beamed at Nicky. “Would ye no rather eat in the nice warm kitchen, Master Nicky? Ebony has been missing you.”

Ebony was our cat. She hated the cold and usually spent the entire winter in the kitchen, where she was warm but bored.

“Poor Eb,” said Nicky. “Of course I’ll come and pet her, Mrs. Macintosh.”

As I could hardly order Nicky to eat in the dining room, that left me with the earl.

I gave Mrs. Macintosh a sour look and trudged upstairs to wash my hands and brush my dress.

* * * *

The earl was enjoying a plate of cooked eggs and bannock bread when I came into the dining room and took my place opposite him at the table. I was wearing an old blue kerseymere dress for warmth, not for style, and once more I was uncomfortably conscious of how shabby I must appear beside my elegant guest.

The eggs that Savile was eating were from the chickens in Mrs. Macintosh’s henhouse, and they were unaccompanied by bacon or grilled kidneys. I was quite certain that the earl was accustomed to eating meat for breakfast, but meat was not served very often in the Saunders household. I couldn’t afford it.

I poured myself some coffee and offered a fresh cup to Savile. Then I said, “I have decided that I will accompany you to Savile Castle after all, my lord.”

He put down his coffee cup. “A wise decision, Mrs. Saunders. You owe it to Nicholas to take advantage of any bequest George may have made to him.”

I didn’t reply. It occurred to me suddenly that the prudent course right now was to keep my mouth closed about my intention to refuse any money from George. If Savile knew my intention, he would doubtless spend the entire journey to Kent trying to get me to change my mind.

At that moment, Mrs. Macintosh came through the door bearing more eggs, bread, and fresh coffee. I filled my plate, refilled my cup, and tucked in to my food.

Silence reigned as I ate my second breakfast. When finally I was finished, I looked up and found Savile regarding me with that infuriating amusement in his eyes.

“I was hungry,” I said defensively.

“You have every reason to be hungry if you have been out at that stable since six-thirty in the morning,” he returned. “There was no need for you to do that, you know. Grove would have seen to the horses.”

“I have no intention of asking your groom to see to my horses,” I said evenly. “I will see to them myself, as I always do.”

His brows drew together, but he did not reply.

I took a deep breath, then trotted out the little speech I had prepared on my way down to the dining room. “I fear I have little to offer you in the way of entertainment, my lord. Perhaps you were able to find a book that interested you?”

As I finished speaking, his face underwent a remarkable change, the golden eyes narrowing, the well-cut mouth setting into a hard, straight line. To my astonishment, I realized that he was angry.

“What kind of a cursed dandy do you think me?” he said in a clipped, hard-edged voice. “If there is work to be done, I am perfectly capable of doing my share. I certainly have no intention of sitting around reading a book while you break your back mucking out horses!”

Well, well, well. He was insulted. Suddenly I felt much better.

“The horses are finished until lunchtime, my lord,” I said sweetly, “and that is three hours away.”

“What do
you
plan to do this morning, Mrs. Saunders?” he countered.

I gave him my most angelic smile. “I am painting one of the bedrooms that I use for my clients.”

He actually looked shocked.

“Painting?” he said. “Surely you don’t mean you are painting the
walls?”

“I assure you, I am not painting murals, my lord,” I replied even more sweetly. “I finished the molding and the window trim yesterday and am all ready to begin the walls this morning.”

“Good God,” he said.

“Just so,” I returned.

He looked slowly around the dining room. As in the rest of the house, the old walnut furniture was scarred and shabby. The walls, however, were painted the same pale gold that I had used in the drawing room.

“Did you paint this room as well?” he asked.

“This room was last winter’s project,” I replied.

He leaned back in his chair and regarded me across the table. “You haven’t yet got around to the two bedrooms at the end of the passage, I notice,” he said dryly.

“No one ever uses them,” I replied. “My time is precious, my lord. Once my clients start to arrive in the spring, I can hardly turn the house upside down with painting. I have to get my work done during the winter, when no one is here.”

He nodded. Then he said in a perfectly amiable voice, “Well, if you can spare me a paintbrush, I will be happy to assist you, ma’am.”

I stared at him across the table, not quite sure I had heard him correctly.

“I am perfectly able to wield a paintbrush, Mrs. Saunders.” His voice had taken on that clipped tone once more. He obviously felt it was an insult to his manhood that I didn’t think him capable of painting a wall.

I felt a shiver of unholy glee at the thought of the Earl of Savile painting my house. I raised my brows and gave him a look that was deliberately provoking. “Really, your lordship, I don’t think it would be at all commensurate with your rank for you to be undertaking such common labor.”

I had intended him to be annoyed by my remark, but he surprised me with a smile. “No, they would certainly drum me out of the House of Lords should anyone hear about it,” he said. “I must rely on your discretion, ma’am.”

He probably was accustomed to moving mountains with that smile, I thought crossly. Well, it was not going to move me.

I rose from my chair. “If you are serious about this, my lord, then I suggest you change out of those elegant garments. I will also try to find you a smock.”

“A smock,” he repeated in deepening amusement as he stood up. He shook his head. “My reputation is in your hands, Mrs. Saunders. If it should ever become known in the London clubs that I actually wore a smock…!”

I was standing behind my chair and now I lifted my hands and rested them upon its laddered back. “Would you be drummed out of White’s as well, my lord?” I asked lightly.

He gave me a pained look. “I must inform you, ma’am, that I am not a member of White’s. White’s is a Tory club. All the Melvilles are Whigs. I belong to Brooks’s.”

I said gravely, “I beg your pardon for even suggesting that your lordship might be a Tory.”

At this moment the door from the kitchen opened and Nicky came into the dining room. “I’ve finished my breakfast,” he announced. “Is there anything else I can do for you, Mama?”

“No, thank you, sweetheart. Do you have something to work on for Mr. Ludgate?”

“Yes, I do, Mama.”

“Well, why don’t you do your schoolwork. If you need my help I will be in the guest room. The earl and I are going to paint.”

Nicky’s blue eyes grew huge. He looked at the tall aristocrat standing at the foot of the table. “Are you really going to help Mama paint, sir?” he asked in awe.

“I can see that if I don’t do a decent job with this painting, I shall never live it down,” Savile said. “Why are we standing here dawdling, Mrs. Saunders? There’s work to be done!”

* * * *

I had been working on the bedroom next to Nicky’s for about a week, so all of the furniture was pushed into the middle of the room and swathed in covers. The floor was also covered so that I didn’t splatter it with paint, and a ladder was propped against one of the walls.

I had begun my painting project five years ago, when I finally realized that if I kept waiting for my landlord to paint the house, I would wait forever. This particular bedroom was the first room I had done, and this winter I had decided to do it again.

I had swathed myself in a smock and was briskly stirring my bucket of blue paint when the door opened and the Earl of Savile came into the room.

He had removed his coat and his shoes and his neckcloth and had rolled up the sleeves of his shirt. As he crossed the room toward me on silent feet, I thought fleetingly that he moved with the fluid strength and grace of a lion. I stood with the paint stirrer in my hand and looked up at him as he came to a halt beside me.

He was a full head taller than I, and without his coat I could see how slim he was through the waist and hips. The skin exposed by his open shirt collar was faintly golden, and the crisp hairs on his bare forearms were the same color as the hair on his head.

I felt almost overpowered by the sheer masculine force of him and had to exert all my willpower not to betray myself by stepping back. My fingers tightened around the paint stirrer.

Savile slowly looked around the room, taking in the fresh white paint on the moldings, the two windows, and the mantelpiece. Finally his eyes settled on my face. “I’ll take the ladder and start painting the upper part of the walls,” he said. “Why don’t you begin to outline the window frames, Mrs. Saunders.”

I replied in a voice that was supposed to sound repressive but unfortunately just sounded breathless, “I rather thought
you
were working for me, my lord.”