The Viscount and the Virgin (15 page)

She wrapped her arms round her waist, as a chill shot through her.

She would be a complete idiot to mistake this passion they shared for anything deeper.

She should be grateful to him for the care he was taking not to mislead her. She had no wish to end up like her mother, broken-hearted because she had fallen in love with a husband who was never going to love her back!

Somehow, she must learn not to hanker for more than Monty was willing to give her.

 

The next morning, she woke to the sound of two voices conferring in subdued tones, some where be yond the end of her foot board. When she sat up, she saw Monty's two little brothers sitting on the rug, deep in discussion.

‘Good morning,' she said, pushing her unruly hair out of her eyes. ‘What are you doing down there?'

They looked at her warily for a moment or two, clearly not having expected her to be awake.

Then one of them, and for some reason, she was almost certain it was Skip's owner, explained, ‘We wanted to thank you for keeping quiet about us having Skip in here yesterday.'

‘Yes,' said the other, who she recalled, had taken his cue from the more dominant twin the day before, too. ‘Cobbett told us you made up a story about falling over, so's we wouldn't get into trouble. So we brought you a present. We thought you would like to find it when you woke up.'

On the rug between them were what looked like a starling's nest and a very in ex pertly dissected frog, spread out on a piece of warped card.

‘Why, thank you,' she smiled. They really were the most utterly adorable little scamps. ‘Would you like to tell me your names?' she added, feeling glad now that, as a reaction to that torrid interlude on the sofa, she had covered herself up with the most modest night gown she possessed. ‘Nobody introduced us properly yesterday. I'm Midge,' she said, reaching over the foot board to shake hands.

‘Jem,' said Skip's owner, standing up and bowing from the waist.

‘Tobe' said the other, accidentally stepping on the starling's nest as he rose to make his own bow.

‘Do you ride?' asked Jem.

‘Yes, I do. Only I have no horse at present.'

The twins ex changed a look.

‘If you come down to the stables after break fast, we can get Charlie to find you a horse.'

‘We…we could show you our den,' offered Jem with a noble air. ‘
Nobody
else knows about it.'

‘And just the other day we found a badger's set,' put in Tobe, as though not wanting to be outdone by his twin.

Midge's spirits lifted. It sounded as though not all her time at Shevington was going to be comprised of sitting about pretending to be a grand lady, after all!

It took only a week for her days to fall into a routine. In the mornings, after consuming a substantial breakfast, in her room, she roamed the estate with the twins, mounted on a lively mare called Misty, returning to the house to change for lunch.

She spent the first couple of afternoons going all round Shevington Court with Mrs Wadsworth, who took great pains to explain that things were running with such efficiency, no input would be expected from her. Midge came away with the conviction that the woman was warning her that she would heartily resent any suggestions she might make.

She would have felt that a girl like her had no business living in the midst of such grandeur, had she not begun to notice how friendly most of the lower staff were towards her.

Their reaction, she later learned from Pansy, stemmed from the way she had taken to the twins. The footman, Cobbett, had reported how she had taken the entire blame for the curtain catastrophe on her own shoulders. And thus, without even knowing she had done so, she entered into the confederacy of all those at Shevington who habitually covered for any boyish pranks the twins got into.

The stable lads were keen to find her a suitable mount,
and the cook handed her biscuits when she took the short cut through the kitchens to the stable yard. The under house maids grinned at her like co-conspirators, and Cobbett took it upon himself to bring up her post every day, so that he could make sure she had whatever she needed.

She spent the afternoons dealing with her correspondence, before letting Pansy dress her up for the evenings.

Pansy was in her element, relishing the challenge of turning her mistress out in such style that Midge always went down to dinner knowing she at least
looked
the part of daughter-in-law to an earl. Not that she stayed looking stylish for long. The minute they regained the privacy of their rooms, Monty would fall upon her like a starving man.

Or did she fall upon him? It was hard to tell. Because making love with Monty was definitely the high light of her day. Everything else she did was just marking the time until they could be alone together.

 

‘Ah! Thought I might find you here!' Monty strode towards the stall where Midge had just led Misty. ‘I should like to discuss a few things with you, if you have a moment?'

She looked round to thank the boys for the morning's adventure, but they had scuttled away the moment Monty showed up.

She frowned. They did not appear to like their older brother all that much. When they spoke of him, which was not all that often, it was with the resentful air reserved by small boys for authority figures. The one her step brothers had applied to the parish con stable. It
seemed so unfair, when they hardly knew him. From what she had gathered, he had been away campaigning for almost the entirety of their young lives, only re turning for brief furloughs.

‘I wanted to know how you are settling in,' he asked, in advertently making her hackles rise. But she swallowed back the retort that had sprung to mind, that he would have known had he made any effort to spare her a few minutes during the daytime.

‘You go out riding every day, I hear,' he said now, his eyes shooting past her, to the mount which was tossing its head impatiently, and looked concerned. ‘Who put you up on Misty?'

‘The stable lad Charlie picked her out for me,' Midge answered, patting the mare's neck affectionately. ‘She's perfect!'

‘Hmm,' Monty mused. ‘I would not have said such a bad-tempered creature was a fit mount for a lady myself…'

Midge clucked her tongue as she handed the reins over to another one of the grooms. ‘She is a bit spirited, I'll grant you that. But I cannot bear the kind of horses usually deemed fit for ladies to ride. I have no wish to feel as though I am trundling round the park on a sofa!'

Monty grinned. ‘No fear of mistaking Misty for a sofa, that's true! Well, I am glad you like her.'

‘She is a wonderful mount,' Midge answered.

‘And my brothers? They have been behaving themselves?'

If it were not for his two little brothers, she would have been left entirely to her own devices since her
arrival. ‘They have been behaving like perfectly normal little boys,' she replied with a fond twinkle in her eye.

‘Good,' he said, looking relieved. ‘I did wonder, that first day, whether they had some plan to make things so hard for you here, you would pack up and leave. And I can see you are wet through. Was half-afraid the little devils might have pushed you into a stream.'

‘They did no such thing!' she retorted. Then admitted ruefully. ‘I managed to fall in all by myself. Tobe made it look so easy, and I can remember doing it as a girl…'

‘Falling into streams?' he teased her, recalling Rick's description of her unfortunate habit of falling into or off things as a girl.

‘No—' she giggled ‘—tickling trout. Only of course, this is not the right weather for messing about in streams, nor am I quite as well-acquainted with the terrain as your brothers.'

‘I was going to suggest going for a walk, while we talked,' said Monty, taking her by the arm and leading her across the stable yard towards the house. ‘But I think I had better get you indoors and into some dry clothing. Don't want you catching cold.'

‘I would not catch cold so easily as that,' she scoffed. ‘Besides, my habit is only wet to the knees.'

‘I remember. Rick told me you were as healthy as a horse!'

Monty opened a door Midge had not previously used, which led to a corridor flanked by glass-windowed offices. She saw the estate manager, sitting at a desk, almost hidden behind his enormous pile of ledgers.

‘Why,' Midge determinedly returned to the subject Monty had first raised, as he led her along the passage,
‘would you think the twins might be trying to make me leave?'

‘Because you are
my
wife,' he said grimly. ‘And they neither like nor trust me.'

‘They do not even seemed disposed to try,' she mused. ‘Why is that? What have you done—'

‘It is nothing I have done!' he retorted. ‘But they have known so little kindness. Piers always went out of his way to make them as miserable as he possibly could. When you couple that with the way my father has treated them, because of his suspicions about their origins, it is hardly surprising they have such a deep-seated mistrust of any member of their close family.'

‘How sad.'

‘They ought to be at school, of course,' he muttered darkly, opening a second door, which opened onto the back stairs that led up to the main part of the house. ‘They have too much time on their hands, and nobody appointed directly with their care.'

The same thought had occurred to Midge. In fact, she was really quite concerned for their welfare. It could not be good for them to be so comprehensively ignored by their father, whilst being so totally indulged by the staff.

‘But father will not send them to school,' he said, ‘And the little devils make it a point of pride to drive every single governess and tutor he has ever appointed from the premises.'

She bit down on her lower lip, considering what a thank less task a governess or a tutor would have, trying to bring some order into their lives. The staff, ranged against them in defence of the twins, would block every move they made.

‘They really
should
be sent to school,' she agreed. ‘They are both very bright boys. With a lot of energy that is not being given a proper direction.'

She only had to think of that frog Jem had so painstakingly dissected. He had an interest in natural history and the sciences, that was not being properly developed. Neither of them would reach their full potential if the current regime continued.

‘I only wish there was some way I could persuade father to send them to school. But he will not listen to a word I have to say on this, or any other matter!' he said grimly.

Once in their room, she rang for the maid and asked for hot water to bathe.

‘Wait!' said Monty as the girl prepared to leave. ‘Get cook to send up some hot soup as well. And cake.'

She looked her enquiry at him.

‘I feel as though I have not seen you since we got here,' he explained. ‘I still have a lot of ground to cover, but if a man cannot take a nuncheon with his own wife…' He growled, flinging himself onto the sofa and stretching his legs out in front of him.

‘You see, I was not born to the position,' he said, spreading his arms along the back of the sofa. ‘Father concentrated on training Piers to take up the reins as the seventh earl. Whereas I was packed off to school. So now, I have a lifetime of training to cram into my skull in the shortest time possible. Not just running the estate, you understand, but all the rest of it. My standing in the county, my eventual duties in parliament…'

She folded up the muddy skirts of her habit, care fully tucking them up round her thighs before kneeling on the floor at his feet. It was the only way she could think
of to prevent her dirty clothes from ruining either the carpet or the upholstery.

‘I suppose your father feels the case is urgent,' she mused. ‘My aunt told me he is not expected to live long…'

Monty let out a bark of laughter. ‘Does he look ill to you?'

She frowned. ‘No. And that has puzzled me from the first. But then he has a doctor always in attendance…so I suppose…'

‘He has had a doctor in attendance ever since I can remember. He has always kept them in a chamber close to his own, so that he can call on them any time of day or night. Along with the chaplain. So that they can minister to either his upset stomach or his troubled con science. Dr Cottee has lasted longer than most, because he claims to be an expert on the kind of nervous disorders suffered by men of excess sensibility, such as my father.'

‘Nervous disorders?'

‘Oh, yes. Dr Cottee has had the cunning to pre scribe an atmosphere of complete tranquillity. So that my father's delicate nerves are not overset.'

She looked up at him, her head on one side, recalling the petulant cast about her father-in-law's mouth. ‘You mean, nobody dares cross him, in case they make him ill?'

‘Clever girl,' he said, reaching down to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear.

‘Does he really get ill if somebody opposes him?'

‘Well, my opinions on the way I should like to see this estate run give him a headache,' he remarked sardonically. ‘On the one occasion we discussed politics, since I am diametrically opposed to his position, he had
what looked like a genuine apoplectic fit.' He grimaced. ‘And the fact that I am to be the next earl at all gives him lengthy bouts of insomnia.'

Her frown deepened. ‘Why does he not like you, Monty? I would have thought you are the kind of son any man would be proud of!'

The sardonic expression intensified.

‘I think—' he sat forward, clasping his hands between his knees ‘—that whenever he looks at me, he sees my mother. You see, it was not a love match. His parents picked her out for him, and he was still so morose about losing his first wife, whom he really loved, he put up no resistance. But my mother had her pride. She was not the sort to stay about and listen to him wax lyrical about the woman who died giving birth to his heir. After giving birth to me, she took herself off to town pretty smartish and lived her own life.'